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bloededhoine · 4 years ago

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world building cause twn doesn't part 12: the hen ichaer

i realize i've been mentioning the hen ichaer without really explaining it, and for that i apologize. but without further ado, let's go

colour code cause i fucking love colour codes - already happened/introduced, probably s2, important background info, stuff that might be in the prequel, extras

series masterpost

general

the hen ichaer is basically a magical gene that originated with the elven sorceress, scholar, and princess, lara dorren aep shiadhal

it can lie dormant or inactive for generations, but when someone is an activated carrier of the gene, they are called a source

sources have an insane capability for magic, it's so intense that without instruction they are a huge danger to themselves and/or others. remember pavetta's betrothal feast? hurricanes should not happen indoors

same thing with ciri's sonic scream.

obviously, the hen ichaer is highly weaponize-able, but it's difficult to put this into theory since the magic is so strong that it can easily kill the person who carries it

most important is that the hen ichaer can open ard gaeth, the gates between worlds. you may remember that the witcher is a multiverse, and the continent is just one of countless worlds

aen elle

the aen elle, elves who live in another world called tir ná lia, controlled at least one gate that they used to get slaves from other worlds

however, this was before the hen ichaer was seriously studied. unicorns are also capable of opening ard gaeth, and were present in tir ná lia, so the aen elle would kidnap them to be used as their world-hopping-genocide key. yeah, the aen elle are seriously fucked

the king of the aen elle was named auberon muircetach, and he was very well known for his wars with the unicorns, who weren't too keen on being enslaved for the purpose of conquering other worlds

the hen ichaer came into play when auberon noticed that his daughter, lara dorren, had pretty intense magical abilities. like, ard gaeth opening abilities.

auberon, lara, and a few other elves began studying the gene and trying to figure out how it works and how to use it.

through this study is how we got the title aen saevherne, which is used to distinguish an elven mage with extensive knowledge of history, science, magic, and, most importantly, the elder blood.

both lara and auberon were aen saevherne, as was lara's husband-to-be, avallac'h, and avallac'h's foster son, caranthir ar-feiniel

ithlinne's prophecy

ithlinne aegli aep aevenien was an elven prophet known for her incredibly dark prophecies that she delivered at totally random times. how dark were they? ithlinne's prophecies were almost exclusively about the death of all humanity and/or the end of the world. she was fun at parties.

anyway, when we talk about ithlinne we really only mean one specific prophecy, aen ithlinnespeath. to be confusing it's usually referred to as ithlinne's prophecy

here's the prophecy itself:

Verily I say unto you, the era of the sword and axe is nigh, the era of the wolf's blizzard. The Time of the White Chill and the White Light is nigh, the Time of Madness and the Time of Contempt: Tedd Deireádh, the Time of End. The world will die amidst frost and be reborn with the new sun. It will be reborn of Elder Blood, of Hen Ichaer, of the seed that has been sown. A seed which will not sprout but burst into flame. Ess'tuath esse! Thus it shall be! Watch for the signs! What signs these shall be, I say unto you: first the earth will flow with the blood of Aen Seidhe, the Blood of Elves...

what does that mean? well, the white chill (aka the white frost) is a massive ice age that has been approaching the continent for years. don't believe me? the white frost has destroyed countless worlds in the past, and it literally cannot be stopped. the only way to save the world is by the power of the hen ichaer.

here's a perfectly frightening visual of the white frost

ithlinne didn't elaborate on the how, but we now know that the only to survive the white frost is by finding a new world and massively evacuating the continent through ard gaeth, which can only be opened by the power of the hen ichaer.

genetics

clearly, the hen ichaer is important enough to literally save, or end, the world, but the aen elle did a famously terrible job of studying it. like, you'd think they'd be good at that, but no. to their credit, it is a bit complicated

first, there are multiple types of elder blood genes, the main gene, the latent gene, and the activator gene. to actually show the powers of the hen ichaer, someone would need to either have one latent and one activator, or the main gene.

let's go back to secondary school biology for a second, remember punnet squares? these fuckers

the letters in a punnet square represent a genotype, or the two alleles that are inherited from the parents. phenotypes, on the other hand, are what you see on the outside. for example, a genotype would be Aa but a phenotype would be brown eyes.

while the main gene is a simple dominant allele (shown by a capital letter on a punnet square), both the latent and activator genes are semi-dominant, meaning that when they meet they create a new phenotype: the innate magical ability that makes you a source.

it gets a little less scientific here so bear with me; this new phenotype is so powerful that it sometimes creates a whole new genotype. so instead of having one activator gene and one latent gene, the two would merge and you'd be left with only one (very powerful) main gene. this is the only single gene that actually has magic and it's a dominant gene, so you only need to have one to have the power.

but, the latent and activator genes don't always combine. you still have the full powers when they stay separate, but it is then less likely to pass the hen ichaer your children.

complicated? very much so. but in practice it's a lot easier.

for simplicity's sake i'll call the activator gene g/a, latent gene g/L, main gene g/m and a regular nonmutated gene g/r. to be a source, the genes you inherit would be g/a g/L, but they may combine to be just g/m. your average person would be g/r g/r and a carrier would be either g/a g/r or g/L g/r.

clearly, this makes tracking it pretty messy, since generations of people can be carriers without having a single source

tracking the hen ichaer

for now, let's do what those elven sages couldn't and track then hen ichaer, starting with lara dorren

eventually, lara met an exceptionally talented human mage, cregennan of lod, and they were lab partners (oh my god they were lab partners) in the study of the hen ichaer.

for all the studying, lara and cregennan's own genes have always been something of a mystery. elven mages don't tend to have any issues with using themselves as lab rats, so it's entirely possible that lara and cregennan, knowingly or not, mutated their own genes in their research.

ultimately, it doesn't matter what lara and cregennan's genes originally were. by some happy little accident, the two eventually ended up with at least one activator gene and at least one latent gene between them.

later, when lara and cregennan made their own happy little accident, riannon, she inherited one of each gene (g/a g/L), making her a source. however, riannon's genes did not combine as the elves expected, which made her a little harder to study.

riannon eventually met king goidemar of temeria (g/r g/r), and they had two children named fiona and amavet. i'll start with fiona, who the aen elle managed to figure out had the latent gene, making her g/L r

fiona ended up having a baby with king coram II of cintra (g/r g/r), they named him corbett, and he inherited fiona's g/L and one of coram's g/r.

the aen elle lost track of the hen ichaer when they studied riannon's other kid amavet. see, amavet was kind of a whore. he had twins, muriel and crispin, with the married countess anna kameny. obviously, these children weren't legitimate, and when the angry count kameny murdered amavet a few months later, he was officially childless

the elves did, however, manage to figure out that amavet had riannon's g/a gene and goidemar's g/r gene. anna kameny was just g/r g/r, and crispin ended up being g/r g/r as well. destiny does favour the hen ichaer, but sometimes it's just not meant to be. muriel, on the other hand, did inherit her father's activator gene and was g/a g/r.

let's hop back to corbett, fiona and coram's g/L g/r son. he and princess elen of kaedwen (g/r g/r) had a son, dagorad, who got corbett's latent gene and one of elen's regular ones, meaning he was g/L g/r

muriel married robert of garramore (g/r g/r), and their daughter adalia, the dramatically posed lady right there, had the same genetic combination as her mother, g/a g/r

this is where it gets even weirder

the lovely adalia married dagorad. her second cousin. they shared riannon as their great grandmother. feel better in the fact that it was not intentional, adalia's mother, muriel, was not officially riannon's granddaughter. no one would have even known, but adalia's g/a met up with dagorad's g/L in their daughter, calanthe

for the first time since riannon, the hen ichaer was back, and calanthe's parents genes combined to give her g/m g/r

while it took generations of destiny and accidental incest to make the hen ichaer happen again, now that calanthe had the main gene there was a 50% chance she would pass it to her child, which, of course, she did

calanthe and her husband roegner (g/r g/r) had pavetta, who inherited the g/m from her mother. no one knew about this until pavetta literally created a source hurricane, and was already pregnant

pavetta and duny's (g/r g/r) daughter, ciri, inherited the main gene from her mother and was a source.

sources

it's important to note that a source is not necessarily an incredibly powerful sorcerer, merely a person who has the genetic predisposition required to channel very intense magic

sources, like anyone else, can be bad students, allergic to potions, or just generally averse to magic on all levels except heredity. there is also no way to guarantee that even the most willing source will be good at using magic, in fact it's far more common that they will be really really bad at it. sources are extra susceptible to the chaotic state of magic in the world, and many end up pretty seriously harmed by it.

magical talent tends to make itself known in very emotional situations, like the death of a parent or a war. the same applies for sources, but they have an extra rule: their full powers are off limits until they lose their virginities

now, netflix has not mentioned that rule to be true or false, but i'm going to think of it as strictly book/game/etc canon, because ciri is 10 years old when netflix shows her using her source powers for the first time

the virginity rule makes things even more complicated, as customs about premarital sex are pretty strict in the witcher world (well, among nobility), and the dudes didn't seem to have fast reflexes. what i'm saying is that getting pregnant the first time you had sex was not uncommon. sources couldn't even use, and likely weren't aware of, their powers until they were already passing them on to another generation.

and even still, there is no guarantee that someone who is a source will ever actually show their powers. calanthe had the genetics, but she wasn't a mage. what happened? we don't really know. after calanthe married, cintra was pretty peaceful; there were no invasions or massive upheavals that could put enough stress on her to show her powers. plus, her parents didn't know she had any magical powers, so they didn't give her the training that would develop them, and she was a very level headed person who would likely be unaffected by many of the things that would make another source lose their shit.

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immaturityofthomasastruc · 4 years ago

Note

Do you any suggestion for Super Sentai?plz

*cracks knuckles*

Well first off, if anyone wanting to get into Super Sentai watched Power Rangers growing up, I’d check out the series whatever season you watched was adapted from to see how things went there in comparison to how they were in the United States. So if you grew up with the original Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers, watch Kyoryu Sentai Zyuranger. If you don’t know what the Sentai the season you grew up with is called, I’d check out RangerWiki, which provides a lot of information on both franchises.

I’d also recommend checking out a few episodes of the very first Super Sentai entry, Himitsu Sentai Gorenger. Not all 84 episodes, mind you, but I’d just watch a few to see where Super Sentai got its roots from, because the team football attack gets referenced a lot further down the line. Yes, you read that correctly.

But for individual seasons for beginners, it’s harder for me to answer. Super Sentai has varied aesthetically and tonally across its 45 year run. Some shows are dark and gritty, while others are light-hearted and goofy. Some shows have a vehicle motif, while others use animals for a motif. So the seasons I’m going to talk about will cover all kinds of tones and themes across the years. I also haven’t seen every single entry, so these are the ones I’ve seen that I recommend for beginners.

Denshi Sentai Denziman (1980-1981, 51 Episodes)

Centuries ago, the evil Vader Clan conquered and decimated the Denzi Civilization. In the modern day, the talking dog IC awoke from his slumber when the Vader Clan began their invasion of Earth. So IC recruits five people to become the Denzimen to defend their planet and stop the Vader Clan once and for all.

The first three seasons of Super Sentai were very experimental, but Denziman was where Toei started to get an identity for Sentai down. Not only would the black visors and sculpted mouthpieces become a staple for Sentai’s (and by extension, Power Rangers) suit designs, but this was also the first season to really start a few Sentai traditions. It was the first season to have female villains, the first to use a transformation device for the heroes, the first time the monsters grew to fight the team’s giant robot.

The Denzimen, while not really going through any character development, are still very likable characters, especially Denzi Blue/Daigoro (played by legendary tokusatsu actor Kenji Ohba). The villains are also a lot of fun, a real improvement from the first three villain groups, who were all basically Earth-based terrorist organizations and/or death cults. The Vader Clan is full of villains who are just as entertaining to watch as the heroes, especially Queen Hedrian, played by the late Machiko Soga, who would later go on to play Witch Bandora, the character Rita Repulsa is adapted from in Power Rangers. There’s not that much of an ongoing for most of the series, and it can get pretty goofy at times, but it’s still a really good show.

Choushinsei Flashman (1986-1987, 50 Episodes).

Five infants are abducted by the Reconstructive Experiment Empire Mess to use as test subjects for experimentation, but are saved by benevolent aliens from the Flash Solar System. They all spend the next twenty years in the system developing their combat skills and special powers until they decide to head back to Earth to fight Mess themselves as the Flashmen, despite the warnings of their alien caretakers.

The 1980s are usually referred to by fans as Super Sentai’s golden age, with a string of great seasons thanks to famed writer Hirohisa Soda. Flashman is no exception. While Denziman tended to have more stand-alone episodes, Flashman is more story-driven. Later on, there’s a really dark plot twist that I don’t want to give away. Admittedly, some of the special effects can be dated to showcase the Flashmen’s powers in addition to stock footage being reused a lot, but the action and camerawork are still fast-paced and rarely do the fight scenes get boring.

The villains are the kind you love to hate, and their actors all give great performances, especially the late Unsho Ishizuka (the Japanese voice of Professor Oak) as Great Emperor La Deus. This is easily one of the darker Super Sentai entries, but if you don’t mind that, I highly recommend it.

