#expect my meta to be sparse

[glow-worms-are-believers]

Town Ghosts

Ok, so this is inspired by this post.

Danny almost lost his balance as he turned on Casper High’s street corner. Catching himself in the nick of time, he resumed his uncontrolled dash down the streets of Amity and finally made it to his locker just in time for the first bell to ring. As he looked up from his locker and noticed how sparsely populated the halls were, Danny frowned. First bell indicated they had 5 minutes before the actual beginning of class, and usually that meant a decent amount of stragglers were still chilling around.

“Damn it, do we have an exam?” Danny mumbled as he took out his phone to text Sam and Tucker.

Wheres everyone? He sent

Assembly, came the answer from Tucker to which Sam added, We saved u a seat

Danny didn’t bother answering and instead quickly gathered his things from his locker before hurrying down to the assembly hall. Everyone was talking which meant he wasn’t late, and he managed to catch Tucker waving him over. Danny maneuvered his way to his friends before sagging into the promised saved seat.

“I swear, if Boxy wakes me up at 2am again to rave about packing peanuts one more time I will put him in Soup Time for a month.”

Sam winced. “Rough night, huh?”

Tucker patted his shoulder in commiseration.

Danny closed his eyes. “At least tell me assembly is taking Lancer’s period?”

“We still have half of it afterwards,” Tucker answered.

Before Danny could groan, the teachers started shushing the crowd. As he looked up to the shoddy stage, Danny could see a blonde woman wearing all black.

“Nice boots,” Sam whispered.

“Hello everyone,” started the woman on stage. “My name is Black Canary, you may know me as a member of the Justice League.”

At that Danny sat up straight, suddenly way more aware. Simultaneously, a wave of whispers started amongst the crowd which was quelled by the numerous teachers shushing everyone. Once silence had been more or less reestablished, Black Canary started again.

“I am here as a spokesperson in our efforts to raise awareness about discriminations against meta humans. This initiative started as a personal project of a lot of the founding members of the Justice League. Did you know that recent studies that show that violence against meta humans is disproportionately more frequent than violence against baseline humans? In fact-”

And one she continued for the next half hour, after which she had some students distribute some pamphlets with different phone numbers on them. There was a little more time dedicated to a few exercises and a video of a testimony from a former meta human criminal. As the presentation progressed, Danny started relaxing more and more, to the point that he was half asleep when time for questions was announced.

“What about ghosts?” Paulina’s voice came through the mic the teachers had passed around, “Are they covered by all those fancy laws you mentioned?”

And yep, Danny was fully back to being awake now.

“Ghosts?” repeated Black Canary, in an even tone but before Paulina could answer, another voice cut through the room.

“Ghosts aren’t people, Paulina.” Valerie’s voice came through sharp and clear.

Paulina’s eyes narrowed in on her former friend. “Says who?”

“Says science!” Valerie exclaimed. “Though I shouldn’t expect a Phantom groupie to understand that.”

“You’re just jealous.” Paulina flicked her hair dismissively.

Danny sank into his seat as he tried to block out the very public argument happening in front of him. Black Canary seemed to be observing the exchange with curiosity, while the teachers were trying to reach Paulina to get the mic out of her hand. There were a few students with their phones out, filming the whole debate and Danny would bet it would be on the school forum by the end of the day, probably sparking yet another Phantom debate.

Just then, as if it wasn’t enough, Danny could feel his ghost sense activating. As he turned his head, he caught a green shimmer at the edge of his vision zooming past the window.

“Come on,” he mumbled. “Gimme a break.”

“Do you want backup?” Sam asked.

“I got it,” Danny grumbled. “Cover me.”

“For sure, dude,” Tucker answered.

Danny stood up and shimmied his way down the rows of chairs to a teacher with Paulina and Valerie still arguing in the background. When Danny reached the nearest teacher he asked for leave to go to the bathroom and by was granted it after which a teacher finally managed to get the microphone away from Paulina. As Danny walked out of the room, he could hear Black Canary’s fading voice asking a question as he got further and further away.

“What do you mean by 'ghosts'?”

[inexplicablepeas]

Tale of the Body Thief Thoughts

I finally read Tale of the Body Thief, my long-ass thoughts under the cut (spoilers for the whole book of course):

Other than Pandora (and you'll have to excuse my weird reading order but after QotD I had to read TVA, and then I had to read B&G to get Marius' perspective and then it just made sense to read Pandora while that was fresh in my mind(!!)) this is the first new to me read in the series since I started my re-read - I wasn't sure what to expect with this one, which is also new because the previous three books I read are basically THE books for those characters, which is a lot of expectation and does lead to disappointment when certain things aren't covered, whereas I was putting a lot less pressure on this one, it's just more Lestat shenanigans! 

It was interesting to see that Anne is also kind of managing expectations in Lestat's in-character intro chapter when she kind of warns the reader that this isn't going to be an epic, millennia-spanning, multiple POV tale like Queen of the Damned was - I guess she had her concerns about how this one would be received in comparison! Speaking of the intro I really liked it, it was fun (Lestat intros usually are), very silly and meta with Lestat exorcising some writerly angst as he witheringly lists out a bunch of famous banger first lines and lets the critics know that the "sensual", "humid" style is here to stay. Other than this fun meta stuff it's pretty clear in the intro that Lestat is NOT DOING OK, he's in a dusty period, not really taking care of himself or spending time around any other vamps apart from Louis (who occasionally deigns to leave his rundown shack to watch his TV). It's not surprising after everything that went down with Akasha that he's not doing well (and I know I just said I wasn't putting a lot of expectations on this book but wow, it is really frustrating that he's sparse with the details of what went down at Night Island, although this does fit with his overall character journey in this book, he's just desperately trying to avoid dealing with his feelings about everything that went down by any means possible for most of it). I do wonder how this was received at the time, I can imagine a lot of fans being frustrated that the Night Island coven era just gets skipped here as there's so much promise for various character interactions and shenanigans that's just left to the imagination, I'm sure that people must have built up some expectations between QotD and this book.

Anyway, as for the story itself, I really enjoyed it! Lestat's time as a mortal is packed with so many darkly humorous moments and I just feel like Anne was having a lot of fun venting the frustrations of existing in a mortal body through this character who's become alienated from the inconveniences and humiliations of that particular reality over the past couple of hundred years. Lestat as a mortal is really pathetic, he's scared of everything, he's a whiny disaster and it just goes to show how much he's gotten used to living life with the cheat codes on as a vampire. He was chosen for this life by Magnus for his courage and now he's afraid of taking a shit.

Lestat is looking for an escape in this book from an existence he's come to find intolerable, he's suicidal at the start of this tale, attempting to end himself in the sun of the Gobi desert, then crawling back to David's English country manor to lick his wounds when that fails. A few days after recovering from that he's desperately pursuing the perceived opportunity that Raglan James, the Body Thief, presents him with - a holiday in a mortal body - while willfully ignoring all the red flags and alarm bells about how untrustworthy this guy is. He's reeeally in a bad place, desperate! Obviously Raglan has no intention of giving him his super vampire body back after the switch so finding himself stuck in a mortal body he's given the opportunity to make the choice that was taken from him by Magnus: this time he chooses a vampiric existence over mortality of his own free will, easily. Kind of a huge character moment! Going forward he has to face that he chose this over a chance for 'salvation' with Gretchen (a missionary nun/nurse he has a short love affair with after she nurses him back to health from the second sickness he suffers in his short time as a mortal due to neglecting his body).

Although most of the QotD cast are conspicuously absent (I'm most curious about how come Armand wasn't all up in his business as usual!) there are quite few good Louis/Lestat interactions that really add a lot to their relationship now that they're reconciled after the events of QotD. They're very slowly coming terms with their love for one another! The other major characters in this book, apart from Raglan, the body thief himself, are David, Gretchen and ofc Mojo. Along with Lestat we learn a lot about David in this one, about his youth prior to joining the Talamasca as a big game hunter turned Brazilian witchcraft adept. David turns out to be a pretty interesting character, he seems confident and wise, yet he's naive and too trusting where Lestat's concerned. His story fits in very well with the themes of the hunter becoming the hunted in this book. Gretchen's character symbolizes the choice Lestat has to make about living out a natural (and good and self-sacrificing) life in this mortal body he finds himself stuck in or getting his supernatural (but evil, petty and entirely self-serving) life back. She's another one of Anne's tortured creative genius characters, having given up a potentially very successful career as a pianist in what she believes was a bargain with God to save her mother's life. Except she's not actually all that tortured by the choice! Very interesting parallel with Nicki there (and she has a looot in common with Sybelle too, way past the point of coincidence). Mojo is a perfect addition to the cast, 10/10 no notes, goodest boy. His relationship with Lestat is the greatest love story told in this book!

Overall I found this to be a great read, the plot keeps you guessing and moves along at a good pace, we get a great insight into how Lestat's (not) coping after the events of QotD, some nice Loustat content (not a major ship for me but I vaguely want those crazy kids to figure it out)! The best part of it is really the dark and gross humor of Lestat having an absolute mental breakdown over basic human bodily functions and limitations. IDK why it took me so long to read this one!

[olderthannetfic]

Several people saying how they don't like the concept of headcanons, meanwhile I'm in a lore-sparse fandom where most of characterization and backstory is in the realm of not explicitly canon but reasonably inferrable from between the lines, and my current main ship is based off of one (1) line of flavor text... It's headcanon all the way down baby

--

It's partly a terminology thing.

I became aware of 'headcanon' as a term from people on tumblr who expect me to care about rather sparse "Here's how I see the characters" posts that don't cite much from canon and that generally end by calling you a bigot if you don't agree.

I do care about "meta" essays and about fic that fills in the gaps.

I absolutely do not care about "headcanon" posts.

When I have a particular theory about the characters based on clues from canon, I don't generally call it a headcanon because it isn't: I'm not saying it's literally canon, nor am I saying that "SHUT UP! IN MY HEAD, IT'S CANON!!!" I'm saying it's an extrapolation I'm using for this fic. If other fans share it and it's common, I'll call it fanon.

[eclipsecrowned]

'by request' muses + how badly they break canon

MUSE: kokoro kyriakou FANDOM: a realm full of cardiovascular imagery RELATIVE: er*qus (uncle) DOES THIS MUSE BREAK CANON: not at conception when the relative had 0 backstory lore, but then the mobile game dropped, and now she is the merriest of mary sues -- and not just because she's related to a canon, either. lore has it only two apprentices survived an attack on their generation of wielders, so kokoro's dad can't even exist post-dr. multi-generational drift against canon events.

MUSE: astraea l*cis cael*m FANDOM: last legend the fifteenth time RELATIVE: n*ct (brother), r*g*s (father), and *rd*n (ancestor) DOES THIS MUSE BREAK CANON: over her knee like a single dry twig. the whole narrative kind of depends on the end of a dynasty, and here i go introducing a member that is actively defying the gods and circumstances that make victims of her male relatives. she's mostly here to explore aspects of canon that were left to atrophy tbh.

MUSE: zorya constantine FANDOM: graphics about sleuths RELATIVE: miss fishnets herself and some cunt from beatlesville DOES THIS MUSE BREAK CANON: surprisingly, no. there have been universes in the past that show her parents having reproduced, and in fact a complementary muse i play is her brother from one such universe. i tend to default to her being a visitor from another universe rather than any particular interpretation's child.

MUSE: 'valas' d*vir FANDOM: the gate of a norse god RELATIVE: 1-2's pc (father), v*conia d*vir (mother) DOES THIS MUSE BREAK CANON: prior to 3? no. v*conia's romanced ending -- the one i pursued as a baby kadi -- has her bearing the pc's child. after the character assassination of her in 3? yep. wretcheds of the c*ast completely scrapped her canon characterization to make a one dimensional zealot of her, so everything came crashing down for valas' lore. my city now, though.

MUSE: kayden c*nnors FANDOM: marvelous graphics RELATIVE: the l*zard / dr. c*rt c*nnors (father) DOES THIS MUSE BREAK CANON: yeah. she doesn't even get a zorya pass of other lore existing that at best doesn't rule her out -- the c*nnors only ever have a single son in the whole of comics history. writing kayden in as an older daughter in the family dynamic upends decades of comics lore, and i revel in getting meta w it.

MUSE: mira snow FANDOM: a ditty of icyhot RELATIVE: br*ndon st*rk (father), ash*ra d*yne (mother), assorted canon relatives DOES THIS MUSE BREAK CANON: ssssort of? it's implied her mother had a daughter prior to her death, and that it was a st*rk brother that was responsible. mira is me pursuing that plot thread and chasing 'what ifs' about her role in the already unconventional dynamics of w*nterfell. the big divergence is the kid is allegedly dead.

MUSE: ly*nna b*lton FANDOM: a ditty of icyhot RELATIVE: r**se b*lton (father), b*th*ny rysw*ll (mother), brothers out the wazoo DOES THIS MUSE BREAK CANON: undoubtedly. while the lord of l33ches has many stillborn or cradle-withering sons to his name, no daughters are ever mentioned. it's pretty clear if she had survived where her brothers had not, it wouldn't be for long given her half-brother's proclivities. i am simply pursuing female horror narratives.

MUSE: laerion v*laryon FANDOM: a ditty of icyhot: revenge of the son-cousin of the prequel RELATIVE: c*rlys and rh*en*s (parents), l*ena and l*en*r (siblings) DOES THIS MUSE BREAK CANON: yep. family's fucked and then i throw another not into the fire, out into the roaring waves of their dominion. the heir who would give anything to be in his brother's shadow again. he's gonna be okay, though, bc my city now. i'm ridiculously fond of him and i can't be convinced to part with him.

MUSE: odessa h*rkonnen FANDOM: dewn RELATIVE: the h*rkonnens (extended relatives) DOES THIS MUSE BREAK CANON: not as badly as you would expect. we never get a full scope of the size of this noble house as opposed to the sparseness of their enemy's family line. an offshoot of the main line is not unthinkable, as we have no idea who in the family holds the ancestral planet together while the baron is absent.

MUSE: danae sp*ncer FANDOM: the malicious dwellers of the zombie apocalypse RELATIVE: the properly dishonorable earl sp*ncer (father) DOES THIS MUSE BREAK CANON: yes, canon makes it clear the earl is the last of his family -- but. i can argue the phrasing 'end of his illustrious line' could mean the family name dies with him, as danae would be anticipated to take her husband's name, or as i write it, that danae was disowned, disinherited, and no more a true sp*ncer.

