#as you can probably tell. im drawing lu ten again

[mugentakeda]

im literally so ass at drawing gore because i refuse to look up what a half busted open skull would actually look like so im just scribbling in shapes that i hope resemble what that would look like

[sugar-petals]

Cuddling With SuperM

↳ ❤︎ CARO’S NOTE: their concept is all about badassery i know but we’re dealing with seven angels so let’s talk about that shall we

warnings ⚠️ some light teasing, innuendo

length: 1.5k

taeyong

am i really telling you something ground-breaking with this:

so this guy’s truly adorable

turns into a baby what else is new

draws his knees to his chest and just enjoys the ride with his eyes closed

you can do whatever the hell you want

back rubs, head pats, foot massages, caressing the neck or underneath the chin which is particularly sweet

and a whole lot of tickling he’s kinda obsessed with this

excellent chef he is, taeyong enjoys preparing snacks for a set cuddling time or movie night

so what if this turns into feeding each other basically are you ready for that

this guy’s impossible face up close is hard to bear for the faint-hearted just mentioning that in passing here

because… he has that one yearning expression and his eye contact is very steady

bit of a duality here huh

but worry not because taeyong’s tiger inside is more of a cat actually, tyongkitty behavior guaranteed right there

he does do friendly head buts and yeah the eye contact is also a cat thing now that i think about it… it all makes sense now

ten, baekhyun, lucas and taemin are pretty cocky types of cuddlers, taeyong leads the more subdued fraction in super m

it’s the kind of cuddling that needs rainy weather and a cup of tea

ten

quality time right here

banter is always included ofc

or at least a lot of talk because with ten, conversation and cuddles go together

likes pets joining, three’s a party, a cat can always make a snuggly contribution

add a ball of wool to play around

like. a-you, a-me, and a cat right in between ya see

music is always playing in the background, always

ten’s body is very sensual… you can tell he’s a dancer by the way he’s adapting, how he’s feeling it, how he moves in general

the reflexes are just so different he has great feeling for what you wanna do next it’s his bodily intuition and he just goes along with it

what you gotta tell him though is to keep it lowkey with keeping his jazzy outfits on

a hoodie cuddles better than high fashion and spiked jackets

plus he looks adorably small in it so two birds with one stone

never forget ten is really tiny that sure makes a difference

reluctant little spoon, he keeps it face-to-face or sleeps on his back

ten is glad to be approached with hugs he’s not always doing the initiative

shy thailand angel ikr

but don’t complain if he farts because he absolutely will

goddammit chittaphon

kai

if it’s without a plushie something’s going wrong it always needs one

his favorite teddy’s gotta participate y’know he’s a social creature

in this home we don’t discriminate against plush bears

and yeah, his bear ear hoodie likewise he is sure to put it on

jongin tends to be rather taciturn because he wants to enjoy the body-to-body sensations

meaning, don’t interpret his frequent silence as awkwardness he’s just observing

is not above teasing… if his outfit is showing some skin he’ll invite you to touch the area

also enjoys you putting your hands under his sweater

he’s laughing like crazy and kicking his legs all giggly if you put your head underneath it and let it roam oh la la

yeah nini likes some wit to it for sure, and some steaminess in the mix it’s just a natural byproduct if we’re honest

dim the lights down low for this one…

but also light the candles alright

cuddling is more of a soft and steady thing there’s not much position changes going on

this is the couch not the dancefloor your honor

while we’re talking about that: jongin is a buff biatch my god

prep a water bottle to chug when you’re cuddling this guy is effortlessly hot

also know that kai will almost definitely snap a picture of you huddled together for the memory of it

baekhyun

unlike his memes, baekhyun’s cuddling behaviour is entirely predictable

will snuggle against your shoulder by default pretty much that’s his favorite area

stays glued there for two hours if you’re not busy

im not kidding

needless to say he needs a partner who can handle this level of clinginess

baekhyun can’t keep his hands to himself in general

neither can you

it’s groping x cuddling these two are a dead sure combination

keen to snuggle casually while he’s gaming, cross-legged on the ground with you massaging his back

likes to lay his head into your lap, too.

baekhug i mean back hug enthusiast. something inside his face has an inbuilt magnet that sucks him into the space between your collar bones

especially when you’re at the stove cooking

caution: love bites. lots of them. does this count as cuddles? probably. it’s not like he’s eating you or is he. oop—

what am i saying all he does is nibble alright

and oh yeah bring on the sweater weather. he can’t stay still in bed it’s gonna be a pillowfort building session though

you gotta exhaust him until he naps off lmao!

