#and he's learned that he doesn't have to. there is power in being othered

[nabi-unveiled]

Hiii!

Several times lately you've said my personal weatherman is a comfort show.

You do realize it's an abusive relationship don't you?

I'm not sure why you would find comfort in abuse, but it may be something to reflect on or talk about with someone.

I say that with the upmost kindness.

Hello Anon!

I do love My Personal Weatherman. I take GREAT comfort in that show. It's not flawless by any means, but it makes my synapses buzz in the best possible way.

That doesn't mean it's a comfort show for everyone.

I am fully aware that many find Segasaki/Yoh's dynamic to be problematic or consider it an abusive relationship. If you see it that way, I can certainly understand why you wouldn't find it a comfort show. It's a valid response to that interpretation.

Before I go further, please know that I do not want to negate anyone's personal experiences or opinions in this post. You are more than welcome to disagree!

But on MY blog - I will defend these characters with everything in my being.

In short - I do NOT see it as an abusive relationship. I see it as two people figuring out how their life together is going to work. Which is HARD and ONGOING. Especially for two introverts who keep a lot of their thoughts in their heads. I feel that struggle in the core of my being.

Thanks to some of the subtitle/scripting issues, many people misinterpret how long they've "lived together". (That post has a pretty great timeline if you're interested.) They didn't start living together until Yoh graduated, and they've only been living together a few months. They are still learning a lot about each other and their relationship. Even if they'd been living together a long time, figuring life out together is a process. It's not an easy one.

Do I think either character is a green flag? ABSOLUTELY NOT.

Are they very flawed people? Yes.

Are they crap communicators? Yes.

Is there a power imbalance? Yes, but only when Yoh allows it. Yoh enjoys the power play. Yoh IS allowing it. No question in my mind on that score.

It's VERY important to realize that Yoh is the epitome of an unreliable narrator and partial viewpoints/perspectives are in play. For anyone not familiar with it, that means Yoh's perspective is misleading us to a degree in the early episodes. His words in particular cannot be trusted. Before someone comes at me about dismissing a character's words or belittling their feelings, this is an actual literary and narrative tool.

I love Yoh. He's processing best he can. He doesn't know the best words to use. He struggles to figure out what his emotions mean and how to read other people. Like most of us in life, he's figuring crap out.

And Segasaki is figuring his crap out too. But they're TRYING.

Now do I think their relationship is a role model for "BDSM" as it sometimes gets labeled? Please. Dear God. No. Just no. That requires GOOD communication and clear negotiation. See earlier point. They're crap at that...so very human.

However, I do think this is a lifestyle dominant/submissive relationship. By that I mean they have naturally fallen into these roles based on their personalities and preferences. It's more common than you might think, but that's probably an entirely different post.

Actually, if you're interested in the dominant/submissive aspect, LutaWolf had a whole series of posts about this show.

There is also a fabulous amount of language analysis for this show that dives into what the language usage says/depicts about their relationship.

And yes, I've read every one of those posts. Most of them multiple times. I read them when they were WROTE. I have an entire folder of posts about this show BOOKMARKED on my computer, because I didn't even have a Tumblr account at the time.

Where was I? Oh right - why I find comfort in it. Like many things I like or love, I don't really know. Why do I find pangolins adorable? Why do I love sweaters? Why do I enjoy asymmetrical earrings? I don't stress over it. I just accept that I love them.

Is it because I think the sexuality embedded and a rain soaked Yoh are BEAUTIFUL? I'm sure that is 100% part of it. It's a valid reason to indulge.

Is it possibly a result of me growing up in a hierarchical community with a heavy amount of toxic masculinity that I enjoy seeing dominant/submissive interactions? Maybe. That would not make my enjoyment of the show less valid.

Is it possibly a manifestation of untreated trauma or personal struggles of some kind? Maybe. That would not make my enjoyment of the show less valid.

Is it possible that I see either myself or my own relationship in their relationship at times? Yes, that is absolutely true. Still a valid reason to enjoy it.

Regardless, here's what I know without a doubt.

🍛

Segasaki eats the curry. Every. damn. time. And Yoh makes it. Every. damn. time.

There's an entire essay in why that's so very very important for both of them.

🔆

Yoh wants this relationship. Badly.

There's an entire essay in why I think that too.

🌀

Segasaki NEEDS Yoh. Yoh is his safe space. The one place he can relax and be himself.

There's an entire essay in that one too.

I haven't thought about this show just a little. I've lived and breathed in this show. I could write books on this show.

But frankly, feel free to worry about me if you want. If that's what you want to spend your energy on, have at it. I won't be stressing though. Because as much as I enjoy this show, Segasaki is not who I want.

I know the real dream when I see it.

It's Manju's husband. If only. Manju is the one living my dream here. Fully accepted for her nerdy, kinky, fangirl self.

[demon-at-peace]

DC + DP

Danny was supposed to be on the run from the GIW. Which he was, don't he didn't get him wrong, but he'd only had a few run ins with them, in Chicago, and NYC mainly. The foster care system was another issue. Somehow social workers were more competent than the GIW.

The first time he'd run in with them had been in Missuiri, accurate to the name it was miserable. He knew he had a baby face, he hadn't aged since he'd died after all. But was eighteen really such a stretch? he was sixteen after all!

Apparently it was, because they found the abandoned warehouse he was staying in and put him in foster care. He wasn't too happy about that. But he stayed, the Mathews were nice if a bit odd, but the GIW came to town and he ran.

They found him. So he ran again. Eventually he stopped staying stopped waiting for the ball to drop and just ran first chance he got. They started putting him in places for bad kids, places that had top notch security, still he ran. The foster system, infamously known as being terrible, kept finding him. They didn't put him in good homes, but they found him. He kept running.

Danny was done with it. Until he found Gotham, because their foster kid was practically nonexistent. It didn't really have other perks, but Danny didn't really have other options. So Gotham it was. The city was basically hell. Kinda, in reality it was just full of organized crime, violence, and death. A whole lot of death.

The dead roamed the streets, except they weren't ghosts. They were shades. Contrary to popular opinion they aren't the same.

Ghosts are their own being, an aspect of their past but not the full thing. Ghosts had moved on from their deaths. They were beings of the infinity realms. But shades are beings of the living realm. Because while they are dead, they linger, because they haven't accepted their deaths.

Danny knows he would have been a shade had he not been a halfa, he would have been watching waiting, for years. So he talks with them, to those who don't accept it, and they move on. Slowly losing the doubts from their life.

He talks and they help him in return. Shades after all understand humans, ghosts don't. They understand doubts and worries and pain. So they help him, they show him the cheapest stores. the crime free places. The best places to get free food, where to find shelter. The parts of the sewers where Grundy or Killer Croc don't roam.

So he learns, quick and fast, he knows Gotham in a way no one else does. The dead guide him. But the dead are not the only otherworldly inhabitants of Gotham. The city herself is ancient, a city spirit with so much power it's otherworldly. yet she smiles upon him.

He doesn't quite know why, he is young, weak in comparison, and yet when he asks she answers "You protect things, my city needs more defenders." He takes the duty with pride. He cannot be Phantom, but he's Danny. He's reckless perhaps, but he defends. He doesn't fail.

Ever.

Despite never failing, he gains attention. The protectors of Gotham notice him. The first time he meets them it's after a knife wound. He knows taking on the guy was dumb, but he wasn't about to let that girl get hurt. Or even worse r@ped,

He's taller, a red helmet and leather jacket. Just jazz's type. Danny meets his eyes evenly, he's dead. Partially, really it's been ages since he met someone who's contaminated. But he ignores it because they look at him with anger.

"What the fuck kid?" His tone is gruff, harsh grating, he clearly had a voice changer Danny notes. "Don't do that again, ever," the warning is ominous, Danny has no intention to listen.

so he vanishes, fleeing from Gotham's beloved knight and hiding. He feels guilty, that he's not listening. But he can't, because the shades are there. Begging him to help their home. So he does, he listens.

But he's not doing enough, he knows that. But he can't be phantom. he'll die. He doesn't want to die again. Not at the GIW's hands.

But Gotham needs him. So he fights harder. Night after night, he takes bullets, shuts down drug rings. He shuts down a trafficking ring and shows the meta kids how he can float. They giggle and laugh. It reminds him why it's worth it.

The second time he meets one of them it's a kid, Robin they call him, he's outnumbered, yet he's holding his own. Danny helps anyway. "Go away!" the kid demands, worry in his voice.

Danny doesn't care, he fights, and he takes them out. it's easy really, fighting. He's used to it, they don't even have guns tonight. The kid fights too, with worry in his eyes as he looks at Danny. Danny knows Robin doesn't want him in his city, but Danny can't leave. He won't.

Red Robin is next, blue eyes,and he moves like grace, Danny's hurt he knows, the shades muttering, scolding. He knows getting hurt makes stuff harder, he's such an idiot. And Red Robin reaches for him.

"Are you hurt?" he calls. He's judging him, Danny knows, telling him that he's weak. And he's right, so he runs. The shades guide him and he vanishes.

