#and while i forgot most of what i established as my personal canon back then i do remember saying Carmina is from a vault

[thebinturong]

i finished fo2 (although i did cheat a bit. but only because i wouldve blocked myself in pretty much otherwise. also because i suck and dont care) and im soo back at it. it did made me wanna re-establish a timeline for my couriers family that actually fits in with the lore

[demaparbat-hp]

I used to just think Zutara was cool because Zuko and Katara had that whole fire-water duality, had more chemistry with each other than their canon love interests, Kataang gave me this sexist pseudo-incestuous vibe while Mai was just way too under-developed to interest me (Zuko gets the most character development out of all the characters but they pair him off with the most boring character in the series?).

Now when I actually think about it more deeply, Zutara genuinely made more sense for the narrative and characters too. Aang was told he had to let go of Katara so he could become a fully realized Avatar but then he just gets a deus ex machina so he doesn't have to. They dropped an entire arc just for Kataang to get together and made it happen in the most stupid way. The lion turtle deus ex machina was already badly done but at least it sorta made sense with the lore. The rock was just beyond ridiculous. Aang solved his problems by randomly hitting a rock even though they already established how Aang had this unhealthy attachment to Katara because she was his coping mechanism for his lost people. Instead of letting her go, Aang keeps that attachment and becomes even more possessive of her. He never learns to prioritize the world over Katara even though it is his duty as the Avatar! He didn't have to sacrifice or learn anything to achieve his goals and the way he became a fully realized Avatar NEVER made any sense. Katara and Aand were not always intended to end up together if you look at the IP Bible. Katara goes back to the SWT to help rebuild it while Aang goes looking for the hidden Air Nomads. There's hints early on in Book 1 that the Air Nomads are still alive (like how Aang was able to get a bison whistle from some merchants but they never explain where they got it from).

Meanwhile the whole Maiko relationship seemed like it was a metaphor to represent Zuko's false destiny and dissatisfaction with his life since Mai encouraged him to sink into his bad habits and ignore everything else, and Azula actively encouraged them to get together so she could control Zuko easier and keep him in the Fire Nation. Zuko leaving Mai behind felt like him embracing his true destiny. This entire thing falls apart when they get back together though, and them being so toxic in the comics is just further proving how dysfunctional they are (like, do they think this is going to sell us on the ship?). I also thought it was strange that apparently Zuko and Mai liked each other since they were kids but Mai never bothered to write him his entire banishment, Zuko never thought about her, Iroh never mentions her, Zuko was totally fine with going on a date with Jin (which Iroh also encouraged), and Iroh thought Zuko and Katara would make a good couple as soon as he saw them interacting as friends. It makes me think Bryke just created Mai and put her with Zuko as a way to discourage Zutara shippers but then forgot to develop her properly. Zuko doesn't even think about Mai after she risked his life to save him lol.

I'm about to make this a long answer, sorry about that :)

I love narrative, and I love to analyze how it is built. Narrative is the way a story is shaped to express its themes. Narrative is using the events within the story to build metaphors. Narrative is the smart foreshadowing, the parallels, the foils. Narrative is intentional, until it isn't.

I am not a professional. I do not have a college degree on this subject. I just like to think about what can make writing be great or lacking. I am merely expressing my personal opinion on this show and these characters, not stating an universal truth.

ATLA is such a well-written show. It treats its themes maturely and builds the story and characters masterfully. Of course, it isn't perfect, as nothing made by human hands is meant to be. ATLA has issues with its storyline and characters and, ultimately, with the narrative itself.

Aang's character arc is different to Zuko's in that, while Zuko's is focused on change, Aang's ultimately ends with him standing his ground. (And isn't that poetic? That in order to grow they need to embrace the philosophy of their opposite element?)

Zuko was forced to change in order to survive from a very young age. He learned to suppress his true, compassionate nature, to become The Perfect Prince—that which Azula embodies. When Zuko fails to do this, he is burnt and tossed away and forced to change once more. He has been hurt and thus is the farthest he has ever been from his true self—Zuko almost forgets who he is.

Zuko's arc, in that way, is similar to Aang's. It's about staying true to himself, but also about learning, about opening his eyes to the horror and using that same passion he has always had to do the right thing. Zuko changes, not into the person he was, but into someone who could, in the future, turn into the better version of himself.

Aang is different. Aang is a child born into peace, who does not have the personal, terrible experience of his people's genocide or the hundred years of war that have left the world wrecked. Aang's arc is about changing and learning and adapting to this new reality, about accepting his role as the Avatar. But it's also about standing firm and saying, "This is who I am, this is where I come from—pain will not break me".

Aang's struggle to control the Avatar State was all about that. The Avatar State meant that Aang lost control. It meant the pain and the hurt had turned him into a thing of anger (righteous as it was) and instinct and awe. Aang needed to be at peace with himself in order to control the Avatar State.

That tiny rock at the final battle felt like an easy way out. It felt like taking from the sheer terror of watching yourself almost kill a man as if from afar. The real moment of triumph for Aang in the finale happened when he stopped. It happened when he took control back and ended the Avatar State, stopping himself from betraying what he believed in.

Was not killing Ozai truly the best choice? I won't get into that debate. I know where I stand on it, but it's not really the point I'm trying to make here.

Aang's triumph, character-wise, happens when he stands his ground and refuses to abandon who he is and what he believes in. And for someone whose flight or fight response almost always turns to flight, this is a huge deal.

Now, where do Katara and Mai stand on this?

It has always been clear to me (even as a Maiko shipper) that Mai was always supposed to be a narrative device. Her relationship with Zuko is supposed to give us, the viewers, and him, another reason to see that this isn't the life he wants, that everything isn't perfect even when it should be on paper.

Zuko goes back home. Zuko is welcomed by his nation with open arms. He is revered. Loved. His father tells him he is proud of him. Zuko has a doting girlfriend—a beautiful, noble girl who can kick his ass and is everything a Fire Prince could wish for. She is adequate and things with her are easy, untroubled. Zuko has everything he could wish for.

And yet he is not happy.

Mai and Zuko have issues that should not be pinned fully on either of them. They had trouble comunicating. They wanted different things in life. They had different ways to look at the world. Different ways to look at each other. Different ways to cope. Different ways to express themselves. Different expectations.

And that's okay. It's possible to make a relationship like that work. Nobody is perfect and no relationship is flawless. Opposites attract and it's possible to find a middle ground in which they can both be happy.

Except they never truly did.

Mai and Zuko's relationship was a plot device. One that did its job damn well... Until it didn't.

If your relationship with the girl is supposed to symbolize the lowest point in your life, and going back into being someone you don't like anymore, then why get back to her when the story is over?

As for Katara, well...

Many things have been said about the abandoned Letting Go Of Katara arc. I'd like to avoid that discussion right now, if that's okay.

I think Zuko and Katara's relationship would have made a lot of sense both narratively and thematically, but also (and most importantly) it would have made sense character-wise.

Give them a few years, let them explore the beautiful friendship they had at the end of the series. Let them find themselves and grow into their roles in this different, exciting new world. Let them reconnect.

If they fall in love in the process? Well, maybe it was a long time coming.

[fumifooms]

Namalin

Namari x Falin

Easy short rarepair spotlight post for prosperity~ This one I didn’t think of on my own for once, I don’t know if it’s just I forgot the decided-on ship name or what but I remember seeing really nice art and a couple posts about it that I can’t find again 💔 Namalin warrior you are out there and not forgotten ty for making me see the light

I like that Namari’s critical of Falin! I have a whole character analysis on Falin if you’re interested, but it’s generally well noticed that people around Falin idealize her a lot. Laios, Marcille and Toshiro all put her on a pedestral of ultimate goodness in the world, a saintess if nothing short of perfection. Sounds like Chilchuck felt sort of creeped out by her vibes, uncomfortable because he couldn’t read her, so unlike Namari it seems he preferred steering clear of her rather than debate opposed ideologies like he usually does. Makes sense if unlike Namari his issue is with her cryptic aura rather than the stances she does show. "… The dungeon is no place for soft hearts" my ultimate namalin scene <333 It’s fun because while this scene is there to show us a lot of things, mostly to establish Falin’s characters better as it’s the first flashback of her we get, the conflict in it is more than anything else Falin vs Namari in how they contrast and clash and approach situations differently. Namari wants security in swift effective violence and thinks Falin too soft for her own good when she prefers a pacifist approach and promotes compassion even for the "undeserving" in Namari’s eyes. Falin steps between the battle ready Namari and the ghost, fearless. Falin effortlessly gently exorcises the ghost without one step back, quickly. Falin proves someone wrong. Falin proves someone wrong.

I love thinking of Namari being surprised when she learns new aspects of Falin. I like Falin having the power to shape people’s views on her. With Falin ships the most fun part for me is usually that point where Falin/the relationship becomes a clean slate: the person realizes they haven’t been seeing all of her, realizes there’s more of her they hadn’t noticed or that she hadn’t shown, that there’s change, a shift in the views on each other and the dynamic a bit.

Namari often feels like an external view looking in to me… I need to make a proper analysis on her but like. I made a lamari post once (analytic more than personally invested rip sorry) and I go with the same Namari take here, I think she’s someone who tends to have an outsider view on people and relationships if that makes sense, she’s a coworker before anything else and she’s content staying at a distance, she’s not objective per se but she tries to keep feelings out of her choices and how she sees people (her lil arc on not staying to save Falin despite the existing camaderie but in the end asking to work for the Flokes more because she wants to stay with them). She’s serious no nonsense on the job but friendly off the job and likes having casual friends, but she’s not… She doesn’t really feel connected to the group. She’s so focused on doing her job, even if she does get impulsive and passionate and too assertive for her bosses’ tastes, so focused on working her reputation and life from the ground up that that professionalism and attitude limits her social life. It doesn’t help that her reputation makes her widely judged, so she probably enters social spaces on the derensive. The closest person she was to pre-canon as far as we knew was Chilchuck and even they have a very "coworker I get along with" dynamic more than friends, with a similar sense of boundaries, humor and world view. Also like canon says a few time, the party didn’t really try to get to know each other well pre-canon, didn’t hang out after work often no one knew where Marcille was from and no one thought that was weird (also how no one had the instinct to ask about Senshi’s past) etc, the notable exception is we’re shown Namari and Chilchuck hitting taverns together and having a grand time. Everyone’s fine with things as they are, they get along decent even if not everyone considers each other friends exactly. Where I’m getting at is that to me, it feels like she tries keeping emotional distance. Emotional distance from people in general being something which in my interpretation of Falin is also present, which would make it a theme and common thread interesting to explore imo. But yes like, Namari looking at Falin, and how everyone treats her, and being more skeptical, seeing her for what she is a little more, maybe even uncharitable. "Why is everyone treating her like she’s all that? She’s gentle sure but seems like a doormat to me" and then one day she comes running up with her mace ready to cave in someone’s face to protect Laios. So yeah… Keeping her distance but one day Falin offering her some gentleness that feels very too personal for someone who’s not used to being genuine and simply showing that they care… Them talking a bit which leaves her stumped and mindblown in a quiet way when Falin defies her expectations. Namari growing on Falin when she stays and decides to open herself up more, or when Falin ends up reading her really well like she’s shown to do with her parents and Marcille’s worries. She’s very attuned to worrying and why and when different people do it especially when it comes to when they worry for others, perhaps because she does a lot of that too, so I think she’d nail down how Namari does care for the rest of the party and it’d make Namari feel seen both in a warm validating way and in a scared naked way.

