#emphasis. one suspects. on screwing.

[narrynukezankielover]

In ep 10 (The Hunter Gamer) Claire says that Dean Winchester is a monster. CAs obviously defends him by saying it’s possible we all have a little monster inside of us. CAs is obviously talking about the fact that Dean is at the moment being controlled by the mark of Cain which Claire doesn’t know about but I love that he defended Dean in a way that wasn’t just you can’t say that about him since you don’t know him type of thing he instead said something that would make her realize no one is perfect.

In the first picture CAs asks Dean to talk to Claire from one extremely screwed up human to another to help her realize why he killed those guys. This actually makes me think about CAs confession speech. I haven’t seen that ep yet but I have seen that particular scene hundreds of times (it’s the first scene of Supernatural I saw and it was what made me want to watch the show). In his confession speech CAs said he loves people because Dean loves people. I believe the reason CAs wants to help Claire so much is because he cares about her which he learned to do from watching Dean. CAs also said that he knows that Dean sees himself the way their enemies see him but that’s not the way he sees him. CAs saying that he wanted Dean to talk to Claire from one extremely screwed human to another is him saying he knows Dean isn’t perfect but he has a lot of good inside of him that he wants Claire to see. Then Claire would see what CAs sees in Dean. The second picture I think is freaking adorable. CAs is trying to make Dean smile by sending him texts with emojis in them. If Dean wasn’t soooo worried about himself he probably would’ve laughed at him.

CAs said angels can feel when someone prays to them, longing or wants to tell them something. This answers my question of how the hell he can always find Dean especially after he got out of purgatory. He kept appearing to Dean but never to Sam. Dean had just spent a year praying to CAs everyday, he was constantly thinking about trying to find CAs and he wanted to tell him how bad he felt for not being able to save him. Even on normal days Dean is the one that prays to him (he doesn’t come when Sam prays to him), Dean obviously loves him but he’s too afraid to say anything but he wants to tell him. No wonder CAs can always find Dean.

This scene in ep 13 (Halt And Catch Fire) is very interesting. Sam tells Dean nothing gets deleted off the internet and Dean makes this face while Sam smiles at him with a smile like he knows what Dean is trying to hide. The thing is everyone knows Dean looks at porn and girl magizines so I can’t see him being worried about anyone finding that stuff on his laptop. The smile Sam had looks a bit like the one he did when CAs came out of the bathroom after he got out of purgatory and Dean got excited. Which leads me to think Dean is trying to hide the fact that he watches something that he doesn’t want people to know he’s watching like gay porn.

Cain puts a lot of emphasis on CAs in this scene in ep 14 (The Executioners Song). In the first picture he explains that when he had his conversation with CAs he thought about killing him but when he looked at CAs he thought about Dean. A guy who never seen CAs and Dean together associates them with each other. In the second picture Cain tells Dean about how the mark of Cain will make him kill CAs, Crowley and Sam. He said that he will kill Crowley but he will come up with an excuse and have no regrets which sounds right for an acquaintance. He said killing Sam will hurt him which is obviously true of anyone killing their sister or brother. When he was talking about CAs he said Dean will kill CAs (I think he said the angel) now that one I suspect will hurt something awful. That’s not something you would say about a friend or even a close friend that’s what you would say when you know the person cares deeply for the other person.

In the first picture CAs was extremely worried Dean was going to give the first blade to Crowley but at the same time it kinda looks like he had faith Dean would do the right thing. In the second picture CAs looks worried again but this time Dean had just given him the first blade and as soon as Dean did that CAs stepped closer to Dean you can see CAs was worried about what Crowley might do to Dean so he got closer to Dean in case he had to protect him.

This is just a cute moment. Dean couldn’t leave the room without touching CAs.

[skullzy20]

It's MY turn to talk about my Drifter and I'm gonna make it everyone's problem. I need to ramble about him SOMEWHERE or I'll go insane

I want him to be an ugly and flawed character. I want him to hurt and I want the effects of his trauma to be visible in him, with no sugarcoating it.

He has the drive and the want to be a hero, but he can't, he doesn't know how to and he screws things up. He tries so hard to fix everyone else's problems that he forgets about his own.

On the Zariman he was a rather normal child, albeit much quieter than most. He liked to draw and observe, staying in his own world and pocket of thoughts. He didn't have many friends, only a few people he was closer with than others, and then only one true friend. Though of course, he lost everything when the jump happened.

After the deal with The Man in The Wall, it was... extremely difficult, as you can imagine. Nightmares happened every single night, and he got very little sleep, if any. Paranoia became constant, and it lingered for years after eventually getting stuck in Duviri. And still being so young, still a child, it was horrible.

In Duviri, an emphasis on the spirals of the world really make themselves evident. The emotional shifts in Duviri are not small in the slightest.

When he first entered, he was overjoyed, so Joy was a consistent mood for a few years. Especially becoming friends with Thrax, he was so happy to finally have people to talk to, even though the people in Duviris actual existence was unknown (He still liked to think they were all real, at least at the time).

But as time went on, he started to want to leave as you could guess. Thrax of course, didn't like this. And this, is when everything began to go downhill. The executions started and this is when Caius' emotions started to shift. After the executions started, the spirals for fear first became evident and then they progressed to sadness, anger, and envy. Joy was no longer present, only being rare among the others, and it was now a fake joy more than anything else.

Fear started soon after the executions, and it was all fueled by becoming terrified of just about everything. His paranoia was off the charts, and he was suspicious and cautious of everything. Due to Thrax being king, he suspected just about anything being a trick placed on him by Thrax, so he never trusted anything. Though as time went on and years went by, he didn't feel fear much anymore, if any at all. After getting used to dying throughout the loops he stopped fearing things, even after escaping Duviri. It all became a... reversed kind of spiral in a way near the end. Instead of him fearing everything around him, he was the one to be feared.

Sorrow was one of the weaker ones, probably right below Fear. He's fallen into sorrow filled spirals himself at times, though thankfully they don't last too long, and they end up just making him feel awfully numb and bitter in the end. Think of these as depression episodes in a way, because that was essentially what they were.

Anger was the strongest emotion he feels by far. Civilians have stared at him in horror at times when he gets so angry and takes it out on a dax soldier, going way father than he should. They're his only outlets, it's all he has really. It's almost freeing, because he gets to let his anger out without feeling much, if any consequence.

Envy is right up there in strength next to Anger, to the point where they almost feel like they mix together at times (I'll explain that more in a second here). He's always been envious of Thrax and the citizens of Duviri, being able to live without the horrid emotions he feels, and especially having said emotions be extreme while also affecting the world.

Now, after a while, Anger and Envy had mixed together to make a new spiral, one of Caius' own design: Resentment. This spiral makes everything black and white, void of color that you typically see from the other spirals. Caius is cold and almost heartless during these spirals.

In the Origin System after finally escaping Duviri, his newfound freedom made him actually open up a bit more. He didn't necessarily open up more about Duviri per say, but he expressed his emotions a lot more than he previously did. He was happy to finally be out of there, and it showed— albeit it was a little overwhelming for him.

The New War, as you can guess, was really rough on him. Granted, he took it well, but there was a new lingering feeling that made itself known that he didn't like. Due to eternalism, and everything with the Operator, a feeling of inferiority crept its way into his mind. He started to realize just how insignificant he felt, even after basically saving the universe. He realized just how much the Operator has done for the origin system, so when he was sent off to 1999, he didn't necessarily complain.

Around the time when being sent to 1999, he built up his walls again like he did in Duviri. He became colder again, closed off. He didn't want people to know things about him, and a lot of that was to thank for the previously mentioned inferiority complex that he began to feel.

Though! This all took a change for the better, which is something he didn't expect at all. He actually came to feel more welcomed in 1999 than he did on the Origin System and it definitely showed. In the origin system, he wasn't really able to make connections with others, so it was something he didn't know he needed until he finally got it in 1999.

Caius began to get close to the Hex, helping all of them. And he didn't mind either, he actually really liked doing it, even despite the fact he doesn't do so for himself. And this is where he also began to get closer to Arthur. They both had issues with being kinda cold and broody, so they both actually really helped eachother break away from those parts of them. Basically, time went on, and now they're dating <3

Since then, Caius hasn't wanted to go back to the Origin System, not at all. He now has a man he's in love with and he simply doesn't feel like the future needs him anymore. He's become so much more open after going back into the past, to where he actually has moments where he gets all soft and sappy, and additionally super caring towards the others— which the Hex found a bit jarring of course. But, he loves it here, so he's staying, and nothing's gonna change that, not even the Indifference.

[nasuversekinkmeme]

Weekly Roundup (25/12 - 31/12)

TSUKIHIME

Some honestly sweet holiday fluff with the tsukihime cast of op's choosing

FATE/APOCRYPHA

In an alternate world, rather than summon Astolfo, Celenike summons servant Rider Goredolf Musik, driver of the Shadow and Storm Borders, he who's driving skills escaped the apocalypse twice. While everyone else is reeling from the implications that not only was a modern mage able to enter the Throne, but that said mage also was of the Musik line, Goredolf is panicking because if he, a member of Chaldea, was summoned, things are about to get very bad very fast.

FGO

Foreigner's New Years party, go as insane, as horny or as wholesome as you want

Hello fellow enjoyers of FGO! For No FGO January, I present to you all a very simple prompt. Show me your mastersonas! I don’t care under what context, how they’re doing, who they’re fucking, whether it’s wholesome, angst, whatever, I just want to see artworks/stories/whatever of your own original characters. Take this month of No FGO prompts to share what you already have, I look forward to seeing what you all have in store!

as a harmless prank, Mash and a few other servants (can be anyone like habetrot, caster cu, etc) dress up as caterpillars. It’s up to the writer/artist to decide how Morgan reacts to seeing mashu and co. in caterpillar suits.

If there was one place Ritsuka Fujimaru never expected to end up after everything with the Lostbelts and Ordeal Call was well and truly over, and the Earth was back to the way it was supposed to be... it was finding work at NFF Services, working directly under both Koyanskayas, no less. They were expecting to be worked to the bone, given their past interactions, but weirdly enough, they've been just... nice to them? Ritsuka keeps suspecting some kind of sinister plot, or cruel joke, but apparently the Koyans are just THAT invested in the well-being of their employees. Even more so in Ritsuka's case, given that they answer directly to both Light and Dark. It's still weird... but in a good way, they supposed.

Guda twin! Au where Gudako and Gudao meet once a week at Moriarty's bar to just hang and talk. Often these conversations end up being about their individual harems. (Whoever is in each harem is up to the writer but preferred that both are bisexual harems)

ranmaru x takes ritsuka back to her planet, and it’s up to the gudaguda gang to get ritsuka back!

so I found out by a yt short that takeda likes boys and writes passionate love letters to them. how about Kagetora and/or Nobunaga making fun of him for his passion for boys

thanks to the event I need some Ibuki x Habetrot for no reason other than major size difference makes brain go brrr. Smut is optional but there's gotta be emphasis on how wide the height gap is.

smut, While he mostly feeds of dreams. Merlin does occasionally need sex as every incubus does. Being one of the only human's alive, Gudako agrees, thinking that it's just gonna be a quickie. Cut to hours later. Gudako's mind has turned to mush and she's super overstimulated, begging Merlin to stop but he just. Keeps. Going. (yes I'm very horny for Merlin if you can tell)

I just finished LB6 and I have the BIGGEST Mélusine brainrot right now! I would appreciate anything about Mélusine x Female Ritsuka! Thanksss

taigong trying to have a peaceful fishing day but weird shit keeps happening so he says screw it and proceeds to annihilate anything that tries to fuck it up

Koyanskaya of Darkness is perusing her catalogue and pondering what new creatures to add to it when a flash of inspiration comes to her; what better way to add to her wares than to collar her own Light form? (smut is optional but recommended)

smut, Castoria x Tonelico sloppy sex. If they use Merlin's magic dick(tm) or not is up to the author

Agravain, despite what others might think, loved his siblings. He always had difficulty showing it, its true, but he never hated them or anything. This is why he would always send them out on missions. He believed in them that much. And so, Agravain awaits two of his siblings at the execution grounds for the traitor Guinevere when a scout arrives.

ANY

Write the killing blow your servants performed on a boss of your choosing. To give an example, here's mine. It was close to the end, Ritsuka could feel it. The immature Evil was worn down and she had only one retainer left, the other recently slain by Lobo before he was taken out. Taigong Wang and Mélusine fired off their noble phantasms, killing the last retainer before revealing that the immature Beast yet lived. She retaliated with her own, forcing Taigong out of the fight as Mélusine was the last one standing. Ritsuka used her last two command seals to heal Mélusine and give her one final order. "By my command seal, Mélusine, unleash your noble phantasm!" She took to the sky chanting. "My name is Albion. The last dragon who opens the boundary! From Geoffrey to Fromont! Show us the time, Tukedight!" Not taking any chances, she struck while Koyanskaya was still reeling from the blow. Koyanskaya retaliated with devastating strikes as the two realized something. Both were close to death and their next clash would be their last. They pushed themselves to their limit but unfortunately for the immature Beast, Mélusine was much faster. With energy from her weapons forming a dragon's maw, she crunched down on Koyanskaya, finally putting their battle to an end.

CROSSOVER

After Mirei Park's offer and ultimatum, rather than go to Fukuoka, Kiryu goes to Fuyuki and starts a new life there. He becomes intertwined with the local Yakuza and, by extension, the participants of the 5th Holy Grail War. When the events of Yakuza 5 begin, Daigo makes an alliance with the Fujimura Family, and soon, all hell breaks loose. The conspiracy is expanded in scale due to influence from magi seeking to claim the Grail for themselves, and Kiryu must work together with Rin, Shirou, Sakura, and Rider to keep the ones they love safe.

[beevean]

https://youtu.be/fDKZJbOiEQ4?si=k_KZ2dI4EPU3FHyR

https://youtu.be/LSnbb8e7UY0?si=FbAPhkoSgToMQvIb

Behold! The Queen of all time!

(And somehow Lady Pussy Sun manages to be even more one dimensional)

What kills me about this whole monologue is the setup:

Lenore: Please, would Dracula have kept [Hector] around in his own castle if he were that dangerous? Carmilla: *sighs* I would have liked that castle.

They were just talking about Hector, about him stalling and Carmilla suspecting him of being devious (and I would love to know how Carmilla grew to see Hector as suspicious and capable of killing, when she hasn't interacted with him on screen since the beginning of S3 when he was a pathetic sack of flesh) and Lenore "protecting" him by calling him "too simple" (déjà vu), a pretty important conversation for Carmilla because it has been six weeks and this asshole is making a fool out of the entire Council by roaming around her home without doing what he was raped hired to do (and Striga had mentioned in S3 that they couldn't afford to waste time as they had to take advantage of the chaos in the region before the humans reconquered it)... then Lenore just happens to mention the castle when it wasn't even the main subject of her sentence, and Carmilla immediately forgets all about the Hector issue because she just has to rant about her desire to conquer all?

absolutely peak dialogue. flows just as smoothly as chunks of concrete through a tube. i can see why this show is so praised for its writing.

