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batsplat · 4 months ago

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a silly one: top 5 or 10 naruto ships or dynamics whatever you prefer

ooh excellent ask. it's actually quite tough to make a selection! I do enjoy a lot of canon dynamics that I wouldn't like... necessarily seek out in fandom, but then the stuff I interact with in fandom, what I read fic for and so on, is SO broad and so eclectic that it becomes a struggle to narrow it down. I think I've skewed more towards canon dynamics/relationships I enjoy... there's no fandom I read as broadly for as naruto, including a lot of gen fic - and a lot of it is very team-based stuff, which I'm mostly going to leave out. also, proper niche things that exist only in my head like 'the rin/konan manifesto'. anyway. here goes

10. gaara x naruto: gaara was a top three character of mine when I was a kid (along with temari and itachi). he's very appealing to the edgelord seven year old and I did have his sand gourd as a bag, plus his arc was one of my favourite bits of the manga. his powers are cool as shit, that bit in the forest where he brutally murders the other team and temari goes 'bye bye' is excellent - and then of course there's his main character beat: how naruto can relate to him due to the monster trapped inside. naruto is very big on establishing parallels between its main characters and the various villains, which is all very shounen-y and kinda cliche but, well, it's fun. gaara is still the best execution of that trope, partly because he comes early enough that the central theme of 'isn't it lucky that naruto had friends!!!!' hasn't been done to death. the visual of naruto gradually being surrounded by loved ones while gaara stays alone does work... gaara was just a good character, genuinely creepy and functioning as this primal, unthinking evil, that is gradually revealed to be tragic and alone. the execution of the arc isn't perfect and naruto's power of love bit is already pushing it here, but the whole thing is more or less dramatically satisfying. now, as is so often the case, the whole thing does fall apart after this... gaara just becomes a complete non-entity where we have to assume he does all his character development off-screen, but when he comes back he's basically completely reformed and non-bloodthirsty. now, the problem with having a character whose only character trait is being bloodthirsty, you kinda need to be careful when you're taking away their one thing. don't accidentally make them boring! (it also doesn't canonically really fly to me - gaara isn't insane when we meet him because he has an attitude problem, he's insane because he literally cannot fall asleep and has a deranged monster whispering into his thoughts 24/7. like the attitude shift is a good start, but surely it'll take a bit more work than that.) the inclusion of this relationship on this list really is just about that initial arc and the promise therein, how well they bounced off each other to start with... (you'll find this is a bit of a running theme on this list actually.) I don't really ship them, don't really ship gaara with anyone except maybe rock lee and as far as I'm concerned it's naruto/sasuke 4 lyfe, but y'know. they're good foils. wish gaara had been struggling a little more with the 'not murdering people' thing when they next met. they could've been friends but in an interesting way idk

9. shikamaru/temari: to some extent I do feel like I've aged out of enjoying this relationship in its canon form. I loved it as a kid, in large part because temari was the one token strong woman and it actually felt like this relationship was being conducted on like... even footing. growing up, I have gone off shikamaru in the sense that... well, idk, I think he can be written well and there's plenty of good elements to the character, it's just that he is also a specific flavour of wish fulfilment that threatens to appeal to some of the most annoying types of guy imaginable. it doesn't help that temari slips into irrelevance from shippuden onwards and eventually really is just shikamaru's wife, which. awful! still, they did have strong banter. there's a world in which shikamaru is actually forced to grow up and mature a little more, rather than being treated by the narrative as the super smart moral authority badass cool guy who is right all the time. what I really want from this dynamic is the politics of it all... when we're introduced to these characters, we have these two strategists who are already embroiled in sensitive political situations. while shikamaru mostly still gets to be a kid and is only loosely aware of his father's work, temari is playing a central role in attempting a coup of another village. shikamaru's father is jounin commander and clan leader of one of konoha's more influential clans, roles he is expected to inherit - but he balks at the responsibility and kind of wants everyone to leave him alone. temari's father is the kazekage, her brother is the jinchuriki who she's terrified will murder her every time he loses his temper... she's outwardly far more accepting of her duties, but you can't imagine that's an easy situation, right. there's a lot about their lives that feel very prescribed, from the supportive role they play to the jinchuriki to the lineage-based teams they were assigned to. idk, I feel like the basic potential of a romance between the pair of them is that it gives them the opportunity to... go against all that, to actually make their own choice for once because they've fallen in love with a smart arsehole. I'm also kinda interested in the logistics of inter-village romance, because you have to assume that's not been a common thing but it's barely commented on once it starts cropping up within naruto's generation. especially when it's two figures of shikamaru and temari's stature! I just want a bunch of fun political dramas between these two that aren't painfully heteronormative and lets temari level a forest or two, is that too much to ask for

8. sasori/deidara: look, I could have included any number of akatsuki combinations here. I think they're all fantastic, I enjoy them in canon, I have read a lot of fic for them. I think I read more itachi/deidara fic than sasori/deidara, but that's also just kinda dependent on where the fandom has gone with these characters. this is the gold standard akatsuki teammate pairing: memorable, charming, bonkers. like, they're artists, but they have this fundamental philosophical divide because one is in love with things being temporary and the other with things being eternal... which is expressed by having one blow everything up and the other making himself into a puppet to live forever... that's cinema right there. this dynamic immediately bangs in canon because they just have such easy antagonistic chemistry. they really are both the type of guy who would drive you absolutely insane with their stupid fucking art debates. they're just such vivid characters with such distinctive voices and worldviews... you kinda want to play around with them, right, like they're just fun!! I love them!! obviously also great for au's, like they are annoying grad students they just are... idk I luv them, both platonically and as a ship. how do they work out romantically.... well, probably they don't, unless in a heavily au scenario. they're also kinda on the opposite ends of the... idk what to call it, libido spectrum shall we say, where deidara has got this whole tongue situation and sasori is frozen in this arrested, sterile youth. you kinda need to get weird and freaky with these characters, right, and try to figure out how they would navigate their respective situations. but see, isn't that something that just gets the imagination going! one's a small waif puppet lurking inside a big hulking puppet, the other's got tongues in his hands, doesn't that just stimulate the creative mind. if sasori fell in love with deidara, he would want to make him into a puppet... limitless potential

7. sasuke x itachi: now, listen, this one's a bit of a mess. both of their characterisations become increasingly messy as the series goes on, which given how much of their characters are about each other becomes a kind of downward spiral into incoherency. I'm still not entirely sure what the series' moral stance on itachi's actions is supposed to be - which, look, I'm not saying you need to have a moral stance on everything, but you should try to have SOME kind of coherent framing of the whole ordeal that goes beyond 'wow, that sure sucked for everyone involved'. all this means you can kinda go one of two ways with this dynamic: either you ignore the shippuden twist, or you don't ignore it and let itachi have his 'reasonable motivations' for the uchiha massacre. I do tend to accept this twist... it does give a good explanation for why itachi left sasuke alive beyond 'he wanted to steal his eyes'. my stance on the whole thing is that itachi's heart might generally be in the right place, but he made a truly awful choice and the narrative will never be able to convince me otherwise. if you go from there, you do have a very compelling set-up for that sibling relationship. sasuke is the only person in the world who itachi loves unconditionally; he's protective of his baby brother in a way he simply will never be of anyone else. whereas sasuke has always been defined by itachi, first existing entirely in his shadow and then dedicating his entire life to killing him... itachi is devoted to sasuke and sasuke cannot escape itachi. that's good stuff! classic older sibling/younger sibling dynamic... it's just a dynamic that's so foundational to both of them that even in fics that aren't about that relationship specifically, it's basically unavoidably THERE. the canon is a mess, but the emotional truths that underlie it work

6. minato/kushina: from a storytelling standpoint, I hate naruto being minato's son. naruto's parentage reveal kills his underdog credentials dead in the water and it's very... well he was always gonna be an ultra special boy, wasn't he. like it does kinda destroy the character. unfortunately, I can't ignore his parentage because I do simply love them. yes, this is another relationship that suffers from that thing where all the writing of women is kinda awful. I don't mind their meet cute being kushina's damsel in distress moment when she's being kidnapped - but given how little screen time they have, kushina's badass status ends up being very much an informed trait. let's just take it as read that every woman in this series is done dirty. in any case, the appeal of minato is that he is fundamentally a wife guy. he is kushina's number one fan and wants to live his life being kushina's number one fan. he's also not from a super powerful clan, which I really like; he ends up embodying the democratic ideal that naruto was supposed to. he's also really big on the whole 'gentle smile, kills so so many people' thing, which is always fun imo. kushina gets introduced as this feral naruto-esque girl - and with that sort of thing there's always a massive danger of the girl being like... feminised beyond recognition and concurrently being reduced to housewife status. now there is a little bit of that with kushina, but in my head there really doesn't have to be. in a way, they're really too bland and boring for me to love them as much as I do... they're sweet, though, and I adore team minato. plus, I'm always a sucker for a tragic heterosexual arc

5. hashirama/madara: these two were in love with each other. obviously they were. there's three separate ships on this list that basically function as 'tragic backstories'; this series has a lot of strong tragic backstories. perhaps that's partly because those stories are already for the most part 'finished' by the time they are narrated to the audience, which means we're generally spared any of what this series considers character development. I'm pretty sure I've already posted on this blog before about my dislike for the entire uchiha curse situation and there's definitely quite a lot of annoying things about madara's character too, but luckily most of them don't impact the backstory too much. I love how sweet and innocent they are when they meet, how they're just immediately enamoured with each other, how fate and circumstance conspires to turn them against each other, how they eventually flip the script and irrevocably change the world with their idealism... I just love the kind of rivalry that produces a pair of giant gay ass statues guarding a waterfall. now, as stated above, I don't like the idea that madara ends up fucking it because there's something cursed about his blood. this kind of determinism manages to be both boring and kinda troubling if you think about the implications for more than two seconds. it also sets up naruto and sasuke breaking the cycle, without any indication of why those two specifically manage to break it - sasuke is fundamentally not in a place where he would be closer to breaking it than mr teenage political revolutionary madara. sasuke was accidentally radicalised, my man madara was already there from day one! this story works the best imo if you've got two fundamentally well-intentioned idealistic blokes who have also been traumatised by war and have never entirely been able to let go of the war in their minds... just gradually letting the peace they built slip away. fewer bloodline curses, more generational trauma. I understand bloodline curses can be metaphors for generational trauma, but it's really not here. it just doesn't work. I don't really read a lot for this ship because it's one of those where I have a very specific idea of how I think this dynamic works and the fic out there I've read doesn't quite meet me where I am. but I do love the backstory, do love the dynamic, do love the vibes. plus, cool power match-up

4. sand siblings: my kids!! they show up to konoha, they bully a bunch of the homegrown brats, then they start murdering children in the forest. love a good sibling dynamic and this one has such a fun and unique flavour... beleaguered eldest child temari, snarky and mean and confident but also way out of her league, annoying middle child kankuro who plays at being cocky while also having to reckon with his fundamental lack of power, and lonely youngest child gaara, who initially barely seems to see the other two as siblings at all. obviously, the real meat of this dynamic is that temari and kankuro are absolutely terrified of gaara, who despite his age functions as the de facto leader of their team. it feels quite rare in-universe to have teams that consist of siblings, with a bit of separation between the hierarchical military command structure and actual blood family that actually feels like quite a good idea. suna clearly don't believe in that shit and instead have decided to force these three into what just feels like a horrendous situation for everyone... it's essentially an extension of their childhood household - where temari and kankuro were taught to treat gaara with mistrust and contempt before eventually learning to fear him, while gaara is given little reason to expect any kind of familial affection from his older brother and sister. good and gritty abusive family dynamic... obviously none of these three kids are really to blame with how fucked up that relationship has become, but also all three have understandable reasons to be wary. their early canon dynamic is so interesting, where they're like... kinda comfortable around each other, are mostly quite distanced and professional when interacting amongst themselves and let more of their personalities show to outsiders than each other... kankuro and temari forming a little bit of a united front in containing gaara, but mostly they're just united in their fear of their baby brother... it's compelling! I am compelled! now, I've already given the sparknotes of my issues with gaara and temari's later development and the same broadly holds true of kankuro, plus their relationship in general. they just basically all seem quite fine with each other after naruto's done his talk no jutsu thing. the whole 'gaara becoming kazekage' thing was always a bit weird to me... even in the military dictatorship universe, gaara does not have the prerequisites for that to be a good idea in the slightest. if anything, it does kinda feel like temari should have gotten that job - and I'm not too fussed with her getting it, I actually like her mirroring shikamaru in taking more of a supportive role that allows her to have a little more freedom, but maybe kankuro...? idk, I know it's supposed to be meaningful and emotional because, oh, look at how they've accepted the jinchuriki, but this is the bit of the magic ninja manga that just completely breaks my suspension of disbelief. just ends up falling kinda flat to me. it also ended up unnecessarily preempting naruto's whole thing? weird weird choice, still don't like it, basically I like nothing about the sand siblings writing from shippuden onwards. do love them, though! long live dysfunctional siblings