MUSE: julia mayfair FANDOM: cawabooty RELATIVE: v*kt*r r*zn*v (great-grandfather) DOES THIS MUSE BREAK CANON: in all honesty? no. we know nothing of the man's backstory or connections prior to the war, save that he had a father who was killed by germans. this is a case where you can say anything about her great-grandfather and there's nothing contradicting or supporting you. there's no canon to break.

[ybblue]

Lowkey, I'm so glad to read the history of YB. I really enjoyed the content I was able to find of him with the game, Day 1 & 2. It was hard to find info about this game at first, so I read the wiki of course. I saw the traits of a wholesome yandere, if such a thing could exist. A yandere who wasn't violent with their target. That sounded like my jam!

(My Commissioned Art by @Two_Leaf_Cl0ver on twitter, feel free to use it for whatever!)

So I supported the Patreon cause I wanted to see how far along the game was and to play it for myself, because nothing beats personal experience.

I want to lay my thoughts out as I process why I like YB and what disappointments I've come to have with the game and maybe what I would like to have seen done instead. I'm not a game dev, so I'm coming at this without knowing everything involved in making a game.

[SPOILERS BELOW, DUH. I mean for ALL currently playable days.]

[Also HEADCANON stuff.]

(Source: Wiki, not my art, pretty sure its Fuboo's)

Day 1 is pretty sparse, but I likened it to being a demo of what to expect. Since YB said things like "I'm your boyfriend. Isn't that why you're here?", I took it to mean he was aware everyone who downloaded the game wanted him to be their boyfriend. However, maybe Y/N is sentient in their own world and is mostly like wtf is going on with this dude. It would also explain the "mixed messages" he says we are sending him when we reject his advances. I thought he might have even chosen to approach Y/N that day because he could see we, the player, were inhabiting their body.

In short, I was pretty thrilled to play a weird meta yandere dating sim. Moving forward, I am treating Y/N as an entity separate from myself. They are my (likely very unwilling) vessel, and even though I can influence how they behave, they obviously have their own will. They don't seem to know I'm possessing them either.

Day 2 has more dialogue and such, introduces the other characters, but I still find it doesn't feel like there is as much content as I would have liked. All answers that day basically led to the same way the day ends, which I find to be really weird. It makes me wonder if dev isn't sure how to do branching paths so that Day 3 can start exactly the way they need it to. Based on what I know about YB, it felt like he was in character in all routes until the very end when he just attacks. It's especially out of place when playing along with him.

As a side note, Y/N's personality has the biggest divergence in this day. If you are mean to YB on Day 1, then you are a complete asshole to everyone around you. This route is called the abuse route, I think, because YB will abuse you? However, I think of it as the abuse route because Y/N is really abusive to everyone around them and YB just sort of runs with that energy. (I am saying here: the player is influencing both Y/N and YB to be assholes, so we are basically the assholes in this route? I'm not trying to victim blame Y/N, but rather, I'm saying Y/N and YB are our victims. I would say Y/N is always our victim regardless...)

Day 3 is when shit hits the fan for the story in many ways. For Y/N, they just lost someone they knew, probably. TK or Lucy (who both seem to come off as potential love interests) or the Landlord/Don Williams (who doesn't read as a love interest at all to me, maybe I'm just oblivious as fuck) will die. Or, if you played Day 2 a certain way, a random person will be murdered.

My gripe with this is mostly that it comes so quickly, so soon, just a random murder of a major character. With how little content I feel there is in Day 2, I feel like I barely formed any attachment to TK, Lucy, or Don Williams, especially from the perspective of only having played the games.

This isn't to say they aren't great characters, because I think they are.

In fanon.

The fans have really taken these characters, the random snippets we know about them from various sources (the Tumblr and Wiki) and ran with them. Though these characters don't receive the same level of love and attention as YB, I feel like they have really enhanced any attachments people could form with their own skillful writing/observations.

Of course, I would be remiss if I didn't also point out how Peter comes off out of character on this day. He's pushy, demeaning, and outright abusive towards Y/N.

A part of me wonders: is he just pissed off because Y/N is in his way of getting to us, the players? Or is he actually not aware he is in a game despite what the creator said?

If he is aware he is in a game, and this is supposed to be out of character for him to behave this way, does that mean the game is forcing him to act like this?

But then he admits to grinding against Y/N at night when he sneaks in through the window. He doesn't just watch Y/N sleep, he touches them. That's not consensual for Y/N at all. I thought he was just a guy who was peeking at worst (still not great), but he actually sexually assaults Y/N. (Not to kink shame anyone, but outside of fantasy obv that is not okay.)

It really left a sore taste in my mouth. I thought this game was about a meta yandere guy who loves the player so much he is trying to take advantage of the game to talk to us through Y/N. Obviously, this is me building up my own expectation for the game, but I would have accepted any other way the game turned out as long as it was still meta and vaguely wholesome in his actions, at least with regards to him never hurting us, sexually assaulting us, or berating us.

But instead, it's just a simple "he's just Y/N's stalker" and makes no further attempts to speak to us, the players. It all just feels disappointing.

Day 4, I won't say much since the creator doesn't want much to come out about it, but I will say it gets a tad better, though its gross inside the context of Day 3.

YB returns to being a sweetie cutie pie, mostly because he finally won. Depending on how your route has been going so far, you can experience the 'erotic' part of the game. Currently, there isn't much CG to it, its a still image with smut. I'm not going to complain about it. I will point out you can tell him to stop and he will.

Which is really out of character for how he acted on Day 3. Does he respect our consent or not? Does he care about how we see him or not? Day 3 he's acting like a huge douchebag, and Day 4 he is like 'uwu okay i'll stop.' It feels inconsistent with the narrative of the game.

I'll stop discussing day 4 here.

Right now, I feel like this game is missing so much. I feel like the game relies on the player to find lore about YB on their own, rather than include it in the game. The characters don't have enough screen time for me to miss them when they are killed or absent from Day 4.

It seems we are supposed to meet a new character on Day 4 who is a friend of YB, but it seems REALLY LATE to be introducing a new character. This character has been known to die hard fans for like over a year, but we don't know ANYTHING about him aside from a short list of bullet points.

Then there is the mysterious Greta. YB's therapist or some such. Supposedly this person is encouraging Peter's behaviors. Why would they do this? What is going on? Will this character make an appearance in the game at all? If they do, why so late?

There's a chance that a completed Day 4 and 5 (aka a finished game) will tie this altogether, but unless more is added to Day 1, 2, and 3, I don't see it coming together in a satisfying way.

I'll still play the game when it's completed, and I'm staying in the fandom, because I love YB and the fan content for YB. I love the YB we have all collectively imagined, the one who is a yandere stalker, but isn't hurting us. The YB who is sweet and thoughtful, even if he's stupid enough to think stalking is okay.

Here's some fan content that I really enjoy and is what helped me build my own personal head canons about YB, the game, and what it all means:

Sugar Gives Me a Toothache (SGMATA) - This is a fanfiction on AO3 and its a masterpiece. In this, the game's Y/N is called MC, and the reader is a Y/N that stalks YB (Peter). There is so much longing, pining, sweetness, bittersweet, and just... I LOVE IT SO MUCH.

Game Over - A comic both on Twitter and Tumblr. It hasn't been updated in a long time, but it's still soooo good, and the art rocks.

And just all the random comics people draw for YB. Him being goofy and stupid. Him being a lovesick puppy. Him being a dangerous animal only Y/N can tame. All the memes and jokes. All very inspiring.

I guess in short, I really love YB more than I love the game, and I think YB might end up being something that transcends his own creator and becomes something that belongs to the fans.

[doomxdriven]

RULES AND SO FORTH

PREFACE

This is a low-activity, independent, crossover friendly multi muse blog that houses both canon characters (or canon-divergent I should say) and oc’s related to bleach! Do note that when I say canon-divergent for my canon muses, I really, really mean it in light of my headcanon-ing for those muses. Also, while the muses on this blog are from Bleach, I do not consider myself, this blog, or my muses to be heavily affiliated with the Bleach fandom itself-- love the series, but ultimately I'm going to write these muses however I want, and write them in whatever settings/au's/etc's that I want SFJHGSFDGHJ.

With that out of the way: my name’s mark, i’m 28 years old, tired af, but most importantly, pleased to meet you! I’ve been writing on this hellsite for more than 10 years now, and here I am, finally deciding to cluster some of my muses together in the hopes of being more active DFGHSDGHJFGH but we’ll see! Thank you for checking out this page and reading this far, please continue on down below to check out the rules I’d like you to keep in mind for  this blog and it’s muses!

1. This blog is low activity, as stated above, meaning that my activity can ebb and flow but will generally be pretty sparse. I work a very time and sanity consuming job that, well, eats up about 80% of my week and my energy e.e but I will try to be here  as much as I can.

2. This blog is selective, and mutual’s only, a.k.a, I can be kinda choosy in regards to who I follow back, and I will only interact IC with those I follow back. If you follow me and I don’t follow you back in a few days, I’m probably not going to, sorry (unless i’m on hiatus or something in which case I’m not actively checking up on my blog or followers or anything sdfjhgsdfjghs). I generally follow back all types of blogs (canon’s/multi’s/oc’s/etc) provided I’m familiar with their fandoms and/or can see us interacting in some way. Deplorables please dni though.

3. This blog does practice mains, and exclusives, but the latter will only ever be used for my closest friends. The latter aside, I am definitely open to writing with multiple portrayals of a muse, though mains will get higher priority, should I have them.

4. GODMODDING/META-GAMING: Having to put this down as a rule feels so cursed in the lords year 2023 (almost 2024) like, you’d think most people would know this by now, but, for the people in the back I guess; don’t god mod or try to control my muse without my permission and all that!

5. REPLY SPEED/LENGTH: I can be the slowest writer in the known universe so please keep that in mind when you are writing with me. sometimes it can take me weeks, or even a month or more than that to get to replies. i know that isn’t ideal for some people, and if that puts you off from wanting to write with me i completely understand, but that’s just how my brain works. sometimes i can put things out relatively fast, but thanks to the various factors of my life, most of the time my writing frequency is sporadic and my muse for threads can ebb and flow, so [insert shrugging here] that just how it be.

When it comes to reply length, i’m a big quality over quantity person. I literally do not care how big or small your reply is so long as you show enthusiasm and give me enough to work with when it comes to my response. likewise, i’d ask that you don’t hold me to any certain ‘quantity’ when it comes to my writing. i’ll make an attempt to match your length, but at the end of the day, i might not always be able to do that. i will, however, make sure to give you something to work with, instead of leaving the metaphorical ‘ball’ in your court all the time.

6. NSFW?: I don’t expect a ton of sexual-esque NSFW stuff to happen on this blog, but with some muses I suppose it is more likely. NSFW of any kind will of course be tagged accordingly, and put under readmores, but as far as hard-core smut goes, I, do not see myself ever publicly writing that, so situations of that nature, if they do occur, will be taken down the ‘fade to black’ route.

7. SHIPPING? Shipping of the romantic variety is not a huge priority for me, outside of the ships I have with my GF’s muses. There are some muses on my blog that I am potentially open to shipping with in certain circumstances (with good ic chemistry, and proper ooc communication being paramount for such things) ofc, but we'll just have to see how that all goes.

8.  MUN SELF-CALLOUT: I suffer from crippling social anxiety and I’m horrible about approaching people first, so if you want to write with me, your best bet is to just hit up my inbox to talk about things! if anything i try to keep an eye out for starter calls but i dont usually keep up with the dash so, those tend to escape me unfortunately sdfkhjsdfhjksd. If I’m following you, chances are that I want to write with you, but if I haven’t approached you yet….. you know why: i’m too socially inept for my own good sdfkjhsfkhjsdfkhj

9. I prefer not to engage with callouts or drama, and would prefer to see you, as a follower of mine, not fill my dash with the latter and be wise about interacting with the former. I personally will reblog callouts if I find there is real merit in them and awareness to spread, but otherwise I will generally avoid such things if its over petty shit.

10. Please specify which of my muses you are interacting with when sending in asks or liking starter calls. I’ll of course make note of such things in the tags of things I post, but if you like a starter call or send in an ask and do not specify which muse you are aiming at, you will get RNG from yours truly!!

OTHER IMPORTANT TIDBITS

– I can understand on some level why some people prefer their new followers to send in passwords or asks or something but I’m just not comfortable doing that I’m sorry sfhjkgsdgh if i’ve followed you, you can be assured that I have read your rules, but if you absolutely require me to send something in to confirm that then uh….. sorry its not going to happen ):

– I don’t engage in fight threads TOO often but I love them and am definitely down for brawls between our muses! That said I’d prefer we as mun’s sorta talk about where we expect those fights to go, and be realistic about our muse’s capabilities and such, especially if its a fight thread that may wind up with one of our muses being seriously injured!

– Mutual’s are welcome to ask for my discord, but I don’t talk on there very much or use it often-- it is a better place to contact me for plotting or other rp related things, though SFHSGHJDF

WILL ADD MORE LATER MAYBE? THANK YOU FOR READING THUS FAR THO UR AWESOME!

[shiroallura]

professional vs emotional support, and why allura needs both {a meta}

EDIT: wrote 90% of this before s7. some stuff could’ve been touched on more, but overall i’m tired and just finished the last section today when looking through my drafts. anyway, if we’re in the mood for salt, or just more reasons as to why the relationships vld tries to pull in canon are almost always unhealthy, have fun!

Season six greatly teased both L0tura and Allur@nce as ships, and why they wouldn’t work (which also contributes to why I don’t ship either of them), but as I was mulling over both these relationships the past couple days, I realized it boiled down to one very similar but fundamental contrast: Lotor and Lance don’t support Allura the way she needs to be supported. 

I’ll be talking about Lance first, Lotor second, and Shiro last (bc what am I, a non-Shallura shipper?) so allow me to elaborate, and hopefully I can properly explain what I mean.

I’ve talked a lot about, in the wake of s5 and s6, why I don’t personally ship Allur@nce and why I don’t think it’s the right romantic relationship for either of them. 90% of this talk is because of anons in my inbox, not me of my own accord but I have made a few posts, like this one here. And I’ve been ruminating on this for awhile, that while Lance is a good friend and does support Allura well... he only knows how to in one way. Emotionally, and through relationship advice.

Namely, Lance doesn’t know how to support Allura professionally. And this goes beyond him not knowing when and where there’s a time and place for fighting (which is more prominent in s1/2, but has carried on into season six as well). 

