#ch: family

[burning-academia-if]

The Siblings Birthed from Rot

Summary: In which a sister breaks every promise she ever made.

Word count: 7k (in total)

Content Warnings: Parental abuse, emotional abuse, gaslighting, alcoholism

Play here

A/N: Happy one year anniversary to Burning Academia! Here's something small to celebrate and I hope you enjoy. While I normally don't do song recs for play, I would recommend listening to Made of Stone by Daughter for this to really set the mood! As always, thanks for being here and reading!

[1alchemistart]

some doodles!!!!

[bluemeanglove]

I was scrolling my gallery and found this piece of art. I'm laughing crying

This is how it went in manga, right?

[aerequets]

I'm sure this has been said before but it's so funny how super spy extraordinaire Twilight cannot see the big fat elephant in the room that is Damian's crush on anya

you got this kid basically going down a checklist of "how to say you have a crush without saying you have a crush". like by the book. and twilight is worried that him dancing with his crush is gonna make them grow further apart. like...

(on the other hand it's probably a good thing bc who knows what plans he'd concoct knowing Damian's soft spot for Anya)

[peanutjinan]

The new chapter really makes me believe that Henderson sees a lot of himself in Damian, and that he is trying to prevent Damian from making the same mistakes that he did.

By prioritizing only his goals, Henderson missed out on love and friendship during his youth, and mentions that he harbors some deep regrets about it.

We see in Ch 39 how he tries to encourage Damian to spend time with his friends instead of just studying all the time, and he helps nurture the bond between Damian, Ewen and Emile.

And in Ch 95, he encourages Damian to participate in the Eden dance event, something he himself declined.

I really love these parallels.

Keep doing a good job in providing Damian with some proper adult guidance, Henry. We all know the boy needs it.

[poopsiesnoopy]

SPY X FAMILY CHAPTER 96

Super late post but I couldn't just not draw them.

The confession. The manga panel.

UGH MY HEART I JUST CANT 🫠

Twilight's tearing up in the background because PLAN B is going swimmingly (not because he had to spend 5,000 dalcs on Anya's dress).

Yor's also scaling the walls so she could see her little babie's first dance ❤️

[kikyocaps]

[cantareincminor]

I was rereading early SxF chapters and came across this well known panel:

And now I wonder if that’s actually going to come true down the line.

Back then when Loid first meets Yuri, he was definitely lying about this. He didn’t love Yor. He barely knew her.

60 plus chapters later, he had the chance to shoot Yuri in the sewer and he chose not to. Instead he took a bullet to the arm and a few more injuries. He then had a second chance to kill Yuri with a metal pipe but turned away instead with depressed Twilight (TM) eyes.

We then find out through his dialogue with Nightfall and in his inner thoughts when he goes home that he hesitated because of Yor. He essentially took a bullet because of her. Luckily not a fatal one. But I imagine that in the future when something threatens her again, directly or indirectly, he will take a bigger hit to protect her. A lot more character growth will be necessary to reach that point, but he’s already on that path, never mind what he told himself in Ch. 95 about the supposed lesson he learned from Wheeler. It smacks of a lie he’s telling himself because he’s too shook by the truth.

[noxribles]

so what yor was trying to say is

[deonideatta]

The fact that yor marrying loid has been the single source of like 90% of yuri's lack of peace since he found out makes this panel absolutely hilarious

[stellas-and-tonitruses]

these last 3 chapters more than ever have left me wondering about the timeline of spy x family and in particular,

donovan's age.

i'm not going to go too deep into the full timeline because i simply don't think we have enough info to make a real robust timeline, BUT i do think we can very feasibly approximate donovan's age with our current info.

I also won’t be using any precise years like 1964 or whatever bc at this moment in time I find that to be kind of useless, bc the only years we have happen very early in the story in background details and for a lot of those ones, I noticed endo had a tendency to just carelessly put whatever so long as it looked fine from afar, which includes news that were happening around the time of that chapter's release. SO unless he decides to explicitly highlight actual years, I’m not gonna be like “this happened in 1964 and that happened in 1953” and anything of the sort.

now, i shall partake in my least favorite activity.

✨math.✨

so uh buckle up my fellas and feel free to correct me anywhere where i might be wrong bc i am more than aware that math is NOT my strong suit!

SPOILERS FOR CHAPTERS 97, 98 AND 99!

gonna start with the facts!

according to the spy x family EYES ONLY fanbook, henry henderson is 66 years old at the time of the current events of spy x family! in the past three chapters we have learned that there is a 3 year age gap between him and martha, so that would make her 63 years old currently.

as of the events of chapter 99, he is 22 years old (and martha is 19), assuming there wasn't any years-long time gap that was not mentioned within the chapter! which, it doesn’t seem like there were any MASSIVE time gaps, so I’ll be using those ages for calculating.

so, what all this means is that we are (roughly) 44 years into the past at the moment! previous info about the war of loid and yor's childhoods puts it at around 20 years old, so from where we are in the backstory, we still have roughly 20 more years before Luwen is attacked — clearly, because this first war has already ended with donovan still in school.