3. naruto/sasuke: the thing about this pairing is that, look, they are basically canon. naruto is extremely down bad for sasuke and in turn he seems to be the only person sasuke still somewhat gives a shit about. that man certainly doesn't give a shit about sakura... I have read and enjoyed ot3 fic for team 7, I don't inherently think sakura/sasuke is an awful ship or anything, but the way canon does it is just. well. no. anyhow, it's kind of hard to give a concise summary on my take for this pairing in a way I've been doing for the other items of this list, because doing so would basically amount to 'summarise the plot of naruto'. it's the central dynamic of the entire series... their conflict, the different paths they end up taking, whether they can find their way back to each other or not. I've already complained about the actual execution of this arc before, but man are they conceptually compelling. it's sasuke throwing himself in front of haku's needles to save naruto, it's naruto throwing himself in front of a massive snake to save sasuke, it's them taunting and challenging each other throughout those early arcs... the rooftop fight as a furious, terrified sasuke tries to understand how he could have allowed naruto to catch him... the valley of the end, when naruto reaches out and points out all the similarities between them - and sasuke rebuffs him, telling naruto he understands nothing of loss... again, the whack morality of this series does limit the effectiveness of the storytelling because, not to get all edgelord 'sasuke was right' here, but low key... sasuke was right much of the time. he also never actually sunk low enough... the series' stance is that his dedication to his quest of vengeance was basically fine, but the issue was that he didn't go about it with the power of friendship. which, sure, but... idk man. the series kinda lost me when it tried to portray the uchiha massacre as some sort of noble deed. it really lost me with all the curse of hatred stuff. the series never sold me on why these two specifically manage to break the cycle, which is kinda impressive given how much naruto goes on about sasuke over the course of the series. but mooning over an uchiha boy is not enough! this list features multiple instances of a character mooning over an uchiha boy. where I'm at with this pairing is that I passively enjoy it when I'm actually engaging with the source material, don't necessarily seek out fic for them even though obviously it's just... there in a lot of stuff, but do very much conceptually enjoy them. I think it's cool that naruto's gay love changed the ninja world. that's very valid of him

2. kakashi/obito: the impact that finding out kakashi's backstory had on eight year old me needs to be studied. it was one of my absolute absolute favourite bits of the manga to read, just like half a volume that tells this little tragedy of team minato where you have so much of the story still missing but it's sad and horrible because it's kakashi!!! the immediate intrigue of having this naruto-esque uchiha who wasn't in the usual mould of prodigy, but instead only tapped into his potential at the moment of his tragic death. the way he changed kakashi's entire outlook on life!! he saved kakashi multiple times over in his moment of 'death'... idk it just tells you so much about kakashi so quickly and it does all feel like a logical explanation for why the character is Like That, so congrats there. and then, the reveal - well, I was always going to be up for that. tobi is just an inherently funny character, just continuously makes you go 'what is your deal' and 'why are you like this'. he's so whack that he really lends himself to just like... being kinda obsessed with kakashi, stalking him around and all that. really solidifies how basically the only bits of shippuden worth engaging with are the super akatsuki-focused ones. and then the reveal!! the tragedy of it all!! look, I'm always going to raise an eyebrow on a ship that relies on the death of a woman for the emotional whump, and I change my mind a lot about how to tackle the rin problem (I do love her, but mainly just the version of her that exists in my head - canon does not give us A Lot) (and in general I am very up for team minato content). all that being said.... I'm gonna be real, I love that backstory too. I don't think it's executed all that well, obito's emotional arc is a bit of a mess, but the twelve year old boy in my heart finds the scene where obito comes across rin being killed by kakashi and murders everyone there minus kakashi so extremely sick. and the fight between kakashi and obito is clearly the best thing that happens in that entire endless bloody ninja war. doubles down on the pathos with the sad music and all that shit, and it actually kinda works for me. I think kakashi should get to redeem his childhood rival turned deranged enemy and live happily ever after with him, as a treat

1. sakura/ino: in many ways not really the type of dynamic I usually go for, given the animosity between them is... y'know, not that serious and also a bit of a non-issue post time skip. like with many things in this world, I have this version of the story that exists in my head where their rivalry remains like... a major part of the story throughout. anyway they mean the world to me... this imbalance between them, ino with the clan heritage and the popular cool girl vibes protecting the shy little common brat with the big forehead... I like that they had a stupid argument over a boy and made it into this insane competition about who will be the best ninja. I like their chunin exam fight!! in-universe it's kinda mid-on-mid girl-on-girl, but in the version of this series that exists in my head and allows the women to actually be equally powerful to the blokes... idk isn't there something insanely romantic about them matching each other perfectly, about their mental tussle, how sakura overcomes the combat advantage ino holds due to her upper class status through sakura's sheer force of will/derangement... basically I think they should get to challenge each other and maybe also attempt to kill each other? my ideal sakura arc is one that really leans into her normie status and gives her some girl power wish fulfilment in spite of it. you can have her fully rebel against the status quo and have her sympathise with sasuke, you can have her go the tobirama-esque hardliner route, the prejudiced genius who will do anything to defend her village and reform it in line with her standards, or you can have her go the more academic route where she does a bunch of weird medical experiments idk. (the three genders: madara, tobirama, or orochimaru.) or, well, that's how EYE saw her development going - I just think there's space for something a lot more substantive than 'what if tsunade, but without all the genetic advantages and political power'. idk! with ino, my god... she's already linked to the interrogation department... they made her the obligatory girl medic when she should be working with the torture people... to me conceptually ino should always end up working in opposition to sakura whatever route you want to send her down. and you need to include as much mind fuckery as possible, because it's fundamentally fun and valid to have a ship where your two characters can do deranged things to each other in their brains. anyway, look, obviously all of this is straying pretty far away from the canon dynamic. sakura has that female main character thing of not being particularly well characterised and easy to project onto, which means you can kinda do whatever with her - and obviously I have now kinda been doing whatever with her for many years. I do think they're neat. I stand by them being neat

#got this ask when i had a fever and it has stayed with me #in the days transitioning from having a fever to merely wasting away as i wait for death to claim me. a full week yayyyy #//#batsplat responds #still have a bunch of sakura/ino fic in various docs... i should go back to that stuff #naruto is an insanely fun sandbox it has to be said... even just writing this has made me want to play with the characters again lol

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alltheangstmygifttoyou · 1 year ago

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I can barely use tumblr without it crashing and this ain't what I usually put on my blog but I dont care bc I'm excited and want to throw ideas into the void!!! So under the cut will be SPOILERS for Helluva Boss all episodes released to this day (9/9/23 having season 2 episode 6 posted and the date of me typing this post). Cool? Cool.

Edit: (its now 12/10/23 and I see I never posted this lmao its just in my drafts. Which I have like fifty of 😅)

Okay okay so like: I'm a nerd who's an obsessive little bitch at times and when Fizz was explaining his side of events I was like... I'm not calling you a liar, 'cause Blitzø was definitely jealous, at least a bit, but I dont think jealousy over fame caused the biggest strain. So I went back through the episode slowly and took some screen shots of the flashback parts to show a bit what I mean.

[Image description: Cash Buckzo smiling as young adult Fizz reads card with words on the front saying "Wish you were My So" with Fizz's hand blocking the last letter. In the background of the image young adult Blitzø is watching behind curtains unhappily]

Pretty sure we can all tell that card really saying "wish you were my son" seeing how we know Cash is a shit father from season 2 episode 1. The deep blue (personally reminds me of space) and star decorations of the card are also an interesting choice, as well as the handwriting. It all points to Cash either having other people doing work for him, or being capable of doing these things himself, but not caring enough to similarly educate his kid in turn. So its no fucking wonder why Blitzø was upset! Theres a difference in wanting the spot light and wanting your parent to act like they love you instead of your bestest friend! (As someone who was the bestest friend at one point shit ain't comfortable!)

So Blitzø sees this shit and feels understandably hurt. I would too. He has a letter for Fizz, but logical or not, the hurt caused by Cash would sour emotions around Fizz for Blitzø for a little bit likely. So he removed himself from the situation before really ever entering, and with the shove he gave the cake holder and the talk of booze stealing from Cash later in the episode, I have to imagine that was his way of trying to not ruin Fizz's party. Blitzø throughout the series has been a bit quick to violence, volatile emotions would just worsen things. In some sense, if the fire hadn't gotten out of hand so quickly- or they waited until the cake was settled to light the candles, I'd argue Blitzø was making a more emotional mature decision than I normally think of him.

But then theres the card and flower itself. Its sealed with a heart sticker and says "Fizz's eyes only". The flower looks familiar. Five red petals all coming together to a yellow eye like center. Reminds me of the flowers in Stolas' hospital room in season 2 episode 4 Western Energy. People theorized that those petals dropping had something to do with the whole he loves me he loves me not game. The nature of these twos relationship is interesting.

I included these four screen shots because I think they emphasize the hurt Blitzø felt, his confusion, but mainly to point out Cash. When all the charecters are silhouettes we see one that is clearly Blitzø standing under Fizz's birthday banner. But behind him, one of the last sprinting out of the tent is a partly hidden silhouette. But the horn, head, hand/claws, and mustache make it clear that this is Cash once again. But when we see from a more street view Blitzø is alone when the explosion of fireworks happened. Doesn't this imply that Cash just not only left the kid who he wished was his son but also his blood son behind despite all he needed to do was grab them and push them to run?

#helluva screenshots #helluva spoilers #tw helluva boss #ren theorizing #is it theorizing or meta commentary or me just rambling?#fandom thing #i want to post more like this without making a whole new blog but dont wanna be annoying #is there a good way to tag these kinds of posts?#outdated by a couple months

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sunset-synthetica · 2 years ago

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Got any takes on Optimus that would seem “controversial” within the fandom?? I’m curious bc I really like your meta and analyses on him!

I've talked abt this with a friend (partly due to ROTB) already but I don't think Optimus being brutal during fights/in general is an issue itself. What matters is why he's like that. This is also gonna contain spoilers for Rise of The Beasts, so beware.

See, the reason I dislike Bayverse Optimus is specifically because his brutality is never put into question or contrasted with what he has to say about peace and second chances and all that. He rips off limbs and threatens violence because it looks and sounds cool. That is my issue.

To contrast this, ROTB Optimus' brutality stems from Bumblebee's death and the general, long lasting despair and self hatred that comes along with the destruction of Cybertron.

His anger is a direct response to that, which the movie makes clear multiple times. I have a lot of issues with the writing and pacing of the movie, particularly in this area, but at its core, Optimus acting the way he does makes sense. It's a very interesting plot point that needed a lot more setup and, in general, time it couldn't get because of how absolutely stuffed the movie was already.

It's not a betrayal of his character, imo, to have him act out and express his anger in unhealthy or dangerous ways. He is a person like everyone else, and the weight he carries around with him is bound to make him snap in one way or another. I just wish it was handled with more care and understanding of who he is and why.

#asks

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floorpancakes · 1 year ago

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basically in my xxxholic splatoon au doumeki watanuki and himawari are idols but they’re also owarai/standup comedy themed kinda like how shiv from deep cut has rakugo theming.

himawari is the leader that’s a bit more of a singer and gets center privileges

whenever theres a splatfest watanuki unhinges his jaw in an attempt to maul doumeki like a dog and decides he’s the worlds worst person for not sharing his opinion on random topics (he dgaf about himas differing opinions and actually really praises them then gets caught out cause clearly he doesn’t agree with her its literally his job)

yuuko is a greedy koi fish themed ceo (and their idol manager) who replaces mr grizz as the salmon run main pop girl and has forced watanuki to be her latest recruit and put his ass on the line to get salmonid eggs but at one point after a particularly rough shift yuuko rewards him with a cute eel sidekick that can transform into a mega sized eel a la little buddy (mugetsu) to protect him

they have kind of a mix of traditional kimono and western clown themed outfits

watanuki has to rehearse extra hard for splatfest performances so he doesn’t embarrass the audience, but somehow the group have fairly equal individual popularity

watanuki has confusing and kinda enigmatic octoling related baggage and doumeki is winning the octoling idgaf war and comes from a lineage of special octolings w ancient stringer wielder lineage

hima actually has a golden salmonid pet that watanuki brought back from one of his shifts by accident and woke up to find hatched (tanpopo)

their idol group is called fishtsuzen and every single broadcast is at lunchtime so they can use it as an excuse to laze around while eating bento like high schoolers

i cant tell if I wanna do this yet but i wanna do smth cool w himas not a curse curse status like maybe she’s afflicted by fuzzy ooze and has fuzzy hair and everyone thinks it’s just kind of an aesthetic thing

doumeki still has the extra eyeliner octoling thing because its fun

their secret mission is to investigate unexplained paranormal occurrences in defunct octo territory

the mokonas take the place of the judds as the last two test rabbits on earth

yuuko has a personal investment in researching ‘the wishes of mankind’ that she’s allegedly trying to research using her power and influence

watanuki wishes he was just running the food stall but his hands are full with being a caterer for his friends LMAO

im still struggling to think of something kohane could do im not gonna lie but i feel like there’s potential

marumoro are in charge of gachapons in the lobby and yuuco respectively and are undergoing customer service training to come off as ‘less spooky’

considering having yuuko actually be a reincarnated human/yuukos soul way past human extinction which is why she’s being kinda shady and knows some shit totally separate from sea creature society

yuuco is laid out like the shop so when salmon runners go for job interviews they walk in assuming it will be a laid back swanky career choice. then they come head to head with a steel eel and minimum wage

doumeki has been asked to model for like ten different brands but he usually drags tanuki and or hima to come with because it is boring otherwise. this has basically made any prospective doumeki schedule a package deal because he is easily bored and easily entertained and ironically actually benefitted all of them in their collective rise to fame

himawari has a special interest in the darker side of stuff like the fall of humanity and the nuclear fallout partly cause she's just a bright girl into dark things and partly because shes kinda projecting

haruka turns up in watanukis dreams still but instead of a hot octoling gilf sometimes he shows up as crispy little guy with beady eyes like captain cuttlefish and it scares the shit out of him

noone knows what yuuko is actually smoking like is it crushed up salmon vape is it the blended ink of her enemies who knows!!