energizer bunny bf

mark

enjoys being fed watermelon during the process how else could it be

wait until this guy hears what harry styles’ watermelon sugar is all about his world will never be the same again

anyway

he’ll look so cute in his striped shirt and his round glasses awh

cuddling is his favorite way to show his trust and affection before all else

his favorite time to cuddle is before going to sleep

he usually hugs pillows so you can tell how clingy he winds up as

mark really sleeps and dreams better if you do that it has an astounding effect. cuddles are his perfect recharging if you will it’s just that he’s actually calming down through it whereas he can be nervous throughout the day so he needs that downtime

spooning is a given

what he enjoys the most about it is the warmth

markie easily gets cold sometimes he just needs that tune-up with you he’s like blink blink there goes my dose of daily heat beep beep

what the fuck

anyway again

talk about tune

just like ten he’s very talkative all the way verbal stimulation and mark lee just go together

if you compare him to taeyong there’s not much of a transformation going on mark lee on two legs is the same mark lee during cuddles it’s all copy paste

all in all a delectable experience, extremely cute and heart-melting, super m truly has a super mark

taemin

much like xuxi he has that permanent smile on his lips that tries to make you laugh

in fact taemin is hard to stop with his puns and his humor

ffs he is a true brat

taems can’t help but try to escalate this into a playfight every time

not that he doesn’t enjoy the calmer types of cuddling but he needs some action in the sack

enjoys praise along the way who are we kidding

the clothes you both cuddle in are very important alright, the fabric in particular

taemin keeps it expensive here it’s just the way he rolls

satin my dear

it’s just so satisfying to the touch

but also beware of his most lethal clothing choice which brings out his innate maknae charm the most

THE FLUFFY TURTLENECK

gyeahh

which he will use during special occasions to turn you into a cuddle monster ready to pounce him

give it up for shinee my loves they taught him well and sent him out to fluff up the world

what else is there okay we also gotta mention that cuddling consists of many little kisses here and there

taemin wants to get absolutely peppered

he is and stays a prince

lucas

ideal body type for cuddling except that it needs the right place, not the environment but the spot i mean, you can imagine

lucas can explode any smol-size couch or bed

don’t even think about trying to cuddle on regular chairs my god why would you live so dangerously

king size por favor

there is a lot to cuddle against it’s really a whole wonderland

those big ole thighs are practical cushions for anything really.

and his face is just so amicable it has to be kithed

his hands… his hands! you will feel maximum protection with those giant baby fingers around your hips i’m telling you

admittedly yukhei is hard to properly hug around the shoulders obviously that’s a drawback but hey his waist is lithe and tiny so hello there, very inviting

oh, that infectious smile.

serious cuddling: 0 — funny cuddles: over 9,000

and tasty cuddles because foodcas brings some fried rice every time oh yum

hates to go to work he really prioritizes you and cuddles go on for long long hours especially when you watch your favorite series

xuxi goes the extra mile, he will touch your hair a lot, just gently combing through it

and he doesn’t mind it when you do the same, he’s got the most angelic blonde locks after all

lu calls you beautiful all the time the cheesy mf is really pulling the standard compliment alright

cue jonas brothers sucker for you

ugh, boyfriend

mlist

[cheswirls]

tether notes 2/3

pt. 3

i mentioned this in the last part, but i used muroran as basis for veilstone, not abashiri. actually, if you want my opinion, i think shari, hokkaido, is a better depiction of veilstone than abashiri. mostly, i used muroran bc i could find pictures there that were more than just boat-icebreaker-drift ice-boat. abashiri is cold. and full of drift ice. if you need context, it’s level with toronto, canada. a pretty cold place to live. muroran is further south, and it’s also a port city, so i jus used that.

shari looks nicer, but it’s more into the hook of hokkaido (that piece on sinnoh map that jutts out right below battle zone) and not nestled into the mountains, so. mostly it was out.

makino’s cafe/bar is based on the diner in veilstone. so, walk in, counter bar to your left, tables to your right, possibly a happiny underfoot carrying trays of food. 

but, compared to the more rustic and colored veilstone, i wanted to depict more of hokkaido city here. so, more rundown, rusted due to sea breeze, older things without much repair. passable, sure, for daily life. but new and extravagant? no. far from.

if makino is so close with luffy, how come she doesn’t know sabo?

simple. she’s not close with luffy. makino has a fulltime job running a diner in veilstone, sinnoh. luffy grew up on the sevii islands, kanto. when he was in sinnoh, he was training with shanks. yeah, sure, they would come by for food, and makino is good friends with shanks, so of course she and luffy have a relationship. but, also at this point where shanks began to bring luffy around, instead of teaching him out in nowhere, sevii islands, they began to keep things secret. luffy was here “just visiting” to anyone who asks, but they wouldn’t seen him much around, not in the isolation shanks trained him in. also also at this point, because i derailed that sentence completely, ace and sabo were already out traveling. it just never came up. makino is friendly with luffy, she knows luffy, but she doesn’t know him, not really.

pokemon hunters is another anime concept i wanted to use, again to make the story more gritty. no evil teams here with world-domination plots, just poachers. pretty standard. still awful, especially if they’re poaching people, now, but nothing as wide-scale as team galactic.

i had so much fun writing ship captain jinbe. i wished i got more of a chance to write his crew, too. at this point i think i had just caught up reading blackbird by milo, and i was hooked on the idea of biker fishman gang and leader jinbe, so i adapted it into ship crew here. praline is there, yes. she’s badass. i said so, you heard it here. 