Choujuu Sentai Liveman (1988-1989 49 Episodes).

At an academy for the finest minds in the world, three of the students feel their talents are being wasted on designing a satellite to conduct scientific research. They soon join up with Great Professor Bias, leader of the Armed Brain Army Volt, who takes them all under his wing as his students and generals. Before they leave, they kill two students, leaving their three friends traumatized. Two years later, Volt begins its plan to conquer Earth, but the three friends of the two victims developed their own technology to fight them as the Livemen in the two years since they last saw their former classmates. Bias’ students have developed their own abilities through mutating their bodies, starting a conflict between some of the most intelligent youths in the world while figuring out what Bias’ evil plan is...

Some Sentai fans consider this to be even darker than Flashman at times due to the themes discussed. Unlike earlier seasons, the heroes have a more personal connection to the villains, and act as foils to them in terms of morality. The show also has some surprisingly deep themes at times, deconstructing the harsh standards the Japanese have for education and the effects they can have on people. Seriously, the main villain, Great Professor Bias, sets up a competition for his generals as a way to advance his plans, treating it like a high academic honor.

This series also has some amazing special effects for the time. This was the first Sentai series to have an animal motif, so they go all out by using one of the most complicated models for his giant robotic lion, a stunning innovation for special effects. It was also the first series to introduce the gimmick of combining two robots, which is a genius marketing tactic when you think about it, motivating kids to buy both robots to combine them. Even putting those technical aspects aside, this is still one of the most iconic Super Sentai seasons, and a must-watch for beginners.

Choujin Sentai Jetman (1991-1992, 51 Episodes)

An elite soldier is chosen for a top-secret military project meant to turn him into the leader of a team of supersoldiers called the Jetmen. After he gets his powers, the satellite base is attacked by the Dimensional War Party Vyram. Not only are the four remaining “Birdonic Waves” meant to empower the rest of the Jetmen scattered across Earth, powering four civilians instead, but the soldier’s fiance is killed in the process. So he has to recruit the rest of the Jetmen and form a competent team to stop the Vyram from conquering their dimension.

A lot of Precure fans view Heartcatch as the best series in the entire franchise, and many Sentai fans view Jetman the same way. It was a huge success in ratings and toy sales, which actually helped to save Super Sentai from cancellation after the disastrous sales and ratings of the previous series, Chikyuu Sentai Fiveman. It also had some elements that made it stand out from earlier Sentai seasons. While I’ve talked about how Marinette was forced to become Guardian against her will while the show doesn’t acknowledge it, this show actually does point out that almost the entire team is a group of civilians with no combat experience. Earlier episodes are not only spent assembling the team, but also training them to better fight the Vyram and pilot their giant robot.

The series introduced a love triangle for three of the Jetmen, and while controversial among fans, was very popular with Japanese mothers, who were rumored to find Gai/Black Condor very attractive and begged Toei to not kill him off. The love triangle, while arguably one of the weakest parts of this show (but still better written than the Love Square), was part of the main theme of the team being more conflicted, showing they weren’t all best friends all the time.

This extended to the Vyram, who also tended to fight with each other over their plans to conquer the Earth. Sure, there was the occasional villain in earlier seasons who tried to overthrow the big bad, but this was the first time we had a whole group of villains trying to one-up each other. The best way to describe the Vyram is if the cast of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia were supervillains who were still competent at their jobs.

The series is also incredibly dark, and is often seen as the darkest Sentai has ever gotten. There’s a lot more violence and blood than usual, and a lot more onscreen deaths that aren’t just limited to the villains. Humans are actively killed or hurt in the crossfire, and it shows just how painful this war is. And because of all of that and many other reasons, this is seen as the peak of Super Sentai. If you have to watch a single Sentai series, watch Jetman.

Ninja Sentai Kakuranger (1994-1995, 53 Episodes)

During Japan’s Sengoku Era, a team of five ninja sealed away the leader of an army of Youkai, rendering their kind powerless. In the present day, one of the few surviving Youkai tricks two bikers, who are actually descendants of two of the ninja in the past, into undoing the seal and giving all of the Youkai their powers back. Another descendant of the ninja recruits them into taking on the legacy of their ancestors to fight the Youkai, becoming the Kakurangers.

The 1990s were when Super Sentai was starting to delve more into fantasy elements rather than just science-fiction, and also started to take on a more light-hearted tone. Kakuranger is no exception. It’s a lot more goofy than the other entries, even using comic book-style graphics during its fight scenes. There’s also a narrator who appears to explain the history of the Youkai of the week, a detail I really like. While this show is still unashamedly goofy, it still gets more serious in the second half, but never loses its comedic moments entirely.

Like with Jetman, Kakuranger shows the reality of drafting two civilians to fight a war against the supernatural, with only one of the first three Kakurangers knowing how to fight. That Kakuranger in question, Tsuruhime/Ninja White, is easily one of the best Sentai heroines of all time. Not only was the first female and non-Red to lead a Sentai team, but she was only fifteen years old while the other Kakurangers were in their twenties. Marinette could learn a lot from her, and no, that’s not an insult. Tsuruhime is a complete badass, and a team-up with Ladybug would be the coolest thing ever.

What was I talking about? Oh yeah, watch Kakuranger.

Kyukyu Sentai GoGoV (1999-2000, 50 Episodes)

The demonic children of the Grand Witch Grandiene begin causing natural disasters to bring destruction to Earth in order to revive their mother. In response, five rescue workers who also happen to be siblings are recruited by their estranged father to become a team dedicated to saving lives from the Psyma Family’s actions.

Did anyone ever watch Rescue Heroes as a kid? Imagine that show, but with the intensity turned up to eleven. This show is epic, with amazing action and some of the coolest giant robots in Sentai history. One of their robots is a giant train armed to the teeth with guns. Even putting aside the action, this show does a great job at highlighting all the dedication rescue workers have to their jobs by showing a lot of rescue scenes in addition to having GoGoV fight the Psyma. It even teaches the audience about firefighters from Japan’s Edo Period. There’s really not a lot of shows that explain what rescue workers were like in the past, which shows just how invested this show is in teaching people about rescue workers.

While this wasn’t the first Sentai series to feature a team of siblings (the first being the aforementioned Fiveman), I think it managed to capture the dynamic best. Family is a key theme of the series, with the healthy relationship between GoGoV contrasting with the more toxic environment the Psyma Family has.

This is easily one of the most action-packed Sentai series ever made. It is literally Fire Force twenty years before that anime premiered, and it is AWESOME.

Tokusou Sentai Dekaranger (2004-2005, 50 Episodes)

In the not-too-distant future (Next Sunday, A.D.), the universe has come together to the point where Earth has made contact with several intelligent alien civilizations. However, intergalactic arms dealer Agent Abrella starts to help out the extraterrestrial criminals on Earth, called Alienizers, by providing technology and giant robots to them because he enjoys profiting from crime, and dreams of a world without the police. In response the organization Special Police Dekaranger, or S.P.D., brings together a team of officers to apprehend the Alienizers.

You want to see space cops doing space cop stuff? Then this is the show for you. Admittedly, this isn’t the most story-driven show, but is instead carried by its characters, who go through a lot of development. The Dekarangers have one of the best team dynamics in Sentai history. All of them are very likable characters, and it’s a lot of fun to see them interact. But the best character in the show goes to the Dekarangers’ boss, Doggie Kruger/Dekamaster, a dog alien who becomes a Dekaranger himself, labeling himself The Watchdog of Hell. That has to be the coolest title any superhero has ever had. Dekamaster is another one of the greatest Super Sentai characters ever, taking down a hundred goons in his first battle by himself.

I haven’t even gotten to Agent Abrella, one of the coolest Sentai villains of all time. He’s obsessed with profit and chaos, and he’s easily one of the most sadistic main villains compared to his predecessors. He isn’t some evil emperor who wants to rule the world. He just wants to raise hell and make a quick buck from it. He’s also voiced by Ryusei Nakao, the Japanese voice of Frieza from Dragon Ball Z. That’s another appeal of Sentai, the voice talent. A lot of big-name voice actors have voiced characters, like Mao Ichimichi and Kotono Mitsuishi. Hell, the currently ongoing Kikai Sentai Zenkaiger has Yuki Kaji of Attack on Titan fame voicing one of the main characters.

Dekaranger is easily one of the most popular Sentai seasons out there, as it has a lot of additional material. Not only did the Dekarangers get a theatrically released film like many other seasons before it, they teamed up with two separate Sentai teams, some of them cameoed in the anniversary series Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger, they got a reunion movie ten years after its finale, four of the Dekarangers guest starred in another Sentai series two years after that, Uchu Sentai Kyuranger, which served as a prologue to a team-up with another Toei hero, Uchuu Kenji Gavan, and then that led into the Dekarangers cameoing in another Kyuranger movie meant to be an epilogue to that series.

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Yeah, this is why I haven’t talked about the Sentai movies in this post. You don’t have to watch any of these unless you really enjoy Dekaranger, which you should at least check out. It’s slow at times, but it’s still a lot of fun.

Engine Sentai Go-Onger (2008-2009, 50 Episodes)

The Banki Clan Gaiark have traveled from their home dimension of Machine World and chosen Earth as their new home, but they have to pollute the planet to serve as an ideal living space for their kind. In response, sentient animal-themed vehicles called the Engines choose five humans to partner up with, the five humans in question becoming the Go-Ongers.

Unlike most of the shows I talked about, Go-Onger is incredibly goofy, and I love it. The characters are all incredibly likable, both the Go-Ongers and the Engines. While Sentai had touched upon the idea of treating the mecha as sentient beings, this was one of the earliest series to actually have their partners talk, leading to some interesting character dynamics. The villains are also really fun to watch. While they’re about as competent as Team Rocket at times, there are moments where you actually feel bad for them, especially towards the end of the series.

It’s also really funny. Granted, comedy is subjective, so you may not find the same things as funny, but there are a lot of funny moments in this show, all helped by the actors giving amazing performances. Go-Onger can get extremely wacky at times, like in Episode 31. I’m not going to say what happens, you should watch it for yourself.

What makes the humor really work unlike the last attempt at a comedy-focused Sentai, Carranger, it didn’t really feel mean-spirited by portraying the heroes as idiots by claiming to be “parodying” Sentai. Yes, the Go-Ongers can be dumb at times, but they still take their jobs seriously when they’re not goofing around. There’s not really much I can say about Go-Onger other than it being a bunch of dumb fun. If you’re in the mood to start off with something more light-hearted, I’d check it out.

Samurai Sentai Shinkenger (2009-2010, 49 Episodes)

For centuries, generations of samurai have waged a war against a race of demons from the underworld called the Gedoshu. After their leader was temporarily sealed away for several years, the Gedoshu begin another invasion of the surface while trying to flood the Sanzu River, which grows through human misery. In response, the current generation of samurai, the Shiba Clan, assemble to fight the Gedoshu as the Shinkengers.

This was actually one of the first Sentai seasons I ever watched, as my first Power Rangers season was Samurai. And yeah, while Samurai is a really bad adaptation, I’m here to judge Shinkenger on its own. Admittedly, there are a lot of qualities that can be chalked up to cultural differences, like the whole honor code samurai have and certain plotlines you’d see in a jidaigeki film. The Shinkengers themselves are all very likable characters, and you can really relate to their struggles of being forced into this war (again, handled a lot better than what’s going on with Marinette). All of them have different responses to their situation. Some of them dedicate themselves to wholeheartedly following their lord (Takeru/Shinken Red) or being more vocal in their hatred of their duties.

The villains are also really interesting. Sure, the big bad is pretty boring, but the side villains are just so twisted they really steal the show. Takeru/ShinkenRed gets a rival who serves as a perfect foil to him, representing the idea of why one fights. Even the concept of the Gedoushu is pretty terrifying. Demons from another world hellbent on causing misery to flood our world with their water, which I must point out, is deadly to humans. They’re not my favorite villain group, but they’re a close second.

There’s also some clever plot twists that happen late into the series that I don’t want to give away. Sure, you might have a hard time getting used to the Japanese culture at first, but Shinkenger is still a great series.

Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger (2011-2012, 51 Episodes)

The Zangyack Empire invades Earth and because of their army reaching across the universe, they become the greatest threat the planet has ever had. In response, the previous thirty-four Sentai teams unite to fight them. They succeed, but the attack they used to wipe out the battle fleet stripped them of their powers. A few years later, a group of space pirates come to Earth in search of “The Greatest Treasure in the Universe”. While the pirates couldn’t care less about stopping the Zangyack, they still have to deal with them while searching for the treasure, which is somehow connected to the previous thirty-four Sentai teams. Also, the pirates form their own Sentai team, the thirty-fifth Sentai team in particular, the Gokaigers, who have the ability to TRANSFORM INTO ANY OF THE PREVIOUS SENTAI TEAMS.

For Super Sentai’s 35th anniversary, Toei wanted to go big this time. While the previous two anniversary seasons only had movies that paid tribute to Sentai as a whole, this was the first season where the anniversary aspect was in the premise alone.