watanuki makes special splatfest themed snacks which are passed onto different shops to mass produce as gentei sweets but doumeki refuses to eat anything but the OGs (a classic) he once turned down a CM cause he was presented with snacks from the store and lost interest and dipped

group unofficially formed as the weird kids at high school, was put through the wringer as paranormal investigators and the whole idol activities came later (himas idea yuuko immediately sniped them)

yep that's right their Thing is splat idols is part time paranormal investigators ....the story mode would eat

yuuko has a mysterious storehouse of human artifacts and seems to be the only one that knows their original usage , usually she sells stuff she doesn't need and it gets snapped up by weapon development researchers and scrapper types, she has a long list of IOUs from various people and hands in many pots

watanuki gets agitated when he misses a spot in turf war and sometimes feels the need to clean up other teammates ink until it is tidy this is his fatal flaw sometimes he doesnt even just do this for turf war and its like rainmaker or something

he needs doumeki to not constantly die (in splatoon this time) bcs that fucker has a mean aim

doumeki watanuki dating scandal is attempted by a squid tabloid but it doesn't work cause everyone assumed they were already dating this entire time, this sends watanuki into a spiral because apparently they weren't actually dating yet but that issue is swiftly rectified 🫶

tanuki has a rly strong reaction to fuzzy ooze (uh oh) but doumeki can still counter it bcs of his lineage we love consistency

they have a big circus tent performance during splatfests and you get to go in the big tent to see them sing/banter/eat food/mess around as a treat

#au talk #xxxholic #splatoon au #headcanons

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annoyed-galaxy · 2 months ago

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Fictober 2024 ~ 16

"no, I'm not okay"

Fanfiction: DA2 Look, if they did not want Hawke to be a blood mage they shouldn't have promoted him as such and given me the blood mage specialization. But because it's literally never talked about and you can never have an opinion about blood magic even being a blood mage, I've headcanoned some things. That being, Hawke /has/ to be a blood mage in order to live. I may be warping the rules a little bit, but it's my fantasy world and I can do whatever. Besides, I think it's interesting for both Hawke and Anders to having a ticking death timer. Also, blood magic seems just cool to experiment with in terms of story potential. So, yeah. Dun worry bout it. Can also be found on Ao3

Anders poured over the books and scrolls laid out before while his other arm was in Seth’s lap. He had gotten so used to this weekly ritual that he didn’t even feel the pain of the blade slicing across his hand nor when his blood began to drain into Seth. He was too focused on the texts before him.

He flipped through pages and pages of magical ailments, trying to find anything related to blood magic or mana deficiency or literally anything that could point to his lover’s ailment. He face was scrunched up in thought and focus as he moved to another book, handling them with ease despite his one free hand.

He heard a sad sigh from Seth that pulled his attention away from the books for a moment. Seth’s eyes were still glowing red and he was still absorbing some of Anders’s blood, but his face was filled with pain. “Are you okay, love?” Anders asked, tilting Seth’s chin up to look at him. Seth was still channeling the blood into him and it pierced into his neck and Anders watched as color returned to his face, signifying that had he gone a day longer without this, he might have fallen unconscious again.

Seth frowned as shook his head and severed the connection, the last bit of blood he pulled seeping into his skin and his eyes returning to normal. Anders closed his bleeding hand and summoned a simple healing spell to seal the wound as he did so many times before. “No, I’m not okay,” Seth replied turning away and pulling his knees up to his chest. He looked so small and frail like this. In all the years Anders had known Seth, not much seemed to bother the Champion. But Anders knew that the humorous persona he put in display in front of people was for show. A mask to hide the neverending doom he always felt. A man doomed for death to take him at any moment.

Anders moved next to him, not touching him, but sitting cross-legged and leaned on his own legs. They were camping near a lake, the stars and moon reflected on its still surface. It reminded Anders a lot of Lake Calenhad where the Fereldan Circle was. He remembered looking out the tower windows often and seeing the same reflection on the water, wishing to be free. Now he was. But he was on the run again because of what he did.

He shook his head and returned his attention back to his lover who was clearly not doing okay in the moment. “What’s wrong?” he asked, putting a wary hand on Seth’s shoulder.

Seth seemed to relax at the touch, but his face was still scrunched up. “Looking through those books is useless, Anders. You’re not going to find anything. My father searched for answers for years.”

Anders offered a small smile. “Yes, but your father was an apostate. As were you all. He didn’t have access to Circle resources like I do.” It was partly true. Growing up in the Circle, Anders did a lot of studying when he wasn’t trying to escape. He studied the art of healing most of the time, but hadn’t perfected it until he met Feril Surana, the Hero of Fereldan.

After becoming a Grey Warden and serving under the hero, he learned a lot. He also became close friends with her. She taught him a lot about spirit healing and it helped him all throughout his time in Kirkwall. She was also the one who felt so similar about his feelings of mage freedom. He managed to keep in contact with her while in Kirkwall, but after the explosion of the Chantry, he had dropped it. Until recently.

As a fugitive, Anders could never go into Circle to browse their libraries. In a different time, as a Grey Warden mage, he might have been given freedom to peruse, but now he couldn’t. So he contacted Feril after such a long time, asking if she could find what he needed. Feril was also a mage that grew up in the Fereldan Circle. Anders honestly couldn’t remember if he ever saw her when they were both in the tower, but then again, she had become a Warden shortly after completing her Harrowing. She was also close with First Enchanter Irving.

However, Feril’s response was filled with warnings. Since his actions in Kirkwall, the Circles had been in unrest. What she was able to gather for him might have been the only thing she could get before the Circles fully collapsed. It hadn’t seemed like she blamed him for any of these things; in fact, she almost sounded happy and proud that the Circles were falling apart. Regardless of the fact, she managed to scrounge up the texts Anders had asked for.

“I doubt Circle books are going to have any information about using blood magic to stay alive,” Seth huffed, pulling himself closer in on himself.

Anders looked at the books and tilted his head. “Maybe not, but they may lead to some answers.” He looked back at Seth. “Justice and I have a working theory at the moment.”

This, made Seth look at his lover with a confused look. “You and…Justice?”

Anders nodded. The spirit had been quiet since the explosion and both Anders and the spirit had kept their thoughts separate. But in the months after Kirkwall, Anders approached Justice in their shared mind when he slept, asking for help with Seth. While Seth liked to pretend nothing bothered him, Anders had noticed over the weeks that his condition was weighing on him.

So Anders and Justice spoke at length about possibilities, Justice sharing his knowledge of the Fade that allowed them to come to their theory.

“We believe that your condition has something to do with your connection to the Fade. You see, blood magic doesn’t use the power of the Fade. It uses the power of…well, blood. But, as all mages are connected to the Fade, our existence is tied to that connection. I’ve seen you when you use magic from the Fade. It seems to weigh on you more and you get tired quicker, needing to drain blood sooner. However, when you use blood magic, using your own blood or someone else’s, it doesn’t seem to have an effect on you. But, if you were to not use magic at all, you would still wither away because that connection the Fade is what’s killing you, somehow.”

Seth liked it when Anders talked like this. He was so smart and passionate about so many things. Anders was a healer and knew so much about the way bodies worked and illnesses and so many other things that Seth loved it when he talked about those more than mage freedom. It was because those things were what Anders liked. Mage freedom was something Anders and Justice liked. Seth couldn’t stop the smile that slowly spread on his face even as he said, “Makes sense, in a way. My father theorized that the only for sure cure was becoming Tranquil and well…That’s just another form of death.” The smile slid away just as fast.

Anders nodded in agreement. “By severing your connection to the Fade, you would stop dying. Yet, what we haven’t found out is why this is happening. You are actively dying because of your connection to the Fade, but we can’t figure out why. Justice has never seen something like this before. Though, he did say that this is possibly one of the reasons why you will never possessed.” Seth raised an eyebrow at that. “Demons look for mages because we’re connected to the Fade and through us, they can come out and experience our world. But to possess you, it would be suicide. As soon as they took over your body, you would just die and they would die with you.”

Seth hmphed as he slowly relaxed his body, allowing his legs to fall flat against the earth again. “That would probably explain why I never encountered demons much. My father always warned me and Bethany about the dangers of demons, but I had never even seen one let alone be tempted by one in my dreams. Bethany on the other hand…” Seth’s eyes glazed over as he remembered his sister and that sadness washed over him again.

Anders wrapped his arm around Seth and pulled him in. He offered a comforting smile. “Hey, that makes you a powerful mage,” Anders joked. “No demons desire you and you’re a blood mage. You’d fit right in in Tevinter.”

The light returned to Seth’s eyes and he laughed a bit. “I think I’d make a great magister.” The two men shared a laugh before Seth moved in closer, resting his head on Anders’s shoulder. Sadness came again. “This information is nice, but it still doesn’t give a cure.” Seth sighed. “I’ll be dead soon because of this unless I became Tranquil, but…” Seth shuddered at the thought. Anders remembered Karl who he had loved. He couldn’t imagine losing another lover to Tranquility. Then Seth began to shake against Anders and when Anders looked down, he saw that Seth had tears falling down his face. “You’ll be gone in a couple decades or less. You’ll hear that stupid song and go die in the Deep Roads. Then I’ll be all alone again. Until I die my slow death.”

Anders kept forgetting about that. When he became a Grey Warden, it was because Feril used the Right of Conscription to save him from the templars who wanted to drag him back to the Circle. He was forever thankful and hadn’t thought of the consequences that would bring. He survived the Joining, but he signed off on his death sentence. He would die in thirty years tops, if he was lucky. Considering his age, it wasn’t too bad to think about. He was lucky: he wasn’t part of the Wardens anymore so he got to live his life of freedom how he wanted.

But Seth was right. There would be that time when Anders heard the sweet song and, while his mind was still intact, would go into the Deep Roads on a suicide run, to die in battle and glory like the Wardens before him. He wondered if Justice would still be with him by that time and what would happen to the spirit once Anders’s was dead.

He shook his head, not wanting to think about it. However, his thoughts then wandered to Seth. He imagined kissing Seth one last time as the song pounded in his head before he went underground. He imagined Seth grieving over the lost of his love, crafting horrible scenarios of how Anders would die at the hands of the darkspawn. Imagined Seth thinking about the taint consuming Anders’s mind and losing all that beautiful intelligence Seth loved so much. Imagined Seth thinking about the awful things that Anders would go through before he finally died as a Warden. He imagined Seth’s final moments as his ailment caught up to him and he died a slow death like he had always feared of, surrounded by no one, all alone and afraid and sad.

That thought hurt Anders more than his own death.

The mage lifted Seth’s chin up again and looked at him and offered another smile. “Come with me then,” he said.

Seth blinked in confusion. “What?”

“When my Calling comes, come with me. There’s no rule that says you can’t go into the Deep Roads with me. It’ll be one last fight, but we’d be together.”

Seth smiled in recognition. “And we’d die together.”

Anders nodded. “We always knew we weren’t going to have a farmstead life. We’re both men doomed to die. You with you affliction, me with the taint. So why not end it all together killing some baddies on the way?” Anders imagined it now, him and Seth carving through the Deep Roads, slaughtering darkspawn on their path. And while the song would get louder in Anders’s head, Seth would be there with him to drive it back. When he and Seth got too injured to continue, Anders would not heal them. Anders would hold Seth in his arms, allow the two of them one final moment of peace before they died to their wounds. They would die in the Deep Roads together, the blood mage and abomination away from the rest of the world. Their friends would only know that they had gone there to die and would have had some funeral for them maybe weeks or months before they actually died, but they would have known.

Seth nodded and straightened up, looking Anders in the eyes. “’Til death do us part,” he whispered before bringing Anders in for a kiss. It was a vow so strong that Anders felt the weight of the words settle into his bones. Seth had said he wanted Anders by his side until the day they died. With both of them dancing with death, that wouldn’t be a hard thing to accomplish. They would die together just as they lived together. Their bond was stronger than anything else. There would be no tearing them apart.

Two doomed men against the world, accepting death with open arms as long as it meant they could do it together.

#fictober #fictober 2024 #writing #fanfiction #fanfic #G-W76 #dragon age #dragon age 2 #da2 #anders #hawke #anders x hawke #anders x m!hawke #handers #blood mage hawke #i rest my case about promoting hawke as a blood mage alright

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everythingblackblack · 3 months ago

Note

What do you like about Mouri Ran? I love her conceptually and some of the fandom's version of her, she has moments where I like her a lot (being cool and kind, a very sweet teen girl with a crush in a hard situation) and moments where I dislike her (her response to Shinichi's interests sometimes and her excessive use of karate, at least in how much force she applies that the situation doesn't warrant). I think I mainly just don't agree with Gosho's writing of her. Is she a damsel or an unbeatable fighter who shouldn't use her martial arts to threaten her loved ones? If she loves Shinichi enough to wait for him I wish she'd treat him better when he's actually there with her. Maybe I'm being unfair to their relationship as a lot of their phone calls and history is off-screen/page or maybe I'm biased against her as she's routinely gaslighted about the canon circumstances whereas the audience knows a lot about Shinichi's situation so have unrealistic expectations of her.

I want to clarify that I like Shinichi, but I probably sound like a hater. ¡But I'll answer you anyway!

I like Ran and she's amazing!

I really like the chapters where we can see her genius and she uses her Karate skills to stop the culprits, I also love her kindness and good heart, and I agree so much with most of the things you say, probably the only thing I don't like about her is her terrible taste in men (Yes, I'm talking about Shinichi) and how attached she is to her parents' relationship.

I don't know, I just think that maybe she would be more interested in Shinichi's things if he also showed interest in hers. I still remember her confession in London and it makes me sick, I felt so bad for her the whole time.