i talked a lot with my big bang partner, and we eventually decided jinbe’s a mix of hoenn and sinnoh descent. so, darker skin, almost polynesian, from hoenn’s more pacific island vibe. dark, curly hair. i drew a picture once? oh, here it is. jus a little sketch. he probably actually comes from hoenn, but he does cargo runs throughout sinnoh now. [i should probably say around, since there arent rly canals thru sinnoh?]

regarding law’s map error, i really jus wanted to reference flower paradise. of course the map he got was a tourist version, so of course it’s gonna include the magical pathway connecting the sinnoh league to an island of flowers. but it doesn’t actually exist, or if it does, it’s not always there, since they sail through the space with ease. just another fun easter egg. 

the marsh scene was another i’ve known i wanted since the beginning. i had so much fun drawing the map for it. i actually based the scenes entirely off the map, so while i knew the general direction i wanted it to go in, and that they would run into sabo, the part about wandering into the rain and encountering volcarona spawned while marking the map. crazy how things work, huh?

i think i made the chase move a little too fast, so most of the time out of their 12 hr limit is spent after departing from the marsh, wandering thru route 212. don get me wrong, the marsh scene spans over the course of hours, but its still less time from leaving the ship to leaving sabo than it is to get back to the ship.

the aegislash scene is the first one i conceptualized, of the marsh scene series. introducing law’s team was strategic, especially once i revealed luffy only had four pokemon. it was always meant to be a readers gamble how many law had. at the end of part 3, it’s pretty easy to gauge how many, but still, the surprise of the sixth pokemon in pt 4 is something im still proud of c:

anyway, yes, the first sense of real danger. poachers have no qualms in using their pokemon to harm other people. they’re there for the money, which they get from capturing and caging rare pokemon. who cares if they hurt a few people along the way? who cares if they brutalize them to take a particular pokemon, a-la mr. cleffa sir? law reacts to this very quickly, in part because he’s used to it, as explained in tragic backstory number 2, right behind one-brother-dies-and-the-other-runs-away from protag #2. 

actually, i guess the first danger was the wild kadabra, but this is the one in which someone gets hurt! . . . or, worse-hurt, because law’s scratch doesn’t count. luffy’s gash in his shoulder? that’s a big injury. especially when they can’t just stop to treat it, especially when law still has blood on his face from it, especially when they have to go right back to running around the marsh.

and then sabo appears!! i lied, this was the first marsh scene. i drabble-wrote it in my series-of-drabbles-to-add-to-the-outline before i made pt 3′s outline, and then wrote it for real. the aegislash-being-badass-therefore-law-also-by-proxy was the second. one of the first sentences i ever wrote for tether was law realizing the face from luffy’s picture was right before his eyes. 

so why do the hunters ignore luffy calling for sabo while running away?

yes, why the no consequences? i realized at this point they were too far away to hear and law too out of it (its law’s pov, still) to figure what they were saying, to i had to play it off. it’s another scene where i almost wrote a few paragraphs from a different perspective [the other two were the tsuru-caesar confrontation and the mr. cleffa dude ft. sabo scene, both of which i had to expand upon by talking, instead of a flashback to show it. i rly went full soul-eater approach here, huh? explaining everything through present means. well. save for law’s backstory, but that’s about the only thing.] but decided not to in the end.

here’s how the scene plays out, full disclosure. law and luffy spot the two hunters. a third person, sabo comes into view. the hunters tell sabo the situation, that they were being chased. law recognizes sabo, luffy does too, and calls out to him, loudly. this causes the hunters to panic, and they tell sabo, there, there’s the people chasing after us. law figures sabo has some secret reason for posing as a hunter and pulls luffy again out of view, not wanting to give him away. all three hunters take off running in the opposite direction. luffy calls out for sabo again, and sabo turns to question the other two, asking which pokemon they stole that was named ‘sabo’. he has a fake name, obviously. they don’t know he’s sabo. before they can figure it out, he derails the topic. but then he slips crossed fingers behind his back at the same time, signaling silently to luffy, who stops calling out.

so, tldr, sabo’s not using his real name while with the hunters and is smart enough to cover his ass from luffy’s mistake.

i wanted law carrying luffy, on their way down the route, to the stormclouds, and i’m pretty sure the one reason i didnt go thru with it is because law’s backpack. and, y’know, luffy being caked in mud. 

okay, do. panic attack time. ptsd time. a mix of both, ig. whatever you wanna call it. originally, this scene was going to be a bit different, and happen way earlier in the story. it didnt bc of sinnoh’s lack of fire types [there are only 2 i think, 2 lines i mean, so like 5] and the fact that ace’s team featured none of them. and then i thought, oh, i’ll jus make the same thing happen w sabo, except none of sabo’s team were one of them as well.

originally, it was going to be that law/lu encounter a clan of a specific type of wild fire pokemon. i think for the longest time it was talonflame, not sure anymore. anyway, so it was gonna go that luffy recognizes ace’s former pokemon outta the bunch, and they recognize lu as well, and the two reunite and all that jazz, and meanwhile law has his attack bc the group they encounter are one of the pokemon that tormented him in alola.

and, nope, now i remember why it didnt happen. as much as i hate dof, i had to craft a team for him for plot purposes, and that ended up being a bug team to go w the whole string motif. the problem was i had this scene planned for a looooong time, and it needed to be w a fire type, one of ace’s pokemon. except there are like no fire/bug pokemon, except for volcarona, who wasn’t on ace’s already-planned team at this point. i debated for foreeeeever and finally decided to screw it, and i made it sabo’s unova pokemon. so, instead of getting a unova dragon, in the land of dragons unova, sabo gets a volcarona and ace a darmanitan. all for plot purposes. no sense here. none at all.

