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hellzabeth · 3 years ago

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i have opinions about The Prince of Egypt musical adaption and you’re going to listen to them: An Essay

So, quick disclaimer: The Prince of Egypt is one of my favourite movies of all time. The casting, the music, the animation, I think it’s one of the top-tier movies that have ever been made. I went into seeing the London West End production of PoE with a full expectation that nothing I saw on stage would ever live up to how much I love the movie. I was fully aware there are plenty of limitations to what can be shown live on a stage with human actors and props.

That being said, I was enormously disappointed with how the whole thing was handled.

The Good

Now before I launch into a whole tirade of what I didn’t like about the production, it does behoove me to say what I think they did do well.  

The casting of the role of Moses was done fantastically, as was Miriam, Tzipporah, and Yocheved. The swings and the ensemble were really engaged and well placed, going through lots of quick changes to go from Hebrews to Egyptians to Midianites and back. 

The two Egyptian queens, wifes of Seti and Ramses, are actually given names, lines, and character beyond being simply tacked onto their respective kings. We get to see how they feel about the events happening around them, and there’s even a scene where Ramses meets his wife and courts her, whereas in the movie, she stands in the background and says nothing. This is one of the areas I was hoping the musical, which would naturally have a longer run-time, would expand on, and I was pleased to see the opportunity was taken.

Light projections on enormous curtains were used to very good effect, taking us instantly inside the walls of the palace and then out to the desert.  

Over all, the work was really put in to be engaging and emotional, and the orchestra really worked to deliver the right musical beats. 

One of two stand out scenes as being done very well was the opening “Deliver Us”, which included a bone-chilling moment of Egyptians separating a mother and her baby, with her screams as she’s dragged off-stage, and the blood on the guard’s sword. It really brings home the fear as Yocheved tries to lead Aaron and Miriam to the river with her, not to mention Yocheved’s actress nailed the lullaby.  

The second was at the other end of the show, “When You Believe” was beautifully performed by the whole cast, though it was somewhat stunted by what came before...

The Bad

Oh boy.

So the main problem with this show is not the music, not the staging, not even that sometimes the ensemble was a little off-beat (the lai-lai-lai section in Though Heaven’s Eyes comes to mind). Any mistakes there can all be forgiven, since sometimes things just happen in live performance, someone’s a bit off or something’s just not possible to do on the budget allotted.  

The problem is in the script.

The Prince of Egypt movie is a story that stands not only on the shoulders of its fantastic music and visuals, but also on its emotive retelling and portrayal of the characters within - mainly Moses and Ramses. And while the stage musical does spend a lot of time with the two mains, it neglects two other, incredibly important characters.

Pharaoh Seti, and God.  

In the movie, Seti strikes an intimidating figure. He is old, hardened, and wise in the ways of ruling his kingdom - and is voiced by Patrick Stewart, who brings his A-game to the role. Both Moses and Ramses admire him and look up to him immensely as young men, and the relationship he has with both of them deeply informs their characters as the story progresses. It’s from Seti that Moses learns that taking responsibility for your actions is the respectable thing to do (and later, the true horror of having your idol turn out to be not what you think), and it’s from Seti that Ramses takes a huge inferiority complex.

There are two lines that Seti gets in the movie, one spoken to Moses, and one to Ramses. These two lines define Moses and Ramses’ actions later on in the story:

To Ramses - “One weak link can break the chain of a mighty dynasty!” To Moses - “Oh my son... they were only slaves.”

Guess which two lines are absent from the musical?

One Weak Link is turned into an upbeat song, rather than shouted at a terrified and cowed young Ramses. Instead of being openly a traumatic, internalised moment of negative character development for Ramses, it’s treated as a general philosophy that Seti passes down to his son. Instead of a judgement that is hung over Ramses’ head like a sword of Damocles, lingering in his mind through the whole story and coming up in a shouted argument with Moses later, it’s said and then moved on from.  

The “they were only slaves” comment, on the other hand, is absent entirely. This changes Moses’ relationship with Seti enormously, as well as his relationship with the Hebrew people. Upon finding the mural depicting the killing of the slave children, Moses is appropriately horrified, and Seti shows up to comfort him and defend his terrible actions. Moses leaves this interaction... and then sings about how this is indeed all he ever wanted! He has no moment of horrific realisation that his father thinks of the slaves as lesser, as lives that can be thrown away. This means that the scene where he kills the guard doesn’t lead into a discussion of morality with Ramses as he runs away, but rather Moses breaking down about his heritage as though it’s a negative, instead of something he’s realised is just as valuable as his life as an Egyptian. Instead of Moses being shown as having a strong moral core that protests against the idea of any life being lesser, he bemoans his Hebrew blood loudly, and makes little mention of the man he killed. His issue that causes him to run away is being adopted, rather than his guilt that he’s a murderer, and nothing Ramses can say will change it.

Later on, we don’t see Ramses express this opinion either (in the movie - M:��Seti’s hands bore the blood of thousands of children!” R:“Hah, slaves!” M:“My people!”) so it seems the core reasoning for the necessity of the extremes God had to go to in order to convince Ramses to let the Hebrews go is completely gone.

Which leads us into God Himself, as a character.  

God is a tricky topic in general. He is hard to talk about as a concept and as a character, and even harder to depict in a way that won’t offend someone. The Prince of Egypt movie always struck me as a very good depiction of the Old Testament God - vengeful and strong-willed, commanding and yet nurturing, capable of great mercy and great cruelty in one fell swoop. God is incredibly present in the story, a character in and of Himself, speaking with Moses rather than simply commanding him. The conversation at the Burning Bush is bone-chillingly beautiful. Moses is allowed to question, he’s allowed to enquire, he’s allowed to express how he feels about God’s choice, and God is given the chance to respond (and reprimand, and comfort).

In the musical, the Burning Bush scene lasts all of two minutes, during which God (the ensemble cast, acting as one moving flame, speaking in unison) monologues to Moses, and Moses is not given room to question, talk to, or build a relationship with God. Later on, once some of the plagues have gotten underway, Moses rails against God, flinches in his resolve, and tries to back out... and God says nothing. It’s Miriam and the spirit of Yocheved that convince Moses to keep going. As a character, God is nearly absent. Even when it comes to calling upon the Plagues, or parting the Red Sea, God’s voice is absent. Moses does not pray. He does not even use the staff that God encouraged him to pick up as a symbol of his becoming a shepherd of the Hebrews out of Egypt.  

It’s these little changes, these little absences of such vital lines and presences, that ends up changing the whole vibe of the show. Seti is more like a dad than an emotionally distant authority figure, and God is more like an emotionally distant authority figure than a character at all. Ultimately, the whole feeling that one is left with at the end…

The Ugly

… is that the script doesn’t like God, or religion in general.

A bold statement to make, considering the source material is one of the central biblical stories in EVERY Abrahamic religion. Moses as a figure is considered so important and close to god, that The Prince of Egypt, even with its sensitive portrayal, cannot be aired in a number of Islamic states, because it’s considered disrespectful to depict any of the prophets, especially an important one like Moses. Moses is arguably the MOST important prophet in the Jewish canon.

However, I haven’t highlighted one of the most noticeable script changes - the elevation of Hotep, the high priest, to main antagonist.

In the original movie, Hotep is a secondary villain, a crony to the Pharaohs, bumbling and snide and two-faced. He and his fellow priest Hoy are there primarily to juxtapose how charlatans can control power through flattery and slight of hand, reassuring Ramses that Moses’ miracles are merely magic the same as what they can do. They even get a whole villain song, “Playing With The Big Boys” which is a lovely deconstruction of lyrics vs visuals, where while the priests boast that their gods and magic are much more powerful, in the background the staff, transformed into a snake by god, devours and defeats the priests’ snake handily. The takeaway from the song is that God’s power is true, and doesn’t need theatrics.

It’s a good little nugget of wordless world building. And it is completely absent from the stage musical, with only a vague reference to the chant of all the gods names.

Hoy is gone, and Hotep is the only priest. He actively speaks out against the Pharaoh, boasts about having all the power, and is played as bombastic and proud. He’s a wildly different character, even threatening Ramses at one point. In the end, it’s shown that Ramses won’t let the Hebrews go not because he has inherited his father Seti’s cruel attitude towards the lives he considers beneath him, but because he is being actively bullied by the priest, and will lose his power and credibility if he doesn’t do as he’s told. Ramses is even given a whole song about how little power he really has. The script desperately wants us to feel sorry for Ramses’ position and hate the unrepentantly, cartoonishly evil priest.

That’s another matter as well - a LOT of time is dedicated to making the Egyptians more human and sympathetic, portraying them as largely ignorant of the suffering beneath them, rather than actively participating in slavery. Characters speak out of turn without regard for formality and class, even to the royal family. They are casual, chummy even. And this would be fine - in fact, it’s good to have that sort of third dimension to characters, even ones who are doing reprehensible things, to show the total normalcy and banality of evil - if it were not for the fact they still include a completely open-and-shut case of evil right next to them.

Hotep has no redeeming features. And on the other side, God is barely present, certainly not in a relatable context. Moses has several lines about how cruel and unnecessary God’s plagues are - and you know what, in this version, they are unnecessary! Ramses is not the stone-hearted ruler that his movie counterpart is, he has no baggage over being a potential failure, because it was never really given to him in the same way! By taking away Ramses’ threatening nature, numbers like the Plagues lose half their appeal, as the back-and-forth ‘you who I called brother’ lines between Moses and Ramses are completely absent. Moses is faithless, and is less torn between the horror of what he’s doing and the necessity of it for the freedom of his people, and more left scrabbling for meaning that he doesn’t find. And the only thing hanging over Ramses is Hotep nit-picking everything he does and threatening him, which is considerably less compelling than the script seems to think it is.

This is best exemplified at the end, when all the issues come to a head. The angel of Death comes and takes the Egyptian first borns (which was actually a well done scene), and the Hebrews leave to a rousing rendition of When You Believe. But then we cut to Ramses and Hotep, with Hotep openly threatening to revolt against the Pharaoh - whom was believed, especially by the priesthood, to be a living god! Hotep is so devoid of redeeming features he cannot even be trusted to stand by his beliefs! - unless Ramses agrees to chase after the Hebrews. Reluctantly, Ramses is badgered into the attempt.

Back with the Hebrews, Moses parts the Red Sea… not with his faith, not by praying to God for another miracle, not even by using his staff as in the most famous scene of the movie… but by holding out his hand and demanding the ‘magic’ work. Setting aside the disrespect of Abrahamic religions to call one of the most famous miracles “magic” (and my oh my, if there was a fundamentalist of any religion in the audience they might have gasped to hear it), it again belittles the work of God, and puts all the onus on Moses, not as a conduit for God’s work, but as the worker himself. Then, the Egyptians arrive in pursuit, lead by Hotep, not Ramses. Moses sends the Hebrews through first, lead by Miriam, and stays behind with Tzipporah… to offer his life in penance to Ramses! The script has completely stripped both Ramses and Moses of their convictions towards their causes, and Moses cannot even stand by his decision to lead his people.

Then, in a moment of jarring melodrama, Moses has a sudden vision that Ramses, his brother, will one day be called Ramses the Great (an actual historical Pharaoh who reigned 1279-1213 BCE). There is no historical evidence that this was the Ramses that ruled over the Hebrews (there are 11 Pharaohs called Ramses through the history of Ancient Egypt), and maybe if the scene was acted a little better, it wouldn’t have been so sudden or jarring. Even more jarring, is that then Hotep arrives with the rest of the army, and Ramses refuses to lead the charge into the parted sea. Hotep does so himself, and is the one to have the final dramatic moment, being crushed under the water.

The Takeaway

After watching the show, I’m afraid I could never recommend it as either a play, an adaption, or even as a faithful retelling of a bible story. Its character drama isn’t compelling enough to be good as a standalone play, with it two main characters declawed and their core motivations reduced to a squabble between brothers rather than a grand interplay between two cultures and ideas and trauma handed down from their father. As an adaption of the movie it’s upsettingly bad, with grand numbers like the Plagues rendered piecemeal and fan favourites like Playing With The Big Boys missing entirely. As a retelling of the bible story, it’s insulting, completely cutting God out of the equation, taking no opportunity to reintroduce Aaron as an important character (which he was, in the bible, as Moses was a notoriously bad public speaker, with a stutter, and Aaron often interpreted for him) and more importantly, completely erasing God’s influence from the narrative.

I don’t know who this show was… for, in that case. If it wasn’t for drama lovers, movie fans, or people of the faith, then who the hell was it for? Why change such a critically acclaimed and well-beloved story? Why take away all these defining moments? If you wanted to tell a story about how religion is the true evil, how God can command people to do terrible things, and how those who uphold organised religion like Hotep are unrepentant, one-dimensional monsters… why would you tell that through the Prince of Egypt?

Underwhelming at best, infuriating at worst… just watch the movie. Or read Exodus. At least the Bible’s free.

#the prince of egypt #the prince of egypt musical #PoE #review #essay

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itsclydebitches · 3 years ago

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Is it true that Silver-eyed Warriors are descended from Ozma? From nearly most of the RWBY fandom, I’ve heard that this statement was stated to be true/gospel to RWBY lore. They’ve used evidence that two of his kids had silver eyes, but I thought that they were from Ozma’s current host (the one with glasses) at the time?

Personally, I'd say it's more of a very likely theory than established fact. Like much of RWBY's lore, nothing has been stated explicitly in the canon, so we're left to decide for ourselves which things we consider "obvious" enough to discuss like they're facts, even if they're technically not. Much like the Blake/Yang relationship, some fans will treat hints and presumably foregone conclusions as enough evidence to create a "fact" whereas others prefer to wait until there's undisputed confirmation. Hence you get a fandom where what's "true" about the canon is kinda wonky.

In this case, the theory seems to stem from a couple of main points.

1. As you say, two of Ozpin's kids had silver eyes and he's certainly lived long enough to literally father this lineage. Silver eyes likewise seem to be confirmed as hereditary given Summer being Ruby's mother and Maria implying that her father had silver eyes too.

2. They were confirmed as "real" silver eyes as opposed to the "fake" gray eyes that characters like Ilia and Mercury have. I believe it was in a RWBY Rewind where they stated that silver eyes have those additional notches, a detail also seen in Maria's flashback.

3. It would be a pretty big coincidence if silver eyes somehow developed independently from Ozpin, given that they're an offshoot of the God of Light's power and, outside of Salem, Ozpin is the only one who has had dealings with him/was a part of Humanity 1.0.

4. I don't know how Remnant genetics work (or regular genetics for that matter lol, so someone correct me if I'm wrong), but it seems unlikely that you'd get silver eyes out of hazel and blue.

So the theory goes that Ozpin is the cause. As a member of Humanity 1.0 and as someone sent on this mission by Light himself, his magic (not fake semblance "magic") is pretty anti-grimm. For whatever reason (perhaps due to her own grimmification) Ozpin's kids with Salem don't inherit silver eyes, but they do get regular old magic like any other Humanity 1.0 kids would. However, when merging with a Humanity 2.0 host and having kids, Ozpin can pass down silver eyes rather than normal magic. He's not literally, physically fathering the kids, but his soul/magic is now interconnected with his host's, presumably influencing the next generation. These kids go off, have kids of their own, and more people with silver eyes turn up down the line, sometimes fully awakening their power (Ruby, Maria), sometimes going through life being unsure of what this means, or how to wield it (Maria's dad). This theory would also help to explain Ozpin's interest in Ruby. Obviously SEWs are notable in a war against grimm and Salem in and of themselves and Ozpin already knew Summer (so there's a lot of explanations already), but that interest takes on more weight if we consider that all SEWs are distant relatives of Ozpin's.

So imo it's a very likely theory that would fit into the canon decently, even if we take into account RWBY's inconsistent lore. But actual, established fact spoken about in-universe or (as far as I'm aware, anyway) confirmed by Word of God? I don't think that exists yet.