In 1x02, Allura and Coran run a drill of a ‘fake attack’ to see how quickly the paladins show up. They show up late (I imagine the castle is huge and easy to get lost in) in the Alteans’ eyes, but Allura can still recognize that at least one person came through substantially: “Look at you! Only Shiro is in uniform.” The rest of the paladins are in their sleep clothes, or in their day wear. Lance doesn’t even show up at the same time as the others, and strolls in, completely unaware and uncaring of the situation. If this had been a real attack, only Shiro would have remotely stood a chance. It’s the first (or second) real test of the Paladins as paladins, and Shiro delivers; Lance barely even shows up.

But wait, you say. That’s in the beginning of season one. Lance has grown since then!

And he has, in a lot of ways. He’s slowly letting go of his need for parades and glory. He’s working on putting aside his rivalry with Keith. He’s working on letting go of his feelings for Allura. He’s become a much better pilot and team player, a more active listener, and more serious and compassionate when it matters. 

But we’ve come to season five and six, now, and the ways he’s able to support Allura as a partner, and the ways he’s not, are still glaringly, obnoxiously obvious. Like the scene in 5x01 for example.

Lance: Princess? The meeting’s about to start. Allura: I’m almost ready. If I’m expected to lead this, I need to know what I’m talking about. Lance: Yeah, but no one expects you to memorize everything. We can have a script-screen for you, or you could just jot some notes down on the inside of your hand, I mean I do it all the... time. I’m kidding!

Lance comes in to get her, assumedly sent by the team, and Allura shows that she’s still working. She explains what she’s doing, shows a hint of nervousness. So the respectful thing to do would be to stay quiet so that she could focus, or reassure her in a way that would be helpful. Instead, he’s just a distraction, and it ends in him backing off, realizing he was being a bit of a nuisance, and Allura giving him a death glare. Five seasons, and two seasons of their development in. 

As for the two times Lance has majorly supported Allura, the body language and conversational topics of which are exceedingly similar, both were emotional. They were about reminding Allura of her responsibility and importance (which, how important it is for Princess “the universe depends on me” Allura needs to be reminded of which can vary from situation to situation, although I do think Lance made the right call both times). Both conversations revolve around a third party love interest that Allura is struggling to deal with: in the first, she feels like Shiro has become her enemy. In the second, she knows that Lotor truly is, and her faith in her own judgement has been shattered (and even then, she doesn’t blame ‘Shiro’ or show any regret in trusting him, soo... that’s That). 

Compare that to how Allura reassures Lance in 3x02 when Blue is rejecting him:

A: Lance, what’s wrong? L: I don’t know, Blue’s shutting me out. Maybe Pidge was right. I am just the goofball. Not only am I not meant to be the leader, I guess now I’m not even meant to be a paladin. 

And this resonates with Allura, because hasn’t this been her journey in this episode too? Pidge called her “the decision maker” and yet Black doesn’t accept her. She goes to Red next, because “How can I allow others to risk their lives in battle and not be prepared to do so myself?” and her father’s Lion rejects her. And yet when Lance is given what she actually wanted, when she still has nothing, Allura doesn’t hesitate at all. She doesn’t show any hurt from Lance basically laying out her own insecurities on the table of a situation that’s already happened to her, and that he has now decided means that he’s not a worthwhile member of the team. She’s emotionally cognizant enough to focus on the mission even when Lance doesn’t, and starts making an immature jab at Keith, even while the team are basically fighting for their lives.

L: What was that? A: It’s the Red Lion. You must go to it. L: No way. Keith probably trained it to bite my head off. Maybe it’s roaring for you. A: I would love nothing more than for that to be true, but I know the Red Lion is not meant for me. It is choosing you. L: I don’t understand. A: My father built Voltron but he knew Zarkon was a better leader in battle, so he became Voltron’s right hand. Lance, when you accepted Keith as the new leader of Voltron, it proved that you value a strong team over your own need for glory. Just like my father. L: I won’t let him down. A: Go.

She creates an emotional base with Lance, and talks about her father, because after all, it was his Lion, but ultimately brings Lance back around to the mission through both personal and professional praise. It sets up a mindset of him supporting Keith, instead of against him. She states Lance’s good qualities, shows him that he’s worthy of her father’s Lion. She shows no ill will whatsoever in Lance receiving what she wanted and was deemed unworthy of, smiling even before it’s revealed that Blue is choosing her.

Lance, although accepting of Blue’s decision, is still clearly saddened by it and says “If I had to lose Blue to anyone, I’m glad it was you.” Changing Lions is still a loss to him, even if it’s a technical gain to Allura. So while Allura is capable of supporting Lance emotionally and professionally simultaneously, Lance? Not so much.

But wait, you say. What about when he inspired her to charge up Voltron at the end of s4? And yes, he did, but once again, let’s take a look at the actual dialogue of that scene: “There’s a reason the Blue Lion chose you. You’re the one who brought everyone together. You can do this. Every moment we’ve had together, they’ve all led to this day. This is your destiny. You are the heart of Voltron.”

Lance largely repeats her words from the pilot back to her (especially the destiny phrase), but he still keeps it personal. He ties it back to their Lion. He keeps the emphasis on Allura, and her alone. He invokes destiny, an idealized emotional concept. He talks about the sum of their experiences. He calls her the Heart. And once again, this was clearly an emotional experience for her, given the grateful look on her face and the fact that she takes time to thank him, afterwards. 

So while the value of Lance’s emotional support cannot and should not be understated, we never see Lance seriously stepping up to take weight off her shoulders. We never really see him share the burden of leadership. The only season he comes close to doing so is in season three, and even then, that’s not the type of relationship he has with her. He has it with Keith, who he supports as a leader (largely by going along with Keith’s plans or cleaning up Keith’s messes, but still). And even then, Lance isn’t a co-leader with Keith. He’s a right hand, a second in command. The distinction can be subtle, but it’s still important. And even then, it means degrading Allura to third (maybe even fourth) in command behind people she used to be in charge of. Great.

And as Allura says after restoring him in 6x01, “I owed you one,” is a concrete description of their relationship. Allura helps Lance deal with a new Lion; Lance helps Allura deal with a new Lion. Lance saves Allura from a blast, Allura brings him back to consciousness. Lance helps Allura emotionally, she compliments him. Lance comforts Allura about with Lotor, and Allura places a hand on Lance’s shoulder after he breaks down crying about Shiro. Their relationship is an obligation, and never would have happened if the real Shiro had been in the picture for s3-6, because the show knows, subconsciously, that Shiro was her pillar of support in s1/2 and someone needed to fill that void when he was gone.

I’ve talked before about how what Allura really needs in a relationship is a devoted partner and equal, in both her professional and personal life. She doesn’t need someone who’s going to crack a joke, or flirt, or distract her (or be distracted). She needs someone who sees she’s struggling, and offers to do half the work. She needs someone who’s going to step up and match her in her work ethic.

And I think that that, along with being Altean, is one of the things that attract her to Lotor. Because in him, she finds someone as fascinated by Altean history and alchemy as she is. They spend hours working on the sincline ships together, they’re mutually complimentary, she gets to carry on her father’s legacy. I’ve long thought that an important part of Allura’s arc will be her deciding to make her own path, instead of just trying to follow Alfor’s, but that’s another post for another day, as we’ve seen with Lotor, imitating Alfor can often lead her astray.

Because the problem with Lotor? He supports her professionally, not personally. He lets her work herself to the point of collapse before calling the day quits. He always brings up her father to further his own desires. I’ve written before about Lotor and Allura’s relationship (in s5, as it was post s6) on both sides here. When she cries and doubts herself, he does nothing to comfort her, and only her tears landing on the compass stone salvage the situation. Lotor consistently emphasizes that he cannot do things without her, and when you look at their alchemic projects, or relationship, and pay attention to who does what for the other, it is constantly Allura giving all the time. She helps Lotor achieve his dreams, build his ships, patch together his empire. You could argue that Lotor reaffirms her worth as an alchemist, but she’s the one who figures out how to get them into Oriande, how to get past the guardians, how to get out of the booby trap. She never needed him to begin with, except for the tracking crystal.

And even then, it’s clear that Lotor had another motive, for himself, for unlocking those secrets. There is nothing that Lotor does simply for the sake of being there for her, or caring for her, or at least, nothing that doesn’t also ultimately benefit him (and we see this come to a head in s6). Lotor represents the side of Allura she pushes towards to ignore the way she often neglects her emotions until she can’t anymore. He is cold, and entirely work focused, and taking, never giving. He is the professional side she would let herself break under, if there was no one there to pull her back.

What Allura needs is not a partner who can only commit to her emotionally, because as much as Lance might like the social life of a king, he’s far too attached to his family and doesn’t have the attention span nor patience to handle the politics and paperwork that would come with it. Nor does she need one that only pushes her professionally, as it would just lead to her never taking care of herself, or feeling frustrated that her partner isn’t pulling their professional weight in their relationship. Allura doesn’t need someone who supports her but doesn’t understand her. She needs a partner on equal ground, who gets what she’s going through better than anyone, who can support her but also challenge her, who can and has always respected her boundaries and compliments her in every way.

So, in other words: Shiro.

My supportive Shiro series is a basic catalogue of all the times he’s supported her, as allur@nce is the ship that gets lauded as being so supportive and... not only is it really not, but also, imagine waiting two seasons for your ship to have any interaction beyond invasion of boundaries and annoyance? Can’t relate.

We’ve all written meta about the Hand Touch, so I won’t go over too much here, but what is notable about 2x05 is that after Allura collapses in a life threatening situation that Shiro cannot control, he spends the rest of the episode doing his best to take care of her. He takes charge, leads the team, never places a burden on her shoulders, and stays by her side throughout it, even when she tries to blame herself.

A: It’s me. It’s been me [whose been tracked] all along. S: It doesn’t matter princess. We’re in this together, we’re gonna get out together.

He doesn’t say that she’s wrong. He says that even if she is being tracked, it doesn’t matter, because they are still in this together. He constantly takes the weight off her shoulders whenever he can, lets her have the final say on all matters that she’s around to actually weigh in on. 

And as I started this meta before s6, I won’t be touching on either s6 or s7 in detail (although they continued the previous patterns, with the two times Shiro supports Allura again is addressing her personal fears through a professional lens, and then professionally again on Earth).

But really, which man would you want, even by just going off each one’s first interactions? The one who catches but flirts with you when you’re clearly distressed, the one who terrifies you and nearly kills you, or the one who calmly and immediately offers help (when seconds ago he was saying they all had to be on their guard) and never wavers for even a second afterwards?

Honestly? It’s hardly a competition. It’s just too bad that VLD’s decided to rig the game.

[austarus]

Timeless!Harrison Wells x Reader - White King, Black Queen

*A/N: The picture/edit/gif does not belong to me. It belongs to its rightful owner.

**Please don’t forget to comment, like, and reblog. It means a lot to content creators of all kinds!

***I’d also like to thank @grimtamlain-writes​ for being my beta reader.

MASTERLIST

Word Count: 2267

You narrowed your eyes as the city continued to bustle, noise from people and cars emitted in the air. Clouds hung sparsely over Central City as the waning moon took the place of the sun high in the sky. The wind blew a light breeze through your hair. You kicked a leg back and forth gently as you sat on the edge of the STAR Labs tower wings. Your other leg was bent close to your body, an arm resting over your knee. The height didn’t scare you so much as it used to. In fact, you didn’t mind being so close to the edge anymore. If you fell, then you fell. Truth be told, your powers would save you whether you willed it to or not. Some would say it’s a curse, others not so much. Your umbrakinesis acted like a defense mechanism at those times. A sigh left your lips as you straightened up your back, cracking it. Relief echoed through your body, but your heart felt heavy. Time is ticking... You knew what was happening downstairs, Gideon had alerted you when someone entered the Time Vault. It wouldn’t be completely wrong to say that you didn’t want to face him – couldn’t get attached since he’d been here. Not again. Staying up here was your way of avoiding that problem until… Until what, though?

The hair at the back of your neck stood up, a chill ran down your spine as your shadows alerted you of a presence a distance behind you. Turning your head slightly, you sent an icy look to the one person you dreaded to see. The face of the man you had seen pass one too many times. Their looks from their final moments imprinted in your mind for this one to come back. He was the last thing you had of them.

Harrison Wells.

A small smile was on his face, his hair tousled with his clear-framed glasses perched on his nose. He knew you’d be up here. The others told him you’d been up here since his reincarnation into the world. Since he’d made contact with Team Flash to help them and explain his predicament of currently living. But really, Harrison would have known if no one had told him. He had sensed it. Seen it – the images flickered past in his brain. The other versions of himself with you up here – the foreign familiarness that he personally did not experience.

But nothing more than a dreadful reminder of what’s past.

“I’ve come to say good-bye,” the genius started in a soft voice, wanting to approach you carefully. Your glare bothered him, yet he knows it shouldn’t, for once Harrison leaves, he will be united with Tess, the love of his life. Over and over and over again.

You snorted, turning your gaze to the stars that twinkled away from the clouds. You could see the constellations of Cassiopeia, winking brightly light-years away. “Such a shame, you could have helped them with Godspeed.” A bitter laugh left your lips as you recalled Nash showing you how to recognize the constellations and where to navigate from there. Sherloque would drink his tea up here with you and converse about his cases. HR would read to you his latest ideas and novels while you gave your input. You would drag Harry out of his lab to get some fresh air. And Eobard… he was the one who showed you this view, before Barry had woken up, before the Particle Accelerator had gone online.

“Team Flash is more than capable of handling threats on their own.”

“I take it you think that having a Wells must be a handicap, hm?”

“I never said that.”

“Hmph.”

“I couldn’t leave without telling you good-bye.” You pressed your lips thinly and Harrison continued, pocketing his hands in his dark coat. “It didn’t feel right to go without saying that.”  The night was getting colder, yet you remained out here in a thin jacket. Dare he say, he worried a bit?  You turned to fully look at him from your seated position. “I… won’t deny the sentiment I feel towards you. The memories of the past Wells. Their thoughts – well, previous thoughts – and feelings are still here.” Harrison had gestured to his head then placed a hand on his heart. Bile rose at the back of your throat as the smiling images of the boys hit your mind. You bit your lip hard as he spoke, “Each one of them felt strongly for you, but I’m not them. They’d want you to move on. To live-”

“No!” Your patience snapped, standing up rapidly with expert footing. Shadows went rampant in the night, wind howling in his ears. “You don’t get to say that!” Darkness immediately consumed the atmosphere and air around you both. Unbridled anger licked up in your heart and soul as you took heavy steps towards him. Harrison couldn’t see, but he could feel the moving darkness as he stood his ground. “You have no right to act all high and mighty towards me.” A hiss left his lips as a dark particle lashed at his arm, burning through his coat and marring his skin just as he heard your anger burn in your next words. “You don’t understand the strings that fate has chained me with! Nor will you ever understand my burden.”