Overall, I'm not really convinced by the author's writing about them as a relationship, but I respect it because I think that maybe stretching out the manga was what made their relationship like that, or so I want to believe, I have my own thoughts on Gosho's writing.

About the excessive use of Karate, I actually think she needs to use it, I think she should have thrown Shinichi off the London Bridge after that horrible confession.

And no! Whoever says she forced him is wrong! She was frustrated! From her perspective everything is so ugly! It's like Shinichi just shows up, gets her hopes up and leaves, I really wish Ran wasn't so good and beat him up.

I like the fans' ShinRan, I think it's cute.

Gosho's ShinRan seems judgeable to me, although it has its good moments, I guess, I like them more as separate characters, but they are the canon ship, partly the story is about them and if that's what the author wants there's not much we can do.

Who are we to judge?

ShinRan is that ship that I like to see, but not touch. There are better people to talk about them than me.

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iceunhie · 8 months ago

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— “and i can go anywhere i want just not home” : genshin men

premise. home is where the heart is—perhaps it's why they feel so empty whenever they're away from you. or, what it's like when they miss you while they're/you're away.

≈ featuring: kazuha, lyney, wanderer, neuvillette.

notes: gn!reader (you/your pronouns), welcome to the depths of my drafts, you can tell where i got lazy and when i got motivated tbh 💀 an attempt at humor (i am unfunny) reblogs are appreciated! like usual, might make a part 2 idk

...alternative title: 3 twinks and a dragon

NEUVILETTE: wait, why's it raining so hard?! 😱 “oh, it's just the monsieur sulking ^^”

neuvilette finds that one of the most inconvenient things granted in his power is the fact that his emotions can be broadcasted live over fontaine at any given moment.

subsequently, it's pouring; buckets of rain that clearly weren't on the daily weather report yesterday. he can see parents ushering children into their homes, the melusines providing umbrellas to those who had the unfortunate problem of not bringing one at the side.

all in all, fontaine is as is, but neuvilette feels even emptier than before.

it's probably because of you. it's definitely because of you. as fleeting as the rain on a summer day, you'd come and went, wishing him well before you'd leave for liyue for a short vacation.

2 weeks....

(the rain showers even more, heavily pouring over the nation.)

his shoulders tighten uncharacteristically, and if you were to see him, you'd tell him he'd resemble a sad fontainian otter with its seashell taken away.

. . . .

BONUS:

"i'm back- GAH! why are the streets flooded?!"

"oh, mx. [name]! welcome back! i'll tell monsieur neuvillette that you're back now!"

two hours later, the sun shines back again as if it hadn't poured consistently during the entire duration of 2 weeks. the people of fontaine rejoice.

KAZUHA: like a bird longing for the sun to shine again (the most normal) 😭

kazuha isn't the type to brood. he isn't, because he knows he has nothing to brood about. well, most of the time, anyway.

this, however, is partly because you're usually with him, you in all your glory, nourishing him with affectionate kisses and letting him feel the breath of fresh air he desperately needs after a long, enduring trip on the crux.

the days you aren't there however are the days he finds himself most appreciative of his reclusive nature. as the rock of the ship against gentle waters make it sway, kazuha thinks of you.

you, you. were you at liyue, doing well as he hopes you always are, trudging away as you work wonders in the kitchen, preparing meals and watching day turn to night, waiting for time to pass, missing him too?

he hopes you are. (he feels like every time you're gone, a part of him can't erase the sense of homesickness. even if liyue wasn't his home, you are the closest to it.)

"you look a bit blue these days, kazuha. missing a certain someone?" a certain captain guffaws, to which the white haired vagrant can only smile to, though the smile betrays his rather dour mood. beidou's tease is only indicative of his longing.

he does miss you. a whole lot. he misses the way you run up to him as he finally steps off the crux's arms, embracing you with fervor and inhaling the cool scent of your hair. only then, kazuha thinks, he could really feel at home. "only a fool wouldn't miss the one they hold most dear to them."

beidou pats him on the back, sympathetic of his plight. he feels a bit embarrassed. beidou always saw through him. "gotta tough it out, kid. just a few more days and we'll be back to liyue in no time."

he wasn't a kid—beidou knows this, but she felt the need to emphasize so, what when kazuha looked akin to a kicked puppy waiting for its owner in the rain. "I'm well aware."

and so she's gone, warbling an old sailor's tune, leaving kazuha to deal with the ache of you behind.

he also misses a lot of things about you whenever you're gone. though temporary as his wanderlust may be, because he promised you—"i will always return to you"—this has brought him to associate everything he sees in your likeness.

is it the poet in him? perhaps. but loving you is as natural as him taking in the sights of nature, as lovely as the moonlit nights he spends, alone, and without you.

tough it out, as beidou says. that's difficult.

watching as the moon seems ever perpetual in the sky, kazuha only hopes he can tough it out well.

(when he comes back, he's thinking of running towards you this time.)

. . . .

"welcome back, kazu-" you don't even make it to the harbor's docks before you're being tackled and literally thrown off your feet. "what the fuck are you doing?!"

or should you say, swept off your feet? you feel every ounce of shame right now, and burying your head in the crook of kazuha's neck. profanity aside, it's hard not to be ashamed when almost every person with a pair of working eyes can see you being carried by your lover.

you can hear the playful whistles and cheers of the crux crew from behind, and beidou's knowing, knowing smile.

"i'm home." kazuha's breath is close to your nape, and you feel the soft press of his lips to your neck. you flush. face him, and you see his dreamy, lovesick eyes.

if he was looking like that, how could you be ashamed? you laugh, even if you see people side eye you into oblivion. brush your noses together, and close your eyes.

"welcome home, kazuha."

he smiles. the day is bright today.

BONUS:

"kazuha?"

"mm, what is it, love?"

"if you do that ever again i will literally drop dead on the floor from the shame, so don't make it a habit."

"haha, i wouldn't dream of it."

(one voyage later, you find out kazuha is a liar.)

LYNEY: 😐 'insufferably insufferable,' given by lynette

if lynette could choose between smelling every perfume in emilie's shop (and put herself through an attack to her very delicate senses) and seeing her brother mope like a deflated balloon over his absence in fontaine, she'd pick the first option.

you are to blame. rather, maybe it's her brother's utter lack of propriety, proclaiming just how much he misses you with almost enough talk to make her want to rip her cat ears out.

or maybe she'd actually claw at him. lyney was just that infuriating. is this what they mean by love changes a person?

(if so, then lynette reckons her twin has changed for the worse.)

okay, she was exaggerating a bit, because she loved you very much and considered you family as well—but she would gladly dropkick lyney any time. they'd been stationed at poisson for a while, set by father. it was cleanup for the remnants of the prophecy, but it provided them sufficient time away from the court of fontaine, away from distractions.

and, in lyney's mind, it also means he's away from you. in lynette's opinion, he should've stayed. that way, she won't get to listen to him prattle on and on about—

"do you think [name] will still love me even if i've been away from them for far too long? ahh, and lynette, these rainbow flowers, do they need a bouquet matching their eyes instead?"

and of course, her brother being the drop-dead love-drunk fool he is (bless your heart for being able to tolerate her sappy and corny brother) has not. stopped. talking. about. you.

you'd probably accept a bouquet with a dead fish in it if it meant lyney gave it to you, but lynette doesn't voice it out. in a corner of her mind, she wonders if she should just actually become a clockwork meka so she could voluntarily tune herself to tune out lyney's voice.

she crosses her arms, putting her (4th) dessert aside. "they'll like anything you give them. and there's no way they'd get sick of you just because we're away for a week, lyney."

her brother sighs, dreamily looking away at the sky. probably thinking about the flutter of your eyelashes and your smile that makes a magician want to bottle it up and never let it show to anyone else—

blergh, she was beginning to let lyney get to her.

"a week is far too long for me." lyney sulks. lynette resists the urge to roll her eyes. you and me both, brother.

"what if they might be in danger somewhere I can't reach?"

but because she's such an amazing sister (factual), she lets go of her temporary reprieve and comforts her utterly hopeless (factual?) brother.

(for your sake too. because lyney has changed. though she may say it's for the worse, that's not true at all. in fact, it's the opposite.)

"relax, lyney." her tone is sincere this time, that in which always gets lyney to look up to her. they're children again, and lynette is facing her older brother, and they're hand in hand together. "[name] will be fine. as long as it's from the heart, you know that they will cherish anything you give them."

because it's you, someone that accepted them, every part of them. lynette doesnt show it much, but it's one of the reasons why she's so fond of you. she grateful, really, that you love her brother.

thankfully, (to her great relief) it seems the hint that you'd rather have him home without anything than not be home at all, has gotten through lyney's mind. he goes silent, and lynette takes it as a successful mission success. another lovesick crisis averted, her brother's relationship with you stabilized.

at last, peace.....

. . . .

"alright then!" lyney says enthusiastically, with an unhappy lynette and a sheepish freminet in tow.

"let's commence operation steal their heart the moment we finish this mission!"

"the what now?"

lynette facepalms. she shouldn't have said anything....

BONUS:

"uh, lynette, what's that?"

"headphones."

"why?"

"....noise cancellation."

freminet looks at lyney, who's pacing around the room, muttering to himself as his grip on the rainbow flower-marcotte bouquet tightens.

"oh." lynette nods at him wearily.

WANDERER: warning! ⚠️do not approach, he bites (scowls) 😨

there are many times when wanderer wants to bash his hat and let it squash the traveller's flying companion, and today was one of those times.

"hey, hat guy! why are you looking even more scary than usual? your scowl can be seen from miles away!"

he can hear her irritatingly cheery voice in the distance, undoubtly exposing him to the eyes of others. damn it.

"paimon, shh...!" aether silently prays to whichever god may hear (hopefully nahida), because for someone so small, wanderer was emitting a very ominous aura not akin to an aura of death.

"quit your nonsense, you-" wanderer barks back, insult at the tip of his tongue, but he tempers his temper (heh), going quiet instead. "forget it. i don't want be pissed off even more from that disgustingly chatty pet of yours."

"what did you just say to me?! urgh, you, you- ugh, paimon can't think of an ugly nickname! help out here, traveller...!"

"i think you should just let it be this time, paimon..."

he ignores the chatter of the two—mortals—thumbing at his vision, and then tenderly at the little doll he's sewed in his likeness, as well as.... your doll.

(you gave it to him once as a keepsake, in exchange for him sewing you the mini him he painstakingly made. when you got your wish, you made the two dolls kiss, saying something so ridiculous as, "that's us now!" his face burned the entire way back home.)

instead, he finds his thoughts lingering to you. you'd seen him off, staying back at sumeru city with nahida as company, leaving him to escort the traveller and paimon to the desert to clear out some ancient ruins. how boring.

you kissed him breathless back there— much to his chagrin at seeing nahida's knowing smile; but he finds himself longing for your voice and your hands in his hair more than ever. at least then he'd be able to solve the ringing in his ears from paimon's voice.

he's long stopped denying his erratic, tumultuous feelings, but he misses you. unbearably, because at least you were better than the two he's forced to babysit accompany.

and he also misses how you would take shelter in his hat in the sweltering desert heat, kissing his cheek when he flew you around to explore the pyramids, and when you would hold his hand as you complained about how long you two would be walking up, all sand and sweaty.

(he'd tease you about leaving you for dead, but was always the first to worry whenever you get dizzy from heat. a walking contradiction, this one.)

"hey, wanderer, you there?"

"you're a little red. are you overheating?woah, so puppets really can do that.... ah, you're spacing out, too!"

ugh. "what am i, a tea kettle?" he scowls, crossing his arms.

he's already counting the days he can finally return to your arms.

paimon stomps her feet at the nonexistent ground, "we're just a tiny bit worried, you know!"

"yeah? well you should do me a favor and shut your mouth a little. otherwise you'll end up overheating from the amount of nonsensical words you spit out."

"this guy's a real piece of work, only being kind to [name], jeez..." to his glee, the pixie mutters angrily. something about being a meanie and insufferable. well deserved.

aether watches the exchange with the soul drained from his body. 800,000 mora, 800,000 mora.....

. . . .

"uh... wanderer?" you chuckle nervously, not knowing where to place your hands as he buries his face head-first into your chest the moment he's home, allowing you to gently caress the soft strands of his hair.

"..."

"so are you gonna talk about it, or?"

"just let me hold you, will you?" he bites, but there's no bite at all. you kiss the top of his head as his ginormous hat is taken off his head completely. he nuzzles deeper into you. "....i missed you."

that shut you up real quick. you try to hide the giddy smile you have, but he lifts his face up to see it anyway.

"i missed you too."

BONUS:

"[name], is that an insect bite on your neck?"

"huh?!"

aether squints at you, "what kind of insect leaves that big of a bite-" his eyes pop out. turns red. "oh."

you look away.

(in a corner of the house of daena, wanderer sneezes.)

more hsr content soon, also for very important reasons: do you think sunday would let you bite the wings by his ears yes or no

#mhie's spirals #genshin impact x reader #genshin x reader #genshin impact #wanderer x reader #kazuha x y/n #kazuha x reader #neuvillette x reader #neuvilette x reader #kunikuzushi x reader #scaramouche x reader #lyney x reader #genshin drabbles

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grahamcarmen · 2 months ago

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alright anon thanks if you actually waited for it but under the cut

Story wise i feel like its does its job to be the good undercover legal option as opposed to VILE who in its secrecy makes nothing but evil and carmen who is a whirlwind force for good but still doesn’t have her roots; partly because she still doesn’t want to have those roots in institution looking routes even if she doesn’t totally dismiss that they are decent people.