He meets Nightwing later that week, in the middle a taking down a drug ring, Danny fights, and he does too.

"Hey!" he calls. Danny runs, he's mad, Danny knows it's his fault for interfering, he didn't mean too. He did, he won't stop. He;s sorry.

Two days latter he is confronted by the bat, "Why are you here? Don't you have somewhere else?" he asks. Get out is what he's sayying, Danny can't there's no where else that's safe. Nowhere where he'll be okay.

So he runs.

---------

In case you didn't notice Danny's unreliable in this. So ha ha yeah the bats are trying to help and he's freaking out. So the bats perspective is coming up soon!

so kinda freaking out, so yesterday I felt bad, like puked and then just fainted, my roommate dragged me to bed, she thought I just fell asleep on the floor cause I've done that before. Am fine but thought I'd share?

also love ya'll! and I'm working on my Danny/Dick thing fingers crossed I'll be finished with part 4 soon!

Bye!

[all-things-she-ever-wished]

I learned today that tumblr has a tag limit so transferring those here

I was just thinking the other day about how kind of absurd it is that Yen Sid has Sora and Riku take the Mark of Mastery test. Like yes yes it’s the whole reason for the plot of ddd blah blah blah but genuinely what was it supposed to accomplish? What is the actual point of either of them being named Keyblade Masters? Sora makes a really good point in the beginning when he complains about having to take the test at all, because yeah the boy has saved the world TWICE OVER (more than that really if you count all the good deeds done by other people who are fundamentally connected to him in big and small ways); I think he’s proved he’s pretty damn good with his big ass key sword. But he "fails" because he "let darkness in" or whatever (which is kind of bull when you consider Riku and the Everything He Does in kh1) and all he gets is a feeling of failure and like maybe all he’s done doesn’t really matter in the face of these unexpected Keyblade Wielder Rules.

And what exactly does Riku get from being named a Master? A lot of problems shoved on his shoulders, that’s what. Sure he’s got Mickey with him in kh3 to help out (btw who named Mickey a Master? Did he take the test? Or was Yen Sid like "you’re the last Keyblade Wielder here, so here’s your title, carry on") but for the most part Riku is kind of sent off to fix a decades-long problem on his own in kh3. Yes, he does receive validation of what he perceives as his right to have a Keyblade after the Everything He Has Done, and that is in itself valuable to him (we love Riku in this house, don't misunderstand me). But the concept of "worthiness of having a Keyblade" is something that was impressed upon him by the various legends of the Keyblade passed down through the ages (and the general conversations about light and darkness and what they mean about a person's morality), not a conclusion Riku came to on his own (and one wrapped up in the insecurity of his early relationship with Sora and what that entailed).

And in the end it STILL DOESN'T MATTER because who does Xehanort choose to bestow the X-Blade on? SORA. The failure, the outlier, the one who was never even meant to have the Keyblade in the first place. The one Aqua saw the most potential in, the one she knew at a glance would be the right fit and only didn’t do it because Keyblades and the culture and responsibility they carried was too much for her to put on this child. Keyblades caused so many problems for her, and she didn’t want to see Sora's world and friendships fall apart they way hers did under that culture. Because Terra already saddled Riku with that and she believes "one Keyblade is enough for any friendship". And it's worth noting that Terra gives Riku the power of the Keyblade only after Riku tells him verbatim what he wants to be strong for. Aqua didn't even need that, she saw it in Sora almost immediately.

I have a lot of feelings about how poorly Sora was treated and how poorly he then treats himself in kh3 all because he failed a completely arbitrary test by his current time’s standards. Yen Sid having Sora and Riku take the Mark of Mastery is almost him trying to uphold this old fashioned culture and ritual of the Keyblade that quite frankly has no place in this world anymore, and maybe never did (as op said, the culture is bastardized over centuries before it arrives at what we know it as. I remember being so surprised during bbs at the training in the art form and the way they talked about Keyblades and the responsibilities of those who wield them). I love ddd, I really do, but I will never understand why taking the test was such a Thing in the first place. I don’t know what it proves; you can argue it proved nothing in the first place because it’s what starts the downfall of everything in bbs. And interestingly enough, Sora fails for a very similar reason as Terra.

Sora is arguably the exact representation of what a wielder is SUPPOSED TO BE. "I know the Keyblade didn't choose me . . . and I don't care. I'm proud to be a small part of something bigger -- the people it DID choose." Sora doesn't wield the Keyblade for prestige or because of what it (might) mean to have one. He wields it because he has it. Because it can help people. Make a difference. Because he knows what could happen if it falls into the wrong hands. He knows how powerful of a weapon it can be. He goes after Riku at Hollow Bastion without it because it was never about the Keyblade being his. That's just the kind of person Sora has always been.

The evolution and gradual shift of Keyblade wielder culture is probably my favorite running narrative of KH that is only lightly touched upon.

 Like, in UX times, being a wielder was just a thing. And yeah, there’s darker stuff and sinister plots in regards to the union leaders, but in general, the title is very casual. You make friends, you travel the worlds, your Chirithy just says “looks like you have the natural drive to protect light and forge human connections! *pats you on the head*” One was a wielder just because the world was Good and there were people that were also Good. 

But then darkness in the hearts of men, war, infighting, ex cetera ex cetera. Suddenly, being a wielder isn’t a just a casual title, it’s a responsibility. We’ve got the UX kiddos struggling to keep things afloat because they’re the only ones left, and presumably dandelions around the worlds in hiding, with just the mission to survive. The key became less a symbol of a nice heart and more a sentence to live, because wielders are now an endangered species. They’re not prioritizing going around and spreading good deeds to the worlds, they’re just hunkering down and trying to stay safe.

And then it gets kind of murkier in DR’s time because that game isn’t completely finished but we can gather that after a couple generations the survivors met again on the destroyed world of Daybreak town and said “Okay. Time to rebuild.” We see castles literally built on the remains of the old, we see restrictions of worlds travel, we see closeted academics who are being taught about keyblade wielding in a classroom. The status has shifted again, from “Play it safe. Survive.” to “We need back the world we lost.” But, seeing as they’re literally working from drowned ruins and few surviving records and generations of keeping your head down, it’s a slow, cautious campaign that attempts to follow the letter of being a wielder, but not the spirit. Kids aren’t being taught “Be a good person and spread light in the world,” they’re being taught “Study history and shoulder this responsibility and try to recreate a society we know next to nothing about.” And hey, look how that turned out. 

So now we’re in the bbs era and are seeing the attempts of the, as far as we know, only surviving light-serving wielder. And it’s the man who probably would have been everyone’s last choice to be the teacher for the next generation, the self proclaimed coward “Tardy Fleetfoot” Eraqus. But, he’s the last survivor, so he has to try to pass on what he’s learned. “Don’t visit other worlds, read lots of books, your key is a symbol of your responsibility, you will oversee the world order.” He’s working with fragments of fragments of a culture that people have been trying to resurrect for hundreds of years. He does his best. (his best isn’t very good) And when one of his kids isn’t a complete paragon of an impossible standard, things spiral out of control and he dies and his apprentices are scattered, still trying to be the resolute protectors they were brought up trying to be.

And then, after a decade of wielder loss, we finally see some rebirth. Because the bbs kids may have been academics, soldiers, and products of a system that was trying to make heroes instead of good people, but when they finally get a chance to go out into the worlds, they rediscover that wielder instinct to do good. To spread light and make friends and give worlds the power to defend their hearts. The next generation is literally formed because the bbs apprentices were nice to kids. They saw some carefree children who just wanted to protect their friends and thought “Yeah. This is what wielders are supposed to be.” 

And then the resurgence of wielders comes, not from kids being taught in a classroom and being told it’s their responsibility to protect the worlds, but by some kids who just wanted to explore and make some friends. Sora gets to travel around and try to protect people and just be a nice little bean, and guess what? He’s the greatest wielder since the fall of daybreak town. Because he accidentally tapped into what the wielder were originally supposed to do. Just be kind and visit worlds around and do good deeds. And literally every Keyblade wielder after that is almost directly inspired by that do-good-in-the-world attitude that he pioneered, and suddenly Keyblades are so much less “you have a pure soul and the training to protect the worlds” and so much more “Hey I want to do some good” (This is why I really like Lea getting a Keyblade because it’s the epitome of “You want to help your friends? Yeah, that’s the only requirement these days. Have a big key.”) 

Sora and friends are unintentionally returning to the roots of wielding and making their own new culture of being a nice person. And I just think that full circle, plus tying back in to the underlying unironic themes of “My friends are my power”, is really neat. :)

[fernslivers]

do you have any thoughts about mizu meeting a girl in london? maybe like a nobleman’s pretty daughter who’s somewhat similar to akemi.

maybe she’s arranged to be married to some rich man who had a hand in trading with japan, and mizu needs information from him, and reader volunteers to help her on the condition that mizu gets rid of the guy for her. she’d rather not marry a man at all, but especially not him.

unlikely friendship turns to romance? mizu realizing this girl is actually tough as nails under all the satin and silk ^^

really latched onto the butchfemme realness that is all my mizu ideas lately

Ooooooh, I DO have thoughts. This is a great prompt!!