The interesting thing is that the series was changed last-minute, and it was totally for the better. See, in March of 2011, Japan’s Tohoku Region was devastated by an earthquake registering at a 9.1 on the Richter scale. To this day, it was the largest earthquake ever recorded in Japan’s history, and that’s not even getting into the tsunami it caused the same day. What does this have to do with Gokaiger? In response to the tragedy, several tokusatsu stars including Super Sentai alumni took to social media to encourage kids to stay positive, and even asked some of Gokaiger’s showrunners if they could reprise their roles in an episode. Originally, there were going to be some cameos from past Sentai heroes, but it would only be limited to the ones whose powers would upgrade the Gokaigers’ giant robot. After this, there were a lot more cameos from Sentai alumni in the latter half of the series. Out of Gokaiger’s 51 episodes, 24 of them were tributes to past seasons. And that’s not even getting into all of the cameos in the movies too.

This was another one of the first Sentai seasons I ever saw, and it really helped me get into the franchise as a whole. It manages to explain things to people who haven’t seen certain seasons, while paying tributes to said seasons and making clever homages older fans will understand. Admittedly, the show does spoil the endings of the older seasons like Liveman and Jetman, so keep that in mind before starting this one.

Even outside of the tributes, the Gokaigers are some of the most memorable characters Super Sentai’s had in recent years. While they aren’t exactly evil, they start off not really interested in protecting Earth and care more about getting the Greatest Treasure in the Universe. The only reason they fight the Zangyack in the first episode was because their lunch was interrupted. A team of anti-heroes in Super Sentai hasn’t really been done before. Even then, there’s an interesting dynamic where some of the Gokaigers have more of a moral conscience than the others. And as the series goes on, they start to care more about protecting the Earth, even if they don’t admit it.

It’s just a really good show, and even if it isn’t your first, I’d check it out.

Zyuden Sentai Kyoryuger (2013-2014, 48 Episodes)

When the alien entity known as Deboss invades Earth during the prehistoric era, another bird-like alien named Torin empowers several dinosaurs into the mighty Zyudenryu to fight off the invading force. After a brutal final battle, Deboss was sealed away, but his army of followers was still growing. In response, Torin started to recruit several humans throughout time into the modern day to become the Kyoryugers.

While Gokaiger was the first Sentai I ever watched, Kyoryuger was the first Sentai I watched every week as it aired, so it has a special place in my heart despite its middling reputation. Yeah, Kyoryuger has been criticized for starting the trend of Red Senshi stealing all the screentime, and while that can easily be applied to later entries like Shuriken Sentai Ninninger and Kishiryu Sentai Ryusoulger (the latter basically made Red and Gold the only ones to pilot the giant robots while the others watched), I don’t think it's as bad as everyone says it is.

There is just an amazing cast of characters here. It’s the first Sentai to be composed of ten rangers (while Dekaranger also had ten, three of them were just one-offs), and it does a really good job at balancing them all out. Yes, Daigo/Kyoryu Red does get a handful of power-ups and can be the focus at times, but the other characters all have their own distinct personalities and are just a blast to watch. I’d honestly recommend watching a few episodes of this show to get an idea on how to do an ensemble cast. If I end up doing the whole “tokusatsu has better toy tie-ins than Miraculous” thing, expect me to talk about how Kyoryuger introduces its new characters and giant robots.

And then there’s the soundtrack. Oh my God, the soundtrack. Sentai tends to have banger songs for their seasons, and Kyoryuger is no exception. “Vamola! Kyoryuger”, “Solid Bullet”, “Kyoryu Gold! Iza!”, “Yuuki Bakuretsu”, “Chou Shinka! Kyoryu Beat”, “Houkou! Bragigas”, and “Senkou no Brave”. So many of these songs are incredibly catchy, and I haven’t listed all of them. The show has a bit of a music motif, so it makes sense for there to be a lot of insert songs.

The one major flaw I have to point out is that you kind of have to watch the theatrical movie (which is only slightly longer than an average episode), in order to understand some of the plotpoints for the season’s endgame, but other than that, it’s still a really good season to start off on.

Mashin Sentai Kiramager (2020-2021, 45 Episodes)

The Dark Empire Yodonheim attacks the planet Crystalia, with the king’s brother betraying him and siding with the enemy. The kingdom’s princess is sent to Earth to recruit five warriors to fight the Empire. The chosen five all possess “Kiramental”, a way of weaponizing their imagination, which they use to defend the Earth’s radiance.

Precure fans might remember this being the season where Cure Star met the Red to promote the latter’s season (actually referring to Cure Star as his sempai), and I can kind of see why. A lot of fans have jokingly compared this season to Precure because of the gemstone motif and focus on creativity, with Juru/Kiramai Red acting like a Pink Cure according to some of the comments I’ve seen in Sentai discussion forums.

This is the most recent season to finish as of this post, and it’s already gotten a lot of praise in terms of writing, characters, story, and managing all of these during the COVID-19 Pandemic and having to adapt to losing five episodes in the process. The characters are very likable, the Red is one of the better ones in recent years with him being more timid compared to the more hotheaded ones, and the villains are also amazing, and some of the best in recent years. Episodes can range from funny to tragic to just plain awesome in terms of writing, with seemingly innocent filler episodes being the source of major bombshells and plot twists.

Honestly, there’s not much I can really say about this show other than check it out for yourself.

But these are just my recommendations. If you do some research and see a season you like, I’d go for it. If anyone else wants me to do these for Kamen Rider and Ultraman, I’d be happy to.

Sorry this took so long.

#immaturity of thomas astruc #iota #not miraculous ladybug #super sentai

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shihalyfie · 4 years ago

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Adventure, 02, and the “secret double life”

Adventure’s concept of “Chosen Children” prophesized save-the-world heroes is hardly unique to it, and given that it ostensibly follows so many fantasy tropes, it’s easy to see it as having a textbook pattern of the “secret identity”/”secret double life” tropes, in which adventure-faring kids keep everything from their parents and society under the idea that if people found out about their adventures, they’d be kept from action or be experimented on.

But as much as it’s easy to see it that way, in fact, Adventure and 02 had a somewhat different view of the matter. Although 02 in particular, with its concept of “wake up, go to school, save the world,” probably gives off the strongest “double life” aura, in actuality, Adventure and 02 both had an underlying sentiment that the concept of keeping Digimon from one’s parents -- and, eventually, the public -- was practically impossible.

(Unless otherwise stated, translations for Adventure/02/Kizuna are from Ryuu-Rogue/PositronCannon/L Subs, respectively.)

The Hikarigaoka incident

The aftermath of the Hikarigaoka incident in 1995 (or, in other words, the Greymon and Parrotmon incident depicted in the first movie) was depicted in Adventure episode 29, in which, as it turned out, was passed off as a “terrorist bombing incident” -- and that kids like Takeru who attempted to explain the situation to their parents were dismissed for imagining things.

The Adventure novels add a bit of extra addition that there might have been some external finagling to make sure things were cleaned up, but even then, things weren’t all that clean-cut. For one, the Hikarigaoka incident was a rather short one that was cleaned up in quick order -- there was a minimal amount of destruction compared to what later events would bring (only a single localized area in terms of collateral damage, especially since Parrotmon wasn’t there to cause wanton destruction), the full brunt of the incident may not have even spanned so much of an hour, and both Digimon involved vanished almost as quickly as they came. It really is just enough that you could sweep it under the normalcy filter of wanting to throw out any supernatural explanations, especially since the kids themselves eventually succumbed to the adults’ explanations.

And yet, even despite that, Takaishi Natsuko still found the Hikarigaoka incident a topic of interest to the point she started doing independent research on it -- especially when a certain incident four years later pushed things far beyond the range of plausible deniability. The novels make this pretty explicit:

Among her normal jobs, a side project that she was working on involved investigating the “Hikarigaoka terrorist bombing incident” four years ago. It was an incident that occured in the very place where they had lived. Not only did it capture her interest, but as she kept investigating it, she found many aspects about it that weren’t acceptable explanations to her. It still wasn’t enough information for her to put into an article or a book, but someone, somehow, had managed to find out that she was working on it and had contacted her wanting to talk. But when the time of their appointment came, the man she was supposed to meet didn’t appear. What was that man’s name? Oikawa? I think? Well, I’m never going to set up a meeting with him again.

So in other words, the fact that she had spotted a rat was somewhat public enough for someone to figure out that she was on the case. Not to mention that said someone had also spotted a rat -- someone who was not possessed by any Digimon vampires at this point, and was merely just an enthusiast trying to reconnect with a mysterious phenomenon from his childhood and dealing with grief for his recently deceased friend. It probably would not have been long before the truth would have been fully spilled even by itself -- but later events that would confirm everyone’s suspicious pretty firmly were already on the horizon.

Menoa Bellucci and the advent of Chosen Children

In a bit of “hidden” Adventure lore, the number of Chosen Children thus started to double every year -- something cited by Two-and-a-Half Year Break (Koushirou’s track) and confirmed by directorial statement. (Kizuna’s To Sora is consistent with this principle, and the 02 epilogue being set in 2027-2028 also tracks with the global population being partnered to Digimon with that precise number.) Either way, Adventure episode 53 confirmed that the eight “Tokyo Chosen Children” from 1999 (or, in other words, the Adventure main cast and their partners) were hardly isolated singularities -- there was a group of Chosen Children before them that placed an incomplete seal on Apocalymon prior, and, according to the Adventure novels, four of their partners evolved over a long period of time to become the Holy Beasts. The fact that there had to be at least four gives only a very narrow period of time said Chosen could be from, most likely between 1997 (4 Chosen) to early 1999 (16 Chosen), with the very short real-world time in between likely correlating to enough time in the Digital World for their names to be lost to their history.

(Note that Oikawa Yukio doesn’t count here; although he and Hiroki made contact with the Digital World through video games in the 80s, there is no indication that Oikawa was fundamentally partnered to Pipimon at this time, in the same way that it was only after the Tokyo Chosen Children witnessed the Hikarigaoka incident that “the one who wishes for stability” -- Homeostasis -- came up with the idea for creating a system to tie Digimon evolution to human partners.)

Kizuna confirms it further by introducing Menoa Bellucci, who says that she met Morphomon (and, presumably, did become a Chosen Child) at the age of nine, meaning presumably 1997 -- making her one of the small handful of people who became Chosen Children before the Tokyo eight.

The little snippets we get of Menoa and Morphomon’s life are interesting, but also telling. For one, their life together is depicted through a bunch of photos with both of them there, through events such as birthdays and travel...and given that someone had to have taken all of those photos, this means that it is extremely likely Menoa’s parents were fully aware of Morphomon’s presence and existence as her partner. In other words, Morphomon was not a secret to them in the first place.

Another interesting thing here is that it’s never said that Menoa went on any incredible world-saving adventure during her time with Morphomon, so it’s ambiguous whether she did or not. It’s entirely possible that she did but doesn’t want to bring it up to Taichi and the others because of how much baggage would be associated with it compared to, well, the rest of her early childhood life with Morphomon; given the time dilation that was in play prior to 1999, it’s very likely any adventure she could have gone on would have been lost to Digital World history. (That said, given that Morphomon doesn’t seem to have any ties to Holy Beast lines, a group of 4+ Chosen distinct from her and the other Tokyo Chosen Children by necessity would have to be from 1998 or early 1999.) She does, at the very least, seem to have evolved Morphomon at least once, given that she cites “loss of the ability to evolve” as part of the process of partnership dissolution when explaining it to the others (and it’s implied very heavily she only has her own personal experience to work with). But if Menoa’s parents were sufficiently supportive, it’s possible they might have had no problem with Menoa having a large and very cute butterfly friend -- especially if Menoa didn’t go on some grand adventure and wasn’t even in danger anyway.

We also learn a bit more about the Yagami siblings in Adventure episode 21, which takes place on August 1, 1999, and that Hikari has been witnessing the increased Digimon contact with the human world (part of a long, ongoing process of the Digital World slowly coming into more concrete contact with the human world) for quite a while now, but because it isn’t very “clear” contact yet, she’s the only one who can see them. She’s been trying to tell people for a long time, but nobody believed her -- and that’s the only reason she kept quiet about it.

There’s also another interesting line in this episode, when Taichi considers never returning to the Digital World and staying home with Koromon -- it seems that he intends to be straightforward with Koromon’s presence and not hide him from his parents! At worst, he simply thinks his mom might think Koromon to be a nuisance -- but not something he has to entirely keep a secret, meaning he also trusts his parents to be open-minded about a weird pink talking creature.

The Odaiba fog incident

The “Odaiba fog” incident refers to the events of August 3, 1999, spanning Adventure episodes 35 to 54, when Vamdemon covered Odaiba in fog and launched a bunch of mass kidnappings in the search for the eighth Tokyo Chosen Child, put a large amount of adults to sleep, was defeated by the Chosen Children, and eventually was followed by a projection of the Digital World in the sky, resulting in the surrounding witnesses observing the eight Tokyo Chosen Children and their partners rising into the sky, returning to the Digital World, and defeating the Dark Masters and Apocalymon.