It's run by driven people who in the end do have the very noble goal of revealing and capturing a truly VILE (hehe) organization.

Though I feel like it doesn’t really help me care for them when the opening is always saying “yay look at carmen having them run around in circles and their own tails.” and that's seen as a like…a cool thing.

Like. Carmen not really respecting them every time before the episode immediately doesn’t start them off on a good foot for me. Even without my bias towards Carmen because she’s the M.C I feel like I don't super vibe with this decision on the show’s part? Because they’re not…really asking for any kind of respect for them from the first time the theme song plays,

this doesn’t wildly change by the end even when we are supposed to approve when carmen and acme do work together

The story presents that Carmen is an independent force of good who is usually narratively in the right for being in charge of how her dynamic with ACME works.

and she’s also presented as someone who could stand to let people around her and not in her little circle help more often because their goals are absolutely aligned in this matter.

But I feel like within the story its more sympathetic to her not really wanting to work with the woman who killed her father, a tenacious cop she views as a nuisance, and only working with the one ACME agent she does like as long as that means not having to deal with the rest of the company because… they can be rude, are not allowed to have the brain cell, and have done little to prove they’re better than any other background authorities. In fact at worst they seem to ruin her groove.

Them working together usually only works if they let carmen have most of the say in the matter and are mostly used as a resource pool. A lot of the time ACME is antagonistic [well more like in the way] and Carmen is dismissive and is given reasons to stay that way until the final season.

and lets not forget the unforgivable crime* (yeah ok show) of not just accepting that carmen is a good person and they should let her work how she wants with no strings attached. THAT'S how to get her approval.

It kinda takes a “they don’t understand people who do good just because it's right,” ish approach to ACME with the stubbornness and misunderstandings so they’re so consumed by capturing Carmen across the series that they overlook and do very little to hinder the actual threat. I still really wish we got more scenes where ACME was a little more helpful to getting on VILE’S last nerve on top of Carmen’s interference instead of playing clean up crew.

Chase has a few of these moment in s1 but never to a true detriment more like odd appearance. At most VILE is just like ACME might be working with carmen so that’s bad and honestly spook themselves more than ACME doing something that hurt their operations. A lot of this is left to the latter half of the last season where Julia is allowed to help more directly, the fruits of Chase’s arc are him being allowed to show off how cool he can be, and Chief sending swarms of agents to finally cut VILE off at its knees.

WE’RE SUPPOSED TO WANT TO SEE THEM WORKING TOGETHER FOR GOOD! THEY’RE PRETTY EFFICIENT WHEN THEY ACTUALLY CAN ACT.

But for a large portion of the show we are expected to roll our eyes at chase for thinking she’s VILE when she’s obviously a good person, and be wary of chief for being kind sometimes but obviously can come off more concerned towards working towards her end goal of proving that she’s not crazy about a secret organization that needs to be dealt with [and you know that tiny little issue of she killed carmen’s dad on her mission and left carmen an orphan]. And you know maybe laugh sometimes when they’re so utterly incompetent instead of helpful [just watch all those agents hit the floor. riperonis]. And I don't think this was a …great choice?

As individual members they each bring a fun charisma and likability whenever they’re onscreen, showing signs of being capable of care/compassion/discernment to bounce off nicely to our M.C . so i'm not gonna pretend its a drag everytime carmen has to interact with them, they hold up pretty decent as fleshed out characters with unique dynamics with her.

But as an average watcher I can’t pretend that I'm anything but very lukewarm, or rather as lukewarm as the show wants me to be towards ACME until all the members prove to be 100 % team Carmen or in Chief’s case that there’s no bad feelings on Carmen’s part.

Which kinda feels not as satisfying as it could be when Carmen is supposed to finally work with the agency too. The dynamics feel fresh enough one on one but it’s still very ???idk how to put this since it's not like I expect Carmen to act over ecstatic to find decent coworkers, but I didn’t feel very much when they finally do work together after the plot has been playing keep away with each side outside of being glad they did their job. decent people should work together to take down criminals.

…like a couple more obvious examples BEFORE they work together that ACME is competent in ways that don’t blow up in their faces would be nice

->zari gets taken out by a civilian…and really like all the time

->chase’s early capture worked more for carmen being forced to face brunt and ally with shadowsan and to add to the misunderstanding fuel

-> the choice to trust carmen blows up in chiefs face and its seen as deserved [and even an echo of her flaw of feeling sympathetic towards her father's death but enraged when it seemed like a disctraction to burning evidence]

->and they continue to get less real one on ones with VILE as the series goes on because again they’re following red herring supreme CARMEN SANDIEGO [s3 has chase getting pancaked by brunt so...um i guess that's something]

->and even when all 3 are in the same room they just annoy carmen before she sweeps in to actually save the day

->losing gray and then shadowsan when in custody who also went on to do what they wanted. Embarrassing af.

Like in the story they don’t do much until the end and learning to lean more in Carmen's favor is just…part of how the story is built idk its how it be.

They’re not INCOMPETENT.

They accidentally meet VILE a lot due to chase's determination + when he almost did find VILE isle ALL BY HIMSELF and Julia's brush with them is directly because she IS someone who knows things they don't [her own merits], and chief's steadfast belief that they needed to be rooted out was how she even built ACME

They’re just not really allowed to be as competent as they can be until the story says they can be. They’re mostly an awkward third party who VILE just gets scared of because of the perceived danger rather than anything they’ve actually done at that point.

A lot of the half wins on their part [even getting on VILE’S radar] feel like happy accidents.

I like how ACME works to be a foil with VILE’s coldhearted ambition and Carmen’s secret selfless protection of the world and the battle between those 2 things needing to be revealed for what they are by the people who are also in secret and have their own mostly altruistic goal.

Carmen isn’t totally callous to the idea of ACME agents, she likes Julia and is softened by Chief saving her that one time/being on her side and is very funny when she interacts with Chase.

I just can’t say I care too much about ACME as a whole outside of being a resource to be the final linchpin in taking VILE down and another example of Carmen needs help and its there... when they finally sort out the misunderstandings.

Where I feel bad about my ambivalence is that it absolutely has a franchise reason for the focus to be about ACME and Carmen since usually she’s being hunted down by them because she’s a villain. Being a former ACME agent then gives her that mystery and stronger connection to them and the player [you] is usually an ACME agent seeking and arresting and wondering about her.

[bro where was chase's bird in this reboot???]

Even with the tweaks to her backstory shifting her focus to instead be more tied to VILE’s downfall, ACME finding about her true nature to eventually help her is still like a huge chunk and purpose of the show even if you know next to nothing about the franchise reasons for the focus like most people don’t [me <3 average viewer of a netflix show one day]. Them coming to terms that she’s a good person , not a red flag, but a potential ally is a big point. And the more emotional connection to individuals is still there [friendship with jules, drama* with chief, funny interactions with Chase] but like carmen just works with them when she wants to and then bounces when she wants to. Doesn’t care for them when she doesn’t want to and values their input when she decides.

Her vendetta and focus being shifted more on VILE’s downfall for personal reasons so her dodging ACME feels more secondary and unimportant …!!!TO ME !!! IMO!!I KNOW THATS NOT THE WHOLE ENCHILADA!! even when it IS important.

I’m more concerned with her reuniting with her family and the drama of how she used to be with VILE and her insistence to stay away.

Chief being her father’s true killer is the way they chose to make it personal with ACME too but again Carmen’s reaction to this is to grab what she wants from them and do her own thing which she was already doing. Her conclusion is that any anger towards the chief could be put aside for number 1 goal, keeping VILE from doing bad things and finding her mom with her own team or by asking the chief to do it.

again another example of carmen probably having more of a chance to be viewed with more sympathy for deciding to take control of how their working dynamic goes

Like seriously I feel like making chief the true killer is top underwhelming reveals in the long run because it felt like giving Carmen an out to keep her status quo for understandable enough reasons for another season and a half and no real lingering feelings over it tbh.

even it might be because she has the guilt and promise of information over chief in the deal, She isn't even super ironic about chief finally being on her side at the end of S4E6 so like ... .whatever i guess.

Thematically? ok-cool . motivations conflicting and a decent person making a choice that affected many lives [making chief a more layered and complicated character] and the surprising compassion coming from shadowsan as the night he couldn’t kill a sweet little carmen because DUH [layering him too] and seeing the consequences of what not knowing all the pieces leads to. Which is dramatic and stuff. Cool!

but i found it stupid as I watched the first time for Shadowsan to seriously expect me to believe that Carmen being sidelined from her mission by people she was mad at IF THEY WEREN'T EVIL instead of just writing them off as she usually does was ever gonna be a thing…like lol. Lmao even. They would never. They didn’t make Carmen the type of character where I fully bought Shadowsan’s reasoning for keeping it a secret.

Because even when it was shadowsan on the hotplate for being her father’s killer she just aggressively asked for the truth and listened.

Something very underwhelming about the theme of secrets being revealed in that [do you remember the no lies trailer before this?...dang] and of course his and VILE’s imagined scenario doesn’t come to pass. So like …go back to ignoring the organization she was already ignoring mostly.

storywise? It sure did let some things fall into place [avoiding vile manipulation, deepening her bond with shadowsan, and delaying her inevitable working with ACME] so. Thumbs up for utility i guess. Which I feel is sometimes my big problem. Utility wise I respect it. I can’t not respect writing that allows more than one thing story wise to flow efficiently.

Emotionally?

Emotionally??? Literally not dug into enough by the end of the series for me to care. I'm so sosososo sorry I DO NOT CARE. i don’t T.T its just another puzzle piece for Carmen which its less savory truths matter less than her working towards something happier, which the show even leans more into and she just minded her business for another season and a half like i said with ACME efforts being less than impressive as they always had been.

Any anger on their part incurred by her cutting off their temporary alliance is impotent and to be seen as unjustified or stupid.

Just like…don’t tell me to laugh at ACME and then be surprised when it takes convincing ME to take them more seriously or care until Carmen tells me to.

Individually? Fun and interesting. as an organization. :/ I'm mostly ambivalent and I do think it's because of how the show expects me to interact with them with a Carmen bias in mind.

They sure are people she’s willing to work with in s4. :i

and it is important for her not to believe she's an island.

If the themes introduced with them were more explored in future seasons? Well… I think they also kinda goofed by making Carmen ok with just bouncing for a few years before once again returning on her own terms aka a return to her status quo just with a i guess their cool BUT! Again she does have a lot of potential with all the individual members if they’re allowed to interact even more and its not nothing that she trusted zack and ivy to them. [thats her teeeeaaaam baybeee]

Its just a lot of setup for ACME relationship that doesn’t fully bloom for me in the current canon. something i understand because helloooo not a melodrama, but then definitely more interesting in its utility for the story rather than an emotional anchor

if they ever get that spinoff they want i'm sure that all this groundwork could lead to interesting stuff but for now?

Goofy fellas.

Any headcanons regarding ACME and just what do you think about them in general.

->I actually want to headcanon that Chase actually did come across VILE incidentally all throughout his teenage and college years and his suspicious radar was going off and did report one criminal activity that totally was them but you know VILE they managed to slip. did he know it was VILE? No. but still.

-> for now an offhand headcanon that Julia’s mom is a museum curator and would tell her about each piece as it came in which fueled Julia’s love for the arts and desire to do the same

-> Chief had someone she was close to when she was in normal law enforcement that she cut off completely to pursue the creation of ACME. who that might be [family/friend/maybe something potentially …] under construction.

-> zari was one of the first ones to join ACME

-------

how I feel about them?

...well as much as I appreciate how they're woven into the story and are like a third of the base that makes this series...well...

TLDR (mini essay pending this will make sense later) -> I feel very ambivalent about them as an institution and I feel bad about it because ACME is so prevalent in the story and CS as a franchise!

like ACME v Carmen is a pillar of the series and ....like they always get like what? more or less a third of the screentime? its even like the entirety of the opening theme song that shows carmen eluding acme not really carmen v vile [despite them being her target] so the show keeps the focus on that part in practice

:T i don't...care much about them until I need to and not really more than necessary.

I do like them individually though! and kind of on a symbolic level, i'm not immune to possible fascinating conversations brought up by the members and how they connect to carmen

i will do my T,T um...explanation of why i think i feel like that [lmao]later....because there is in fact a reason this took me so long to answer

#and i'll be honest and kinda spoilt about it #even if interesting stuff* comes that's not my priority #for legal reasons i do understand that i'm the outlier since everyone else seems to care more than me

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beautifulpersonpeach · 2 years ago

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Indigo is so fucking good. Every song is so impeccably made? The production is worthy of a Grammy nomination, the caliber of collaborating artists begs highlighting again, the album's cohesiveness is seamless. Plus the performances? You know what, scratch what I said. RM didn't meet my expectations, he exceeded them. Like, Indigo is objectively one of the best albums released this year and Hobi's Jack in the Box was nothing to sneeze at either, but Indigo is far more polished.

I've not posted lately, partly because I've been having way too much fun with the Namjoon mania right now. I mean yes it hurts Jin enlisted, but I think we had more than enough time to prepare for something that is really only up for him to experience. And I trust he'll be fine because he's a very capable person. I wish him good luck and health the entire time he serves and afterwards, same as I wish for all the guys. And that video of them sending him off was the absolute sweetest thing. Really.

Back to Indigo. Have y'all watched the RM Live in Seoul @ Rolling Hall?

youtube

Some weeks ago I'd talked about wanting to attend, but unfortunately I couldn't go. So you can imagine how happy I was when BigHit posted the recording. This live performance video is again, so well made. RM created such a compelling and intimate experience that it translates perfectly on camera.