This one is a longer timeline so I did a mix of prose and bulleted headcanons, I really hope that's okay! I could see this becoming another 10K fic and I just did not have the time for that atm 😭😭

I really hope you can enjoy the mix anyway, anon!!

TW: forced marriage, implied gross male behavior, man threatening a woman with a knife, canon-typical violence/murder

~~

Raised voices from the entrance hall catch your attention.

Before your music tutor can stop you, you slip from behind the virginals and scurry through the door, your train catching on the floor; in your haste to avoid being called back, you forgot to pick it up.

The upstairs hall opens onto a balcony that overlooks the entrance hall, which is where you can see the servants arguing loudly with someone at the door. You can hear them insisting repeatedly in English that “the lord”--your father–isn't home. A voice outside the door shouts again, louder, to be heard over them, “Routely. Where…is…Routely?”

Their English is accented, and both the name and the accent strike a chord in your chest.

Routely. Your betrothed–reluctantly on your part.

It's because of your betrothal that your father has insisted you learn Japanese, as a way to charm him, to show eagerness. Something you could have told him was worthless; Routely is clearly aware of your reluctance, and almost seems to enjoy it. It's bad enough to know you're soon going to be shackled to a man that could be your father, and even worse to know that he sees his bride’s discomfort and relishes it. You'd give almost anything to escape this wedding.

Still, you're curious; by that accent, this visitor is not from London. Your tutor, an equally disgusting fellow called Skeffington, was supplied through one of your betrothed’s networks, and he isn't Japanese, himself. You've never met anyone from there.

“Let them in,” you call down from above. The servants turn, looking startled to see you staring down from above, the picture of a haughty young Lady. They start scrambling to protest, even as they bow nervously.

“But–my Lady, your father isn't home–”

“It isn't appropriate–receiving men with no chaperone–”

“And you being betrothed–...”

“I said…” Your every syllable clinks with ice, “...Let them in.”

The servants look at each other; weighing the cost of direct disobedience to you versus the possible latter cost of getting blamed for this if it reaches your father’s ears.

Your temper is well-known. They bow again, and throw open the door.

The man that strides in takes your breath away. You reach out subtly to grasp the railing in front of you. Your face remains impassive, even as you convulsively squeeze the railing to power through the weakness in your knees. That stare, so intense… even with such a look of wary aggression in his face, suddenly you understand why any girl could possibly anticipate a wedding night with any joy.

“Welcome, sir,” you greet him in what you assume must be heavily accented Japanese. Despite that, you see his eyes widen, so he must understand. “My father is the lord here, but Sir Routely is my betrothed. Is there something I can help you with?”

At first, Mizu is just shocked to hear her mother tongue from a white face

It's pretty much the only reason she doesn't immediately get aggressive with you when she hears you're to be married to him

Of course, you invite “him” for tea, you're curious to know more about her country

And of course she accepts, she wants your information

Tea is extremely tense at first

You're so nervous that you come across as haughty and proper

Mizu reacts to this by being her usual snippy self, which, given your immediate crush, hurts your feelings a little

She sees your delicate face and all the jewels and silk, and can barely stop herself from scoffing right to your face

And you resent her obvious disdain, knowing there's more to you than the appearances you're required to keep up

Things make progress when she tries to congratulate you on your upcoming wedding

The combination of dread at the thought of it, your unhappiness about her snarking at you, and your sudden realization of feeling desire for the first time and knowing you'll never get to actually follow through, it's all too much

You burst into tears.

Mizu freezes, teacup halfway to her mouth, looking like a deer in the headlights

With Akemi, she knew exactly why the girl was crying, but why are you crying? What did she do??

You warble through your tears that you hate that man, he's horrible, you don't want to marry him, you don't want to marry any man at all, and he's the worst–

Mizu sets the cup down slowly, and then tries to figure out where that weird “handkerchief” thing went in these stupid foreign clothes.

She comes over to sit on the same couch as you (scandalizing!!) and blankly holds it out to you.

“I think we'll be more than able to help each other.”

Lo and behold, she's right.

She expected you to be upset by the idea of the murder, and is pleasantly surprised when you're onboard.

The problem is, you've really fought the whole “getting to know you” thing with Routely, so you just don't know much about where he goes or what his schedule is.

Mizu promises that if you agree to start acting more warmly with him, and try to plumb him for info, she'll definitely kill him before the wedding night.

You suggest that she replaces your old tutor, telling your father that she can teach you more flawless Japanese

Unbeknownst to Mizu, since you never mentioned his name, Skeffington slips through her fingers–for now.

(Skeffington is none too happy, as, secretly, he was using your house as a front for some of his trading, to make it harder to trace, and now he's lost access.)

You meet once a week.

Your father is elated that you’re finally taking your lessons seriously, and Mizu has to admit that drawing wages has helped her a lot with bribes and such for her work.

You give her whatever info that you have, and as a bonus, you teach her the customs she needs to blend in, along with a little more English

As it turns out, she did study the entire two-year journey, Fowler deliberately taught her bad pronunciation and incorrect etiquette just to fuck with her

Now that she has a friendly and helpful source of information and education in English, Fowler loses his bargaining chip.

BYE BYE.

The next week when she arrives, you notice a dried spot or two of blood on her doublet.

She freezes when you ask about it.

Oops

You don't scream or call for the guards, which impresses her, even if she thinks it's a little naive.

You just tell her she can't walk around like that, and insist she gives her doublet to you so you can clean the blood off it.

One thing leads to another–mayyyyybe you were a little hasty opening the door as she changed–and that's how your crush turns into Baby’s First Gay Panic

No wonder you finally felt desire for a man, if it wasn't a man!

This new level of secret-sharing just continues to deepen your friendship

Now you're kind, beautiful, clever, and you're helping her with her revenge, and you're fine with her gender?

Mizu might be swooning a little herself, but she tells herself that you’re a delicate flower, you're not meant to follow the path she does.

All the same, once a week starts to be not enough time together.

Instead of teaching you Japanese or learning English, Mizu wants to tell you about her home; about Ringo, and Sword-Father, and Madam Kaji and Akemi, even Taigen.

She even explains why the sword hanging at her waist looks so different from the sabers and other swords you're used to seeing the other men carry.

She wants you to know her, fully even if she doesn't understand why

And you open up about more than just Routely’s weekly information; your stifling upbringing, the odious behavior of your betrothed, the backstabbing, shallow friendships of upperclass female society.

Your allotted time flies by and you're not ready for her to leave.

So, she starts sneaking up the wall of the manor into your room. Sometimes during the day, sometimes in the evenings.

What else does she have to do? She only cares about getting her revenge. And seeing you.

You leave a specific statue on your windowsill wherever you're in your room and the coast is clear

This goes well for some time, and you're getting very close to a plan for Routely, when one day…

It's the day of a holiday, there's a festival going on in town. Your father is there presiding over it, many of the servants are given the day off to go to the fair. You plead off with a headache, already anticipating the luxury of a full day with Mizu.

You hear the telltale click of her tapping on the window to be let in. But just as you open the window for her, someone comes slamming through the door of your room.

Mizu ducks down quickly, out of sight, listening.

She hears you demand, “What do you think you're doing?” In your most snobbish tone of voice, and she would have smiled with amusement if she wasn't dangling perilously off the side of a building where anyone might see her.

Above, through the window, she hears: “Thought you'd put me out of a job, eh, little lady? Too good for my tutelage, with that pretty little nose in the air?”

You back away, groping behind you for the statue. “Get out, before I call my father.”

Your old tutor advances on you, his eyes glinting, a twisted smile on his face. A knife, thick and brutish, glints in his hand.

“You think old Skeffington is simple do you? Everyone is away, little girl… nobody here to save you now–”

A blur of blue whooshes past your face, and a metal clang echoes as Mizu’s sword is only barely blocked by the thick knife.

Skeffington falls back, shocked, but quickly recovers.

Mizu is extremely good, but Skeffington’s fighting style is very, very different, and she wasn't expecting a fight today.

In these damn constricting clothes, she can't maneuver like she wants to, and at an inopportune moment, she stumbles.

Skeffington tackles her, pinning her to the floor. She barely manages to grab his wrists before his knife plunges into her eye. The point dangles perilously, slowly starting to descend as his entire bodyweight gets out behind it.

She's kicking and thrashing, trying to get free, when suddenly–

THWACK

His eyes widen, then go unfocused, as he slumps, revealing you standing over them both with the bronze statue still raised for a second blow.

For a second, Mizu stares at you, beyond impressed, possibly a little turned on

…Before wasting no time, finishing the job without worrying about honor. This is her job–she only cares that they're all dead.

You watch without flinching, your mouth set in a grim line.

He deserved it.

When the deed is done, Mizu turns to you, and there's something lighter in her face, as though a heavy burden is lifting from her shoulders.