Unlike the Hikarigaoka incident, this was not something that could be easily ignored. People in Odaiba saw, in vivid daylight, a bunch of strange monsters kidnapping them and stuffing them in Tokyo Big Sight. The Digital World appearing in the sky, Digimon falling out of them, and freezing anything they touched happened all over the world. Ultimately, this was not the kind of thing you could just sweep under the rug!

Daisuke, Iori, and Michael recount their experiences with this in 02 episode 14, and Spring 2003 and the Adventure novels depict this as a formative experience for Daisuke wanting to become someone strong enough to protect others. The kids’ parents in Tokyo saw their kids fighting in the sky (in fact, it’s likely everyone did, but only the parents were aware of the actual identities of the kids up there, considering it wasn’t like the sky gives you much of a close-up view). And, of course, we had our “intrepid reporter” Ishida Hiroaki, who was insistent on covering these incidents in Adventure episode 35 before he even knew his sons were involved, and Takaishi Natsuko, who, as per 02 episode 38, ended up tacking this on her list of Digimon incidents to investigate.

So by the conclusion of this incident, it is pretty safe to say the populace knows that Digimon are a thing. Of course, they still haven’t made sense of all of it, and everyone (including Hiroaki and Natsuko themselves) is missing some key details, but the fact that these monsters are A Thing That Exist is hardly a secret. In fact, this is made pretty explicit in 02 episode 39:

The governments of every country most certainly did not just see that whole incident and decide “well, that’s nothing to worry about” -- they immediately went ahead and started doing military research on the Digimon! But Gennai and his fellow Agents figured out pretty quickly that very bad things would happen if the Digimon became public knowledge and government militaries started exploiting them, so they secretly wiped away data regarding Digimon in order to hide their existence.

Note that this does not mean they wiped everyone’s memories -- they’re not that all-powerful -- but merely made it so that anytime anyone tried to do organized research on Digimon, poof! -- the info would just magically vanish. Of course, that doesn’t stop pen-and-paper work, and, again, it also did not stop reporters like Takaishi Natsuko or Ishida Hiroaki from doing investigations into everything from a journalistic perspective, nor humanities scholars like Takenouchi Haruhiko or Kido Shuu from taking an interest in Digimon. And, of course, it’s not like you can just wipe human memory that saw all of that happening! But it sure does put a major slowdown on attempted organized research of Digimon to the extent of being easily able to do the kinds of things Gennai and the Agents feared, because it makes it significantly harder to exchange info or collect anything.

Which of course leads to...

The events of 02

The Tokyo Chosen Children got a “break” of sorts after the events of Adventure, and for the most part they didn’t have to think too hard about how to deal with their Digimon in regards to society, especially since they were separated from them. Then, in April 2002, Daisuke, Miyako, and Iori get their partners, and they, Takeru, and Hikari become lucky enough to be able to bring their partners back and forth between the real world and Digital World. With their partners small enough to be passed off as plushes, and no Digimon battles taking place in the real world at this time, the kids choose to keep their Digimon activities a secret from their parents.

At this point, it should be pointed out that this was not actually strictly necessary in terms of keeping the Digimon from society -- especially on the part of the Adventure kids, whose parents already know they exist and certainly have not forgotten! In fact, this is made into a prominent scene in 02 episode 18, when Koushirou’s mother is surprised Tentomon is not there (even though there’s no indication a conflict is going on at the time), in contrast to Koushirou having just been worried about opening a gate in her presence.

In fact, Kizuna adds an important detail by showing us a newspaper clip from around 2002 (when Menoa was accepted into university), indicating that apparently the concept of a “Digimon partner” was well-recognized enough that Morphomon was openly in the newspaper clipping, accompanied by a caption identifying her as Menoa’s Digimon partner. (Kizuna having so much attention to detail with background lore that it even complies with the doubling-every-year principle, it’s not something you can easily pass off as a writer mistake.) Doing the math, 16 Chosen Children in 1999 means around 128 by 2002 (which also tracks with the approximate amount we see around the world in 02 episodes 40-42 and 50). That’s still a drop in the pond in terms of how much the global population truly understands this, but considering that there were reporters like Takaishi Natsuko and Ishida Hiroaki already on the case, it’s not too much of a stretch to think that the press and informational publications would have an idea.

So why did the kids still try so hard to keep the Digimon from their parents and society? A lot of it has to do with the way the kids make their plan to infiltrate the Kaiser’s base in 02 episode 18.

Prior to this point in the series, their fight in the Digital World had been an after-school affair, one that they were capable of hiding instead of having the truth presented up-front to their parents, whether they liked it or not. Starting in April 2002, the kids voluntarily chose to enter a territory war after school. Think about how they’d have to explain this to their parents -- “oh yeah, by the way, I befriended a mysterious monster and will now be going to another world after school to fight a territory war with even bigger monsters on a near-weekly basis” -- of course, most parents would start being obstructive and immediately put an end to that, and there would be so much they’d have to explain to them. In fact, the way the kids parade their Digimon around and try to use the “plushes” excuse instead of really making any decent attempts to hide them indicates they’re not really trying that hard to maintain a facade, just enough to not get awkward questions and people intervening with their actions. After all, if even incidents like the ones in 02 episode 9 can be safely passed off as “being over late at a friend’s place,” why not use that excuse?

So when they first start a real trip into the Digital World that may span multiple days (with Miyako being visibly out of place with this, a sharp contrast to her seniors being used to the idea of being “trapped” there for days on end), Iori says very explicitly that he doesn’t want to worry his family, and the discussion immediately shifts to how they’ll keep this from their families. Interestingly, when Daisuke suggests just lying about it, Hikari scolds him for doing so -- implying that it’s not like she (or the others) is even comfortable with that kind of lie, hence why they ultimately resort to having the seniors stage a camping trip so that the lie can at least be a bit less far-fetched.

But the fact that they can do this in the first place ultimately ends up being a luxury, because they can get away with this as long as the conflict is still in the Digital World. Eventually, we arrive at...

The Christmas 2002 incident

A lot happened on Christmas 2002, especially given the timezone stretch and the number of episodes it spanned, but this effectively sparked the point of no return where Digimon incidents were unavoidable and staring everyone in the face -- especially since it spanned multiple days. Dark Towers started appearing all over the world, wandering Digimon started appearing everywhere, Chosen Children around the world mobilized to round them back into the Digital World, Demon and his army invaded Tokyo, Oikawa kidnapped a large number of children, and eventually the battle with BelialVamdemon on New Year’s Eve ended up bleeding into the real world, with Chosen Children appearing en masse to help them defeat him.

During the course of the international Chosen arc, we do see that quite a few other kids have been hiding their Digimon from their parents -- indeed, not everyone is like Menoa, and especially if they’ve been involved in dangerous incidents or are very small children! Even Mimi tries to hide her involvement from her parents in 02 episode 10, despite them already knowing about the Digimon from the Odaiba fog incident, because -- as they say in the episode -- moving to the US was partially motivated by them wanting to get away from all of this, so, naturally, they’d prefer Mimi have nothing to do with it. But Takeru is comfortable enough to call his grandfather in to help, presumably deciding that he was trustworthy enough about it.

And, indeed, the first major break we see in the facade with the core cast’s parents is with Takeru’s mother Natsuko, who correctly deduces that something is going on and confronts Takeru about it -- to which he immediately does not attempt to cover up or deny, and admits without hesitation. Natsuko, in turn, decides to accept it without grilling him too much, deciding that she’ll trust in Takeru to handle this (presumably, especially after seeing him handle quite a lot even at the young age of eight). At the end of 02 episode 45, Ken -- whose parents have seen so many horrors going on with him that the explanation of him engaging in dangerous monster battles would be more of a comfort to them, because at least they’d be aware of what’s going on -- ultimately chooses to confide in his parents, leading to them and the rest of the Adventure kids’ parents actively choosing to support their kids in their fight over the course of episodes 46-48. Naturally, as much as they’d probably rather their kids not get engaged in dangerous things, they understand what this is and that it’s important, and at the very least want to support them as much as they can -- Koushirou’s mother laments in 02 episode 48 that she wishes she could do more besides just bring food!

02 episode 46 has a moment where Oikawa and Archnemon watch a TV program with people trying (very badly) to blame the recent incidents on a mass delusion -- the TV show itself is portrayed as a sort of trash gossip kind of special -- and Oikawa provides an explanation for the impasse of acknowledgment where people seem to be increasingly aware of Digimon but also not quite aware: things are undeniably happening, but people still aren’t quite ready to accept an explanation that borders on the supernatural. The entire concept of Digimon is a massive shake to the status quo, after all, so while certain investigative and curious people like Natsuko or Haruhiko are naturally more open-minded, and many parents are likely to pay closer attention when kids are involved, only slightly over a hundred Chosen Children (many of whom are still erring on the side of keeping it a secret) and a few reporters aren’t enough to really help people understand...

...but all things considered, it seems to be enough that the Chosen are now functionally giving up on hiding it at all!

By the time of episode 50, the situation has now escalated to the point where any member of the families of the Tokyo Chosen Children who wasn’t already aware of what was going on is now definitely aware, as they await their children’s return from the Digital World. Considering that Jun was already witnessing the return of dangerous things as early as 02 episode 38, and Iori’s grandfather Chikara discovers Armadimon’s existence in episode 47, it becomes rather important to point out that Daisuke, Miyako, and Iori failed to hide their partners’ existence and involvement in Digimon battles for any longer than eight months (April to December 2002). That is how flimsy the facade was. Again, they weren’t even doing that spectacular a job keeping their partners under wraps, Chikara discovered Armadimon by sheer accident just from Armadimon being too big and being unable to control his hunger, and, ultimately, it really is pretty hard to conceal the existence of a living creature constantly accompanying you everywhere.

The aftermath of 02

Well, firstly, there were definitely other things that happened right after the events of 02 that would be pretty hard for people to deny. For instance:

The Internet being the Internet, the incident in Our War Game! could have potentially been passed off as some kind of graphics stunt. But the 2003 Diablomon/Armagemon incident? Nah. People saw that one, and even actively participated in that one! In real life!

With that, as much as Oikawa claims that people are too stubborn to accept changes to the status quo and thus accept Digimon, ultimately, Spring 2003 makes it clear that the Christmas 2002 incident made enough of a fuss that the involved parties all got put on the spot by the public and media. This got to the point where the kids had a risk of their privacy being invaded, and had to be covered by their parents.

My mother, who followed the Hikarigaoka incident as a non-fiction writer, along with Sora-san’s father, are known today as “Digimon critics.” Although the two weren’t sure whether they appreciated their new titles or not, they accepted it and went from investigators to people who were most sought after... ...Thanks to [Hiroaki], we were saved from publicity. It’s sort of like… we’d like to keep our identities and the Digimon a secret. I don’t mean forever, when I say that, but the relationship between us and our partner Digimon is unique and other people probably wouldn’t understand that. For example, we can’t have people thinking that Digimon are slightly strange pets. If they do, then they won’t take us seriously either, and of course, the Digimon wouldn’t like that perception themselves. That’s why, until we get the general public to acknowledge Digimon and the Digital World for what they really are, we’d like to lay low. But in order for that to happen, someone must go out there to explain about the Digimon to others. It was both my mother and Sora-san’s father who accepted that role wholeheartedly. We told the two everything we knew, and they spoke for us to the TV, newspapers, and magazines.

Being people directly connected to the children and understanding of their position, but also in media and publicity positions, Natsuko, Hiroaki, and Haruhiko took on the jobs of advocating for Digimon and explaining their part to the world, while also deliberately acting as go-betweens so that the kids could maintain their privacy. But nevertheless, at this point, the incident in 2002 was such a major thing that it basically was a turning point for people realizing that Digimon exist and are a major presence, and starting to grill informed parties about the details (and, technically, getting those details from the kids themselves, speaking through said media outlets). Hikari also starts working on a “surprisingly useful” informational video for new Chosen Children confused about having a partner -- encouraging them to contact them for help -- and it is also revealed that Shuu, Miyako’s sisters, and Jun had all just gotten partners, meaning that the issue was now starting to become significantly more relevant to their families.

Kizuna also drops an interesting detail about what happened right after 02, or, rather, right after 2002:

The articles describing Menoa’s Digimon research team have titles that indicate that this is one of the first major Digmon scientific research efforts in the world, indicating that, shortly after Menoa’s admission into university and establishing herself there, she began to open up the field of Digimon academic research (her declared major beforehand had been “biology”, presumably the closest she could get to studying Digimon when such a topic didn’t formally exist yet). This is significant because it means that Gennai and the Agents had finally dropped the embargo on Digimon organized research, since it presumably would have been bad for Menoa’s data to vanish without warning -- and, indeed, it makes sense that they would allow for Menoa’s research team to proceed, since Menoa is a Chosen Child herself who has a vested interest in studying Digimon for the greater good and advocating for them in the same way Haruhiko is.

It also provides potential context as to why Menoa may not have been involved much in Digimon fighting and battles in the past but was chosen as a Chosen Child anyway -- Koushirou describes the definition of a “Chosen Child” as such in Two-and-a-Half Year Break:

Having a partner Digimon isn’t really that special. Being a “Chosen Child” means… to cease the hostilities that break out and inconvenience the Digital World. In order to do so, that child gains a partner Digimon faster than another.