I watched the whole vid in one sitting. Then went to do other things, had friends come over given previous plans, cooked and baked with them, and then we ate everything we cooked watching the Indigo live together (me for the second time that day). There were 8 of us and 5 knew next to nothing about RM (2 of the 5 had "heard of BTS somewhere").

All of us were his bitches by the time the performance was done. One of them ordered Joon's album afterwards.

And the featuring artists who performed? Seeing Paul Blanco pull off those runs live is a must. And I think it's really cool that the artists were able to comfortably interact with ARMYs.

I love his voice. His vocals the entire time was strong, steady, smooth. And let's be honest, a lot of times it's not any of those things. But in this performance Joon is in his element. He's prepared. The material he's working with is almost flawless and its the sort only his genius can produce. When I told y'all that with my background this album makes me feel seen with how tastefully it fuses Black and Korean influences, I meant it. And while I know that other k-pop albums this year have also been incredible at this (Minho's Chase is a recent example), I think it means something more that Joon actually wrote this music. Yes he worked with a team, but everything about Indigo, every song on it, is his invention. And that's so hot.

It's difficult to rank the songs because they each suit very different moods equally well. Right now: Closer, Still Life, Lonely, Change Pt 2, Forg_tful, All Day, Yun, and the bridge of Wild Flower are favourites..

(Namjoon has the prettiest eyes in BTS)

I love that this album served as the inspiration for Joon to create more music.

(Translation credit: @/MoonieJoonieee and consider reading the entire interview linked here)

It reminds me of his conversation with Pharrell earlier this year.

All in all, I am so happy for Joon and I feel proud of him. He did so well with this album.

#Youtube #kim namjoon #namjoon #indigo #bts rm #rm #bts

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blackswaneuroparedux · 4 years ago

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Anonymous asked: I love your long posts which make for great reading and I wish you could do more because you’ve got such a range of astonishing interests. I’m hoping because you’ve served in the military you would have studied military thinkers. Do you think the Art of War by Sun Tzu is way overrated by everyone? I studied him a bit for my masters but I still couldn’t get my head around him. Interested to know your thoughts. Thanks!

“To lift an autumn hair is no sign of great strength; to see the sun and moon is no sign of sharp sight; to hear the noise of thunder is no sign of a quick ear." - Sun Tzu's Art of War, Chapter IV - Tactical Disposition, Clause 10.

Sounds cool, doesn’t it?

But what the hell does this quote really mean? Do you know what it means? Can anyone else tell me?

Look, I enjoy a good Sun Tzu quote as the next person. Only recently I was exchanging thoughts with a fellow blogger whose studying Thucydides, Clausewitz, and Kissinger for an advanced course at the US Naval War College. Even he prefers Sun Tzu over Clausewitz. I can see why too. If you can make sense of chapter one of Clausewitz’s tome On War you deserve a Nobel Prize.

Unlike my very learned fellow blogger, there are lot of folk who don’t know Sun Tzu at all. They can quote him, but almost certainly out of context. As someone who partly grew up in the Far East and even learned Chinese and Japanese (a pitiful but functional degree of fluency) I’m embarrassed (not hard since I’m English) when I hear other Western compatriots romanticise and elevate Eastern icons to mythic status that the Chinese themselves have never done.

I am even more bemused than embarrassed after having hung up my military uniform for ‘civvy’ corporate clothing at how badly abused Sun Tzu’s book is in the corporate world. In my workplace I grit my teeth at corporate high flyers who mistake a balance sheet for a real battlefield by quoting Sun Tzu out of their arse, and then as self-styled ‘corporate warriors’ work themselves up in a lather of testosterone induced self-importance to crush their corporate enemies into the dust.

This is why the The Art of War by Sun Tzu has invited a jaundiced eye roll. And rightly so. I can see why many view Sun Tzu as over-rated because many easily impressed people go all woo woo over anything ancient and Eastern.

It’s become a familiar trope to say the art of ‘strategy’ as a science began 2,500 years ago with the writing of The Art of War. I would dispute this. Not that the writing of Art of War was the earliest written but whether I would call it a manual of strategy per se - more on this below in my answer. However you rate or overrate the Art of War it’s important to have perspective and remember this book is written in 512 BC. Other than the bible and some religious books, there are not many books that can survived thousands of years and still remains a steady bestseller and enjoys a wide influence in military academies and army staff colleges today and even as far into board rooms.

The question behind your question is just as interesting to me: why did Sun Tzu and his Art of War gain such traction in the West?

Sun Tzu (544-496 BC) wrote the original text of The Art of War shortly before 510 BC. During most of the past two thousand years, the common people in China were forbidden to read Sun Tzu's text. However, the text was preserved by China's nobility for over 2,500 years. The Chinese nobility preserved the text of The Art of War, known in Chinese as Bing-fa, even despite the famous book-burning by the first Emperor of Chi around 200 BC. The text was treasured and passed down by the Empire’s various rulers. Unfortunately, it was preserved in a variety of forms. A "complete" Chinese language version of the text wasn't available until the 1970s. Before that, there were a number of conflicting, fragmentary versions in different parts of China, passed down through 125 generations of duplication.

Indeed at the beginning of the twentieth century, there were two main textual traditions in circulation, known as the (Complete Specialist Focus) and (Military Bible) versions. There were also perhaps a dozen minor versions and both derived and unrelated works also entitled Bing-fa. Of course, every group considered (and still considers) its version the only accurate one.

When I last visited China before the Covid pandemic for work reason, I had time off to go to a couple of museums that housed the fruits of a number of archeological digs uncovering the tombs of the ancient rulers of China in which sections of Sun Tzu’s works were found. These finds have verified the historical existence of the text and the historical accuracy of various sections. I understand new finds are still being made.

The first complete, consistent Chinese version was created in Taipei in the 1970s. It was titled The Complete Version of Sun Tzu’s Art of War." It was created by the National Defence Research Investigation Office, which was a branch of Taiwan's defence department. This version compared the main textual traditions to each other and to archeological finds and compiled the most complete version possible.

This work was completed in Taiwan rather than mainland China for a number of reasons. Mainland China was still in the throws of the Maoist Cultural Revolution, which actively suppressed the study of traditional works such as Sun Tzu. The mainland had also moved to a reformed character set, while Taiwan still used the traditional character set in which the text was written. Only today is the study of Sun Tzu in mainland China growing, interestingly enough, through the translation of Sun Tzu into contemporary Mandarin. Based on the archeological sources we have today, we are reasonably certain of the historical accuracy of this compiled version that is the basis of what most people use today.

Surprisingly, the Art of War only came to light in the West around the 18th Century.

Historians believe it was first formally introduced in Europe in 1772 by the French Jesuit Joseph-Marie Amiot. It was translated at the time by the title “The thirteen articles of Sun-Tse”. Joseph-Marie Amiot (1718-1793) was not just a Jesuit priest but also an astronomer and French historian, as well as fervent missionary in China. He was one of the last survivors of the Jesuit Mission in China (he died in Beijing).

Many of the historical problems with understanding Sun Tzu's work can be trace back to its first Western translation in French. A Jesuit missionary, Father Amiot, first brought The Art of War to the West, translating it into French in 1782. Unfortunately, this translation started the tradition of mistranslating Sun Tzu's work, starting with the title, The Art of War (Art de la guerre).

This title, copied the title of a popular work by Machiavelli (a criminally underrated writer on military strategy), but it didn't reflect Sun Tzu's Bing-fa, which would be better translated as "competitive methods."

We cannot say what effect being translated by a Jesuit priest had upon the text. It was unavoidable that the work's translation reflected the military prejudices of the time era when war was both popular and Christian. It was also unavoidable that most future translations would reflect some of the first translation's prejudices. However, war was on the verge of becoming much less Christian in the West since this time was the era of the French Revolution (1789).

The work might well of slipped into obscurity after its initial publication, but it was discovered by a minor French military officer. After studying it, this officer rose to the head of the revolutionary French army in a surprising series of victories. The legend is that Napoleon used the work as the key to his victories in conquering all of Europe. It is said that he carried the little work with him everywhere but kept its contents secret (which would be very much in keeping with Sun Tzu's theories).

However, Napoleon must have started believing his own reviews instead of sticking with his study of Sun Tzu. His defeat at Waterloo was clearly a case of fighting on a battleground that the enemy, Wellington, knew best. Wellington’s trick at Waterloo was hiding his forces by having them lie down in the slight hollows of this hilly land. This is exactly the type of tactic Sun Tzu warns against in his discussion of terrain tactics.

After Napolean, Sun Tzu's theories made their way into western military philosophy. Many of his ideas are reflected in the ideas of work of Carl von Clausewitz. who defined military strategy as "the employment of battles to gain the end of war."

The first English translation of The Art of War is less than a hundred years old. Captain E. F. Calthrop published the first English translation in 1905. Lionel Giles, an assistant curator at the British Museum and a well-known sinologist and translator, attacked this early translation, and he published his own version in 1910. It soon began to be read alongside Clausewitz’s 8 volumes of turgid German military prose.

It wasn’t long before military thinkers were ditching Clausewitz for Sun Tzu because no one could get past Chapter One of Clausewitz’s On War. The “Clausewitz is dead, long live Sun Tzu” school was first championed by the influential British military theorist B.H. Liddell Hart in the 1920s. Basil Henry Liddell Hart (1895-1970) was a captain in the British Army. He was a very influential military theorist and historian, and author of several books such as The Future of War (1925) and Strategy (1954). Having witnessed first-hand the mechanised onslaught of the Great War, Liddell Hart sought a philosophy of warfare based in the prudent use of technology, psychology and deception - and the avoidance of the 'total war' catastrophes of preceding decades.

The main idea of Liddell Hart is to bring the set of principles of warfare in a so-called ‘indirect approach’ to the enemy. His advocacy in his scholarly work of an ‘indirect strategy’ over direct, frontal operations, was a reaction to the high casualties of the Western Front in the First World War. But his ideas were not simply about physically outmanoeuvring an opponent. Instead he pushed for a psychological scheme: to strike from unexpected directions, to generate strategic dissonance, and to induce paralysis. Hart’s well-known thoughts are “Only short-sighted soldiers underestimate the importance of psychological factors in time of war”, “Originality is the most important from all military virtues”, and “The principles of war could shortly be condensed in a single word: concentration”.

Liddell Hart believed that distilling historical insights of strategy and operations would offer the chance to avoid the costly disasters of modern war and ensure a more cost-effective route to success. He imagined technological solutions in the form of air power and mechanised land forces outflanking and shocking an enemy at the tactical level. This would be complemented by taking indirect strategic ‘ways’. Like his contemporary J.F.C. Fuller, Liddell Hart considered concentrations of air and armoured forces driving deep into enemy territory to destroy their ‘nervous system’. The psychological aspects of this were central, since acquiring an advantage demanded moves that were unexpected, with precise attacks at the most vulnerable points. As the most influential military writer of the modern age, revered and reviled by three generations of strategists, armchair and armipotent, his controversial theories of armed attack laid the foundation of the famed German Blitzkrieg.

Hart’s championing of Sun Tzu’s work as articulated through his own works got a new lease of life as the world gingerly settled into the ice bath of the Cold War. The rise of Communist China, against all the odds having defeated the well disciplined nationalist armies of Chian kai-Shek, was a wake up call for the West. There was a general befuddlement among western military analysts to explain the secret of Maoist success. There was an intellectual inquest in the 1950s and 1960s for some way to explain (and, it was hoped, learn to counter) Maoist military doctrine. Sun Tzu was seen as one of the historical and cultural sources of some particularly Chinese or Asian way of war, and his work made its way into Western discussions of counterinsurgency and asymmetric warfare.

Into the breach - and with fortuitous timing - appeared a new translation of The Art of War that was to become the defining translation right down to our day. Liddel Hart provided the foreword to Samuel Griffth’s 1963 translated copy of the Art of War. It was to quickly become a key text in US war colleges and this version is still to this day favoured by most of these institutions. We also studied Griffith’s translation at Sandhurst alongside Liddell Hart’s ideas.

There is no question that Griffith’s translation has become the standard go to translation to this day in military circles - that is until James Clavell’s more populist and looser translation came along in the 1980s. One can see why. Griffith’s translation provided a number of historical Chinese commentaries on the text. It should also be noted that Griffith’s strengths was his immense experience in the military and knowledge of military history as a brigadier general in the U.S. Marine Corps.

However, this was also his version's greatest flaw. Like many other critics I have the impression that Griffith did not really believe or understand all of Sun Tzu. Indeed he would often explain away Sun Tzu's direct statements without making it clear that this was his commentary and not what Sun Tzu wrote. The other main criticism and this one is stylistic and therefore just my opinion, Griffith was also not much of a writer. By our standards today, much of Griffith’s language can seem awkward and dated.

Looking back it feels ironic of the US military were wrapping their heads around Sun Tzu as way to get inside the Chinese communist mind (of Mao the military strategist especially). Unknown to them Mao had desperately tried everything to get hold of a copy of the Art of War from the Chinese Nationalists. Cambridge historian and doyenne of intelligence history, Christopher Andrew in his book The Secret World: A History of Intelligence, wrote that the theory that Sun Tzu’s The Art of War was critical to mastering contemporary warfare is propagated through the use of a tantalising anecdote: “During the civil war between Communists and the Kuomintang regime [Mao Zedong] sent aides into enemy territory to find a copy of it.” The ancient text, ostensibly, was of such vital importance that Mao was willing to risk men’s lives to obtain it, while Chiang Kai-shek vowed to protect it all costs. It’s a questionable anecdote at best as there are no historical evidence of it.