I remember a post I read ages ago, about how Carmilla's insanity speedrun arc devalues the other sisters. In S2, she was pretty much the only ruler of Styria: the others weren't created yet, and she was written as someone who had to burden her trauma all alone. Then S3 introduces this tight-knit group of besties, which genuinely respect and admire Carmilla for being the "spark". Then in S4 Carmilla somehow loses her mind in one fell swoop because the others were too busy to check on her, reverts back to the lonely traumatized woman who fell prey to her own hatred and thirst for power, and the other three decide to turn their back on her with barely any hesitation. You could honestly cut all three sisters and fuse Carmilla with Lenore, and the story would be organically better. I honestly don't know if it looks worse when you watch everything in one go or having to wait one year for this mess.

On top of this, it's yet another instance of show don't tell. Carmilla just tells us about her trauma. "The first part of my life was men taking things from me," this is a chilling line with all sorts of terrible implications, and it's just thrown there without any care or pathos. Because the focus is not on her motivations that are supposed to give her depth: it's to show how insane she is, to suddenly kick her back into main villain position after she twiddled her thumbs for a whole season, and to justify poor widdle Lenore being scared of her, because hey, she's the "good" vampire, and aww she was lied to just like Hector, aren't they true soulmates, isn't this poetic cinema?

When you boil the Styria subplot down, it really is all about that damn woman, and screw everyone else, isn't it.

I said in one post that if I were to rewrite Carmilla, I'd put more emphasis on the fear that pervades her and drives her to react to the world with rage, mistrust and desire to protect herself. I cannot take Carmilla seriously the way she was written. She has the blueprints to be a compelling antagonist and representation of a woman who reacts to her trauma in an "unappealing" way without being woobiefied (and I do seriously appreciate it), but with scenes like this, she really only comes off as the scornful parody of a radfem written by a man that is absolutely not feminist in the slightest.

Oh, and I'll just mention this here:

"Bloody women," they said. "Let them die," they said.

For a setting so inspired by Berserk, and that has long dialogues of low-class men talking about fucking animals, there is a distinct lack of misogyny on screen. Not only the only flashback we get of Carmilla's past shows the day she killed her master and we don't get to see her "nightmares", which means we are not privy to the details of what drove her to be so hateful, we never see any men actually look down on Carmilla for being a woman in power: even Godbrand may be a bit of a lecherous pig, but seems to respect her enough as a person. Again, this cheapens her misandry. I can't take her seriously. She's just ranting that MEN BAD and I'm supposed to think she's cool for it.

[littleapocalypsekitten]

I'm a Gen-X / Millennial cusp, a Xennial. And, yes, indeed. However, I do want to put in that, on occasion, I just enjoy fighting. It depends upon the forum. I am a longstanding (decades longstanding) blog-commentator / community member on Slacktivist. Yes, it's on a religious-blogs collective. No, it's not trying to get you "saved." It is Progressive Christian. It is more about the weirdness of American politics than anything, with particular emphasis on the intersection of American religious life on said. It's basically an ex-evangelical blog. The commentary is made up of a variety of people, everyone from fellow Progressive Christians to Atheist to Pagans. The only unifying factor is that we're "libs" and "leftists." It started out and still goes into being a book-blog, lit-crit, specific to the apocalyptic series, Left Behind. We have inside jokes. "GIRAT" (Greatest Investigative Reporter of All Time), "Nicky Mountains" (Nicholae Carpathia, the books' oddly-named Antichrist). I found the place because I'd read about half the series back when I was an evangelical-wanker and upon waking up from that, was eager to see them eviscerated. We get trolls. Most often, they are named "Frank" for some reason. There was a guy named Frank who kept on cracking in no matter how many times he was thrown out. There are some others that we suspect of being Frank under different names because of his posting style. There have been others that do not share the posting style, but, weirdly, have "Frank" in their name somewhere. At least "Rocket," who actually gave us death threats, ran off with his tail tucked between his legs. I remember one or two turbo-fedora-atheist trolls there, but by and large, they're religious conservo-droids. And they are FUN to engage! I mean... They do seem to raise the hackles of some board members, but, for me, at least, they never actually make me angry. They're just...stupid. I honestly feel like a cat batting around a toy mouse with them! Or a wounded mouse! Or at least people who stepped onto an intellectual battlefield, but left their gray matter at home. And when they show up... I'll just fight them for a while. Until I get bored. Until I've battered the catnip mouse under the couch and I hear the can opener. I sometimes block them then. Sometimes, I do not in case they come back to amuse me again. When the threads get too long though, we've had some members who've warned "If you do not block the trolls, I'm blocking you," and in order to keep the peace and to keep seeing input from people I like, I'll control myself and refrain from engaging. For a while, we got troll-flooded with people whose goal was simply to break the threads by puffing up sizes and screwing up the Disqus formatting. We learned to just block and ignore these. But that isn't as much as a problem anymore. So... if "Frank" shows up again, he's there to be my chew-toy. Select your trolls carefully. Never let them get you angry. Let them amuse you if you are so inclined.

Sometimes we could all use a reminder. (source)

[alexiethymia]

The poetic cinema that it was Mr. Ji’s inkblot he made in anger which caused Chi yeol to discover that he was the one who kidnapped Haeyi and the fact that the first episode dealt with a mostly harmless stalker while the dangerous stalker was by his side all along.

Love or hate the murder plot, I do love the twists, not necessarily with regard to the suspect or motivation, but how it’s a scathing social commentary. Because wow, it really is the adults who are the most reprehensible, huh? Because kids absorb everything around them like a sponge, but adults should know better.

And Mr. Ji, as much as I would love to hate him, I really can’t because he is far too tragic. He’s no mastermind. All of his crimes have been sloppy. Even his choice of weapon - a slingshot and not a gun - show that a part of him is still that abused kid, like his anger and his impulses and the way he can change his devotion to hatred at the betrayal he feels toward Chiyeol. The adults around him really screwed him and his sister over. Even when his sister wanted to do the right thing, all she got from it was abuse. And it’s really dangerous that this kind of abuse is being normalized when justified that it’s for grades or the future of the kid. The adults screwed him up so badly that he could only trust a single adult, and fixated on him in a way to have a connection with his sister. I’m sure he became obsessively protective because of the residual guilt he felt at not being able to save his sister on time. If he had gotten therapy or the support he needed back then, even after he had killed his parent, would he have had a chance to heal alongside Chiyeol now?

The parallels are heavy with Mr. Ji, Seung-jae, and Su-a, and again it is a tragedy that the adults around them pushed them to the brink. Although there was still an element of choice because Mr. Ji still chose to kill his mother and others, I guess Seung-jae had what Mr. Ji and even his sister didn’t have at the time. Seung-jae would have gone the same route if he wasn’t pulled back.

And it’s really refreshing to me this emphasis on found family. It’s not necessarily that blood family is automatically bad, but you shouldn’t let preconceived notions and moral superiority cloud your judgment to the point that you’re already seriously damaging your child because you think you’re doing what’s ‘best’ for them. It’s refreshing to me that Haeng-seon wasn’t submissive towards her sister and was rightly mad because Haeyi is her daughter not anyone else’s. Same with Jaewoo. I’m glad they’re not going to push the redemption arc for their eldest sister just because she’s ‘blood’.

Another refreshing thing about this episode which I didn’t expect but really loved is the communication between Haeng-seon and Chiyeol. Chiyeol takes her concerns seriously because of course she would know Haeyi best. And I really didn’t expect it because most kdramas would have the lead keep it as a secret (another source of danger and misunderstanding), but I love, love, that Chiyeol was genuinely honest about the proof he found about Mr. Ji. I’m sure that even if Haeng-seon thought that Mr. Ji hated her, she didn’t expect him to go that far.

Another reason why I like the murder plot is because I prefer this as a source of tension rather than the usual break-up, miscommunication, long-distance, timeskip plots that usually happen during these final episodes. I would prefer my ship to be communicating as they hurdle outside obstacles together.

[electrasev5nwrites]

Ninja Daily: Vapors 1

Kushina had heard that giving birth was a noisy, messy, and painful affair. So far, the pain wasn't much worse than what she encountered in her day-job, she was relatively clean, and the noise was coming from the father-to-be's alternately terrified and thrilled chatter to the long-suffering midwife doing arcane things under the sheet covering Kushina's knees. She heard the muffled phrase, "Hokage-sama, I have done this before," for the third time, and tried not to laugh. It would hurt too much, she suspected.

Poor Sarutobi Biwako didn't seem to know if she wanted to be amused or kick Minato out of the delivery room. Patient woman. She was all but a saint, really.

Kushina gritted her teeth and tried not to react at the faces Minato was making, giving her genin teammate Mikoto a surreptitious hand-sign. It didn't really mean anything- it was an adaption of Minato's personal call sign with extra emphasis. The joke was at his expense, even if neither of them could quite verbalize how he was being teased for his near-panic.

The Uchiha grinned, her reserved nature overcome by her good mood. Kushina's smile became a little wider, until an especially vigorous contraction made her flinch. Her husband's eyes jumped to her face like she was an Iwa-nin with a big stick, looking just about as worried.

"Kushina!" Minato fluttered his hands in that girlish way he swore he didn't do, all but hovering at the slightest sign of discomfort.

"I'm fine," she stressed, working to keep signs of tiredness and effort off her face. "Honestly, 'ttebane, you'd think you were the one doing the work here! Why don't you calm down, huh?"

Mikoto snorted, and then ventured a guilty look at the Sandaime Hokage's wife, who was technically the senior physician present. The older woman didn't pay her any attention, but her assistant Taji-san leveled the Uchiha lady with an expression of amused tolerance that probably did nothing to make Mikoto feel less like a child.

"Hokage-sama!" Biwako-san said sternly, pulling her head up enough to give him a dark-eyed stare. Her tone implied that she was actually talking to an excitable child and not her military leader. "Calm yourself. Please focus your attention on the seal. Your wife is doing her work admirably, and you must do yours."

He probably wasn't meant to hear the muttered, "I always forget how weak and frightened men are, until I see one panic while his wife does all the hard work."

When Kushina looked over, Mikoto carefully pressed her lips into a thin line, forcing down visible amusement.

Mikoto wouldn't even have been present, had it not been for the fact that this birth was strenuous for so many reasons. Childbirth was enough of an ordeal on its own. When the mother was a jinchuuriki and having twins, it was terrifyingly complicated. Mikoto probably wouldn't be much help, but she was a certified medic nin and Kushina's best friend. At worst, she would be an extra set of hands to hold one infant while the more experienced medical ninja were occupied. She had to be there in case something went wrong.

She was probably doing a better job of helping keep Kushina calm than Minato, if truth were to be told.

An ugly smile had frozen on Kushina's face. Unbeknownst to her, it was considerably more worrisome than the screwed-up grimace she wanted to make. She swallowed, hard, and concentrated on pushing.

' I'd say I feel green, but my face is so hot I can only be red.'

Perfect. She really was the tomato woman.

"It's crowning."

Correction. She was the tomato woman half-way through giving birth to twins! Kushina crowed in victory, straining so hard that she was mildly concerned she had popped a vein. Surely it was all downhill from here.

Twins had been an unexpected surprise. As far as she knew, there wasn't an Uzumaki tendency towards multiple pregnancies. She'd blame this happy anomaly on Minato, but the first time she had tried, Mikoto had bored her to tears with a lecture about eggs.

'Eggs… I'm hungry. I could go for some victory ramen.' Kushina licked her dry lips, breathing through her nose. Minato misinterpreted the motion and hastily tipped a bit of ice-cold water into her mouth. She swallowed automatically and gave her twitchy husband a dry look.

Minato blinked down at her, painfully eager to do anything he could to alleviate her discomfort, even as his right hand remained firmly planted on the seal over her belly.

And suddenly she didn't have the heart to call him a dimwit pretty boy. It was too easy of a target, really. She could bully him later.

'He's going to be on diaper duty,' Kushina decided seriously, grinning with far too much teeth. 'I did the hard work for ten months, so I think he can have that minor problem for twenty months.'

Hokage, ho-shmag-e. His job was important, sure, but not as important as their budding family. Twins was an awesome start, actually! It was so exciting, she was minutes away from being a parent. She was going to be the best mom ever. She'd take her babies everywhere and they'd fingerpaint together and she would teach them how to mess up their daddy's hair so that he squawked and flailed and- and- She was so happy.

"Uhhh," Kushina huffed, squeezing her eyes shut. She could do without this part, though.

There was a perfectly timed four-person gasp in the next moment, which Kushina barely heard over the ringing in her ears and the slick, struggling feeling of a decent amount of matter making an ungraceful exodus out of her uterus. Her gut roiled, and she couldn't breathe for a moment, as the second mass –now distinguishable from the first feisty infant—moved down to fill the void where the other had been.

"Girl," Biwako-san called briskly. After a moment, there was a shocked wail. Kushina heaved her head up through sheer force of will, straining for a glimpse. All she saw was Taji-san carefully cleaning what looked like a bundle of blankets, taking measurements and scans of some sort while Mikoto hurriedly copied them down on a clip board.

'A girl, a girl, a girl,' Kushina chanted over the sounds of Taji soothing the infant, tears welling up from both pain and relief. That was odd, they'd thought the pregnancy was two identical boys, not a set of fraternal twins. Ha. They were going to have to go back to their old list of names. They'd never decided on a girl's name.

Neither of them actually cared about the gender, of course, but it gave her something silly to think about and keep her mood light while Minato worked on ensuring that she didn't inadvertently kill them with her uterus (or something. She was a bit fuzzy on the details of fuinjutsu-uterus interaction).

'Maybe we'll let Mikoto-chan pick, since she's the godmother,' Kushina thought deliriously, heart so light with joy that it might rise out of her chest.

Her hand twitched on the bedsheet. Kushina gritted her teeth and avoided the urge to take her husband's hand. She wanted to touch him right now, but he needed his hands and attention. Not being able to hold his hand right now was a small sacrifice in exchange for safely bringing two little Uzumaki into the world.

'I want to see them so badly,' she thought wistfully, for what had to have been the hundredth time. It'd be the first time she'd seen another Uzumaki since Mito-sama had given her the Nine-Tailed fox.