“Only one left,” she says, sounding almost in awe. She smiles at you with more peace than you've ever seen in her before. “I think the gods may have sent you to me.”

It should chill you to see her so happy after murder, but instead, you smile back. You feel the same way about her.

She stands, and despite the blood on her hands, she reaches out and grips yours. You squeeze back; the blood is shared between you now.

“We are very close to Routely, and then I'll be free,” she sighs, breathing in deeply.

But you feel a pang when her next words are “and i can go where i wish, perhaps home.”

Oh no

You try to keep your smile on your face, to be brave for her and not selfish, but you don't know what you'll do without her

But then, her grip tightens, and she tugs you a little closer.

She looks almost nervous, but determined, as your heart beats faster to feel the warmth of her body so close

“Come with me.” She says, and your eyes widen in such absolute shock and joy that you're speechless.

When you don't immediately respond, her expression crumbles ever so slightly, and she adds, very softly, “... please.”

You're kissing her before she can blink, and it's her turn to be in shock

But not for very long

The long, free day was put to good use in the end, after all.

[th0rnback]

Do you have any headcanons that tend to translate into your writing?

Oooooo, that is a good'un. I’ve been in this fandom so long sometimes I forget what is headcanon and what’s canon 🫠

Buuuuut, I’m sure some of these might be shared with lots of folks, yet off the top of my head:

⭕Edward wears gloves not so much to hide his automail, but to soften it. Metal joints pinch. He learned this the hard way when shaking someone’s hand. It genuinely upset/embarrassed/made him self conscious for a while after that event. ⭕Alphonse always like the barn cats since he was small, yet moreso after Trisha’s death. He liked to entice them into the house of an evening for the warmth and comfort. The house didn’t feel quiet so empty when filled with a patter of paws or rumbling purrs.

⭕Ed’s an ugly crier and he is SUPER self aware of this fact, while he is trying to ‘keep a stiff upper lip’ he also has the worse poker face known to mankind (which I guess can be canon? Because the sweet bean was a mess at Trisha’s funeral, howling at the sky with snot) ⭕Al, even when human and back when kids, is the better liar. He’s got a good poker face (even without the helm) and the street cred of polite sweetness.

⭕Roy hides it well and because irony is key: Roy gets anxious around horses. As a kid a mounted MP’s horse nipped him and Chris presumed this is why he is still Not A Fan of the hooved beasts…. In reality, watching a group of Ishvalan’s get trampled when the cavalry arrived on scene made him realize how terrifyingly powerful such animals are (cue his anxiety over FoM!Ed being so tiny around an animal with hooves bigger than the kids skull)   ⭕ Riza doesn't like being ignored. She can deal with it, but it does make her hackles rise. There is something about being so blankly disregarded she finds as rude yet know, deep known, its because she spent too much of her youth with a father who barely spared her a glance, absorbed in his work... until he suddenly was like ''yo lovely daughter, need to borrow that skin on your back for a second'' ⭕Riza is very good at leg sweeping, hip checking, or just thwacking the back of Roy's knees because when he came to live as her father's apprentice at their crumbling rural manor house, she took great joy tripping him up in the corridors to the point it became a game.

⭕Havoc was nominated for first aider training for their unit. He drew the short straw. Hated every second of the weekend long training he got shoved into. The team make frequent jokes they were hoping to improve his experience, as his dating life is piss-poor and doing CPR would be is only form of ‘kissing’.

⭕ Riza’s a tea-a-holic (which could be canon? Girl be drinking tea in a lot of manga panels). She likes tea due to the variety of scents and finds the method of brewing/preparing it as a form of decompression/keeps her mind blank and hands busy because there are only many times she can dismantling and cleaning her service weapons to a pristine condition before someone presumes she has OCD.

⭕Roy isn’t very good with the scent of fatty meat being cooked. He can deal with it, but sometimes, on The Bad Days™the scent can send him reeling. (This was mostly inspired given how my paternal grandfather was a tank-man during ww2 and my uncle had the horrors of playing with flame throwers in other dumb-mens-wars and neither of them could cope with the smell of smoked bacon of fat-heavy meat).

⭕Fuery is blind AF without his glasses…. Probably me projecting like hell as poor sighted dweeb with thick glasses and also how I HATE that characters in fiction get their glasses off and can FUNCTION DURING CHAOS??? LIKE, NO. EVERYTHING IS BLURRY AND SCARY. MATE, I ONCE LOST MY GLASSES IN THE AMAZING MAZE OF MAIZE AND I FELT LIKE I WAS IN THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT FIGHTING FOR MY LIFE. Also, during a paintball match, I had to forgo my glasses because the eye protective googles didn’t like me wearing them, so I was just blindly taking people out and running into trees, but that’s another story. Rant over.

⭕Maes & Gracia had experienced pregnancy loss before they finally had Elicia: its why the two of them cherish her so much

Annnnnd... I'll stop. Otherwise we are gonna end up with a sickeningly large amount and I fear I'll bore you. 💖

[gcmercury]

doing things you suck at is important

I'm a Gojo gagger and I come by it honestly. I love him from the depths of my soul, he is very special. Does it come from the fact that I relate to him greatly? Maybe so. I cried harder when Ch 236 was leaked than I have at the loss of my last few relationships and personal tragedies that befell me. Why is this?

It's because Gege Akutami managed to put something I had felt my whole life into words. To be able to convey that sort of private loneliness, the one that comes from someone who's been through a great deal and although they've done their best to overcome, it still follows them. It's the Gojo that held himself apart from others, because something in him just couldn't bring himself to either let them in or he just didn't know how to in the same way others do.

It's lonely being neurodivergent. I relate to the messiness of Gojo's delivery when it comes to his feelings. I may say a few grand words and desperately hope they will understand because I can't say anything else. When pushed to the edge, I too am not able to mask and have also been called cruel and cold. "The kind of person who can cut their friends off out of nowhere, so what's to say I'm not next?" I had a (now former) friend say that to me. Recently. And yeah I proved them right I guess.

I feel it all. I have so much feeling to me I've had to learn how to bottle it and use it constructively, or I'd drive myself into ruin. Like learning to harness cursed energy, to use it efficiently.

Like Gojo, maybe I am overlooking the few people that do understand me in some sense. But at the same time I can't help how I feel. I have that part to me that always knows that pang of loneliness, the kind you just know existed before you really knew what it was. There was no reason for it, but you felt it all the same.

I cried because I know the feeling of loving those around you and knowing how much they love you too, and yet knowing what you feel is beyond them. I cried because it gave me hope that when it's my time someday, I'll be surrounded by my friends and family and pets who left before me and I won't be alone, even if I feel lonely my whole life. I cried because of the deep enjoyment of living out your life in a manner that is befitting of who you are despite every sorrow along the way.

Gojo inspired me in a way that woke me up inside during the summer of 2023. I started doing things again I had been subconsciously telling myself I wasn't capable of anymore and proving those thoughts wrong. I felt powerful and motivated and passionate, to be the most of myself.

His death absolutely crushed me. I still can't think about it or read Ch 236 without crying. Hell, I can barely bring myself to re-read parts of Gojo vs Sukuna without getting ridiculously emotional knowing how it ends (And I have this great love for Sukuna too).

Gojo is someone that has millions of admirers and fans. Sometimes I want to curse Gege for writing him so meta. For me, nothing hurts worse than someone loving you for their own fantasy of who you are. They project their fantasies about who they think you are and how you should act onto you, and then get extremely upset when you refuse to comply.

Which finally brings me to the point of this post. I love all of Gojo, and especially his rough edges that make him so real. It's why all of the JJK characters feel so real, because Gege wrote them as if they were, with the mistakes and messy feelings that come with being a real person.

I love that Gojo isn't this perfect mentor/teacher figure. He's late all the time. He's not prepared for class. He's too nonchalant. He's a natural genius and can't teach for shit. He still throws the important details to others. He's made some questionable decisions.

He doesn't have Geto there anymore to bounce things off of, to tell him maybe he shouldn't Hollow Purple Hanami, because they can't tell if that Special Grade curse was exorcised or not LMFAO. So Gojo has to make his own choices, and he is who he is. He makes choices based on that, and really, he does his best. One of my absolute favorite moments in JJK is this beautiful quote by Choso:

Gojo's at the top, and people are looking to him. In that way, he doesn't exactly have someone to ask if he's doing the right things or not. He had to make his choices and live with them, and so he kept making mistakes. He even made some of the same ones multiple times (which is certainly humbling irl).

He sought Megumi out for his talent, to hopefully be his first 'Strong And Intelligent Ally' -- a five, maybe six year old kid. That's not something most people would do, but maybe it speaks to the great respect Gojo has for youth/young people to place his future hopes there. It's evident enough that Gojo tried his best to teach Megumi about jujutsu, while trying to let him still be a kid. Megumi did continue to live with Tsumiki, he attended a normal elementary and middle school. Gojo would even pop in to bug him and take him out for some non-jujutsu related fun:

(The translations of the LNs vary, the printed version says "... Fushiguro was ready for a long haul, similar to one of those Sunday mornings when Gojo would say, 'Megumi, shall we go to Parque España?'")