We can say that the notion that Sun Tzu’s slim treatise is considered both potent and slightly dangerous - providing the master key to unlocking victory in war through the ages - is a compelling myth that refuses to die. Mao most likely never ordered a clandestine operation to pilfer the text, nor did Chiang Kai-shek give any thought to shielding its contents from prying eyes. Both men certainly read it long before the start of their civil war, both most likely had ready access to it during the conflict, and neither man won or lost based on adherence or divergence from its teachings. But undoubtedly it set the hearts of Western military theorists aflutter in trying to unlock the secrets of Eastern military thought.

Sun Tzu and his ideas in a reincarnated form took hold of the wider public imagination in the 1980s. The 1980s was synonymous with Japan. With the perceived rise of Japan as a global economic power and the changes in post-Mao China, there was a Western (meaning American) search for more explanations. What was the secret of Asia’s rise? How were Japan and China ‘doing’ this?

In Western business circles it was for a time trendy to read it because of the perception that it was part of what made Japanese businesses so successful during the 70s and 80s. Management gurus and other corporate consultants certainly latched on to it and touted it as a way for Western businesses to re-orient their entire management and business philosophy. I don’t know if that ever actually was the case in Japan - my father who worked in both China and Japan in the corporate world at a very senior level said it wasn’t - but what is true is that in the West as the Japanese economy languished into the lost decade of the 90s so too did interest in Japanese business practices, and thus Sun Tzu.

The idea that The Art of War was a kind of how-to guide to ‘strategy’ was made especially popular by Hollywood in the 1980s. Oliver Stone’s iconic film ‘Wall Street’ seemed to typify the ‘greed is good’ New York capitalist scene of the 80s and 90s. Hollywood mirror imaged the rise of the corporate raiders and junk bond kings like Ivan Boesky and Michael Milken. Hollywood sent thousands of American businessmen off to read Sun Tzu to look for ‘leadership secrets’. This is part of a general Western fascination with ‘timeless Asian wisdom’, the American idea that ‘the mysterious East’ is possessed of secret knowledge. American and European businessmen were enamoured of the idea that “a battle is won or lost before it ever begins”, a saying that reinforced traditional American business attitudes about a winning mentality and a ‘can-do’ spirit being two keys to success.

Because Japan and China were trendy in the 1980s and 1990s it also influenced Western popular culture, not just fashion (think Kenzo) but also comic books (manga) and anime. In this Eastern friendly climate it led a number of popular fiction authors to release their ‘own’ versions of the work to capitalise on its newfound popularity. These versions were more about the pop culture of the era than Sun Tzu. Unfortunately, though popular, none of these versions took advantage of the work completed in Taiwan creating a definitive version of Sun Tzu's text by this time. These versions were based either on old English translations (the Calthorp and Giles versions) or incomplete Chinese sources. However, all of these versions remain popular today, despite their questionable sources and poor quality of translation.

In 1983, James Clavell updated The Art of War translation of Lionel Giles and published it in a very popular version. This started a very common practice in English translation: creating a ‘new’ version from other English translations instead of going back to the original source. Authors today continue to follow this practice, which only perpetuates and exaggerates the problems with early translations.

Thomas Cleary, another well-known author, did his own The Art of War translation with historical commentary in 1988. Again, his name recognition did much to increase awareness of Sun Tzu, even if his work did nothing to improve the general quality of the translation.

Looking back the whole Sun Tzu as a business model fetish in the 1980-90s was really pretty silly, rather like 80s shoulder pads. Of course, there are some similarities in leadership regardless of profession, but the basic goals and working environments of war and of business are so wildly different that applying Sun Tzu to business is superficial at best.

So to me the problem is not that Sun Tzu is ‘overrated’ per se, the problem is that every half baked author out there try to apply its principles to every problems that mankind have. The Art of War, as the title suggest, is not The Art of Managing your Business, the Art of Winning in Competition against your classmates, The Art of picking up Women, The Art of Living Life to the fullest. It is, and only is, The Art of War. It is ‘overrated’ only if you expect it to answer every problems in your life.

The Art of War is not the word of God. It is a war manual advocating common sense with pithy aphorisms - and a very good one.

It’s not that I think the Art of War is over-rated it’s that the more common problem is that many people vastly under-rate Sun Tzu. By misreading Sun Tzu thoughts and ideas, I believe many are in effect under-rating the problems which Sun Tzu is addressing, namely war, or the continuum of conflict resolution where divergence in interests of multiple parties extends to the possible use of lethal force on a massive scale. A lot of people trivialise this problem with idiocies like “what if someone threw a war and nobody came” (clue, they would win, then hunt down and enslave or kill everyone too foolish to contest the issue, as has happened countless times in human history) or “ban war” (said ban apparently enforced by throwing flowers at soldiers).

Understanding that war is a very real and intractable problem is necessary to fully appreciate the genius of Sun Tzu’s work, especially where it avoids fixed and easily definable tactics specific to the Warring States period and instead illustrates timeless concepts of out-thinking the enemy at every level of conflict. That the text is still mostly readily applicable or at least reasonably insightful after thousands of years is a testament to the inability of humans to push warfare beyond the fundamental aspects of conflicting interests and continuum of forcible resolution Sun Tzu addresses.

Still, the particular translation matters far less than having an appreciation that, in war, you have an active opponent who is trying to out-think and counter any moves you make, and having an appreciation of non-dualistic philosophical reasoning more characteristic of Chinese classics generally. The classic symbol of Yin-Yang (and a number of derivative versions) illustrates apparent dualism as being a part of a deeper structural unity which does not permit a fixed division into separate parts.

Hence the difficulty of applying the principles of the Art of War to artificial ideas of “winning/losing” (or war/peace, right/wrong, us/them) as categorical absolutes rather than negotiated possibilities in a continuum of desirability/costs. And it is very difficult, no one should sugar coat that. Humans sort and construct their perceptions of reality by appeal to such gross simplifications. Binary logic is an immensely powerful tool in many areas because it leverages the ability to simplify complexity and then build valid inferences based on fixed premises. But at some point you have to go beyond that to have a more fluid response to reality as it is. Which Sun Tzu does for the reality of war.

I would recommend anyone to read it. At the end of the day it’s a book of highly general aphorisms that effectively synopsise the essential insights that apply to all kinds of human conflicts. Turning an enemy's flank has the exact same effect in 2500 B.C. and in 2000 C.E. and it has the same effect in the boardroom, or public market as it does on the battlefield. Deception and intelligence are still used in exactly the same way, whether conquering foreign lands, or stealing market share from a competitor. It's a book about common sense; but common sense must seem profound to those who have none.

Overall, I think Sun Tzu’s Art of War is a worthy read and not overrated because in our society of over educated achievers, common sense is in as short of supply as it has ever been; if this book can provide the meaningful framework for educating very bright people in down to earth common sense, that can only be a good thing.

The value of the book then is to drive home the fact that, in human conflict, there really is Nothing New Under the Sun (Tzu).

Pardon the pun and thanks for your question.

#question #ask #sun tzu #military history #book #philosophy #china #culture #the art of war #war #military #warfare #strategy #society #literature #america #britain #japan

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mysteryshoptls · 3 years ago

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SR Lilia Vanrouge Suitor Suit Personal Story: Part 2

"It would fit me perfectly"

(Part 1) Part 2

[Exterior Hallway]

―A few hours after the school was purged of the ghosts

Sebek: Lilia-sama, My deepest apologies for making you wait!

Sebek: I have safely removed the “wedding ceremony” decorations from the cafeteria, and have returned it to its normal state.

Lilia: Thanks for your hard work, Sebek.

Lilia: …Hm? Is that Kalim and Jamil, as well as Silver heading our way?

Lilia: And the one behind them is…

Malleus: Lilia. Sebek. It seems like all the troubles have been cleared up.

Lilia: Malleus. Why are you all together?

Jamil: That is… We heard from the other dorm students that “Operation Propose” was a struggle until the very end.

Jamil: So Kalim said “I’m going to go make sure everyone is alright!” and suddenly started running off.

Kalim: I was relived that no one seemed to be hurt!

Silver: We came to pick up Lilia-senpai and Sebek. Malleus-sama suggested it since “They’re probably tired.”

Malleus: Well, partly it’s because you two went to deal with the bride in my place. I’m thankful for your sacrifice.

Sebek: Oh… Ooooh! What kind words!!!

Kalim: ―Ah, that reminds me, just a little bit ago, we ran into Rook and them.

Kalim: They were wearing some super cool tuxedos. Did Lilia and Sebek also wear such outfits?

Lilia: Unfortunately not. Only Rook and the others who came in the third group got to wear the groom outfits.

Kalim: Aw, is that what it was. I wanted to see the two of you in tuxedos too.

Sebek: Don’t worry about me. However I agree with your opinion that Lilia should get to have a beautiful outfit, human!

Lilia: Hm, when you say it like that, it does feel a little regrettable…

Lilia: It’s a shame that I wasn’t able to show you all my special, elegant and cute groom attire.

Silver: …It’s hard for me to imagine Lilia-senpai wearing a tuxedo.

Lilia: Kufufu. I bet it would fit me perfectly.

Malleus: If that’s the case, you should change into one now. If it’s just clothes, I can tailor it with magic.

Sebek, Kalim, Silver: Eh!

Lilia: What’s this all of a sudden, Malleus. Do you want to see me dressed as a groom that much!?

Malleus: That’s not why.

Malleus: Lilia seemed to look quite interested, so I thought it would be my thanks for today.

Kalim: You can make clothes with magic, huh. Malleus is pretty awesome after all!

Malleus: It will disappear after some time, since it is just a fabrication.

Lilia: I’m still elated. Especially if you say this is your gratitude, I’ll thankfully receive your gift.

Malleus: Of course. However, before it can be made, it is necessary to create a solid image of it.

Malleus: First, let’s determine the overall color.

Sebek: Malleus-sama!! What do you think of navy blue?

Sebek: Lilia-sama is a creature of the night, so a color akin to the night sky would probably suit him!

Kalim: Hmm, navy blue is good too, but… Isn’t it a little dark? If he’s going to do it anyway, let’s be flashy!

Kalim: How about red to match Lilia’s eyes?

Sebek: What did you say!? What do you even know of Lilia-sama!!!!

Silver: I agree. It’s certainly true that Lilia’s eyes are striking. I believe that red would suit him well.

Sebek: Absolutely not, I vote for navy blue!

Silver: It’s red.

Sebek: Navy blue!!

Silver: Red.

Kalim: I didn’t want the two of you to start fighting…!

Lilia: Everyone is so frantic for my sake. You’re such straightforward and adorable folk!

Lilia: You’ve been silently off to the side since we started, Jamil what do you think?

Jamil: That’s difficult… I feel as though Lilia-senpai could pull off any color.

Jamil: (How did this happen? It doesn’t matter what color the suit is, I just want to hurry and return home to the dorm.)

Malleus: … We’ll make no progress like this. Lilia, what color do you wish?

Lilia: Let’s see～ Right now I feel like…

Lilia: It’s gotta be green!

Malleus: Fufu… Green, I see. It’s the color of the flames of the Witch of Thorns. Not bad. Then, with that it’s settled.

Jamil: Wasn’t he going to pick between navy blue or red…

Kalim: Well, the most important thing is that Lilia gets to wear the color he likes.

Kalim: Ah! By the way, there’s an accessory in the Scarabia storage room that would probably suit Lilia.

Kalim: I’ll go quickly grab it!

Jamil: H-hey, Kalim! Wait!

Lilia: …An accessory that suits me. I wonder what kind of item it is.

Malleus: Let’s finish off the details of the design until Asim returns…

Kalim: HEE～EEY!

Lilia: Oh, Kalim and Jamil. You’ve returned.

Kalim: Sorry to keep you waiting, Lilia! Please take this!

Lilia: Oh… It’s an Albert chain that is modeled after a bat. That’s perfect for me.

Malleus: It’s a shiny and eye-catching item. It will be able to coordinate the whole outfit together as the main attraction.

Malleus: To match that accessory, it’ll be essential to have the buttons and ribbon-tie be flashy as well.

Malleus: …Alright, I have the image finished. Lilia, are you ready?

Lilia: Yep!

Lilia: Woah!

Kalim: Wow～～～! Lilia’s clothes are changing right before our eyes!

Lilia: Yes, what wonderful magic! Malleus, you’ve increased your abilities a lot.

Malleus: Good grief… You’re never going to fix that habit of treating me as a child.

Malleus: … Alright, that should be about it.

Lilia: Well? Am I more charming than usual?

Sebek: IT… IT’S… IT’S WONDERFUL, LILIA-SAMA～～～～～～!!!!

Silver: Agreed…! It doesn’t seem like the usual Fath… Lilia-senpai at all.

Silver: The flowers on the collar, the gold embroidery… as well as you who are wearing it, I think… that it looks very stylish on you.

Lilia: You put in all your effort to praise me, even though you’re not good at expressing yourself. I’m very happy for that.

Kalim: You really look like a prince out of a fairy tale! It looks amazing, Lilia!

Lilia: Kufufu! And what else?

Malleus: It was the correct choice to choose a deep green color. You can really feel the calm, adult-like personality.

Lilia: Kufufufufufufu! I see, I see!

Lilia: I’ll spin once around, so you all should enjoy my princely style from the back and the side.

[twirls!]

Jamil: Aaa…!! Lilia-senpai! It’ll be better if you don’t make too much intense movements.

Lilia: Hm? Why’s that?

Jamil: That Albert chain Kalim handed you… It’s an antique worth at least 10 million Madol.

Sebek, Silver: Wha-!?

Lilia: Is that right～ My, my, it seems I was lent a pretty expensive item.