***Flashback***

“What is it that you want?” You glared at the entity. The Monitor had appeared in your kitchen as you were pouring yourself some alcohol to enjoy your quiet night. You had taken some time away from all the heroes and villains running around.

“I came because I require your assistance for the Crisis.”

“Pass, I’m not in the mood to play the hero.”

“The point is not to be a hero or the villain, but to honor fate’s will.”

“Well fate can go hump a stump for all I care,” you sipped on your choice of alcohol, you turned away from the eternal entity only to find him in front of you right as you had exited your kitchen. A deep frown crossed your features. This is such a drag.

“Fate has bound your life to Harrison Wells the moment you first met him years ago.”

“False, that was Eobard masquerading as Wells. So, technically no.”

“That technicality may be so, but fate saw the speedster as your gateway to the rest of them. Without Thawne you would not have been so tied to Harrison Wells’ existence.” Rolling your eyes, you took another sip, already knowing you’d need a couple of glasses to forget about this interaction. “Your life is bound to his. To them.” The Monitor had you right where he wanted you, pushing images into your mind to allow you to see reason. “You were a lover.” You flinched as the image of Eobard appeared in your mind. “A partner.” Harry. “A friend.” HR. “And a confidante.” Sherloque. “Now this one needs you as well, he is in danger of himself with the Anti-monitor. My opposite entity.” You knew he was referring to Nash, the multiverse explorer with the haughty attitude and snarky comments.

“…”

“You are the anomaly that exists in the multiverse, there is no other in your position.” The entity saw the hesitation flicker in your being. “The time has come for you to be his protector.”

***Time Skip***

Nash panted, on the ground of this desolate land on his hands and knees. His mouth felt dry, tasting iron in his mouth from the blood on his split lip. How much longer can he endure this? The Anti-monitor continued to laugh at him, to mock him, for his weakness. Pariah gripped hard at the dirty snow, blood and mud defiled the pure whiteness. He couldn’t get back up. His body ached. No matter how hard Nash tried to push back, the Anti-monitor was too strong for him even with these temporary powers.

“Humans are such fickle beings,” the anti-entity spoke in a grand manner, “Soon the multiverse will be mine and there shall be no flaws. No humans to corrupt my domain.” The eternal being gathered his divine power into the palm of his hand and fired anti-matter at his appointed Pariah. The one to bear witness of the end of the multiverse. His curse.

Nash shut his eyes; this was the end. This was his end. A breath left him, what he expected to be his final breath. But the final blow never came. Ringing greeted Nash’s ears as he opened his eyes. Standing in front of him, shielding his body was you and your dark powers. For whatever reason it withstood the anti-matter as particles clashed against one another. You stood defiantly and gracefully in your fighting positions, conjuring your dark spectacles from every shaded corner.

“Don’t you dare touch him, you fucking monster.” You growled, your hands working magnificently to bind the Anti-monitor down. Once bound your umbra became spears and swords that pierced through the entity. While it could not kill the Anti-monitor, it slowed him down – meaning it would slow down his assault on Nash. You needed to get him to safety, needed him to have enough strength to teleport you two away from this dimension. And that’s exactly what you convinced him to do when you grabbed him, hugging his injured body to yourself as he fought to stay conscious.

***End Flashback***

“You don’t understand what loss truly is! You don’t get how hard it is to move on from this.” Just as you had moved, so had Harrison. A dagger of darkness at his throat, clenching the front of his cloak as he held a dagger of light to your own throat. Harrison  gritted his teeth as he used his powers to light up the area in his green light. “This pain, the misery of losing over and over and over again. To bear the burden of fate’s strings only to watch them all fall.” He flinched at how the veins around your eyes had darkened to a charcoal color. His throat dried as fear hit him. Harry’s memory flashed into his mind – the memory of you in this state, accidentally killing a meta in self-defense. “You’re just a selfish man, running away from what’s in front of him.” Harrison’s light battled against your darkness to keep the physical manifestations of umbra away from harming his body. “I despise people like that.”

“I’m only doing what’s best for me.”

“By what, Harrison? Running to the past? What’s in the past is best left in the past, those who hold on to the past don’t appreciate the present.”

“Such hypocritical words coming from someone who sulks around up here for what once was.”

“You don’t fucking know anything about me. All you have are some second-hand memories, but you don’t truly know me and what I’ve been through. You’re just like Barry.”

“And you’re any different?”

“At least I know the difference between reality and a desperate dream.”

“…” He knew Tess is doomed to die for time to flow, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t cherish every second with her until it was time. Maybe he was a desperate man chasing after a desperate dream, but he would until the bitter end. For Tess.

“A Time Loop is just a miserable notion for you to see Tess when her destiny is already a fixed time point. Just like Barry’s mother. Their deaths are absolute. Even with your Timeless powers you can’t interfere with what’s set in place.”

“That may be so, but I’ve fulfilled my part here – at least I have someone to return home to, even if they are doomed to die. I could be by her side over and over again.”

Harrison’s words pierced your heart, you pushed the tears back. The ache in your heart throbbed at a greater rate. At least… he had the power to return to his someone… The genius saw the haunting dejection in your eyes, the way your shoulders quivered as you tried to keep yourself together. He regretted the words that left his mouth…

“Do as you please,” you whispered, loosening your grip on his jacket to let him go. The darkness dissipated as you walked back to your perch with pocketed hands. “I’m done begging…” You mumbled to yourself so quietly that he didn’t catch your last statement. A tear left your eyes as you stood tall where you once sat.

“Good-bye,” Harrison murmured to the wind drifting in your direction before turning and leaving. A part of him felt torn by the things he had spat at you. What’s done is done. I doubt I’ll be back here any time soon. Clenching and unclenching his hand, Harrison shut his eyes and summoned his powers to pass through time. Tess, I’m coming home.

“Good-bye, Harrison.” Another tear fell, this time you wiped it as the night continued. He was gone. They were gone. You were alone, once again spectacularly alone and cold.

The pieces are all in place. The time has come…

Time still ticked as seconds went bye. A voice whispered at the back of your mind; the presence residing there since his exorcism. The one that kept you company through all this.

“It’s time, my queen.”

Checkmate

[sanchoyo]

tmm new liveblog part...2 !!! ep 7-12!!! got home sooner than expected so we are finishing TONIGHT!!!!! >:3c if u missed ep 1-6 liveblog its here!

obviously, spoilers...for this and the og series since I compare and contrast a bit at the end (I give my final thoughts at the end for the new anime overall, too!) ^^

EP 7

-OHHH the aliens new ship design looks Interesting. I see theyre just floating outside of Earth instead of some kinda inter-dimensional pocket area like they were in the original? Neat. the ship still looks super sparse, which, is weird imo. I get that on a meta level filling it w objects would take time and budget from the team doing this tho. but also I want to see their personal rooms or whatever. what do they eat. what do they do all day when they arent being menaces. -ik it happened in the original but its still very funny that deep blue basically grounded kish hahah. get grounded loser (affectionate) -ichigo's strawberry bento bag is so cute -ichigo BOOKING IT AND LEAPING A RAILING TO THANK AOYAMA FOR THE HANDKERCHIEF LMAO -and then her just awkwardly clutching his back for a full 30 seconds. I imagine he was like 'wtf' -masaya 'i cant figure out my feelings At All bc ive never Felt Them Before Now' aoyama and ichigo 'i feel SO Much So Intensely All The Time, loudly' momomiya are sO Fucking Cute I cant HANDLE anytime they speak to each other. glad aoyama initiated the next date!! -MINT LOSING HER MIND OVER ZAKURO IN UNIFORM. YES. THE GAYS. -cafe mew mews redesign is so cute -zakuro sucking ass at being a server but still being beloved by customers. gay icon -aoyama having an Ichigo Sense whenever shes nearby….I wonder if that has to do with the. U Know. her being a mew and him subconsciously reacting to her powers. am I thinking too hard abt this. maybe. -her goodluck charm is soo cute pls. -ichigo n aoyama smacking the shit out of wasps with sticks together. why was that so iconic -WHY DO the chimera anima ALWAYS fucking knock aoyama down. ik its prob bc theyre after ichigo who is Often Near Him but it makes me laugh every single time. get u a bf whos always a damsel (and also sometimes possessed by the big bad! he has the range) -aoyama lying to ichigo and saying he doesnt recognize her to make her feel ok…bc he sees shes distressed and not ready for him to know….king!!! i KNOW he knows. pls. be less cute u two

EP 8: -my god, showing ichigo's crush on aoyama then mints crush on zakuro directly after. really hammering it home. we GET IT they are IN LOVE. -lettuce scaring the shit out of some punks I am Losing My Mind. the fact dudes like that even walked in this ultragirly cafe…pls -supposedly environmentally minded cafe mew mew goes on a cruise, smth that is notoriously Bad for the Environment. lol -aoyama whipping out those environmental facts on the fly..once again I am saying autistic king. -PUDDINGS SIBLINGS!!! CUTIES. and they gave one of them a sort of personality. thats fun -and her lil sailor hat i am crying shes adorbs -not lettuce being infused with a porpoise and getting seasick awww…poor girl -wait are all the girls (sans ichigo) wearing each others colors in dresses…thats so CUTE I love their dresses -lettuce being SO good with puddings lil siblings further enforces my headcanon that shes a teacher as an adult. fuel for me personally -ichigo u got a MAN ON LAND. getting COZY with shirogane on a BOAT. the scandal. (really tho…dancing is fun! esp with nice music! its ok to have Fun queen. I feel like ryou rly didnt even Think abt what he was doing except trying to give his employee a nice lil time since shes not used to this kinda thing) -and also, he doesnt seem to have a sense of personal space with ANYONE, lol -the ocean turning BLOOD RED and the entire shipped being rocked from giant fish monsters. this is my literal nightmare. ur stuck on a boat, nowhere to GO. HELL NO. I will never be caught on a cruise ship. nightmare fuel -the amount of times mint/ichigo fall on each other or crash into each other. dare I say it again. ichimint can still win -PUDDING TART MEETING FINALLY. THEY ARE SUCH CHILDREN. -pudding holding that fish jaw open. her POWER -BRO THAT FISH SNATCHED A CHILD. -lettuce's dive then transformation sequence was def my fav so far. beautiful animation! -did …lettuce just see a glimpse of the alien's civilization going down?? Ohhh the lore..the plot thickens…when she got close to mew aqua too. hmmm!! thats a new mew aqua power! interesting! taking notes! -YESS MERMAID FORM GOOO -YESSS LETTUCE BEING THE FIRST TO FIND MEW AQUA. she looks SO good -PUDDING BROKE THAT FISHES JAW -of course it was regular orange juice…girl did u think he actually spiked it with like. magic. -ryou is such a nice boss sometimes. pls. im not even a huge ryou/lettuce shipper but theyre cute…

EP 9: -aoyama trying to deny ichigo was his gf when the friend gave him tickets but dude. ur friend never said who he thought ur gf was. u just immediately thought of ichigo. shes totally ur gf lol -did not expect to see seiji again. hm. nice surprise hes so involved with mints life ig, just. surprised -mint u absolutely cannot leave for america. what in the world. i feel bad tho bc the mew thing isnt gonna be forever and this would help but also. mint ur RICH rich. u can prob get any job or college u want bestie -ICHIGOS PJS NOOOO THEYRE SO CUTE. her heat shaped chair and strawberry pillow too!! -all the girls gawking at aoyama like hes a zoo animal. i do the SAME THING when my friends tell me they like someone LMAO theyre so real for this scene. nosy queens -then all of them GOSSPING PLSS LMAO -keiichiro side eyeing ryou while all the girls are looking at aoyama. he sus. rightfully so -THE GIRLS ARE SCHEMINGGGG. and it being zakuros plan. obsessed -THIS IS MY MOST FAVORITE THING EVER. THE BEST 4 WING WOMENS IN THE WORLD -MINTS MAN VOICE/CONSTRUCTION COSTUME PLS -nooo old ladies lettuce n pudding…. crying over this entire sequence -ZAKURO AND AOYAMAS ENGLISH. -god they are all such good friends to each other <3 -ive never been so pissed to see kishu. ever. AOYAMA WAS TRYING SO HARD TO WORK UP HIS NERVES AND BEIN SUCH A BRAVE BOY. i hope kishu drowns in the river theyre walking by -god damn aoyama damsel AGAIN its EVERY EPISODE WITH THIS BOY. and I eat it up every single time. pathetic wet boyfriend guy real -kish…u realize if ur trapping them together…theyre gonna bond?? -aoyama clearly not wanting ichigo to have to be a mew bc he doesnt want her to be hurt…oof :( but shes STRONG she can DO IT king just trust her -all the girls attacks look so clean and so nice -either the cafe is SUPER far away from wherever aoyama was going or hes the king of Slow Walking

EP 10: -god damn I love the aliens new ship design SO much. its a creature! -kish is officially ungrounded. good for him I GUESS. -ohh, the tokyo tower stuff! is the season finale going to be a 3 ep long thing?? Very Cool -god damn the tension between aoyama and ryou. lmao -does aoyama just always grab ichigo's wrist when hes nervous? I was joking shes his emotional support cat, but, like, she kinda is -ichigo did u just run off with his jacket LMAO -lord she didnt even kiss him and she turned into a cat -def prefer the old anime's version of cat ichigo. smth abt this new version looks…off?? uncanny?? -oh my god francis IS Back. im Shook. out of all the characters that u didnt need to bring back. u bring the fucked up pervert cat. im losing my mind -ichigo's regrets as shes sinking are so funny im sorry queen -wait her being at risk to stay a cat and becoming more catlike in that form wasnt a super big issue in the og, was it? it seems more dire and time sensitive in this version, in the original it felt a lot more jokey -ppl asking mew mews for help over the government is SOO real. me asf -zakuro on a motorcycle. amen to that brother -from aoyamas POV..ichigo ran off with his jacket, then…he finds it in he river….he must be thinking she just fucking chucked it away LMAO -like he for sure knows shes mew ichigo, though, and noticed the bell?? i mean being a superhero then turning into a cat is a big mental leap ig he'd have no reason to assume its her…the whole sequence is so funny -return of aoyamas dog! my god it acts like like my dog with my cat. being jealous. so real -aoyama sleeping ON THE COVERS and not under them. yeeeep, if anyone watching this didnt see the original this should be the point u realize hes a fucking alien for that one. what in the hell was that toe shot. -his littol jammies tho PLS. if ichigos cat form wasnt so…weirdly uncanny this would be a lot cuter. but also, ichigo, dont kiss him without consent? hello? u know how that feels. even if he does like u back! -the rest of the mews searching desperately, well aware that thousands could die. ichigo, having a crisis bc her crush is cuddling her lap in his sleep. the stakes have never been so high

EP 11: -the aliens posing for the helicopter camera HAHA -no way…mint and zakuro on a motorcycle together….the rituals...they are intricate….. -oh more alien lore -WHAT. did they change it from them being from earth originally??? they…said their HOME planet is no more than dust storms and heat (lava??) now….thats NOT EARTH??? ohhh. interesting. dont think I like that choice…bc them being originally from earth and humans being descended from db explained why the aliens look so humanoid!!!