However, Gojo also had this idea that maybe Megumi would be on his level someday, and then maybe he could understand him. He knows the potential that Megumi holds, and he tried to foster it, and with that, placed expectations on Megumi, who is a very different person than Gojo. Gojo shares bits of his own personal philosophies with him because he recognizes Megumi's talents. There's good intentions behind it -- to never throw one's life away, and the mindset with which you do things matters a great deal.

But for Megumi, who's already struggling with the weight of all the baggage he never asked for and was born with, it's a lot. He does heed Gojo's (and Sukuna's) advice and we see the progress he's able to make mentally and physically, only for him to revert in Shibuya when he summons Mahoraga.

Gojo may have put too much on Megumi, some consciously and some unconsciously. Gojo can only operate in the manner that he knows, and as someone who is a product of his own unfortunate circumstances, he can only project his own experiences. He was an imperfect benefactor/mentor/parental figure of sorts to Megumi, however you read their relationship.

During his time in the Prison Realm, Gojo was forced to really take a look at himself as well as accept certain things. I think it's subtly stated, but supported by his and Yuji's final conversation, that he recognizes the pressure he put on Megumi to rise to his full potential, baked into this beautiful sentiment:

His students don't have to be like him to be strong. He recognizes that there are other great strengths that surpass his own, these things he couldn't do that these brilliant young people can. He's accepted that someone doesn't have to live up to their full potential to have that sort of strength.

He knows that Megumi is just Megumi. And that there's nothing wrong with that. He says as much with the note he left him about killing Toji. That everything is alright between them. As long as Megumi has the desire to live, that's all that really matters. And that he isn't alone (That was the most important thing, that his students weren't alone if something happened to him. Even if in the end he wasn't able to reform the system, he wanted those kids to have someone).

I kinda went on a mini tangent of sorts there, but the point is that Gojo made a lot of mistakes, just like anyone else. He misread Toji's strategy. He wasn't able to save Geto from defecting. He didn't cremate Geto's body and the Shibuya Incident happened. He got rid of all cursed tools that could forcibly dispel his Cursed Technique. He said something racist to Miguel. He misread Sukuna's strategy.

He knew what it was like to lose. He knew the feeling of failure. He carried a lot of unspoken guilt and that twinge of regret with him. He explains in Ch 236 how he stopped feeling like a person, yet he never cast these feelings out. He was much more human than he felt like or realized.

Gojo may have struggled as a teacher, but he came through for his students in the ways it really mattered. He sucked at trying to explain things, but it didn't matter because his heart was in the right place. Because he had a real passion and a deep, unrelenting drive for what he was trying to do. That is so inspiring.

I love that he did his best to protect them, but knew that they would face heartbreak, pain, tragedy one day, and they would need the right tools to be able to handle it. You can't remove sadness, suffering, anger, hatred from the world. There will always be those with ill intentions. To not let those things kill your heart (like what happened with Geto), that's what he wished for his students.

Yuji didn't lay his grandfather to rest alone. He put Yuji's room right next to Megumi's. Gave Megumi the better seat outside. Put in a personal request for Yuji's uniform because he thought he was fond of hoodies. Gave kids who are outcasted or ostracized a place to belong and develop confidence, a reason to live. Organized the baseball game for the final day of the Goodwill Event. Wanted to give his absolute best because his students were watching and he cares what they think. Tracked down Nobara's mom in the case that she would maybe want to see her. Saw Ijichi's talents and pushed him in that direction even if he was an asshole about it. Broke the cycle by giving Megumi the choice for a different path than the one he himself had as a clan kid.

When he says he loves everyone, he meant it.

Gojo could have lived a life full of nothing but things he absolutely excelled at. Instead, he challenged himself doing things he knew he wasn't well suited for because they were important.

If you're really passionate about something, who cares if you suck?

If your hearts really in it, isn't it worth it to struggle?

We learn about ourselves when we purposefully set out to do things we know are difficult for us. It might feel good to do the things we know we can nail, but it doesn't keep us sharp.

Don't lose the feeling of what it's like to fail. Keep failing over and over. Keep making mistakes, even the same ones. It takes courage to fail and even more to laugh at ourselves and carry on when we do. That is its own, supreme strength too.

I am so horrible at a great many things. But I'm gonna do the things I love, even if I am never good at them. I don't think I'll ever be able to stop saying "like" and "um" and "you know" a million times when I'm trying to speak, but that doesn't matter. I'm gonna say it anyway.

I love people who make mistakes too because it keeps us all human. And I love Gojo for the same reason.

[the-enhanced-project]

‎‧₊˚✧ Charlie Barak - Character Intro ✧˚₊‧

picrew here

‎‧₊˚✧ Basic Info ✧˚₊‧

Name || Charlotte ‘Charlie’ Barak

Age || Twenty-Two

Birthdate || August 25th

Gender + pronouns || Trans girl + she/her

Orientation || Lesbian

Ethnicity || Syrian

Alias || Conductor

╰› This was the alias Charlie used during her time as a fighter. She was one of those kids who was really into trains, so it was a play on that and an electrical conductor.

Enhancement || Electrokenisis

╰› Charlie's body creates an excess amount of static electricity, which causes many health issues such as chronic migraines and seizures (powers with drawbacks my beloved). She can expel small amounts of electricity from her body (typical lightning powers you'd see in media), as well as manipulate electrical devices around her (lights, for example).

Alignment || Neutral good

Daytime occupation || Bartender

College Major || Kinesiology

Likes || Sports (she’s on the track and basketball teams), working out, running, going to the gym

Dislikes || Her past, wide open spaces, feeling exposed, her own anger

‎‧₊˚✧ Appearance ✧˚₊‧

Charlie has warm brown skin and caramel brown eyes that look almost gold in the sun. Her wavy dark brown hair is usually tied back in a small ponytail or bun, especially when she's working or at the gym, though a few strands hang loosely over her forehead.

She's quite tall and well built, considering how active she is. She has one of those noses that's clearly been broken before and never really healed right, so not it's kinda crooked.

Height || 5’11’’ (180 cm)

Outfits || Her work outfit is a simple white collared shirt rolled up to her elbows, under a black vest type thing--typical bartender uniform thingy. When she's not at work, she doesn't put a huge amount of effort into her appearance, dressing simple and practical rather than for fashion.

‎‧₊˚✧ Personality ✧˚₊‧

For as long as she could remember, Charlie's been angry.

At the world, at the people who ruined her life, at her brother, and most of all at herself. It started as a quiet burn inside of her when her brother died, and only intensified as she grew older and eventually escaped the facility. Eventually, though, with the right people to help, she's learned to start managing it. She's still angry, but now she doesn't have to beat up people twice her size to deal with it.

...at least for a while.

ANYWAYS.

She's friendly at the surface level--she has to be, working in customer service--but she's still pretty reserved and secretive. Paranoid, almost. She doesn't give up personal information easily. But if you're someone she's already close with, she's fairly loyal and open. It just takes a bit to get there.

She's really athletic, and enjoys playing and watching sports, working out, going to the gym, etc etc. She's reactive, adaptable, and a fighter at heart.

Myers-Briggs || ESTP

‎‧₊˚✧ Background ✧˚₊‧

tw - charlie's backstory includes themes of kidnapping, and loss of a family member. Keep yourself safe first and foremost <3

Charlie was twelve years old when her enhancement developed. She was simply sitting in her 6th grade science classroom, trying to ignore the boys in her class who kept throwing colored pencils at her. But eventually, she turned, yelled, "will you quit it?", and the lights in the classroom went out.

While in hindsight, it was painted as simply a coincidence--faulty wires, or something--Charlie knew deep down that it wasn't. She'd heard the stories of the kids who could do crazy things on tv, of course. But she'd also heard stories of those people being murdered, kicked out, and other unspeakable things. So, she was smart enough to stay quiet.

Unfortunately, someone else noticed.

Her science teacher, Mr. Holt. He'd always talked in class about the enhanced, seemed fascinated by them. Charlie had never thought much about that.. until he took her.

One moment, she was simply walking home from the park with her 5 year old little brother, Caleb, and the next.. a sharp pain in her neck, then darkness.

The siblings awoke in some sort of makeshift science laboratory that looked like it had been built out of a shed.

The next three and a half years of Charlie's life were a blur of experiments and agony. From what she could gather, Holt was fascinated by the enhanced, he would do anything to figure out why they could do what they could do, how that could help him, etc etc. Charlie and her brother were the unfortunate guinea pigs for his tests.

Caleb was killed a year into it, experiment gone wrong, and maybe he was the lucky one. And then Charlie was alone, terrified.

She was fifteen when she finally escaped, by stealing some chemicals from the lab, dumping them onto Holt's face, and making a run for it.