[not that it matters, since sabo morphs into a fire trainer anyway after ace dies]

so, after i decided it would be sabos pokemon, the point came back to how they would encounter it. no hordes of wild volcarona in sinnoh. i sadly had to scrap the idea. this is what i came up with instead: volcarona coming to luffy to deliver a letter, and scarring law in the process.

Law has a chocolate bar, because he’s ten and anxious and chocolate seemed good at the time.

-aka my favorite line of the whole entire story!!!

and then law’s backstory time. so!!! for the longest time i was torn between setting the story in sinnoh or alola. this was my big compromise. i wrote a draft-outline for law’s alola backstory before i wrote a real outline for tether as a whole. this was the first part of the story i really wrote. i was done with it before i started pt 1, because i wanted to outline before i started writing. 

the thing abt law is that his life is so much of a tragedy. oda writes it so well, to the point where you’re thinking this can’t get any worse and then it gets worse, every time. i wanted to mimic that here. i didn’t do it justice, but i at least tried.

law’s life is filled with mistrust. his whole village dies, he nearly does as well, and so he packs up and runs away, and hides his one pokemon abra because he’s not a registered trainer and he refuses to abandon abra so theres mistrust towards everyone who can turn him in, and everyone who didnt care enough to help with the water crisis. he’s done with sinnoh. so he spends a bit holed up in a library, and once he reads about alola, he’s sold. he’s so mistrustful it’s not a matter of ‘anywhere is better than sinnoh’, its a matter of ‘i can’t end up in another place just like this’. alola is the solution.

except, he’s still mistrustful. so he hides abra, and he hides his money, and he doesn’t speak with anyone, and he leaves the city as soon as he can. he doesn’t know the rules of this place, but abra is all he has. he can’t lose abra. and then things go wrong.

because he’s out of sinnoh, but alola is different. he’s ten, and he’s never had a real pokemon battle, and all the wild pokemon of alola are too eager. he’s ten, and a pangoro attacks and he loses all his supplies on his very first day, because abra’s too exhausted to teleport them away this time. [in hindsight, i did a really bad continuity error here, throughout the entire flashback. it’s thru law’s eyes, so i describe the pokemon he doesn’t know about, and yet sometimes i name the pokemon he really shouldn’t know about. my bad.]

he’s ten, and the only food he finds is being guarded by a giant sumo crab, so he crawls to the other side of the beach and falls asleep on the sand, hungry. he’s ten, and he’s living off berries because money is only so good when you can exchange it, and he’s far away from civilization. he’s ten, and he spends the very last of his money on money for abra, for his only pokemon and his only ally, because going to a pokemon center would mean being seen and asking for a license to verify and its too risky, he can’t risk it. 

he’s ten, and he’s hungry, and he has nothing but the abra clutched in his arms and his ripped clothes clinging to his body, and he witnesses a murder. and they catch him in the act, and then he’s stuck, because he shouldn’t have a pokemon so young, and he’s a witness to a crime, and too quickly he’s in a very bad position.

he’s ten, and to keep abra alive, he joins a gang in alola.

he’s ten, and he’s blackmailed into working or risking abra being taken away. he’s ten, and he has morals, and there’s some tasks he won’t do, but the family boss punishes him for it, harshly. he stops having morals. it wouldn’t do him good here. 

law turns eleven, and suddenly gang tasks involve pokemon battles. law’s eleven, and doflamingo trains law himself, beating the weakness out of him, burning him, scarring him, terrorizing him because he can, and because law can’t refuse. 

law’s eleven when he realizes his picture-perfect alola was nothing but an illusion, because the lack of monopolies and corporations and factories actually had nothing to do with how much the natives cared about their own, or cared at all, about anything. just because alola didn’t have a pokemon league didn’t mean it wasn’t a bad place to be.

he’s eleven when he meets corazon, and finally, finally, gets a breath of fresh air, gets a taste of a person who isn’t there to ridicule him or abuse him. he’s eleven when he meets his first real friend since his sister died, meets someone that finally treats him like a human being. and it doesnt matter that he’s doflamingo’s brother, because he’s kind to law.

law’s eleven and corazon works to repair the damage done by the gang, little by little. he gets law out on an island challenge, and he wanders through melemele and akala and meets kind people and has fun and experiences the real alola. and he realizes, somewhere along the way, that he never wants to go back to the family ever again.

law’s eleven when he realizes he has no choice. because he belongs to doflamingo, because he has to skip out on ula’ula to accomplish a task for the family, because corazon sits there and lets it happen. 