We see in the tentacles chapter that she’s someone’s who’s very protective and looks out for her peers in a tough love way. She’s overbearing but it’s because she wants everyone to have the best chances. I like that she’s very confrontational and somewhat pushy and rude, but it’s tough love, it’s protective care: asserting herself to better protect and defend. The opposite of Falin’s type of care, quiet and self-sacrificial devotion. They’re barbarian x healer but they’re also bodyguard x bodyguard in their attitude and role. … What I want for them is slow burn slice of life of being coworkers and slowly getting to know each other better, pretty fluffy, but god, put this way they’d have the potential to be such a hot layered mess of insanely mutually devoted codependence… Falin taking a hit for Namari and Namari being scarred by it forever, lots of arguments about it, my god.

I like that she’s the fighter to Falin’s healer. I looove thinking of scenes of Falin healing Namari, necessitating touch and like, a moment of slowing down and sitting together in silence, too intimate, the perfect opportunity to connect that neither truly want to take until one day they do. I love how onesided I imagine the relationship would be at first. Again, as per my interpretation of Falin, I think Namari would have all these little observations and opinions on Falin meanwhile Falin really doesn’t think of Namari much at first. So Namari thinks a lot about Falin and thinks she’s got her pinned down but hasn’t (not that she’s fully wrong, she’d have credit and confront Falin on some of her flaws like the doormat thing), while Falin is very passive about Namari and doesn’t think deeply about her or anything but she read Namari’s insecurities and logic well. Not unlike how Laios was the one who seemed to understand Namari’s way of care the best in the party in the tentacles episode, and how he was very understanding of her choice and reasons. In Falin’s case it’s more like, the objectivity of passivity… She cares about Namari less than Laios who generally seeks to form bonds, so her lack of investment allows her a neutral perspective. In that way another parallel with Namari that I’m drawing, except Namari lets feelings from her opinions seeps in more… Onesided beef my beloved. I’m going insane save me this post was a mistake. I think Falin takes the crumbs of friendship and love where she can without expecting or asking for anything more than what’s offered, and I think her relationship with Namari (or anyone really) would start out the way it did with Marcille: the other takes the initiative and they end up spending time together, Falin is friendly but unattached until the bond gets gradually and wordlessly strenghtened through regularly spending moments together. So! I think Namari would need to take a lot of the first steps, which since again she’s confrontational & argumentative and doesn’t hold herself back on that front that could spark a lot of conversations I think. Ooor since Falin cares about Namari less than Laios and Marcille she allows herself to be bolder herself lol. Or also circumstances force them to spend time together like dungeon party getting separated shenanigans.

I think their personalities match cutely, I think falin would try to protect namari like she does others but also Namari simply doesn’t need protection, just support. And I think they’re complementary in that way that Namari’s friendly but also won’t sugarcoat things, and I think if she takes an interest in Falin it could go from there and she could develop some understanding of her and idk like an intrigued crush….

Namari wants stability & security & to, like, not be judged and rejected and exiled lol, to find her nest her pack the place where she feels good and wanted in. I think having a fitting partner would help in that (similarly to how the found family with the Flokes seemed to. Oh another parallel, Falin’s top priority is protecting Laios her brother and what Namari are a family figure) and I think Falin would fulfill that cozy protection and that warm ‘being seen and not judged’ feeling. But also Namari would run up to her and yell about her trying to sacrifice herself ever.

Another fun thread to explore: post-canon guilt for not having gone to save her. Sure, they weren’t close, but they had some nice memories, didn’t they? Namari cares, and it stings despite herself when it feels like people think she doesn’t. Oh it wasn’t a lost cause after all, oh it’d have worked out, oh I could have stayed loyal and it wouldn’t have compromised myself in the end. Wanting to apologize to Falin, or just ahnging out with her and sharing a moment after she wakes up. And tangent but that’s interesting to think about… Narratively, I think the purpose of Namari and Toshiro in the story, beyond strenghtening the theme of "seek to understand what is different from you and promote unity despite them" and fleshing the cast and worldbuilding, is Toshiro’s purpose was being a foil & tool in Laios’ arc (trouble connecting with people) while Namari’s was being and a foil & tool in Marcille’s arc (standing up for ideals without being out of touch with harsh realities and needs). They are the conflict that push our protagonists to grow— and they explore different ways of dealing with a situation or topic, different ways of growing into themselves on that end: Laios needing to listen to others more and Toshiro needing to focus on voicing himself more to be able to connect, Marcille needing to learn ideals sometimes cost too much and Namari needing to internalize that ideals are sometimes worth risks (not only to be able to find a reasonable but fulfilling life balance, but also to get in touch with their compassion: Namari restricts her own too much and Marcille is too harsh on people she deems to be breaking values, like Namari not risking her life and career for a friend with no promise of success, or even like how Namari is harsh on Falin’s way of doing things : too gentle, too soft, too idealistic) (similarly to Chilchuck’s arc with Marcille too, and he also plays a hand in advancing that arc in the Namari chapters). We are getting far from namalin sorry ummm preview for future analyses like Toshiro’s contrasting approach to grief and accepting loss.

More post-canon namalin! Thinking about a timeline where… Namari is fond of Falin finding herself and going off to do her thing. "Finally!" she thinks. If she’s still for hire, maybe Falin would want her to come along, either as guide or bodyguard <3, she knows Namari has a lot of good avice on a lot of things to give, plus they’ve worked together before. She hires Namari and they travel for a bit. Travel would do Namari good too I think, even if her end goal is to settle and I think Falin’s would be too eventually. Seeing sights that light her wonder for the world and going places where people don’t know her story, don’t recognize her face or her name. Them, feeling free. Finding a companionship that feels uplifting instead of stifling or charged. Namari having been too in her head about reputation and social games and money that they hit the roads and spend time in nature and it’s like, woah. I’ve been living in a small world with made up rules.

Ahh yes romance, Namari and Falin kissing after 3 years of not really knowing each other despite seeing each other every day then 2 months of wanting to spend more and more time together until they’re an inseparable duo! Workwives. I want them to stand next to each other during campire time and Namari cracks little jokes and Namari laughs. I want Namari to gift Falin a bug caught in amber and for it to be their wedding/promised to each other thing.

TLDR

Rowdy but levelheaded barbarian x gentle healer that will also cave your face in with a mace I like it…… They’re an interesting duo of mixed stuff. Protection being your purpose and what you’re worth for, literally being a meat shield (Laios, Tansu), finding your individuality recognized and validated through a growing bond with the other. Sticking around as a love language. Also bug immortalized in amber and it being beautiful.

Nevermind this wasn’t short. Um! Anyways.

[girlwonder-writes]

Tommy Thoughts: The Army Bros Meta In My Writing

As a follow up to this, because @nine-one-wanton suggested it, I wanted to a separate post about how my interpretation of the friendship between Eddie and Tommy affects the stories I am currently writing.

Disclaimer: A lot of my writing recently is based off my interpretation of Eddie's character and something I read about Ryan saying that Chimney's bachelor party was the first time in a long time that Eddie was able to let loose and unwind. I forgot where I read it, honestly, and it was a while ago. The point is that if you want to support my writing and enjoy any of it, this is the guiding principle in my characterization of Eddie you should keep in mind as you read my work.

In order to understand where I am going with this, it's important for the reader to understand the scope of my writing. Harbor Station Stories was originally conceived as a parallel world to canon, where Harbor Station/the 217 had its own thing going on and Tommy had his small group of work friends. It was intended Tommy focused and all from his POV. Then my brain started filling out backstory and started making notes about the various work friends I had created, which then became the genesis for what I'm calling in my notes The Main Stories, based on each of my original characters. Olivia Chambers, who started off as just Tommy's best friend, started giving me Main Character Energy and one night, I wondered to myself, How well would she get along with Eddie? That was the genesis for Beyond the Legacy, which in turn is a series with the Main Stories from Olivia's POV.

Again, a lot of the friendship between Tommy and Eddie is implied here, since my focus has been on Olivia's POV in Running Just To Catch Herself (The first story in Behind the Legacy). But there are stories in the works that would elaborate on Tommy's POV during the same time period that would emphasize the friendship between him and Eddie. In my mind, they've been hanging out a little in the time between 7x04 and 7x10, sparring and talking. Most of their friendship so far is likely phone calls and text messages, considering how inseparable I imagine Tommy and Evan are when their schedules align. But I do head canon that Muay Thai is an Army Bros bonding activity.

In Chapter 1, it's immediately clear that Tommy not only supports Evan's friendship with Eddie and isn't jealous of it, he even goes as far as supporting Evan's plan to introduce Eddie to Olivia to try to cheer him up after Christopher's departure. While it isn't Tommy's idea directly to introduce his best friend to Eddie, he goes along with it, primarily because he thinks it would be good for both of them. I wanted this to drive home the point that Tommy thinks highly of Eddie, highly enough to introduce his best friend to him.

In Chapter 2, you see Eddie run into the factory explosion fire to rescue River as Evan is trying to talk Olivia out of running in behind him. While it's not very clear at first glance what motivates Eddie to act because the story is told from Olivia's POV, you can (and should) safely assume that at the very least, Eddie heard Evan and agrees with him about holding Olivia back. But you can also infer that Eddie has learned about Tommy's friendship with Olivia in the 2-3 days between trivia night and the factory explosion call. I personally imagine one of those group calls but it's Tommy, Evan & Eddie. Or maybe them playing video games together.

In Chapter 3, After he takes the time to listen to Olivia's gratitude for saving River, Eddie asks her if he's checked in with Tommy and Evan, which is meant to suggest that Eddie cares not only about them as as individuals but also considers them as a couple and a unit after a short amount of time. Here, I intended to establish Tommy's importance to be on par with Evan as far as Eddie is concerned.

Also, at the end of Chapter 3, Olivia hears Tommy come in as he's wrapping up a phone call. “Thanks for letting me know. I gotta go.” Olivia doesn't know who's on the phone. It's Eddie, telling Tommy about his conversation with her the previous night, which suggests that he's close enough to Tommy to want to report about the conversation he had with Olivia, in that 'She's important to you so she's important to me' sort of vibe.

In Chapter 4 and 5, Eddie has adorable interactions with Olivia, which leads into the next bit of insight into the Army Bros in Chapter 6 and it's very subtle when Olivia reaches out to Eddie to make plans and he makes her wait until the day of the gala to make plans, possibly to consult Tommy at the very least. [To be honest, I haven't fully thought out the implications of this but in my head and in my notes, there was definitely a conversation had between Tommy and Eddie about Olivia after that text came in. Going to have to add it into the Tommy POV fic of the day of the Gala.]

In Chapter 7, we find out that Tommy hasn't mentioned anything to Eddie about Olivia's transfer to the 118 and the subsequent tension. While it was established previously that Tommy and Evan are on par in importance here, at least compared to each other for Eddie, it's made clear here that while Tommy views Eddie as an important friend, Olivia will always be Tommy's #1. And I think Eddie understands that dynamic enough to offer himself up as a support to Olivia, in a 'You're important to Tommy, so you're important to me' sort of way, which was established by his initial offer to Olivia to hang out in Chapter 3, which was done to set up both the Eddie/Olivia dynamic AND also show Eddie as a thoughtful friend to Tommy.