She wandered for a while, having no idea where she was, what to do, where to go, etc. She eventually found her way into the city, and for a while she.. survived. She slept wherever she could, found food, used the public computers in the library to find out that not only had she been pronounced missing and then dead, but her parents had died sometime in her absence as well. She doubted it was an accident.

She was angry. She was alone, terrified, starving, but most of all she was so, so angry.

Eventually, she came across this sort of.. fight club, for enhanced people. It offered a pretty good pay for the simple act of going into a pit and beating the shit out of someone.. no rules, just entertainemnt for whatever sickos decided to check it out.

It wasn't perfect, but it was the best opportunity she had. So, Charlie signed up. Even though most of her opponents were twice her size, she was able to fight defensively and use her powers to her advantage.

She used this as her primary income for food and basic needs for a while, until she met Robyn.

He was also a fighter at this place, around her age. They met between matches, quickly becoming good friends. Good enough that they were eventually able to scrounge together enough money to get a tiny apartment together and enroll in school.

Charlie now works as a bartender at the Sine, a sports bar a little away from her college campus. She shares an apartment with Robyn while she works on a kinesiology degree.

‎‧₊˚✧ Links ✧˚₊‧

-> Tumblr tag

-> Character hub wiki

-> Pinterest board

‎‧₊˚✧ Tag List ✧˚₊‧

(ask to be added)

@corinneglass @sunflowerrosy @eon-tries-writing @lunesartsworld @ark-inkweaving @nykenima

[tera--tera]

(note: this is a copy and pasted rant from discord sent to someone not super caught up with pjsk, so a lot of this is summarizing events. if smth here is slightly misremembered or smth shhh dw abt it).

the shinonomes' plotlines are so heavily intertwined.

akito and ena both have the core theme of being people who aren't naturally talented at what they choose to do — rather than raw talent, they need to put in the effort and dedication to actually learn how to increase their skills. it's a commentary on how a lack of natural talent doesn't mean that you are incapable of success, but that you need to grit your teeth and work much harder than those with natural talent.

there are a few key differences between the two of them despite the core similarities — namely:

- ena starts off as a kid who wants validation, and who admires her father. shinei shinonome is a talented and well known artist, and she aspires to be like him, however, outside of being the daughter of shinei, she doesn't have an actual personal reason for wanting to pursue art — not until niigo comes along.

- akito, by contrast, is a kid who is looking for a reason to live — something to dedicate his life to. he settles on the goal of surpassing rad weekend, and it's the fuel that motivates him to keep on going no matter what.

ena has no personal drive, and it ends up causing her to be fueled solely by the praise she recieves from others. akito has a personal drive, and it causes him to be fueled by the desire to reach that goal, and the determination to dedicate his life to it.

both of them recieve severe amounts of backlash in regards to the skills they're trying to hone — ena has her father, and her art teacher (who harshly criticizes everyone), and akito has. uh. vivid street. who is very hostile to this outsider child who lacks talent.

ena doesn't have a proper support to fall back on, so after a harsh scolding where her teacher looks at her work, says that he has nothing to say to her, and walks away, she quits her art class. she quits art altogether until meeting mizuki — someone who liked her art enough to make a music video to kanade's and mafuyu's song with it. it's via joining niigo that she starts to take up art again — but it still takes her years (iirc 2????) to work up the courage to even approach that same art class again.

in contrast, akito nearly quits music on account of the severity of the backlash he's been recieving from vivid street. he ends up completely messing up and performing poorly in a very prestigious venue. it's through ken shiraishi — his idol and an's father — telling him that he has promise and to continue that he powers on. ken says that he personally would be saddened to see akito quit, and so akito gets up and tries again.

ena relied on external support because of her lack of actual identity and personal goals — failing to get that support was what drove her away. by contrast, akito relied on his own internal drive — so being faced with such a massive failure would have driven him away on account of a lack of confidence in his own ability to improve.

if akito hadn't had ken — someone who was exacty like him as a child, and lived through what's he's experiencing now, he would have ended up in ena's shoes.

if ena actually had the support of shinei — someone who was exactly like her as a child, and lived through what she's experiencing now, she would have ended up in akito's shoes.

[infriga]

Something really interesting about the Elbaf arc to me is how Oda really hyped the giants up as an ancient powerful warrior race throughout the entire series, but now that we've actually gotten to Elbaf all of that is being deconstructed to a surprising degree, with the locals announcing that they've left behind their violent past and have now dedicated themselves to peace and education. And the way it's set up you'd almost expect it to be treated as a joke twist, but instead it's being treated seriously. And I actually quite like that. Their warrior past isn't being treated as a bad thing by any means, they still respect their retired fighters, but Elbaf has basically taken up Ohara's mantle now.

For a while I was wondering if there was going to be a plot about giants being motivated to return to their former glory as warriors since this is, well, a shounen manga, especially with how much their warrior ways were hyped up throughout the series, though I was kinda hoping it wouldn't go there. But moments like these have actually convinced me that that's not the direction Oda is going with this:

The bad guys in this arc are literally trying to force the giants to fight on the government's behalf against their will. This is very explicitly painting their new dedication to peace and knowledge as an important thing to them that they will need to defend against the villains. And I suspect their race's battle prowess will be portrayed as best used to protect what's important to them, not something to use with abandon like they used to.

I really like this because it makes sense when you think about it. Throughout the series we've seen that despite their natural immense strength giants are often taken advantage of and abused precisely because of that strength, they're seen as a potential useful weapon by the government. Mother Carmel worked with the Marines to deceitfully recruit giant soldiers which likely lead to Saul's recruitment, giants have been captured and sold as high value slaves, Ceasar was hired to try and genetically engineer giants from human children to use as soldiers, Oimo and Kashi were blackmailed into working for cipher pol against their will, Oars's corpse was dug up and reanimated by Moriah and Dr Hogback, etc. Giants have been used and victimized repeatedly throughout the series because of their strength, and it has been used to harm and oppress others many times as well. So it makes sense that they'd start to value peace, and that they'd oppose the government by pursuing, protecting, and spreading knowledge and history. And on top of that the way the government suppresses history, knowledge, and education, has always been portrayed as an extremely bad thing.

What I'm curious about is how Loki will fit into all this. He seems like he's going to be the "princess" of the arc, like Rebecca/Momo/Vivi/etc, and not the antagonist, but he definitely represents the ideals of the old ways of Elbaf and sounds like he was at odds with his father who represented the new ways. This could set him up for character development or a redemption arc of sorts if he ends up taking the throne, since while he apparently wasn't the one who actually killed his father, he definitely doesn't seem like he'd be interested in peace and history so far. He's still quite violent and antagonistic, though he has shown the potential to be a protector and leader with his brief moments of concern for others that we've glimpsed. It's possible that he'll develop into a more moderate leader figure, not so extreme as his father who seemed ashamed of their warrior history and even cut off his own horns in an act of what to me seems like self mutilation more than anything, but also no longer as violent or careless as he once was when he was imprisoned. Maybe he'll learn about the value of peace and decide to protect that peace instead of just wreaking meaningless violence.

Then there's Hajrudin, who doesn't necessarily represent the new ways of Elbaf since he wanted to recreate the Giant Warrior Pirates, but is himself part of the younger and more peaceful demographic, and he's certainly less violent and angry overall than Loki. But he hasn't gotten as much attention this arc as you'd expect if he were going to be in the spotlight. He may end up being more of the Viola of the arc, so to speak, aka the sibling character whose arc is tied to Loki but Loki's story takes center stage. Or maybe they'll get some sort of joint story as the arc progresses. Either way I'm curious how that aspect of things will play out.

And something neat about this turn of events is how Elbaf has been tied to Shanks a lot recently, since way back at the beginning of the series one of the first lessons we saw Shanks teach Luffy was that violence should be used when appropriate, but is not always the answer. I like that thematic consistency. He established from chapter one that the point of having power and using strength is to use it to protect people, not just to get what you want or to earn the respect of others. As Makino put it: "Maybe sometimes it takes more courage not to fight."