law’s eleven when he’s given a pokemon egg, and when he’s given hope.

corazon was going to take care of everything. he was going to get them out, safely. they were going to rescue a captive pokemon. law was going to be free. law was never going to be hurt by the family again.

except, that’s not how it goes. corazon dies. corazon’s pokemon are tortured in order to lure law out. corazon’s pokemon all die for him and law has no option left but to run with all his might, all the way from one tip of ula’ula to the other. and then, because he can’t trust anyone, anyone, law runs away into a desert with no supplies to speak of.

law’s eleven when he comes face to face with the most temperamental tapu in the alola region, and even with all he’s been through, it’s the most scared he’s even been in his entire life. and then, when he comes to, he finds himself stranded in the kalos region. he’s eleven. he goes through all of this and he’s not even a teenager yet.

so, backing up just a bit, you can see how seeing a volcarona is going to invoke some rather strong emotions in law. he panics. he passes out. luffy puts volcarona away, because me might be oblivious on a lot of things, but he can understand the pure terror in law’s eyes.

alright, what else. the letter. of course luffy disavows the letter, he’s luffy, he can’t follow a plan to save his life.

[voidselfshipp]

Soup Shop Love

jerico x Yu//lei from little//door//gods cw:food ok to rb __________________________ After defeating the nian, and restoring peace to the world, yu lei didnt have much appart from the restaurant.

Both Guardian brothers didnt visit the human world much, but that day it was the exception. 

It was a quiet day in the soup shop, the brothers had visited Rain at her request,helping the human family to serve the food to the costumers. Yu lei wasnt paying much attention as the day was slow, then around midday, something changed.

His breath hitched as a young woman entered the shop, she sat quietly by the Window.

--c'mon yu lei!-- rain said handing him a pen and a notebook--go ask her her order!

The door god took nervous steps to the woman, she had short hair, down to her shoulders, she was dreamingly staring at the outside world, dreaming of adventures, he catched the beautiful and intricate dragon tattoo on her whole left arm.

She suddenly Turned around and yu lei froze.--u um-- he stuttered-- can I uh...ask your order?-- words didnt come smoothly as he envisoned, adding another layer to the shame he was feeling.

She told him her order and he wrote it down, hes about to leave, but her hand pressed against his bicep-- can I know your name? He turns around, hearing his brother Snicker behind him -- u uh, yu lei, whats your name?

He asked her for simple politeness, but also a hint of intrigue.

--im jerico, nice to meet you yu lei He nodds not knowing how to answer, so he walks back to rain and her mother, giving them jericos order.

Unbeknownst to yu lei, he was being drawn by jeri, the pencil danced smoothly against the yellowy paper, she sighed, although in her dreamworld, her fantasíes had acquired a New protagonist.

She found yu lei cute, yet she wasnt going to talk to him, after eating, she payed and left a tip.

The door god saw the woman leave with a heavy feeling on his chest.Since then, jerico became a regular costumer, in hopes of seeing yu lei again.Her hopes were shattered every single day.

Rain sent a letter to the brothers, specifically to yu lei, that called them so they could spend a day with them, and like that, make the two lovers meet again.

Jeri almost jumped out of her Seat when yu lei asked her for her order, with a shy smile on his face.Was it weird to tell someone you saw once that you missed them? It probably was, but that was what both felt.

She told him his order, and he left to give it to rain and her mom.

--come on bro! Just go ask her for a date! You can take her somewhere after we close!-- his brother,lu ten told him

--I, I dont know-- yu lei confessed-- would she say yes?

Rain huffed-- really?!, shes been asking for you the whole month! Just go!Both her brother and the girl pushed him to jeri.

--hey uh jer!--he said scratching the back of his neck-- I was wondering if you 'd like to go somewhere after we close the shop

--oh! Id love to!--jerico answered with a huge smile on her face

-- when do you guys close up?

-- well..we usually close up at nine!--rain jumped in-- but today is something special, so we close up at eight!She looks at him-- well then, ill see you in a few hours! She paid for her food, and with a polite goodbye she left.

Painfully slow for both yu lei and jerico it finally was eight pm.--jerico!-- yu lei said hugging the woman, who happily hugged back.

--There you are! So, where we going? He smiled-- just follow me They Walked down the silent and tranquil city, their hands slightly brushed against one another, they act as if they dont notice, but their fingers interlace togheter and walk down to a doc area, the River flew calmly, with a few flowers and leaves floating on it.

 They sat in moonlight,still holding hands, with no words spoken.

--y'know-- jeri said looking at yu lei-- I came every day to see you, when you werent around it felt...weird as if something was missing 

The guardian looked at her with a sad expression-- im sorry I wasnt there, see...im not from this world...

She nodded-- rain told me...youre a Guardian--she looked down,and sighed-- heh...I bet you drive all the female guardians crazy..I mean...youre so handsome 

Yu leis cheeks redden, and he chuckles-- just the ones I dont want--he lifts her face up by the chin, as her hands Cup his cheeks-- the only one that I want is you...She smiled leaning closer

-- the only Man I want is you...They close the gap, and kiss, her arms around his neck, and his around her waist.