An ugly groan tore her from her thoughts. It took a moment to recognize that the sound had come from her lips. Kushina blinked dazedly, registering in the back of her mind that Mikoto-chan and Taji-san were having a hushed conversation over her baby-

"Check my readings, would you-"

"Odd-"

"-isproportional ratio of spiritu-"

Was something wrong? Distressed, Kushina tried to sit up on her cushions a bit more, eyes wide.

"Relax," Biwako-san cautioned. "Your girl is healthy. Do not fret. You shall see your children in a moment. You're doing very well, Kushina-chan."

With supreme effort, Kushina nodded. Biwako-san was right. She needed to keep working on her second child, and let the medics handle the first. Still, she noted that Mikoto-chan had finished filling out a chart and birth certificate, and was instead holding the bundle of green blankets that had to be her baby. Kushina could swear that she caught sight of a messy shock of wispy red hair—not a true, dark shade like hers, but something closer to the twists of orange in a sunset.

Then the spot of color was out of her line of sight as the Chuunin crooned, gently swaying with her burden. A beatific smile cracked across the small woman's face as she settled down in the back of the room, as far away from the commotion as possible.

' Mikoto-chan is going to be an amazing godmother. I know it.'

Better than Mina-kun's choice of his scruffy sensei for godfather, but Kushina didn't really mind. She liked Jiraiya. His books were actually pretty funny. She'd used them to tease her genin teammates so many times—Shiba-kun still stuttered everytime someone so much as mentioned the word 'sex', despite having an infant of his own now.

The transition between being pregnant and being a mother was a disorienting one that rocked her body. Not more painful, exactly, but birth and after-birth were definitely memorable sensations. As soon as her head stopped spinning, Kushina heard Biwako-san's voice.

"A boy, Kushina-chan," the satisfied midwife declared, giving the medical check herself. That was odd, but Kushina didn't think about it. "And he's in perfect health!"

'A boy? Aw, well, they can't both be super-surprising right at the start,' Kushina decided with a wild sort of joy. Naruto it was, then. Uzumaki Naruto had such a nice ring to it. She craned, trying to catch the first glimpse of her baby boy before Mikoto spirited him away to snuggle too.

"He's gorgeous," Taji-san added with a smile, beginning to gently towel him clean.

Minato took a deep, shuddering breath. For the first time Kushina saw that his eyes were swimming with unshed tears of happiness. The warm hands on her abdomen gently rose, and for a moment, he looked at her. The adoration in his gaze stunned her silent.

"Biwako-sama," he breathed, turning his head toward the tiny woman with the long brown ponytail. "May I-"

"No," Biwako-san said bluntly. Kushina let out a surprised peal of laughter at the pure shock on her husband's face. "The mother should see her children first. Mikoto-san, are you planning on stealing that baby, or may Kushina-chan see her daughter?"

Mikoto-chan stood with a rustle of clothing as quickly as she could, face burning bright red at the scolding.

Normally, Kushina would have drank in that sight gleefully. But Biwako-san had just nestled her baby boy in Kushina's waiting arms, and was peeling down a soft blanket to reveal-

A blade, sticking out of the front of Biwako-san's chest. Kushina's grip on her son nearly slipped out of pure shock.

Biwako-san gave a surprised gurgle, even as Taji-san shrieked and then fell, hot blood flying over Kushina's bare feet and the wet slap of meat falling against tile was a shocked counterpoint to the sudden coldness in Kushina's arms where a warm baby had been only an instant before. She didn't even register Biwako-san's knees buckling or the sound of Mikoto's sandaled feet skittering backwards.

She was too busy frozen, staring up at the masked man who was holding her baby boy with the business end of a kunai far, far too close to the delicate bundle. Minato was frozen—not in shock, but paralyzed by the underhanded threat. Even by shinobi standards, that was low.

"Oh kami," Mikoto whispered, shockingly loud in the silence.

"Fourth Hokage," slipped out from behind the sleek, abstract mask in a sinfully smooth rumble. Kushina felt like a rabbit, frozen in fear as she hadn't been before or since the day that she was kidnapped by Kumo-nin after her bloodline. "I wouldn't move if I were you."

"Please," Kushina begged, not even knowing what she was asking for. If it was possible, the pain on Minato's face became even harder to bear.

She couldn't tell, but the glance the masked man leveled on her might have been pity or condescension.

"How badly do you want this, I wonder?"

This? This? Not a person, not a sweet baby boy, but an object?

"Come and take him from me."

And then both men were gone. Kushina wailed, in the instant before her mind caught up with her. Mikoto-chan rushed over, red eyes wide and fearful in her pale face. Kushina was already forcing herself to stand.

"What do we do? Wai- Kushina, you can't be up right now! You just gave birth."

"Don't care," Kushina gasped, forcing feeling into her numb legs and ignoring the feeling of wetness against her thighs. She stepped over Biwako-san and Taji-san with a one-minded determination despite the scream of grief in her mind, moving to the streets. "It shouldn't be hard to find the fight. I-"

She cut herself off, shocked despite reason at the sight of four mangled, bloody corpses just outside the door to her delivery room. Had she given it thought she would have known that the ANBU guard must have been defeated, but-

"What about your daughter?" Mikoto asked in a hushed tone, clearly scanning for enemies or traps. "What if he wants her too?"

Kushina whirled on her long-time friend and grabbed her shoulders. "Miko-chan, can I ask you a favor?" she asked with a choked laugh.

Mikoto-chan blinked away tears. "Anything."

"Get my baby to the Hokage tower. There'll be plenty of backup there. I'll meet you as soon as I can, alright? If I get back my son, then that man won't be able to use him against Minato." She leaned over and pushed down a bit of fabric with trembling fingers before placing a kiss to the sweet little forehead she hadn't yet had chance to examine. "Mikoto-oba-san will keep you safe, okay," she promised waveringly, trying not to cry.

"Yes, I will," Mikoto-chan agreed, leaning her forehead against Kushina in the closest approximation to a hug she could manage while holding an infant. "I'll take the underground. Through ANBU."

"Good idea."

With that, Uchiha Mikoto watched her best friend disappear into the twilight with a heavy heart. After a moment, she moved to re-cover the infant and held the girl closely to her chest. "Don't worry, sweetheart," she whispered. "Mama's gonna save the day."

Only then did she realize that the infant was oddly silent—as if she had been shocked into fearful quiet by the rapid events. But she couldn't possibly comprehend what was going on, she was less than an hour old. Ridiculous. It felt like an omen, that even the baby acknowledged the seriousness of the situation. But Mikoto forced those thoughts away and instead took advantage of the silence as a blessing, moving rapidly towards what she hoped was safety.

Of course, when an explosion of red-hot chakra seeped in unholy fury washed across her not ten minutes later, Mikoto wept out loud.

'Kushina, be safe,' she prayed, despite suspecting that her best friend was already dead.

A very confused and unhappy girl in the hospital got her own name two days after the blur of pressure and noise and the swish of pretty dark hair that had defined her first day in the world of chakra and shinobi.

It was lucky that she was even awake long enough to register the incident. The sound of childish wails in the hospital nursery was constant enough that she had learned to sleep through it, and infants seemed to do nothing but sleep. She opened her eyes despite not being able to interpret the human-shaped blurs that moved around her. Her sight was poor, but her keen hearing did her no good because the sounds she recognized as language certainly weren't in her language.

When she was picked up by warm hands and bundled against a bony male chest while the woman who had lifted her hovered nearby, she awoke enough to squint up at the pointy blur that she assumed was a face.

To be fair to her confusion, it didn't really fit the pattern for a face. The top half of the shape was right—there was a shock of light colored hair, a pointy nose, and a dark grey eye. But only one eye. And try as she might, she couldn't pick out a mouth.

The boy holding her had to have one, however, because the slight rumble of his chest coincided with the sounds that bubbled up around her. When an over large hand appeared in her field of vision she grabbed at it instinctively, and followed it back to a much more conventional face. It had two eyes and everything, as well as pretty red lips.

Without a conscious decision, she gurgled and tightened her grip around the finger offered. Red lips split into a tired smile.

The only word she caught out of what the woman said next was 'Aiko', and that was only because it had been in the short phrase spoken a moment earlier by the boy holding her. She fell asleep almost immediately. It took a few more days for her to realize that Aiko was her name.

October fourteenth

"You did not recognize the man who attacked?" Sarutobi Hiruzen repeated, his dry tone implying that he didn't find the statement particularly persuasive.

Uchiha Mikoto bristled a little bit, before Fugaku's calming presence at her side brought her back to earth. He wouldn't want to see her lose her temper. "No," she said, as calmly as she could manage. "I did not recognize him. As I said, he was wearing a mask."

"Just one man killed four ANBU operatives, my wife" –his voice shook- "a Chuunin medic-nin, and led to the deaths of the Yondaime Hokage and his wife not two hours later. You were the only person that he spared who might tell of what had been done. That seems like the kind of man you might remember."

Mikoto exchanged a disturbed look with her husband.

"Are you attempting to imply that my wife has lied about what she witnessed?" Fugaku asked, disapproval and shock warring for prominence in his tone.

There was a moment of silence, and then the Hokage painted on a smile that did not seem particularly genuine. "No, of course not."

That meant yes.

"You must understand, however," he continued, "that the situation is unusual."

"Keeping orphans away from their legal guardian?" Fugaku butted in. "I would say so, yes."

His mouth shut so suddenly that his teeth clacked when the Sandaime gave him a hard-eyed look with the full brunt of his displeasure. The power couple were unpleasantly reminded that no matter how old, no matter how diminished, the man in front of them was their superior in every meaning of the word.

"You are of course aware that the person who released the Nine-Tailed fox had to have been an Uchiha," the Sandaime said quietly.

The world tilted.

"What?" Mikoto let the word fall from her lips without thought for how undignified it was. "That is-"

"Absurd, a children's story!" Fugaku continued, his voice like thunder. "It is utterly baseless, an accusation without merit."

Now that his pride had been offended he went on furiously, and Mikoto squeezed her eyes shut just for a moment. She wished that her husband would keep his temper. He had wanted to come to provide her support in making her arguments, but if he became aggressive, her chances of leaving with her two youngest babies were harmed.

"Please, Hokage-sama," she broke in, her quiet voice forcing her husband to flicker his eyes to her and stop talking. "I do not understand. Kushina-chan made me the guardian of her children. Let me take my babies and go home. They are all I have left of her. Surely you do not claim that I would do less than my best to care for the twins, or that I am incapable. I have the time, the love, and the resources to give them a better life than their parents had."

That was a low blow, and it made the Sandaime cringe, just a little. Kushina and Minato had both been orphaned at young ages. Neither of them would have wanted that for their children. And Mikoto was an excellent mother.

"We can provide everything they will ever need," Fugaku broke in, perhaps sensing that the Sandaime was weakening. "The Yondaime's children will want for nothing."

His statement had the opposite effect it was intended to. The Sandaime's face creased in disapproval. "Uchiha-dono, no one but the clan heads now know that those children belonged to the Yondaime," Hiruzen said stiffly. "We must take that name out of the discussion completely when we place the children. While it was impossible to keep Kushina-chan's pregnancy a secret and many will be looking for her child, any considerations related to their father are counterproductive."

In other words, the Sandaime thought that Fugaku wanted the twins because of the prestige they could bring the clan. He wasn't wrong, exactly. Fugaku would have supported Mikoto's bid for Kushina's children if they were not politically important. But since they were, his interest was piqued.

Her husband's face soured momentarily, but he wasn't fazed. "Then we shall absorb them into the clan without giving hint as to their parentage."

"A blonde boy and a redheaded girl," Sarutobi remarked dryly. "They will not blend in well with your clan."

"We can color their hair," Fugaku dismissed. "I assume that you planned to deny them their name, in order to keep them secret. We can offer them a surname and the protection that comes with it."

"They will become officially known as Uzumaki to honor their mother when the time comes to fill out their Academy paperwork," Hiruzen said mildly, picking up his pipe and tapping at it. "Until then, nameless they shall remain."

Fugaku clearly didn't understand why the Hokage would choose to treat the children as peasant orphans when they could have the prestige of a clan name, but forged ahead regardless. "They would be as my own children," he continued stiffly.

"And then in twenty years Naruto would be Hokage and Aiko-chan would be married to Itachi," Hiruzen said dryly.

Mikoto tried not to wince. That had probably been Fugaku's plan, yes, with the exception that Fugaku probably wouldn't have cared which of his sons Aiko ended up marrying.

The village was nowhere near ready to accept an Uchiha kage. But the child of the Yondaime, raised by the Uchiha—that would be a different matter, one that inextricably tied the clan to the highest echelons of the village for generations to come. It would be the political coup of the century.

But that wasn't what she cared about (though she wouldn't protest too loudly either if it happened naturally). Mikoto did not want to use Kushina's babies as devices for political positioning. She wanted to love them and raise them well in honor of her dead friend.

She realized with a sinking heart that it was too late. Now that Fugaku and the Sandaime were thinking of the twins in terms of their political value, the legal protection of her supposed guardianship and the emotional arguments she could muster would do no good.

'He mentioned that the clan heads all knew of the twins' parentage,' Mikoto suddenly realized, connecting an unpleasant thought. She voiced her suspicion, already knowing the answer.

"Other clans have already petitioned for guardianship," she said flatly.

Hiruzen looked mildly surprised at her leap in logic, but nodded in acknowledgment after a moment. "Yes," he agreed. "They have."

The snub caused Fugaku to freeze in shock for a moment. Their legal petition for guardianship was being blocked by clan politics. All the other clans should have been able to recognize that the Uchiha claim was the strongest and backed down. That they didn't meant that their clan's position was far more tenuous than they had realized.

The Uchiha power couple seemed to take a deep breath as one. "This childish accusation," Fugaku said stiffly, "has poisoned the Uchiha clan's good name." When that garnered nothing but a steady stare, he prompted; "What would you have me do to prove our innocence?"

Sarutobi Hiruzen gave a thin, tired smile that implied there was little that the Uchiha could do, or that they would not like the options. "Find the masked man," he said delicately, skirting around his obvious skepticism of Mikoto's un-collaborated story. "Convince the other clans that the Uchiha were not at fault." His eyes moved to Mikoto alone. "Persuade Jiraiya to give up his legal claim to guardianship."

She pressed her lips shut to keep from gaping at the unfairness there. Jiraiya was long gone from the village, and didn't look to be returning any time soon. It seemed that the Hokage had appointed himself Jiraiya's spokesperson, and he was clearly immune to her persuasion. Becoming the twins' sole guardian seemed all but impossible. Nor would she want to wrest Jiraiya's honorary parenthood away, even if she thought she could cow him or his mentor. However ill-suited he was to childcare, the twins were all he had left of Minato-san. She couldn't do that to him.