#rwby #mymetas #long post #sorry #readmore is going crazy with the pics for some reason

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fanfic-corner · 4 years ago

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Bisexual Dean

9/12/20 - Is Dean canonically bisexual? That’s a fun question (it depends on where you live, I suppose). Anyway, nothing is stopping you from reading these beautiful fics involving a very bi main character.

Tabula Rasa by Dangerousnotbroken on AO3. (78,340 words).

Tags: Writer!Castiel, Bartender!Dean, Past Relationship, Magic, Canon Typical Violence, Mentions of Alcoholism, Mentions of Past Child Neglect, Mental Illness, Witches, Ghosts, Bisexual Dean, Bisexual Castiel, Angst, Slow Burn, Memory Loss.

My Rating: 5 stars.

Description: Once upon a time, Castiel Novak had everything. He had a happy home life, a full scholarship, and, if he played his cards right, a promising journalism career. And on top of all of that, he had Dean. Then tragedy struck, as it tends to do, and Castiel lost everything. At thirty six, he’s got none of those things. He’s got no family to speak of. He’s got a job investigating purportedly true tales of the supernatural for a magazine no one reads. And worst of all he hasn’t seen Dean in nearly twenty years. So when research for an article turns him on to a witch who apparently grants wishes in exchange for stories, Castiel figures it’s worth the risk. If making a deal with a witch can get him Dean back, what has he got to lose?

Notes: This was absolutely amazing; written beautifully, with a fantastic plot.

Take You To The Country by almaasi on AO3. (18,987 words).

Tags: Historical AU, Propositions, Eloping, Newspapers, Fluff, Forbidden Love, Misunderstandings, Pining, First Kiss, Established Relationship, Running Away Together, Moving In Together, Childhood Friends, Marriage Proposal, Businessman Dean, Farmer Dean, Emotional Dean, Bisexual Dean, Domestic Dean Winchester, Clockmaker Castiel, Autistic Castiel, Frustrated Sam.

My Rating: 5 stars.

Description: A Dean/Cas 1950s AU. Dean reads an elopement proposal in the town's local newspaper, written by some old soul in love with their best friend. He's mid-way through expressing to his brother how beautiful he finds it when Dean realises the proposal is for him.

Notes: I love Sam’s subsequent letters to the newspapers at the end, it was just a really good idea done really well.

A Little Slice Of Heaven by onamelancholyhill on AO3. (112,265 words).

Tags: Slow Build, Friends to Lovers, Falling in Love, POV Dean Winchester, POV Third Person, POV Castiel, Bakery and Coffee Shop AU, Episode: s4e17 It’s a Terrible Life, Alternate Universe - Human, Explicit Sexual Content, Bisexual Dean, Idiots in Love.

My Rating: 5 stars.

Description: Jim Morrison once said, “The most important kind of freedom is to be what you really are.” That was Castiel Novak’s motto in life, and the reason why he accepted his grandmother's inheritance and took the responsibility it implied. Dean Winchester, a remarkable accountant at Sandover Bridge & Iron Inc., however, had other priorities. He lived to serve, hidden in a mask that didn’t allow him to be honest with himself, but lonesome and boring. When destiny made their paths cross, in a less than promising way, with Dean as the instigator and Castiel as his victim, Dean’s mind started wandering, in between pies and cakes, coffees and muffins... What if Mr. Morrison was right? After all, as the guy used to say, "there can’t be any large-scale revolution, until there’s a personal revolution first."

Notes: This was so cute and I adored the plot! It’s making me want to rewatch It’s A Terrible Life but I’ll live.

Just Like You by imherecauseimnotallthere98 on AO3. (35,717 words).

Tags: Homophobia, Homophobic John, Hurt Dean Winchester, Protective Dean Winchester, Established Relationship, Protective Castiel, BAMF Castiel, Protective Sam Winchester, Angry John, Angry Dean Winchester, Angry Sam Winchester, Protective Bobby Singer, Awesome Bobby, Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Scared Dean, John Being an Asshole, Swearing, Bisexual Dean, Pansexual Castiel, Past Child Abuse, Accidental Outing, Death Threats, Fluff and Angst, Implied Sexual Content, Sharing a Bed.

My Rating: 5 stars.

Description: When John shows up at their door in the middle of the night, the Winchesters and Cas start looking into who or what could have brought him back. Meanwhile, Dean struggles to keep his relationship with Cas a secret from his father, with some help from Sam. The tension rises between the Winchesters as Dean shows John that he is no longer the obedient little soldier he once was, and tries to establish himself as an equal with his dad.

Notes: Bobby and Sam are icons in this and should have followed through on their threats. That will be all.

Walk Through Fire For You by purple_charlie on AO3. (2,332 words).

Tags: John Winchester’s A+ Parenting, Angst, Pride, Marijuana Use, Polyamory, Gay Cas, Bisexual Dean, Bisexual Gabriel, Everyone is Queer.

My Rating: 4 stars.

Description: Boyfriend. The word still feels foreign in Dean’s mouth, still brings back echoes of John Winchester’s thinly-veiled (if even that) homophobia. "Man up, don’t be a sissy, I didn’t raise a fairy". It’s a swollen blister in the back of Dean’s mind, throbbing with pain whenever a stranger’s eyes linger too long on Cas’ hand in his, whenever a waitress double-takes at how close they sit in diner booths. But here, dirty dancing with Cas in a warehouse full of other queer folks, Dean wants to shout from the rooftops- I’m Dean Winchester, I drive the baddest car in town, I lift heavy things for a living, and this is my boyfriend.

Notes: This was so sweet it nearly made me start crying - Cas deserved to be told that he was loved!

Bottom’s Up by mnwood on AO3. (28,103 words).

Tags: Fluff and Crack, Wing Kink, Domestic, Smut, Bisexual Dean, Resolved Sexual Tension, Established Relationship, Wedding Planning, Partying, Weddings.

My Rating: 4 stars.

Description: Sam could’ve kissed them both when he got to the bunker one day to find a string of clothing (his heart nearly burst with hope when he saw the abandoned flannel and trench coat) leading to a very naked pile of limbs tangled on the couch. Just kidding. Of course it wasn’t the couch. Sam always imagined it as the couch because the fact that he actually found them on the dining room table had tainted the happiness of the memory.

Notes: Jesus, I did not need that level of detail into Dean and Cas’ sex life (but it was very funny).

Stories Are Made Of Mistakes by wildhoneypie on AO3. (4,942 words).

Tags: Human Castiel, Diners, Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Bisexual Dean, Sharing a Bed, Slow Burn, Slow Build, Case Fic, Domestic, Didn’t Know They Were Dating.

My Rating: 4 stars.

Description: In which Cas is human and doesn’t understand basic concepts like: clothing, Mythbusters, moisturizer, and Greek food. Dean is…Dean and doesn’t understand basic concepts like: boyfriends, language, how to tell your friend that he’s a walking miracle, and when not to quip.

Notes: This was so cute and I live for human Cas. I also love the recurring ‘no fucking quipping’ joke in this, although the idea of Cas swearing broke me a bit!

And this one, which has no Destiel content but a very bi Dean:

Uniform of a Winchester by monsterfuckerdean on AO3. (20,591 words).

Tags: Canon Compliant, Missing Scene, Bisexual Dean Winchester, Bad Parent John Winchester, Young Sam Winchester, Young Dean Winchester, Pre-Season 1, Episode: s5e2 Free to Be You and Me, Angst and Feels, Queer Themes, Character Study, Diners, Sibling Love, Family, Friendship, HBO SPN.

My Rating: 5 stars.

Description: We all know the story of the amulet Dean wears around his neck. But what about everything else he wears?

Notes: Okay, I have to admit that I am loving the HBO SPN vibes even though I am fully aware that if it was a real show I wouldn’t watch it. This is so good though, and the writing is gorgeous!

My friend came out to me as bisexual this week, and paired with the mess that is the Spanish dub, I thought this would be nice as a little reminder that it doesn’t matter how the show ended, because the fans will always be here and we will always be supportive. Anyway, enjoy!

#bisexual #bisexual dean winchester #supernatural #spn family #fic recs #fanfic #none of this was on my 2020 bingo card #destiel #sabriel

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silveryfairy · 4 years ago

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hey man if it's not too much trouble, could you give us a brief rundown of the Nocturnes? It's just, every morning I wake up and there's a new one, and I Care everyone in this establishment a lot though I don't really know them, thank you kindly have a nice day

let my preface this by saying: aayushi, i love you, and your enthusiasm and interest for the things i create never ceases to bring me joy. you are the kind of friend i think everyone should have and i say that completely genuinely outside of this bit.

i say that as an apology in advance for what i’m about to unleash upon you, because what you’re going to see is the product of my friend @himepapillon and i’s absolute BRAINROT and what comes of it when not only two people make an oc universe from scratch but what happens when we then have to explain that universe to other people

you are in no way required to retain this information as to be completely honest me and jeremie haven’t fully either and we’re the ones who MADE this shitshow. below is the shoddy family tree i lovingly crafted in ms paint

let us begin.

for starters, i’ll specify some things:

1. not every oc on this chart is mine, as it’s a collaboration between me and jeremie - the koenig family and bishop family belong to faer but the rest is all me baby! for the sake of your soul i will only be going into my half of this Mess

2. the universe this takes place in is a pretty wacky and silly one, just, like, Slightly removed from reality. these characters are all completely batshit insane and do things that no human being probably should. it’s all portrayed critically, as the general concept of this whole thing is “the goings-on of a bunch of unhinged corrupt rich people”. we kind of flip flop on how seriously stuff is played but if i had to slap a genre on this it’d be, like, black comedy drama. i know a lot of these concepts sound kinda fucked to write but that’s just because i’m trying to describe them in a SOMEWHAT concise way without going into Super Introspective mode

the nocturnes are an incredibly influential and rich family in the uk that tends to produce very influential and rich people. they’re also all a little bit insane. the main characters of this Saga are the sons of desmond and xanthes, the family’s resident Power Couple and biggest figureheads. they suck ass but that will become apparent the second i talk about their children.

from oldest to youngest, the nocturne boys are:

ichor nocturne, 25 - the eldest, ichor was disowned from the household when he was 18 for unruly behavior, sent to live alone on a farm so he couldn’t tarnish his family’s image any further. since then, you’d think the isolation has driven him a bit mad - he’s a very prolific cotton farmer and has been doing astonishingly well for himself, running his farm on his own with only his parents’ inheritance as help. ...that, and, of course, the blood of the people he executes to keep his crops growing - or so he believes. he moonlights as an executioner in the small town over, exterminating the ‘pests’ of the city. despite his newfound violence, he still routinely checks in on his siblings, finding ways to mysteriously end up at their door to pay visits. the older brother instinct still hasn’t left

icarus nocturne, 23 - the second eldest (only by technicality, as he is a twin), icarus is the family’s golden child! but not in terms of business or anything, oh no - icarus is a famous heartthrob teen (sorta) musician! he’s been in the limelight since he was a little boy, being an actor as a small child and getting into music as he grew. his general Look(tm), accompanied by infectiously happy rave music, is a trademark cutesy mask over his face with oversized clothing - meant to express as much energy as possible as he bounces about the stage. in reality, he lives a life as forced and controlled as possible by virtue of... living the fucked up life of a child star. but his parents have someone to take the fall - so, what of his twin?

achilles nocturne, 23 - icarus’ younger twin, which wouldn’t mean much... in any family but this one. achilles has had it drilled into his head since the beginning that he was a mistake next to icarus, to the point where legally, he does not exist. following icarus beginning his career, achilles was unpersoned completely - living in the family’s basement with the height of his education being for a very specific purpose... needing to be icarus’ body double on tours and for paparazzi - after all, they can’t have icarus’ purity tainted by all those clamboring fans! it’s a godawful situation. on the bright side, though, achilles has found a hobby where he can be himself: twitch streaming! yes really. under the name of 1upanonymous, hidden under a mask just like his brother, achilles at least has a fanbase that can love him for who he is! ...uh, kind of.

tomasine “tommy” nocturne, 16 - the youngest of the bunch, and it says a lot about his siblings’ capabilities that he’s the technical heir to the nocturnes’ various businesses and fortune. tommy is just a feral 16 year old that doesn’t give two shits about any fame or fortune, he just wants to party and drink and have fun like any other kid his age! he’s rebellious, loud, and charmingly annoying (to his brothers anyway), and has no real care for the gravity of his family’s situations beyond finding it annoying that they want him to be all PRIM and PROPER and BUSINESSY EEWWWWW. he’s just a funny loud little child trying to live his best life. loves his brothers fiercely

already a mess of people. and really, all you need to know about or really keep in mind are those four: the upcoming characters are largely just side ones we came up with because we thought it’d be funny to flesh out this fucked up family more. so let’s get into the anatra branch of the family - headed by jael nocturne, xanthes’ brother and the siblings’ uncle

jael anatra-nocturne, who i am not giving an age for my own sanity trying to decipher this fucking timeline - a crude and playful uncle, jael is someone the nocturne boys either love (icarus, tommy) or hate (achilles, ichor). constantly joking, as he expresses affection with loving insults - kind of a money-driven asshole, but a lovable one - he’s a career politician and met his current husband, joaquin, on the job. or, well... no longer current, because jael’s funny life of debauchery, toxic masculinity, and making fun of his nephews, came to an abrupt end when he was assassinated on live television. yipes!

joaquin anatra-nocturne, who also does not get an age - jael’s former secretary and current widow, joaquin is the local wine uncle. im not sure if that’s a classification but it is now, because he is one. an unapologetic gold-digger, he (publicly) took jael’s death frighteningly well, and is now living his best life with a revolving door of new boyfriends. his relationship with jael was a genuine and very loving one, and joaquin IS devastated by his death, but both of them just found the bit of pretending to be this loveless gold digger/politician couple very funny, and being as suspicious as possible around his husband’s death is exactly what jael would have wanted joaquin to do

taddeo anatra-nocturne, 14 - the youngest child of these two, a shy little boy with big Child In A Horror Movie energies. makes potions in the backyard and probably decorates his clothes with animal bones n stuff when he’s older. despite this he’s pretty harmless, nice and fiercely loyal - tommy especially thinks he’s fun and likes to hang out with him at family gatherings - just so long as you look past the creepy dolls he likes to talk to and fires he likes to set. especially close with jael and wants to be a miniature version of him, buuut still being a shy tween taddeo hasn’t been able to act on that much.

dailon anatra-nocturne, 20 - the adopted second child of jael and joaquin, dailon is a moody and unstable delinquent that was snatched up by them just as he was about to age out of foster care. while he has a chill ‘cool-older-even-though-he’s-younger-cousin’ demeanor, the tension when he’s around his parents - jael specifically - can be cut with a knife. dailon hates his dad: ‘someone who expresses affection with insults and jokes and likes seeing people pissed at him’ and ‘someone who’s volatile, short-tempered, and sullen after living in a foster home most his life’ are just as bad of a combination as you’d expect. dailon gets himself into a lot of trouble, and is an overall very self-centered prick, but we’ll get more on that in a bit.

HELL FAMILY...2!!! that’s the last of the families to cover, buuuut there are still some other names on that list - mostly connected to dailon. this is REAL “just going on in the background” shit that you also do not need to know whatsoever (except for mitzi she’s pretty important she’s just down here for organization purposes) - i just like to play god and make characters get into drama.