Both part lips and press their foreheads togheter.

They stood in silence, taking the others presence as much as they could.

The date ended with a yawn from jer, so he took her home,and with heavy hearts and a kiss they said goodbye, not really knowing when theyd see eachother again.

The Next day, rain gave jeri a poster.

Not any poster in fact.

But yu leis.

 --like that he can visit you more often! Just hang it on your door!-- rain said before being scooped up in a hug.

--thank you--jericos voice broke-- thank you so much rain! That day, she left a generous tip.

Jer hung the poster on her appartments door, and went to sleep.Its late at night,unaware of yu leis presence, she slept calmly on her bed.

The guardian looked around her small room.Posters, pictures,art, all over the place.

A desk, just infront of a window, that had various things on it. What catched his attention, was a note, and besides it a beautiful drawing of himself.

He took the book,and read said note. "Yu lei "the note started" every day I walk by the shop, waiting to meet your eyes.

Every day I walk by to see you again, knowing that youre not in my world, but yours. I cling to the memories we have togheter...as few as they are. I hope one day you return to me, so I can hear your voice again. So I can be held in your embrace. You have a heart of gold, youre beautiful. Im so lucky, to have a Man like you. Guardian or not.I love you"

He smiles sighing softly, he leaves the book on the desk,closing it. 

Taking off his Guardian outfit, hes left in a white robe and pants, he lays besides her putting behind her ear a stray lock of that precious brown hair.

She moves around, and hugs him, he does the same, and resting his head ontop of hers he falls asleep too, for now, it was yu lei and jerico, and nothing else mattered

[cheswirls]

i have so many thoughts and its about 430 am so lets get started before they get scrambled.

i decided to read red potter and the middleground, but because i finished one so early in the morning, i had to hold off on the other for a bit, until this -past, i guess- evening. i had read for sure a chapter of the middleground previously, maybe two, but i’ve read too much now that the recollection isn’t coming to me like it came in small bursts through reading through chapter one again. i think it was another instance when i got extremely busy and had to put it down, maybe tac2 took over, dunno, but i got back to it now bc im still on the post-playthrough-of-white high and anything deep in unova is good and lu is fantastic so i knew this would be fantastic and is was right.

it’s a very dark read? unexpected, then again, its centered around a war, so also i shouldve expected it. the realization hit me around the third chapter, i think, when the nimbasa incident happened. very dark and very good. and emotional, i dunno how many times ive cried tonight but its been a night/twilight. the whole story basis with the center legend of unova and all the olden history is really good, its all really boosting my unova high like this is exactly what ive been needing to find, and all the characters it brings in despite the animeverse of it all -benga, n, touko!!- and the roles they play just really made it better, its kind of shallow but i like it even moreso because of the additions and though the story kept me highly entertained and drawn in there were a couple moments when i wished like oh man i hope the story has n in it bc n man jus n i need n content and then bam mentioned and now hes officially in it sort of i mean yeah he is. in the story. and this was early on like during the first few chapters so i had to hold out but it was worth it like, the story is interesting with the anime characters and i knew it was gonna be aniverse going into it and it was good and fine and still is good and fine. 

i dont remember when i started wishing for touko but man oh man it happened and i was like damn this could happen i wish she was kinda here bc i think i had begun to pick up on something and then later i really picked up on it which i will get to later and them bam another happy revelation and i am still like. touko. shes here. shes a part of the story. this is awesome.

anyway before this gets too long to massively too long, this is basically going to be a big analysis and happy-rant post, so if you have not read the middleground by the amazing @pkmncoordinators, you should do so here but then like leave this post until you do and then come back, that would be good. the rest is under a cut to save peoples dashes, sorry this is mega long already aha.

i played ghetsis’ battle theme through a chapter and it mustve been a shorter one bc it lasted me -30min- near the entire chapter. maybe the one beginning w the drayden and alder talk? or the dragonspiral tower one? or maybe theyre the same, its been a long night of binging this entire work. anyway. it set the mood for whatever chapter like i intentionally was like oh this theme is a little foreboding lets play it. and i had it down so low sometimes i could only hear the percussions to it, but it was still there, setting the tone.

otherwise, i found myself only keeping to n music. maybe there were a couple plays of unova e4, way in the very beginning of the first/second chapters, maybe, but for the most part, i kept with n’s songs. the bridge, some, the castle and battle theme, a lot. some renditions of such in b2w2 style. i tried to play through the music of n’s room in the castle, but i had to stop after a little into it, maybe ten minutes, because it was getting all these feelings out of me and i felt like if i played it all i would ‘tire it out’, so to speak, even though that hasnt happened w any of the tracks thus far, but i really want that to be a special one i  have on to draw inspiration from. later into the night/morning, whenever, i did decide to try out a remix of it via the b2w2 track of the same theme. the tune is in a slightly different pitch, but more than that, it gets distorted, almost corrupted, throughout and differentiates itself that way from the original, so i did end up playing through that no problem. i cant recall now if i ever played a theme back to back, i think i switched after the 30min was over, which, understandable, it’d been looping for half an hour. but i think i did play it again maybe once, which is fine. good.