while we don't have loid's age, we do have yor's, who is 27 years old — meaning she was born around the time of henry being 39 years old, aka clearly neither loid nor yor have been born yet as of the events of chapter 99. too into the past for now!

now, how am i gonna get donovan's age out of all this?

simple! henry's his teacher and has a talk with him after his jail time.

like I mentioned previously, I shall be sticking to 22 for henry’s age here. it may not be fully correct, it may be a year or two off because we aren’t given concrete details on exactly how long he was in jail, so just take it with a grain of salt! it's only going to remain as a rough estimate until we get a definitive answer on donovan's age.

so! henry has a talk with donovan, but the conversation itself, while very important for the plot and especially for our understanding of donovan’s character, is irrelevant for this conversation. no, what's crucial here is what henry is holding. endo even highlights it by focusing an entire larger panel on it!

it's a history textbook for year 7 students!

it being a history textbook is very poignant for the conversation they're having, but the reason this is important to me is because it's very clearly a year 7 textbook.

now, i don't know how much of eden academy's curriculum is based on the uk! but because pretty much all of the architecture of it is based on eton college and endo has literally just returned from a london trip where he showed us he visited a kindergarten, so i think that's grounds enough for me to assume eden academy's year 7 is generally populated by children between 11 and 12 years old. luckily for me, that seems to be the general age for germany's secondary school year 7 too, so even if it's not the british one, it's still close enough!

with all that being said, if donovan is, say, 12 in that moment and henry is 22, that means there is a 10 year difference between the two of them, which, drum roll please, means donovan desmond is 56 years old when our story's events take place! assuming the war of loid's and yor's childhoods took place exactly 20 years ago (when yor was 7 and henry was 46), this would make him around 36 years old when he became ostania's prime minister! it would also mean he had damian at 50 years old, and if demetrius is 12 right now, that would mean he was born when donovan was 44 years old (and his birth would’ve been in the last years of the war).

so, rough events timeline based on all that, focusing on ages!

66 years ago: Henry Henderson is born.

63 years ago: Martha Marriott is born.

~56 years ago: Donovan Desmond is born.

49 years ago: Martha (14) transfers to Eden and meets Henry (17)

47 years ago: Henry (19) graduates Eden.

44 years ago: Henry (22) joins Eden as a teacher, in the same year becomes Donovan Desmond’s (~12) history teacher. Martha (19) graduates Eden and joins the Women’s Defense Auxiliary.

~44 years ago: Martha (~19) is presumed dead. Henry (~22) faces jail time. The war ends, and he marries.

27 years ago: Yor is born. At that time, Henry is 39, Martha is 36, and Donovan is 29.

~27 years ago. [REDACTED] is also born. Same as above, just approximate this time!

~20 years ago: Second war begins. Yor and [REDACTED] are ~7, Henry is ~46, Martha is ~43, Donovan is ~36. Yuri is born.

~12 years ago: Demetrius is born. Donovan is ~44, Yor and [REDACTED] are ~15, Henry is ~54, Martha is ~51, Yuri is ~8.

~10 years ago: Second war ends. Demetrius is ~2, Donovan is ~46, Yor and [REDACTED] are ~17, Henry is ~56, Martha is ~53, Yuri is ~10.

6 years ago: Damian is born (and most other kids in his and Anya’s grade). Demetrius is ~6, Donovan is ~50, Henry is 60, Martha is 57, Yor is 21, Twilight is ~21, Yuri is 14.

5-4 years ago: Anya is born. Damian (etc.) are 1-2, Demetrius is 7-8, Donovan is ~51-52, Henry is 61-62, Martha is 58-59, Yor is 22-23, Twilight is ~22-23, Yuri is 15-16.

1 year ago: Yuri (19) becomes part of the SSS. Anya is 3-4, Damian (etc.) is 5, Demetrius is 10-11, Donovan is ~55, Henry is 65, Martha is 62, Yor is 26, Twilight is ~26.

I HOPE THAT HELPS PUT THINGS INTO PERSPECTIVE?? melinda is not included bc we have nothing to go off of for her age outside of purely subjective things like her appearance.

super glad endo included the year 7 thing JAKLSDFKLSD

anyway thank you for reading!!! :DD

[burning-academia-if]

What would our dad/mom/sister (the choice is yours ;) ) think of each RO? Who gets their stamp of approval and who doesn’t?

This is treading on spoiler territory because if you think MC's mom isn't going to react to that in the future you're sorely mistaken lol

Here's what MC's Dad would think if he stuck around:

Rook: immediate disapproval, would have hated that he was one of your friends as a kid and now that he's your partner?? MC you can do better, this is the fakest boy I've ever seen. It doesn't help he's seen Rook grow up, so the worst parts of Rook's youth are something your dad associates with him in current times and well into Rook's adulthood

Beck: Approval. He's so sweet and helpful and polite around him, it's hard for your dad to have any complaints. I think he'd be happy you found someone who seems to love you so purely? His the kind of person who let's your dad rest easy

Rhea: Eventual approval. He finds her hard to read at first, and since her politeness feels super formal and almost business like he can't pinpoint how she'd be with you. Once he sees her enough, he'd start to notice how soft she is with you, and how you seem with her and is less worried about it

Zoe: Approval. He finds Zoe so funny, and thinks there's no way someone so clumsy in a relationship would mean you any harm. He might be wary in a "I don't know if this person could weather the harder parts of a relationship" but that worry would ease with time

Lars: Disapproval but also like bitter acceptance. I think your dad would hate Lars on sight, and it isn't like Lars is gonna go out of his way to make a good impression. But also, despite how much an asshole he can be, it's clear that Lars does care about you and will take care of you. He doesn't like it, but he isn't going to try to convince you to break up or anything

???: lmaO

[1alchemistart]

preparing emotionally for ch 100 JDKLFKLSD

[windmills123]

you can always come home.