[tw: cheating, unhealthy relationships, stalking]

mitzi “moon” altberg, 23 - achilles must feel very far away by now, but we’re back to him for a second! mitzi is his ex-girlfriend he met online, a fan-to-employee-to-lover and one of the maybe two people outside of the family achilles has shown his real face to. however, achilles growing up deeply unstable - between his parents’ abuse, having spotlights on him and adoring fans both as icarus’ body double and as a streamer, and in general not really growing up to be any kind of well developed human being - made this relationship a complete disaster. he grew obsessive and controlling - and when she tried to ignore him, he broke his one rule (to never go outside without permission) to find the hotel she was staying at in real life and show up to confront her. the incident was completely covered up, both by the nocturnes and with their connections, and so mitzi was forced to stay silent. this entire thing is based on this song! as time heals wounds, though, mitzi will end up doing pretty well for herself and putting achilles behind her - even getting a new boyfriend, jared!

reynard fiala, 20 - dailon’s (ex-)boyfriend, who he’s enraveled in his own weird soap opera subplot with. reynard is a relatively chill person, with an interest in art and taxidermy - just as morbid as dailon’s brother, but in a more. Normal way. genuinely a sweetheart who does not deserve what happens to them: getting cheated on with dailon’s best friend. yipes^2! while it's earth shattering in the moment, all reynard will really want to do come some time to process is to move on and for him and dailon both to heal in peace... far away from eachother (which is easier said than done since taddeo thinks reynard is super cool and loves having him over, the awkwardness between them and his brother be damned)

jared summers, 21 - the most normal person here. a longterm best friend of dailon’s, and yes, the very same one i just mentioned. he’s not the sharpest knife in the drawer - what we in the industry would call a himbo if his dumbassery didn’t cause very real damage - who had been pining for dailon for years and him dating was no deterrent, and dailon, thinking the world revolves around him as he tends to do, accepted jared’s confession so they just kinda started dating on the side. jared has the moral backbone of a pool noodle, and even after it causes dailon’s relationship with reynard to fall apart, will need a wholeass intervention to be staged to make them both realize just how shitty they’re being. after that, though, jared will end that mess and be on his way to becoming a better person himself - with the help of a sweet girl he’s met online.

jared and mitzi dating in the future is the most contrived thing on the planet but just hear me out that it’ll be HILARIOUS for achilles to check in on his ex-girlfriend and find she’s dating his cousin’s best friend, who said cousin was apparently dating on the side. very small world, it is.

anyway, thank you if you’ve somehow stuck around to read this entire thing - this isn’t even getting into jeremie’s half of this whole ordeal, which includes some of these fellas’ friends and partners, as well as more crazy rich people nonsense. it’s been very fun to think about and i do love it all dearly, even if putting it all together it’s SUCH a mess.

we don’t intend to make anything Legit out of this, it’s honestly just a fun way to pass the time. it’s the adult equivalent of playing dollhouse. in our minds this is like a 20 season soap opera but actually explaining it to other people it’s just like this

but thank you again for letting me babble i hope it was somewhat entertaining! and again, godspeed if you managed to read this much XD

#nocturnes #ichor nocturne #icarus nocturne #achilles nocturne #tommy nocturne #jael anatra nocturne #joaquin anatra nocturne #taddeo anatra nocturne #dailon anatra nocturne #mitzi moon #jared summers #reynard fiala

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vaguely-concerned · 5 years ago

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Mass Effect Initiation thoughts

In short: this book is actually really good, N.K. Jemisin is, as we all know, an excellent writer! It’s the story of how Cora met Alec Ryder and joined the Initiative, and it has SO much good good SAM content and I am full of emotions.

- poor cora is so continually out of her depth, I want to give her a hug. the points made about her in the main game are true though -- she is not ready for leadership yet. (and that’s fine! she does much better with something or someone to belong to and that is so Valid. she’s an honorable Loyal Knight!!! one of the sexiest things to be, as we all know)

I think I’ll actually like her a lot more on this new playthrough now -- she must have been quite hard to write compellingly in the game because at the end of the day she’s really very straightforward and honest and loyal, it’s quite hard to uh ‘hide’ things in her character

- alec ryder deadass installed an unspeakably illegal (and did I mention experimental?) AI in cora’s head with no informed consent whatsoever. d A D

(when cora is like ‘are you actually going to another galaxy because they don’t have laws to stop you from committing fully to your craziness in public’ and alec is like *...maybe so meme* fadsfhkj he does literally say ‘this is why I’m going to another galaxy’ out loud at a later point of the book)

- this book is giving me the good good SAM content ;________; I love SAM so much, the scene where cora thinks she’s dying and SAM talks to her? when cora asks SAM if he’s okay being connected to her because if he’s sentient that matters to her (cora is a Good)? SAM explicitly having inherited alec ryder’s sense of humour and sarcasm and alec a) doesn’t know how it happened, b) distantly thinks he should probably track that process down and turn it off (and never does) and c) regrets all his life choices when his robot kid mercilessly snarks at him and questions his life choices? please bioware give me an me:a sequel with more of this stuff I’ll eat it up with a spoon

- body diverse asari! HUGE BUFF ASARI! Short stocky beautiful matriarch asari with one krogan and one turian trophy husband fast asleep in her bed in the background of a vidcall fkdjshfkjsdlhfkjsdah god I love mass effect with my entire heart

- OLD LADY INFORMATION BROKER VOLUS WORKING OUT OF ILLIUM!!!! this is not a drill what the fUCK this is the coolest shit

- fasdklhfsjkdalfhsdjk okay in Alec Ryder POV: “I don’t think [Cora] likes me very much.” Which probably meant she had good judgement. AFLSKJDHGJSDKF ALEC

he has a weird flip-flopping sense of self -- he is uncompromisingly (one might even say... astoundingly arrogantly) secure in his own intellectual superiority and that most other people are idiots not to be trusted and that he needs to do things himself because others would mess it up, and yet there’s this clear seam of self loathing around basically everything else about himself too. (You know who he reminds me of, in a more military and less visibly anxious way? Rodney McKay. Alec Ryder is like a slightly unfortunate outcome for a McShep lovechild. I think we just figured out why I have sort of a soft spot for him even though he’s a certifiable dick lol)

- this book really makes it hit home that cora grew up incredibly isolated and dirt poor. I’ve seen some people say her backstory is all sunshine and daisies compared to kaidan and especially jack’s, but honestly her background is complicated and fucked up enough that I’m just like ‘shit baby :(’ all the time

- well I have successfully solved the puzzle about whether alec ryder is an idealist or not; he absolutely is. a grouchy, bad-tempered one with no people skills, but an idealist nonetheless. alec ryder is in fact a storm of 150000 emotions in a trenchcoat, barely held in check by a thin fragile outer shell of iron lol, SAM was absolutely right to say that he was mostly governed by his feelings. (and I mean if anyone would know it’d be SAM I guess). I found some of it sort of sweet actually: he reflects in passing that one of the biggest reliefs of no longer being in the alliance is that he’ll never have to risk other people’s lives again. he fundamentally wants to build something good to help people live and be happy instead of destroying things. (he also is quite bad at predicting how other people could corrupt and use his innovations precisely to be destructive b/c he doesn’t think that’s the ~*logical*~ thing to do, so... y’know haha, maybe it’s good he went to another galaxy, the milky way could not contain his chaos)

also he thinks a lot about his wife, even though she’s been dead for years at this point. o u c h (she truly does seem to have been a tether for him in so many ways though -- like a tie to the real world/normalcy/possibly sanity, and that’s a bit how he still evokes her)

additionally: alec ryder did fistfight at the very least one dude in the line of bureaucratic duty, and perhaps more, enough for SAM to have a list of warning signs ready and at hand jdfsklfhasdjf. he did, very much, throw a dude through a table. (at least it’s implied said dude was an asshole) I LOVE that alec’s SAM is the snarkiest iteration we’ve seen and that he’s perfectly willing to call the old man out on his bullshit (alec stresses that SAM is supposed to do what he says at the end of the day, but his SAM is also less subservient and more willing to argue and discuss things than any other we get to see -- and this is of course the SAM Ryder inherits, but I don’t think SAM is as confident in being able to read the PC correctly until a bit further into the game and the twin is of course a different person who’ll respond to different things so he’s not quite as... blunt? I guess? in confronting them about things. (the whole concept is just! so! interesting!!) anyway I feel like all of this says something about alec’s parenting style, for better or for worse haha. he sort of tries to be authoritarian but his children (well canonically at least Sara, she references having yelled at him a lot over the years) aren’t afraid to fight back or scared of the consequences of disagreeing, so I get the distinct feeling his temper never flared violently like that with his family at all, I think he’s more prone to just pulling away in disapproval.)

- I enjoy how casually diverse this book is -- Jemisin has done such a good job making sure especially the human characters are from different backgrounds and places, as they would be lore-wise in the Mass Effect universe, though the games often skew unfortunately white. (andromeda much less so than the trilogy, though)

- my heart. is so so soft for the fact that a huge reason for cora to join the initiative is how much she bonds with SAM-E. and I am so sad for her because she just wants someone or something who’ll stay, something that won’t disappear on her without closure like her parents; she’s so insecure and scared under her competence (and WHY THE FUCK WOULDN’T SHE BE holy shit her parents just. weren’t there one day after she left home so she wouldn’t accidentally crush their ship with her untrained biotics and kill them all). and she chooses alec and his dream. and then alec goes and FUCKING DIES at the first opportunity Y____________Y alternate universe alec please drink your victor sullivan juice and survive, all these dumb children need you

- I am so surprised about how much fond respect alec seems to have for cora and how quickly he developed it. I suppose he has a harder time with his own children because it’s closer to home? he is a complicated man lol, this last part of the book where he shows her the ark and everything is weirdly sweet. again I think he has the potential to be a good dad somewhere in there and that just makes it so much worse that he wasn’t. (also he staunchly considers himself still a married man. god help me)

they’ve both grown to honestly love their sams T________T fml. (well alec has sort of bound up all of himself, the things he loves and their future in SAM, so it’s a bit more complicated but my point still stands) alec advocating for a consensual synthesis is very heartfelt and convincing; you really want to believe him.

cora seen through someone else’s eyes is also SO AMAZING!!! after this whole book in her head and she feels so flailing and uncertain and adrift and other people naturally view her completely differently. I especially like alec picking up on her not talking a lot. (I think this is why she responds so well to SAM, who’ll be there always and can be in her head. I wish this part of cora was more evident in the game, the fact that she has this sibling-like connection to SAM seems very important. sequel where both SAM and Ryder grow closer to becoming her actual family? please? I keep begging for ME:A2 into an empty aching void haha)

- alec ‘I don’t have time to die’ ryder still talking about everyone else being idiots as he’s slowly catching fire while saving SAM fhdjfhsdlfhasdhlfsjd he is an asshole but it is hard not to stan

- nO SAM-E D:D:D: oh well at least he’s still alive within SAM, in a way?

- hey. hey you know what’s fun. alec tries to use his last words and last thoughts to ask cora to tell the kids about ellen being alive this time too. haha. ha. fuck

he consistently goes out thinking of his family despite all his bullshit and I’m not okay

- CORA IS A PERFECT BODYGUARD/SECOND IN COMMAND AND I’M EMOTIONAL

- alec is. surprisingly afraid to hurt people emotionally? he keeps putting off telling cora the bad news about SAM-E, to SAM’s stated disapproval lol (I must repeat again: I love SAM so so much). this supports my thesis that in his personal life he’s avoidant rather than confrontational/aggressive. (professionally... again, he did very much throw a man through a table)

- man I hope we some day get SAM being this comfortably close and sarcastic with Ryder too. thinking about SAM-E and the small differences between him and uh SAM ‘prime’ it really must have been a huge thing for him too to become someone else, especially after the last person died like that. and he kind of has no choice but to experience that loss and death intimately. (now that I think about it that’s. fucked up, man. he literally felt alec go like it happened to himself.)

If I were to summarize the differences between the SAMs we have seen, cora’s SAM-E seems younger, more exuberant, shyer and more -- what’s a non-shitty word for needy haha? it’s very firmly established that cora longs to feel needed, so this makes perfect sense. alec’s SAM is blunter, snarkier and more prone to questioning things, and hilariously is sort of alec’s emotional intelligence. (probably serves a similar role to what ellen used to, actually. ow) scott/sara’s SAM feels more worried/focused -- which also makes sense; he’s just experienced losing his person/pathfinder, in a real way he’s also recently orphaned and must be Extremely aware that he now has an enormous responsibility, not only what he was built for but for what remains of alec’s family. ...poor SAM

(come to think of it I guess one vibe I get from in-game SAM is a little bit of ’harried and anxious yet loving and responsible uncle’ hahaha)

- so at this point alec knew cora could never be pathfinder after him, and he never told her. *accumulation of asshole points continues, though I suspect this might have come from a place of not wanting to hurt her again (b/c he’s the only one who has a right to know these important things amirite)* but I’m also strangely touched that the reason he’s hesitant to involve his children in the whole thing isn’t that he doesn’t have faith in them, it’s that he doesn’t want to burden their lives with something so heavy, a burden he created. can you just imagine... if this man had managed to take the time to explain himself, his motivations and his feelings to his children just once. just one fUCKING time. am I laughing am I crying I honestly don’t know

- this book makes me ache all over for the potential of Andromeda. and I don’t think it’s too late to salvage it either. I know a sequel probably won’t happen, at least not any time soon, but... *sits by rainy window like a wife wistfully wondering if her husband will return from sea*

#mass effect #mass effect andromeda #meta #man I wish they could have gotten *this* cora across more in the game - it's recognizably the same person but she's shown better here #and also yes I am just a one person 'bring alec ryder back and give us some closure' cheerleading squad right now lol

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tentendeservedbetter · 5 years ago

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home is where my team is - Chapter 1

Summary: It wasn’t supposed to be like this; none of them wanted to end up on the same team as one another. They never interacted with each other, having the most classmate relationship out of all the team, and they didn’t know how to after they were assigned. They were too different, from their abilities to their personalities.

One is loud and confident. One is shy and passive. One is stubborn and quiet.

If you were to ask any one of Team 8 back then, they would agree that their team combination was a random gamble made from the head of the village, a simple copy of their parent’s team; but even then, they knew they were a family, a tight-knit family unlike most teams, and they were sure as hell going to stick together through thick or thin.

This story revolves around Team 8 and their journey from 12 year old Genins to one of the heroic Shinobi of the Leaf to fight in the Fourth Great Ninja War. Follow the ups and downs of one of the most renowned tracking teams from Konoha, and how they tackle tough mission, family drama, angsty adolescence, and …one another.

Characters: (Main) Hinata Hyuga, Kiba Inuzuka, Shino Aburame, Kurenai Yuhi,

Pairings (much later on, but will be explored): NaruHina, TamaKiba, background KurenAsuma, ShikaTema, SasuSaku, InoSai, etc.

Read also here: AO3 | FFNET

Next Chapter

A/N: Yeah, so remember that post I made about writing about team 8 growing up with one another rand exploring their dynamics….well here it is! I finally wrote the first chapter woooh! Check out the alternative formats that I provided to read more details about this fic before commencing, because there are some notes I made there; but other than that, here it is! a team 8 fic! I hope you all hop on for this ride!

***

The metallic part of the blue headband sitting on his forehead gleamed brightly under the pale yellow lights of the bathroom as he adjusted it with a hand, staring at the rectangle mirror. It was his first time wearing it- he just had to make sure that it sat perfectly straight, for all to see.

After another few minutes of untying and retying the blue fabric around his head, he was finally satisfied with the tightness of the band as well as how his brown hair, short and spiked, was overtop. He grinned stupidly at his reflection, his red markings lifting with the smile as he zipped up his hoodie, leaving just enough space for his collarbone, protruding with the fine mesh liner on top, out.

He looked good.

Really fucking good.

Watch out Konoha! he thought as he flashed a pose, glancing over her shoulder towards the mirror, his index and thumb over his chin as he tried to look cool. Kiba Inuzuka is here to stay! First Genin, and then-!

"Kiba!" The voice of his elder sister called out from outside the door, interrupting the beginning of his monologue. "Mom said that if you don't get your ass downstairs right now, she's gonna take that headband and break it in half!"