Tommy invites Eddie to come along for Olivia's birthday dinner. In my mind, Tommy has clocked the dancing and noticed Eddie and Olivia getting along great. This is the first time he's seen them interact since trivia night and I imagine he's glad that his best friend and his Army Bro have hit it off. He can definitely see that they're enjoying each other's company but doesn't necessarily jump to the romantic conclusion. And he doesn't have to come up with a reason to include Eddie in the dinner party he's hosting, so that works for Tommy, as there is a connection to the birthday girl. He's extending his friend group to include Eddie, which circles back around to Chapter 1 and Evan's desire to help keep Eddie's mind off of his troubles after Chris' departure. Tommy also helps Eddie come up with a gift for the birthday girl, not knowing that Eddie and Olivia have spent her birthday together, thinking that his advice was strictly for impressing a new friend. Again, it's vague in the story because Olivia is not privy to this.

There's a whole other dynamic when you consider the Olivia Factor, which is outside the scope of this particular post. But I think this covers most of what I've written so far in the Beyond the Legacy series. There's definitely going to be more as the series progresses.

[badcaseofcasey]

one single thread of gold (tied me to you) | Part 2 aka: my Steddie soulmates au, Eddie's POV (Part 1) (Steve's POV)

a/n: since writing Steve's POV, I've realized that Chrissy specifically mentions Eddie being in Hawkins for middle school, but I already had Tommy/Carol establish that Eddie moved to Hawkins for his sophomore year - so that's what we're going with lol. Canon is just a suggestion anyway.

The experimental chemo had worked - for a time. Eddie’s mom was able to go back to work, and spend time with him outside of the hospital. For a while, it looked like she’d been able to escape the worst of it; but the cancer came back, and this time, no amount of chemo or radiation could bring his mom back.

His mom’s death had been hard on him, but he was surprised by how much it affected his dad. The fun-loving, if irresponsible, dad who had taken him on joyrides and taught him how to repair (and hotwire) cars was gone; instead, a sullen, often-drunk person had taken his place and Eddie had started spending pretty much every school holiday with Wayne.

Eddie didn’t mind at first; the lack of any parental supervision meant he could do basically whatever he wanted. He explored the city’s music scene, went to every venue that would let him in, and soaked up the world of counterculture. He sewed patches on vests and learned power chords on borrowed guitars and found a version of himself that could handle losing his mom to cancer and slowly losing his dad alongside her.

As the years went by, though, his dad’s drinking got worse and worse, and eventually he forgot to be careful when he stole a car and got picked up for grand theft auto. Tack on the possession charges from the weed in his pocket, along with the DUI, and Eddie’s dad wasn’t getting out of jail for a long time.

In hindsight, it was probably one of the best things that had happened to Eddie.

But it came with moving to Hawkins, which, while Eddie loved his uncle, was exactly the sort of backwater town where a guy like Eddie would stick out like a sore thumb. His long hair and dark clothes immediately set him apart from the crowd, and the rumors about him coming to Hawkins because of his screw-up of a father didn’t help.

Hawkins really was the last place Eddie wanted to be, truly; if he couldn’t help the small flame of excitement that lit every time he remembered that Hawkins was where he got his words, no one needed to know but him. The chance of seeing his soulmate again was far outweighed by the rest of it.

Starting at Hawkins High as a sophomore was rare - most of the kids had known each other since Kindergarten. Eddie had resigned himself to being a loner as soon as he’d walked in the doors on day one. That was fine by him - at this point, he was comfortable not fitting in.

He was shoving his textbooks into the locker he’d been assigned by the bored woman in the front office when a shiver rolled down his spine. He jerked his head up to see what had caught his attention and his eyes landed on a slightly scrawny freshman in a butter yellow polo shirt.

Something about him drew Eddie’s attention; maybe it was the way he was so the opposite of everything Eddie was. Or maybe it was that he embodied everything about the mainstream that Eddie had learned to hate.

“Steve!”

The kid’s head turned at the name, called from further down the hall. As Steve passed Eddie, he could feel his heart thundering against his ribs, disbelief and disappointment coursing through him.

Eddie had waited more than five years to see his soulmate again, and this is what the universe had in store for him?

Eddie couldn’t help but stare at Sir Steve, his once-knight in shining armor, as he passed by. Steve was clearly popular - even for a freshman. He drew eyes as he walked down the hallway towards Eddie and more than one girl turned to face her friends and giggled as he walked by.

Steve’s eyes caught Eddie’s, and for a moment, a part of Eddie hoped Steve had recognized him. But that moment passed; no flash of recognition, no bolt of lightning from the heavens. Steve’s eyes drifted on to the next person and left Eddie behind.

taglist (as always, let me know if you'd like to be added/taken off!): @awkwardgravity1 @infinitetrashbag @vampireinthesun @swimmingbirdrunningrock @maya-custodios-dionach @thev01dd @obsessivlyme @a-little-unsteddie @anything-thats-rock-and-roll @spectrum-spectre @red-panderz69 @magpiemuseum @minjintea @finalmoondragonn @thatonebadideapanda @estrellami-1 @freyaforestafay @biatcgh @sadcanadianwinter @im-sam-fucking-winchester @bidisastersworld @justanothergirlwithobsessions @anaibis @thing-a-ling @rosered93 @newtstabber @void-o-chaos @thegingerrapunzel @baron-zemo-trash @katireads @child-of-cthulhu @the-s-is-silent @i-must-potato @hellomynameismoo @lovelylilbadone @theotalksalot @lydi-cyan @background-noise-headache @idontgetpaidenoughforthisshit @slitherynchiken @grapefruitgalaxy @bookbinderbitch @luthienstormblessed @blues-tunes @murdblurdock @grtwdsmwhr @xpaperheartso @anaibis @thedyingwriter

[cloveroctobers]

can you do head canons on what it would be like to date Layla keating? Preferably female reader but gender neutral is also good! It’s okay if you don’t want to ofc!

HEADCANONS DATING LAYLA ・❥✧.* ・❥・

A/N: why not? It’s nothing too long but there’s some cute moments in there. I think present Layla…like end of season 5 Layla would actually make a good girlfriend once she knows what she wants that is! But let me take that back, most of the previous relationships kinda did her dirty so she was somewhat valid. Anyways we’re talking about Layla with a fem! Interest here and I wrote this pretty quick which is why I love HCS so thanks for this request, hope you like it!

・❥✧.*・❥・・❥✧.*・❥・・❥✧.*・❥・・❥✧.*

It takes a minute for the relationship to kick off since Layla’s been lost in love before while also feeling like her previous relationships didn’t value her as a person or really get her they way that they should.

With you, the love was patient and kind and Layla’s actually the first to initiate your very first kiss.

She’s horrified by the impulse she’s pulled and a stuttering mess, “oh my god, I can’t believe I just did that, especially when you were just mid-sentence—I—I don’t even know what that was—

“Yeah, how rude.” You comment, lips swollen and Layla almost appears as if she wants to melt into a puddle and crawl away like a 90s cartoon, which makes a smile spread over your own lips, “Nobody should ever cut me off when I’m trying to show you Rihanna’s iconic pregnancy photos but—if it’s only by your lips, I’ll let it slide Keating, so come here.”

And now she’s shocked because you’re actually kissing her!

You establish what the relationship is going to be that same day after the first kiss, not making any assumptions and always laying it out on the table.

The communication between you two? *Chef’s kiss*

Patience is all grins and prideful when she gains knowledge of the relationship when you stop by with lunch one day, “you bitches! Am I the first one out of the Vortex to know that this is actually a thing?”

You did greet Layla with a kiss and a cup of her round face that she almost forgot Patience was even in the studio (she was practically melting by your touch) with you so yeah!

Layla’s all starry eyed as she rests her neck into the palm of her hand, lounging on the couch beside a curled up you, your hand on her thigh, smiling.

“Yup! But just know, she’s mine and I don’t plan on sharing her with you, or Coop.” Layla warns, not daring to envision a break up with you and the glare she sends Patience let’s the raspy girl raise her hands in surrender.

When coop does find out she’s all for third wheeling dates, hanging out with you guys—which is fine sometimes but ofc you also love your alone time as well.

Layla is the protective gf, someone staring at you weird in public? she makes sure to stay close and block you from their eye sight.

Taser is never too far from her reach, believe that!

If someone upset you? She’s ready to call them up and cuss them out/read them to filth or locate their whereabouts? She’s pulling up, might even throw a restraining order in their face—if it’s harassment status because hello business woman about her shit who doesn’t play!!! especially when it comes to you!

She loves your nose kisses, especially if you’re shorter than her.

Staying over at her place? She likes cold sheets and room while you prefer warm no matter the weather in California (yeah it still doesn’t make much sense to her either, maybe you’re anemic) and it’s no different in her bed. So ofc you’re gonna use her long legs as body heat.

She also likes playing footies and sleeps with fuzzy socks on?

“Layla! Why are the fuzzies in the bed?” Your eyes are wide with bewilderment while Layla chuckles, replying to one last text message before placing it back on the night stand and turns around so you’re face to face.

“Is there a problem?” “Yeah! Who goes to bed with socks on?” “Your girlfriend.” Layla blinks, waiting for you to challenge her more. “I think we should break up.” “Is the break up in the room with us right now?” Basically she knows you’re not going anywhere and will learn to love her quirks, which you already do and it’s likewise on her end so the both of you fall into laughter.

Lots of pillowtalking. Y’all love to just talk with each other about any and everything. If you get to do it laying down somewhere? You’ll be the first two to sign on the line!

Queens of taking naps as dates for 10 points Gryffindor!

She’s the big spoon! Occasionally she’ll let you spoon her if she’s under the weather or having a bad mental health day.

You do have to remind her to take breaks now that she’s reaching big heights as a record producer.

When she’s really stressed out about a track or anything circulating around a certain artist, you take her mind elsewhere for a mental break for at least an hour—usually giving her some sense of direction on how to handle the problem.

Both great at problem solving but mainly Layla is—you’re always team “I’ll figure it out later!” While Layla’s mind is always running until it reaches the edge and slamming right into a brick wall—but it works for her somehow.

The both of you enjoy board games with Layla liking games like scrabble, puzzles, and monopoly and you like clue, LIFE, and card games. If the both of you are on the same team with the rest of the vortex? You’re always the top two couple that’s hard to beat.

Lots of hand holding and chin pressed into your shoulder.

She likes having you as her passenger princess, enjoying the thought of you being beside her and she looks just as gorgeous whipping her ride around with ease, hand in yours.

She’ll spoil you with shopping sprees and always wants your opinion when she’s trying on clothes. She loves trying on clothes while you hate it but do it because she hates the return process since most high-end stores have shitty policies.

Idk I can see Layla getting involved with someone who wants to go into the medical field so while she’s got her career figured out, she’ll help you study for all your lab exams.

“I can’t wait to have my own personal Cristina Yang…or are you more of a Miranda Bailey?” Layla wanders while you just laugh tiredly at the dining table, head collapsed along your arm.

Definitely a supportive gf: will encourage you with clues that she’ll relate to any of your obsessions to help you get the answer right, massages, kisses, and strip teases.

Loves you in her clothes but she actually steals more of yours.

Always has you help her curl the back of her hair with her curling wand when she wants to wear it curly.

Starts wearing it more that way when you tell her how pretty in curls she looks, which you notice.

You’re the most active gf out of the two (you were a complete gym rat in high school and gave the boys a run for their money. You were also on the volleyball team back then and loved the whole gains aspect and working on your arms) and layla tends to only turn to exercise when she’s having a bad day.

You’re not as deep into the gym now thanks to declaring biomedical sciences as your major but you kept your workouts to at least three times a week and doing at home workouts every now and then.

You’ll have to drag Layla to take hikes with you—she rather do the hikes since the scenery is quite beautiful and you in cycling shorts?! is always a great sight to witness but 🤫

She prefers hot yoga or Pilates tbh.

The always busy couple who never find a reason to be bored and definitely keep each other entertained.