[connoisseursdecomfort]

Character Developments and Parallels in Chapter 103 (1): Twilight and his performance

[Manga Spoilers alert]

As everybody knows, Ch.103 is the real 100th chapter since Ch.3 is the first chapter in which the Forgers became a family. There are a lot of callbacks between these two chapters. What do the callbacks tell us about character developments? What has changed?

Ch.3 shows us how Twilight really operates as a spy - he observes as Twilight and performs as Loid. He is both the spectator and the spectacle. Being a good spy, for Twilight, means the two roles align perfectly with each other.

While it is true that the three constantly acted as an audience in ch.3 (in an opera house, an art museum, or a political rally), what Twilight really wants to show off is their identifications of being a part of these audiences. The audience is then also the performer. Being an audience in Ch.3 is a preparation for being a performer in Ch.4.

In Ch.3, the major conflict is that he is a spy, a cool liar and a good actor, while Yor and Anya are not. When Loid gets anxious about the family's performance, Yor decides to take Loid and Anya to the park.

They retreat to a place where they could take a step back, shed their roles as performers and observe the crowd as spectators. She shows Twilight the place which "reminds her to get back to work" for the sake of the people while staying away from the crowd, She reminds him what his work is really about.

This happens again in Ch.103.

But the thing is, ch.103 is not really about work. Rather, Yor reminds Twilight of something opposite of work. She reminds him that it's totally fine to let go and not think about work.

As opposed to ch.3, which is about work.

Ch.3 is set in crowded places. Twilight doesn't want to stand out but he needs the crowds. As a spy, he needs the affirmation from others that his pretend family is convincing. He gets what he wants in chapter 3 by getting the affirmation he needs from a random person he saves.

The fact is throughout the whole story he has been stressing the importance of playing a convincing part in front of the others (ch.29, 47, 67).

Before Ch.75, we see a clear pattern in Twilight's performance as Loid, namely "for the mission", an excuse that allows Twilight to align his two roles (spy vs father/husband) with each other. Ch.75 is a watershed. There is a crowd, and for the first time, Twilight refuses to perform for the crowd. Or us. He refuses to give us his thoughts about his observations. Instead, he starts to offer excuses to his colleagues. He did it again in ch.86.

And after that, again, in ch.87, we see a tired and wounded Twilight hiding in his bedroom, refusing to perform for us. The fact is, he no longer even uses the "for the mission" as an excuse for himself. He no longer talks to us, the readers, hiding the answers even from his thoughts. He starts to find his own faults in his performances - Loid should act according to Twilight's will, but what if Twilight's wrong?

Ch.94 is interesting in a way that for the first time, it's not about aligning the two roles, Twilight and Loid. He's still "performing" as Loid but he's not thinking about the mission at all. He's not trying to be a spy.

What makes ch.103 very special is the absence of the crowds. Becky appeared for a moment and left quickly. Endo deliberately created a private sphere in a public space. There was no audience to perform to, so there was no need to perform. There seemed to be a mission - to find and observe Belle, but they were not actively looking for Belle. They were not trying to get Stella starts out of Belle. Different from what he did in ch.94, he's not using any of his skillset. He listened to Yor, sat and waited.

He no longer feels the need to perform in front of Yor. Echoing ch.86 in which Yor tells him he doesn't need to "be so perfect", as a response to Yor's suggestion about Belle, he just tells her about his "fault/weakness": "Waiting idly isn't what I'm great at either."

If his self-reflection in ch.14 and 35 could be interpreted as his attempt to fix something, he really didn't need to share this piece of info in ch.103 at all. He is a very private person. He doesn't talk about himself, not even to Franky. But it seems that he likes talking to Yor. He opens up to her.

He knows he doesn't need to perform in front of Yor, and that allows Twilight to make an attempt to relax.

The massive walls of texts (the ones while he thinks) disappeared as he tried "to not think for a while, to not worry for a while, to just relax and let go". Endo chose to draw a space that is empty of crowds and buildings. For a moment, it was just the four of them enjoying themselves.

For a moment, he's not Twilight [as a spy] or Loid [as a husband/father]. He's just [redacted].

He relaxed. And for the first time, he didn't faint (or die). This is the biggest character development of Twilight, really.

And therefore, this is the perfect 100th chapter.

[felicitykings]

ALL CREATURES GREAT AND SMALL (2020- ) ↳ 5.01 To All Our Boys