You'd think she'd learn to be nicer after Dad, Kiba thought bitterly as his smile fell, keeping the words to himself, knowing there were prying ears all around him, human and non-human.

There were many skills that the Inuzuka clan specializes in, their mastery of those techniques making them prime trackers in any reconnaissance mission and manhunt; and while animal training and handling is what they are often known for, taming even the most feral beast, there are many personal skills that only the clan members could really hone and specialize in that relates to their animal counterparts instincts. Touch, smell, hearing, you name it; if the dogs can do it, then you can bet your bottom ryo than an Inuzuka can too.

Most only concentrated on honing their smelling skills, scent being one of the easiest ways to identify approaching foes and friends. Everyone and everything has a scent, and it was the most obvious identifier that people tend to overlook. Even water, scientifically known as being an odourless liquid, have distinct smells only if you can tune the chakra in your nose hard enough.

His mother, however, had not only the strongest sense of smell of the clan, an obvious trait for the leader of their clan, but she had the additional skill of having the hypersensitive hearing of a dog, honing her chakra to connect to her eardrums while keeping it up with her nose. The ability to do both at the same time is pretty outstanding, considering the amount of control you need to streamline chakra to different channels, the slightest faltering potentially leading to damage to your senses.

Kiba remembered the nights he would try to escape from home to meet up with a few boys to hang out; he had left his sweaters and shirts with the strongest scents underneath the blanket of his bed, before attempting to slowly, and quietly, cross over the wooden floors of his room towards the window. Every single time, he tweaked his technique, eventually figuring out which boards made the most noise and mapping the perfect route, making sure it was the dead of night when everyone, including his mother, would be in deep sleep. Every single time, he would attempt to reduce the number of steps he took towards the door, making his steps more agile and fast, yet delicate, with each movement, not wasting any time.

And every single time, without fail, his mom would be waiting at the end of the road where the path splits in four. And every single time, without fail, she would kick his ass before dragging him by the ear back down the road to the house.

And every single time Kiba asked how she knew that he had escaped, she said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world, "You're always so loud, stomping all over the floors like that! I can hear your footsteps every single time!"

In hindsight, those escapes trained him to become much more agile and calculative than he ever was before, his mother's reprimands being more of a driving force for him to be a better shinobi than to deter him. When he got his trusty ninken during the last year of the Academy, he trained him to be just as agile and strategic as him, to the point that he had eventually learned to evade his mother with his trusty sidekick.

But today was the day he turns into a man, goddammit! He's officially a Genin, a full-fledged shinobi of the Hidden Leaf! He wasn't some little kid; he was an adult, an agent of his own life, and he can do whatever the hell he wanted to! There's no way he was gonna let his sister, or his mom for that matter, boss him around!

Kiba opened the door much more aggressively than he intended to, but stopped it before the knob could hit the bathroom wall with a loud sound. His eyes narrowed at his sister, who had taken the position of squatting down on one knee, petting his dog, Akamaru, who usually stood valiantly while Kiba was inside the bathroom, ready to attack anyone who dares interrupt him, was wagging his little white tail happily while his tongue stuck out. Only his sister could reduce Akamaru to the cute little puppy that he was.

It annoyed Kiba to no end.

"Stop that!" Kiba said harshly at Hana, wanting to show Akamaru that he was still in command, but his voice cracked at the end, puberty not being so kind to the preteen, while Hana stood up slowly, hovering over Kiba by a good six inches, an amused smirk on her face, making the red markings on her face that were the same as his rise up as well. Akamaru immediately bounded away from Hana go Kiba's side, happily barking at him before sitting and patiently waiting for his next move.

He had assumed that she had already left for work, yet her long brown was left out, unlike in her usual ponytail she would wear, and she had no bag in sight indicating she was ready for work. She immediately plugged her nose with her hand, flinching slightly when Kiba took another step out of the bathroom, yet she maintained her stature.

"God, could you put anymore cologne?" She asked mockingly, as she wafted the air with her free hand, to dissipate the smell.

"What, why?" Kiba quickly replied defensively, while Hana shook her head.

"You smell like you doused yourself with a bottle of eau de garçon," Hana replied.

"Eau de l'homme," he corrected as he crossed his arms over his chest, trying to puff his chest out to make himself look bigger despite his sister still hovering over him. It didn't help that his sister's arms, fully exposed thanks to the white tank top she wore, were essentially the width of Akamaru's body. And his body is pretty big, but it was mostly leaner muscle. Hers, on the other hand, were both big and filled with muscle.

The gods clearly have favourites.

"You're far from a man, kid," she mocked, lightly pinching one of his cheeks, pulling it up and down playfully. "And what you're wearing proves that."

"What's wrong with my cologne?" Kiba nearly cried as he pulled out of her fingers, the pain of her pinch leaving his cheek stinging and red.

"I swear, no matter what generation it is, preteen boys abuse cologne like it's nobody's business," Hana said with a sigh before letting go of her nose and grabbing ahold of the hood of his sweater, pulling him closer. She inhaled sharply, before asking, "When was the last time you've washed this sweater? Actually…" Another quick inhale. "When was the last time you took a bath?"

"I did this morning," Kiba lied, trying to pull away, but to no avail, his sister had unfortunately inherited their mother's iron grip and simply held on tighter without budging.

"Liar," Hana replied without missing a beat, an eyebrow raised as she tried to force her smile into a frown. "You still smell like sweat from your training yesterday. When did you actually take a bath?"

There was a slight silence between them as Kiba tried to stare his sister down, but her piercing eyes broke him and he glanced away, heat rising up his neck.

"Yesterday morning," Kiba mumbled in defeat and Hana immediately let him go, simply waiting for him to continue. His strong facade broke as easily as it came, and he couldn’t help but continue in a whine, "But I jumped into the training ground river afterwards!"

"The river still carries bacteria," Hana groaned, shaking her head. "You have to take proper care of your body."

"Yeah yeah," Kiba waved off her comment as he tried to slip away down the hall so he could go to the main floor, a talk she had had with him before, but she immediately put her foot down to impede him.

"I'm serious, Kiba," Hana continued, a much more serious tone to her voice, one she rarely used unless she absolutely needed to command the room. "And your body is the only vessel you have in this life. Keeping it in tip top shape, whatever that may be, is important not only for your health, but also your line of duty as well."

"Yeah, I know," Kiba nodded along, the intensity of her voice made him uncomfortable as he shifted slightly on his feet. Hana looked at his for a moment, narrow eyes shifting over his headband to his face.

"You're now a Shinobi of the Leaf," Hana replied slowly. "You are no longer a child. And you no longer belong to yourself and to the clan anymore; you belong to the Village as well."

"To protect and serve the Village first," Kiba dully repeated the words he was forced to learn for his theory class, the Shinobi Rules. "A shinobi must set aside his emotions in order to be in shape to serve and protect their village with a sound mind and a doubtless heart."

He expected Hana to be satisfied with his words and let him get on with his day - hell, even he was surprised he still remembered that rule, being one of the longer ones from the book.

Instead, he noticed her eyes falter slightly, her eyebrows twitched inwards, as if more taken aback by his words than happy.

"Yes, exactly," she finally said, her voice sounding somewhat solemn, before her face softened as she reached over his head with a head and started mushing his hair aggressively. "Look at you, actually remembering what you learned at the Academy!"

"Stop, you're gonna mess up my hair!"

"It already looks like a mess," Hana replied before letting go. Kiba immediately ran off down the hallway, Akamaru trailing with as much speed behind him as he bounded down a flight of stairs.

"Have fun," he could hear his sister call from the top floor as he reached the end of the stairs, the bathroom door shutting behind her immediately afterwards as he smiled to himself.

I will, he thought to himself as he ran down the long stretch of hallway towards the dining room, the smell of cooked meat growing stronger with every step, enticing him and making him salivate slightly.

"What's for breakfast?" he asked as he slid the door open quickly, thought he already knew the answer just from the scent - a fresh pot of tea, omelettes with vegetables, rice fresh from the rice cooker, and a whole lot of bacon.

His mother was sitting at the opposite end of the table facing towards the door, a hand on her hip and a half of a chopstick in the other hand as something sharp grazed the side of his ear, a modest thwunk behind him from the wall. The mood of the room shifted immediately, making the hair on his neck stand up while goosebumps ran down is spine, as he froze on sight, taken aback by what had just happened. Even Akamaru started to whine, and he could see him cower his head under his tiny paws, trying to look away.

"You know the rules, Kiba," Tsume said with a growl, her voice authorative and strong. "No breakfast for people who sleep in!"

"B-but Mom-" Kiba started, but she didn't let him finish.

"Rules are rules!" She said, as she took another pair of chopsticks from the table and started to pick out the long strips of meat from the plate, streaked with crisp browned line from the pan, and onto her rice bowl. There were only three strips left on the plate. "If you don't come downstairs by the time Kuromaru is finished eating, you don't get any food!"

He eats before I even wake up! Kiba cried as he gawked at his mother, at a loss of words. He glanced over to Kuromaru, Tsume's companion ninken, who stood straight looking out the sliding door to the backyard nearby, basking in the morning light. He looked over towards Kiba, looking ethereal in his black fur highlighted with yellow streaks of the sun, and moved his head fully to look with his left eye, the only eye that he could use, the other covered with an eyepatch. Kiba could have sworn that the old dog smirked at him, a sparkle of amusement flashing over his yellow pupils.

Kiba tried hard not to let Kuromaru get to him, but he knew the dog thought more than he would say- and right now, he was mocking Kiba for being scolded by his mother like a little pup.

"C'mon, I was busy training late last night!" Kiba exclaimed as he took another cautious step forward, ready for his mother's next move. "Today is-"

"Your first day as a Genin," Tsume interjected. "But as a Shinobi, you can't just lounge around and sleep in when you have duties to perform. When I was your age, I had countless missions where I had to wake up at the crack of down with only a few minutes of rest in order to track down enemies and-"

Here she goes again. Kiba tried not to roll his eyes. He felt that his mom always over exaggerated her experiences on the field in order to scare him into obeying, and maybe some of the things did happen? But she didn't have to do this spiel first thing in the morning. He tried to tune her out, but curse his sensitive ears- the words were still processed by his brain.

"- and you can't sleep in for mission deadlines!" Tsume finished, as she took another chopstick full of rice from her bowl, satisfied with her spiel.

Kiba watched her for a moment, glaring at her swallowing the rice, before asking in a dull voice, "...So can I eat?"

"No!" Tsume exclaimed as she slammed her chopsticks clean onto the table, a loud bang resonating from the wood.

"C'mon Mom, I'm a growing boy! I need to eat!"

“No!”

“Please Mom!” Akamaru barked, trying to show his support, and Tsume glared intently at the puppy, making him once again cower and take a step back behind Kiba’s leg.

“Hush now, pup,” Tsume said to Akamaru, putting her finger over her lips.

"Why are we fighting so early in the morning?" Hana called from the end of the hallway, the creaking of the floorboards growing louder as she approached the entrance of the dining room, peering through with a slight curiosity.

She looked fresh and ready for a new day, her hair pulled back with two strands left to shape her face, and opted out the tank top for a long sleeved shirt. She gave Kiba a quick smile of acknowledgment (that Kiba returned with a frown) before brushing past him towards the dinner table, slipping the messenger bag off her shoulder.

"You got a shift at the clinic today?" Tsume asked in a calmer tone as Hana took a seat at the table, nodding to her mother’s question as she set her messenger bag against the leg of her seat. “Shirogane is really making you work.”

"Yeah, but it can’t be helped,” Hana replied as she reached over to the pot of rice from Tsume, using the small white spatula to scrape the fresh rice into the bowl that sat in front of her. Kiba could feel a low growl from his abdomen, and he held onto it, trying to subdue it in front of them. “We’re getting a group of new resident students today, and he wanted me to teach them. I’m going to be there more often now, so I can keep Kiba in check while you're gone on missions.”

"I'm still here, you know!" Kiba exclaimed, annoyed how they both ignored him, but they continued their conversation without so much as a glance.

“Oh right, the new veterinary students you were talking about,” Tsume said as she slid the plate of omelettes towards Hana, who took her chopsticks to pick it up. “Isn’t Isamu’s daughter in school to be a vet too?”

“Yeah, his eldest,” Hana nodded as she started to mix the egg with the rice, steam still floating on top of it, mixing together into a beautiful concoction. “She only started last year, so she has a few years before I could take her under my wing, if she survives.”

Tsume chuckled, as she picked up her cup of tea, saying, "She has a good head on her shoulders. She'll be fine."

"Hey, why does she get to eat!" Kiba finally interrupted their conversation, his annoyance at its peak, gesturing (but not pointing, he still wants to keep his finger) at Hana, who took a satisfying bite of her omelette rice. "She only got ready after I woke up!"

Tsume immediately slammed her cup onto the table when he finished, silence falling immediately over him.

“Hana gets to eat because she actually keeps track of time and never showed up late to a mission or her work for the past six years,” Tsume said with a cautious tone. “You, on the other hand…”

She suddenly raised her hand, the other half of the chopstick she had used earlier already in her hand, steadying her arm to throw it the way she would throw a kunai.

Kiba readied himself to dodge the throw, but the chopstick never came straight his way; it zipped at an angle above him, missing him by the tip of his hair. Kiba followed the trajectory of the throw towards the wall above the doorway, and found the red wood sticking out right beside the clock that hung up there. He shifted his eyes towards the clock, looking at the hands, reading the time.

9:30, he read. 9:30…

“I’m late!” he yelped, and Tsume tutted as she watched her son scramble over towards his bag that sat on the side of the couch.

“It’s your first day and you couldn’t even get ready on time,” Tsume hummed.

Hana in the meantime was eating her meal slowly, savouring the moment as she watched the two bicker. After watching Kiba chaotically try to look through his bag to make sure he had everything, she finally said, “Mom, look at him. Just let him take something for the road.”

“Yeah, for the road!” Kiba agreed, slinging his bag over his shoulder quickly.

Tsume scowled at Hana, before looking at Kiba, observing him with piercing eyes. After a moment, she shook her head lightly.

"Fine. Take it and go," Tsume sighed, running a hand on the side of her brown hair, attempting to tame the spikes only to make it bounce back up. "This is the last time I'll let you eat after sleeping in!"

"Yeah!" He exclaimed as he scooped up the last three strips of bacon from the plate and ran towards the door quickly, Akamaru waiting until he passed through the frame to follow him.

When Tsume was sure he was out of earshot down the hall, she sighed while softening her face, "I don't know what I'm going to do with that boy."

"Are you going to tell him the real time?" Hana asked, and Tsume shrugged.

"Nah, he'll figure it out himself."

There was a slight pause between them as they listened to Kiba scramble about at the front, trying to find his shoes so he could leave.

"You know, looking at him be this young and become a Genin is unsettling," Hana suddenly said after swallowing another bite, pausing in the middle of picking up a piece of egg with her chopsticks as she glanced over to Tsume, who took another long sip of her tea. “It’s hard to believe I looked that small when I became a Genin. I can’t imagine Kiba being responsible for half the things they’ll make him do.”

"That's only if he becomes a Genin," Tsume replied with a slight grimace on his face. “You know who’s going to be his Jonin leader?”

“I heard, but it can’t be too bad for him,” Hana said with a small smile, fondly remembering her first day after graduating from the Academy. “He might be spunky, but Kiba knows how to work well with others. You made sure of it.”

Kiba quickly slipped on his sandals, strapping them on tightly and zipping the backside up, making sure they are securely on before he leaves. He opened the door, letting Akamaru bound out onto the small set of stairs leading down to the path towards the front gates. Once he was sure he had everything he needed, he took one last look at the mirror that hung on the wall above the shoe rack, making sure his headband sat on properly.