While it’s not necessarily in terms of aggressive fighting, a bright and intelligent child like Menoa being chosen to “fight” in the sense of using her intellect to study more about Digimon and help advocate for them seems like a fitting way to fulfill this role in her own way. But, alas, as Gennai and Homeostasis and the Holy Beasts couldn’t necessarily predict what happened to Ichijouji Ken and his fall into becoming the Kaiser, they didn’t seem to be able to predict Menoa’s unfortunate fate and downfall...

Kizuna and 2010

Again, To Sora citing the number of Digimon partners to be over 30,000 by 2010 correctly tracks with the “doubling every year” principle, so it’s probably prudent to assume it’s still been applying over the years. 30,000 is certainly a lot, but it’s not exactly a huge chunk of the global population -- especially since said 30,000 are spread out all over the world, and it’s hard to say how many of them would even live in Japan, let alone Tokyo. It’s a big enough number that Koushirou and Miyako now need to maintain a whole network of Chosen Children (Hikari’s video presumably helped with that), but there are still a lot of unknowns, like the still uncharted territory of the partnership dissolution phenomenon.

Nevertheless, what we see in Kizuna is what you’d probably expect from a society that has now had eight more years to properly digest the existence of Digimon and Digimon incidents. This is most starkly demonstrated in the opening, when a waitress comes by to berate Agumon and Gabumon for making too much noise -- and that’s it, with no weirdness or being taken aback by their presence or existence, just telling them to calm down. The characters in the movie carry around and parade their Digimon quite openly in almost all walks of life, and others interact with them in a very normal manner. One of the credits scenes even shows Daisuke’s higher-up at vocational school being more annoyed at Daisuke’s fight with V-mon than he is at the fact V-mon is there. A newspaper article from early in the movie also correctly identifies Parrotmon and Greymon as Digimon (even if not their specific species), and it is merely treated as an incident rather than paying any particular attention to the fact that Digimon exist. The drama CD also indicates that Daisuke and co. are at the point of sneaking their Digimon into a karaoke bar because said bar has enough awareness of Digimon to charge them admissions fees!

There’s another interesting minor detail in that Palmon, Tailmon, and Patamon are depicted on digital cameras without any static interference. In Adventure and 02, it was impossible to catch them on digital camera in the real world, because, as per Adventure episode 39 and 02 episode 33 (among others), trying to do so would cause nasty static interference and ruin the attempted photo/recording. (This is presumably why Menoa’s photos with Morphomon seem to be film photos.) But for a society where the presence of Digimon is becoming more and more expected, and digital cameras are naturally becoming more commonplace, it would be very bad if this continued to be a problem -- so it makes sense that, by 2010, technological research would have figured out a way around that.

Obviously, not everyone has a Digimon yet, and it’s not like everything in the world has accounted for the assumption people will be walking around with partners -- after all, Taichi’s thesis still involves having to help advocate for Digimon partners and the fact that many people are still skeptical about them. But nevertheless, people are not surprised or perturbed by them anymore, and when something does happen with them, they’re relatively accepting of them. Again, 30,000+ is not exactly a lot to the extent that the entire population has a partner, but with the doubling-every-year principle in play, it seems like society is already well on its way to adjusting to their increasing presence and the eventual point in 2027-2028 when everyone will be expected to have one.

#digimon #digimon adventure #digimon adventure 02 #digimon adventure last evolution kizuna #kizuna spoilers #shihameta

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coldtomyflash · 4 years ago

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I've seen your speech pattern analysis on Flash characters. I was wondering if you had any advice on how to create speech patterns for OC characters?

oh heck this is one of the coolest questions i’ve ever received.

i’m gonna try not to go overboard/overwhelming and just give a bit of advice, and then if you want more details please come back and follow up!

There’s a few things to think about up front with character voices / speech patterns. The biggest and most obvious is language and cultural background. The second is personality. The third is personal history. Fourth, briefly, is gender. And the final one I’d say is idiosyncrasies to avoid ‘same voice’.

Culture and Group Dynamics

Depending on the setting, there’s a decent chance you’ll be writing characters from different cultural backgrounds. Even if you’re focusing on a single culture, there will be subcultures. Even if you’re focusing on a single narrow group of people, there will be age and generational differences.

Think about where your character is from. If it’s a fantasy world, that’s still (and even more, in some ways) important. What country, what ethnicity, what mother tongue? Did they grow up urban or rural? High socio-economic status or working class? What sort of educational background and peer group did they have growing up (and presently) and how does that factor into their vocabulary and mannerisms, if at all.

All of these can influence how people talk. There are regional accents and different modes of speaking to signal your group membership. There is code-switching across groups, for those who have had to learn multiple linguistics codes to survive and thrive in society.

How much slang does this group and therefor this character use? What references (modern, outddated, topical, etc) do the rely on? What kind of references (pop culture, music, academic, etc)? What colloquialisms and proverbs do they say? Are these the same or different to their characters, even within the same culture, subculture, or group, and is it because they’re from a different place/sub-group or because of their idiosyncrasies?

You can use these to help your reader get to know more about your character’s background without having to spell it all out directly. Speech patterns and style are a great way to show instead of tell when it comes to details that are hard to drop in organically in other ways.

An important caveat: don’t write a bilingual character who switches languages in speech unless you’re ready to do a bit of research on that. In AATJS I did an absolutely horrific job of this because I was thinking more about fronting the fact that character was Italian rather than thinking through how people actually talk, and it came out exotifying and embarrassing. It’s important to make sure that the way you use language to bring in a character’s cultural and/or ethnic background feels authentic and manifests is a way that respects that language and its users. You can write a character with a complex cultural history without using multiple languages if you’re unprepared to do research and talk to bilingual speakers.

Personality

Probably the most salient thing in a writer’s mind when they’re trying to write character voices: is this the funny character? the serious one? the brainy one? etc.

Don’t overuse stereotypes and archetypes for creating speech patterns (or characters in general) if you’re trying to make a rounded, 3-dimensional character. Instead, go about three levels deeper.

Think about whether they’re introverted or extraverted, whether they are neurotypical or neurodivergent, whether they are introspective enough to express their own emotions clearly or whether they stumble when asked why they did a particular thing or feel a particular way (most people don’t or can’t clearly articulate exactly why they did something or how they feel, and come at things a bit sideways to circle around their motives and interior realities when pressed to make them external and concretely verbal).

Is this character calm, is their voice soothing, do they speak slowly? Are they excitable and loud and is their speech free-flowing? Are they angry? Do they swear? Do they use references for humour or are they more into puns? Do they laugh at their own jokes? Do they talk with their hands?

This character has social anxiety: how does that manifest in her speech? Does she clam up and get very quiet when she gets nervous, or does she go rapidfire and a little too loud (does she process by turning in or by distracting herself by turning outward)? Does she get very careful and deliberate in choosing her words (is she a bit high-strung?)? Ask yourself which fits best with the other elements of her personality and what you want the reader to know/interpret about her.

This character is incredibly smart and a bit awkward: how does that manifest in their speech? Do they tend to use 5-dollar words, or do they expend a lot of energy choosing their words more carefully (how considerate are they to their audience when speaking and does that influence their speech)? Do they stumble over their words and explaining things, or are they good at making points with clear language learned from a lifetime of tutoring and helping others?

This character is the bff, who tries hard to make sure everyone else is happy first: how does that manifest in his speech? How does he switch between his happy-mask versus his more authentic self, and what changes in tone, word-choice, and inflection come in when he does?

Personal History

I’m only drawing a distinction between this and personality (archetype, really) so that I can draw attention to ways to add simultaneously unique and shared layers to characters that are distinct but related to group dynamics.

Here’s sort of what I mean: the level of education of a mother (or primary caregiver) of an infant can determine that infant’s vocabulary size. While we can break down all the ‘why is that’ layers to this, the one I want to point is to the simple truth that the more education a person does, the more specialized language they end up learning over time. This doesn’t have to be formal education though -- the more you learn about something and the more you read and access new knowledges and perspective, the more and more words you learn, and then if you start using those words, they trickle down to those close to you.

So.

What’s your character’s educational background? Is it the same as their friends who you are also writing? Is the same as their family’s? How does this character’s family influence their speech? Are they formal, informal, warm, authoritative?

If you’re writing siblings, they’ll have some shared things! But also some very different ones! Me and my sister talk nothing alike in terms of vocabulary, but a lot alike in terms of mannerisms whenever we spend a bit of time together!

If your characters grew up around each other, they’ll have a lot of the same references. People from the same cities or regions will have things specific to that region, either due to sub-culture effects or because of local references.

The city of Calgary, Canada for instance has the Plus15 which are a connected pedway system between the buildings in downtown, so named because they are 15feet above the ground. Drive 3 hours north to the city of Edmonton, and you have an underground pedway just called the pedways, no special name. Go a few provinces east to Toronto and their underground pedway system downtown is called PATH. These are all known to locals and part of the vernacular, but are opaque to people outside those cities. And the whole idea of them is probably opaque to people who aren’t from super cold cities that don’t require building-connecting pedway systems for pedestrians to get around high-density areas like downtown (or university campuses) without going out into the cold.

Friends, families, and groups are like that too. In-jokes, shared histories, speaking in references. What are your characters’ relationships to each other and how does that history influence the way they approach talking to each other?

Gender

I don’t want to spend too much time on this one because ugh, gender. What even is it?

But like it or not, it has an impact on our speech patterns. There are cultural and societal norms in how men and women are likely to speak, and breaking those norms will be noticed regardless of whether you’re trans, enby, queer, or not. There are norms that people who are queer may fall into as well, sometimes without even noticing at first. A lot of these aren’t about word choice per se but instead about mannerisms and tone and body language, but some overlap or are specific to language.

Speaking in broad generalizations here, women use more emotional language and tend to speak with more hesitancies/qualifications. So more “i think, i feel” and less “it is”. More conversations that front emotions and dig deeper into those, with longer sentences to explain in detail. The obvious caveat is that personality matters more (i.e., is this a person who likes to talk about their emotions in detail or not) but it is something to consider because there will be general but subtle differences that you can use to help further distinguish your characters’ voices.

Sidenote: this can also be exacerbated by different cultural backgrounds and languages (a simple example is Japanese which has different words for “I” depending on your gender as well as your personality, familiarity with the other persons in the conversation, and situational appropriateness, so interesting ways that gender and social expectations intersect in language).

Anyway this isn’t typically a huge problem except that I’ve found that a lot of writers have a tendency to overgeneralize the speech patterns that fit with their ascribed gender due to early-life socialization, or conversely to overgeneralize patterns that fit with their gender identity (when not cis) either due to heavily identifying with their gender identity’s speech model (or sometimes possibly due to a knee-jerk sort of backlash). I say this as an enby who both struggles with it and notices it and tries to edit and correct for it.

I could get into all sorts of examples of ways this can lead to voice issues, but in general i think the point here is to make sure you’re writing any given character in view of that character’s personality and history, with gender only as a modifier for how some of these might come out in subtle ways but which can be important to help tell us about your character (and if you’re writing queer characters, it’s all the more important to consider how their relationship with gender and socialization might impact which speech models and styles they identify more with).

Idiosyncrasies

So, you’ve got a character. You’ve got their personality and history down. You know how they manifest in their speech. And you’re still getting some ‘same voice’ issues.

People really are unique snowflakes. Let that be reflected in their speech.

This person uses contractions differently than that one. This one says “ain’t” and that one says “isn’t.”

This person makes Simpsons references and that one doesn’t like Simpsons, and makes Brooklyn Nine Nine references instead. That other one doesn’t use referential humour much at all. This one loves old movies and hasn’t seen any of the new stuff so they make references all the time but no one ever notices.

This one loves the word “excoriate” and that one doesn’t even know what it means because what the hell, who uses the word excoriate?

This one talks about food a lot, it overlaps with their interests. This one uses metaphors. This one grunts in response. This one exclaims. This one says “like” and that one hates it. That one refers to themselves in third person. This other one uses reflective language an usual amount (e.g., “love me some candy”). This other one keeps misusing the word inconceivable and that one speaks almost without contractions but still comes off as more charming and humorous while correcting him.

I have an aunt who says “girl” or “girlfriend” a fuck-ton and she has been my whole life and I don’t know why because none of her sisters do, but she does and it annoys me so much the way she says it. I swear a lot when I’m feeling casual despite never ever doing it in a professional or even slightly-less-than-relaxed space, so the idiosyncrasy of comfort levels has a massive impact on my vocabulary in ways which, I promise, almost no one who meets me first in a professional space expect.

Let your characters be individuals and try to make them as unique as possible without overdoing it, or over-relying on a single verbal tendency or habit.

And ... that’s all I’ve got for now. Completely failed at being concise. I meant to give like 2-3 bullet points or examples for each, not paragraphs, but here we are. That’s one of my verbal tendencies: long flowing verbosity :)

Hope this helps!

#speech patterns #speech analysis #phyn writes #writing advice #writing #OC's #writing reference #didn't edit so apologies for typos i'm sure i'll come back at some point #Anonymous

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tundrainafrica · 4 years ago

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do you currently have any snk universe LeviHan headcanons on your mind?