Want to go on a road trip or night drive? Layla only questions if it’s going to be a 24 hr thing or a couple of days so she can pack accordingly and make sure things will be handled at the studio in her absence. Any chance she gets to spend one on one time with you? She’s doing it.

You come up with spontaneous adventures, Layla just needs to know how far and the weather so she can prepared.

Whatever she wears, you’ll be sure to tell her how much you love something on her.

Words of affirmation are big in this relationship. 

I do feel like she’s more physically affectionate and you may be more verbal, perhaps that has to do with your professions/desires with Layla always having her hands in music and you constantly thinking out loud when it comes to the sciences and simple human nature—if we’re looking into it deeply.

You’re always reading world science articles to her btw and even if she doesn’t quite get it…she listens just like you do when she lets you listen in on the beats that get sent over to her by the engineer.

She doesn’t mind PDA at all, most of the time she’s always the one touching you and finding some way to touch you unconsciously.

Layla’s never felt like this before, a fresh love that didn’t have to feel complicated, questionable, or suffocating. She could be herself around you and knew she was falling in love whenever she would daze off just staring at you while you talked or just simply listening to the sound of your voice.

“You’re my favorite person, I hope you know that.” Layla finds herself saying on one of your many drives.

You pause in your balled up side of the car, “I’m starting to believe you…why else would you listen to me damage my vocal cords to a Whitney Houston song?”

Layla snorted, “…you have a nice tone.”

“Sure but I’m no Whitney.”

“You can be my Whitney. Because I’ll always wanna dance with you, my somebody who loves me.” She lightly sings

Gagging at Layla, you slap her thigh, “the cheese! I can’t take it!”

“Oh you love it! Don’t you wanna dance! Say you wanna dance!”

You wiggle your shoulders and flip your hair forward and over your face making Layla whoop and snap her fingers, twinkles in her dark eyes.

Laughing you smooth your hair back and reach forward to meddle with the staticky radio before looking for the aux cord.

The silence was just as comforting with the both of you driving down the dirt road, side by side but it was even better singing the lyrics to songs declaring your love for each other.

A love that’s worth it, deserves to be screamed together into the sky, to be felt and genuine

and you were sure a love with Layla Keating was just that.

・❥✧.* ・❥・・❥✧.* ・❥・・❥✧.* ・❥・・❥✧.*

Continue along with my spring anthology series here.

[fire-branded]

8 & 14

8. What makes you stray away from canon material and base your character, in case of canon muse, on your own headcanons?

A lack of detail, most of all. If canon gives me the barest bones of information to work with, I will run with that sliver of info, dive into Headcanon Land, and never look back.

Or canonical details that I feel don't line up well enough with other details established in the content(game, in this case), things that come across to me as contradictory, things that I don't personally feel comfortable with utilizing(especially when it comes to ages of characters), or information presented in the Ultimania that don't make sense with what we know from the game itself. Because for me, the game's lore takes precedence over an outside source like the Ultimania. (Though no shade to anyone who does choose to use its info.)

That and just... the general notion of adding a personalized touch to my blorbo, you know? I do try to use canon material as at the very least a basic foundation and build off of it, but sometimes there's not enough background information, so you just have to fill in all of the details yourself.

Especially when the character you're playing as dies within the first like fifteen to twenty minutes of the fucking game, and you learn more about him through other characters than through actually ever having gotten to know him through seeing him.

14. What is the most annoying fact or trait or fanon that is attached to your muse and bothers you?

I ... admittedly have no idea. I never kept up with fandom opinions outside of my little corner here on Tumblr. Like, I'm sure Twitter and Reddit and whatnot have A Lot to say regarding him as a person, regarding his parenting, regarding his rulership over Rosaria, etc.

There is one fact that bothers me, even though I can see where people get the idea from overall despite me disliking the theory. And that's the theory that Elwin and Hanna Murdoch were having an affair behind Anabella(and Rodney too I guess?)'s back.

I can, again, understand where the theory comes from, despite heavily hating it. I don't hate it purely because of my personal feelings towards adultery; I just don't see it as a proven fact. The absence of evidence does not make evidence. We don't see enough of Elwin and Anabella on a personal, more intimate level to know what their relationship was like behind closed doors. We know Anabella was pissed at Elwin, yeah -- but again, in my personal opinion, her grievances sounded more directed at his method of and priority while ruling(putting the people first, and their territory/land second), and the decisions he made combined with his ambitions for the duchy's future. Her remarks in her Inner Thoughts thing are surprisingly neutral, with statements like, "My husband, for better or worse" and ... I forgot what exactly the one with Phoenix Gate was, but it read to me like, "Nothing personal, kid".

We also know that Elwin is very big on being an honorable, just, compassionate, and duty-driven man, and I personally doubt that excludes in his personal/familial life.

Again, these are all my personal views and interpretations.

Even the fact that Hanna still had Elwin's old outfit and whatnot doesn't automatically spell "cheating" to me, considering the home is the Murdoch's home, and Elwin and his family visited Eastpool to spend time with the Murdochs there every summer, where the description says Elwin left the clothes there to wear every time he returned to Eastpool on vacation. It screams of sentimentality to me, of the same intense grief and not wanting to move on that Hanna also shows towards Rodney. She still wears her wedding band, even nervously fidgets with it when she talks about Rodney having died at Phoenix Gate. The fact that she never moved away from Eastpool to seek refuge in Rosalith, didn't even move out of the Murdoch's home... The fact that she was selling other items from the house and family to take care of the people of Eastpool and the displaced Bearers, but never sold her wedding band, Elwin's clothes(including the Metian Bonds, which were forged for Elwin by his dad when Elwin came of age, as was tradition. They probably would have sold for a pretty penny.), or Invictus -- which was Rodney's sword.

She held on to these specific items that had been important to the two men, in my belief because of the strong emotional attachment she has to those items -- because those items are the only things she has left of Rodney and Elwin.

Oh god I rambled I AM SO SORRY.

[sakuracyanide]

independent & selective zoisite of sailor moon. 90s canon-based with ample headcanon. multiverse. multiship. not spoiler free. do not interact if under 21. written by iri, established April 2024. personals can follow but do not interact with these posts, it interferes with tracking.

i. character focused, not ship focused. whether or not i ship a thing is largely based on if i feel our writing and characters click. i am multship and do not practice exclusivity on my blogs.

ii. i have precious little free and want to keep my non-work spaces chill and fun. we are smashing barbies together, please remember that. i work pretty hard to curate a chill space online which means i will unfollow for things like excessive negativity or serious real world topics being discussed w/o trigger warnings or under a cut. your blog is your space and i won't argue with you about how to run it, i take full responsibility for my online experience. unfollowing is very rarely personal & i'll still play with folks i break mutuals with, i just don't want to be sidelined by triggering content.

iii. speaking of little free time, activity will range from lightning fast to a snail's pace depending on how much i have going on in my offline life.

iv. if we're mutuals feel free to hit up my messenger. discord is available on request so long as you're chill with me forgetting to reply for 8000 years.

v. i have a lot of headcanons & use a mix of all canons, but the main version of the character i play is the 90s one. with that said i can veer into other canons (such as pgsm, musicals, etc) but please note that i only ship ami/zoisite as platonic soulmates.

vi. most importantly - i'm down to change or pivot direction to keep things fun in any thread.

vii. t feels important to mention have a medical issue that affects my memory so i would appreciate patience if i forget things. i don't mind being reminded to reply if something has been sitting for a long time! my short term memory and general sense of time is shot but i will wake up in a cold sweat six months later and remember i forgot to do something.

likewise, i genuinely do not remember if i have followed someone or not unless we interact often so i'd suggest blocking rather than softblocking if you don't want me refollowing. i don't take it personal, your space & your rules.

verses.

golden dreams. golden kingdom. set in the golden kingdom. a high-fantasy drama where i run wild with my headcanons. zoisite is madly in love with kunzite but is repressing it.

in the dark of the night. dark kingdom. 90s anime timeline.

the moonlight carries the mesasge of love. revival. after galaxia has been dealt with and metallia has been quelled, the reborn shitennou finally awake to their true power - their curses finally broken. marion, the reborn zoisite, makes his way from russia to japan and there - has to figure out how to make amends to the price he twice betrayed, and the guardians he tried to kill.

fragmentary abyss. honkai. one of diamond's four 'assistants', known for both his beauty and exceptional ruthlessness. zoisite has only ever known life in the ipc, and while he bears a stone name (and stone fragments) he is not considered to be a stoneheart.

all four of diamond's assistants are vidyadhara... though were may be the better tense. while all four were once high elders this is a title they can no longer hold. and the vidyadhara do not claim them as kin.

you see, these four were thought lost after the vidyadhara had to flee their homeland. their pearls were shattered, though it is difficult to know if this shattering occurred upon their deaths or if they were stolen and shattered in the attempt. there is no one left alive who can tell the true tale, and the men themselves hold but vague concepts of who and what they once were.

in time these fragments appeared on the black market, before finally falling into the hands of the IPC. they were pieced back together using fragments of cornerstones. they are not recognized by the vidyadhara as the same beings they once were and are viewed as abominations - the breathing equivalent of zombies. though they have access to many of the abilities now lost (shapeshifting, full dragon transformation, mastery of elements) they are unable to use cloud hymn magic and it is unknown if their mangled pearls will allow them to revive should they die again.

the sun goes out. genshin. in a past life, "zoisite" was the szhneznaya god dazhbog, who was said to rule over fire and the sun. dazhbog took many forms - a black tortise, a fire-breathing horse, a beautiful man and an equally beautiful woman. all imagery associated with this god has been lost to time, save for the descendants of his most devoted and the entities long-lived enough to remember his quick wit and sharp smile.

during the archon war, dazhbog aided the cryo archon and gained a new dominion - war. the god was known as a fierce combatant, unrelenting and unwilling to call defeat. he achieved victory at any cost - and, as he would go on to tell others, that cost was very nearly his soul itself. when the dust settled his kingdom was decimated, and he had lost the will to rule as a god after witnessing the cruelty that his kind inflicted upon their own. dazhbog left this homeland and ventured to khanri'ah with his three closest friends, believing that the time of gods was done and it was time to entrust the future of the world to mankind. the four of them took human form and worked as guardians to the royal family. they served as loyal guardians to the kingdom.

which... ultimately proved to be their downfall.

dazhbog became infected with forbidden knowledge. there was still enough of him to save, though what survived was but a fragment. dazhbog and his fellow gods faded from existence, 'reborn' centuries later as ostensibly human children. he was found abandoned at the foot of a the rubble of a long forgotten god, and was raised by handlers to be an assassin.

each reincarnated guardian bears the scars of what they had witnessed that day - for dazhbog, renamed zoisite, this manifested in his left eye. no longer did it bare the star-shaped pupils of his chosen human guise, it now looked like a nova. multiple pupils all within one gaze, the mark of one who had glimpsed truth not meant to be known.

zoisite was raised within the fatui, and due to his great talent and thirst for knwoledge, was sent on a mission as a spy (how active he is depends largely on who he's threading with) to sumeru where has been living since he was about thirteen. he's a scholar in spantamad as is well on his way to becoming sage.

he has a unique talent for magic, allowing him to use all elements offensively. it's rumored that his distorted eye (which he claims to be blind in, opting to cover it with his hair) grants him sight beyond sight. in truth, his abilities allow him to tug at the fabric of the reality.

a question of duty .final fantasy vii. a member of the turks, "zoisite" joined shinra with the intentions of becoming a SOLDIER as all young boys do. when this fell through, the young man was instead recruited by the turks.

hailing from cosmo canyon, zoisite has a surprising connection to the earth - if you trace his lineage back far enough, you'll find cetra. but not nearly enough to hear the planet's call. even if he could, the young man's thirst for power dwarfs his sense of duty to it.