"I’m off!" Kiba quickly called out as he shut the door behind him before stuffing the three strips of bacon in his mouth. "Le'z gwo A'amaru!"

"Yes!" Akamaru barked in agreement and they took off side by side, the morning sun shining down on their faces as they run down the road, trying not to trip.

***

"Yo, Kiba! Where’s the fire?"

Kiba stopped in his tracks, the heel of his foot skidding the dirt road, quickly turning over to the source of the voice that was behind him. He followed the familiar scent towards the side of the road, and saw a boy around his age continue to walk at an even pace, an easygoing grin on his face as he approached Kiba.

“Itsuki... why so ...slow?” Kiba managed asked between pants, trying to control his breathing rate as he stood still as adrenaline caught up to him. Akamaru caught up right beside him, panting with his tongue out, waiting for his next move. “Aren’t we... late?”

“Nah man, we still got another hour until it’s 10,” Itsuki replied, his black eyebrows pulled in, confused at his friend’s words. “Did you run all the way here?”

“Dude...I swear it was 9:30 when I left,” Kiba replied, now his eyebrows contorting in confusion. Itsuki looked over to the watch on his right wrist, reading the hands along the plate.

"Nah, dude," Itsuki said, a grin on his face as he extended his arm, showing the watch face to Kiba, letting him read it. Indeed, the small hand was on the 9, with the smaller hand only halfway through it's round. Kiba couldn't comprehend this conflict of time, when it struck it like a pound of bricks on his head.

She changed the time! Kiba thought, eyes furrowed and gritting his teeth in anger, a little image of his mother mocking him with her laugh popping into his head. It could only make sense...the must have changed the living room clock to throw him off. He knew for a fact that he woke up on time; he gave himself plenty of time to get ready before leaving for his first day as a Genin!

Itsuki laughed at his face, the brown of his pupils twinkling with amusement. "Did your mom move the clock ahead again?"

Akamaru let out whine when he heard his words, and Kiba leaned down to pick the exhausted pup in hands, sticking him on the part where he would zip up his grey sweater, letting his hang his head and paws out. Itsuki took the opportunity to give Akamaru a pat on the head, while Kiba replied through gritted teeth, a bit flustered at having to admit it, "Yeah she did."

"Damn, go Ms. Inuzuka," Itsuki said with a light laugh as he put his hands into the front pocket of his shirt. "I'm glad my mom isn't a drill sergeant!"

"Yeah, yeah," he waved off his comment with a huff, something he hears often from his friends who have known him for so long. Tsume truly was ruthless with her rules; she even went as far as to pull this stunt on him.

Kiba walked alongside his friend, taking in what Itsuki was wearing. Now that they officially graduated from the Academy, it only made sense to wear clothes that would suit their new job. When Kiba had first met Itsuki back when he was in normal school before Shinobi school, he would often be prim and minimal, with a shirt tucked into his pants with a belt, his hair coiffed to the side in a side part as his mother liked it. Kiba’s ferality has worn him down, though; he wore a deep red hoodie that warmed his tan skin with short sleeves, his blue headband fastened on his upper left arm, and black pants that went up to his knees, pockets lined on both the top and the bottom. He was wearing the grey armour mesh tights underneath, up until midway to his calves, and he trades his usual runners for black sandals. His black hair was free of any gel, spiking up in a slight slope upwards, revealing a hoop earring on his helix, a sort of present from himself to celebrate graduating from the Academy, something his mother completely disapproved of but it was too late.

Kiba had considered getting a piercing, the needle they used on Itsuki looking enticing, but he knew that Tsume and Hana would have ripped the earring off as soon as he walked through the door, both doing it for different reasons; for Tsume, it would be without asking permission, and for Hana, it would be for infection control.

“Look who’s up ahead,” Itsuki pointed out, and Kiba immediately looked up, noticing a different scents that was also familiar waft in the air. Kiba grinned, as Itsuki yelled out, “Natsuo! Hold up!”

Another boy around their age with ashy brown hair glanced back at them after hearing his name, his headband proudly gleaming under the sunshine.

“Yo,” the brown haired boy, Natsuo, said with a lopsided grin, pulled up the sleeve of his long blue sleeve underneath his loose tank top and giving Itsuki a props. They had all been friends from before entering the Academy, thought the duo had met Natsuo a year beforehand. Despite this, he was still close to them, making up a three-quarters gang that they usually were in.

“Look at you, showing off your headband,” Kiba teased as he gave a playful punch to his shoulder, before Itsuki put him a light headlock, while Kiba attacked his brown locks by ruffling them. “Save the theatrics for us, Michy!”

“Chill out!” Natsuo exclaimed with a laugh as he slipped out of the headlock, running a hand through his hair. “Oh and what, you're not showing off your headband?”

“I'm allowed to show it off," Kiba chuckled, flicking the plate of Natsuo's headband lightly, square on the Konoha symbol .

A specific scent was suddenly in the air that caught his attention, and he could feel his heart skipped a beat when he recognised it instantly. It was a soft, flowery scent, mixed with the freshness of the Konoha pines found in a certain part of town, and despite it being extremely faint, his nose was able to amplify it a bit more. He tried his best not to look around to follow the scent, instead using his eyes to quickly scanned around them. They were quickly approaching the source of the scent at the opposite side of the road, and Kiba could feel his back straighten a bit more.

“Oh oh! She’s close!” Akamaru barked excitedly from inside his jacket, moving his head around to see if he could catch a glimpse of the person emitting this smell, now already in their immediate area. Kiba glanced ahead to the road, trying not to look as to not draw his friend’s attention, but his eyes betrayed him as it caught sight of long purple hair coming out of a store with a bag in hand.

“Don’t look now Kiba, but I think that’s your future wife,” Natsuo mocking before Kiba elbowed him harshly in the side of his ribs, feeling the tips of his ears burning.

“I’m going to call her over,” Itsuki snickered, and before Kiba could refuse, he yelled out, “Akane! What are you doing loitering around?”

A girl immediately looked towards them as they approached her (well, they were walking towards her, Itsuki had to drag Kiba by the arm), her brown eyes fluttering up towards them as her pink lips broke into a smile.

“I’m getting some dango,” Akane replied, her voice smooth and high, as she lifted the bag up towards the boys, a hand on her hips. “You guys want some?”

“Do I?” Natsuo said as he took the bag from her hand, and perused the contents, taking out a tupperware with the dango inside, still fresh with steam.

“Ah!” Akane exclaimed immediately when she looked over at Kiba, and she took a step closer. Kiba had to stop himself from taking a step back, and refrained from holding his breath. “Akamaru! You cute little thing!”

“Pet me! Pet me!” Akamaru barked happily as Akane started to scratch the back of his ears, cooing at him.

“Stop, you’re spoiling him,” Kiba replied after finding his voice but didn’t make her stop, allowing her to pick Akamaru in her arm as she cradled in one hand.

“But Kiba,” Akane pouted at Kiba, blinking her eyes in a fluttery way. “He’s so cute!”

“I am!” Akamaru barked in agreement, his tail wagging as Akane continued to rub his neck, scratching it just where he likes it.

“What the hell are you wearing, Akane?” Itsuki asked after taking a bite of dango from the tupperware, gesturing mindlessly at her clothing.

Akane’s eyebrows pulled into a frown, and she scowled at the boy. “What’s wrong with what I’m wearing?”

“Nothing,” Itsuki said with a slight shrug. “It’s just weird.”

“I think what Natsuo is wearing is weirder,” Akane replied with an eye roll. “He’s wearing a shirt over a shirt. That’s stupid.”

“I didn’t know you were the fashion police,” Natsuo scowled as Akane swiped back the bag from his hand when he reached his second dango, still balancing Akamaru in one arm.

“What do you think, Kiba?”Akane asked in a lighter voice, smiling at him as she swayed slightly. “How do I look?”

She was wearing a sleeveless faded green shirt that went up to her waist, her blue pants sitting on her hips, the mesh armour shirt covering her abdomen. So far, it was normal, though she had wrapped her hand with white bandages up until her past her wrists, despite never wearing them before and not being that keen of taijutsu, and the sleeves of her mesh armour shirt went up to her elbows. Her headplate had been taken off of the usual blue fabric and was stitched onto a black one, and hung around her neck loosely. Her sandals were a black like her headband, but there was an extra layer underneath to make her taller, though Kiba wasn’t sure if it would help her with her abilities or were for show. Probably like Itsuki's earring, it was for show.

But despite this, he immediately thought that she looked, to put it frankly, Cute as hell.

Out of the group, Akane was the last one to join, completing the quartet when they entered the Academy. She was an outgoing girl, with a sharp mouth and equally sharp eyes, having a particular sense of humour that suited them very well. Not only that, but she was one of the cutest girls in the class, akin to the likes of two other girls in their class, a Sakura Haruno and an Ino Yamanaka. But where they were failed to be cute naturally, she excelled at it incredibly - to people who didn’t know her. She was hot-tempered with Kiba, persistent with her way, and while Kiba would normally not be complacent, his crush on her let her get some leeway with certain situations (plus, he was kind of into it).

They weren’t dating, actually, far from it, and he wasn’t even sure if it was a mutual feeling to begin with. He wouldn’t mind dating her, though, and he was planning to ask her out after they got used to being a Genin. He didn’t want to rush anything, knowing they had time. Right now, he was focused on being a great ninja, the likes of what his mother is, and his foremothers as well.

Kiba went with a neutral route, grinning and shrugged, “It’s okay. Not as good as what I’m wearing.”

Akane tried to hide her smile at his joke, giving him a slight nudge with her elbow, both hands being full, saying in a light, sugary tone, “Shut up!”

"We'll see how long you'll last in it," Itsuki said with a grin, as they continued to walk down the road, still trying to make it on time to the Academy. Akane handed back Akamaru to Kiba, who immediately placed him back in his sweater, not wanting to tire the puppy out so soon in the day. He could see Akane walk beside him, a step closer into him, but it was probably so she could see the others properly while talking.

“This is it, huh,” Itsuki mumbled mindlessly, and they all looked at him curiously to continue. “We’re officially Shinobi from this day on.”

“Damn right, we are,” Kiba said cockily, a grin on his face. “Can’t wait to finally go on missions and get out of Konoha for once! Maybe even leave the Land of Fire!"

"You might not get out all that much to begin with," Akane hummed beside him, trying to keep up with their longer strides. "We'll probably get simple D rank missions around the Village or in the farmlands."

"Aw, that’s right- so we won’t even be fighting then!” Natsuo groaned with a frown. “What’s the point of learning all this ninjutsu if we won’t be using it on anyone!”

“Let’s wait and see what we get,” Kiba replied. “But there’s no way I’m not going to be stuck with some lame missions. Isn’t that right, Akamaru?”

Akamaru barked in agreement, and Akane laughed, "Hopefully we can work together!"

"Yeah, but usually D-rank missions only need three-man squads, right?" Itsuko replied lightly. "Three out of four of us might end up on one team, and the last one left is gonna end up with randos."

"It alternates a lot, it's not permanent," Kiba said, mindlessly patting Akamaru's head gently, an unconscious habit when he was was hanging off the neckline of his sweater or hoodie.

It made Kiba slightly antsy at the thought of separating from his friends since he found out this information; they have been through so much together, through the ups and downs of their Academy years, through every endurance testing to written exams. And now to potentially be separated from one another despite not needing to be made him anxious.

Kiba was an easy going guy, he knew how to make friends easily, but it was always with like minded people. What if he had to work with someone stubborn and gets in his way? Or someone passive and won't take initiative? He worked so long with his friends that it's hard for him to imagine them separating and not working together as often.

"The least they could do is split the group in half," Kiba continued lightheartedly, with his usual grin. "Don't worry about it."

***

They made their way up the staircase to the third floor where there now old classroom was, the sound of students chattering and laughing could be heard through the closed sliding door leading into their classroom. When they walked in, the class was nearly filled with students, the right bench in the second row to the lower floor being empty.

Kiba scanned the rows of the students as they walked down the steps to the empty seats, plenty of familiar faces crowding around benches to talk to their friends. He noticed, however, the slight buzz in the air, bitter and confused glances over towards the direction of the wide windows against the other side of the room, some people whispering amongst themselves.

"Sup," Kiba greeted a group of boys nearby the entrance they walked through, at the top row of the classroom, who were also gawking towards that direction. "What's going? Why's everyone looking paranoid."

"Dudes," one of the boys said, ushering Kiba and his friends closer. "You're not going to believe this! Guess who passed the Academy exams?"

Before Kiba could ask who, he heard a familiar voice drawl out from the other side of the classroom, "Naruto, what are you doing here?"

Kiba leaned over to look at the window side of the classroom, and he saw the familiar spiky ponytail of his classmate, Shikamaru Nara, slouching over the second bench from the top of the room. He could only see another one of his classmates, the prodigious genius of his year, Sasuke Uchiha, sitting further along the bench closer to the window, but that was not who Shikamaru was talking about, no. He leaned even forward to see past Shikamaru, narrowing his eyes.

Lo and behold, in his obnoxiously orange tracksuit and spiky blond hair to match, there sat Naruto Uzumaki, class clown and world class idiot, with the biggest grin in the world as he held his headband plate with one hand, showing it off.

"This isn't a class for drop-outs, you know," Shikamaru continued, shoving his hands in pockets.

"Do ya see this Shikamaru?" Naruto said loudly and confidently, flashing the headband up and down. "See, it? It's a Konoha headband, which means I passed! From now one I'm going to be a shinobi training alongside you! Believe it!"

"I don't believe it," Itsuko said in a hushed voice, watching the spectacle before them. "I could have sworn Naruto failed."

Kiba tutted slightly, annoyed at what he was seeing. Naruto was the last person he expected to see. They were all there for the same final exam; he saw it with his own eyes, he couldn't conjure up a Clone, and when he did, it was a blanched body with no energy or Chakra whatsoever. How did he end up passing, out of the blue?

“Hey, Kiba” Akane asked, in a hushed tone, a slight grin on her face. “What if you end up working with your friend over there?”

Kiba grimaced at her words. He only hung out with Naruto for a bit, whenever they wanted to skip out of class to go to the training hall, Naruto and Shikamaru being the only ones who would be willing to do so with another one of their classmates, Choji Akimichi. Naruto and Kiba weren’t friends, no, far from it; they were just acquaintances, at most, and even then it was limited to being his classmate, and those few times they skipped together. Naruto was a fun guy, he won’t lie, and he knew how to goof around and have a good time; but that’s all he knows what to do. At some point, his slack in ninjutsu and fooling around got old real quick- Kiba had to detach himself from being associated with him, not wanting to be pulled down with him. It didn’t help that he was an easy target for many to make jokes about; Kiba didn’t want to put in the spotlight with him, he still had pride.

It doesn't matter, Kiba thought. I'll be fine as long as I don't have missions with him!

Before he could reply, the door they had entered suddenly slid open with a loud bang, and the sound of angry struggle was heard.

"Move Billboard Brow!"

"Shut up Ino-pig!"

Kiba looked over at the door, and could feel his temples stinging immediately. Great, more annoying people…

Two girls, one with long pink hair flowing and one with long blonde hair in a ponytail, tumbled through the door frame in unison, luckily landing on their feet. Two girls, stood in place for a moment, sweat dripping down their flushed faces, panting hard as they leaned on their knees.

“Not bad, Sakura,” the blonde girl managed to say between pants, not bothering to look at her companion.

The pink haired girl managed to smirk crookedly, but was panting equally as hard, and she said, “I told you Ino...I’d beat you.”

He heard Natsuo let out a low whistle, and Kiba could see Natsuo staring at the two girls, eyes ogling at the blonde girl, Ino Yamanaka. He elbowed him to draw his attention away, and said in an annoyed tone, “What are you, a pervy old man?”