"Very well," Fugaku said stiffly, acknowledging the demands without agreeing. "Please excuse my wife and I, Hokage-sama." He gave a faultlessly proper bow that Mikoto echoed dully, though the move was not as deep and deferential as it would have been on another occasion.

Etiquette demanded that she echo the farewell, but Mikoto kept her lips together and merely gave the Hokage a baleful stare before she turned to follow her husband away.

A chill raised the tiny hairs at the back of Mikoto's neck as she truly considered, for the first time, what the Sandaime's stress and suspicions might lead him to suspect of her in particular. As she was the only surviving witness…

It didn't look good for her argument that the Uchiha had been uninvolved.

The fact that she had been spared was puzzling even to Mikoto, however. That unfortunately meant that she couldn't explain it. Kushina had made it out of that room because the masked man had needed to trick her into the open where the Nine-Tailed fox could be released. Perhaps Mikoto had been spared as a smokescreen against his true intentions? Or… had her salvation been in the fact that she was holding the other infant?

Mikoto tried not to let her doubt and confusion show on her face. She wouldn't have killed a woman holding in infant unless there was no other choice, but she had seen that masked man hold a kunai to an infant. Surely he didn't possess such sentimentality and reserve.

'He called Naruto-kun 'it',' Mikoto remembered. 'He had already rationalized that Naruto-kun was a tool for him to use. If he had really intended to kill Naruto-kun, he would be dead.' She shuddered. She hadn't considered it before, but the masked man must have been gentle and conscientious of the burden in his arms in order to avoid harming a newborn while engaged in a fight against the babe's father.

The theory that a soft spot for babies had saved her life was looking a little more likely. That didn't change the fact that the most obvious explanation, to the Sandaime at least, was that the masked man had spared her because she was the clan head's wife.

Being the Uchiha clan head's wife apparently carried much less currency than it had a week prior, however. It was positively unheard of for a custody dispute like this. When Mikoto managed to calm her breathing, she almost couldn't believe what had just happened.

This wasn't the Hokage unfairly refusing her good claim. This was the Hokage illegally retracting the guardianship that she had possessed the moment that Minato and Kushina had passed on. She knew her husband wasn't going to take this well. The Uchiha had fallen far indeed when they didn't receive the legal protection offered to other citizens.

Her heart sunk low even as she arrived home and took solace in cuddling Sasuke and breathing in his sweet baby scent. The situation seemed grim, but she wasn't giving up. This wasn't over. It didn't matter if the Hokage disagreed: she wouldn't leave those children alone, even if she couldn't take them in. There had to be something else she could do.

[fedonciadale]

We agree that Brienne deserves better than Jaime but does the author think so? And what about Brienne? What does "she deserves better" even mean? What do you think of her attraction towards him? Is it supposed to be positive or a result of her low self-esteem / bad taste in men? If Jaime ends up screwing up, I can't see how she could still love him.

Hi there!

To me "deserves better" means that Brienne is in essence a good person who is trying her best and not just playing at it. And she would deserve someone as good as Samwell Tarly. That is my opinion, but of course that does not mean that Brienne will get a Samwell Tarly. If Brienne gets Jaime, then she will get him because the author decided that their arcs lead there - and you can argue for that, there are hints, but it is not a foregone conclusion.

I've said it before, a satisfying ending does not necessarily mean that people get what they deserve and it certainly does not mean that the author's fav will be rewarded - I just remind you that Frodo sort of deserved better but his ending was prepared by the author from the moment he left the Shire and dreamt of the Western Shores.

I can imagine several outcomes where the Jaime-Brienne relationship can come to a satisfying ending: Jaime knighting Brienne would be very nice for example. It could also be satisfying if he dies for her in an act of true chivalry and asks her that at least she will cherish his memory. There are many possibilities.

As for Brienne's attraction: I think it is of course born of the circumstances. Brienne has been ridiculed for a long time and somehow she is resilient enough to carry on.

We as readers flinch when Jaime insults her at the beginning of her relationship, but what is interesting is that he often holds back and does not say the quip that comes to his mind out loud - so Brienne does not know he thought that.

And then he saves her from certain death, accepts her wanting to wear male clothes and armour, presents her with a sword and tells Loras to his face and in her hearing that she would easily best him. It hardly needs any emphasis that Brienne has never experienced that before. It is only natural that she likes him, even if you could argue that he shows no more than common decency. Just remember that Brienne is accustomed to the likes of Randyll Tarly....

So, in a way her infatuation is not due to the fact that she knows Jaime very well, but the side she sees is actually likeable. She changed her opinion of him and now she is convinced that she now knows the real Jaime - which is a natural conclusion. If you have worked something out you tend to be convinced. I think all in all her crush on Jaime - which she is aware of and slightly ashamed of - is rather positive than negative, an opportunity for her to grow however the outcome will be.

I think their relationship would only have a true chance if Brienne changes her opinion a second time and learns to see his flaws again. I think she might just do that. It might lead to her being disappointed or it might lead to her accepting him (even if only as a friend). And that does depend entirely on how they will meet again.

I suspect we will see Jaime at the Red Wedding 2.0. where Lady Stoneheart will exact her revenge. And this might be a traumatizing event that will decide where Jaime and Brienne's relationship will go.

Whatever will happen I think it will be far better for Brienne than what we had on the show. The knighting ceremony was nice but the one night stand was awkward and I'd rather not have that.

Thanks for the ask!

[shihalyfie]

Kizuna itself vs. the two versions of the novel

Written on request from a friend who wanted to remain anonymous. This is more of an editorial than a meta, and while I usually have a policy of “this is an analysis blog, not a review blog” it goes into more of my personal impressions and opinions than usual, but it’s something I write hoping to be helpful.

There are basically three “official” full versions of Kizuna: one being, of course, the movie itself, one being the Dash X Bunko version of the novel, and one being the Shueisha Mirai Bunko version of it. While it’s certainly not to say that any of the three is an “incomplete” version of the narrative, if you really want as full of a picture of the story as possible, somehow, each of all three versions of the story happens to have really important information that the other two do not. If I had to pick only one of these three versions to recommend to people, I would of course pick the movie itself; it’s obviously the base story everything else is based off of and was the one the production centered around as a priority, but the novelizations have a surprising amount of info that provide a lot of insight into the movie’s story and themes.

I get the impression that the creation of Kizuna involved making a lot more story and background details than could fit in a 95-minute movie, so these novelizations, which were based directly off the original movie script, ended up being an outlet for a lot of these details (and as much as I could be harsh on the movie itself for being a bit “reliant” on extra material, I have to admit that Adventure and 02 were both like this too -- a lot of our current understanding of the series comes from the Adventure novels and drama CDs -- so frankly I’m thankful we at least got this with a 95-minute movie instead of a yearlong series). On the flip side, while I'm not going to say that the novels are completely and utterly inaccurate representations of the movie, in a perhaps too-close approximation of Adventure and 02's writing style, this is a movie where even the nuances in a single line or split-second moment carry heavy implications, which become much blurrier or harder to identify when they’re presented differently (or not even presented at all) in the novel’s context, especially when they emphasize very different things from what the movie itself was emphasizing.

The short version of this is that I believe the Dash X version contains the greater amount of “plot and story” information but significantly misses out on the emotional themes and presentation, whereas the Shueisha Mirai version abridges and cuts chunks of content but is much better at conveying the intended message. More on this below the cut. (Note that the following post spoils Kizuna’s plot events.)

The movie itself

Since the following parts are more “in comparison to the movie”, I’m not going to go too much into this in this section, but one thing I will say is that the official English subtitle translation for the movie is really not great. Even if you take out nitpickiness about the fact it misses several significant nuances (the difference between “unchangeable fate” and “changeable destiny”, or the fact that Gennai refers to partnership dissolution as a “case” and not like it’s something that happens overall) at really plot-important moments, some lines (thankfully, usually not plot-important ones) are just straight-up incorrect. And worse, there’s evidence the official English dub was based on that translation! (I’m not faulting the people in charge of the dub for this, but whoever handed them that translation to work with.)

The dialogue in the Dash X Bunko version is transcribed effectively word-for-word from the dialogue in the movie (or perhaps vice versa, given that the novel is based on the original script), so I highly recommend checking that version as a reference for dialogue or if you want to do any intimate analysis on it. I don't want to go as far as to suggest not supporting the official version of the movie because of this, but at least please be aware that the translation used there is not entirely reliable.

Dash X Bunko

If you talk about “the Kizuna novel”, this is the one that people usually tend to be referring to, for two reasons. Firstly, it was translated shortly after the movie’s release, and due to the unfortunate circumstances of Kizuna being delayed in accessibility outside Japan for several months, this basically served as the only comprehensive source of info about the movie outside Japan for a very long time. Secondly, in Japan, this one was marketed as “the one for adults” in contrast to the Shueisha Mirai one being “for kids”, which meant that a lot of people assumed that the latter one was just an incredibly stripped down version that was otherwise disposable or replaceable. (This is very, very much not the case, and is extremely ironic when it comes to a movie that partially centers around the dangers of looking down too much on things associated with childhood.)

When it comes to “plot and story info”, this is the one that probably serves as the best reference (especially for fanfic writers or those who need a refresher on certain plot events or to look up something quickly), and probably has the most “comprehensive” listing of plot events surrounding the movie. The dialogue in it is a word-for-word recreation of the movie’s script, and actually includes more scenes than the movie itself does, including two that I suspect to be deleted scenes (a detailing of the specifics behind the initial plan to pursue Eosmon, and a conversation between Koushirou and Tentomon) and adaptations of the first and second memorial shorts within their context in the movie. It also contains some interesting background details and extra context for some things in the movie that you might think would normally be animation flair or something, but take a very interesting implication of story importance if they’re going out of their way to write this in the script. (There’s a scene where Agumon and Gabumon appear in front of their partners when they’d been behind them a minute before, and it’s easy to think this might be an animation error, but not only does the surrounding context make this unlikely, the novel itself actually directly states that their positions had changed.) Given that, I think it was very fortunate that this novel was available to us for those outside Japan waiting for the actual movie to come out, because this level of detail was very important to have on hand rather than fragmented spoilers on social media.

However, the part where I think the novel is significantly deficient in compared to the actual movie (and also to the other version of the novel) is that it describes the plot events in too blunt of a manner and doesn’t bring out its themes very well. (It’s kind of like having a long and very detailed Wikipedia article plot summary; it definitely got all the hard facts down, but the emotion is gone, which is still a pretty significant issue when media’s all about the feelings and message in the end.) While “considering the movie to be more cynical than it’s probably meant to be” happens regardless of which version someone’s working from, I’ve talked to perhaps an unnervingly high number of people who started with the novel and were absolutely convinced that the movie’s message was about adulthood sucking and needing to just accept it, until they saw how the actual movie pulled it off and the surrounding atmosphere and realized it definitely was not. (I think one really big factor here is that a lot of the visual imagery makes it extremely, extremely hard to miss that Menoa’s mentality is completely screwed up and her way of seeing things was dubious to begin with; prose descriptions really just don’t capture the way they slam this in your face with visual and musical cues during the climax of the movie.)

You can figure this out from the novel itself, but you have to really be looking closely at the way they word things, and on top of that it’s hard to figure out which parts you should be focusing on and which parts aren’t actually that important -- in other words, the “choice of priorities” gets a bit lost in there. Even the little things lose a lot of value; it’s theoretically possible to use the novel to put together that Daisuke is wearing his sunglasses indoors during his first scene, but you have to put together the context clues from completely different paragraphs to figure this out, none of which compares to the actual hilarity of visually seeing him wearing the thing in a very obviously dimly lit restaurant because he’s our beloved idiot. (For more details, please see my post with more elaboration on this and more examples of this kind of thing.)

I wouldn’t say that the movie itself isn’t guilty of (perhaps accidentally) having some degree of mixed messaging, but I would say this problem is rather exacerbated by the novel’s way of presenting it due to its dedication to dropping every single plot detail and event without much in the way of choosing what to contextualize and what to put emphasis on (as it turns out, treating practically everything in the movie as if it has equal weight might not be a great idea). So, again, for that reason I think the novel serves as a good reference in terms of remembering what happened in it and knowing the movie’s contents, but I also feel that it’s really not the greatest deliverer of the movie’s message or themes at all.

Shueisha Mirai Bunko

The second version of the novel was not translated until several months after the movie first released, and shortly before the Blu-ray and streaming versions of the movie itself came out anyway, so my impression is that on this end a lot of people don’t even know it was a thing. On top of that, even those who know about it often dismiss it as the “kid version” -- and to be fair, it did baffle quite a few people as to why this version even exists (Kizuna is technically not unacceptable for kid viewing and its plot is still understandable regardless of age, but since the movie is so heavily about the millennial existential crisis, it’s not something kids would really relate to). So a lot of people tended to just skip over it...which is really a shame, because it contains some interesting things that actually aren’t in the other two versions at all. For instance, did you know that, as of this writing, this is the only thing that plainly states the specific explanation for why Yamato decided to become an astronaut, for the first time in 20 real-life years?

While there are still some things that weren’t in the movie proper (mainly the Eosmon initial plan and the adaptation of the second memorial short), for the most part, the actual events are somewhat abridged compared to the movie and the Dash X version, and other than a few stray lines, there’s not a lot of extra information that would be as helpful for referencing the events of the plot. The version of the novel here is rather broadly interpretive of the scenes in the movie, so several things are condensed or taken out (and, amusingly, because it’s assuming that the kids reading this don’t actually know the original Adventure or 02, it has to describe what each character is like in a quick one-liner).

However, interestingly enough, it’s because it’s so heavily interpretive that it illuminates a lot of things that weren’t really easy to glean out of the Dash X version. For instance:

Some scenes are described with “other perspectives” that give you info on someone else’s point of view. (For instance, we see more of Yamato’s perspective and thoughts when he has his first phone call with Daisuke, or a bit more detail in the process of how Eosmon kidnappings work.)

We get a lot more information on what’s going through everyone’s heads during each scene, and what emotions they’re feeling at a given time. (This is something that you could at least get to some degree in the movie itself from facial expressions and framing, but would often be a lot blurrier in the Dash X version; here, it’s spelled out in words.)

When things are abridged, you get a clearer idea of what the intended point and theme of the scene was because it’s stripped down to include only that part. In one really interesting case, the scene with Agumon finding Taichi’s AVs has a “censored” equivalent where Taichi’s pushed to a corner because he can’t find anything non-alcoholic in his fridge -- so when you look at the two versions of the scene and what they have in common, you can figure out that the point isn’t that it was a lewd joke for the sake of it, but rather that Taichi’s forcing himself into boxes of “adulthood” that are actually meaningless and impractical.