[x0401x]

I think I've said this before, but I always reply to asks. No matter how long it takes. In this case, it took me a year. I can barely believe it. The way that grad school and living in Tokyo completely sucked away my free time is surreal. To be honest, I was expecting this, but I was hoping I'd be able to get back on track sooner. Words can't possibly express how sorry I am for the truly ridiculous delay.

Okay, now without further ado...

So, episode 11. By this point, it’s clear that the anime is trying to convince us that Eisuke is single-handedly guiding Tsujimine to the top. This unintentionally disregards the other members of the team and relegates them as nothing more than his less important supporters. That’s the same kind of narrative suicide that season 1 committed, except with Seiya instead. In S1, Seiya is the only character with a personality, basically because his canon personality is butchered and he’s turned into an amalgamation of other characters’ good traits, plus some weird yandere shit that the screenplay pushed onto him. The narrative makes him a participant of just about everything that happens, while dimming down everyone else, even the very protagonist of the story. It’s clear that KyoAni (read that as director Yamamura) couldn’t handle giving the spotlight to one character at a time and making them as rich and colorful as the original work, so they decided to invest all of the good stuff into just one character and make the fandom obsess with him. Which failed miserably, but we all already know how that went.

In the case of S2, this pattern is a little worse, even. The other boys of Tsujimine are barely there, and whenever they’re there, it’s to make Eisuke’s character shine through, never their own. And when it comes to team performance, almost like the team consists of just Eisuke, as if they’re part of the team only because there aren’t five of him. He’s basically a genius who does everything - he’s an individual archer, a team competitor, the team leader, the club counselor in place of their teacher who knows fuck-all about kyudo, and a coach, since their team has none. And he excels at all of that, which is not only unrealistic but also contradictory. It’s unrealistic because, like all Zen types of martial arts, kyudo takes experience and experience inevitably requires time. There’s no way a high school kid would be on the same level of knowledge and skill as certified practitioners and be able to look after four people while simultaneously doing his own practice. This is literally unheard of in the history of kyudo. And it’s contradictory because it was established in earlier episodes that Eisuke was taking advice from his uncle for coaching Tsujimine, so how come the story just forgot about this and started branding Eisuke as the one and only patron saint of his team?

In the book, Eisuke manages the team coaching by filming practice, showing it to Shigeru and getting precise advice every day, which he follows by heart. The team coach is actually Shigeru, not him. He’s also not the team counselor, and although he’s the most proactive member, the thing about Tsujimine is that they’re not a conventional team. All the boys have very outstanding personalities - one could even call them self-centered -, to an extent where it doesn’t seem like there’s an actual leader in the team. Everyone is just doing their business and none of them are particularly close to each other, but when it comes to kyudo, they all trust one another and nobody tries to meddle with each other’s way of doing things. Against what appearances might suggest, harmony comes naturally to them. This is something very unique of Tsujimine and it’s sad to see this dynamics ruined.

Other than that, this is one more example of the anime treating kyudo like a sport. Everyone keeps fawning over Eisuke, even people from other teams, and telling him that he should be proud of himself for his achievements. I could argue about how unnatural it feels to see teenagers behaving like that all the fucking time, but I don’t think I have to. And it’s all the more ridiculous when it comes to anything Zen-related. Being proud isn’t the point. Achievements aren’t the point. There’s no point but enlightenment. KyoAni seemed to be making an extra effort to show respect towards kyudo this time around in the first episodes, so I really wish they could’ve nailed this, but it’s hard to take the story seriously when it fails to understand the most basic thing about its core theme. So many things in this anime are such a blatant “don’t worry about it” that I have lost count, especially about the fundamental elements of kyudo.

Most important, though, is that this “Eisuke is God” thing is a disservice to Minato as a character. And I’m not even talking about the fact that Eisuke, the character who was supposed to be the “bad guy” of this arc, is getting more background story and emotional investment from the narrative than the protagonist himself. I mean the fact that he’s being given a role that was supposed to belong to Minato in the near future. Yes, I’m talking about his career plan to become a Shinto priest and a kyudo coach. It was set up from the very beginning in the novel. Throughout the whole story, we get glimpses of him already being on the path for that by being the kind of person who inspires others to shine their own colors. He gives prep talks to Ryouhei and Kaito, acknowledges Nanao’s efforts and lets Seiya indulge in his patience and forgiveness. He also gives people advice, like with Manji when he was about to get target panic. A lot of people seemed to interpret this as Minato being savage, but it was a candid warning. In volume 3, though, we get to see Minato actually do something very close to coaching. The way he encourages Hikaru in the most non-obvious, roundabout and abstract manner possible is exactly how kyudo coaching should be. He never tells Hikaru to do anything, just says things that might sound vague, but actually mean to stir Hikaru’s spirit. The pacing of this scene is kind of a mess and its contents might be confusing for some (as Zen always is, to be fair), but what Minato does in it is honestly beautiful. He doesn’t even seem to realize what he’s doing; he just does it (very Zen of him, as usual) and it hits home. It’s a glaring sign from the author that he’s a natural at this (again, can’t get more Zen than that).

All of this careful build-up is wasted in the anime, given that Minato’s “natural talent for realizing people’s needs and spilling pearls of wisdom onto them” is now Eisuke’s in the show. I might sound harsh here but I gotta spill the beans on this particular load of bullshit: the anime lowkey hates its own protagonist. The one thing I thought KyoAni could’ve learned from last time was to stop giving other characters’ roles and personalities to whoever the director decided to pick as fandom darling for the season, but I guess this was too much to ask once again. Still, as you guys know, my motto for S2 is “disappointed but not surprised”. I do realize everything that’s wrong with it and don’t like it, yet I maintain what I’ve been saying since the beginning: I’m taking what I can get. It’s a miracle that a sequel even exists, anyway.

More bullshit ensues as Eisuke is confronted by Seiya by the toilet. It’s kind of amusing to see the anime finally try to portray Seiya as his own person in this season, only to do a full backtrack and put him again in the one-dimensional condition of “caring about nothing but Minato”. It’s also kind of weird to see Eisuke going through the trouble of attempting to pick a fight, especially when it concerns Seiya, whom he has no reason to hold contempt for. He resents Minato and Shuu because Saionji took them in as disciples when he (she, in the anime’s case) wouldn’t take him. What’s his reason to be a prick to Seiya, even when unprompted? It’s never explained or implied. The scene itself apparently has no reason to be there other than to imply that Eisuke attacks people because he’s putting up a front, as shown from the toilet mirrors and the composition of the shots. In putting up a front, he’s keeping himself from moving forward, which thankfully aligns with canon.

Then the dialogue shoots itself on the foot by suggesting that Seiya is moving forward because he sticks to his weird obsession with being Minato’s guardian.

I could talk about how obsession is a negative point for anyone who practices any Zen martial art and that the anime is once again treating kyudo like a sport here, but I’d just be repeating myself. What annoys me here is that the show continues to miss the point about Seiya. Sure, he’s a caretaker by nature and he worries about Minato more than anyone else, not just because Minato is his best friend, but also because Minato is a dumbass and a catastrophe magnet. But from the moment he and Minato have The Talk in volume 1, his attitude changes drastically. He’s a mother-hen but he’s got a life outside of Minato. He’s his own person with his own problems, like a normal person would be. By turning Seiya into a Minato-hen, the anime makes him feel unnatural and forced. Even Ichikawa Aoi’s line delivery is stiff as hell here. It sounds like fiction, and it’s not supposed to. This is a slice-of-life.

And so, after wasting half an episode with this boring repetition of information that goes absolutely nowhere, we finally move on to what matters. Or what should matter: the goddamn tournament.

It’s not a ganglion but a broken nail in the anime. The brief moment of Minato assuring that everything is fine and the one where he helps everyone regain their composure are the closest things that the anime gets to portraying him faithfully. Minato isn’t the glue that keeps everyone together because there’s no such thing in any of the teams in Tsurune, but he is very much a force of nature in it. He stirs things up and makes shit happen. I dare say he’s as much of a source of inspiration for the club as Masaki is. But it lasts for only a few minutes before Yamamura’s bias steals the spotlight again. It’s amazing how everything is about Seiya even when it’s supposed to be about the whole team. And by “amazing” I mean it makes me want to rip my hair off. In order to keep my sanity from flying off the nest, I tried to distract myself by keeping count of how many times Eisuke has said or thought the phrase “Tsujimine will win as Tsujimine”. It’s been three or four times, just in this episode.

Speaking of Tsujimine, I’m losing my mind at how the way it’s depicted far surpasses the way Kazemai is, from an artistic standpoint. The way the flashbacks are perfectly timed, the watercolor explosion, the fact that Shigeru is watching it from the hospital in real time… it’s such a stark contrast to the bad water CGI from the Kazemai side. Everything connects just perfectly. The show wants you to cheer for them and not Kazemai. I maintain my point from waaay back ago, but KyoAni (again, read that as director Yamamura) has next to no interest in Minato. It doesn’t dive into him, doesn’t explore him beyond surface level and is not invested in making him captivate the viewers. By extension, the same happens with Kazemai. The creators clearly find it to be a boring club, completely blind to the fact that they’re the ones that made it boring.

Anyway, this is my take on episode 11. Now here’s a bonus: a review of the movie.

Being back home for the summer means I finally, at long freaking last, got to watch “Hajimari no Issha”, since it was not on Netflix or Chrunchyroll. I wrote down my thoughts about it as soon as I watched it, which was about half a year ago. If this isn’t a testament to how little free time I’ve had for the past year, I don’t know what would be, lol. It’s surreal how long this has been sitting untouched in my iPad notes. As compensation and apology for taking so goddamn long to post the remainder of my reviews on S2, I’m leaving this here.

First of all, I’m happy that the glow-up in the art style actually began with this movie and not really in S2. The extra scenes are clearly animated better than the recap ones. The contrast is ridiculous. It honestly had me torn between “wow, thanks for the consideration” and “so you really could’ve done better from the beginning and decided not to, huh”.

I’m also happy that it humbly offers bits of information and character development that we’d been given in the novel up to that point but were left out of S1 (well, at least the part of it that doesn’t contradict the anime, which is a lot). Minato’s mother, the time when he and Seiya were going to the same grade school as Ryouhei, young Masaki and his grandfather, etc. Many things we were supposed to have had in S1 are here.

The first parts go back and forth in time, but the initial content is new. New scenes, new dialogue, but still with a certain degree of deviance from the source material. The funny thing (it really ain’t funny at all) is that the deviations mostly don’t have a reason to be there. Hardly any of them have anything to do with the alterations made in S1. Thankfully, they’re small and not very significant, just minor bothers.

But if they’re so unimportant, then why do they bother, y’all may ask. Well… because they’re constant reminders of how much KyoAni doesn’t get this story. Or its characters. Or (yeah, it’s getting old, I know) Zen.

First one was the way Minato got into archery. So I guess anybody who read the novel has been able to tell, but the characters kind of stand on a ladder when it comes to how enlightened they are. Masaki is at the very top, of course, and right bellow him are Minato and Shuu. As the author’s bias - I mean, the one who’s closest to the Zen-Buddhist ideal of enlightenment, Masaki found his way to archery without any reason. He had contact with it even before he became aware of his surroundings; it happened naturally, as if that was just the obvious way to go about life for him (and it was, in a sense).