Okay, before I go into this question, I just have to say my brain is literally a conglomeration of head canons which I’ve built up after hanging in this site for months so at this point, I even have trouble telling which one is real or not because everyone just thinks up such beautiful and reasonable ones.

I wanna talk about one headcanon though which is not really talked about because I don’t think a lot of people jive with. This one resonates with me so well though that I ended up writing it in all my fics even if it’s only barely hinted and was never confirmed in canon. But Imma just drop it here because like I would have wanted to talk about it anyway so now or never.

Since no one ever confirmed Hange’s history I took liberties with it.

Hange grew up in a rich family within Wall Sina.

So my headcanon is Hange grew up rich. Like really rich, not necessarily royalty but at least noble family rich.

Like Hange could have chosen not to work a day in her life beyond managing family properties and businesses like a larger version of the Reeves company but she just had such a passion for discovering the outside world and research that she ended up deciding to join the survey corps anyway, one of the shittiest factions in the military out of passion. This ended up causing a rift to grow between her and her family which is why she never talks about her family or her history.

Are there hints in canon?

These are probably my interpretations but I kinda see possible crumbs which can be interpreted as Hange having grown up rich or at least highly educated.

For one, where do you get the knack and obsession for research? To a degree someone has to have had a lot of time in their life or a lot of time beyond trying to find food or trying to survive to get so deep into something as complex as research, especially in that crapsack world. If Hange was living hand to mouth, she wouldn’t have been neck deep into research. Mind you, Hange is the type of person to get into research for days, completely disregarding her own personal needs and other obligations. This could be interpreted either way but I think not having to work a day in her life growing up, Hange had the leeway to enjoy research and appreciate it, and had built the habit of just locking herself in her room to get stuff done because of her environment growing up. If she had a family to feed, if they were living hand to mouth, I doubt Hange would have built this habit.

Hange’s room is constantly a mess. It could be interpreted both ways,I know. But we have Levi who hates filth because he grew up in filth. We have Hange who lives in a messy room among clutter because maybe she had someone cleaning up after her growing up? When she finally started living alone, she started thinking, I’m too busy to clean this up myself and just goes about her life. Levi, who had lived in filth all his life, ends up the one cleaning after her because he’s traumatized by filth to the point of fastidiousness. While Hange is not.

Hange is familiar with powerplay and media manipulation. What kind of work did she do in Season 3? She did a lot of the politick-ing, the media manipulation and the behind the scenes work to get Reeves back into power and she did a really good job at it. I think this could be interpreted as her having grown up within the walls, brushing elbows among the elite to have known how it works. Hange was one of those completely aware that the uprising and the rebellion could not be completed without getting the trust and the faith of the people. She was also one of the people who knew exactly how that type of shit worked and that's why it went so smoothly in her end.

Hange is okay getting her hands dirty. This could be seen as a counterargument. If Hange was rich, why is she okay getting her hands dirty? I’d like to point out here her motivations for it and the way she goes about it compared to Levi. When Levi fights or tortures, the way he goes about it is he just knows it’s a necessity and something he has to do to get things done. When Hange fights or tortures, there is a sort of wonder or curiosity in her face, which shows she is more motivated by the wonder and the unpredictability that comes with working in the survey corps more than anything. Although Hange has a good heart, she is not as in touch with the struggles of the poor and the powerless as Levi imo. I don’t think it came as naturally for her. In fact, the penchant for survival and the mindset of doing something because it’s necessary did not come as naturally for Hange as it did for Levi. Hange gets her hands bloody because she likes dissection, she likes trying to learn new things (like learning to torture) and this type of perspective, not coming naturally for someone like her at least hints to the idea that she grew up with enough financial leeway to at least not understand that some unfavorable things may have to be done out of necessity.

They glossed over her history. Maybe she had no childhood trauma? Although Hange did have traumas which were put into light after she joined the survey corps, we never hear about any traumas or any big revelations about her life before that. Maybe it was comfortable? Maybe comfortable to the point of forgettable? It was a good life maybe, enough to brush it off lightly. Maybe her life was just so conventionally normal, and the worst she ever experienced is deciding to defy her parents and adjust to a mildly middle class existence as part of the shittiest factions of the military (which is still a farcry from being dirt poor or having lost her parents at a young age.)

What does this mean for my Levihan HC?

It adds an interesting facet to the Levihan dynamic in my end. That’s why I ended up keeping this around as a silent headcanon and I’ll just drop some of them here.

Hange had to teach Levi about living above ground

The culture above ground is completely different. Business language, writing documents are something which Levi probably had to learn when he joined the survey corps and became captain. Hange was rich enough to at least have a good education and formal schooling for her to have sheer mastery of how the rich people talk, how budgets are drafted and how announcements are made in a way to please the rich people. Hange knew that and thats why she ended up doing a lot of logistics and research. In fact, she could have been better than Erwin, which could possibly hint to her even having better education than him.

Levi probably never mastered business language and logistics, which is why he never took any other role beyond special squad leader. Although he has the eye for strategy and combat, he cannot for the life of him handle paperwork or the logistics of being a supreme commander.

Also, they lived in a medieval place so we can assume this type of education wouldn’t be accessible to most people in the outer walls, which kinda supports the point that Hange wasn’t poor or even lower middle class. Like I’m expecting at the least she was on the same social class as Jean.

They fight over budgets.

If I remember correctly, this has been confirmed in canon. Hange handles budgets and Levi likes to blow the budget with luxuries. Hange has simple joys for someone who grew up rich. Having grown up with a lot of money and a formal education, I wouldn't find it surprising that she was a master of budgeting and that’s why she ended up taking over that job in the survey corps. She also handled supplies and her department probably required the most budget. Not surprising that she handled the overall budget.

Hange handles the budgeting and Levi likes to blow the budget on tea and luxuries. It was explained before why Levi blows the budget on tea. Levi loves certain luxuries but never really had them in the underground which is why he enjoys them know in the military. Hange doesn’t have much of an eye for luxuries because she grew up with them already. There’s nothing much which would impress her luxury wise so she doesn’t see the need or the joys of blowing the military budget on slight luxuries.

Hange buys him the teas.

Although Hange has a rift with her rich family already. I don’t think her relationship with them was ever that bad. She was probably like a black sheep, who they would roll their eyes at during family gatherings. “The one child who ran away to join the shit hole military faction.” I think she still has access to their money and they still drop gifts. I have this head canon that Hange actually buys him the teas or gives the nice pastries or souvenirs she would receive from them to Levi so Levi could at least enjoy those too.

These are the only HCs I can come up with now but I have sprinkled a lot of my fanfiction with them and it is practically canon in my head for many reasons… Mainly because it is an incredibly interesting headcanon and facet of their relationship to consider.

Analyzing the romantic relationship between two people from different social classes is just incredibly interesting.

Levi and Hange are complete opposites yet manage to jive. This is a common sentiment and take among all the people in the fandom. But what if you take into account as well that they are from different social classes?

I’ve seen this type of relationship in real life and there’s a lot of adjustment involved but it really puts into light how open certain relationships are that differences in social background are discussed and navigated instead of treated as a dealbreaker on why the relationship won’t work.

Growing up poor and experiencing starvation stays with people and it manifests itself in the small things. In Levi, it manifested itself in his having a special appreciation for luxuries and his obsession for cleanliness. Hange never batted an eyelash at any of those luxuries being in the survey corps offered. For someone handling such a budget, she never felt the need to spend on anything too fancy. In fact, when they were eating beef in that one seen, she didn’t really think too much of it compared to the cadets who grew up in small villages in Wall Rose or Wall Maria.

Even in my family, my mother grew up poor so she has this certain appreciation for saving everything and keeping it. She hates it when we throw away food.. My father never grew up poor so he has this penchant for investing and reinvesting. He has this mindset that if we earn 100 dollars we spend 10. While my mom points out that that 10% isn’t enough for most people to live in. My parents get into the most interesting discussions and arguments having grown up in completely different social classes and I guess, it ended up why I ride so much with this headcanon. It’s just so dam interesting. Tbh, my boyfriend and I are form completely different social classes too so the way we go about material things and money are really different and it’s really interesting to navigate it when the discourse is calm and comprehensive so these relationships kinda influenced this Levihan headcanon.

I feel like for Levi and Hange, this social class issue was a give and take. Hange thought him how to butt elbows with the ultra rich in the military, having been trained herself how to talk to rich people and win their favor. Levi was the one who put into light for Hange the realities of the war and the lower classes.

Hange is a good heart and I’m sure she is aware but I just don’t think she was as in touch with it as Levi who had grown up with it. What she brings to the table for Levi That’s why is the capacity to see the wonder with everything since even in Season 1, it was shown that she wasn’t as jaded as other people in the military. Because she had her whole childhood to build that wonder already, not having seen suffering as a child growing up.

Sorry, if this is pretty long. This HC is pretty important to me because it just adds another facet of their relationship to explore when I write.

I hope you enjoyed reading it at least. Thanks for the ask!

#levihan #levi ackerman #hange zoe #levi x hange #levi x hanji

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sparkandwolf · 4 years ago

Text

Platonic Absolutes (read on ao3)

Pairing: Stiles Stilinski/Derek Hale and Laura Hale & Stiles Stilinski Rating: General Summary: When Stiles first met Laura, there was no doubt in his mind that their soul bond wasn’t meant to be anything but platonic. He had heard of that happening, that the marks on a person’s body could mean they had a soulmate by any meaning of the word, and was momentarily disappointed that his meant a lifetime best friend.

Then he realized that Laura was the most incredible woman he had ever met. If it wasn’t for the fact she was very, very, gay, he would’ve fallen in love with her the moment she barged into his life.Hale.

For the fantastic @evanesdust ♥️ Thank you for your support and creating such incredible content for us!

When Stiles first met Laura, there was no doubt in his mind that their soul bond wasn’t meant to be anything but platonic. He had heard of that happening, that the marks on a person’s body could mean they had a soulmate by any meaning of the word, and was momentarily disappointed that his meant a lifetime best friend. Then he realized that Laura was the most incredible woman he had ever met. If it wasn’t for the fact she was very, very, gay, he would’ve fallen in love with her the moment she barged into his life.

Laura took some convincing, though. Stiles helped her through a sexuality crisis - “Maybe I do like men.” “Does the fact I have a penis excite you?” “Absolutely not.” “You’re a lesbian, Laura.” - before they settled on getting to know each other before they pushed aside their fated connection as a mistake. Stiles researched and studied until he found a history book on platonic soulmates; a person who was meant to be in your life as a confidant, an unrelenting support, and a shoulder to cry on whenever the other needed it. Stiles could be that for Laura and he wanted to be that for her.

It was solidified the first time she had him over to her mansion-sized house in the middle of the woods a few miles outside of the town he grew up in. He had heard of the Hale’s - it was hard to not know everyone in such a close-knit town, especially when his dad was the sheriff - and the legacy that they brought to Beacon Hills. The family had been in the town since its founding and there were rumors that Stiles didn’t want to repeat (mostly about incest and immortality) that were quickly stricken from his mind the second he entered their home.

“Mom, Dad, this is Stiles, my completely platonic soulmate,” Laura said carefully as if her family hadn’t believed her the first hundred times she told them. Stiles held out his hand but was quickly pulled into a tight hug that could only be described as motherly.

“Oh, Mr. Stilinski, it’s so nice to finally be introduced to you!” Mrs. Hale said as she held Stiles by his shoulders, shooting a glare at her daughter. “We’ve heard so much about you,” she added with a wink that had Stiles’ face reddening.

“You have already technically met him, Talia,” Laura’s dad chimed in as he extended his hand to Stiles. He shook it steadily, wincing a bit at the tight squeeze of her father’s hand.

“Mr. and Mrs. Hale, you have a beautiful home,” Stiles commented cheerfully, grinning at them with teeth shining.

“Oh, please, son,” Mrs. Hale said with a wave of her hand. “I’m Talia, and my husband here is Evan. You’re gonna be around for the long haul it seems, so you might as well drop the niceties,” Mrs. Hale - Talia - corrected as she made her way into the kitchen area. Laura rolled her eyes and grabbed Stiles’ hand before he could say much more and dragged him further into the living room.

Stiles glanced around, but his gaze froze on the most beautiful man he had ever seen in his short life. There was no doubt in Stiles’ mind that he was Laura’s brother, the one she had spoken fondly and annoyingly about. They shared the same sharp features and dark hair and he looked just as broody as Laura had described him. The muscles in his back and arms rippled from where he attempted to hang a family photo while their younger sibling directed him with a smirk on her face.

“C’mon, Derek, I know you’re not straight, but you can at least hang a picture that way!” Laura yelled, her laugh only loudening when her brother - Derek - shot a glare over his shoulder.

“Like you could do a better job, Lo,” he spat back, letting go on the frame and nodding at it before it fell to the side and swung back and forth. He let out a loud groan and ran a hand through his hair before pointing at his sisters accusingly. “You guys figure it out. I have a pa-- plans with… people,” he said carefully when he finally noticed Stiles in the room.