Some of the descriptions of the characters, scenes, and background information make it a lot more obvious as to their purpose in the narrative (it outright confirms that Miyako being in Spain means that her personality is getting overly enabled there).

The scene where the circumstances behind Morphomon’s disappearance are revealed makes it significantly less subtle what the point is. In the actual movie, a lot of this involved visual framing with Menoa seeming to become more and more distant, but in this version of the novel they basically whack you over the head with the final confirmation that Menoa is guilty of neglecting her own partner, which contradicts her own assertions that “they were always together” (maybe not emotionally, it seems!) and helps clarify the commonality between her, Taichi, Yamato, and Sora in what exactly led to their partners disappearing.

Bonus: this version of the novel really wants you to know that the ending of the movie is about Taichi and Yamato fully having the determination to turn things around and lead up to the 02 epilogue. (The movie’s version of this involves the extended version of Taichi’s thesis and the credits photo with Yamato obviously next to a rocket, while this novel’s version involves more detailed fleshing out of how Taichi and Yamato decided to use their experiences to move onto their eventual career paths and what kind of hope they still have at the end. The Dash X version...didn’t really have a very strong equivalent here.)

In other words, while this version of the novel isn’t the greatest reference for plot or worldbuilding, it does a much more effective job being straightforward about the intended themes and message of the movie, and even if the scenes in it are much more loosely adapted, it’s much better at adapting the emotional nuances of the things that would normally be conveyed via visuals, expressions, and voice acting. (Although I would still say that the movie itself is the best reference for that kind of thing, of course.) If you just want lore or plot ideas, I don’t think it’ll help you very much, but since this series is so much about characters that had their ways of thinking fleshed out in such incredible detail, and about strong theme messaging, this is all still very valuable information in its own way.

[robininthelabyrinth]

Spilled Pearls

- Chapter 8 - ao3 -

Lan Qiren’s brother did not outwardly react when Wen Ruohan announced what happened.

He merely stared, face as impassive as a stone washed clean by the river, his posture and position impeccable from the little glimpses Lan Qiren kept stealing of him – he was trying to keep his head ducked and his gaze firmly on the ground, trying to demonstrate penitence, but he couldn’t quite resist looking. He assumed that his brother’s seeming indifference was a mask for the rage he undoubtedly felt, seeing his little brother screw up what would have otherwise been a perfect discussion conference for the Lan sect.

It seemed like a reasonable conclusion, given that Lao Nie was taking up all the slack of reacting with rage without any such mask whatsoever.

“He’s little more than a child!” Lao Nie shouted.

“Little more, perhaps,” Wen Ruohan said smoothly. He was enjoying himself, Lan Qiren thought. “But regardless of how close or how far he is, he is adult enough.”

“He can’t marry or inherit –”

“He shed blood in a night-hunt, and that means he can swear oaths, which is all that’s relevant here. It isn’t as if I married him.”

“He’s sixteen! If someone removed sixteen years out of your life, Hanhan, you wouldn’t even notice the absence!”

“True, but irrelevant,” Wen Ruohan said. “And don’t call me that, Sect Leader Nie.”

“I’ll call you whatever I damn well please, you little –”

“You are unharmed?” Lan Qiren’s brother asked Lan Qiren.

Lan Qiren, who’d been spectating the increasingly fraught back and forth between the two sect leaders, turned to look at him, surprised to be addressed.

“I’m fine,” he said quickly. “I only had a headache, and Sect Leader Wen took care of that.”

“You call me da-ge now,” Wen Ruohan reminded him, turning briefly away from his argument to do so. “Your oath, remember.”

“Does he even remember swearing the oaths?” Lao Nie hissed. “You know how these Lan drink – you and your damned need for control! Just because you can’t get it one way, you have to try another, is that it, Hanhan?”

“Sect Leader Nie, if you really find it impossible to be civil -” 

“If you are unharmed, then we can return to the Cloud Recesses,” Lan Qiren’s brother said, ignoring them both. His voice was as distant and cold as a winter breeze, piercing and lifeless; it reminded Lan Qiren a little of his father, and he shivered. “We will determine the remainder at that time.”

“See?” Wen Ruohan said goadingly to Lao Nie, whose scowl only deepened. “If even his own sect doesn’t object to it –”

“They didn’t not object, they’re refraining from making a statement; it’s not the same thing. ‘Even ten years isn’t too late for a gentleman to get revenge’ – !”

“I should like to see them try.”

Lan Qiren felt a sudden sense of relief, heralded by a bright and abrupt clarity: of course Wen Ruohan hadn’t sworn brotherhood with him on his behalf! He’d only done it because he’d seen Lan Qiren together with Lao Nie, found that the sight offended his vision, and immediately decided to disrupt it. Never mind that Lao Nie didn’t have any intentions beyond the casual mentorship of any older cultivator to a junior – Wen Ruohan was well known for his paranoia, his irritability, his tendency to seize on crazy ideas. And, of course, there was his jealousy, a trait to which he had himself admitted…

A treasure sword used to prop up a table, indeed. It wasn’t about Lan Qiren's merits or the Lan sect’s supposed failings at all. The only table Wen Ruohan was concerned with was Lao Nie’s!

(And that certainly did explain the whole bizarre ‘Hanhan’ thing better than any other hypothesis Lan Qiren had come up with.)

Lan Qiren wasn’t sure it was better, exactly, to be a pawn in a strange game between sect leaders, but it was at least more familiar. As a younger son of a politically minded Great Sect, he was more like a daughter; being used for some scheme by the adults around him had always been his destiny, barring some tragedy or especially indulgent parents – the former was unlikely, the latter he lacked – and so his fate was set.

Of course, it would have been better not to be in a game involving Wen Ruohan at all, but he supposed that there were worse options.

After all, if Wen Ruohan’s primary interest was in tormenting Lao Nie, he probably wouldn’t demand Lan Qiren’s presence in the Nightless City all that often – probably just enough to show that he could – and Lan Qiren would be allowed to continue with his plans for his future. It might even turn out to be something of a benefit. After all, a musician with limited martial skills, traveling all alone, could always use strong friends that were nearby, and the Wen sect’s reach far exceeded that of the Lan sect…

Anyway, comparatively, Lan Qiren disliked far more the idea of being stuck in the Jin sect with its inexplicable devotion to worldly affairs (and when it came to Jin Guangshan, word was that that usually meant literal affairs…), and he would have undoubtedly gone utterly mad in the Jiang sect, with its emphasis on freedom and lack of any rules to explain anything. And of course, regrettably, the Nie sect wouldn't have done such a thing to begin with, secretive as they were...

No, it wouldn’t be so bad, Lan Qiren tried to convince himself. It wouldn’t be so bad at all.

The illusion lasted exactly as long as it took for the leaders of the five Great Sects to retreat to finalize their discussions on business – with Sect Leader Jiang and Jin stepping up to keep Sect Leaders Wen and Nie from each other’s throats, even as Lan Qiren’s brother ignored them all – and Lan Qiren returned to his proper place among the other Lan sect disciples.

“Did he really put you in the Fire Palace until you agreed?” one of them asked, then was promptly elbowed by at least three of his fellows – it was poor Lan Yueheng that had asked, naturally; he was extraordinarily good at mathematics and extraordinarily bad at just about everything else, including both tact and following the Lan sect rules. Lan Qiren had gotten on quite well with him in the past, each one happy to have an audience to listen to their rambling without caring too much if the other side was really listening, but Lan Yueheng was Lan Ganhui’s mother’s sister’s son, the two of them raised together like brothers, and in recent years the latter had a habit of restricting the former from spending too much time with Lan Qiren, the favorite subject of his mockery.

“No,” Lan Qiren said stiffly, and turned his face away in sudden upset. He had almost managed to forget that his new sworn brother was reputed to enjoy spending his free time torturing people, enough so that he had an entire prison devoted to it.

The older brother guided, the younger brother obeyed – what was Lan Qiren supposed to learn from Wen Ruohan? How to be cruel and pitiless, how to hurt people, how to increase his cultivation by doing all manner of dirty things?

Even if he didn’t learn such things, wouldn’t people assume it of him anyway?

“But I heard –” Lan Yueheng persisted, then hissed when someone stepped on his foot.

“No,” Lan Qiren said, stronger this time. “Do not speak behind the backs of others, Yueheng-xiong.”

“Oh. Right.”

Someone muttered killjoy under their breath, but that wasn’t exactly new; his brother thought he was one, and he was popular, so others often followed his lead - and anyway, perhaps he was. At any rate, they all stood around in awkward silence for a little while before someone decided to recount one of the incidents in the main event competition once again, their voice a little over-loud in the silence, and a perfectly anodyne conversation about Qingheng-jun’s performance started up in earnest to cover over all the things they did not say.

That, too, was not new.

Truly, life would be easier if everyone would just listen to the rules, Lan Qiren thought wistfully. The nice written-down ones, just those, and never mind about all the unspoken ones, the ones that everyone seemed to intuitively understand except for him – he tried his best to learn those, too, and to extrapolate from one situation to another, but unspoken rules seemed as changeable as a puff of cloud. It was simply impossible.

In the end, the sect leaders finished up their business and each of them took their leave from the Nightless City, just the way that always happened. Before he went, Lao Nie put his hand on Lan Qiren’s shoulder and said, “Write to me if you ever need anything at all,” while glaring at Wen Ruohan, who smirked back; Lan Qiren’s brother did not glance at either of them and merely walked off, his hands behind his back and his posture straight and tall as a tree. The other two Great Sect leaders, Jin and Jiang, exchanged glances of their own and headed off their own way without a word, choosing, quite prudently, not to get involved.

Lan Qiren saluted to Lao Nie and, slightly more hesitantly, to Wen Ruohan, then followed after his brother. To his relief, Wen Ruohan didn’t stop him, only watched him go, his eyes glittering malevolently - his gaze a palpable weight. It wasn’t quite like the first few times they’d met, where the pressure almost felt like the other man was exerting power on him; rather, Lan Qiren suspected, the weight he was feeling was only the weight of all the new expectations that had fallen onto his shoulders as a result of his new brotherhood. 

The ride home was excruciatingly awkward.

It was not a short journey, and Lan Qiren did not speak to his brother once the entire time by mutual unspoken agreement. He might not have noticed such a thing normally, but his brother’s usually cool aura was positively frigid, driving Lan Qiren to silence even when he might have otherwise spoken on mundane matters such as the weather or travel conditions.

Lan Qiren even suspected that if he had dared to try, his brother might have used the muting spell on him.

Naturally, the other disciples followed his brother’s lead – poor Lan Yueheng looked especially torn up over it, and at one point Lan Qiren found a book on abstruse geometry hidden under his pillow in what was probably a well-meaning gesture of solidarity – and Lan Qiren was stuck in that uncomfortable place where he finally had the peace and solitude he often longed for when stuck in a crowd while also simultaneously feeling awful about it, struck with a sudden desire for the company of his family, however cold it might be.

When at last they returned home in the late afternoon, Lan Qiren knew from experience what to do next: he went straight to the hanshi, where his father was waiting for their report, and knelt in penance outside. If the trip had gone well, he would have helped his brother settle the final matters relating to their trip – putting back anything borrowed from the sect’s stores, registering everyone as having arrived with no one lost on the way, that sort of thing – but since it hadn’t, his duties were limited to…well, this.

It was unpleasant, but then, it was supposed to be.

He waited for over a shichen in unmoving silence. The remainder of the sect tiptoed around him, with the disciples that had remained behind sending him sympathetic looks that suggested that they didn’t know exactly what had happened but were burning with curiosity to find out.

It was already dark by the time his brother arrived.

When he did so, he walked right by Lan Qiren without looking and went inside.

There was no written rule against eavesdropping, although there were several unspoken rules about it that were sometimes but not always applicable, but even when (guiltily) straining his ears to the utmost, Lan Qiren could only hear the vaguest murmur of voices within.

It was only after some time – towards the end of his brother’s report, no doubt – that there was a brief uptick, a surprised exclamation (possibly “what?!”, although Lan Qiren’s father was soft-spoken enough that even an exclamation was too muffled to be properly audible), and Lan Qiren braced himself.

After a little longer, the door to the hanshi opened.

“Qiren,” his father’s voice drifted out. “Enter.”

Lan Qiren got up, a little unsteady from all the kneeling, straightened himself out and walked inside, his hands folded behind his back. He would have knelt again, but his father waved for him to keep standing, frowning thoughtfully at him as his brother drank the tea they had been sharing.

“You swore an oath of brotherhood with Sect Leader Wen?” his father asked, his face frustratingly neutral.

Lan Qiren nodded, then amended: “I do not remember doing so. He offered me a toast, and would not allow me to reject it, and then the next morning, he informed me that we had sworn an oath together and showed me the written version of the oath.”

The paper in question was laid out on the table in front of his father. Lan Qiren’s brother had confiscated it after Wen Ruohan had showed it to him, and Lan Qiren hadn’t figured out a way to ask to see it, though he desperately wanted to know whether they had sworn one of the classical brotherhood oaths or if they’d added their own clauses. It seemed like a thing Wen Ruohan would do, yet the idea had only belatedly occurred to Lan Qiren, which meant he hadn’t properly examined the oath while he’d had the chance.

His father hummed thoughtfully.

“There’s no reason to doubt Sect Leader Wen,” Lan Qiren’s brother opined. “He is meticulous in his schemes. Even if there were, the announcement was public; I would not have our clan be known as oath-breakers.”

“Public and unrefuted,” Lan Qiren’s father said, and Lan Qiren blinked because he almost sounded disapproving – but his father never disapproved of anything his brother did, as far as he knew. “Still, you are not wrong. There are few more decisive than Sect Leader Wen. Once he settled on his course, he would not leave such a gap through which one could retreat, not even for himself…Qiren.”

Lan Qiren straightened.

“You were unharmed?”

He blinked at the unexpected question, the same his brother had posed.

“I only had a headache,” he said hesitantly, vaguely aware from the way his father looked at him and his brother did as well that his answer was not what they were expecting. “From the liquor. Nothing else.”

“Did anything else hurt?” his father pressed. “Your body?”

Lan Qiren thought back. “My upper arms,” he said, remembering. He’d thought it was from the uncomfortable bed. “And my right knee. They were a little bruised, I think, but it went away after Sect Leader Wen shared spiritual energy with me.”

His father frowned and twisted his fingers in a gesture; an array opened beneath Lan Qiren’s feet, and the places he had mentioned, as well as his palms and forehead, began to glow.

The marks on his arms, glowing with the pale echoes of Wen Ruohan’s qi, were in the shape of hands.