but enough with music meta. its interesting, maybe thats where the draws of ‘where’s n?’ came from, but its not the focus.

oooh boy lets talk about various things that i will address here bc its 5am now and i need to not lose track. the n thing. um. the touko revelations. remember liberty, because the truth will set you free. the hero of truth. the opening chapter remarks. the possible sourgrapes. the viewpoints thing. there is probably more i will get to later in a different post but these are the current things for the morning.

first i wanna talk abt touko, hilda, whatever. small note so i dont appear brash, to ppl who dont really follow my content, i just dont really like the names hilda and hilbert. hilda is slowly growing on me, but missy always called the protag touko, and it really grew on me, and i live the name now, so thats what i always defer to her as. jus a preference thing.

so, i had no idea and i had every idea. oh my god. lu, you are so good at the foreshadowing stuff, serious. a master at it. i didnt pick up on the nimbasa trainer mention, or maybe i did but its been long ago now and i dont remember it. if she appeared before then i already dont remember the callback to it, oops. anyway. it was after that, for sure, if not before, that i did pick up on the brunette trainer and thought ‘damn if that was touko tho thatd be so rad’. really thinking it was in the electronic store in striaton, but that seems so far away from nimbasa like there mustve been something in between but i dont think so? so that. and then in the next, black city? abt the brunette trainer watching the tv, and i think i had the same thought except it was during ghetsis’ speech so between both moments brunette trainer was mentioned. i think i picked up on the repeated mentions of brunette trainer when she and iris locked eyes to see her also packing to leave the center. it was a thought more along the lines of ‘brunette trainers seem to be standing out to me more or are i guess being detailed more than other trainers’ than out of suspicion. i was picking up the repeated characteristic, but more of the notion that it was being named over and over, instead of anything real behind it. like, okay, there are a lot of brown haired trainers around, that works.

it was maybe in icirrus if that was the next thing, i tried to look and think i confirmed that was the next thing based on the recall conversation, so yes. in icirrus, my memory is really failing me sorry!!, somewhere, the first mention or maybe if that first mention was the brunette trainer across the hall in another room, my mind clicked. and it was like, oh, this brunette trainer might actually be all the same person. and i started to think again, wow, what if that person was touko bc i was really passionate abt it and i couldnt come up with who else bc i didnt have the focus i was still actively reading the store yknow? if was nothing about the being followed, i had to wait for the others to catch on and tell the reader before i got that aha. but i did! get! the touko part. it was when iris woke up from the comatose and all those scenes started playing out, maybe she mentioned not disturbing the others or cilan when they were talking, or georgia when she ran off, or something abt the trainer in another room, or a revelation dawned i guess somewhere in those scenes. and i was like oh my god that has to be touko god wow. im really losing my original train of thought i apologize. still recovering from sickness, and the whole long night thing. so something along that thought, but then it sorta got forgotten bc shit got real w virgil and the truth seekers being there, and i didnt recall again until she approached cilan during the counter sheidl -niiiiice throwback, by the way- training, and i was like !!!!!!!!!!!! that HAS to be touko and then she led him away and the whole scene played out and i remember scanning the page briefly, jus flicking my eyes over to see if i saw the namedrop and didnt, so i got entranced in the scene and then benga was like ‘hilda get the other three’ and TOUKO!!!!! WAS THERE OMG!!!! like confirmed, in the flesh, it was great its great what a great thing to add wow. and then the recall conversation happened and i began to pick up and was like wow they were being followed and didnt even remember the brunette trainer mentioned in nimbasa, barely remembered someone with a samurott led the charge to put out the fires, so that was a surprise. of course, that was such an intense scene, and i remember having a small breakdown around then bc burgundy said something about how she couldve been in one of those rooms and that chilled her and it sent me wild bc it was scary to think about, it really was chilling, this story really is dark che wow. 

so i was proud of myself for picking up on that, the touko thing, but i probably wouldve been in the dark completely had i read it and not recently played through white and mind being constantly on that region and those characters right now. 

that was super long. um. next thing is liberty bc i can remember it. the line is, im pretty sure, just remember liberty, because the truth will/can set you free. and its really only because im so into unova right now, but back at the first chapter today, my mind immediately picked up ‘oh liberty island’. except its not island, its liberty garden-island, thing, but still. the liberty just connected, and i had it, and so like when iris busted out like hey we’re not flying to nimbasa we’re going to liberty garden i was like yh guys cmon take a hint. but i really think it was probably creative and thought-provoking to others, a bit of a twister, to liek other readers like this isnt a callout on an easy riddle, jus a notion i picked up on easily. actually i remember the castelia thing confusing me, but there was also some disconnect because the liberty line want being used, it was just being mentioned that everyone seeking the seekers was heading to castelia, like the two were never paired i dont recall of. and it happened every time. i was like okay yes theyre at libery garden, then castelia was mentioned and i was like okay theyre at castelia. they never really crossed so they never crossed in my mind. it wasnt until the group landed in castelia i think that my mind connected, ah yes, liberty garden is off the coast of the city. i do wonder how plasma figured it out though. i think earlier speculation was on the touko-n relationship compromising the location, though im not sure how that would work in the first place, so it seems more likely someone jus picked up on the insinuation like i did, jus made the connection, tho i dunno who.