As the not-so-close second, Minato got into archery in the same way as Masaki: by sheer coincidence (just happened to be present at a kyudo ceremony) and influenced by a loved one (his mother). They also were inspired by the same person (Akihiro) and fell in love with archery at the very same place (Yata Shrine). The difference is that Minato decided to pursue archery consciously, unlike Masaki, who was just doing it before he even realized it, as though he’d been born already with a bow and arrow in hands. And that was that. It’s simplistic and pure and the peak of innocence. It also defines the whole story because this shared beginning, translated in the form of Akihiro’s tsurune, is basically what ignites Minato’s whole world and connects him to everything and everyone he loves. And then comes his mother and her past doing kyudo, which adds fuel to the fire but it’s not really what kindles it. Because then that’d be just ordinary and not as Zen as what the author was going for.

Second alteration that I noticed was the rubber mountain rat that Masaki gave Minato, which in the anime is a rubber ball with a mountain rat mascot printed onto it. As I’ve mentioned a thousand times before, saying that S1 was lackluster and wasteful in terms of Masaki’s teachings and his relationship with Minato is a gross understatement. I’m glad KyoAni tried to make up for that here by giving him a little more spotlight being an actual coach, not just teaching the bare minimum and fucking up. The mountain rat is given quite a bit of importance in volumes 1 and 3, as well as everything else that Minato receives from Masaki, so I guess KyoAni can no longer pretend that these things don’t matter. Except the timing wasn’t the best. In the novel, Masaki gave the mountain rat to Minato when Minato hadn’t yet joined the club, and there’s the whole subplot about Minato being haunted by the things Masaki gives him and does for him, because he’s afraid he’ll lose Masaki at some point. But the opportunity to explore it has long been missed.

Something else that is very different from the original is the way that Seiya is being portrayed as similar to Masaki. This is also a thing in the drama CDs and promotional audios for S2, for some reason. Yet in S2 this is thrown out the window and Masaki is portrayed as similar to Shigeru instead. KyoAni tries so hard not to make the right comparison it’s hysterical.

Speaking of Masaki as a character, it’s always amusing to see the many ways that KyoAni misses the mark about him every single time. It’s literally impossible to understand what they’re trying to do with him. One example of the many incoherences in their depictions of him (aside from trying to brand him as similar to two characters who are completely different from each other, with neither of them being the characters that he’s actually similar to in canon), is the scene where Ren calls him a narcissist. ‘Cause that’s totally the number one quality of a priest. I lost my mind at this one. Where do they pull this shit from? When did Masaki ever act that way, even in the anime itself? Are they just throwing words around? Make it make sense.

There’s one fleeting moment where Masaki is compared to Minato in this scene. Except it’s not because of their personalities or form, but because of the target panic. And Masaki doesn’t really appreciate that. Yeah, that’s definitely the same Masaki who decided to take on teaching because he saw himself in Minato, especially due to the target panic. Who knew exactly what to do and how to help him because of his previous experience. Who puts prayers into everything he does for Minato so that Minato will overcome it as soon as possible. That Masaki.

“Don’t know her,” says the show.

Most frustrating of all is that this happens because Ren says kyudo is overly complicated for something that’s “all about hitting or missing” and Masaki retorts with, “Yeah, but that’s what makes it interesting”, which prompts Ren to joke, “Said like a true narcissist” before Masaki elbows him. This is a nod to volume 1’s “The way of the bow is steep, but that’s what makes it interesting”, but by God, does it backfire in the worst possible way. He could’ve just said that kyudo isn’t about hitting or missing. Actually, the last thing kyudo would be about is hitting or missing. Hitting and missing don’t fucking matter. Masaki is the last character who should be saying this, considering that he’s not only the best archer of the club but also that the literal reason why he and his grandfather started fighting was that Akihiro accused him of only caring about hitting the target. This isn’t western archery. Get your own culture right, I’m begging you.

Breathe in, breathe out. I’m fine. We’re fine. This movie… isn’t fine, but S1 was by far the worst offender. Second place is S2. And none of these three are in the same ballpark. This wasn’t exactly good but it also wasn’t bad.

On the positive side, I like the care and detail that was put into this production as much as I like the care and detail put into in S2. Despite everything I just said, KyoAni is definitely paying a lot more attention and respect to the original from this movie onwards. Is it enough? Absolutely not. But it’s something.

Like the first shot of S2, for example, which is a throwback to the scene of Akihiro adjusting himself into his draw. The camera angles are identical. This is a very nice and well-thought detail not just for the sake of parallels, but because of something Tomio says in volume 3: that an archers’ form tends to resemble the one of their teacher. He comments that everyone from the team resembles Masaki a lot when they shoot, which indirectly means that they resemble Akihiro too.

I also really like that they gave Minato’s mom a little more screen time and lines. I’d almost forgotten that she was voiced by Matsutani Kaya ‘cause she barely ever talks in the other two titles. But it would’ve been for naught if she hadn’t been put in her rightful place as a big influence in Minato’s life. Especially the bicycle scene. It’s kinda obvious that this one was both a metaphor for kyudo and for life.

That’s about it. There wasn’t much going on in this one. It feels like bait to rile up the fans for S2, because it was, to be very honest.

[aceofspades-sml]

Jomike rant because I can

Also because @gayspaceagebachelor I promised you my thoughts on this a while ago so here you go

Tw mention of religious trauma and maybe internalized homophobia (my Jojo is angsty what did you expect)

I put it under the cut cause boy I wrote way more than I was supposed to

They are definitely the cute/soft boy ship

Like you want happy and heartwarming vibes ? You go for them

Of course they have their hard times but to me they are the easiest ship to write pure fluff for

Bc in my opinion both of them are the absolute sweetest. Jojo is always pretty cheerful and optimistic while Mike is the kind of person who always has a smile on. Also both of their smiles are contagious so that's why

Also remember when I said they were both gay disasters but with an opposite energy let me elaborate

We all know that Jojo has been raised by nuns, right ? So I know it's like almost canon at this point but I'll say it again, he is really not comfortable with being gay

As in he was taught that it's bad, even though all his friend tell him it's not. He is fine with his friend being queer, but when it comes to himself and romance he loses all his self-confidence

So most of the time he is like so happy and cheerful because he doesn't think about it and when he actually starts thinking about it he'll most likely panic because he was taught loving guys is bad and he'll think he doesn't deserve people to love him

Okay I went a little far from the heartwarming stuff I talked about but I needed to establish that

So anyway my point was, Jojo being jojo will be pretty oblivious when it comes to love and yeah sometimes it's cute but sometimes it can get angsty

ANYWAY

Now onto Mike, I like picturing him as the guy who acts cool and flirty all the time. As in he'll always be joking/messing around and pretending to flirt with everyone, friends and strangers

Sells a lot of papes that way

"So hotshot anyone ever told you you have really pretty eyes"

"You better run."

Except our boy is actually an hopeless romantic inside so the second someone he likes flirts back he becomes completely useless. He will blush a lot, probably stutter and most likely say something stupid that he will overthink after

So um yeah they are chaotic disasters

Anyway now that's established let's get into their actual dynamic

Remember when I said one of my favorite tropes for them was mutual pinning ? I just think this one as a lot of potential because they are both pretty dumb and oblivious

Y'know the "A fell first and B fell harder trope ?" Yeah you can forget it Mike fell first and hard

One day he just looks at his best friend and realizes he is in love with him

Then he starts pinning like an absolute dumbass, at times he'll just stare into Jojo's eyes and get all flustered because he suddenly forgot how to speak

Don't wanna bring in the usual scene with one guy burrying his face in a pillow because how can I be so fucking dumb while another guy is just dying of laughter next to him but this happened at least once with Ike

Except Jojo doesn't even think much about it he'll just brush it off like it's normal

Takes a lot of time for them to stop being idiots

At first Jojo is super scared about dating so there is a lot of angst in the beginning

Meanwhile Mike will try his hardest to make Jojo understand he is loved and has the right to be happy

When Jojo starts getting more confident about it he goes back to his cheerful self. I think he would totally be the type of guy who makes flirty comments at his boyfriend all the time to mess with him

Actually it's more like Mike says something flirty to tease him -> Jojo answers something flirty because he knows exactly what he is doing -> at that point you have lost Mike he became a blushing mess

So sometimes he'll say something really cute in Spanish and Mike has no idea what it is but he understands the way Jojo said it so he gets all flustered

Jojo actually loves making Mike blush by saying he really likes him or stuff like that except at that point he is still scared of expressing his feelings out loud

Jojo is the shy/scared one so at first he is scared to hold hands in public or show any PDA in front of their friends

Also their first kiss omg-

Actually one day Mike just leaned in impulsively and brushed his lips past Jojo's but pulled away almost immediately because he got scared of how the other boy would react and he was pretty sure he had done smth stupid

They both stared at each other wide-eyed for a solid minute before actually leaning in again

Anyway it was really sweet and innocent because Mike could feel Jojo was kinda scared and inexperienced so he was very gentle

Ahem anyway-

But once again when he gains confidence he'll often try to be as close to Mike as he can

I picture them as really touchy bfs they would always be holding hands, brushing against each other's shoulder or cuddling

And when they are holding hands guess who starts blushing yeah it's Mike

He is really happy about it though because he gets to see his boyfriend happy and be the one who made him that happy

They are 100% the kind of couple who would always do romantic stuff like cute dates, looking at the stars or dancing together

Anyway think about them just grinning stupidly when they're around each other and ahjfhakjfhj

Ok I need to go but I might add to this post later with specific modern Era headcanons

[darkmasterofcupcakes]

Violent Ask <3

Total Drama Island

13. worst blorboficiation

16. you can't understand why so many people like this thing (characterization, trope, headcanon, etc)

3. screenshot or description of the worst take you've seen on tumblr

Charmed

18. it's absolutely criminal that the fandom has been sleeping on...

9. worst part of canon

Total Drama

13.) I'm not really bothering to break down what I consider the "sub-types" of blorbo here, so please don't come at me with if this character is actually a "little meow-meow" or a "scrunkly" or whatever, because I've actually still never figured out the difference.

And as for the actual answer...I'd probably say Ezekiel just because I've literally never understood why so many people decided they loved him. I mean, he didn't have much of a personality in the first season, and in the few appearances he got, the most noteworthy thing he did was be sexist. And considering he attempts to get handsy with Bridgette despite the fact that she's clearly happy with Geoff at Playa Des Losers, I'm not sure if he actually learned to respect women, or just learned to keep his sexism to himself to avoid making the girls angry. But, despite this, so many people who were writing fanfiction after Island decided to make Ezekiel into this ultra-talented guy who had no real flaws to speak of and who literally everyone in the cast either loved, or if they didn't love him, they were clearly an antagonist.

16.) All the ships that are borderline, if not entirely, crackships. I mean, to be real, I don't understand why a lot of ships in this fandom get so popular, but looking back at the really popular fanfics from back when the first three seasons were airing (and looking at the fanworks page on TV Tropes), so many of the pairings in those stories involve characters who as far as I'm aware....barely ever even stand next to each other, much less actually share any line of dialogue? And half the time, their personalities are written in a way that I can't even use the logic of "Well, if they did interact, they'd probably get along great"; hell, in some cases, I think it's pretty clear that canonically the best some of these popular ships would do is barely tolerate each other. Admittedly, part of my salt for this also comes from the fact that a lot of these crackships involve breaking up favorite ships of mine, which combined with the factors mentioned before obviously wouldn't endear the pairings to me in the slightest.