“Can’t I check them out, dude?” Natsuo mumbled back to for only his ears, annoyed at Kiba policing him, and Kiba rolled his eyes.

The pink haired girl, Sakura Haruno, ran across the top floor towards the stairs that led in between the benches along the window wall and the centre benches. Ino followed right behind her, stopping at a step above her, pushing Shikamaru back away from the second row bench near the window. Kiba could feel a grin on his face, and he settled a bit on his spot, waiting.

“This ought to be good,” Itsuki said, knowing full well what was going to happen, and they all watched with anticipation.

Naruto attempted to get up from his seat to greet them, but before he could a ‘hey’ out of his mouth, Sakura pushed him aside, saying as she pointed at the empty space between Sasuke and Naruto, “Hey Sasuke, is anyone sitting there?”

From the distance, Kiba couldn’t see Sasuke reaction, but he knew the name was like opening a floodgate; the moment the Uchiha prodigy was mentioned in any vicinity, you could be sure there would be a group of girls that would gather around him, vying for his attention. Kiba could admit it himself, Sasuke was a pretty boy, with jet black hair and side bangs shaping his face, and onyx eyes that gave him an air of mystery, his face more chiselled and refined than the average boy their age. That’s not to say Kiba was jealous of the attention Sasuke receives, no, far from it; he doesn’t know how Sasuke goes about his life and training without a flock chasing after him, and he knew he wouldn’t survive if he were Sasuke.

Speaking of a flock, there was one forming around Sakura right now, her question triggering other girls from their class to gather near the bench, forming a chain to keep one another out.

“Listen up, forehead!” Ino said, with a clenched fist, being one of said girls who like Sasuke. “I walked into the classroom before you, so I get to sit next to Sasuke first!”

“Actually, I was here before either of you,” another girl said, crossing her arms over her chest. “So I get to sit next to Sasuke!”

“No way, I was here before all of you!” Another girl piped in. “If anything, I should sit next to Sasuke.”

“Don’t you want to fight for a spot next to Uchiha?” Kiba whispered to Akane, who let out a small chuckle.

“Maybe you should try,” she replied with a small wink, making his heart skip a beat, as the group of girls started to argue loudly with one another. Suddenly, there was a silence over the group of girls as they turned their attention from one another back to the bench.

Kiba could see what they were staring at, and he was surprised to see it as well; directly in front of Sasuke, on top of the table, was the spunky blond squatting down to be face-to-face with the raven-haired boy. Tension filled that area immediately as Naruto glared at Sasuke, and Kiba could only assume that Sasuke was returning the look with as much intensity.

"Naruto!" Sakura exclaimed angrily, fists clenched up in front of his chest. "What are you doing to Sasuke!"

"That idiot," Kiba said, eyes never leaving the scene. "Is he trying to pick a fight right now?"

Before the girls could start yelling at Naruto, there was another hush that fell over them a few gasps amongst the crowd. Even the kids who weren’t paying attention to them looked with wide eyes, mouth agape at what they saw.

Kiba was taken aback too, but his grin widened even more at the spectacle, trying to suppress the mocking laugh that swelled up in his stomach. A boy in the row in front of Sasuke was moving his arms around, and his elbow landed square onto Naruto’s back, pushing the blond forward unwilling and…

Made his lips lock with Sasuke’s.

Tension in the room flared, and the rest was expected; the flock of girls, with their menacing glares and cracking their knuckles, ganged up on Naruto and well...let’s just say the poor guy got a few bruises here and there.

“What a dumbass,” Akane said mockingly. “He got it coming to him.”

As if the gods were just waiting for this to happen, the door at the front of the classroom slid open, and entered their now ex-homeroom teacher, Iruka Umino, with a folder under his arm, wearing his usual attire of the long blue sleeved shirt underneath his faded green Chunin vest. He looked at the students with a confused look, the group of girls still flocking around Sasuke and Naruto now lying along the stairs, the light scar across the bridge of his lifting with his scrunched up nose.

“What happened here?” Iruka asked, and the group immediately replied with a quick ‘nothing!’ before dissipating. Sakura had managed to shimmy her way next to Sasuke during the disorder, while Naruto got up quickly at Iruka’s voice, clamouring up into the seat.

Iruka didn’t buy their word, but he didn’t press on, and he looked towards the rest of the classroom, with a slight smile growing on his face. He continued, “It looks like everyone is here! Can you all please take your seats!”

The students did not hesitate to take their places along the benches immediately, the previous tension that was in the room now replaced with excitement. Kiba slipped into one of the benches, and Akane sat beside him, with Natsuo and Itsuki following suite. He picked Akamaru out of his jacket and placed him on top of his head, as to not squeeze him against the table.

Iruka walked up to the desk in front of the chalkboard, setting down his folder, and waited for the classroom to settle into silence for him to begin.

“From this day forward, you are no longer Academy student, but shinobi of the Leaf,” Iruka said with a light voice, shifting his gaze between the students. “However, you are only at the level of Genin, a junior ninja, and there your journey of being excellent ninja is still ahead of you. Soon you will all be able to take missions for the Village. But due to you being brand new shinobi, we will be putting you in 3-man squads, with each team having a Jonin sensei to guide you!"

What?! Kiba thought, his eyebrows drawing in closer as he slightly shook one of his legs up and down impatiently, leaning onto the table. They're assigning us to teams?!

"You will have to follow your sensei's orders in order to complete your missions," Iruka continued with the same smooth rhythm. He picked up the folder and opened it, holding it in one hand. "We tried to balance each team's strength and weaknesses to form an equal squad with various members."

"What!" A few kids shouted at the same time, Natsuo joining as well, and the class went into a slight frenzy.

"Aw man, we're being assigned into teams?" Itsuko said with a slight huff. "What if Iruka-sensei splits the group? What if he only puts three of us in a team and leaves one in a group of randos?"

"I hope not," Akane mumbled. "You think he'd do that?"

"Nah, he would only split it half and half," Kiba said with a slight wave of his hand. "Iruka-sensei wouldn't do us like that."

Would he? Maybe he would split their group up, considering that they were being split to make the powers equal. Maybe it's to combine their different skills to have an optimal team situation.

"Settle down, everyone," Iruka said in a louder voice to overpower the chatter and everyone stopped talking, though the glaring faces still remained. "This is so that team would be well balanced and have optimal chance of completing missions! They were already premade, so there is no way to change your assigned teams."

The classroom was filled with groans, but nobody objected. When Iruka was satisfied with their silence, he looked down to his folder, and said, "Now, I'll call out each team number and the members of that squad. First up...Team 1!"

"God, I sure hope I don't end up with Naruto," Kiba heard Itsuko said in a hushed voice as Iruka continued down the list, and Kiba nodded along. Anyone but Naruto.

"Next up is Team 6," Iruka said, and Kiba could see Iruka's eyes flicker up towards their group before returning to the paper. "Akane Moritaka...Itsuko Akabane…"

C'mon, Iruka-sensei, split us in half, Kiba prayed in his mind, keeping his eyes planted on Iruka as he started to call out the last name.

"And Natsuo Hirota."

Kiba could feel a weight over his shoulders when he heard the last name called. He gritted his teeth slightly, feeling overwhelmed and underwhelmed at the same time.

Great...he's the one who's going to end up with randos.

"Kiba..." Akane started, leaning over to him, but Kiba just smiled at her, not wanting any sympathy.

"It's cool," he said courtly, leaning into his arms as he did before, maintaining his voice level. "There has to be a reason they made that team."

"Let's hope you got a good team," Natsuo said in a hushed voice.

"Team 7," Iruka continued, paying no heed to any whispered words. "Sakura Haruno...Naruto Uzumaki."

Kiba could see Naruto clenched in fist in a happy motion, a stupid grin on his face while Sakura banged her head on top of the table, misery surrounding her like a cloud. He crossed his fingers.

Please don't put me on their team...please don't put me on their team...

"And...Sasuke Uchiha." Now it was Sakura's turn to smile brightly, Naruto banging his head on top of the table. Kiba grinned, happy he dodged a bullet.

Before Iruka could continue, Naruto got up from his seat, and proclaimed in his whiny, loud voice, "Sensei! Why does an outstanding shinobi like me have to end up with that guy!?"

Iruka stared at Naruto for a second, before his eyebrows pulled into a frown, and he placed his hands on his hips, leaning forward as if talking to a child.

"Because Sasuke's grades were the best of all 27 graduates," Iruka started with a cool voice. "And yours was dead last. We have to balance out the teams, remember? You do understand, right?"

Snickers ran through the classroom, and before Naruto could sit down, Sasuke said in the lowest of voices, "Just don't get in my way...dead last."

Kiba had to stifle his laugh as Naruto readied himself to fight Sasuke with a yell, Sakura having to stand up to push him down into his seat.

This team is a mess, Kiba thought to himself as Iruka-sensei told them to settle down, taking a few more minutes for Naruto to actually sit down and instead glare at Sasuke. How are they going to go on missions if all they do is argue?

"Okay, moving on," Iruka said with a slight sigh, looking at his clipboard. "For Team 8… Kiba Inuzuka."

Please let me have someone good on my team.

"Hinata Hyuuga. And Shino Aburame."

Kiba could really feel the weight increasing over him as his jaw opened slightly gaped at the names Iruka called out. He could hear all his friends giggle and chuckle, and he turned to glare at them.

"You got the two weirdos," Natsuo whispered to Kiba. "Nice one, Kiba!"

"Shut up," Kiba hissed, as he started to scour the classroom, looking for the faces to the names Iruka called out.

He spotted Hinata Hyuuga almost immediately, her sitting in the back row as she often did, alone with no one near her, with her short deep blue bangs covering her forehead, her forehead protector around her neck, almost covering her chin. The oversized wooly jacket she wore hung over her, and she didn't look up, staring at a spot on her desk with her big, white eyes, and fidgeting her index fingers together.

Harmless and shy, she wouldn't willingly hurt a fly, and everyone in the class knew it; they didn't understand why she was in the Academy to begin with, her benign ways counteracting the shinobi lifestyle. It was her revered Hyuuga name, the ones with the fame Kekkei Genkai, the Byakugan, that forced her to be a shinobi. But even then, as the so-called 'princess' of the clan, Kiba would have assumed that the clan wouldn't let her out of her sight and wouldn't enroll her as a field shinobi- either she had no fear of being hurt or her clan didn't care whether she died. He wouldn't bet on the first option.

He continued to look, and near the front, on the bench on their aisle, was the boy they called Shino Aburame, all alone with no one around, the rest of the classmates sitting there keeping a good amount of space between them and the boy. Kiba couldn't see his face, only his coiled, tall brown hair being seen poking out of a light grey trench coat that covered half his face and nearly went passed his wrists loosely.

Hinata, he's fine with, her silence and fidgeting being weird, though not being a big deal for him, but Shino was a different issue. He was a weirdo and everyone knows it; he wasn't loud or outgoing, he didn't talk for the most part, and he always wore those black sunglasses indoors and outdoors, never revealing his eyes.

The only time Kiba ever interacted with Shino was when he was playing football with his classmates, and he was ready to kick the winning goal, when Shino told him to stop. He did stop, mostly by surprise because it was the first time he heard Shino speak, and he wasn't expecting his voice to be as loud as it was, and Shino walked up towards the ball, leaning down to pick up…

A ladybug. A tiny, red ladybug, that had flown on top of the ball and would have literally been apart of the winning goal if Kiba kicked the ball. Shino picked the bug up, and said in a low voice to Kiba, without ever looking at him, "Watch what you do next time. You almost hurt an insect because of your lack of perception."

And with those words, Shino walked off the field towards a tree, never turning back, and leaving Kiba frozen in confusion, before it was replaced with anger. Confusion over the entire interaction, and anger because of how Shino called him a dumbass for not using his eyes. Kiba wanted to argue with him, but he didn't know what to say- and Itsuko had told him to let Shino be Shino, and to just ignore him, he does these types of things often.

Out of all the people in the world, why these two though?! Kiba buried his head into his folded arms, careful not to tip too far and make Akamaru fly off his head. Bug boy and the quiet girl- do the gods hate me or something?!

"Team 10," Iruka's voice broke his thoughts, and he glanced back up to the.

"Ino Yamanaka. Shikamaru Nara. Choji Akimichi."

Kiba could hear the blonde girl's cry of pain at her name being read along with the two other boys from across the room. At least he was not the only one who had a problem with his squad assignment.

After Iruka went through the rest of the list, he finally finished by saying, "The Jonins should be arriving this afternoon. In the meantime, we'll have a break. Make sure to be back by 1 o'clock sharp!"

"Yes sensei," Kiba mumbled with the rest of the students as they got up from their seats, trying his best not to break face as he stood up and bowed with the rest of the class.

#hinata hyuga #kiba inuzuka #shino aburame #team 8 #kurenai yuhi #hinata #kiba #shino #team 8 fanfic #naruhina #tamakiba #kurenai #hana inuzuka #tsume inuzuka #hinata hyuuga #my fanfiction #homeiswheremyteamis

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foxymuses · 5 years ago

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an incomplete list of headcanons for sirius black:

there was a period of about 6-8 months between running away/being disowned and receiving his uncle’s inheritance when sirius had absolutely nothing to his name but the misc junk he’d shoved in a bag when he left the house to go to james. the potters, ignoring sirius’ claims they didn’t have to, bought him a moderate amount of items including but not limited to clothes, school materials, and various items for the room he’d already claimed at their house. when his inheritance kicked in, he tried to pay them back. they refused.

sirius was always more afraid of his father than his mother (which is the opposite of regulus). the reason is that his mother was more concerned with appearances outside the family, but was content to simply act as if sirius didn’t exist when they were at home, which was fine for both of them (and on some occasions, the worst that would happen is she’d scream and yell and be generally unpleasant, and true she’d be the one to force a hair cut or destroy his ‘revolting’ muggle/gryffindor items). however his father was the disciplinarian. his father rarely raised his voice, but was the first to raise a hand or wand to correct behaviors or punish misbehaviors, and though sirius would stand up for himself and was not scared into silence, there were many instances where he would show up to the potters in the middle of the night, or return from mandatory holidays during the school year, with signs of magically induced injury.

following that, sirius is always the first to jump to the defense of others, completely disregarding his own safety or the danger of the situation, and has been known to laugh in the face of those that think they can fight him, and generally doesn’t react to anyone who rises to attack him either verbally or physically, but whenever his father even shifted slightly, sirius would tense and brace, and there were several instances in public where a disagreement would start and though often the marauder’s were nearby and out of ear shot, they’d know things were going poorly because sirius, who never ever shows fear to anyone, would flinch

it’s clear from prisoner of azkaban that sirius could have escaped at any point. all he did was become padfoot and get past the dementors who weren’t looking for or caring about animals (literally his words). there is no true reason he had to wait twelve years except for dramatic story telling. that being said, the shock of the situation prevented any of this from logically settling in his mind for the first few weeks, and then after that, the dementors and their constant soulsucking presence did make it easier for sirius to blame himself for james and lily dying. he convinced them to make their secret keeper peter instead of him, he didn’t try hard enough to keep them safe, he should’ve actually killed peter, fuck what’s happening to harry, where is he, does anyone care about him, is he being taken care of, what’s remus doing, does remus think sirius did it, does remus hate him, is remus okay, it’s another full moon please let remus be okay, fuck if he gets out he’s going to strangle peter --- on and on, and it definitely gave him a huge amount of guilt on his shoulders, and regret, and despair, and while i personally don’t think it would have taken him 12 years to finally fucking decide to leave, it definitely did take several, especially since telling time within the walls of azkaban is near impossible

ON THAT NOTE, HOWEVER, it is this very guilt and anger that allowed him to muster the determination to finally fucking escape. even amidst all this guilt and fear and sorrow, sirius was strong enough to stay sane under the influence of the dementors and his own perceived failure, that he consciously made the decision to trick his way out. it was this very fury he felt towards peter and the injustice that he suffered because of his coward of a supposed best friend that fueled sirius’ ability to withstand the trails of being a prisoner at the worst wizarding prison. once his guilt subsisded enough for pure unadulterated hate to seep in, it was just a matter of deciding the best time to stage an escape