-perhaps the concept of them being from another planet is a lie the trio was told? (I am def thinking too hard abt it. but also why would mew aqua let her see that? ? activity from a non-earth planet?? why does it suddenly have that power??? its MAGIC WATER.) -oh my god the underground/cave cities!!! fucking line up with my fanfic/headcanons!!! I am Living -PLSSS BABY ALIENS THEY ARE SO CUTE LITTOL PATAOTOES -I do wonder why their planet chose to send (3) children. like its assumed pie as the oldest is prob not older than 17-18? right? and kish is assumedly 15-16, tart is DEF puddings age….they took an entire ship! (that from the one room weve been seeing looks EMPTY, altho maybe thats their. um. special deep blue contacting room?? ?) I wonder how many ships they had to work with, is that the only one? were they entrusting 2 teens and a child with their only ship?? surely not right?? are a lot of the older ppl sick and cant make the trip/fight, or are they busy and too vital to go, so they send the younger ppl so like, child soldiers=less risk if they happen to fail and die?? its like…a Lot of responsibility, so im Wondering. i doubt we will ever get these Answers…but I want them. (and ik the meta answer is they need to be close to the mews age for pairing purposes lol) -so if im understanding correctly, the aliens plan is to kill all humans (who they consider to be ruining the planet, ofc) then…wait on DB? so they assume DB can fix whatever they fuck up with the planet? or the aliens just simply arent affected by the pollution, which they dont seem to be, but they need the planet clean..ish... to grow food, and have livestock, right? interesting. kind of do wonder in an au where the aliens Won, WOULD he have done that, like actually been able and willing to unfuck the pollution stuff? we never really got much insight to him except that he hates humans, so maybe he wouldve? -ohh the aliens going after civilians is SMART. divide n conquer yk. maybe theyve been reading the art of war -boy if u dont shut up with those percentages -kishu stop fueling mints crisis!! fuck off!! im also indecisive as a person so it felt PERSONAL -oh zakuro got CLOSE close to tell mint not to worry rn <3 -ryoukitty…..ryoukittykissy. pls. he just LAYS INTO HER after too. I love how they squabble. they are so funny. masago is my fav but ryouigo is also p good, honestly. I like it for the same reasons I like ichimint...(but ichimint is above ryouchigo bc better colors together, and gay. sorry ryou) -god ichigo dodging that lil birds nest while running was such a sweet little detail!!! and her saying she appreciates life more since becoming a mew and that she wouldnt have met her friends…I nEED A MOMENT IM EMO ABOUT THIS -and her running thru that office. so fun n cute -that one intense rock sounding song they have in the ost that plays as ichigo arrives?? Im obsessed -oh god i feel so bad even knowing whats going to happen. aoyama is gonna just be WAITING. pls no. the secondhand feelings I get from that are so bad. ive been there buddy, being stood up sucks </3

EP 12: -oh my god, in the og anime kish broke her phone, which is BAD, but this time, a chimera ATE IT??? THATS SO MUCH WORSE IMO. at least with the broken phone most companies have insurance, u could prob easily get a new one!! how do u explain a MONSTER ATE UR PHONE. -god damn kish still is a lil crazy huh. i love that and respect it. itd be boring if he was nice but up until now he rly hasnt been a Huge Menace. but some of the faces hes made so far this ep. Yeah! truly a ManYandere -YESSS THEY KEPT THE BIG OLE MOTHS DESIGN BASICALLY THE SAME. one of the most iconic chimeras for sure -im glad ichigos lesbian bffs told aoyama how bad things were, bc he is hyperfocused on Waiting And Thinking abt Ichigo he didnt check any social media or news outlets at all until now ig. most ppl do that while waiting around these days I think. -sorry ik its serious and im tense even knowing itll be fine but ryous voice coming out of masha made me laugh -'your modified bodies can withstand the pollution!' (that would kill everyone else) ok but would this premise not make for a fun fucked up apocalypse AU?? only the magical girls survive AU…. -ichIGO ATTACKING THE ALIENS DIRECTLY!!!! QUEEN YESS GOOO. GET THEIR ASSES -'GET CRAZY' -ICHIGO 2022 -HYPEST SEASON FINALE -mint making her choice to stay in japan bc of ichigo….ichimint win!!! -sorry, where did tart get BOMBS?? I miss the aliens old weapons, ngl -god the ost is SO good I keep saying it but the moment mint is rising up the tower and everyones covering her?? what kind of epic symphony… -LESBIAN ATTACK!!!!!!! SHE LAUNCHED HER INTO THE SKY!!!! i AM OBSESSED -mint being the first to use the mew aqua rod!!! im so happy for her!! and its BLUE!!!! oh it looks precious. theyre all gonna get to use it arent they!! at some point!! thats so great!!! -tho ichigos fun lil spin in the og series was my fav of course, this is still very pretty -the mew aqua rod being a …masha form… is not my fav new thing tho….I LIKED the implications of it being smth ancient from the og anime! oh well -w- I can still pull more from the og anime than this one for my fanfics hahah -aww, I like the strawberry rods new design! I still like the og more I think, but this one isnt bad or anything!! and the attack was amazing tbh -ryou almost had a heart attack. my headcanon of him greying before 20 is real. -ichilettuce pose near the end. cute -….I was fully expecting the blue knight to show up during that fight. season 2, I guess?? -zakumint momence near the end….sweet -OH M Y GOD THEYRE PLAYING THE SONG FOR THE FINALE. THE S O N G. A slowed version, too!! NOPE. i am weeping. I just got hit by 40000 tones of nostalgia -they didnt have to do this to me. AGH -PLEASEE MY GOD I CANT HANDLE THIS. THEYRE SO SWEET. SO TENDER. he 100% saw her ears and was being polite by covering them. -NOOO HES CRYING TOO. THEYRE SO CUTE. HE DOESNT EVEN PRESS FOR AN EXPLANATION EITHER. -and a deep blue tease! ok! kind of expected as much. OOF THOUGH that my sweetheart got me so good im still reeling. the girls mustve lost their minds when they heard that. im girls.

-overall thoughts:

-VERY good!!! there were times the animation got wonky, but that happened many times in the og anime too, so. eh. this one at least kept mostly stylistically similar, whereas in the og the faces style could change WILDLY ep from ep. this one was more like, quality changes from scene to scene but still roughly the same style. which is fine, I know how budget and time restraints are. its Understandable.

-there were other things I def liked better in the og, too, like the outfits n transformations, but the colors here were amazing, the costume colors esp worked super nice when all the girls were in the same shot, they looked awesome together!

-I love that each girl will assumedly get a turn w the mew aqua rod! and it changes color to suit each one!

-I loved the OST. So Much. def gonna have to listen to each song again

-and all of the masago moments were REALLY cute. idk, ppl who know me know I love them both a lot in the og anime and the ship. but this one, it rly felt like they let aoyama be more..shy?? I guess?? it was CUTE. also he was a damsel far more, which was also cute. really, I love Strong Catgirl GF and Awkward Normie Shy BF. (normie for NOW. season 2 when)

-the pacing was nice (I do like the og animes fillers, but I can do w/out them! it still felt fleshed out enough! things happened at a really nice pace when u watch back to back, not sure how it wouldve felt waiting a week between and digesting them more?)

-I didn't super love the changing of the aliens backstory from earth to some rando planet, or masha being the mew aqua rod?? or something?? but those are SUCH minor nitpicks honestly.

-I loved how scheme-y the girls got together. their friendship is so sweet and the best thing from the show for me. mint being the og and ichigo not being like, The Leader (yet?) but all of them feeling pretty equal standing is Nice. they rly seem like real friends and I love just. how supportive they all are of each other!! I rly do feel like they work so well together by the end of the season as a team.

-im glad they kept the animation pretty silly and let the girls make goofy funny faces!!! like, they were still cute/pretty in a lot of shots, but they kept the Silliness and Antics at a Max Level. they felt their age if that makes sense. I appreciate that

-like I KNEW what would happen, but the OST and lighting/color schemes on a lot of the scenes made me like. Genuinely Feel Panicked or Excited!!! (of course I was excited to watch)

-my god 'my sweetheart' got my blood PUMPING HEART RACING AT THE END I COULDNT BELIEVE IT. AAAAH!!!

-when is season 2 I need it NOW!!! Im still glad I waited to watch, bc now I have fanart to go thru :3 and I didnt have to wait to watch the next ep, waiting for s2 is gonna HURT. I want it SOON.

[unforth]

A Non-Definitive and Certainly Incomplete List of the Differences Between the Qianqiu/Thousand Autumns Danmei Novel and the Donghua

@blacktigersprings commented on one of my Thousand Autumn Liveblog posts, asking about the differences between the donghua thus far, compared to the book - they'd seen the 16 episodes, but hadn't read it yet. After I wrote down what I could remember I was like...ya know what, I should just make all this into a post.

This is non-exhaustive. I am a tired person with a bad memory and a lot going on, so I am sure I forgot things. I'm gonna ping @baoshan-sanren since they're the main person I know who is in Thousand Autumns fandom also, and I'm willing to guarantee they will think of things I didn't, and also probably be able to correct me if I mixed anything up. I'll try to edit this based on new info, if I have the time, and I might post it as meta on AO3? I did that with my list of differences between CQL and MDZS and people found it helpful so...yeah. I'll add a link if a do.

Note that all posts like this rely to some extent on interpretation; what I write reflects my interpretation and understanding of events (...to the extent I remember them...) and others may have read/watched the same sequences and reached different conclusions. I've made specific notes where I think I'm raising a point that's more subjective than others.

This contains spoilers for all 16 episodes of the donghua, and for the equivalent parts of the novel. I did my best not to put in novel spoilers for past when the donghua ends, but there are allusions to subsequent events.

Anyway - vaguely in chronological order of when they happen?

(read more)

Overall, the basic premises of the donghua and the novel are pretty different. In the donghua, there are several primary conflicts - the intrusion of the Beimi/Tujue, the competition over access to the Solarity, the competition between different sects' top masters, and the search for that ring that Yan Wushi has. In the novel, these are all things that exist, but they're not the primary plot, and they're all at least somewhat difference. While the novel has multiple plotlines that focus on different things, looking at it as a whole, the main plot is a political one about control of the Empire, and how different sects are pulled into that conflict as a result of how the Emperor relates to Confucian, Daoist, and Buddhist sects. Which tradition each sect follows is much more important and relevant in the novel. The Beimi/Tujue plot is still relevant and involved, but it's just one thread in the political milieu. The Solarity, which has different and long name in the novel that I never remember - it's like, "the complete works of (some master who's name isn't in my brain" - is in six volumes, and it's definitely still important, but it's importance kinda fades as the novel progresses (though it's still a main piece at the point where the donghua leaves off). The ring is basically non-existent in the novel - instead of it being in Yan Wushi's possession, it's in the possession of the woman who's birthday party Shen Qiao goes to (...Madam Su? Might be her name? I'm sorry, I'm not great with names, and I usually rely on fandom wikis but this one is sparse) - in the novel, she was a disciple of Hulugu, and then she stole the ring and returned to the Empire. That other Beimi/Tujue disciple (...Dong something??) takes it back and returns with it to his clan, if I recall correctly, so it can be used to unify those clans to make war against the Empire.

In the donghua, Yan Wushi is just...generally portrayed as pretty nice, and the YanShen vibes start pretty early - there's an early sign of playful flirting from Yan Wushi that actually seems sincere? At least it did to me. As a result, the YanShen vibes feel a lot stronger than they do in the novel at a similar point in the narrative. In the novel...I'd personally say Yan Wushi has zero interest, romantically or sexually, until well after where the donghua left off, and their relationship isn't canon until nearly the very end, and is always left more implied than...outright. I would personally say that in the novel, Shen Qiao has some feels for Yan Wushi pre-Sang Jingxing, but Yan Wushi doesn't reciprocate (except maybe at a deep level he refuses to acknowledge). It's not until he's healing post-almost-dying (as in, during the time immediately after when the donghua leaves off - I'm trying to be vague to avoid giving spoilers to people who haven't read it) that there start to be some real clear signs that Yan Wushi may have caught some feels, and even then it's complicated. They're complicated. They're also complicated. It's part of what I love about them, lol.

In the donghua, the fight between Shen Qiao and Kunye is shown "on screen" instead of only being described afterwards, and it's revealed almost right away that Shen Qiao was poisoned. Also, a lot of people help Kunye and they all fight Shen Qiao together. In the novel, this fight is off-screen. It's strictly a one-on-one battle between Shen Qiao and Kunye, and the reader doesn't learn that Shen Qiao lost due to poisoning until Shen Qiao goes to Mount Xuandu to confront Yu Ai.

In both the donghua and the novel, when Yan Wushi is trying to turn Shen Qiao evil, he sets up a mission for Shen Qiao and Yu Shengyan, The object of this mission is to kill a family that serves the Hehuan Sect. Shen Qiao refuses to participate, and helps them escape. In the donghua, they don't actually escape, and the "they serve Hehuan" thing turns out to be a ruse; they actually serve Yan Wushi. In the novel, they're actually Hehuan spies, and Shen Qiao still helps them, and they actually escape.