3.) Okay, so this wasn't something I saw on Tumblr, but I heard about it via Tumblr so I'm counting it. But apparently some people on Twitter actually think that the love triangle from World Tour had no cheating involved? Which genuinely made me do a double-take when I read that post because even though All-Stars apparently either forgot or tried to retcon it away, it was very clearly established that Duncan and Courtney were still a thing when he started hooking up with Gwen. And even though I stopped watching the season before it got to that point, I definitely remember how badly the fandom reacted, with a big factor in why it was so reviled being because it involved cheating.

Now for the Charmed questions....which might be a little harder to answer because I'm actually not super familiar with the fandom, and I've only ever actually seen about half the show and read a couple issues of the comics a while ago.

18.) I feel like I never really saw any fanworks or anything like that that really address the whole fact that after Prue died and Paige joined the family, the dynamics for all the sisters had to have changed a lot? Granted, the show never really seemed to do this either from what I remember, but I'm so used to fandom taking advantage of the relative lack of limitations to address things that canon never could. But I don't remember ever seeing any fanworks or even posts addressing stuff like how Piper would have to adjust to suddenly being the eldest, Phoebe going from being the baby of the family to suddenly being the middle child and having a younger sister; or Paige going from being an only child to finding out she has sisters and learning to adapt to the fact that I'm sure this would effect her life even outside the magical aspects.

9.) The way it seemed like everyone got over Future Chris's death super quickly after Baby Chris was born. It's sort of alluded to in the first episode of the next season as implicitly being part of why Piper is so protective of Wyatt and Chris, but effectively it comes across like everyone just forgot that the Chris they knew for...what, over a year or so, died, and even if they have the comfort that Baby Chris is still around and that means that Chris didn't "really" die....the fact is that because they seemed to have succeeded in changing the future, that Chris they knew really is gone for good. Making it worse is the fact that I feel like they could have done something to explain the relative lack of apparent concern - maybe something related to the whole time travel/changing the future timeline thing.

[mickey10213]

I totally forgot that I wrote this out, and I've got to be honest, I'm kinda shocked with myself here. ☠️

While I may still dislike BoruSara as a ship, my grand feelings have slightly changed.

I still don't like that the ship is constantly force fed down our throats as much as it is. Like, there's barely any hint of subtlety to it at all, but I've come to the acceptance that it most likely will be canon if the series ends on a light note like NARUTO did. Right now, BORUTO is in chaos right now and our main boy can't catch a freaking break 💔.

But I must say, I have come to appreciate that the series has flipped the script a little bit on NARUTO'S trope of having the girls pinning for the guys and having that be their personalities. I like that Sarada doesn't openly admit whether she has romantic feelings for Boruto or not, and actually gets either annoyed or dodges the question when people shove that opinion on her. And Boruto is the same way, granted he's not the one constantly asked or hinted at about his feelings for Sarada. I like that they just genuinely care for each other and want to protect one another to the best of their abilities. It's a true camaraderie and that's what made me soften up just a tad on my dislike for them. Do I ship it? No. Will I ever? Never. But will I be alright if it does happen? Of course, cuz despite the red herring they're trying to throw by making Sumire the typical female love interest by having her openly pin for Boruto and having Kawaki be the one to comment on it as others have done to Sarada, it's been damn near established since day one that they intend to have BoruSara be endgame.

As for my comments on Sarada acting like Sakura, I take it back, but mildly. I think she's a better character than her mother or a majority of the NARUTO girls ever will be. She's strong, she's goal oriented, and she's not a simp. Her personality is fine and I don't really hate her. She's not my favorite by any means, cuz I still prefer Sumire to her, but she's also someone I don't want to see put to waste in the manga. I genuinely got so annoyed when - SPOILER - they made Sarada the reason Boruto got his scar. To me it was obvious he was gonna get it from protecting someone, whether it be her or his sister, but the way they went about it irked me. I hate they made her pull a genin Sakura move of just standing there with a kunai as someone she knows is actively and openly going to attack her. Like, not only did she witness and prevent Kawaki from attacking Boruto with a fireball blast mid fight, but he threatened her after the fact, and even Boruto said he was being serious, and the best she could do after actively aiding already, is stand there with a kunai and randomly proclaim her ambition of being hokage. Even as he comes at her, she stands there and it's up to Boruto to cover her, resulting in his scar. I HATE IT! It was so dumb and degrading towards her character, especially since she gave impassioned spiel after spiel about protecting him leading up to this moment. To me, that was a mark on her likability for me, but again, only cuz I think they did her dirty by doing that to her.

Now this leads me into the fandom. I honestly can't stand the BORUTO fandom to be honest. At least when it comes to shipping. Idk if other fandoms have ever been this obnoxious about shipping, but it gives me a headache with having to do mental loops to find the one piece of content about something related to the series without someone making it about the romantic probability between characters. Especially with the arguments regarding Sumire and Sarada's romantic feelings towards Boruto and Kawaki. Like, omg! It's so annoying🤦🏻‍♀️. For instance, the latest chapter that came out in February that contained the aforementioned scene of Sarada pulling a Sakura. The debates that have been held about who loves Boruto more and how this and this pushes a romantic agenda, or how this negates so and so's feelings towards said boy, or why this is the reason it shows she likes him more are so trivial and dumb and baseless to me. Like, is it not exhausting jumping through loops to explain why Sarada chasing after Boruto and Kawaki after finding out he intends to kill him again while Sumire, the only person left who was there to monitor Eida and Daemon mind you, stayed behind means that Sumire doesn't care about Boruto as much as she claims she does, and therefore negates her feelings she's openly voiced to others for him compared to Sarada's? And then to say her rationality in the situation over Sarada's emotional reaction proves that her love isn't the real deal because why would she just sit by if the man she loves is gonna be killed?

I just don't like the fandom, to be real. The shippers over analyze anything to prove or disprove a romance, regardless of it's romantic or not. Neither Sumire or Sarada were right or wrong in the situation, but to act like Sumire's feelings are lesser because she followed orders and aired on the side of caution is ridiculous. And again, she was the only one capable (aka not affected by Eida's charm) and the only one around after everyone else left to chase Kawaki to watch the possibly biggest threats to their nation right now. If she left, Eida and Daemon would be left unchecked, which was the whole purpose of Boruto and Kawaki staying with them. Who knows what the writers would have them do had everyone gone to fight.

Anyway, I'm rambling as per usual, but this post of mine popped up again and I wanted to share my evolved feelings on the ship. Thanks for listening! 👍🏻🫰🏻

Do you ship borusara?

Not one bit. 

If they had left their relationship like it was at the end of the BORUTO movie, I may have been fine with it. But no. Instead, they have to keep shoving the ship down our throats in the most forced way I have ever seen. 

For no reason, people keep bringing up how they make a good couple in the anime, but a reminder, these two are, like, barely 12 yet and all they do is bicker when they aren’t working together… How exactly is that a good couple?? Also in the anime, Sarada has suddenly adopted her mother’s 12-year-old self’s bad attitude towards Boruto and constantly puts him down sometimes like how Sasuke and Sakura did in their genin days. I don’t get why they’re making her have this 180 personality change from how she was in Gaiden and before the whole graduation period and her deciding to become Hokage. I used to be all for Sarada because I felt bad that Kishi put her in the situation with her parents but she still came out a badass, but now she is turning out just like young Sakura and I’m hating it. 

And then another reason I can’t stand the ship is because of the damn fandom. People are drinking up the blatant fanservice of Boruto and Sarada being constantly told they’re good together by their friends. And then these people either say that BoruSara is either the next NaruSaku or SasuNaru and maybe even the next SasuSaku if these people aren’t being biased against the Uzumaki because of Hinata. These two kids can’t have a moment of friendship without the fans going crazy and then I’ve also gotten TWO BoruSara fans to hop on a couple of my post and bait me with suicide threats and insult me for either not liking the ship, liking other ships, not liking Sarada or her mother, or liking Hinata and Sumire. I hate rabid fans that can’t keep their love for something fictional in check and not threaten real people because of a difference of opinion. 

And I know some people may call me hypocritical because I’m saying BoruSara is forced and shoved in our faces because I like NaruHina. I see people say that NaruHina was forced and now it’s being shoved in our faces, but then in the same breath, say that NH was underdeveloped and Hinata barely had any panel time and that they were forced together because of her. Ridiculous, I know. -_- 

But yeah. To answer your question, No I do not like BoruSara one bit. And these are some of the reasons why. I’m fine if you like them because that’s your opinion and your preference, but they’re a big no-no for me. Thank you so much for asking! I hope you have an awesome day/night!

[trinkerichi]

im thinking abt osomatsu 

he’s almost nobody’s favorite character right off the bat, and then everyone who has him as their favorite is SUUUPER heavily introspective about the show because even though he’s the title character he’s probably the hardest to distinguish from the rest when you’re new to the show. He’s the main guy. he’s the default model and all the others are variations. he doesn’t really have a gimmick or a trope to his personality besides maybe gambling and being a jerk. 

BUT its kinda perfect because he Defines the show. he’s the entire reason the rest of the brothers are the way they are. he’s the leader and they all know it and they can’t escape him. and its KINDA SAD. 

OF course they never dwell or focus on any of the incredibly well built up character traits they establish in this show, i could go on forever about that. But for once I really feel like the majority fandom interpretation of Oso isn’t really reaching at all. He holds onto his childish persona and absolutely refuses to grow from it, because that’s what he’s comfortable with. He has a low image of himself, but doesn’t show it or introspect like Ichi does. I’d argue having a shaky sense of identity is kinda the basis of every matsu’s character flaws, but that’s the most true for this guy. He didn’t have to worry about that stuff as a kid. He was the only one with a personality and the rest just followed along. He didnt HAVE to be anything more than that. If he resented being seen as one of six, he didnt realize it until he grew up, and only now does he realize how much it messed him up. And instead of trying to work on it, he’s just desperately trying to maintain the status quo as long as he can. No matter how much the other brothers try to change themselves and become their own people, in either a jokey or serious way, Oso ALWAYS drags them back down to his level again. Even if it hurts them. 

HE HAS GROWN FROM THIS OF COURSE. Very very slowly over the course of the 3 seasons and the movie you can tell he’s a little more willing to try new things and become a little more mature. I mean he couldnt get much worse than ep 24, actually physically hurting the youngest brothers and completely emotionally shutting down when Choro left. But he still kinda does this in less obvious ways in later eps. 

I really loved the analysis they did with him in the episode where he goes on a date with Nyaa Chan. He was joking like “haha im gonna score with her lol” but then she actually asks him out for real and he’s SO TERRIFIED. and it’s hilarious and adorable he’s just hiding under the couch and they have to drag him out kicking and screaming for an hour. He’s so afraid of change. He doesn’t trust himself enough to be a “real adult” and do all the things he’s supposed to do. That’s why he tries to lower everyone’s expectations of him, but when THAT doesn’t work he has no idea what to do. 

While the other’s dilemmas are that they HAD no identity until they became adults, and are desperately trying to compensate by roping themselves into tropes that they don’t even really fit, Oso is the only one who’s stuck with the same role he’s always had, and it doesn’t fit anymore. It’s because he’s grown up now, and because the others dont need him to define the group anymore, and being the big brother doesn’t really matter anymore. so who IS he? 

i didn’t have a point or conclusion to this i just think he’s a very developed and interesting take on a grown up version of a very simply written classic cartoon character and the show gives juuuust enough hints at this for me to be satisfied but i want MORE and i want this for all of the characters cuz im in too deep. thank you for attending my ted talk. next I’ll discuss the “jyushimatsu and concepts” skit and how that boy’s secretly the smartest out of all of them ok bye 

*edit: i forgot i didnt even mention Tougou. I mean he’s not canon to the new show so it doesn’t matter but HONESTLY if he was i wouldn’t even be surprised. With all of Oso’s surprisingly intense baggage, him having some kinda childhood trauma would make a LOT of sense. Especially with how clingy he is with his family and how he hates the thought of them leaving. His comfort in dwelling in the past, sabotaging chances to change their lives. IM JUST SAYING it would make sense. 