I REPEAT, I DO NOT BELIEVE IT TOOK HIM 12 YEARS at most, i would figure, personally, it happened in four or five. which, while following my canon divergent main verse, would still allow time for sirius to clear his name and fight for custody of harry, which he does successfully, by my canon, when harry is about seven. SO EVEN IF sirius isn’t instantly cleared as my main verse would like, he still winds up a single dad.

he has horrible nightmares after azkaban, regardless of when he gets out or how long he was there or whether he ends up raising harry. i personally would have it so that he and remus end up living together, both because sirius has his inheritance to support them, and because they’re the last two marauders and trusting others is hard for sirius to come by after everything, so living with remus is Safe and Easy, and he does everything he fucking can to make up for all the full moons he missed, but regardless of how Hard he tries to get back to some semblance of a normal life, he has severe ptsd from prison and he doesn’t sleep well and he doesn’t eat much and he drinks more (in verses where he doesn’t have custody) and he smokes a shit ton more and he spends more time as padfoot than he does as a human because being a dog is just so much simpler and he has fewer worries, and remus is fucking worried as shit about him because sirius was always the strongest of the four of them (fight me on this i dare you) and to see the confident, arrogant, and generally easy-going carefree rebel that was sirius black in school turned into a jumpy, irritable, shattered shell of himself is hard and sirius never truly recovers from that damage, he just gets better at hiding it, and he does a hell of a lot better at healing when he does have custody of harry because harry gives him purpose in a way that remus can’t.

when sirius inevitably comes across peter again, he does try to kill him. whether he genuinely fails or subconsciously stops himself because peter, as much as sirius resents and hates and would love to grind him into little rat pieces, was a friend and was someone sirius trusted and cherished and would have protected with his life, and no matter how much he very much wants to kill the bastard, he can’t

shifting gears a bit, but sirius had never and still doesn’t really see himself ever getting married. he never even wanted kids until harry came around, and even then, the only kid he’ll ever have is in my canon divergency where he raises harry himself. in that verse he is more open to a co-parenting relationship (re: when he’s with @gavrele‘s gabe, or if he were to be with remus or another marauder’s era character who survived either by au or in canon), which can be considered romantic or merely a mutual desire to raise this orphaned child, but in that instance, he still probably wouldn’t want marriage, because it makes him seriously uncomfortable just thinking about it, and at the very most he would just agree to mutually wear signifying rings but not actually make it official, so that way if at any point he does feel weird about it he won’t feel bad about taking the ring off for a few days until the feeling passes

he learns of regulus’ dying while he’s in azkaban and listen canon sirius was very ‘meh’ about the whole deal, which really pisses me off, so my sirius was very torn. and it doesn’t help that most people just write reggie off as disappearing, they don’t know the story, they just assume he died in the war or voldemort disposed of him or something, doesn’t matter, he learns that regulus is gone, and his father is gone, and his mother ends up dying shortly before he gets out, and sirius is alone really and truly, and when he returns home for the first time in years, he manages to convince kreacher to explain the situation because even if he doesn’t particularly like kreacher, they both loved regulus, and sirius crafts a makeshift grave for his brother which he visits reguluarly, and though he doesn’t usually say much except “hey reg”, the first time he broke down sobbing because he tried so hard to get regulus to see the right side of the war, but he didn’t try hard enough, and he should’ve worked harder to keep reg safe, what an awful brother he was, he only ever thought of himself, if he just took regulus with him when he ran away maybe they could’ve avoided this, fuck he’s sorry he fucked up, he’s so proud that regulus stood up to voldemort in the end, he doesn’t care if it was for selfishness or fear or whatever, he’s so proud, he wishes regulus would know how proud he is

he actively keeps harry as safe as possible, doesn’t let half the shit that happens happen to him, fully supports and listens to him whenever the kid says ‘something is going on”, talks with him through it, tells him all the stories of james and lily that he can, never treats harry as less than his own blooded son because to him harry is his son, but he also never tries to replace james with himself, and harry knows how much sirius loved james and lily and how sirius only wants harry to be safe and happy, and merlin did he cry the first time harry called him dad and told him that he knows sirius isn’t his real dad but its okay to have more than one dad, he still loves james too he just loves sirius as much, and when he saw sirius almost crying, he asked if that was okay, and sirius could not express how absolutely perfect that was and later when talking to remus, remus had to hold a conflicted sirius for at least half an hour because he adored the idea but god he misses james so much, he wishes this wasnt the situation but it is and fuck it hurts (remus is uncle, by the way)

he literally stands between snape and harry, and dumbledore and harry, and does not let lucius anywhere near harry (and only allows cissa after a tentative no-children meeting, where they agree to not be enemies but rather awkward cousins like they are, and sometimes even let draco and harry play together) and harry is raised knowing about the prophecy, and since he’s raised in the wizarding world he’s not a commodity, by the time he starts hogwarts, everyone has kind of gotten over the hype so he can be mostly normal, and yeah strange things keep happening but the second harry tells sirius (because harry is raised in an open and loving environment where talking about things is encouraged), sirius does shit about it, and yeah voldemort wasn’t vanquished, he is still waiting, and sirius can’t be everywhere, but when harry says voldemort is back, sirius fucking rallies and essentially one-man-armies the ministry into fucking doing something about it because he lived through that hell in his last few years of hogwarts, he lost friends to it, he is not going to watch it happen again and nothing is going to hurt harry period

naturally, this means he doesn’t die in the department of mysteries because when the dreams start happening, harry talks about them with him, and they work it out together.

sirius doesn’t get a job because he doesn’t need one, and all of harry’s inheritance from james is purely harry’s, sirius doesn’t touch an ounce of it, and in fact regularly adds to it of his own inheritance, but sirius is seen roaming random places offering assistance, usually in regards to muggle nonsense (think hands on mechanics stuff) because he’s good at it and he doesn’t know what to do with his time, but he never lets them pay

he helps fund the weasley’s prank store. ron is a little odd, and hermione is sometimes annoying, and boy does he have a soft spot for neville because sirius knows about his parents, and you can bet that rather than lifting the map from filch, sirius straight up gave it to fred and george, and remus later confiscated it from his now-permanent DADA position (or whatever position remus wants, tbh) and sirius got an earful before telling remus he knew the other would give it back to them, which he did

i could continue but i should probably start another post to do so SO THERE YOU ARE

#you didn't ask for it #but here is a list of everything i thought about sirius in my short 15 minute bus ride this morning #;;siriuscanon #THIS GOT WAY FUCKING LONGER THAN I MEANT IT TO #AND ALSO FOCUSES A LOT ON MY DIVERGENT SETTING #but idfc i have sirius muse up the wazoo and i need to share it #long post #man i dont usually tag that but fuck this is. this is a lot

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sheanam · 5 years ago

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Outliers Who’s Who!

Actually you know what, it’s been a long time since I talked about my characters to any degree at all, and I’ve seen friends make fun posts about their own crews lately, so between all the goofy random doodles I do with little explanation and my webcomic Outliers being on hiatus for several months due to unavoidable irl circumstances, I feel it’s probably a good time to introduce all you lovely recent followers to the people I like to draw all the time, and also give a refresher to the awesome patient folks who’ve been following for a while! And properly introduce a couple new faces I’ve only just started drawing!

Outliers is a romantic slice-of-life focusing on Walt and Chary, a long-time gay couple, and assorted other characters doing their best to live their lives in a world full of superpowers and aliens and magic and other comic book cliches; it follows them through the years and there’s all manner of life events and such. Shit Happens now and again, but there’s lots of positivity and cute people and occasional goofiness. And date nights. And bird monsters.

The following are (plot spoiler-free!) blurbs on the two main characters of the comic, plus several assorted supporting characters, some of whom I don’t draw as much as I should but are important and who I’m fond of, and some who won’t actually show up in the comic for a looong time but I love them very very much and can’t stop drawing and thinking about them. There are other background characters, lots of ‘em, but (most of) these guys are the ones you’ll see me draw the most often on this here blog!

Zachary ‘Chary’ C. Milford

One of the two mains. A big, chubby, gentle guy with sleepy sad eyes who’s genuinely a nice person, occasionally grumbly but soft-hearted to a fault. Indiana Hoosier and midwestern as hell, raised by a single mom. Loves dad jokes and puns, cheesy ties and collecting records, is bi and has been dating Walt for the better part of a decade. They’re pretty damn inseparable at this point. A few years back was horribly injured and left disabled and scarred after getting caught in a terrible supervillain attack. It can be tough, but he tries not to let it slow him down. Is the good sort of lawyer and rarely swears, radiates pure Dad Energy at all times.

Walter T. Corvi

The other of the two mains. Short-ish, slender, swears like a boatload of sailors. Currently identifies as a gay nonbinary man and uses he/him and they/them pronouns, is pretty feminine in most of his presentation choices, going between fashionable as hell and frumpy comfort depending on mood. A middle child, hails from one of the rich parts of Long Island, but it doesn’t take much for him or his large Italian family to sound like extras from The Nanny. Is a metahuman with the superpower to turn into a big ‘wereraven’ type bird monster, which runs fairly commonly in their family, but chose to stay out of the hero business. Works as a cook and is great at it, it’s a passion of his.

Hoshiko ‘Iko’ Nieri

Iko is of mixed race, but primarily identifies as Japanese. She’s also a lawyer, tough as nails and also the good sort, and Chary’s co-worker and friend. She’s cis, but prefers and feels happy not being particularly feminine most of the time. Works out a lot and has a mean right hook and a delightfully obnoxious laugh.

Keeg-Ok

Keeg’s a weird huge gargoyle monster dude from a magical pocket dimension who got dumped out into the ‘main’ one. Exceptionally friendly and sunny, he adapted to modern everyday life quickly, building a career as a cook (he loves fancy cooking) and a family of his own. Walt’s co-worker and friend. Your best spiky friend if you let him be.

Mary Hell

The young daughter of a human man and a demon from ‘down under’. Cheerful, pleasant, and eager to please, she’s taking steps to become a fully licensed superhero and use her powers for good. A member of the metahuman support group Chary and Iko support as its legal team. Yes, her name’s a pun.

Edmund Irving Rudyard Hawke II

Edmund 2.0 is probably more accurate, honestly. Edmund Hawke Sr. was your standard evil comic book CEO, like Lex Luthor or Kingpin, and when he died heirless he had his organization make a clone of him to inherit and take over the company and continue their work. It was very successful...except that in terms of personality and morals, Ed turned out absolutely nothing like him. Excitable, eager to please, anxious, lonely, slightly flamboyantly gay and full of all sorts of emotional and mental and existential issues, Ed does his very best to be his own person and be more than a figurehead puppet, using his resources and power for good. Was ‘born’ in the US but has a British accent from being ‘tweaked’ to better match the original Edmund. Lacks context for a lot of things and imprints on people who are nice to him like a baby duck.

Dustin Smalls

Somehow fell into the position of being Edmund’s personal assistant, a position of unexpected power and influence. Mostly runs around keeping Ed out of trouble and educating him on things, and protecting him from people taking advantage of or outright abusing him. To his surprise, wound up becoming super best friends with Ed, which evolved into a complicated but deep queerplatonic relationship. Tired Trans, actually has albinism to a small degree but he doesn’t have cliche red eyes so it surprises people. Cranky, loves shitty memes and video games, hates ‘You’re killing me Smalls’ jokes and will tell you exactly why The Sandlot is problematic shit. His other best friend is Pam, his wife who he’s in an open relationship with.

Pamela Flores

Wife and other best friend of Dustin. They’re nesting partners; it’s a very well-functioning open marriage agreed to by both parties, she has a girlfriend who’s her primary romantic interest, and Dustin dabbled around now and again before meeting Edmund. Also trans; the two actually met at a fertility clinic where they’d both gone to freeze some of their DNA. Sweet, supportive, can be deadly serious and firm when the need arises.

#outliers #chary #walt #iko #keeg #mary hell #edmund #dustin #pam #long post #original characters #character list #VERY long post

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andrewthoughtsbombdiggity · 4 years ago

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‘Supah Hero

Super Hero Character

Name: Andra (ANNE-Dra)

Alias: None

Character Intro:

Andra is a human man featured as a main character in Where the Heart Lies and as a main character/secondary character throughout the series. He is 5’8, well built with the exception of a small gut, tan and brown haired (with a pretty prominent flip in the front). He has a power born within him known as the Light, an ambiguously originated power hypothesized by other to be from God (as it seems to work really well against witches, demons, etc.). The Light can be used in many ways and is powered by Andra’s soul.

Setting:

The setting of Andra’s world is on an earth very similar to ours and takes place from 2017ish – 2032. Earth is much like our own except much like the Fallout games its technologically oriented in the 1970’s-90’s. America is America minus the fact that there aren’t “states” as much as there are regions that the country is broken into. Some regions are small (such as The Island (Long Island)) and act without direct control of the country, other regions are large and under direct control of the government (The Mountains (later referred to as Upper Appalachia and Andra’s current home). It is also more forested and aesthetically the cities look more as they would in the 1800’s rather than industrial and modern architecture.

Biography:

Early Childhood:

Little is known of Andra’s early childhood, he has parents named Jen-Jen and Lawro and a brother named Joe (not to be confused with the prominent character Jojo). He mentions that “My mom and dad gave us [me and Joe] the best life possible… but I haven’t seen them since I came home from the war… and I’d rather not”. He had his powers since the day he was born and his mother said that he contained the “divine spark” and stated she had a vision of the universe opening in front of her when he was born. Whether or not this was the power of Light being imbued within him by some vague force has not yet been revealed. It has been written that Andra once mended an injured frog when he was 7… and this was when he became aware of his powers, although he didn’t really know what they were. By age 14 he had a grasp of his basic abilities though unaware where it came from or how it was powered Adolescence: At age 15 he and his friend Jojo were drafted from The Island to battle China in the “Grand War” a devastating 1 year war that left China in ruins… but so many Americans died in the conflict no one was really happy with the result. The Grand Army was disbanded and all previous draftees were given the option to leave or join The New Army, Jojo joined the new while Andra left… thoroughly traumatized. This started the darkening of his heart and his soul was tainted… restraining his powers greatly. He moved to the mountains and lived by himself in peace until…

Events of Where the Heart Lies:

Away from his friends and family at 17 as well as suffering from his trauma from the war Andra had a very hard time until he met his friend Noah, a studying friar whose powers of “The Word” soothed him. However he also fell in love with a woman named Carmilla Rose who seemed to help Andra get over his pain and put him on the road to freedom. However, Carmilla was actually a witch who knew of Andra’s powers (Through the demon Naradonna who whispered her will into Carmilla to destroy him) and wished to corrupt and harness them {see: ‘Powers’ below} for her benefit which would ultimately have killed Andra. She stole his heart and ran further into the wilderness to complete her dark magic whilst leaving Andra to wither and die. Noah not knowing what to do sent for Jojo and together all three journeyed to figure out the curse, cure Andra, and confront Carmilla and defeat her.

Events of Global Seed and Politzania Mania

Andra in Global Seed and Politzania Mania is a bit older at 22 and 24 respectfully. Having honed his powers better in these two stories his personality remains the same save for the fact that he adopts a baby that he names Lucy (she was born of a strange ritual in aboriginal Australia) and fathers twins with an unnamed woman called Arthur and Sally who appear to have inherited the Light. After completing the respective journeys and adventures he seeks a quiet life with his children far off in the countryside away from it all, determining that the world is at peace once and for all. Fatherhood calms his more excitable tendencies as most of his energy is drawn to them and this makes Andra become more even-keel, wiser.