(RAPE MENTION TRIGGER WARNING) In the donghua, Chen Gong betrays Shen Qiao when that jerk noble whose name I can't remember right now (and it's not in the wiki, god the wiki is so slim, I wish I had time to help with that) hunts him for sport, and he doesn't want to die. In the novel, Chen Gong betrays Shen Qiao when that same jerk noble, who as a reputation for using pretty boys as sex slaves, tries to kidnap Chen Gong as a sex slave, and Chen Gong is like, "no no you don't want to fuck me, I know someone WAY prettier for you to rape." (The fall out remains the same in both - Shen Qiao beats up the guy, nothing bad happens to him, and he and Chen Gong part ways).

In the donghua, Shen Qiao goes to confront Yu Ai at Mount Xuandu by like. Literally walking up to the front gate. And then all the disciples for some reason get mad that Yan Wushi comes, even though he...also walked up to their front gate. Why do they even have a gate??? In the novel, Shen Qiao uses a super sneaky back way, only known to disciples, and so it actually makes some kind of sense when Yu Ai et al are like SHEN QIAO WHY ARE YOU SHOWING THE EVIL GUY OUR BACK DOOR?

(NOTE this one relies more on subtext and thus is very open to interpretation. What's written here reflects my personal interpretation, and others may disagree). In the donghua, when Yan Wushi hands Shen Qiao over to Sang Jingxing, they have a chat that heavily implies that Yan Wushi is kinda-sorta-not-so-secretly thinking that Shen Qiao could win a fight (and is probably expecting Shen Qiao to do so by using the demonic core that has been implanted in him). Sang Jingxing also says things that indicate that he thinks that Yan Wushi is setting a trap for him. In the novel, while it's never all that clear what Yan Wushi's motivations are, it becomes pretty clear by the point of the Sang Jingxing fight that Yan Wushi was serious when he said he didn't care about Shen Qiao, didn't consider him worthy, and doesn't care what happens to him. He definitely handed over Shen Qiao with every intention of Shen Qiao getting tortured and raped, and had no interest in saving him. Shen Qiao only becomes interesting to Yan Wushi afterwards. Yan Wushi is never only playing one game, so he may have thought that being pushed into a corner would force Shen Qiao to use the demonic core, but it also seemed to me like he genuinely didn't care - he'd gotten bored, and was done playing with the "new toy" that was Shen Qiao.

In the donghua, there is a shot of someone - the clothing is pretty unmistakably Yan Wushi's purple robe of ultimate purpleness - pulling Shen Qiao out of a river after he plunges to his almost-demise in the fight with Sang Jingxing. In the novel, Yan Wushi doesn't pull Shen Qiao out of the water, after Shen Qiao destroys his meridians in the fight against Sang Jingxing. Instead, Shen Qiao collapses in the mountains, where he is found by Shiwu and brought back to the monastery for treatment.

In the donghua, Yan Wushi is fighting the four masters who have it in for him, and before the end of the fight, Shen Qiao arrives and tries to help him; he fights the four masters solo to try to keep Yan Wushi from using his powers and harming himself, and when he's about to lose, Yan Wushi...uses his powers and harms himself. In the novel, Shen Qiao doesn't arrive until after Yan Wushi has been defeated; he finds Yan Wushi almost dead and brings him to a small village nearby, where he stays with a nice girl and her...grandfather, iirc...and tries to keep them safe while nursing Yan Wushi back to health.

In the donghua, it's kinda implied that Shen Qiao goes to rescue Yan Wushi because, like...he likes him? There's not really a reason given, just that he wants to, or maybe to keep the ring from going to the Beimi/Tujue? In the novel it's pretty explicit that Shen Qiao goes to save Yan Wushi because he believes Yan Wushi's position in the Empire is critical to the stability of the world - and he wants the world stable, so that there won't be more refugees, starvation, etc. That he also may like Yan Wushi is the case but is almost incidental; Shen Qiao is focused on doing the most good for the most people, and that means saving Yan Wushi, because Yan Wushi is critical to the Empire, and the Empire is critical to the common people. (this is a major part of the political themes that are more prominent in the book than in the donghua).

I can't actually remember when Bian Yanmei was introduced in the novel? But I was pretty sure it was around when Yan Wushi sends Shen Qiao to that birthday banquet? Anyway, Bian Yanmei isn't in the donghua at all thus far; in the donghua, Yan Wushi's only apparent disciple is Yu Shengyan.

[bookshelf-in-progress]

Writer asks: 2, 5, 6, 7, 18, 20, 21, 23

2. Tell us about what you’re most looking forward to writing – in your current project, or a future project

In the "Princess and the Pea" story, I'm looking forward to writing some of the intruder's interactions with Auren. He is nothing like what she expects, and it'll be fun to see how her biases shift. And it'll be fun to see Auren with someone his own age in his own time period.

In the Marastel story, I'm looking forward to writing Marastel's moment of triumph--whatever it is. I've just figured out the character arc here and I think I can make something interesting out of it.

5. What character that you’re writing do you most identify with?

When I write Marastel, I have to be very careful to make her into her own character, rather than just a mirror of my own introverted, patient, anxious, and insecure sides. All my POV characters tend to mirror some aspect of my personality or moods, so that's always a struggle, but with Marastel more than most.

6. What character do you have the most fun writing?

Rilya is always a blast. I love writing self-assured, flippant characters who say whatever they want and are never more than 50% serious at any given moment. She's so easy to write. The dialogue just flows.

7. What do you think are the characteristics of your personal writing style? Would others agree?

Oh, boy. I don't know. Sparse description. Worldbuilding woven into the story. Casual dialogue. People getting emotional and talking about their trauma. A bit of snark mixed with a lot of romanticism. Maybe?

Would others agree? You'd know better than I would.

18. Do any of your stories have alternative versions? (plotlines that you abandoned, AUs of your own work, different characterisations?) Tell us about them.

When I did @awesomebutunpractical's character questionnaire, I became mometarily obsessed with an Arateph AU where Tanza was in Jemrauth's situation as reluctant ruler of the world. She was third daughter of the king, who preferred academic pursuits until she suddenly became crown princess. After she became queen, she became ruthlessly practical, enacting whatever decisions she thought best with little to no concern for other people's thoughts or feelings, and stoking the fires of revolt from among the populace and her nobles. They called her "The Queen of Thorns", because that's the meaning of her name and a good description of her prickly nature. (Her name was meant to reference a flower, but a slip of the tongue on her naming day changed the meaning, stripping away the blooms and leaving only the thorns).

She had no interest in sharing the throne, and reached her early thirties without a hint of a paramour. Until she traveled to Kepha and met Auren. He stumbled on her when she was wandering a tomb garden, and saw a softer side of her that she keeps hidden. They continued to interact, he started to introduce her to a non-cynical view of the concept of virtue, and she started to think that maybe people can be decent. People thought Auren was crazy for liking her, but he insisted that she had hidden depths, and she proved him right. She eventually married him--caring nothing for what people thought about her marrying someone from such a low branch of a low house--and though there's some struggle to conceive at her advanced age, they do have a daughter, who goes through the whole Sleeping Beauty story of the original.

20. Tell us the meta about your writing that you really want to ramble to people about (symbolism you’ve included, character or relationship development that you love, hidden references, callbacks or clues for future scenes?)

"Out of the Tomb" has tons of Biblical references. Most of the Great House names are inspired by the twelve apostles. Lord Rimath comes from Joseph of Arimathea, as the person who entombed the Christ figure. The town of Alogath comes from rearranging the sounds of Golgotha.

And then there are the references to other Sleeping Beauty stories. Carabos, of course, comes from Carabosse of the Sleeping Beauty ballet. The town of Roshen was derived from the German name of the fairy tale. And for other references--the hat chase game was taken directly from a suggestion of Chesterton's.

21. What other medium do you think your story would work well as? (film, webcomic, animated series?)

The story of Marastel and Jemrauth's courtship was partially developed when I undertook the imaginative exercise of structuring it as a musical. There's an opening number outlining their parents'/employer's expectations of them ["Expectations"]. A song that contrasts the fake romance Jemrauth has with Rilya with the real, but secret, relationship he has with Marastel ["Sparkle and Glow"]. There's a dramatic moment as the act break. It never got further than that, but the imaginary songs remain a part of my understanding of their story.

The "Princess and the Pea" story...live-action would be weird, since tephans are in the uncanny valley, though of course I'd love to see it play out onscreen. It's too sedate and talky for animation. I've suddenly considered the idea of radio drama, and while I'd prefer to see images, I'm fascinated by the idea of turning this voice and language obsessed universe into a sound-only story. Could we do sound layering things to make the naming tongue words have actual layers? There are some interesting possibilities.

23. What’s the story idea you’ve had in your head for the longest?

Overall, it's still A Beautiful Tomorrow, the Ruritanian-ish story about the teacher and the prince. I'm unlikely to do anything with it, since it's too Hallmarky, but it's still there taking up brainspace. There's also my one complete novel, a sci-fi "East of the Sun, West of the Moon" that I think of every once in a while. (Actually, just today, since praise-the-lord-im-dead's story made me realize that maybe my climax wasn't quite as dumb as I realized. Still dumb, because she set up hers much better, but not completely unrealistic.) I sometimes consider chopping it down to the good parts, because there are pieces of the character arcs I liked.

[padawanlost]

Ik you focus more on prequel meta than original meta but what are your thoughts on Luke’s relationship with his aunt and uncle? Like obviously they raised him and loved him and he was torn up about their deaths but like we never see him properly mourn them other than like one scene, and I find it interesting that they raise him to call them aunt and uncle, as opposed to Bail and Breha who raise Leia as their daughter even if she is aware she’s adopted

As you said, the OT is not really my ‘area’ but from the top of my head, I can think of a few reasons that could explain this:

1 – Beru and Owen raised Luke as their nephew because that’s what they were. Unlike Bail, they had no idea Anakin was the father of twins who needed to hidden from Vader and Palpatine at all costs. Obi-wan told them to raise Luke and the Lars had no reason to lie about who Luke was or where he came from because they didn’t know better. Besides, it would have been awkward to explain a weeks old baby to the neighbors and friends. Same goes for Bail and Breha. They knew about the twins past, but they also knew people were aware they wanted a child. So, in their case, the adoption lie was a perfect fit. Anyway, I don’t think Luke calling Beru and Owen aunt and uncle means he had a less loving family relationship than Leia. I think what we have is a situation where content creators are less interested in the ‘boring’ Lars farm life than they are about the Organas political intrigue. It’s much easier to explore Leia family life because it’s easier to insert familiar characters, places and sw tropes in those stories. Beru and Owen only had constant contact with one main character (Luke) and mostly stayed on their farm. Not nearly as exciting as the drama going on in Alderaan and Coruscant. 

2 – In the end of the day, Luke Skywalker was the main male hero of a 70s movie. if today’s heroes aren’t allowed to break down in realistic manner (they are only allowed sparse single tears and stoic behaviors), can you image how it was 40 years ago? Luke found his home utterly destroyed and the charred bodies of the only family he ever had and his reaction was a quiet and respectful sadness. Not the traumatic, breaking down that would probably occur. As someone who survived a house fire I can promise you it’s not the kind of thing you can brush aside. 

Again, not saying Luke didn’t *feel* the loss, I’m saying he wasn’t allowed to show it in ways today’s audience would find realistic because of the time period the character/movie was created. 

Leia, as a woman, was expected to be sad about it in a way Luke never would. But let’s be real and admit even Leia’s reaction to destruction of Alderaan wasn’t properly explored by the movies. So I don’t think it’s a matter of them not experiencing the trauma and grief, it’s a matter of George not wanting to explore that aspect of the characters on screen. He was focused on the larger picture but, thankfully, the EU did fill some gaps by exploring how the loss of their families affected them.

[jonkentisakid]

Superman #29 Review

tl;dr I actually liked this issue. Giving this book a fair and unbiased shake, I’d say, under normal circumstances, i.e. Jon being a kid, I would continue picking it up. However, because Jon isn’t a kid, I hope this book bombs.

PKJ has written Superman in Future State, but I didn’t read any of it, so this is my time reading his work, and I’d say it was a good first issue. A writer’s first issue on a book is like their thesis statement or mission statement, showing their readers what to expect and how it’ll play out.

PKJ put together a tight issue. Some people thought it was decompressed, but I really didn’t get that. The actual story/plot is a little sparse, I’ll admit, but the point of the issue wasn’t necessarily to tell a complete story, it was to set the tone and feel of the run going forward. The only way I could say it was decompressed is because there is a part two coming up in Action Comics that would essentially be the second half of his thesis statement.

The way the issue plays out it could be divided into sections, and I could very easily see those individual sections be decompressed into entire issues by a master of decompression. Luckily, not only is PKJ a competent writer, he’s also very respectful of the readers’ time and money and gives them their money’s worth.

The issue starts with no dialogue, just narration (of which I’ll address the potential meta-writing in a bit), but there is an actual conversation between Clark and Jon that I felt was well-intentioned but very misinformed before the book finishes with narration. There’s a lot of telling and not showing in comics of late, but I think PKJ was capable of showing and not telling.

Also featured in this book is Amanda Waller, who seems to be plotting something that’ll tie in with the Suicide Squad book which is also tying in with Teen Titans Academy. I appreciate the coordination between the books in Infinite Frontier, but for some reason DC is really underselling it and not really pushing the fact that there’s going to be a lot of interconnectivity between books going forward.

Now, onto the meta-writing of the narration. The narration is about a golden age where kids are naive about their parents not being invincible, which parallels a fight with space aliens that goes swimmingly for Clark and Jon, and how that golden age comes to an end when kids first learn about their parents’ mortality, which parallels a second fight with the aliens where Clark gets an injury and for some reason that upsets Jon.

I can see how some could read it to be about Jon being aged up, and I’m not entirely blind to this reading either, but the narration paralleled the action a little too closely for me to conclude there was some ulterior meaning to it. The part about the golden age coming to an end just doesn’t seem to be anything more than the theme PKJ wants to explore.

What really irks me is the conversation Clark has with Jon. I stated earlier that it was well-intentioned, showing how the hell Bendis dragged Jon through would have affected him, but it focuses on all the wrong things and, worse still, misinterprets them. This is PKJ’s attempt to try and justify and validate Bendis’ “contributions,” and he really tries his best, but it just doesn’t work and he should’ve never attempted doing it.

The long and short of it is that Jon is afraid that his father will die and he’s not ready for that to happen. Jon starts out by saying that he doesn’t like being called Superman and isn’t ready to be Superman, which I find odd because DC literally published three comics two months prior to the release of this issue where those two things were very much the case. Either way, the reason Jon feels that way is because he doesn’t want Clark to die and is struggling to accept that fact, something all children sooner or later have to deal with.