[write-baby-write]

How To Write Smut: Characterization

I don't know about you, but I'm one of those writers who takes writing very seriously and writing erotica isn't an exception to me. If you think writing is hard, try writing a sex scene with the right pace, flow, making it sexy and at times romantic without forgetting the anatomy, the setting, avoiding clichés and cringy words, giving life-like actions to every single character involved... And yes, you have to do all that without getting distracted.

I tend to research and read a lot about it (hence the many writing advices, sexy thesaurus, how to write smut posts I reblogged in here). But there's one thing I rarely see in any of these writing advices about smut that I'd like to talk about in this post.

Every author has their own way to plan their scenes when they're writing erotica. As for me, I tend to envision two aspects when I plan a sex scene: setting and characters. When I think about the characters, I like to picture what they will do, how they will do it and their reactions. But not just physical ones. I'm talking about how each character experiences and expresses their sexuality during a sexual activity.

Think about your favorite fictional character. If they have a sex scene in canon, you're probably know if they're shy or not, serious or playful, adventurous, creative, passionate. If you know these details about them, you know how they behave during sex. And that's exactly what we should aim when writing that character in a sex scene.

I've briefly mentioned this in an ask, but as I watched Jenna Moreci's video about Ten Worst Tropes In Erotic Fiction, her video made me realize how important it is to follow the characterization previously established for a character when writing a sex scene. The main reason to do it is to make your reader can recognize each character in the story. Otherwise, it will look like you forgot to do your proper research on the character and they'll look OOC.

On that note, let me give you a personal example to clarify my opinion. When I started writing fanfiction, I got caught up in a sea of so many awesome fanfics that a fanon concept about a character I love ended up showing on my many of my first fanworks, even though it was completely OOC. Yes, I was newbie, I didn't understand much about characterization and let myself be influenced by these fanfics and headcanons I read back then, but I already knew how that character was like during a sex scene in canon. And I also knew most of these fanfic authors wrote this character OOC in order to fit their plot. When I look back at those stories of mine, I cringe at the thought that I knew how that character was like in canon, that I liked how they were written, but on a whim, I wrote something that doesn't fit their characterization in my stories.

But as I mentioned before, there are characterizations that might fit better the plot of your story, so there's no reason why a character can't be written a little kinkier or more vanilla once in a while. It's just important to keep a consistency in your writing in a way that it won't make it look like you wrote a character with multiple personalities disorder instead of making them more playful or raunchy 😁

To help fellow fanfic writers, I created my own sexual character sheet, so use it wisely:

Character Sexual Profile

Name:

Age:

Gender:

Sexuality (in as many details as possible):

Overall personality traits:

Sex Deets

First sexual experience:

Sensitive spot(s):

How sexually experienced are they?

What are their preferences on potential sex partners (physical or psychological)?

What are their turn ons?

What are their turn offs?

Do they initiate or wait for someone to do it?

Personality traits that stand out during sex (in as many details as possible):

Vanilla or kinky?

Top or bottom? (I mean the position!)

Do they prefer to stay in control, to give control to their partner or are they versatile?

Favorite position(s):

Sex fantasies:

Are they open to new ideas or stick to what they know?

On a scale of 1-10, what's their sex drive like?

What's their opinion on casual sex?

What's their opinion on group sex/sharing/switching partners?

Is there anything they would never do?

Random headcanon about them:

[kiisaes]

Hey kisa! I hope you have a wonderful day and I looove your arts and sketches!

I read your post about queerness in Asia and of the bkdk dynamic, it settled at the back of my head and really just starting to marinate itself into something. Sometimes I wake up and couldn't feel anything about bkdk being real or canon at all even though facts are just right there in my face. I really do love bkdk, but I felt so true of your words on queer Asians that I couldn't see all those fan contents of bkdk someday being canon. Like, most of them didn't sit right with me and it's so hard to find one that represents queerness in Asia correctly (because bakugou and Deku are indeed Japanese=Asians).

I don't know why I reach out to you but I just wanna say, your post resonated with me a lot. I'm Asian and I found out I'm queer in my 16s. Here, being queer isn't like a world-breaking news or people will hate on you cuz you're different, but it's the community sense that makes queer people stay quiet and humble. Idk how to explain myself but it's true that even when we found out our gender/sexuality, most of us tend to prefer blending in with society rather than standing out and be proud of our identity (it's for various reasons like you mentioned, for family's namesake, for friends', even for strangers).

About bkdk, in my honest opinion, standing on Horikoshi's viewpoint and trying to understand his creating ideas with the consideration of a whole Asian community behind him, I cannot see bkdk kissing if they were to end up being endgame. They might chose to be a pair of queer platonic best buddies who are the most intimate and closest person to each other and no one else can take that place in each other's heart. Their dynamics might stay the same but they'll always have each other's backs. They might hold hands occasionally or be more touchy with each other than with others 'cuz that's ultimately where their dynamics and relationship lead up to in the whole story. They don't have to declare that they love each other or establish a new form of relationship and that's okay. Because for me, that's how being queer and being quiet and being Asian is. You get to be yourself proudly, but you don't have to yell it to the world to be recognized and feel validated. It's ok to be humble and still be proud.

Thanks kisa for wording out my feelings and thoughts in a much coherent way. I do think some Asians(not queer people) have a strange way at viewing lgbt+ because it's the western stereotypical concepts of the community that is more drilled into their minds. Even my parents sometimes forgot that I'm queer and thought that was a phase lol.

(sorry for ranting so much, that last part might be me dumping my whole hc at you I'm sorry!!! I feel really touched by your words and it has been sitting on my chest for a while and seeing bkdk still ten million miles away from being canonically endgame is so frustrating hsgdjaksh

WOW HI !!! i hope u're having a good day/night too anon and thank u !!! :D

i'm really honored my words reached you! as a queer asian, i completely agree with everything you said here. i'm also in the boat where i don't think bkdk will be officially canon, despite how many bkdks think they will. i think it's a very inherently naive thought that a japanese shounen series of mha's size and caliber will confine to western lgbt standards. it's just not that easy! and i've ranted in length about my pessimism ... and i will continue to stay that way until i'm definitively proven wrong LOL (i hope i am btw!!!)

there's definitely something inherently queer asian about bkdk's relationship, if they were to hypothetically be canon. i completely agree that, imo, they'll only be considerably queerplatonic if they're any type of queer at all. hoping for a more "proudly gay" bkdk is nice, but pretty unlikely all things considered. being "proudly gay", like completely coming out of the closet and disregarding what society/family has to say about you, isn't as simple in asian communities. being quietly and humbly queer is something i, and many queer asians, resonate with a lot! that's just as valid as being loudly and unabashedly queer!

if bkdk becomes officially, loudly, and excessively canon then that'd be incredible!!! i won't push it away in the slightest!!! it'd be a great push for shounen jump and a sign that more lgbt stories can exist, even if they're at mha's size!!! more acceptance of marginalized communities is always good!!!

but i also think that bkdks who refuse to accept bkdk not being canon because not being openly official = not good/queer enough, should perhaps open their minds more to what society mha is written in. smaller showcases of closeness, comfort and camaraderie can be just as queer as shouting it from the rooftops. that's good enough! and if that's what bkdk gets in the end, then i'll be satisfied, even if horikoshi doesn't confirm their relationship :>

(and AAAA no worries!!! hey i love talking about bkdk in relation to asian queerness, so u're good!)

[jays-supersonic-dynamo]

The Great Devourer: I don’t think she’s ever been shown as a big kaiju-ass snake any other time other than season one. Sure, she’s mythologized as a Big Snake, but since Garmadon and Wu were children she’s been itty bitty and just been interested in biting the one guy. So kill count is a day’s worth of pure destruction in downtown Ninjago City.

The Overlord: Two out of three times he’s been the major villain he took over Ninjago City. While I don’t think there were no casualties from this, both times he seemed more interested in general destruction and making people into zombies. In canon, theres only any kills caused by collateral damage, essentially. And Zane… Kill count is collateral damage and Zane.

The Preeminent: She’s big and scary but I don’t think she kills. The people she keeps in the Departed Realm were already dead, and while I haven’t seen s5 in a while, I think the focus was more on taking control of Stixx than trying to kill anyone. If there were any major casualties, Stixx is far smaller than Ninjago City so they wouldn’t be very high. Kill count is minimal collateral of a small town.

Harumi: What should be said for Harumi is that she is victorious for far longer than any other villain (most of season 9.) But also what should be said is that she’s kinda running on the same logic as The Preeminent, where she wasn’t trying to kill anyone, just take over the city. What also also should be said that, even then, there is a SHITTON more collateral damage done to Ninjago City for much longer, and its much bigger. Not to get too into the weeds, but theres something to be said about what destruction of infrastructure could mean for the health of the city’s citizens (the example that comes to my mind is from Megamind, where they show a scene of citizens leaving Metrocity en masse.) Kill count is collateral damage of Ninjago City for a (relatively) extended period of time.

Garmadon: For how prominent he is as a “Big Bad” a lot of Garmadon’s villainy is just him being mean or cartoonishly evil. This is probably because his longest villainous career is in seasons one and two, but I digress. Besides creating an unsafe workspace for his minions, he also falls under the same thought process as Harumi. I don’t think I’m too qualified to debate personal responsibility for season 9’s Whole Situation, but I think Harumi is slightly more to blame because she caused the entire thing. Kill count is collateral damage of Ninjago City.

Ice Emperor: From what we do get about his reign, the Ice Emperor is cruel and rules for a long-ass time (is it about 60 years? is that a consensus or did I pull that number out of my ass.) I don’t think he was as directly murderous as some of his rivals in this poll, but he seems to be very feared and well-established as the regional warlord, at least in that pocket of the Never-Realm. Something to be considered too is how much the climate was affected by his element. While the Never-Realm looks pretty cold when we first see Zane arrive there, the current villagers we see don’t seem to be struggling, but are the only people, it seems for long while. While I’d get further consultation from an expert on this, my guess for kill count is warlord collateral for a long ass time to a wide radius.

Aspeera: I forgot what she did to get sealed away in the first place (was it just being power-hungry? cutthroat politics? interacting with a main character for too long?) so we can’t count any of that time for potential kills. The worst she does on-screen is just set Ninjago City on fire for a bit, which is no big deal. Kill count is maybe some collateral, but probably just property. #girlboss move honestly

Wojira: Again, I’m sure she tore some bitches up before she was sealed away, but Ninjago lore only goes so far back. Her show appearance is really, really destructive. While there’s an amount of evacuation shown, Ninjago City the place is flooded and destroyed in a very very short amount of time, so there’s likely a good amount of collateral. (While it probably doesn’t mean anything for this ranking, I think the idea that the destruction was so bad it made the Ninja’s reps take a hit is really cool. Would’ve loved to see it in something other than the comically inept mayor.) As it stands, kill count is collateral for the destruction of Ninjago City, and probably a long clean-up too. I don’t think recovering from massive flooding is an easy and quick process?

TLDR; my vote is for the Ice Emperor, with high placings/honorable mentions to Harumi, Wojira, and Garmadon. We really have no clue what was going on in the Never-Realm for all that time, but I don’t think it was anything good.