really quick hero of truth revelation thing. it took me a couple reads to grasp, like iris realized something cilan didnt but he went away and it took me, i had to read it over a few times because she realized something so therefore the readers have to realize as well, and then i made the connection that cilan was related to the hero of truth therefore making him the hero of truth. that couldve been phrased better unless cress and chili are somehow included which i think not, too many motifs, but the point comes across. i might not have made the connection had i not read earlier in the day about iris slipping cilan reshiram’s pokeball, something i stumbled upon before i started reading the entire thing oops so maybe that was a giveaway that helped me work through it, maybe i just connected based on the ancestor stuff, dunno. 

i still havent figured out whos writing the chapter intros and its getting to me!! i dunno if we’re supposed to know yet, at first i felt like cilan, and then a vague collection of others, maybe trip with the camera capture in black city, and then maybe touko at the end tho i feel like something was mentioned that was confidential and that she wouldn’t have known about. then again i suppose sharing stories and then recounting could come into play, in which case benga could also be writing them.. i dont’ feel like its someone currently irrelevant, tho. like, i don’t think it’s luke, or bianca, or someone kinda disconnected like that. its probably a spoiler for you to say whom, which okay, fair, but i hope someone signs off on the intros in the last chapter, or that theres something to pick up on to discover it ourselves, or maybe its not important, but i really gotta know eventually.

someone mentioned days ago about something like not being into wishfulshipping and then something about sourgrapes was mentioned, i really dont remember that well, but i started to pick up on it throughout, especially with all the camping scenes, and remembering you liked sourgrapes so much, and is it possible to confirm that thats a ship in this fic? or, has a possibility? i think i’m picking up on it, but it could be friendship, im not sure.

these next two are the last two for now i think. first, viewpoints, because this story delves into such a cast of characters and i think the same story told from the viewpoint of others would be so interesting, like told through the eyes of benga or touko, or even elesa possibly, and if you ever like wanna divulge in that or after you get done wouldnt mind someone taking a shot at it and working with for accuracy reasons, that would be pretty cool. and you have your first volunteer.

second and last is the n thing. i think a little is just meta, which i want to make a full post on later in time, so this may or may not tie in not sure. just, real brief, isn’t n such an interesting character? i really just, i dunno if i like him like i like others, but i really find his dynamic interesting. keeping it short, bc meta, the boy really grew up differently than a “normal” human. the proper socialization was there, sort of, because he can walk and speak and was educated like hes a math geniusa nd stuff, but he wasn’t socially educated. a lot of people dont realize the two are different, i didnt until i took an intro to sociology course this past fall semester. anyway tho. he really wasnt socially educated, and you can see that through all representations -cant speak for spe actually i havent read the arc yet- even in the anime, though far less likely than i would have liked, having rewatched the n arc a few days ago. the disconnect from people is there. n had tutors, but other than that he was in a room with his only company being pokemon formerly abused by people. that was it. not even normal pokemon, but those he had to gain the trust of first because they were misled by trainers. he doesn’t really know how to act with people. he talks fast, hes very blunt, he doesnt know the meaning of personal boundaries, et cetera. he was, practically, raised in a cult. led to believe only the cult’s beliefs. and its only through getting out of his room and around unova, at least in the game, that he begins to develop his own thouhgts and ideas and morals, that he begins to doubt what hes been preached his whole life. this is getting a bit like so im gonna cut, but i just, n is such an interesting character. the tie in. already, in the tv announcement, his voice is ethereal and i could picture it, could play the sound in my mind based off the anipoke and the gens voices, because both of those are genuinely how n sounds to me, i can see it perfectly it just works like there is no other voice for him. i could picture that when he spoke. and already, with the dreamy, far-off gaze, and it hardening, i can see his characterization is going to be so great in the middleground, and im so excited. i recently finished a fic where his characterization to me was absolutely perfect, and even as it evolved, that standard didnt diminish, because the evolution was so seamless and good that the changes to him felt right, felt realistic.

im realizing now this sounds like a do-good-or-there-will-be-consequences thing, which is not my intention. im just, i really wanted a story with n, one i knew would be good, and the middleground is it at the moment. and i know youll do a good job because i liked tac so much, which featured n, and already its the little things with middleground!n that are already so good, and this was really just me saying thank you and i cant wait, and so thank you and i cant wait for more. i cant wait to see more of n, no matter how small a role, or how big iunno, he plays, its already so good for such a complex character with such a grey background. morally grey, ethically grey, realistically grey, just grey. 

all in all, the middleground is amazing so far, i love it so so much, and once again, i cant wait for more. thank you for such an amazing piece thus far, lu. its past 6am now so its taken me a bit to get through this post, i hope the majority makes sense. and i cant wait to see what comes next with the story.