(Wen Ruohan had commented on Lan Qiren’s enthusiastic telling of the Lan sect rules while intoxicated, to the point of seeking to hold him down as an unwilling audience. Had Wen Ruohan had to physically restrain him from causing trouble as well?)

“The disgrace was minimal, then,” his brother remarked, and when their father said nothing but dismissed the spell Lan Qiren abruptly realized that they were trying to figure out if he had, in fact, been deflowered, just as Wen Ruohan had teasingly hinted that night. He had not shared with anyone that he had woken up in Wen Ruohan’s bed, too mortified to do so, and now that the suggestion had been seriously raised, he was even more determined never to do so. “Not that that will help the rumors.”

Lan Qiren hadn’t thought – surely people wouldn’t think – wouldn’t assume –

Wen Ruohan had no reputation for liking young boys. He wasn’t even known to cut his sleeve!

(Lan Qiren didn’t know what he himself liked. He’d thought he’d have more time to figure it out.)

“We do not guide our sect according to rumors.”

His brother put down his teacup with a little more force than necessary. “Is it the sale or the price that you object to, Father?” he asked, voice far sharper than it should be when speaking to an elder, least of all their father. “See what I have accomplished for our sect, and without even the official authority of being vested as sect leader! It is just as you taught me! Am I to flinch simply because he shares my blood?”

“It is not what is taken,” their father responded, his voice a little sharper than usual as well, but not by much; he might as well have been commenting disapprovingly on an unfortunate turn in the weather. “But that it is Wen Ruohan who takes. His greed knows no boundaries, his recklessness grows by the year – today Qiren is unharmed and your plans may proceed, but what of tomorrow?”

“Have you thought of any better use to put him to? His role is to serve the sect!”

“As a disciple of the Lan sect,” their father said. His tone was still mild, but his voice was icy enough to make Lan Qiren shiver in a confused sort of fear that he did not quite understand. “Not as a plaything for Wen Ruohan.”

By all rights, Lan Qiren’s brother ought to now kneel and beg forgiveness from his elder, his sect leader, his father, but instead he only shook his head. “An oath of brotherhood goes both ways,” he reminded their father, speaking to him as if they were equals. “Sect Leader Wen announced to the world that he swore an oath with a child – does that not also mean that responsibility for his safety and wellbeing falls equally on his shoulders? Any harm to him stains Sect Leader Wen’s name as much if not more than ours.”

“Are we to let outsiders educate our children, then?”

“One cannot compare a foolish younger son to a brother, voluntarily chosen. He chose it, not us; everyone knows this. Any mistakes Qiren makes will fall heavier on his shoulders.”

Their father frowned deeply enough to carve additional lines into his prematurely aged face. “You plan to use Qiren as a lever, then, and extract concessions for every slight.”

His brother shrugged, almost careless in his arrogance. “If Sect Leader Wen chooses to give me such a handle over him, am I meant to refuse? For all his clever schemes, he is also known to be moody and impulsive, easily lured into rashness…I see an opportunity here, not a trap. You chose to give me responsibility early, to have me help you make our sect stronger, greater; that is what I was born to do. You gave me power and I have done well with it, done exactly what you’ve asked me to do. I’ve made you proud - haven’t I?”

“But what of the risk that Wen Ruohan might ignore public opinion and harm Qiren regardless?” his father pressed, not answering. It wasn’t really necessary, of course; he was always proud of Lan Qiren’s brother, no matter what he did - his eldest son was his treasure, the only thing he cared for; it was as fact as undeniable as the direction in which the sun rose each morning. “The Lan sect does not buy riches with blood.”

“I have thought it over, Father,” his brother said quietly. “It is only a risk that he might be harmed, not a guarantee; it’s not as if I am sending Qiren to the Fire Palace myself. And there is the hope here, not of riches, but of glory for the sect –”

“Glory for the sect?” their father asked, voice rich with meaning Lan Qiren did not understand. “Or for yourself?”

“Are they not one and the same?” Lan Qiren’s brother was unmoved. “In the future, it will be mine, and so there is no difference - whatever you say now, that is what you have always shown me. Besides, Qiren will agree.”

Lan Qiren did not take a step backwards when they turned to look at him, though he dearly wanted to. His hands were still behind his back, gripped tight enough to hurt; he suspected when he looked later on he would find blood beneath his fingernails, dug in deep into his flesh.

“Well?” their father asked of him, though his gaze settled somewhere above Lan Qiren’s head as it always seemed to, as different as night and day from the tender and forgiving looks he gave his eldest son even in the midst of their argument. His voice was so cold that Lan Qiren could feel it against his skin like the bitter winter wind. “What do you say?”

Is it the sale or the price that you object to?

It’s not what is taken, but that it is Wen Ruohan who takes.

Have you thought of any better use to put him to?

His role is to serve the sect.

“I do not see what choice there is,” he said dully, his eyes focused on his father’s face just as his father’s refused to focus on his, foolishly still looking for the affection he knew he would likely never find. In his father’s mind, he had only one son – even his objections on Lan Qiren’s behalf, however mild, were nothing more than what he would have said on behalf of any Lan sect disciple. Even Lan Qiren, foolish and bad at people as he was, could see that his father’s primary concern over the approach his brother had suggested was its potential impact on the reputation of his brother and his sect. “I swore an oath. Even if I do not remember it, as a matter of personal honor, I will not allow myself to be foresworn.”

“There,” his brother said, his voice rich in satisfaction. “You see? The choice is made. It is only what we do with it now that matters.”

Lan Qiren bit his lower lip to keep himself from doing something stupid, like asking do either of you care about me at all.

“Very well,” their father said indifferently. “Then it will be as you say. Qiren.”

“Father.”

“You will spend the night kneeling in the ancestral hall to consider the consequences of violating the prohibition against alcohol and the injunction to maintain your discipline. In view of the circumstances, no other punishment will be imposed.”

“Thank you, Father.”

“Dismissed.”

As Lan Qiren left, he heard his father ask his brother to tell him about the riding competition.

He did not ask about music.

[seaswalllow]

run this by me again, James says.

the wood counter is gleaming, by now, and the fact that Jay hasn't told him off for scrubbing it raw is... well. it's not the best of signs.

Jay is resting his forehead in a hand, massaging it slowly.

Anteros says he saw you, except... wrong. and that not-you said that there's more doors or whatever opening. obviously, there's a problem with this, because you were at the Inn the entire fucking day, with several eyewitnesses.

James... doesn't say anything. he turns this new piece of information over, very, very carefully. the Seaghas always were the talk of the town; but usually it was because of political favors or suspected murders, not because the favored eldest was going mad.

not that anybody would've really been surprised. a family that dedicated to maintaining the old blood was bound to have a few screws loose.

so: the facts of it.

has he, James says, and then pauses. this has to be worded delicately. has he seen Henrik?

the withering look Jay gives him could put Syl to shame.

he won't go if he breaks an arm; you think he'll go for a paltry issue like seeing an apparition of his brother made of fire?

that's new. backtrack.

made of what?

fire, Jay says, and now there's that familiar bite of irritation. the Seaghas always did put an emphasis on a united front, even when quarreling. he can't be too harsh.

as kindly as i can say this, he starts, and Jay holds up a hand. he falls silent.

Anteros won't tell anybody else about this, he says wearily. he barely scraped himself out of that last fraud accusation with the Rensons. if something like this gets out-

he's good as dead in the water, James finishes with a sigh. is that such a bad thing?

slowly, painfully slowly, Jay lifts his eyes to him, and James considers that he might've misstepped. see, the thing is: of the two, Anteros always did act the most like a hunter. always watching, always quiet, always... unsettling. Jay had to make people like him where he lacked the authority of the eldest Seagha- but it's times like these, James thinks, that people forget that Anteros is not the only one with a painful bite.

you can't survive on only sugar when your very family is determined to leave you in the shadows.

is that such a bad thing, Jay asks slowly, that my brother might become all but the village's pariah, the laughingstock, that he might be fucking losing it? or that he's gone and fucked himself over so badly that a god has gone and found him?

James sighs again. he's doing that a lot, right now. it's frankly more of a swear-worthy than a sigh-worthy situation, but he's coping where he can.

he didn't want an argument. he really, truly didn't. not with Jay, with whom he had a rare kind of camaraderie at being the youngest- relegated to the shadows but confined to duty. not with Jay, who stands to lose the most if the furtive whispers James is overhearing behind the bar's counter, late at night, aren't the product of an overactive fantasy.

he's not been himself ever since fall, he tries to reason, gently. you look at him and it's someone else in his skin. the stress is getting to both of you.

he watches as Jay slumps in his chair. always the last to accept defeat, always the slowest to concede.

if he loses this career, Jay says quietly, he's going to be destroyed. but he's destroying himself with it. and if that thing comes back, he's going to kill himself chasing it. what do we do about it, James?

James does not have an answer for him. Jay's mouth tugs into the thin lines of an unhappy frown as he continues to shuffle the mugs on the shelves.

we hope that whatever opened that door doesn't open it again, he settles for. we hope that this small village wets your brother's appetite for power, and that he never speaks of it again.

[setsunasknife]

After looking at several images of adult Rin and the opening 2 of Yashahime, I feel almost positive that the feet running through the fire in the opening are Rin’s.

The feet and legs are too long to be either of the twins, and the only other barefoot character that would make sense is Rin. The feet clearly look like a woman’s because they’re so dainty. The only reason I think you don’t see her kimono/under kimono is because she’s pulling it up to run faster.

This goes on my list of “Reasons Rin absolutely was with her children before the fire and everything got screwed up during the fire”. I’m also starting to suspect that Riku may have taken part in separating Rin from the twins. I don’t see why Rin would be away from her children otherwise. I feel like Riku and Towa need to have a larger conflict about his involvement in messing up her life.

Plus, I feel like the scene of Rin “disappearing” from Kaede’s was to make us think she got kidnapped but in reality she had to leave quickly and tell no one of her whereabouts. Rin had to protect her children and that was priority number one no matter how much she loves Kaede and the others.

Also I feel like a LOT happened during that fire. There is a huge gap of time and gap in memory that we’re clearly missing. How do we get from sleeping Setsuna to sleepless no-memories Setsuna? AND considering how much emphasis they put on “Why did I let go of her hand?!” there has to be an explanation. Maybe Towa saw her mom/dad and booked it to safety? We must remember that she was a little 4 year old girl who was likely very scared and just wanted her mama/papa to keep her safe.

Anyway, there’s many questions that need to be answered just about that one night and I’m excited to see what season 2 brings! We shall see this fall!

[hermannsthumb]

If you're still taking requests!! Fake Dating situation where Newt and Hermann go to a public event together. they're used to being mistaken for a couple at the Shatterdome, so they expect to be mistaken for a couple at the event. But then they meet someone who definitely Does Not mistake them for a couple (because homophobia) and assumes they're just Very Good Friends. cue Newt and Hermann aggressively pretending to be a couple.

always and forever taking requests!!! this is such a fun one, THANK YOU

--------------

“We’ll have to go in eventually,” Newt says.

Next to him, Hermann silently fumes, apparently unable to decide whether to continue tugging at his stiff collar or grinding the bottom of his cane—over and over, in a sort of circle—against the sidewalk, leaving streaks of black rubber behind. “I hate these damn things,” he says under his breath, though it’s unclear whether he means his outfit or the event. Hermann’s dressed up tonight in a suit that’s hilariously oversized (even for him) and fraying in places, with a bowtie that he’s knotted crookedly. Newt wonders if the suit’s a hand-me-down from his brother. “Begging for funding, as if we haven’t anything better to do with our time. As if we’re not working for the better of all of them. It’s bloody degrading.” He works his jaw angrily. “And if that isn’t enough—everyone always makes—assumptions—about us.”

Oh, okay. The event. “Assumptions?” Newt says.

Hermann lets out a hiss of air between his teeth. “Assumptions,” he repeats, delicately. “About—ah—the certain nature of our relationship.”

“Oh,” Newt says. “Oh.”

At the last one of these things they went to, someone (actually generous enough to open their checkbook for once) asked Hermann whether they should make it out to the PPDC or Dr. Gottlieb and his husband. At the one before that, a dinner event, the name placards at their table said Dr. Newton Geiszler-Gottlieb and Dr. Hermann Geiszler-Gottlieb. Before that, at a more casual affair at an up-scale bar, some tech hottie sent Newt a martini, before hurrying over and apologizing in person that (gesturing between Newt and Hermann) he didn’t realize Newt was with someone. Newt really wishes Hermann would just get it through his head already that introducing someone as your partner and dropping the important research part of it tends to hold drastically different connotations outside of, like, the group of people who know them on the Shatterdome base, because that would clear up probably sixty percent of the confusion. If not just so he can pick up a few numbers at these things for once. Still, though—for some reason it’s never really bothered him like it clearly bothers Hermann, but Newt supposes he’s not exactly a catch by any standards, so it makes sense. “I just don’t know where they get the impression—” Hermann begins, and Newt interrupts him.

“Yeah, well, you should take it as a compliment,” he says. “You could do a lot worse than me.” He opens the door for Hermann and ushers him in. “Seriously, we’ll be late if we don’t go in now, and that makes it, like, twice as awkward.”

As usual, they have to sit through some incredibly boring speech about how they’re sitting among some of the best scientific minds of the century right now, how they’re honored to play host to their colleagues at the PPDC, how the buffet will opening shortly for dinner, and then a different person gets up and makes another speech, and then another person with another, until finally the first person gets back up and promises that closing remarks will be in three hours, and how they should all enjoy themselves until then. Claps. Under his breath, Newt says to Hermann, “Doubt it.”

“Which side shall I take, then?” Hermann sighs. He’s probably the only one in the room not clapping. He told Newt a while ago that he doesn’t like to put on airs, and especially not in the service of flattering someone’s ego, and he’ll only clap for a speech if he feels it deserves it. He’s such a weirdo.

Newt surveys the room, considering. Luckily, people tend to flock together in similar little groups at these things. Birds of a feather shit. “Left. Everyone on the right is too young and hip-looking, so that’s out of your range.” He gets a cane to his shin, and grins even has he winces. “Kidding. Let’s just do it together, it’ll make it more bearable.”

Their first target is a forty-something marine biologist who’s very excited to meet Newt— “I followed your research on jellyfish for years!” she says. “I had no idea you’d be here tonight!” —and who is more than happy to promise donating a little to help fund the war effort. Their next is someone younger than both of them, whom Newt suspects is heir to his dad’s tech company or something, and who is easily guilted into promising even more than the biologist. “We’re having a lot better luck than usual,” Newt says, as they watch the kid hurry away to mingle with a group of other twenty-somethings. “Do we look more, like, respectable tonight or something?”

“It’s the open bar,” Hermann says.

“Yeah, probably,” Newt agrees.