[scarameownya]

NIKO'S VOICELINE (P1)

Hello

" The name's Niko, Fontaine's personal inventor but maybe "The Araignée Noire" would ring your bell better. What ? You got my name, my profession and my titles, there's nothing else for you to know. "

Chat: Clockwork Meka

" They are fascinating, aren't they ? There's still so many thing I wanted to learn about them it's driving me insane, I remember seeing them walking around everywhere and I would just stare at them like I just found some rare treasure chests, well, to me they might as well be. "

Chat: Talking

" Isn't talking kind of tiring ? I don't like just opening my mouth and made some sound that others might or might not listen, sometimes I just stay silent cause I don't feel like talking, either way I don't think moving your mouth for 24 hours straight will be good for you. "

Chat: Niko's Leg

" Hm ? You're sad about my leg ? Don't bother, your pity gaze is not needed. What happened had happened, all I can do is to move on from it. I mean, what are you going to do about it ? Break it again ? Haha. "

When It Rains

" Rain's not my favorite, I don't get why people like it so much. All they do is make you wet and give you a cold. "

When Thunder Strikes

" You know how you can tell when someone doesn't like something by the look on their face ? Look at me now and try to guess how I feel about this. "

When It Snows

" Winter in particular is not a favorable weather for those without a home, it's cruel, it's cold and yet, I can't help but see the beauty in the snow, I wonder why... "

When the Sun is Out

" Ugh, too bright, is this what you have to deal with everyday ? "

When the Wind Is Blowing

" The wind is nice, it's a good way to test the endurance of my inventions, wouldn't want mechanical parts flying everywhere and hitting people, would you ? Although, that is an amusing idea... "

Good Morning

" Seems like you're ready to go. Morning is not exactly favorable for me, but it used to be the only time I get to collect food before too many people catch me. "

Good Afternoon

" This time of day is more bearable than the morning, the light hurts my eyes but beggars can't be choosers. "

Good Evening

" I like the night, it's quiet, cooler and not a lot of people are active, it let me escape reality a bit before continuing doing the same thing the next day. "

Good Night

" Are you going to sleep ? Not yet ? Help me instead of just sitting there then. "

About Niko: Glory Day

" I'm an inventor, I invent things, what more is there to say ? Hm ? My days as a thief ? Sorry, that's classified information, it's your fault you weren't here when I was still in my prime. "

About the Vision (Friendship Lv. 4)

" Vision, huh... For a while, whenever I look at this thing, all I can remember is the night I received it. Cold, lonely, scared, devastating... None of which are positive. It feels like a cruel joke sometimes, to receive something many considered to be a blessing, but what kind of blessing was it to only give help after the damges had already been done ? "

About Mekal (Friendship Lv. 4)

" My pride and joy in simple term. Mekal is my partner, my first ever creation that I had made and someone that has went through everything with me. Before it became public knowledge, no one knew Mekal was posing as my body double, his flexibility to change forms made it easy for him to do a quick escape if he ever got close to being caught by the Gardes. Ever since our time at the Fortress begins however, Mekal has taken an interest in being a butler, there's nothing wrong with it per se but he won't stop calling me "Young Master" no matter how many time I told him it's not necessary, maybe I should stop Sigewinne from getting him more of those self-help butler books... "

More About Niko: I

" Even though my old mischievious glory days are over, it doesn't mean I'm done just yet- Those who are corrupted and selfish still exist, I won't hesitate to draw my weapon and take away their possession, giving power to those who doesn’t deserve it won't do anyone any good, why not strip them away and give it to those who need it ? "

More About Niko: II (Friendship Lv. 3)

" Some people often called my ideal 'childish', they told me I can't save everyone, that the corrupted always wins, that my resolve are too unrealistic... and maybe they're right, maybe I am naive, that I'm too hopeful for a future that's never going to happen, that things will never change no matter what.... That doesn't mean it will stop me from trying to reach it. "

More About Niko: III (Friendship Lv. 4)

" I... Actually still get nightmares where I stand back to The House of the Hearth, that I was still running away, that I'm back at the street, barely scaping by with a piece of bread and the few spices I managed to snatch. But even when I woke up, never in a million year, would I ever thought I would be where I am now. Three meals a day, clean water, a place to stay... Something that I had to fight tooth and nails to even get a fraction of back when I still roamed the street. "

More About Niko: IV (Friendship Lv. 5)

" "The Araignée Noire"... It means "Black Spider". It's the name that was plastered all over the news after my first incident blew up and nobody knew who I was. Amusingly, it's not a name I chose for myself. The Steambird gave me the name after the Meka legs I used to escape. I don't know who or how they managed to get a picture of me back then, but because of how much I looked like a spider from that photo, the name had stuck to my image for years to come. I don't mind though, way better than, say, "The Traveler" ? Hehe, just kidding. "

More About Niko: V (Friendship Lv. 6)

" I have... Never see myself fitting in with other people, even while I was in the House of The Hearth. Maybe it's a part of the reason why a lot of them don't like me, they called me a freak, an anomaly, an eccentric individual... But what exactly is their definition of "normal" ? Just because I don't act exactly as they expected me to, does that mean I am not human anymore ? Am I just a dysfunctional Clockwork to them ? Either way, social constructs are stupid, people should be able to be themselves without people saying what's wrong and what's right... Hah, what a stupid thing for me to think about, right ?

[rickgrimesdoingrickthings]

A = Aftercare (what they’re like after sex)

C = Cum (where does your muse prefer to cum/have someone cum)

D = Dirty secret (pretty self explanatory, a dirty secret of theirs)

F = Favorite position (this goes without saying)

J = Jack off (masturbation headcanon)

K = Kink (one or more of their kinks)

L = Location (favorite places to do the do)

O = Oral (preference in giving or receiving, skill, etc.)

Q = Quickie (their opinions on quickies, how often, etc.)

R = Risk (are they game to experiment? do they take risks? etc.)

A) Super cuddly

C) In. But will respect if the partner wants differently.

D) Likes to bite and enjoys being dominated by a powerful woman / partner (playfully)

F) Loves to swap and try new positions, loved topping and being topped.

J) Can't do if too anxious or depressed, doesn't need pictures, he's GREAT at daydreaming his fanfictions, doesn't need to do it too often, tends to do it more when he's relaxed but lonely. If he's been doing it, it means he's been happy and healthy. Gets sleepy after doing it, tries to not make much noise, likes to caress other soft spots of his body while doing it, has done it in the open (while no one was seeing it).

K) Loves being a romantic before doing it, brings gifts, pampers partner even if he knows he doesn't have to in order to get laid- he just enjoys being a softie and sharing romantic gestures like holding hands, saying how much he loves the person, loves holding hands; also, shower kiss attacks and playful biting. Sex with him usually takes time apparently, he loves cuddling and nuzzling and kissing and different positions / rolling...

L) In private, in a comfy bedroom, comfy bed.

O) Whatever his partner wants I think. If he wants to pleasure his partner and they don't want usual sex, he might do it. I can't see him asking anyone to do it to him, but if a partner did it, I think he'd love it. I think he'd be good at it, he'd learn his partner preferences quickly.

Q) He would rather have proper time and place to have sex slowly and romantically if possible (even if the make out session is agitated and steamy, I feel like he enjoys not having to rush all the love making). Could do it, probably already did it, probably finds it way better than nothing, if his partner asked for it, he probably would do it anytime anywhere really, even if he was blushing as heck. I can only see him not being able to do it if he's too anxious or depressed.

R) Yes. R is for Risk and for Rick.

@vuulpecula

[reidhalstead]

It's a sharp stab to the face. A violent blow that's got his jaw uneven. Teeth grinding across each other, ivories that almost pinch his tongue when he wants to speak. She's right, he supposes. It is a world meant for those fighting to live. An old belief that the dead belonged in the ground. Not as a walking corpse, disrupting that life. There is an ache in his mind, vibrating the sockets of his reality; they are doomed things. The difference between their damnations is that he had sealed away all his former reservations about humanity. It didn't matter. Doesn't.

He'd walked into this motel with her in his arms and nothing but the desire to watch her unravel. A quiet, unsettling sight. Yet, in her near-death, there had been no open eyes to draw him back. No memories he could peer at in the heat of the rainforest.

Reid won't go back to discussing all that loss. She's had enough from him; ripped enough out of him, that it died permanently on the floor of that apartment. Once the undead go a second time, they are ash; there is no coming back from that. No magic powerful enough to resurrect a pile of bonedust. Any hunter knows that, because it's what they're trained to hunt and put down. Anika's outlook works against everything they stand for. This? She's let him live once, and she's lost her opportunity to fix that error in judgment.

He has learned to live with the loss. He learned to throw it into the void and fill that space with the hunger he's always tried to deny. It's the one thing he cannot control. And that lesson had been eight years long. It's better to come to terms with being a thing one once despised, if there is nothing in the way; nothing left to fight for. No considerations, or cares. No moral compass showing North, because South works better for him. Hell, he'd smash the thing and let his appetite guide him.

Except, she's doused him in something other than gasoline, and it's peeling away all his longings. Maybe Anika does want to drive him to the kill.

And she wants to die, skewing the fucking truth. A liar, through and through.

She'd blown off the locks of the dam, and there's a flood coming to ruin the next city, she's torn through the village, and it's ruthless — it doesn't stop, just consumes, until he feels the prickle of aching making him nauseous. He can't think about what he's done to get to this point. Won't. He's so close to the door, the sun is up, maybe he can step into it —

Anika's unaware of the sheer violence she's provoked, constantly peppering verbal bullets into him and tearing up his insides. She's doing it one burning piece of lead at a time. Reid doesn't even know how to heal from it and isn't able to build the bridge or the dam fast enough to stop it from its destruction.

"Lost me? Ha." He's lost, that's for sure. "—you walked out!" You ran away. You lost your goddamn shit, and threw everything in the trash. She doesn't get to have this. There is no possible way she will take the stake now and carve shapes in his chest; she lost that right when she broke his neck and left. He bites back the frustration because he's convincing himself he isn't feeling the volcanic eruption.