Events of Super Flower Platinum

Andra is a main character yet again, now 32 and with a little “huskiness” to him, Andra built “the Village” as a refuge for all his friends and their families after the events of Politzania Mania. Living in the quiet village, they all believe their work as heroes is done as they wish to live in tranquil remote retirement. Unbeknownst to them one final threat looms its’ ugly head in the form of the demon Polestar. Having fused with Gak (a character in the previous stories) and gifting him dark powers, Gak submits Yarri (another character) to his will and corrupts the planet. After killing an ally, Andra and co. find out the assailant and chase after him. Andra loses his left arm in the initial brawl and Polestar and company escape. Andra has changed in this, having the world so corrupted constantly brings up memories of the Grand War, and this leads a change in him to be erratic and anxious as the journey continues. His kids die as well towards the end (except 1, and he fathered 4 more children in the years leading up to Super Flower Platinum) and this breaks him into a calm madness, far from the joyful and happy-go-lucky character of before… no this is WAR Andra.

Powers:

The Light: The Light is a mysterious power gifted by God to Andra at birth and only fully realized after the defeat of Carmilla Rose in the events of Where the Heart Lies. It allows Andra to manipulate light and energy. While enhancing one’s physical stamina and strength to slightly above average means, it is mainly powered through the soul and the heart of Andra (the heart in the main belief of humans of this world is that the heart is the bridge between spiritual and physical, hence why Carmilla stole the heart as she would have control not just over Andra, but over his soul). Noble intentions are not required although it tends to weaken the overall ability of whatever Andra is doing. Another downside to the Light is that it can damage Andra physically or spiritually if he over exerts although it still will hit his target. The Light doesn’t grant immortality or anything… Andra still ages normally and functions as a normal human.

Abilities:

Detonate- detonate is an ability Andra has that light travels through the spacing of his fingers and blows up anything under or being held by his hand without damage to people (unless he wants it to). This comes in handy if he needs to open a lock or door forcefully or to momentarily distract an enemy (Painfully).

Stun- Stun can stun an enemy by focusing a touch to the heart or to other pressure points although it is more effective when the heart is touched. Blinder- Blinder blinds an enemy with a flash of light that can also double as an attack because it can also burn demons and witches.

Sun King- This ability is the most powerful in Andra’s arsenal and has only been used once, it appears at first as a pulsating ball of yellow/white light that contracts and expands then appears as many smaller balls of pulsating light that cover a large range, they then explode. The catch is that it can kill Andra and he does not control where the little light balls go.

Bam-Bam- any physical/melee attack enhanced by light Pulse- Pulse allows for Andra to place his hand onto an opponent, at which he will pulse light through them, this causes the enemy to glow and burn from the inside out, really effective against witches.

Dawn and Dusk- A last resort; Andra can attach himself to an opponent and explode. It can kill him.

Personality:

Andra’s personality shifts drastically throughout the entire series. Very withdrawn, quiet, and skittish in Where the Heart Lies, he is described by Jojo as being a scared and timid shell of his former shelf, although this is due to the curse. Following the lifting of the curse, he is much more stern and serious but this eventually gives way to his very goofy, jovial, and gregarious true self in later stories, and even further when he becomes an older adult with a child, he’s more mature and experienced and this shows prominently in the third story Politzania Mania where he acts as a counsel to Adrino (another character) when confronted with identity issues. He is still haunted by the Grand War and he sometimes drinks himself to sleep on occasion, much to the chagrin of everyone. He can also be quick to judgment and he finds this out the hard way when his powers weaken and seemingly the most inopportune times.

Goals:

After the events of the first story, Andra simply wishes to live a life of peace and quiet. However he and his friends keep finding themselves embroiled in these mysterious fights of good and evil. After many supernatural run-ins (i.e. the events of The Global Seed), he deduces that he shall find a way to clear the world of supernatural and spiritual evils… thus ridding fear (conscious or unconscious) of primary evil. He’s an unknowing hero, just on a mission to make the world a little brighter. It is unknown if the Light pushes him to cleanse the darkness or if he feels he can accomplish this because of the Light.

Death and Legacy:

The death of Andra takes place a little before the end of the events in Super Flower Platinum. Polestar having recognized the one power that can vanquish him and Gak as well as his offspring (born in the beginning of Super Flower Platinum, named GolStar and SilStar), he kills all but 2 of Andra’s children in a gambit to rid a legacy of the Light and to break Andra mentally to make him easier to defeat. The two surviving children are Saraphina and Lucy, Andra’s adopted child. Andra in a mad outburst goes all out against Polestar, killing SilStar and critically wounding GolStar, however in a moment of distraction Polestar launches a powerful wave of demonic energy at Andra’s left side. Not covered or prepared to defend Andra watches in horror as Lucy uses her ability to sacrifice herself and give Andra one last fighting chance (She turns into a giant tree resistant to anti-nature energies and encases Andra in it, the sap from said tree heals him and her spirit snaps him back into reason and reality). The ensuing fight is brutal with Polestar and Gak seeming to become the victors. With hope fading in the eyes of his comrades, Andra is moved to tears, he then realizes what he must do. Inferring Polestar is the final supernatural threat to worldly peace he charges towards him, incurring many fatal shots to the body before wrapping himself around Polestar/Gak and essentially converting himself and his soul into a Light bomb, destroying Gak/Polestar and GolStar and SilStar and restoring Yarri’s sanity. All saddened at the loss of their friend, the remaining heroes erect a statue in his honor with the inscription “Let the Light Take You Higher” as his ultimate message that people are good, and that good is Light, and the Light will lift you up when all seems lost and hopeless, as demonstrated by his sacrifice. And if there was anything he left behind besides his daughter Saraphina, the only wielder of the Light ability now, it was not only the proof of truly good people, but also that world will no longer encounter true evil ever again.

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recentanimenews · 7 years ago

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Failed Tanuki and Half-Baked Tengu: Identity and Community in "The Eccentric Family"

Failed Tanuki and Half-Baked Tengu: Identity and Community in The Eccentric Family – Part 1

By Dee Hogan

“Humans live in the city, tanuki crawl the earth, and tengu fly through the air. Since the Heian era relocation, humans, tanuki, and tengu have maintained a delicate balance. That's what keeps the great wheel of this city turning round and round. More fun than anything is watching that wheel spin.”

Right from its opening lines, The Eccentric Family establishes Kyoto as a city inhabited by three groups—tanuki, tengu, and humans—with clearly defined traits and domains. Through first-person narration and character dialog, we're given a general idea of how each group thinks, feels, and acts. The series then proceeds to spend two seasons quietly but systematically tearing those assumptions apart.

As the story progresses, it challenges its characters' strict ideas about identity by depicting a variety of individuals who either can't or won't adhere to the group they belong to, blurring the boundaries both within and between the three spheres so that it becomes less and less clear what it means to be “a tanuki” or “a tengu” or “a human” at all. Through its colorful world and unique individuals, The Eccentric Family asks us what makes us who we say we are—and wonders how we'd find that answer in the first place.

“This Thought Makes a Tengu” - Assumptions and Norms

“If someone were to ask me how tanuki should live their lives, this is how I would answer. The tanuki wriggling about in Kyoto should abandon all lofty ambitions. There's nothing else we have to do besides lead an interesting life.”

Before we can get into how the series handles individual and group identity, it's worth taking some time to establish how its characters (particularly our narrator, Yasaburo) define tanuki, tengu, and humans.

Over the course of the series, tanuki are described as “irredeemable fools,” “peace-loving,” and loyal; “soft and fluffy” tricksters whom Yasaburo believes need do nothing but “lead an interesting life.” In the first season, Shimogamo Souichiro is often described as the tanuki ideal, and the four qualities he split between his sons—his sense of responsibility, easygoing personality, idiocy, and innocence—give us the best idea of how tanuki society as a whole sees itself.

“Tengu have always peered down at the world from the pinnacle of pride. They are great because they are tengu, and tengu because they are great. 'I am the only being of any significance between Heaven and Earth.' This thought makes a tengu.”

Tengu are the most rigidly defined, thanks to Akadama's own rigid sense of self. “To be a tengu is to fly through the sky at will,” he tells us twice in the very first episode. Over the course of the series, we're also told that tengu are ferociously proud, demanding respect simply for existing. According to Yasaburo, “tengu” and “pride” are all but interchangeable.

There's also a rigid power structure between tanuki and tengu, something that becomes especially clear in the second season when Yasaburo (tongue firmly in his cheek, I'd argue) keeps reminding the Nidaime and Benten that tanuki are meant to “work hard” and “respect tengu.” In short, tengu have the raw power to declare themselves the ruling class, and tanuki society has by and large accepted this as truth.

“This is what makes you a human, I guess. You guys are way worse than tengu.”

By contrast, the concept of “what it means to be a human” is never explicitly addressed. Instead, it's implied through how the tanuki talk about humans and how our handful of human characters carry themselves, particularly in the early episodes. In general, humans are defined by their need to consume—to take and eat what they want without a thought for others. They're considered fickle, self-centered, and possessive, “more treacherous and nasty than even tengu or kitsune.” It's a harsh assessment but an unsurprising one, given that our main characters are all tanuki who live in constant fear of the humans' hot pot.

This is how our cast views Kyoto's three groups (cultures? classes? species? The Eccentric Family avoids a strict one-to-one real-world metaphor, so I'm hesitant to use one either), as well as how they define or judge people within those groups. These are the expectations and pressures put on an individual who identifies as a tanuki or tengu or human, and the walls that almost everyone pushes against.

“A Failure of a Tanuki” - Expectations and Limitations

“Our mother doesn't believe for one minute that her children are notorious losers in tanuki society. She has no doubt that every last one of us kids are fit to follow in the footsteps of our deceased dad.”

How each character identifies strongly influences their behavior, as they seek to live up to the idea(l)s about what their group is “supposed” to be—or, more often than not, seek to reconcile group expectations with personal reality.

Akadama is the most clear-cut example, as he's in the midst of an “identity crisis” after he hurts his back and can no longer fly or whip up whirlwinds. If “to be a tengu is to fly through the sky at will,” as he's always insisted, then can he truly still call himself a tengu? Yasaburo tries to reassure him, but this insecurity eats away at Akadama, particularly in the first season, causing him to act haughtier than he feels, isolate himself from others, and force everyone to acknowledge “the terror he represents.”

The rift between personal identity and personal behavior plagues the Shimogamo brothers through much of the first season as well. Ridiculed by the rest of the Kyoto tanuki as “idiots who failed to inherit their magnificent father's blood,” there's immense pressure on all of them to live up to the Tanuki Ideal (as embodied by their dad). None of them can, and those supposed shortcomings—and the thought that they've somehow “failed” at being tanuki because they don't perfectly match society's definition of what tanuki are—affects them all in different ways.

Eldest brother Yaichiro spends most of the series a high-strung, anxious mess, desperate to preserve the family name and earn the respect of tanuki society. Protagonist Yasaburo rebels, declaring that “tanuki societal norms can eat dirt” and largely avoiding the tanuki outside of his immediate family. Little Yashiro frets about his poor transformation skills and hides behind his brothers. And poor Yajiro, in love with his brother's fiancee and blaming himself for his father's death, declares himself “an absolute failure of a tanuki” and decides to “lock everything up and become a frog in a well,” giving up his tanuki identity altogether.

The Shimogamo brothers don't perfectly meet the standards of “what it means to be a tanuki,” and so they wonder if they're allowed to claim that identity at all—or, if they do claim it, if they're forced to consider themselves “failures” or “losers” because they can't live up to an idealized stereotype. Like Akadama, reeling from the loss of what supposedly makes him a tengu, the Shimogamo brothers find that the people they are don't match society's image of tanuki, leading to identity crises of their own.

“A Bunch of Weirdos” - Individuality and Acceptance

“To hell with tradition! To hell with the future of the tanuki world! To hell with the Trick Magister! I am Yaichiro, the eldest son of Shimogamo Souichiro! I am the pathetic son who didn't inherit all of the magnificent blood of his father!”

Happily, over the course of the series, the brothers come to care less about some grand tanuki ideal and learn to accept their personal identities and strengths, thanks in large part to the love and support of their family.

Yashiro still struggles to hold his transformation, but he gains confidence through his ability to produce electricity and his passion for inventions. Yajiro slowly regains his transformation abilities and returns to tanuki society, eventually identifying as “a tanuki, not a frog” again. Yaichiro finally stops judging himself based on the standards of a bunch of relative strangers (who won't lift a finger to help his captured brother). He's able to act without reservation for once, taking the initiative to save Yasaburo from the Friday Club.

As for Yasaburo, his arc is... complicated, largely because he bounces so merrily between the tanuki, tengu, and human spheres. While his brothers are trying to figure out if they can be a part of tanuki society even if they don't perfectly match the ideal image of a tanuki, Yasaburo is pushing back against the rules and boundaries themselves.

“I'm what you'd call a tanuki, but too proud to be a mere tanuki, I admire tengu from afar and love imitating humans. For that reason, my daily life is so dizzyingly busy, there's no time to be bored.”

Like the human/tengu Benten, Yasaburo mingles freely with the three spheres, and (also like Benten?) he isn't fully satisfied with the role bestowed upon him at birth as a “mere” tanuki (although he does refer to himself as exactly that three times during the second season, so his perspective may be changing). Unwilling to just “crawl the earth,” he spends a lot of his time befriending, meddling with, and fooling tengu and humans alike.

Unlike Benten, though, Yasaburo has a fairly firm sense of self—he sees himself as a tanuki, is (mostly) aware of both his strengths and limitations, and does his best to work within those boundaries even as he pushes against the rules of tanuki society at large. Sometimes this leads to quietly sad moments of understanding, like when he realizes he's not the one Benten needs when she's at her lowest point. But just as often it leads to triumph, like when he uses his wits and transformation skills to blend in and eventually find an escape route from Hell.

There's no one way to live as a tanuki; no perfect set of behaviors. Even Souichiro, our “magnificent tanuki,” broke the rules and suffered a fall, something that Yasaburo comes to terms with when he calls his dad an “awful tanuki” because “you went off on your own, picked fights with tengu, made an enemy of Soun, and then left your family behind and ended up in a tanuki hot pot.”

Yasaburo can thumb his nose at tanuki societal norms and still be a tanuki. He can also accept certain aspects of being a tanuki—like one day getting married—without giving up his freedom or his “interesting life.” He can be himself and a part of the Shimogamo tanuki clan.

Akadama and the Shimogamo brothers all struggle with their personal identity because of group expectations and standards, fighting a constant battle between “who I am,” “who I want to be,” and “who I'm expected to be.” With the support and love of the family (both biological and adopted) around them, they all slowly come to accept the people they are and become less concerned with how their social groups might view them. By the end of the second season they're all in more secure, confident places, and are happier for it.

But The Eccentric Family isn't content to simply point out the (somewhat obvious) fact that rigid group standards can hurt individuals. Instead, it wants to go a step further and suggest those definitions are meaningless in the first place. In the upcoming second half of our two-part trip through this fantastical Kyoto, we'll talk about the characters who defy their groups or deny them outright—murderous tanuki, altruistic humans, whimsical half-tengu and proud not-tengu—and how our cast causes the boundaries between the three spheres blur, mix, and sometimes collapse altogether.

To be continued...

About the author, Dee Hogan

Dee is a nerd of all trades and a master of one. She has bachelor’s degrees in English and East Asian studies and an MFA in Creative Writing. To pay the bills, she works as a technical writer. To not pay the bills, she devours novels and comics, watches far too much anime, and cheers very loudly for the Kansas Jayhawks. You can hang out with her at The Josei Next Door, a friendly neighborhood anime blog for long-time fans and newbies alike, as well as on Tumblr and Twitter.

The Eccentric Family is available now for viewing on Crunchyroll!

By: [email protected]

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