“And anyway, we’re still terribly behind on our goal, so there’s no use getting too pleased over ourselves,” Hermann says. He sniffs. “If you still want that bloody—whatever it was—kaiju spleen, we need at least—”

“Okay, okay,” Newt says.

He nods at a small group standing by one of the buffet tables, holding half-eaten plates. People tend to be in better moods when they’ve eaten something. Hopefully more generous moods too. “Let’s try them,” he says.

Hermann is the one to initiate the conversation this time, launching at once into a variation of the little script he and Newt penned so long ago the night before their very first gala. “Good evening,” he says. They get a few polite smiles and nods of acknowledgement in return. “I’m Dr. Hermann Gottlieb, and this is my partner—” Newt tries not to groan. “—Dr. Newton Geiszler. We’re here representing the PPDC tonight. I don’t suppose we could have a moment of your time?”

The mood of the group changes immediately, but why Newt can’t figure out; it’s like they suddenly go hostile on them. Hostile, and tense. Newt is suddenly astutely aware of how each of the three dudes have a good few inches on both him and Hermann. “The PPDC?” the guy in front says. He's not smiling anymore. Maybe they all supported the jaeger program defunding or something. “Sure.”

“Er,” Hermann says. He clears his throat. “Newton—that is, my partner and I work for the kaiju research division at the PPDC’s Hong Kong base. As you may well be aware, the latest cuts to the PPDC’s budget have been quite dev—”

“So you and your friend,” the guy says, with a little more emphasis on the friend than Newt would like, “are going around asking for donations? To help buy pencils or something?”

“Well. Essentially,” Hermann says. He doesn’t seem to have picked up on what Newt did, though he grows visibly nervous anyway. Outright hostility isn't anywhere near as common as indifference at these sorts of things. “Though, pencils is—er—a vast understatement.” He casts a furtive, desperate glance at Newt—a help me if Newt ever saw one. “My partner—Dr. Geiszler—simply doesn’t have enough funding for the samples he needs to study—and donations would certainly help with our funding for other necessary supplies—"

“I sure we’d love to help you and your friend,” the same guy says, and there’s no missing the emphasis this time, “but we’re a little busy at the moment. Please come back and talk to us later, though.”

Hermann clamps his mouth shut. Newt narrows his eyes, and in a move bold enough to surprise even himself, snags Hermann’s arm and links his own with it. “Sure thing,” he says loudly. Hermann goes rigid and stiff under him. “Come on, babe, let’s get something to eat. I know how you get when you’re hungry.” Then, before he can stop himself, he brushes a single kiss at Hermann’s cheek, and tries not to laugh at the looks they get.

He waits until they’re out of eyesight (Newt having had to sort of drag Hermann along with him) to drop Hermann’s arm. Hermann hasn’t moved a muscle since Newt touched him, and even now, he just sort of blinks at Newt. “What on Earth—?”

“Dude,” Newt says. “That guy was a total jerk. He thought we were together, and—”

“He did not,” Hermann says. “He kept calling you my ‘friend’. It was a bloody nice break from what usually happens, I might add, and now you’ve gone and—”

“Hermann,” Newt says. He sighs. “You’re, like, totally missing my point. He thought we were together.”

“But he called you—”

“Yeah, exactly,” Newt says.

Hermann blinks a few more times. “Ah,” he says.

“No way in hell do we need his money,” Newt says. “Anyway, sorry about the—” He touches Hermann’s cheek, and then gestures to Hermann’s left arm, which is now just sort of hanging limply at Hermann’s side. “I just wanted to screw with him. I won’t do it again, though—”

“No!” Hermann says quickly. The tips of his ears go red, and he fumbles as he grabs Newt’s arm again. A sudden warmth situates itself like pressure over Newt’s chest, identical to the kind that’s creeping up his wrist where Hermann’s fingers just grazed his bare skin, and he’s struck with the sudden bizarre urge to duck his head and blush himself. Since when has Hermann had this kind of effect on him? “What I meant to say is—” Hermann licks his wide lips. “He might still see us. We ought to—to keep up the ruse.”

“To really screw with him?” Newt says.

“For what other reason?” Hermann says.

Newt forces himself to keep a smooth, neutral expression as Hermann unwinds his arm to lace their fingers together instead, with a lot more awkward fumbling. “Uh-huh,” he says. He remembers how soft and smooth Hermann’s cheek had felt, so unlike his own, which can never seem to hold a clean shave. How nice Hermann's hand feels in his now. He’s definitely going to have to unpack this later. “Yeah, that’s—good idea, Hermann. Let’s do that.”

[lexiepiper]

Reflection

Hey @danthectoman, I was your backup Truce gifter! I hope you enjoy this bitter(sweet) Dan thermos fic!

I know my blog’s formatting sucks, I haven’t been able to change it yet, but you can read it on Ao3 or ff if you’d prefer.

.

There wasn’t much else to do but seethe.

His body, compressed down to mist, strained against the smooth metal walls. He pressed, and prodded, and tried again and again to pop the seal, but it held eternally firm, and he was left with nothing but thoughts in the darkness.

So he softly settled, like low-lying fog across fields, and sulked.

His anger pulsed at first, and every time he thought about things, his core would flare and he would pound himself against the lid once more. Still, it never budged, and he always ended up sinking back into simmering stillness before his thoughts caught up with him and his fury inevitably swelled again.

It was a dark, stagnant cycle, and he didn’t know how long it had been going on until a tiny thought wormed its way through the haze of agitation. Jazz would be disappointed.

It caught him off-guard, and he paused in yet another attempt to break the seal.

She would be, wouldn’t she?

The thought held a bite of anger, and he coiled in readiness to throw himself against the lid again, but before he could lose himself in his rage he managed to picture her. Time had worn her smooth, and she was little more than long red hair pulled away from her face with a teal headband, and fragments of smiles and hugs that always carried more love than he ever felt from anyone else. He pooled again at the bottom of the thermos, trying to fit the glimpses of memory back together. He couldn’t picture her fully, but the more he tried, the more she slid into place in his mind.

His parents followed quickly, and sorrow pricked his core when he realised that he couldn’t remember what his mother’s smile looked like, or the scent of the aftershave that his dad had worn. It had been so long since he’d allowed himself to think about them, and now this tiny effort was far too late.

The deep, hollow ache in his core flared up, like an old wound that never really went away, and he curled in on himself. He wanted to stop thinking about them, to make the yawning emptiness fade into the background once again, but he just couldn’t stop himself… His family sprang back to the forefront, whose faces were blurred by time, and who had never known the truth about him. He wondered if things would have been different, had they known. He tried to picture it — ghost hunting with his parents, or making ectocookies, or trying to dodge Jazz when she ruffled his hair after he had easily caught The Box Ghost yet again.

The imagined scenes brought a fresh wave of pain. He’d never told them, and now they’d never know, because they were dead. They were dead, and it was his fault.

He had no physical body to cry with in the thermos, but he burned with the thick heat of grief, and Dan wrapped his misty form tighter around his core. He stayed there, pressed against the cold circular floor of his prison, while his core trembled and his mind dwelt on the little things that made up the people he’d lost. If he thought about it, he could almost smell Sam’s shampoo, or picture the shape and colour of Tucker’s glasses. He didn’t remember if Jazz’s shirt had been black or white that day, or if his parents had been holding hands when they walked into the meeting. He spared a small thought for Mr Lancer too, but then returned to trying to recall what his mother’s perfume smelled like.

He dug deeper into his memory, and every resurfacing detail felt like pulling out a splinter. It was painful in the moment, but once he stopped fighting the memory, and allowed the thoughts to linger, the pain was not so much that of continual hurt, but more akin to the ache of healing.

Sam’s shampoo had been a vegan one that smelled like roses, and Tucker’s glasses were large half-moons with black frames. Jazz’s shirt was also black, his mother smelled like orange blossoms, and right there at the end, they had been holding hands.

He missed them.

He missed them, and there, coiled as compressed ectoplasmic mist, he realised that he still loved them.

He had no mouth or throat, but Dan’s amorphous body clenched and spasmed in the closest thing to a cry, and he tried to remember as much as he could.

He reached for old memories, of the sound of screeching locker doors, and that his mother would always fold his socks so that the edges lined up perfectly, and how sand felt when it crunched and squeezed between his toes, and Dan realised that his family and friends weren’t the only people he missed.

He missed rain on his skin, and the taste of lime, and the way it felt to sleep in jeans after a long day, and a million other little things that made up the sum of life.

He missed Danny.

He missed himself.

He’d never thought that before, so swept up in the rage of abandonment, and then… then the rage of bloodlust. His core shivered, and he tried not to think about it. He tried to dredge up those nicer, softer memories, of picnics and sunsets and life, but every attempt was swept away by the sheer force of blood-drenched gloves and dying, screaming souls.

He’d started with himself, and then had never stopped… but now that he’d been stopped, and left in a soup can to rot? Now, he had time to think, and the more he thought, the more he remembered.

People had been so easy to kill. At the time, it gave him a rush of excitement, of winning the hunt… but now, if he’d had a stomach, it would have been rolling with bile. Unlike the hazy memories of happier times, he could picture every person he’d killed in crystal clear detail.

They rushed him, breaking through the mental walls that he tried to throw up, until all he could do was cower at the bottom of the thermos and face how each of them had looked in their final moments. Each terrified expression drove shards of revulsion deeper into his core, and these visions continued in an unrelenting wave until he had revisited every single victim, and felt the horror and guilt that had been so absent when their lives had ebbed away beneath his cruel fingers. He didn’t know how long it took, but when it was over, all he could do was lie there and steep in the blood that stained his soul.

He wished he had never done it.

He would do anything to have never done it.

As soon as the thought presented itself, Dan felt a vibration stutter through his prison. The thermos shuddered, and then the compression was gone, and Dan burst out of the darkness into a light that burned his eyes with its sudden intensity after so long in the darkness. He curled in mid-air, pressing the heels of newly-formed palms against freshly-made eyes and hissing in discomfort.

When he finally came to himself, the first thing he noticed was a soft, repetitive ticking. It was strangely familiar but misplaced, like the wrong lyrics being sung to a familiar tune. Dan shuddered, dropping his hands and squinting in the light. His core fluttered with the strain of his unrelenting emotional storm, and if he were a weaker being he might have worried about it collapsing due to stress.

He glanced around, frowning at the sight of a ghost screwing the cap back onto the thermos.

“Who are you?”

The ghost regarded him with red eyes, one of which was struck through by an impressive scar. “You know who I am.”

Its voice rasped like sand shifting, and brought to mind the endless dunes of a desert, eternally changing with the ravages of time.

He did know. “Why now?” Dan snapped, but the snippiness was somewhat lost from his tone as his core heaved with fresh guilt. “When I first learned of your existence, and searched the Ghost Zone, I could never find you.”

The ghost didn’t respond, and Dan shook his head as anger finally began to trickle back into his core. It pushed the guilt aside in its demand to be felt. “You… you hid from me!” he shouted, flinging out an arm for emphasis. “You knew what I would do, but when I came to find you, to… to fix this,” he gestured to himself, “you left me on my own! What did that other Danny have that I wasn’t good enough for, Old Man?!”

The ghost of time rippled, and his form changed into a younger man. “Come,” he said, and floated through an open archway set in the wall.

Dan paused. The room he’d been released into was nothing more than a small alcove, with a pedestal that must have housed the thermos up until now. Frustration bloomed in him, but it was quickly overcome with a spark of disbelief.

He was free?

After so long, it felt impossible. He immediately yearned for open spaces, whether the expanse of the Zone or the wide blue sky of Earth, it didn’t matter. He just had to get out of here.

He could run, but if that strange cloaked ghost with the ticking clock in its chest really was who Dan suspected, then he doubted that he’d get very far. Besides, it’s not like he had anywhere that he could run to, anyway.

Loneliness ripped through him, and Dan clenched his teeth and flew through the archway before the crushing grief could come pouring back. “Hey!” he shouted, speeding to catch up with the figure that was floating leisurely down a long, narrow corridor lined with large clock faces that all displayed different times.

The other ghost reached a door recessed between two massive clock faces just as Dan caught up. “Come, Daniel.”

The simple address struck him like a blow, and Dan recoiled, his hand flying to his chest to clutch at the HAZMAT. “That’s not my name,” he choked. “I’m not… him.”

The time ghost paused with a hand on the ornate doorknob. “Maybe not the way you used to be,” he demurred, “but in many ways, Daniel, you’re still you.”

Dan’s core clenched, and the shadows behind the clocks deepened as his hair flared in an inferno of white flames. “Don’t you get it, Clockwork?” he shrieked, the slight tether of self-control crumbling away. “I killed people! Millions and millions of innocent people! I murdered children, and can still see their faces, and feel their blood dripping off my hands! I am not your precious Daniel!”

Clockwork’s hand dropped back to his side, and he turned so that they were facing each other. His gaze was soft and achingly sad, and the ticking of the clock inlaid in his chest sparked a pang of longing that Dan didn’t even know he could still feel.

He shoved it away. “Why didn’t you save me?” he choked, and his core felt like it would smother him. “You saved him, with your time travel and your second chances. What was so special about him, anyway? Why did he get them back, while I became his lesson?”

Clockwork folded his arms across his chest. The watches lining his wrists flashed in the brilliant light of Dan’s hair. “Saving comes in many ways, Daniel. If I wasn’t going to help you then you’d still be in that thermos.”

“I don’t need your help,” he snapped.

Sad red eyes bored into his. “Don’t you wish that you could take it all back?”

The question pierced him to his soul, and Dan faltered, sinking so that his feet hit the tiles. His knees buckled and he sagged, leaning against the wall and grasping his chest as a half-forgotten sound squeezed where his ribs should have been and wormed its way up his throat and out through gritted teeth. It took a moment to recognise the sob for what it was, and by then, another one had broken out as well.

He tamped down on the emotion, blinking burning eyes and leaning heavily against the wall. “Yes,” he choked. “I… I want nothing more.”

The ancient ghost sighed, and it sounded like the faraway chime of a forgotten clock. “Come,” he said again, reaching for the handle once more and swinging the door open. “You are my ward, Daniel, no matter what form you take. I would fight all powers in the realms to give you peace.”

Dan blinked as an undeniable warmth wrapped itself around his core. “Oh,” he breathed, and for a moment, the pain melted away and he felt like Danny Fenton for the first time in what could have easily been a thousand years. It was nice, but overwhelming in its abruptness, and he sank to his knees. “But… but I’m still half Plasmius,” he managed to say past the swelling comfort that cocooned him like a blanket.