"You're wallowing in all you've lost, like you're the only one who has. You don't even want to find anything. Look at you. What did it get you? This?"

He's asked himself that a thousand times. And it's brought him here, to the purgatory of throwing everything away, and allowing everything in.

The air is hot, and it's suffocating. There's no need for him to breathe, but he can't get more words out as the realisation of what he's said lingers there for far too long. Eyes wander down to stare at Booker like she'd become the demon in all his nightmares. No, not become. She'd always been. A thing he wasn't supposed to have, a hunter with a broken cause; and those things are only meant to kill the likes of him, put him out of a misery that has been long played out. But the only thing Anika's good for is the torture she seems to specialise in — and he's had enough of that for a lifetime.

She felt like an obvious bruise — tender and swollen, easy to press on, easy to make flinch. Her arms wrapped around herself, like she could shield the pieces of her that were already laid bare. Pathetic and small. That same little girl who’d crawled under the bed while her family got devoured — and stayed quiet, and stayed still, and lived.

That’s not me. But it was. Whatever was left of her was this now — a broken version of a woman who could stab the sun if she wanted, take on the world without flinching.

And yet, standing in front of him, she couldn’t even move.

You did this. She brought this on herself; one misstep, one small detour from a plan so perfectly structured, a distraction found in the kindness of a stranger turned friend. A hand extended — and she only knew how to chew it off. You never know when to stop, do you? It was how she ended up in this mess, in the first place. Caught in an eternal war inside herself; a war that could never end. Her own heart on the line. That damn thing still lived, still pumped blood, still functioned like it hadn’t been shattered. Don't fucking tell me that I haven't been trying to live. Then why did her heart feel so still? Like a corpse in a glass case. A warm thing like that could never survive winter, if not cared for. So she let it freeze. Watched blood turn to ice. You did this to yourself. Let matchstick hands find the place where the cold lived and spark a light. Stop—

"Living is for the ones who have something to live for." But she didn’t expect him to understand. A dead man who’d already lost everything. Anika had spent a fucking decade trying to live, because her sisters never got the chance. Alone, and bitter. Ruthless when she had to be. Clever when death came knocking. And always surviving — if only out of spite.

Maybe he’d dragged her back on her way to hell, like some fucked up Orpheus, so he wouldn’t have to suffer alone. An eternity spent drowning in your own fucking misery must be exhausting. The glacier had melted in his hands — soft now, pulsing. No more sharp edges. No more bite. For all those months she'd let it rot inside her, she should’ve torn it out and buried it deep. But now? Now she could shove it into his chest and let it fester there instead — let it become his burden, his rot.

Eyes pressed against his shame, unwavering and glassy with tears too proud to fall. Like prying open all the doors you swore shut — hearing the locks click, one by one.

Are they his? Or are they yours?

They've been here before, with loss on their minds and on their tongues, and hands tired and held together. Memories hurt, when they flashed across her mind. "You have, but I told you already, you learn to live with the loss, Halstead." she said, her voice threaded with quiet, brittle pain. "I lost everything a long time ago." my family, my father, pieces of myself — you, you, you.

Then her mouth went dry, the words scraping against her throat, desperate to be released. "Then I had you, and I lost you too."

It was that cruel version of him, the one that had crawled out of the voice message sent months ago, dripping with hatred and mocking venom that was standing in her motel room now. He would take her confession and twist it into weapons, throw them at her, one by one, until— He’d argue that she never truly had him, that it was all just ash and dust, fevered deliriums spun from drunken promises and frantic desperation. That there was nothing but the hollow echo of two broken beings, torn from their worlds of blood and ruin, grasping at something they could never hold.

[thaliagrayce]

y'know what we don't talk about enough? Hazel died. We talk about how she grew up in the 30's and 40's and we talk about how out of place she feels in the modern world, but! She died! She was dead! She has spent more time dead than alive, and not by a close margin!

How does that effect a person??? We got some of it in the flashbacks, but once those caught up with her present timeline and she shared them, they just kind of... disappeared. And she was a regular girl with some weird past experiences. That's one way of doing it, sure!

I think it would have been a lot cooler if she was just a touch creepier. If she felt a little bit Wrong. Yeah, in general she's more approachable than her brother, she's more sociable and less closed off, but. If you actually spend any time with her, it can be difficult to tell which child of the underworld is actually more unsettling.

Hazel is bright of personality and has a dazzling smile, but sometimes she'll just... shut down. She'll go completely blank for like half an hour and nobody knows what to do with it. Sometimes she forgets she's alive. Sometimes she'll spout the grimmest shit you've ever heard like it's nothing, she won't even notice it's weird until the room goes quiet. She spent decades in Asphodel, which is designed to make people forget about themselves and wander around for eternity, only she didn't have the luxury of forgetting! Wild! After she comes back to life, sometimes she forgets that she's allowed to Do Stuff now. She can spend so long sitting and staring at nothing. Sometimes she'll start crying on cloudless days because it hits her again that she can actually feel the warmth of the sun on her skin and she can hear birdsong. Every little mundane experience is a blessing and she will make you remember that in the most foreboding way possible.

[slayerdurge]

Durgetash Resurrection AU

"Is that...? That's my body. I remember now. The Morphic Pool. The Elder Brain, it... I was dead. What did you do?" "I made a deal... with Lord Bane."

[tiredandoptimistic]

The thing that kills me about Jack Kelly is that he's a dreamer without being much of an optimist. He's got his fantasyland and his image of a perfect future, but on some level he doesn't believe that any of it will ever be real. It's a safe way to escape from the shittier parts of his life and it gives him something to strive for when things feel hopeless, but that disconnection from reality means that it's never an actual literal goal. After Crutchie gets taken, Jack copes by painting Santa Fe because that's all he thinks he can do. Katherine and Davey focus on the practical stuff and how to keep the strike going, but for Jack there is no practical solution. He's either got his dream or he's got despair.

[childrenofthesun77]

Assuming that the whole 'mahiru is the vessel needed to bring back the count and the 9th servamp will be the servamp of vainglory' theory will be correct, it's interesting how both mahiru and touma can be accused of this sin even if the way it applies to them is opposed.

What touma wants is to be acknowledged and to that end he was willing to become the villain who destroyed the world before mahiru and tsurugi managed to change his mind:

Mahiru's way of being vainglorious seems a lot more positive at first because he wants to be a hero who saves others, but it's self-destructive and encourages laziness in others:

But thankfully we see mahiru starting to let go of the need to make other people proud of him and to prioritize making himself proud in his conversation with tsurugi:

and later when mahiru has a meltdown because he fears his uncle might be dead and suggests sacrificing his life to save the world kuro rightfully yells at mahiru for acting hypocritical and not listening to his own advice:

(I want to mention here that I really love how horrified kuro looks as he realizes that mahiru's reckless hero behaviour comes from a very self-destructing place:

because not a lot of manga I know really acknowledge that maybe the way a lot of their protagonists try to be heroic is actually pretty unhealthy and shouldn't be encouraged? Like Sigurd pointed out at the C3 meeting, it's kind of shameful that the children have to save the day)

Which is why I love that mahiru decided to trust kuro to handle tsubaki without him going with him:

He decides to stay back with everyone else, showing that he has learned that he doesn't need to be the one to do everything and can stay back with the others to buy kuro time.

Interestingly we see touma doing something similar. Opposed to his old need to have the whole world acknowledge him he now wishes for everyone to believe he's dead and he's helping to protect the city by creating a huge barrier without making it known that's he the one doing this:

He's helping the protagonists seemingly with no intention of earning acknowledgement for it.

I think in a way it could be cool of servamp to subvert the shouned trope that for the finale battle the only one able to defeat the big bad is the protagonist while everyone else just watches on from the sidelines, not allowed to do anything because this is the protagonist's moment of glory.

What if lily's plan when he put kuro in mahiru's path was that if kuro tried to stop tsubaki at the gate surely his eve would need to be there with him, right? Because of course he needs his eve to fight and then there's also the distance limit. So why not make the vessel you need at that gate for the ritual to work kuro's eve? Then the vessel would be at the place where you need them without you even needing to do something because naturally they would be thinking they are doing the right thing by going with kuro to fight tsubaki together. And surely someone as vainglorious as mahiru would never pass up the opportunity to be the hero who stops tsubaki. It's foolproof!

Unless of course before the ritual the vessel learned to let go of their vainglorious nature, accepted that it's okay to take a step into the background and trust in others. And additionally also found a way to break through the whole forced proximity thing that the servamp and eves had going on.

I don't know, I feel like it would be a neat bow on mahiru's character arc and a unique way to thawrt the antagonists' plans if the creation of the servamp of vainglory failed because the 'it has to be me' guy they wanted to use as the vessel decided against glory and stayed back to let his partner handle things with tsubaki alone because he trusts him. Kuro on the other hand wants to make up for his past regrets and resolve the conflict through communication this time. Learning to trust in himself again by managing to talk tsubaki out of going through with the ritual on his own would be a logical conclusion to kuro's arc.