PKJ really tried something here, and I’ll give him credit for it, and I’d like to see it explored further, but this isn’t the story to tell when you haven’t addressed the real issues such as the Jon’s trauma of not only literally losing seven years of his life, but being tortured that entire time, and Lois and Clark having some of the most formative years of their child’s life stolen from them. Ultimately, it just felt too angsty, too forced, and very unnecessary.

I do want to point out a piece of foreshadowing that I think a lot of people missed and it has to do with the second to last page.

Clark is flying against space, representing the space-oriented stories he wants to do with him, and Jon is flying against the sun, representing the more earth-bound stories that’ll be told with him. PKJ isn’t going to be writing both Action Comics and Superman forever. After an unnamed Superman event, PKJ will continue writing one of those books and someone else will be writing the other, so this is a visual representation of what you’re going to be getting in the Superman books in the future.

*Side Note: In Infinite Frontier #0, PKJ claims Jon “came of age” when he was with the Legion, which is such a load of horseshit.

Below the cut I’ve included what I intiially wrote about Clark and Jon’s conversation that I felt wasn’t quite accurate after rereading it multiple times, but it isn’t necessarily lacking in credence, so I wanted to keep it for posterity.

First, PKJ makes Jon’s preoccupation be about his father’s alleged eventual, and for some reason inevitable, death, and not the seven years’ worth of torture Jon suffered on Earth-3, especially when those seven years would’ve under normal circumstances been his actual coming of age*. Further, Jon apparently learned this information from the Legion, something that was neither depicted nor mentioned in Bendis’ LoSH. I never read Bendis’ LoSH, so I can’t confirm this, but from what I understand nothing of the sort, or just about anything in fact, happened in that book.

Second, not only did PKJ get Jon’s preoccupation wrong, he makes Jon just brush off the fact he was tortured for seven years. Clark tries to get his son to play coneyball, a game Jon made up when he was a kid, but Jon says he doesn’t remember how to play it because it’s been so long. PKJ mistakes Jon’s time with the Legion with the reason why he is seven years older than his proper age.

Seriously, PKJ just glosses over the real issues, like all the time with their son that was stolen from Lois and Clark, in favor of the manufactured angst that Jon isn’t ready to lose his father because he dies and Jon isn’t ready for his dad to die and to become Superman in his place.

Did PKJ not read Super Sons of Tomorrow, a story where a future version of Tim Drake goes back in time to kill Jon because Jon kills a bunch of people in that Tim Drake’s future and the combined forces of the Teen Titans and the Titans of Tomorrow prevent that future from happening? Does PKJ not know that Jon already knows that the future is not set and there is no fate but what we make for ourselves? By traveling back in time, in both instances, the course of history has already changed so that the dark futures will never come to pass, and Jon has no reason to this anxious.

This seriously lends credence to my theory that DC actively tells new writers to ignore everything that happened in Superman Rebirth and Super Sons in favor of some mandate they’re not allowed to tell anyone.

[sulfurousdreamscapes]

What: NSA agent who spies on people is chosen for a special duty.

How long: 1,000 words

Genre: Weird fiction

CW: None

— 

Night shifts at the National Security Agency have an unmistakeable clamminess to them. Maybe it's your body telling you that if you clicked just a few pixels away, you'd be classifying this woman as a terrorist and locking her up in some lightless cell, far away in a place no one's ever heard of.

Maybe it's just the AC. Could be both, really.

"Angela, you've been summoned." The whisper coalesced into an order. I spun around and stood at attention. It was the Co-ordinator, a man who looked like he belonged in a snake's scales more so than his lanky suit.

"Yes sir." I nodded. The Co-ordinator's glasses were bright blue, reflecting my own computer screen, its private conversations staring at me in the eyes. I licked my lips. "It's been an honour, sir."

While he said nothing, I contemplated how slick his skin looked, like an amphibian's. Then he clicked his tongue. "Likewise, agent."

The NSA's inner clergy met in a boardroom with enough pencils to build a substitute bed of nails. Blue suits, black suits, grey suits, colourful military decorations, and white skins. They sat me at the end of the table, but the priests at the other end brought their seats nearer to me.

"At ease," the Director ordered. He could raise his eyebrow so high, I could swear he plucked it off before going to sleep. "Angela, the incantations are almost complete, so we've lifted your security clearance. If you have any questions, now is the time."

I opened my mouth, which immediately got every man in the room to hunch forward in expectation. "I just wanted to say that it's been an honour serving with all of you."

The Director turned to the other men. "Gentlemen, if you have any questions, now is—"

General Bennett cleared his throat to interrupt. His eyes were like glass balls, but they had a fire to them.

"Agent," he said as he closed his fist tight, like for a blood pressure test. "I'm terribly sorry about your family. You understand, don't you? After the mark appeared on your forehead, you couldn't be allowed home."

I nodded, smiling. "Of course. They were always a liability."

He nodded, faltering at his gaze. "It's for this braveness that I'm sure you were—"

"Excuse me, sir, time is short, and I have to ask this," CMS Morris of the Air Force butted in, more brusquely than his words would suggest. "You mentioned in your report that the mark appeared after you had a... revelatory experience." He sat forward, at the edge of his seat. "I need to know what that is."

This almost caused a commotion in the room, but the Director silenced it within seconds, shushing the men like children. It gave me enough time to collect my thoughts.

"I've conducted surveillance ops on at least six-hundred and sixty-five individuals so far, sir," I began. "In my work, I've extensively trawled through these individuals' Internet histories. Like, if you were to take... I don't know, Liam Norman, for instance, I knew what he ate, what his meal looked like, where he got it from, how much it cost him... I knew what he feared, who he was cheating, how he looked, how he wanted to look."

"This is pointless," the Chief of Staff threw his hands up.

"Let her finish," the Director insisted, eyebrows working overtime.

I sighed. "And I saw all this from his own expression. Everything he had said, to people, to friends, family, to strangers. Pictures and videos that he had taken, words he had written." I shook my head as I tried to find the words. "When all that expression comes together... it forms a meta-expression. An overarching expression of the human soul."

The men looked into my eyes, not a sound escaping their throats.

"Cave paintings. Oldest kind of expression there is, right? But they're so limited, so sparse. We don't know anything about their creators, other than that they saw bisons and spears, other than that they had hands to print on cave walls. But I know everything there is to know about Liam Norman, and with the technology that's being researched right now, I'll know even more about Liam Norman than he knows about himself."

"That's when the mark appeared?" CMS Morris asked.

"That's when I realised that the whole of Liam Norman's life has coalesced into an artistic expression." I grinned with glee at the men. Sacred, uplifting glee. "He is art. Just by living as he does, he is art, and we, gentlemen, are his private audience."

After a few moments, on realising that I had nothing more to say, the men looked at each other, asking questions without words.

"But if individuals have reached artistic singularity," the Chief of Staff asked, his voice a lot more cautious now. "Then that means that an aspect of... Them has been revealed to us."

"Okay gentlemen," the Director tapped his wristwatch and hurried towards me. "Time's short. The chants are coming to a close, and we need our medium to interface in T minus thirty."

Poor General Bennett wanted to shake my hand, but I was almost pushed out of the boardroom by the Director.

The interface room was small. I'd seen equipment closets bigger than it. At one end was the yawning maw of thirteen computer screens, all of different sizes, their bright blue static hiding the forest of power and display cables behind them.

The pentagram in the centre of the room was lit by candles, freshly replanted for my arrival. My other brothers and sisters joined hands in a near-circle around it, their chanting voices having dimmed to a drone.

I stepped into the middle of the circle and knelt. Once the last voice fell silent, the candles went out and the screens began to flicker.

When the NSA's deity spoke to me, it was through an incision They had made into my forehead. When They held my hand, the pain seared through my skin, muscles, and bones, through every inch of flesh, until I could feel myself leaving it behind and accepting the embrace of the Internet.

[kakuzhu]

and as a follow-up to my post on the country takigakure is in, which I decided to call monsoon country or land of monsoons, here’s a meta post on the general culture and composition of takigakure itself. 

as stated in the other headcanon, takigakure is canonically the only village outside of the 5 main villages (those being, of course, konohogakure, sunagakure, kirigakure, kumogakure, and iwagakure) to receive a tailed beast during the time of the first shinobi war. this act was done by hashirama senju in an attempt to provide a power balance between the strongest villages, which implies that takigakure, despite being in a smaller country and therefore with fewer resources and a smaller population, was in serious contention with the other great nations in terms of combat prowess. it was also stated in anime canon that takigakure has never been successfully invaded despite its smaller size. 

in my meta about the land of monsoons’ environment, I described the natural fortifications that made this possible. however, in this post, among other things, I will describe what cultural expectations set forth by the takigakure people themselves were and why they also heavily contributed to takigakure’s strength and persistence to this day. this also gives some insight to kakuzu’s past and all the many cultural things that went into his assassination attempt on hashirama senju as well as his subsequent imprisonment. 

takigakure apparently prides itself for producing strong ninjas as well as never having been invaded (according to the anime). coupled with the fact that the country itself is very small and presumably poorer compared to the other great nations, therefore, I assume the culture in takigakure is extremely militant and very strict. mind, it is not as bad as kirigakure got, especially the tradition of killing off fellow students upon graduation. this was partially because the takigakure never got that brutal, but also because they had a much smaller population and could not afford such traditions, anyway. in lieu of this, there were few civilians in takigakure; most citizens were shinobi and were encouraged to be shinobi since youth. 

in takigakure, failure was extremely frowned upon and often referred to as a “luxury”. it emphasized typical, stereotypical shinobi values: individuals were meant to be used as tools, and represent the village and should behave appropriately. those that brought back failed missions, commissions, or other bounties were appropriately reprimanded and punished. these punishments ranged from simply being relegated to D-rank missions for some period of time to full out exile and imprisonment depending on the severity. the latter was incredibly rare, and typically, more common punishments were cuts in pay, rations, or additional menial task work added to the person’s duties. demotions were also given out when appropriate. 

ultimately, however, what kept shinobi in takigakure from failing was the culture of high expectations. individuals from takigakure took their roles as shinobi seriously and often had high success and kill rates. that said, shinobi from takigakure were often under a lot of stress, and most could accurately be described as perfectionists. this stress about success, in particular, was due to the fact that takigakure was almost constantly concerned about being invaded and absorbed by one of the other great nations. during kakuzu’s time in takigakure, the village was incredibly sparse but emphasized most of its resources on military spending. by the naruto time period, however, during relative peace, takigakure had loosened its stringent policies somewhat. 

takigakure, ergo, lauded its strongest shinobi and held them in high regard particularly during its earlier years. they are considered true representatives of the village and of the country, and to become so respected, they likely embodied the most core shinobi values. kakuzu, during his time, was publicly acknowledged as one of the strongest takigakure shinobi for his earth spear prowess, as well as for his impressive work ethic, practical attitude, and serious personality and presence. he also fought during the last years of the Warring States Period, which also gave him combat credibility and gave him some authority as a veteran. 

while it would probably not be considered as such in the modern naruto time period, during kakuzu’s time, the order to be sent to kill hashirama senju was considered an honor. this mission not only acknowledged that the elders considered kakuzu strong enough a shinobi to carry out this mission (along with any others that were on it with him), but believed him a true enough shinobi to accept a widely accepted suicide mission. everyone in takigakure knew this would likely be a mission that kakuzu and any allies would not walk away from whole, but the perfect shinobi takes the most impossible mission no matter how bleak. the bestowing of this mission onto kakuzu, therefore, marked him as what was considered the height of shinobi excellence in takigakure. 

this is also why kakuzu was immediately ostracized upon returning to takigakure alive and having failed his mission. now, in my opinion, kakuzu would not have returned to takigakure willingly. my current working headcanon is that kakuzu was heavily wounded in his fight against hashirama, and hashirama, unwilling to kill a downed man, ordered him to be nursed back to relative health and sent back to takigakure to be dealt with there. now, in doing this, it’s assumed hashirama didn’t know the extent of takigakure’s policies---and that kakuzu was sent back forcibly, which I think would make the most sense; I seriously doubt that kakuzu would willingly want to go back to takigakure after such a horrendous failure---because it was considered a huge failure, and on top of it, kakuzu was scorned for being alive after the attempt. he was given the mission to complete or die trying, as is expected of any shinobi. returning alive---and nursed back to health by the enemy on top of it---was the height of dishonor. further, with this assassination attempt and subsequent return of kakuzu by konohagakure’s hand, the takigakure were at a disadvantageous political position against them; not only did they attempt to kill the hokage, but they were done a kindness in return, which meant any repeat attempts would, in their opinion, probably guarantee a full out war or pressure on trade routes, etc.

as a result, kakuzu was thrown into prison, stripped of his rank, and tattooed. the tattoos around his arms are reminiscent of those that were commonly used in the japanese edo period, if my reading is correct, to mark criminals. I’m pretty sure it’s widely accepted in the fandom, therefore, that kakuzu’s tattoos are for similar reasons, and most also agree he was given them in takigakure prison (whether or not this was confirmed in some data book or something, I don’t know). so, the fact that he was given them, along with the fact that he was pitied by the enemy (at least, by his interpretation; hashirama was probably really just trying to be being nice) and having to return alive and whole to face his village, was the height of kakuzu’s utter humiliation. he was degraded here; these tattoos were more akin to a branding, and totally ostracized him from his community---which was, of course, the point. this is just an example of the most severe form of punishment from the takigakure. of course, since kakuzu’s break from prison and the general nature of it, I doubt the takigakure tried to do something as harsh as that again. 

ultimately, takigakure strove to produce shinobi that were the very definition of what it meant to be a ninja: die for your village, be a weapon, and always complete the mission. because of the added pressure of being a very small country surrounded by greater ones, the takigakure in particular had stringent policies that all shinobi had to abide by. this was an effort to preserve the village’s territory, renown, and culture. but these days, takigakure is nowhere near as strict. while they still have high expectations for their shinobi, they do not have punishments as severe as this, and do not deny things such as food or other basic necessities for failure.

other fun facts of the village that are not directly related to the military culture: 

the village sits at the base of a large tree in the land of monsoons, but there are also homes in its very thick branches and in its canopies. treehouses are not uncommon in takigakure, and in fact sometimes provide good watchtower vantage points during wartime. 

takigakure’s prisons are below the ground, in the caverns that run alongside the waterfall that blocks the valley’s entrance and under the river that drops into. as a result, the prisons are damp and usually very cold---a stark contrast to the typical humidity of monsoon country. it was here kakuzu was imprisoned. 

the takigakure also hide some of their most prized possessions and forbidden technique in these caverns. only high-ranked shinobi know the layout of these caverns. otherwise, they are hard to navigate because of the darkness. this is where kakuzu stole the forbidden technique: earth grudge fear when he broke out. 

because of the general heat of the country, most shinobi uniforms from takigakure composed of sleeveless tops, shorts, or other light, breathable material that would not get damp too quickly. 

most monsoon country natives have water or earth-release affinities. 

like all hidden villages, takigakure ninjas have specialized techniques to suit their environment. almost, if not all, shinobi use chakra to repel the constant rain at all times, and many have mastered jutsus to completely disappear in the pouring rain. some of the most unique animal summons also come from the land of monsoons, and the takigakure shinobi probably have the most various and diverse types of summons of any country.

takigakure is not particularly advanced in medical ninjutsu, but has progressed far in medicines because of the vast variety of plant and animal life around it. their medicine to encourage longer life to reliving aches to just curing cold symptoms have grown to be one of their most lucrative exports. conversely, they also have knowledge of incredibly deadly poisons. 