Clockwork shrank until he was in the form of a child, his eyes once again level with Dan’s kneeling form. “Without that half, you’re not stable,” he said, and laid a tiny hand on Dan’s shoulder. “You were stronger, and absorbed him. You have his powers, and his temper, but beneath that, you’re still Daniel Fenton.”

The comforting warmth continued to thicken around him, and Dan screwed his eyes shut and leaned his forehead against Clockwork’s shoulder. “Are you adopting me?” he choked as he recognised the bonds forming between their cores.

He felt the other ghost nod. “Technically, you’ve been my ward for over a thousand years now. I just had to leave you in that thermos until you came to your senses.”

“What, you left me in time out for a thousand years?” Dan retorted, but the words lacked any bite.

Small fingers brushed through his flaming hair, and he forced down a shudder at how unexpectedly nice it felt.

“You needed to experience regret,” Clockwork explained, and gently pulled back from the hug. “You had to want to change the past so badly that you’d do anything. You weren’t going to change until you were ready to.”

Dan leaned against the wall again. He still felt wonderfully warm and cared for in a way that he never had, not even during his distant, fleeting time alive. “I do,” he said, and tried not to think about how cheesy this all was, “and I will.”

Clockwork smiled then, and the scar that slashed through his eye crinkled with the expression. He reached out a hand and Dan grasped it. “Come,” he said, shifting into the form of a young adult and pulling Dan off the floor with the change. “You have some time travelling to do.”

[rpmemesbyarat]

RP meme from Scream Queens Ep 9 "Ghost Stories"

Damn straight I'm out in public.

I'm the master of disguise, baby.

Like, "are you not entertained?"

Yeah, no, no, everyone thinks I'm Joaquin Phoenix.

I just tell them it's part of my performance art piece.

I'm Joaquin Phoenix.

I'm sort of gay now, too.

Why are you dressed like that?

Sacagawea taught the pilgrims how to make cranberry sauce and then, like, sang "Blue Corn Moon" or something.

You know how you've been talking about taking our relationship to the next level?

Yeah, like, you know, like, the furniture just starts screaming, or, like, you'll crack open a Mountain Dew and you'll start to drink it and then it'll just turn to blood.

We're gonna have, like, the dopest time.

So let's all raise a glass to me.

I am about to be, like, super rich.

You can't spend Thanksgiving alone.

Oh, I am so glad neither of us have been killed.

I don't understand why you're making us bubble wrap each item of clothing.

When something costs $63,000, you wrap it in bubble wrap.

I think because I'm not allowed to carry a firearm, I like to pop the little bubbles, and then pretend like my finger is a gun.

I am personally being haunted by a ghost.

Wait, you-you-you seriously saw a ghost?

Put down the bubble wrap down.

Them Japanese got all manner of weird-ass ghost stories. And the one about the kappa is the creepiest of all. They live in the sewer. And they just waiting for you to sit your ass on the toilet, so they can reach up and grab your ass, snatch you by the vagina and drown your crushed body in raw sewage.

Why another story about a bathroom?

No more ghost stories!

I really have to pee. But there is no way I'm going anywhere near a toilet. So if you'll excuse me, I'm gonna go look for a salad bowl to squat over under the stairwell.

Does somebody need another ghost story to scare away the heebie-jeebies?

You have come back to haunt us.

Ghosts walk among you every day; you would never know it.

Did you forget you're super gay?

Haven't you ever heard the phrase, "once you go black, you never go back"?

If I don't hear another ghost story right now, I might just have a stroke!

Then the killer could come in and chop off your head!

Let's all sit by the fireplace.

The killer could still be out there!

I need my lotions, my silk robe, my sensual massage oils, a bottle of champagne, and chocolate-covered strawberries.

I was a pretty amazing person when I was alive.

Maybe we can even date for a little while.

You faked your death.

Wait. This all makes sense-- of course you would fake your own death so no one would suspect you.

We both know how you got his birthmark on your hand! From when I stabbed you in your evil lair!

I am not staying in this house for a moment longer.

Call the cops. There's someone in the back seat of your car.

Okay, well, I'm really sorry about that, but you have to admit that what you were doing was super confusing.

I could have swore I saw someone. Granted I am pretty high on Adderall and I've been on the road for 35 hours straight.

I feel like you farted.

Your breath, it always smells like you just ate a cheeseburger.

It's like making out with the Hamburglar.

You, my friend, have a poo belly.

I only caught this kiss so I could throw it away.

That story is neither scary nor amazing.

Honestly, if you're going to get attacked, please attempt to get attacked in a fresh, exciting way.

We have to concentrate-- the pieces of this puzzle are coming together.

The police aren't going to help us.

You can't stop a ghost.

And guess what, bitch, I'm pregnant!

Packing matters to me. That's why I chose to minor in luggage sciences with an emphasis in packing theory.

I really screwed up.

I mean, most of the time we porked in a way that could not result in pregnancy, if you know what I mean. But I always knew I had a sackful of strong swimmers.

We make our beds and we lie in them.

You could still be my piece on the side.

I want you to pay.

You might even just pay the ultimate price.

Did you just threaten to kill me?

Am I just supposed to ignore the obvious fact that you hate me and love nothing more than playing super-humiliating pranks on me?

Why do you always have to make everything about you?

Like, remember that one time when you hacked into my mom's e-mail and wrote me this really long letter explaining how I was adopted and born with fetal alcohol syndrome and therefore, had an IQ in the low 60s?

I'm sorry, but that was hilarious. I stand by that prank.

[NAME], you cannot just run around murdering people.

I beg of you, do not have sex with him.

His blood is on your hands!

The only benefit of meeting you is that I now know I clearly have a type, and that type is a moron.

I'm gonna make sure that everyone you know knows that when we had sex, you asked me in baby talk if you could nurse from me.

Oh, I never say I'm sorry.

I see that you're enjoying the good life.

Are you about to break into song?

Are you about to break into song? Because all I'm hearing out of your mouth is, ♪ me, me, me, me, me. ♪

My mother would have understood.

It's a special champagne with triple the alcohol and a nicotine-y mouth feel, because it's infused with tobacco.

You're trapped in a web of lies, whore.

You're not leaving this room until you've peed on every single one of these pregnancy tests.

Fine, you got me. I'm not pregnant.

It's just that ever since you walked through those doors, I knew you were gonna be the one to take it all away from me.

You killed her!

[ficsandcatsandficsandcats]

“If you interrupt me one more time, so help me god.” + “ Tell me what you want” with Geralt pretty pretty please ?

Fandom: The WitcherPairing: Geralt x ReaderWord Count: 1,871Rating: ETaglist: @heroics-and-heartbreak @whatevermonkey @mynamesoundslikesherlock @magic-multicolored-miracle a/n: Now here we have some Definitely Smut action for you. Enjoy!

You’d promised yourself that you were just going to watch.

You knew that Geralt snuck away because he wanted the time alone and that he took his meditation very seriously, but there was something about the sight of the usually commanding presence looking peaceful that piqued your curiosity until you found yourself stealing away after him into the forest. You’d taken your lessons seriously and though there were a couple of close calls, he never realized you were after him. When he found the familiar clearing and seated himself, closing his eyes to focus on his breathing, you watched, hiding behind a tree.

Your eyes hungrily traced the planes of his face, sharp angles softened in repose. The strong nose and the beautiful lips. The silver hair that gently rested on his shoulders. The usually furrowed brow resting though you could see the grooves in it built from years of glaring. The striking, yellow eyes that looked intently into yours…

Wait.

You spun behind the tree though you both knew he’d seen you and could hear the way your heart pounded.

“Y/N,” he said, his voice not angry as you’d expected but just a bit resigned. You slunk from behind the tree and walked towards him, eyes on the ground like a child who’s been caught with their hand in the cookie jar. If you were Jaskier you would have tried to play it off as happenstance or charm your way out of it, but you weren’t the silver-tongued bard. You were just a red-cheeked woman.

“Y/N, if you can sit quietly you can stay,” he said and you looked up at him, eyes shining with excitement that he wasn’t sending you away. You scrambled over to a nearby fallen tree and perched on it, trying to seem calm though you knew he knew better. He gave you a small smile and then closed his eyes, returning to center.

Or at the very least, trying to. But he couldn’t block out the sound of your heartbeat. Or the catch in your breath as you watched him tense and relax the muscles of his neck. Or, most distracting of all, the scent of your arousal. He knew that no one, likely not even you, could be aware of it but it was all be could focus on which was doing the opposite of calming him down. Which made him cranky.

“If you interrupt me one more time, so help me gods,” he snapped after the 10th attempt at grounding himself only to get swept up in thoughts of what he wanted to do with you. Your eyes widened in shock.

“I haven’t said anything!” you argued. He sighed heavily, running a large, calloused hand through the wavy silver hair.

“I know,” he relented, “You’re just… very distracting.”

“Well I don’t know how to be less distracting than sitting here like a literal bump on a log,” you argued, throwing up your arms in exasperation, “I can go!”

“No, don’t,” Geralt said quickly, surprising himself with his vehemence. He usually preferred his solitude but having you near, though maddening, was also oddly calming in its own way.

“Tell me what you want,” you said, getting a bit grouchy yourself. You were startled by the intensity of Geralt’s gaze as he considered your question. The striking eyes peered into yours and you could see him grappling with something, though you weren’t sure quite what. You’d traveled with Geralt for some time now and while there were moments you caught him smiling at you or gazing at you with an unreadable expression, you often told yourself he was just happy to no longer be alone. But the way he looked at you now was something different. It wasn’t about not being alone, it was about being with you. And gods, did you want to be there with him too.

“Come here,” he said, his tone pleading and you were eager to comply, hopping down from your perch to walk over to where he sat. He took your hand and gently guided you until you were sitting across from him, mirroring his kneeling pose. One hand gently cupped your face and still you saw the conflict in his eyes, a part of him that struggled to know if this was ok, if he was asking too much. You licked your lips and his eyes caught the quick glimpse of your tongue, a look of yearning in his eyes that gave you the courage to reach a hand into the long, silver hair and press your faces together. His arms quickly wrapped around your waist and pulled you onto his lap where you could see the hardening length against your thigh. You moaned into his mouth and he tasted the need you felt for him, angling his body so you straddled him and could pressed him between your legs, clothed bodies grinding against each other in a pantomime of coupling.

He was surprisingly gentle though unrelenting, from the way he kissed you, tongue probing and learning the taste of your mouth and the rough brush of your teeth against him, to the way he caressed you, hands roaming slowly and pressing against you firmly as though he were a blind man seeing through touch alone. His lips traveled down your neck, learning the spots that made you gasp as his hands roamed up your skirt and you felt the rough grip against your knee then thigh then sliding, possessively and intently, between. At the first brush of his fingers against your folds you choked out a little laugh and he began to pull his hand away but you grasped his wrist and held it firm. His eyes sought yours for understanding and you gave him a kiss.

“It’s just… sometimes something feels so good it’s actually ridiculous,” you tried to explain, “Like you know how sometimes something is so bad you just have to laugh? The same can happen for something so good. Just… keep doing that.”

Geralt shook his head a little, still clearly confused but he did not stop when you barked out another little gasping laugh that melted into a moan as he laid you back on the ground and his fingers slipped inside of you.

“So wet,” he murmured against your collar bone, a brief stop on his path to your breasts. He tugged the fabric that separated them from his mouth quickly, rending the fabric. You opened your mouth to protest and declare that he would be replacing that shirt but your head fell back and you gave a lusty moan as his clever mouth pulled the tip of your breast into his mouth, laving at the nipple as he continued to thrust his fingers inside of you, teasing you with dual sensations and leaving you a trembling mess that would have satisfied him if you did not inspire such an insatiable need in him.

Your orgasm snuck up on both of you, your cries tumbling out of your mouth faster than he could catch them with his and he was out of his trousers before the last wave of pleasure hit your body. He took himself in hand and you swallowed hard at the sight of him. You’d always suspected that he would be, well, a lot, but the plain proof of it gave you pause. Geralt stroked himself a couple of times though he was more than hard enough, just taking the time to enjoy how you looked spread before him, soaking wet and still slightly shaking. When the golden eyes roamed up to your face he laughed at the pensive, determined expression on your face as you stared down his cock.

“What?” you asked.

“You look like you’re going into war,” he explained, still smiling down at you in a way that was endearing and somehow even sexier. Why men felt that they needed to glare and pout to be sexy when a broad smile was the quickest way to get you weak at the knees escape you. Not that you’d been immune to his usually stern looks.

“Well I suppose I am a little bit. That’s alright. I will close my eyes and think of Cintra,” you said, dramatically screwing your eyes up tight for effect. Geralt laughed and you felt him brush the head against your entrance, your back arching to meet him on impulse.

“If you’re worried, this doesn’t happen. I don’t want to hurt you,” he said, his voice soft and his hand finding your face again. You opened your eyes quickly and gave him an aghast look.

“Oh this is happening,” you insisted, spreading your legs wider for emphasis.

“Good,” he murmured as he stole another kiss. You felt him press himself inside of you, slowly, stretching and filling you so gently, as he kissed you and helped your body relax and take all of him without any pain as he’d promised. Once inside he held still for a moment to let you adjust to the size of him and he stared into your eyes, holding you as close as two people can physically be, just gazing into them with a thousand words that didn’t need to be spoken because you felt them. You felt him. You rolled your hips back, forcing a guttural moan from his lips and the eyes shifted from adoring to hungry as you lay beneath him, primed to be devoured.

His thrusts were still gentle, moving slowly at first, methodical in his movements as he learned what angles drove the best sounds from you and when you flashed him an impatient look he followed the silent command, rutting into you faster and harder. Your nails pressed crescent shaped marks into his shoulders that he would wear as a badge of honor for days and when you came this time he saw it approaching, felt the way you clenched around him and when you cried out his name it triggered his own release and he marked you in turn, biting down on your neck, the moans sliding out through his teeth and your bruised flesh.  

He rolled off of you and pulled you with him so you rested against his chest, one hand placed above his fast-beating heart.

“Why did you follow me?” Geralt asked after you’d both caught your breath.

“Oh I just wanted to look at you. Oh, that sounds weird doesn’t it…” you said, and you felt the low rumbling chuckle shake his body, looking back up at his face to see him shaking his head.

“You don’t have to sneak after me. Just ask,” he said.

“If I had asked would you have said yes?”

“Probably not.”

You rolled your eyes and sighed.

“Well then I guess I’ll just keep sneaking after you,” you said simply. He gave you a little swat and then eased the sting with a gentle massage.

“Hmm,” he said, a sound that suggested he didn’t enjoy that plan.

“What’re you going to do about it, Geralt?” you asked, “Punish me?”

One eye slid open, peering at you from the side, and he heard your heart skip a beat. Oh yes, you’d be getting nice and punished soon.

But first, a nap.