“You’ve got a pack meeting with Isaac, Boyd, and Erica,” Stiles corrected with a nonchalant gesture of his hand. Derek gaped at him and then his eyes darted to Laura who was barely containing her delight.

“You told him?” Derek asked, taking a few steps closer to Laura who held up her hands in defense.

“Hey, I’m stuck with him as much as the rest of us. He already knew about wolves because of his dad so I figured I’d bite the silver bullet and let him in on the family secret,” Laura said with a shrug.

Derek glanced back over at Stiles before saying, “And he knows not to tell anyone?” Derek said with a heat in his eyes Stiles couldn’t quite explain. The look had his spine tingling with interest.

“Cross my heart and hope to get mauled by feral werewolves, Sourwolf,” Stiles said with a wink that only seemed to annoy Derek further.

“He’s harmless, Der. Just give him a chance, okay? We’re fated, or so they tell me,” Laura responded, tossing an arm over Stiles’ shoulder and pulling him close. His soul seemed to sing at the acceptance and he settled his arm around her waist happily.

“Right, well,” Derek began, grabbing a leather jacket that hung from the coat rack, “I’ll be back for dinner because apparently, our mother wants to pull out all the stops to impress the human.” Stiles was momentarily offended by the disgust in Derek’s voice but he remembered what Laura had told him about her brother. He took a while to trust people because of some tragic past event but once he did, he would protect that person with his entire life. Stiles admired that more than he could say.

“Tell the pack I said hi!” Cora called as Derek lifted his arms to put on his coat. Stiles felt disappointment surge through him when he saw the small mark on his hip that could only mean he had a soulmate. Leave it to Stiles to find the most perfect person he could have wished for only to have his dreams squashed before he could even figure out what they meant.

“I’ll tell Isaac you said hello,” Derek teased as he stepped out of the door without hearing Cora curse at him. Although Stiles was pretty sure werewolf hearing was a superpower and that he was just so used to his sisters swearing at him, he didn’t need to respond to win whatever argument he had just started.

“Got any other family members I need to worry about?” Stiles asked as Laura moved him over to the couch. She shrugged and grabbed the remote, tossing on some dumb reality TV show he had realized Laura found authentic entertainment in.

“Uncle Peter will probably try to hit on you at dinner, but he’s relatively harmless,” Cora noted from where she had settled on one of the many chairs that littered the living room.

“Relatively?” Stiles repeated and the girl’s laughter did nothing to relieve his anxiety.

——————————

The rest of the afternoon was surprisingly normal. Stiles wasn’t sure what to expect when meeting his platonic soulmate’s family, who happened to be made up of supernatural beings, but relaxing definitely hadn’t come to mind. That’s exactly what it had been, though. He lounged on the sofa with Laura, draped over each other the way they usually were - Laura had said it was something about scent and how if he wanted to be protected, he would need the Hale smell on him - and every so often, Cora, Talia, or Evan would come in and get to know Stiles a little more.

He told them all about his childhood and how he hadn’t changed much since then, which none of them were too surprised about. He recounted memories of his father being the sheriff and his mother and her untimely death, all of which had Talia gazing at him with sympathy that had tied his stomach in knots. In return, they told him stories of their territory battles and how Beacon Hills law enforcement had always worked side by side with them. Stiles was glad there wouldn’t be an issue between their families as he had previously worried.

Throughout the afternoon, he had to push thoughts of Derek out of his mind. Their interaction had been short and not at all sweet, but something about the man had Stiles’ eyes darting to the door as if waiting for him to return. He said he would be back for their dinner and Talia had just announced that it was about 15 minutes from being done, so his fingers tapped anxiously on his knees as he tried his hardest to breathe.

“Alright, what the hell is going on with you?” Laura asked once they were alone in the living room. Cora had been tasked to set the table while Talia and Evan worked on finishing the meal and Stiles was all alone with someone who could read him like a book.

He sighed and said, “I’m a little nervous for this dinner.” It was a lie and judging by the glare that Laura gave him, she sniffed it out immediately.

“You haven’t been nervous the entire time you’ve been hanging out with my family, so there’s something else,” Laura guessed. Just as Stiles was about to deny, the front door flung open and Stiles shot up from his seat to greet the new guest he had hoped was Derek. He was, once again, disappointed when the person who sauntered in wasn’t the man he was waiting for.

“Who is this delectable little thing?” The man said and Stiles furrowed his eyebrows in distaste. Laura groaned from beside him and took a protective step forward.

“This is Stiles. Stiles, my uncle Peter. He’s going to go tell my parents he’s here and stop licking his muzzle in the direction of my soulmate,” Laura said sharply, raising an intimidating eyebrow at Peter. He sighed but relented, floating over to the kitchen without another glance back. “You thought that was gonna be Derek,” Laura accused as she turned toward Stiles and pressed a stiff finger against his chest.

“I wasn’t expecting your creepy uncle, that much is for sure. What is his problem?” Stiles asked as a lame attempt to bring the conversation back away from who he may or may not have hoped was coming through the door.

“Peter is Peter. Harmless but a lot to get used to,” Laura said with a roll of her eyes. She pushed her finger further into Stiles’ chest and asked, “Were you hoping that was gonna be Derek?”

Stiles sighed, exasperated, and pushed her hand away. “So what if I did?” Stiles asked heatedly, crossing his arms over his chest. “He’s got a soulmate that isn’t me because I’m stuck with your sorry ass and I’m allowed to find people who look like him attractive.”

“Derek doesn’t--” She stopped whatever she was about to admit and sighed heavily. “I can’t believe my platonic soulmate has the hots for my brother,” she said with a cringe. Stiles shoved her playfully and Laura’s eyes lit up golden before she pushed him back just a little too hard. He started falling backward, tripping over his feet because his balance was honestly laughable, and braced himself for impact to the hardwood floor. Instead, he fell into a hard wall and warm, solid arms wrapped around his waist.

“Aren’t you trying to keep the human alive?” Derek’s voice chimed from behind him. Stiles was momentarily stunned by the feeling of Derek’s arms holding up that he forgot how to stand until Derek pushed him back to his feet. He stumbled forward into Laura who growled at him in response.

“At the moment, I’m debating on just killing him and having him for dinner instead of the pot roast Mom made us,” Laura said with a glare at Stiles. Derek seemed to freeze at Laura’s words which didn’t go unnoticed by anyone in the room. Laura said quickly, “Derek, I didn’t mean--”

“It’s fine, Lo. I’m gonna go get changed for dinner,” Derek dismissed as he bounded up the stairs. Stiles turned toward Laura and saw an excessive amount of guilt on her face.

“What was that?” Stiles asked carefully, resting a comforting hand on Laura’s shoulder. Her eyes didn’t stray for the staircase Derek had disappeared from until she shook her head and took a deep breath in.

“That was me taking our soul bond for granted,” Laura whispered as she pulled Stiles into a tight hug. He could practically feel his bones crush with the force of it and choked out a nervous laugh as he patted Laura on the back.

“Puny human, here. Can’t take much more of--” Laura let go and Stiles inhaled deeply to catch his breath. Laura glanced at him apologetically before pushing past Stiles to move toward the kitchen. “Wait, Laura, I can feel the guilt echoing off of you. What do you think you did wrong?” Stiles asked, grabbing for Laura’s hand. She shook it away before staring at Stiles with the most serious expression he had ever seen from her.

“I know I did something wrong and I need you to not ask questions, okay? It’s Derek’s story and if he trusts you enough, he’ll tell you,” Laura decided with a nod. Stiles agreed and pulled her in for one more hug before she dragged him to the kitchen. “Ma, Daddio, Derek’s home so we should sit,” she said as if nothing was weighing on her. Stiles wondered if he would ever get used to being so attuned to her vast array of emotions.

“I hope you like to eat, Stiles, Mom’s made enough to feed an army!” Cora joked as she made her way to the table balancing two plates expertly in her hands. Stiles reached for one to assist her and Cora beamed a smile at him. He took a moment to notice just how beautiful the entire family was and thought that fate must have known he’d never have a chance with Laura which was why their bond was strictly platonic.

Derek chose that moment to walk in, a much neater outfit on his body. Stiles found himself annoyed at how quickly his heart skipped a beat at the new view. Derek was wearing black jeans that rested snug on his hips and a dark blue t-shirt, but somehow he still looked dressed up. Laura nudged her hip against his and Derek smiled over at her like it was all they needed to forgive and forget. She made her way over to where Stiles stood frozen and flicked at his chin causing him to smack her hand.

“Close your mouth, Stilinski. Werewolf dens aren’t immune to fly infestations,” Laura teased with a wink. Stiles rolled his eyes at her but made sure his lips were pressed together tightly as he rested the plate on the table. He pulled out the seat beside Laura and before he could sit down, Cora slid into place, thanking Stiles as if he had prepared the chair just for her.

“I have to sit next to my dad,” Cora supplied as if it was the truth, “since I’m such a daddy’s girl.” Laura cackled beside her and Stiles pretended not to notice the sly smile on Derek’s face from where he had sat down. With Laura and Cora on one side of the table, their parents on either end and Peter taking the only other chair that seemed appropriate for Stiles, he had no choice but to occupy the seat next to Derek. Great.

The moment he sat down, Peter chimed in, “So, Stiles Stilinski. Tell us more about yourself.” Stiles wasn’t sure how such a normal command sounded so gross coming from Peter’s lips. He glanced around the table and caught Laura’s eyes, hoping the stare was enough of a plea for help for her to intervene.

“He’s not my boyfriend, Uncle Peter. The interrogation isn’t necessary,” she said with an expert roll of her eyes.

“Then is he single?” Peter asked, staring Laura down like Stiles was some sort of competition. Stiles felt immediately uneasy until Laura’s chest rumbled lowly.

“Peter, please. The boy has just turned 18,” Talia chastised, but there was no heat in it. Stiles didn’t think it was possible for her to be an alpha with the kindness she had displayed.

“18 means legal big sister,” Peter said as he took a sip of the wine Stiles wasn’t sure he should be drinking. He shuddered when he thought of how even more brash Peter could be with a bottle of wine in his system. “I’m not asking for me, anyway,” Peter said with a shrug, leaning forward to glance over at Derek.

“Can’t we just have one dinner without you making-- No, wait,” Laura said, interrupting herself as she grabbed a shovel of mashed potatoes, “I take that back. Can’t we just have one dinner without you? Full stop.” Peter scowled at her, but Stiles was a little too focused on how he went out of his way to look at Derek. He didn’t know much about werewolves, but there must have been something obvious in the air for Peter to make such a large jump when he had only been in the house for that short of a time.

“Stiles, we are dying to know,” Talia began as she put way too many peas onto his plate. Her smile was too bright and the food smelled too delicious for him to ask her to stop. “How did your father react when he found out Laura was your soulmate?”

“Platonic soulmate,” Laura was quick to interject. Derek huffed out a laugh beside him and Stiles couldn’t help but smile at the sound.

Stiles ignored the outburst and said, “Well, at first, he was confused. From his history with your family, he was pretty sure Laura was… not interested.”

“Which is very true,” Laura interrupted again. Stiles threw a pea at her, ignoring her cry of protest before he continued.

“Then he was just amused because, and I think this is a direct quote, ‘she’s going to chew you up and spit you out and you’re going to let her’,” Stiles finished with a wink at Cora. She blushed and laughed, hiding her face when her dad shot an accusatory glance at her.

“Our Laura would never,” Talia said but it was clear in her tone that she figured that’s exactly what would have happened if their soulmate bond was anything more than platonic. Stiles still thought that she was gonna destroy him any chance she got, but she didn’t scare him much anymore. He knew she was secretly looking for acceptance and Stiles was the one to give her that unconditionally.

“Speaking of spitting,” Peter said with a sly grin on his face. At that comment, Derek’s growl seemed to echo around the room.

“Peter,” he said so lowly that Stiles almost missed it even though he was sitting right next to Derek. Peter must have heard it loud and clear judging by the way his face turned to stone. It was almost like--

“Of course, Alpha,” Peter spat, slamming his fork down on the plate. “I wouldn’t want to challenge you for a mate again. We all know how that went last time,” Peter said and Stiles was sure he could hear a pin drop with the silence that enveloped the room. Before he could try to break the tension with one of his jokes, Laura shot out of her seat, wielding a steak knife in her hand, and if Stiles had thought she was intimidating before, he was positive of it then.

“Laura, no.” Stiles almost didn’t recognize the voice as Talia’s, the stern tone and growl that seemed to rumble table so unlike what he had seen from her before.

“He knows it’s off limits, Mom. He’s lucky we even let him in here after what he did to--”

“Laura, enough!” Talia shouted, her eyes flashing red as Laura seemed to crumble back into her seat. Stiles could feel her submission through their bond and it knocked the breath out of him. It wasn’t until Derek’s hand rested on his shoulder that he was able to gulp in enough air to have his head stop spinning.

“Peter--” Evan spat, but before he could continue, Derek was shaking his head and standing. His eyes darted from each face at the table, skipping Peter’s but lingering a little longer on his than Stiles thought was warranted. There was something about the way Derek’s palm slid from the fabric of his shirt and down his arm before resting at his side that had a chill racing down Stiles’ body.