[zuka-themed-username]

Impressions: Spreading Golden Wings / Music Revolution! (yukigumi 2019 tour)

This has been a long time coming, apologies! As I didn’t write any notes at intermission this will be a shorter, more generalized opinion of the Monday, Oct. 14th performance in Kawasaki. It was two days after the ‘worst storm in Japan in 60 years’ according English news, and ‘violent typhoon no. 19′ in Japanese, which, they weren’t wrong. It was terrifying and exhausting, and I cannot imagine having to put on a brave face and perform like everything is totally fine just a day later. Both sections of Snow Troupe did however, and I will be forever impressed. It does not however, make me inclined to enjoy Spreading Golden Wings any more than I am able to, though this may be the first time I buy a blu-ray for the revue. More thoughts below the cut! 

I’ll be popping back into my bullet point format from here. 

This is the Revue’s first performance in カルッツかわさき (Culttz Kawasaki, honestly love the name). It’s beautiful, and reminds me of many new performance spaces - bright woods, streamlined design, open lobby and a ton of stairs. The seat I had is still considered S seki, and was pretty nice, though I’m glad I had my opera glasses.

The program is a nice light blue with just Nozomi Fuuto (Daimon) posing in her primary Music Revolution costume (black & silver w/ huge white gems and metal circles). I wish they had a Maaya Kiho (Kiho) variant or a cover with them together, but that’s totally fine.

I did write some notes on the train ride back to Tokyo, so I’ll be using those as a jumping off point. Note that the day before I had seen Star Troupe’s GOD OF STARS, so many of the notes are phrased comparatively. Spoiler-free until the [s]

Spreading Golden Wings

‘limited set’ 

It’s a touring show, and frankly I’m glad they don’t have to take a lot with them, as they may run into damaged roads on their tour south, but I was still surprised at the sparseness. It didn’t help that the aesthetic was medieval European, which made it look a bit like a televised Shakespeare production. However! This allowed you to focus on the scene without worrying about missing something. Unlike Grand Theater / Tokyo runs where people see a show several times, I would hope tours are designed to be seen once. Thus I’m glad I didn’t leave thinking, ‘oh next time I’ll look at opposite side of the stage, I missed xyz’. 

‘single scenes, no additional side scenes’

This is something that made GOD OF STARS simultaneously amazing and terrible, as there were always 45 people on stage doing something elaborate. Spreading Golden Wings was the complete opposite. It felt old-school, to be sure, but I cannot recall a single scene where something was happening outside of the range of what my opera glasses could see. People could be spaced out across the stage of course, but they were all participating in the same moment. It really highlighted acting choices, especially considering a surprising lack of underscoring allowing you to hear every footstep and breath. The recording of this will flawlessly capture what yukigumi was aiming to project, which will be great to see again.

‘Daimon cackles into and out of a scene’

I will briefly break down the plot and characters in a bit, but there is an early scene where the villainous Vittorio, played by Daimon, enters the room where he is holding Clarice, played by Kiho, captive, and her laugh as she enters was identical to the laugh she gave as she left two minutes later. I thought it was fantastically over the top and well within the aesthetic of the work.

‘Kiho is ... befuddled / confused / flabbergasted -> meta for her character?’

I had a hard time with Clarice in this show, let’s be real. Kiho used her huge eyes to her advantage, looking woefully overwhelmed for the first 80% of the show, and confidently winging it (and therefore vaguely panicked) the last 20%. I would love to hear Kiho’s thoughts on the character, which may be in a Kageki somewhere if someone has the most recent issue.

‘Asami Jun just obsessed w/ Daimon’

I can’t speak for Asami but her character, Falco, gets one of the few solos to solely sing about how everything he does is for Vittorio. If you want to memorize the ‘ために’ grammar pattern do I have the song for you. It felt very St-Just 2.0 but it was still super engaging and later provided some shock value. 

‘few interstitial chorus scenes’

I completely forgot this half of yukigumi had ~40 people in it until they would do a dance to establish the scene. The show starts with quite a long prologue, but I still forgot them completely until they would all pop up again to either establish a new location, tone, or event. It is very reminiscent of hoshigumi’s Elbe from earlier this year. This show  does not require more than a dozen people for the plot, so when everyone shows up in roles clearly not meant to directly impact the story it was quite a surprise. 

‘purposefully better sword work’

There are a few fight scenes / sword training scenes in the show, and the choreography for them becomes increasingly complicated as the show progresses, which was a nice touch. 

[s] Kiho especially makes a dramatic improvement as the show progresses, which makes sense thematically, but by the end she’s legitimately holding her own against otokoyaku who have generally had more fight training (unless she did for Mibugishiden, which I have not seen)

[s] ‘clearly a repro of the 85 show’ / ‘tbh can’t tell what has changed’

Alrighty so it’s time to dive into the core of the interest around this production - the fact that it was originally a taidan / tour back in 1985, and that when this show was announced it was immediately followed up with, ‘we’re rewriting some things to make it fresh for modern audiences’. It was not relabeled in the same way as Elbe was with ‘Once Upon a Time in Takarazuka’, but there was a significant amount of notice paid to the fact that some things would be different. My question though as we went into intermission was, what changed? Reading through the plot on takawiki, the beats are the same. Full disclosure, I am not fluent in Japanese. There is a great chance that it is simply a nuance of language that perhaps makes the motivations behind actions more gray, but it does not change the fact that the scenes still play out with the same result. I believe there is an additional love song at the end between Daimon and Kiho because they sound ~amazing~ and can emote ~so well~ but that was perhaps the only thing that felt fresh to me. Everyone that betrays someone still betrays that person, questionable scenes of consent still look quite questionable, the interesting shift from lady to page boy was still fun to see. But I believe they were the same as before, and I don’t consider acting choices within scenes to allow for ambiguity to be rewrites. That’s just the benefit of restaging a production. Perhaps the chorus scenes were fleshed out, but I was expecting shifts in plot, character arcs, or concrete visual differences in motivation. I would love for a full breakdown of this show once the recording is released at the end of January. 

[s] ‘some spicy scenes, audience was caught up’ / ‘whip scene? :o’

Here’s a brief breakdown of the core plot after me talking around it for 10 minutes 

Daimon plays Vittorio, the lord of an Italian city state of Lago that is always feuding with the nearby city state of Bolzano. He kills the lord of Bolzano, and takes his daughter, Clarice (played by Kiho) prisoner. She of course is not on board with this. When she meets him, however, she is shaken up by his attractiveness, and he declares that she belongs to him now, no questions please. He attempts to force his point, she clumsily whips out a dagger that she loses immediately (sigh), and he is now charmed and attracted, and decides to teach her the basics of sword-fighting which will definitely not be needed later. Meanwhile Vittorio’s old bff/prime minister/secret admirer Falco (Asami Jun) is Not Having It. After clearly demonstrating to the audience his, honestly no other way to phrase it, love of Vittorio, we see that he will do whatever it takes to ensure Vittorio does not become weak in his love for Clarice. 

Various plot things happen that put Clarice in danger and Vittorio saving her / demonstrating his passion for her, and eventually the prime minister of Bolzano (Clarice’s father’s old city state) Guillermo (Kujou Asu), catches on. This results in Vittorio and Clarice being captured, with Vittorio chained, whipped (by Falco!) and leaving without an eye. 

Sometime later, Clarice, now dressed in disguise as a page boy and seemingly willingly with Vittorio, delivers a message to Guillermo from Vittorio, challenging him to a duel.

Vittorio (+1 sexy eyepatch) and Gulliermo (-1 for losing his cool and planning to use poison to win) duel. It is sanctioned by the Pope, who should be busy doing holy things but here we are. Several people jump into the fray after the attempted poison, Clarice shows off her sword skills like a boss, the Golden Wings of Vittorio’s city state arrive, and all is well. There’s a brief bit at the end where Vittorio and Clarice declare their love for each other, and curtain. 

I definitely left out some side plots and characters because I wanted to get to my thoughts on a few main scenes I saw and wish I saw. 

bed scene - early on in the show Vittorio forces himself onto Clarice. Daimon being Daimon leaves a bit of space as she looms over Kiho, but Kiho squeaked, there is no other way to describe it, and I wanted to gasp with surprise. Everyone and their mother had stopped breathing and stared through their opera glasses, collectively releasing it when Kiho went for the knife (after quite a hold - it was clear she had the release point on the scene and leaned into it) 

whip scene - I was like, ‘oh this is scandy what’s going to happen’. It’s not as dramatic/musicalized as 1789, but I was still surprised. The only thing that pulled me out of it was the lack of cuffs on the wall XD. Daimon just held her arms up, shout out to that arm strength. Anytime someone gets whipped it’s pretty intense, and Daimon is great at pulling out strong emotions from pain. The yells, ooooof.

the scenes between the escape and the duel challenge - I really want to chalk this up to my lack of language, but I wanted more scenes between Vittorio and Clarice after their escape and before the duel, as it’s quite clear Clarice isn’t going anywhere. (Even back to her own home city state that she must not be welcome in anymore) I think that would have been a great place to add some softer moments, not just grand displays of affection due to a traumatic circumstance or misdirected force. Doesn’t have to be a coffee shop scene or even a wound-tending scene, but perhaps Clarice working with Vitorrio to account for his new lack of depth perception? Or another sword-fight training scene? I just wanted more Daimon and Kiho but not at the dramatic extremes of this Shakespearean-esque drama. 

All in all, looking back on Spreading Golden Wings I had a better time than I originally thought. I never doubted for a second that yukigumi: top star edition wouldn’t put it’s all into this smaller scale production. Every scene oozed with intention, strong acting choices, and when it allowed for it, beautiful songs and choreography. I only wish the source material was a bit more... nuanced? Though there is charm in it’s clear presentation and design. As I type I waffle back and forth, so I will simply move on to Music Revolution. Once the recording comes out however, I’d love to hear other folk’s thoughts. 

Music Revolution

I f*king loved this revue, and I did not see it coming. I had assumed a scaled down GT/TT revue would feel sparse but I was shut right the hell up immediately. First things first my journal’s incredibly vague bullet points.

‘got more and more fun’

This is so basic yet so true. Usually there’s a slump in a revue for me somewhere, a slower ballad or dance section, but I only got more hype as the revue went on. Spreading Golden Wings felt short due to the generally straightforward plot, but if you told me Music Revolution was 2 hours I would say sure, and I loved every minute.

‘’Music is My Life’ is so damn fun’

Thanks for the detail, past me. But truly, hearing crisp English, incredibly strong and beautiful yukigumi voices, sharp choreography... it was a dream. I was charmed to no end by how clearly Daimon loved that song. This feels like it could be a main theme for her moving forward, or one that comes back quite a bit for yukigumi or zuka as a whole. One of my favorite moments.

‘Lots of dancing, Daimon’s voice almost too strong?!’

This no doubt was bolstered by seeing hoshigumi right before (sorry not sorry) but it felt like yukigumi was dancing so hard all the time. Clearly the folks not in Spreading Golden Wings just went twice as hard for the revue as a result. And Daimon was in the thick of it, matching beat for beat to only then belt some amazing notes. After spending the previous week in hoshi taidan sadness / cheer it was so refreshingly perfect. Her couple of solo moments were mesmerizing, and I’m so glad I can sink back into my yuki love while waiting for hoshi to ramp back up. 

‘amazing music, classical remixes so fun, trumpet and sax go home’

does the orchestra travel with them?? because if so, the f*king brass section went berserk during the jazz dance section and I nearly had a heart attack. It was so off the walls that they have to had recorded it in advance - it was way too hardcore to repeat every show. I wanted to applaud for the solo like you would in a standard jazz concert but alas. 

similarly, this revue has the highest proportion of my favorite thing in revues - classical music remixes. Idk if they are popular but I love hearing the orchestration choices and genres they throw at classical melodies, and what bonkers choreo they toss in there as well. 

‘adlib sections were stronger, lots of space’

While there were not extended sections to adlib an entire scene, there were some spots where the troupe or Daimon run into the audience. As it’s a tour, there is a bit of space in the song for the folks to navigate different sized halls. For this performance, Kiho was singing for Daimon as she jogged through the first floor, and as she made it back up to the stage she went to regard the folks in the first row before realizing she didn’t have time. ‘Ah shoot I have to be back up there the song’s almost done’ she remarked with a laugh as she hopped back on stage to regard a smirking Kiho. It was pretty fun, and it was nice to see her not panicked about it. Kiho had the song covered, there was still underscoring for her to make it back, and she had a charming way of commenting on it. Yay adlib improvement! There are some other places during full troupe dances where they can shout out the city / prefecture they are in, which Daimon and co. were quite inclined to do as she is from Yokohama, the capital of the Kanagawa prefecture where the show was happening. 

I wish I had more concrete notes for this, like I do GOD OF STARS, but I hope this provides a bit of context when you get a chance to see it for youself. It’s not my favorite yuki show by any stretch, it’s honestly probably near the bottom, but it’s not from lack of effort or enthusiasm. It serves a unique role and no doubt checks off some square on Daimon’s ‘how to conquer Takarazuka’ bingo card so for that I’m glad. The revue on the other hand, is one of my favorites. I’ve never had such a stark contrast in my opinion on two ‘acts’ before, which in and of itself is fun to reflect on. I really like where yuki is at right now, and cannot wait to see Once Upon a Time in America. 

Stay tuned for the most overlong and overdue look at GOD OF STARS this side of the Pacific.