Jamil: Yes. Please stop poking it with your finger and swinging it so casually!

Lilia: ―Now, that’s enough. You can release your magic, Malleus.

Kalim: Eh! Even though it suits you so well, you’re already going to change!?

Lilia: Yes. This was more than enough.

Lilia: …I do not know when there will be such an opportunity again. Everyone, burn my beautiful look into your eyes!

(Part 1) Part 2

#twisted wonderland #twst #twst ghost marriage #lilia vanrouge #malleus draconia #sebek zigvolt #silver #kalim al-asim #jamil viper #twst lilia #twst malleus #twst sebek #twst silver #twst kalim #twst jamil #twst translation

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juudaimes-true-form · 2 years ago

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It took a little time but here are answers! I'm glad you asked ^^ I had a lot of fun answering all the questions! No need to be shy, I'll answer pretty much everything so you can keep those questions rolling~ 😎 Thank you for the wonderful questions! My answers are under the cut ^^

You mentioned that his hair is long, so I'm curious up to what length does it go? (a little bit below his knees? maybe it reaches the floor? he did knocks down things if it's not tied up) And also what's his height? (trying to imagine it dkhdskhsjs) Then does he have any difficulty managing his hair, like having a routine for it?

Drosy wished he had hair that went to the floor… But his hair length seems to cap around mid thigh length! It’s much longer than others, he knows but floor length would be so cool (which, as I now realize, depending on Squalo’s height could make Drosy’s hair longer than Squalo’s–). He takes fairly good care of his hair, not daily though because that would take forever. Instead, he has designated “hair days” about twice a month where the entire day is dedicated to washing, combing, conditioning, and drying. He does have day-to-day ‘habits’ but those are the basic stuff like brushing his hair.

He is a magnanimous height of 5 feet and 10 inches (or 177.8 cm)! He really wants does extra two inches to get to 6 feet but its been years and he’s given up on the idea that another growth spurt is just around the corner for him D:

Though he's technically flameless, he can still activate it when in a pinch. If that does happen, what kind of flame does he have?

A smile, despite the situation, barely managed to wriggle itself onto his face. The reckless, familiar thrum of his flames rushed through him, tinting his eyes ever greener.

He is a Lightning Flame!

Any details on what exactly happened, during the first time he activated his flames? I guess it's gotta be a very very dangerous situation.

It clung to the ground, viscous, deep, and dark. Seeping off the sidewalk, tainting the green grass red. The head of his classmate lolled just a few centimeters away from their body, their eyes still wide with shook. Alexandros took a careful step forward, his sneakers squishing into the body of his friend. The black classy loafers of the murder in front of him gleamed as if polished by the blood. She towered over him, gun loosely held in hand. Her cruel eyes bent into a sneer, “You should’ve taken a little more time to get to your playdate, little boy.”

The full story goes a little like this: The Tomaso family has always been a unstable in terms of succession, the result usually being that whoever survived long enough to even have a succession ceremony was probably the last one standing. Alexandros had accidentally friended a potential heir of the Tomaso family when they were in grade school; however, they didn’t last long (as you can probably guess from my little excerpt above…). Alexandros stumbled onto the scene… and was supposed to be the next target. He almost was. That’s when the current Tomaso family (Longchamp) and their allies in this succession fight made valiant efforts to take down the assassin, leaving Drosy still dying. At the final moment, he unblocked his flames which stabilized him until he could get actual attention.

Where did he get the alias L. Blossom from? (how did he come up with it?)

Drosy is a big plant guy! He loves ‘em! When he chose the alias L. Blossom, he was referring to the plant Lemon Blossom. Partly for its motif as white for innocence, purity, but mostly for its double meaning for misery and bitterness. He thought it would fit the mysterious informant vibe. And… he kind of likes lemon candies. Sour then sweet! Nom!

When you say that he's 12 at the beginning, does that mean when KHR canon story beginning? He would be so cute as a kid hahaha 😆😆😆 (lowkey curious what he looks like)

Yes, I meant that Drosy is 12 at the beginning of the KHR canon story timeline ^^ He’s a really cute kid! Big eyes, short hair (he didn't start growing it out until he was 15!) Every day he found a new way to get lost or in trouble, mostly for silly stuff! There’s a little muscle on him, but not too noticeable ^^

🔥New Khr OC Questions🔥

💞Anyone welcome to participate! 💞

People really enjoyed themselves with the last list of questions I made! So I made an even bigger one!! So much so, I don't really expect anyone to answer all these questions. Just pick and choose whatever you want to answer if it's too much lmao

‼️This is not just for OCs! If you feels you've modified one of the canon characters so much that they're a whole different person now, tell me about them as well please!‼️

I will also tag a bunch of people whomst OCs I really enjoyed and remembered from the last list of questions! There will be some repeat questions here, so you can elaborate if you wanna or just skip those lmao

Tags under the Cut cause I will also give a lil commentary on the OCs I know so far. :3

‼️Also these Questions are mostly spoiler free so don't worry! Only one question asks about something that's introduced after the Varia Arc I think. I put a 🌸 next to that one.‼️

@juudaimes-true-form Amara & Ricardo were both very fun and I like knowing about them! But l Alexandros is a very good vibe I wanna know the him uwu

@einsatzzz Kana, Kurumi & Yui are Hella intriguing! Do pls elaborate on all of them! Particularly Yui has spiked my interest! Did you finish that art of him you were working on?

@heryemily5927 Hanabi is adorable please tell me more if you feel up to it! :D

@kiralushia Nozomi & Cloud! I would like to see both of them for this! But I also wanna know more about Arashi because she gets mentioned often too :3

@acedragontrainer Ayane & Yuki may have been randomly created but they are so gawddang fun! Please give them backstories with the questions here. If you wanna of course ^^

@masterdisastre Xavier is babiest Boi, but what about Dani!? And also pls tell me of any other OC you wanna talk about!! I'll treasure each and every single one of them! :D

@cloudspark You reblogged the old Questions once wondering if you'll find the time and motivation to introduce your OC, so I will tag you here too since there are more questions here. :3

@ciaossn Amalia is best lady pls tell me more even if her true origin story has been tragically lost ;w; I wish to know her as much as possible!

The Basics:

What's their name? Their pronouns? Sexuality? Gender Identity? Their Age and Ethnicity?

What do they look like? Body type? Identifying characteristic? Art or picrew of your oc? (No AI art pls.)

Why did you create this character? Just for fun? Or is there a purpose behind them? Maybe a canon character you created them for? As a friend, love interest, sibling, child, parent, rival, nemesis?

What's the family situation of your OC? If they have family, how about a brief summary of the relationships of their family to the canon characters?

What are their other notable relationships to Canon characters? (Example: Hibari's little brother also happens to be Tsuna's childhood best friend and Gokudera's love interest) If there are none right now, are there any plans for relationships in the future?

Does your Oc have disabilities? Mental illnesses, neurodivergencies, missing limbs, chronic pains, physical limitations, some kind of food sensitivity? Anything that affects their day to day life goes!

Combat Questions:

What are your OC's flames, if they have any? And how do they use their flames? Do they ever use them outside combat?

How do they prefer to fight? Do they know how to fight in a way they dislike or hate? (Example: Hibari prefers hand-to-hand combat and dislikes firearms, but he knows how to shoot someone if he has no choice)

Do they have formal training? How many fighting styles do they know? What weapons can they wield?

What are their strengths? Their weaknesses?

🌸Do they have a flame weapon, or a box weapon/animal? How did they get these weapons? What level ring (best S>A>B>C>D>worst E) do they wield? Can they use their ring efficiently? If no, why not?🌸

Oh no! Your OC is unable to fight! (Too tired, injured, whatever) How do they deal with the enemy now? Do they flee, still try to fight, call for backup, or what do they do?

Philosophical Questions:

Answer this first before reading/thinking further! Would your OC change anything about themselves if they could?

What's their favourite colours? Their favourite season? Their favourite weather? Their favourite animal?

What are their hobbies? What are they passionate about? Is there a passion they had to give up? If so, why?

What kind of people do they dislike? Do they like who they themselves are?

What is their biggest secret? What's the biggest/worst lie they ever told? What lie do they frequently tell themselves?

What's their darkest desire? What's their biggest hope for the future? If they had the money, how would they want to change the world they live in?

If the world ended tomorrow, how would they spend their last day on earth? Who would they want to be with? Their worst fear stands between them and saving the world, would they be able to overcome that fear to save the world?

What would be their civilain dream job? If they had to kill someone innocent to save a friend, would they be able to do it? How long would their choice haunt them? Would they be able to face their friend if they decided to sacrifice them, but things ended up working out?

Your OCs biggest, wildest dreams all just came true! What do they do next? Who do they celebrate with? How do they celebrate? Loud exhilaration or quiet disbelief?

After these questions, I ask again, what would your OC change about themselves if they could? Did the answer change?

Khr Character Questions! [Or 'I am putting the OCs in ✨situations✨']

Vongola:

Sawada Tsunayoshi burst into flames, flew into the sky and took out a missile that was headed towards the area your Oc was in. How do they go about interacting with Tsuna after that?

Gokudera Hayato dragged your OC to an empty classroom to investigate ghosts, but it turns out it was just teenagers. Hayato seems genuinely disheartened, does your Oc want to comfort him?

Sasagawa Ryohei just pulled your Oc away from oncoming traffic! He proceeds to ask them to join the boxing club! How do they go about rejecting him, given that he just saved their life?

Bovino Lambo just send your Oc ten years into the future! What situation did your Oc end up in? What's their reaction to this future?

Yamamoto Takeshi is sitting by himself, holding a baseball and looking oddly melancholic. Your OC does not know what is going on, except that usually Takeshi is a cheerful guy. Do they approach him? What do they say?

Hibari Kyoya comes across your Oc with a bleeding wound at his side. He is most obviously unwell, but also pissed, how does your Oc approach this situation?

Chrome Dokuro knows what your Oc did and it feels like she is judging them for their dirty secrets. How does your Oc try to buy her silence?

Rokudo Mukuro wandered into the dream your Oc had last night! Does he leave with even more trauma, creepily amused, weirdly charmed or thoroughly bored?

Fuuta DeLa Stella fianlly ranked your Oc first in something! What category did he rank them first in? What is your OC's reaction?

I-pin just blew up and then landed gently in the arms of your Oc. How do they react to this literal pipe bomb baby?

Sasagawa Kyoko handed your Oc Valentine's friendship chocolates and thanked them for looking after her brother! This might be a misunderstanding, but these are also the only/first chocolates your Oc was given, so what do they tell her?

Miura Haru made your Oc their dream outfit! But something significant about it is wrong, how does your Oc give critique on that?

Kurokawa Hana just called your Oc a monkey to their face. How ready, if at all, are they to throw hands with this civilain middle/high-school girl?

Arcobaleno:

Fon wants to share spicy curry with your Oc, but the spoon is glowing red hot. Does your Oc risk it?

Reborn shot someone infront of your Oc. Tsuna won't believe them. What will they do now?

Verde wants to study your Oc so he asks if they'd volunteer for science. No money is involved but they do get to hang out with Verde, do they take the offer?

Lal Mirch has taken over the CEDEF and there is a party that your OC somehow ended up invited to! Do they bring Lal a gift? If so, what kinda gift?

Colonnello got drunk from sipping some wine, he is sad, melancholic and heavily armed. How does your Oc handle the situation?

Skull thinks you're really cute and creative! He wants to know how you came up with your Oc? And your favourite scene of your Oc!

Viper just gave your OC a slice of pizza. Will they eat it? Are they aware of the risks? Are there risks?

Varia:

Xanxus meets your Oc at a bar and tells them to get him a drink. What does your Oc do? If they make an order, what would they order for Xanxus?

Belphegor is staring at your OC from a distance and chuckling maniacally. What wardrobe malfunction did he notice on your OC?

Lussuria slings his feather scarf around your Oc and tells them they're a cutie. How does your Oc respond to the sudden flirting and closeness? Do they know Lussuria is powerful as well as queer?

Levi-a-Than just told your Oc that they'd be so pretty if they put a bit more effort into their look. How does your Oc react?

Superbi Squalo yells so loud it's almost bothering your Oc! How do they tell him to quiet down? How long do they last in the every-man-for-himself Varia-style brawl that comes next?

Mammon is wanting to extort your Oc for money. What blackmail material does Mammon have to do so? (What is an embarrassing thing your Oc did that Mammon could reasonably find out about?)

Fran is getting on your OC's nerves, constantly and seemingly very much on purpose. Everyone else is already using that boy as target practice, so does your Oc join in?

Others:

Dino Cavallone compares your OC to Tsuna. Is your Oc insulted by the comparison? What if it was accurate?

Dino's right hand man Romario invites your character out for a drink! What drink do they order to impress, intimidate, or endear themselves to the Cavallone Familia? Or do they reject the invite entirely?

Hibari's right hand man Kusakabe Tetsuya thinks your Oc is too noisy and tells them to shut up if they don't want to get bitten to death. Does your Oc take that as a challenge? Hibari Kyoya does not seem to be nearby in the first place... (He is watching from a nearby roof)

Something got past the safety on your OC's garbage cans and made a massive mess! Ken stands as the main, but not the only suspect. Does your Oc make that accusation? Do they worry they would offend Ken for accusing him of that, just for having more animalistic behaviours?

Chikusa's yoyo just flipped off it's string and bonked your Oc on the head. He acts apologetic, but your Oc has a feeling he did that on purpose. How does your Oc proceed?

The Last Question!!

Please gimme links as to where people can find stories or art about your OCs!

Thank you for reading and answering if you do! :D

#khr oc #khr #long post #reblog #ask game

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