“I’m gonna go for a run or-- Just, enjoy your meal,” Derek muttered. He glanced at Stiles and whispered, “It was nice to meet you. I’m glad Laura has--” his breath stuttered, “--has someone.” Stiles nodded and watched Derek until he reached the door, hoping he would glance back so Stiles could take it as an invitation and follow him. His hand hesitated on the doorknob, but he pulled the door open and shut it softly behind him.

“Mom, as a member of your pack and your daughter, I can’t keep staying silent while Peter hurts my brother,” Laura said, her voice surprisingly steady as her eyes flashed. Talia nodded and held eye contact with Evan like a silent agreement was being made between them. He wondered if that’s how all romantic soulmates were with each other and felt his heart constrict at the fact that may never apply to him.

Laura was staring at him when he looked away from her parents and he realized they had it, too. He knew every emotion that was swirling around inside of her - the hurt, the sadness, the sheer anger directed at Peter, they want to follow where her brother had disappeared to - like it was his own and rested a hand against the mark on his skin. It was something he had resented for so long when he met Laura and figured out she wouldn’t be the love of his life. He couldn’t find himself to hate it at that moment, though. Not when his heart yearned for Derek and the family he had only just met.

“I’ve allowed you in this pack, Peter, because you are blood. You are the only family from my past that I have left,” Talia began as she stood, shuffling over to Peter to hold his face in her hands, “but the family that is my future can never accept you as theirs.” Peter blanched at the statement as if he had never thought Talia would say those words. Stiles didn’t have it in him to feel bad after what he had just witnessed.

“You can’t be serious, Lia. I can’t control how your little brat feels about his past. You all treat him as if his past will haunt him forever when I’m merely trying to--”

“Enough,” Talia whispered. Even with the soft tone of her voice, Stiles knew she wouldn’t let him keep speaking. “Peter Hale, you are no longer allowed on the territory of the Beacon Hills Pack, as proclaimed by the Alpha, Talia Hale.”

Howls erupted through the room and Stiles thought he heard a distant sorrowful one from outside. Laura’s heart burst in her chest and Stiles felt it from where he had pushed back his seat away from the siblings. He shot a glance at her out of the corner of his eye and saw tears bubbling in them. He wasn’t sure he would ever see Laura emotional, but he was glad the first time was for family. Fate had gotten something right when he paired them, Stiles thought happily.

“I’ll be gone by midnight,” Peter choked out, and then he was gone. The room silenced like a dark cloud had suddenly appeared and Talia dropped into her seat with a sigh.

“Mom, I--” Laura began, but Talia’s eyes flashed red. Stiles didn’t see anger in them as he expected. He wasn’t quite sure what had just happened, but from what he had heard from Laura, Peter was the worst person she had ever met and Stiles was glad to be rid of him. Talia might not feel the same as he was family and Stiles couldn’t imagine the pain she must have felt.

“Derek?” Cora nodded and closed her eyes, her chin tilting down slowly. Stiles knew she was listening for him, trying to sense his mood and whereabouts with her werewolf ability. He would have been impressed if he wasn’t still shocked.

“He’s at the treehouse,” Cora whispered as she stood. “I can--”

“Can I?” Stiles asked, shooting up from his seat. All four eyes locked on his and he wasn’t sure who to look at it. The bond pulsing on his skin had him subconsciously choosing Laura, which he figured he would have to get used to. “I just-- I don’t know what happened. I don’t need an explanation,” Stiles said quickly as all of their mouths moved to open, “but I would like to talk to Derek. You all saw what I did and for some reason he… trusts me. Can I be the one to make sure he’s okay?”

Talia nodded slowly and rested her hand on Laura’s as if to calm her. He could feel her confusion and what he thought might be jealousy, but he brushed it aside. If he wanted answers, Derek was going to be the one to give them to him. That much was made clear in the last few minutes.

“Where do I go?” Stiles asked as he reached the door. Laura considered answering him, but Cora beat her to it.

“Behind the house. Walk directly straight for about a minute and it’ll be on your right. It’s the only treehouse out there,” Cora said. Stiles winked back at her and a blush covered her cheeks as she waved him away. He sent one more glance at Laura and was surprised by her encouraging nod before he shut the door behind him.

He wasn’t sure what he would say and that was his first problem. He could tell Derek that Peter was kicked out, but by the howl he had heard in the woods, he had already made the connection. He would ask Derek what the hell just happened, but Stiles wasn’t sure brazen was the way to go with Derek. Maybe he would just sit next to him and wait for Derek to do the talking. He thought about that option for a second before remembering the countless times Laura ran conversations with him and he was happy to listen. If he recalled correctly, that day was the first time he had actually heard a full sentence out of Derek in the time he had known Laura.

All too suddenly, Stiles realized just how different they were. He didn’t know what he felt for Derek or what the night had started, but he wasn’t the kind of person to let it go. He figured Derek might be, but if he thought that Stiles was going to leave without having answers, he had another thing coming.

“I can hear you thinking from all the way up here,” Derek’s voice split through the silence of the forest. Stiles jumped and held in the yelp that threatened to escape his lips. He heard a small huff of laughter from above and flinched when a rope ladder dropped a few feet in front of him.

“I thought it was gonna be a lot harder to convince you to let me up there,” Stiles said, huffing as he attempted to climb the rope. He wasn’t out of shape by any means, but climbing was never something he was good at. He remembered being almost as uncoordinated as Erica on the rope at school before she got the bite.

“You seem like the type that would find his way up even if I didn’t want you here,” Derek noted as he threw his hands on the wooden platform to pull himself fully into the house. He took a deep breath in and sat up so he was facing Derek. He was surprised to see peace in his light eyes that reflected the sunset out the side of the treehouse beautifully.

“Do you want me here?” Stiles asked carefully, moving to glance at the view. It was breathtaking and not at all what Stiles had expected. The placement was perfect for the sunset peeking through the large trees that surrounded the preserve and shined off the small pond Stiles hadn’t known was hidden behind their home. “Wow,” he couldn’t stop himself from whispering. Derek nodded in agreement and leaned back on his hands.

After a few moments of silence, Derek said, “I’m not gonna kick you out.” It wasn’t exactly the answer he had wanted, but it was kinder than he expected. He settled back on his hands, matching Derek’s position as they watched the sun fall behind the trees together. “I’m sorry for what happened,” Derek whispered. The admission shocked Stiles more than almost anything had that night. First, because Derek didn’t strike him as an apologetic type, and second, because Derek thought he had anything to apologize for.

“Your Uncle Peter is a real dick,” Stiles said before he could stop himself. He slammed his palm over his mouth, but before he could apologize, Derek’s laughter filled the air. Stiles pushed back the way his heart seemed to always stutter at the sound.

“Yeah,” Derek agreed, “he really is.”

There were a few moments of silence that Stiles used to think of what he could possibly say next. It was obvious there was a story as to why Laura reacted so strongly to Peter and that it was enough to cast Peter out of the town and out of the pack. Stiles didn’t know much about werewolf politics other than what he gathered from the files he had snuck peeks at in the past, but that wasn’t something that was taken lightly. Derek sighed heavily next to him and cleared his throat as darkness fell over them. Stiles was sad to see the sunset disappear, but the stars that started sparkling through the sky almost made the disappearing view worth it.

“Do you love Laura?” Derek asked and Stiles choked at the question.

He sputtered out, “Excuse me?” Derek sighed again, more annoyed that time, and turned toward Stiles.

“I know you’re her soulmate--”

“Platonic,” Stiles interrupted before Derek could finish. Derek shot him a deadly glare which had him pressing his lips together nervously.

“Even platonic soulmates must feel love for one another, right?” Stiles was a bit scared to speak, so he nodded his head and couldn’t stop the smile from tugging at his lips. “I love Laura, too. She’s my sister, but more than that, she’s the most stubborn, hard headed, independent, kind, strong woman I’ve ever had in my life.” Stiles nodded quickly in return. Laura was the best and they undoubtedly agreed on that.

“There are times when I wish our bond wasn’t platonic,” Stiles began and Derek’s raised eyebrow told him his interpretation of Stiles’ admission was a lot different than Stiles meant. “No, no, no, I don’t wanna like bang your sister, man,” Stiles said, but at Derek’s blank look, he realized those weren’t exactly the most comforting words either. “What I mean to say,” Stiles took a deep breath, “is that your sister was a surprise to me. Our connection is stronger than I’ve seen with even the most romantic of soulmates. I’m here for the long haul whether you or your family - or anyone else for that matter - like it or not.”

He said the words with such conviction, he hoped Derek heard the sincerity in them. Even if Derek wasn’t going to bear his soul right then and there to someone he had really just met, he needed Derek to know that he would find out eventually. Derek would trust Stiles implicitly and it was only a matter of time. He had wormed his way into Laura’s life, charmed her into loving him right back, and he would do the same to Derek because he had to.

It might have been the way his stomach seemed to tremble or the way his heart clenched in his chest or even the way that being so close to Derek with only the night sky giving them any semblance of light had his entire body shivering, as if it anticipated his entire life changing. It could have been the way Derek was watching him so carefully, like he was deciding if Stiles was telling the truth, or the way his shoulders relaxed when he saw whatever he was searching for in Stiles’ gaze.

“Our family hasn’t had the best luck when it comes to soulmate bonds,” Derek began and Stiles let out the breath he was all too aware he was holding. “My mom never had a soulmate and she was happy about it until she met my dad. His soulmate was the love of his life and my mom sat back and befriended them because she wanted him in her life. When he lost his soulmate to a rogue wolf, he didn’t know how to move on. My mom helped him through it and even though they weren’t fated, they ended up together with the same amount of love most soulmates feel for each other.”

Stiles nodded and whispered, “That’s incredibly romantic.” Derek laughed in return and shook his head.

“They had their battles. Mom was an alpha werewolf and dad had barely just been bitten. It was tough for them but they believed that soulmate bonds weren’t the be all end all to how much love someone had to give. It was the only thing that got me through when I--” Derek cleared his throat and Stiles could hear the tears building in his throat.

“You don’t have to tell me,” Stiles whispered, reaching over to rest his hand on top of Derek’s softly. It was so similar to the way Derek comforted him during dinner and Stiles’ mind reeled with what it could mean. They had only known each other for a few hours at most and they both had eased into comforting one another already. It surprised and intrigued Stiles, but his mind was too focused on the trust that Derek was displaying as he shook his head abruptly.

“Like you said, you’re here to stay whether we like it or not, right?” Stiles nodded and said nothing further, urging Derek to continue with a squeeze of his hand. “I met my soulmate in high school. Her name is-- was Paige. I knew I was one of the lucky ones to meet my soulmate so early in life. We had the rest of forever to spend with each other and I was so in love with her.” Derek let out a choked laugh and ran his free hand through his hair. He didn’t try to remove his hand from underneath Stiles’ but turned it over instead. Stiles traced the lines of his palm with his fingertips delicately.

“So fate got it right?” Stiles asked with a smile.

Derek nodded and continued, “Everyone thought we were perfect for each other. I was extroverted and sporty, she was more introverted and loved to lock herself in a room to practice her cello. I thrived on time spent with my friends and she loved spending time with just me. We were the definition of opposites attract and we--” He broke off with another shake of his head. “I believed in soulmates just as much as the next person, but I also knew that sometimes fate was wrong.

“I mean, I looked at my parents and how much they loved each other and I would never cheapen that the way others had, but fate had perfected the match between Paige and I. Before we even graduated, we were planning our future together.” He went quiet, staring up at the stars like they held all the answers to a question Stiles was too afraid to ask. The silence in the air was heavy and Stiles broke it with a hefty breath.

“What happened?” Stiles asked softly, lacing his fingers with Derek to try and provide whatever comfort he could. Derek’s small smile warmed Stiles’ heart as he waited for the story he had been intrigued to hear.

“Peter happened,” Derek spat before taking a deep breath. “He is only a few years older than me and he set his sights on Paige, too. Even though she was my soulmate, he was sure that her kindness meant that they should be together so he challenged me for her. Soulmate bonds aren’t just for werewolves…” Derek trailed off, gesturing toward Stiles who huffed out a laugh.

“Obviously,” he agreed with a scrunch of his nose.

“But werewolves take them more seriously than humans. We mate for life more times than not, but Peter grew up with his sister and her husband defying all of the odds and he just couldn’t let it go.” Stiles could tell that even recalling the event was becoming too much for Derek to handle and opened his mouth to stop him. He didn’t need to hear more if it meant that Derek would continue sounding as broken as he did. Derek squeezed Stiles' hand and leveled him with an almost pleading glance.

“Okay,” Stiles muttered as he prepared himself for what he thought would be a tragic story.

Derek sat up a little straighter and squeezed Stiles’ hand tighter before he started again, “Peter wasn’t born with a soul mark and to him, that meant his mate was his choosing. It didn’t matter that the person standing in his way was his family - someone I considered my best friend - he was blinded by the good that Paige was that he would never be. Paige didn’t want to tear us apart, but I didn’t realize at that time just how much. She was going to leave Beacon Hills and break our bond so that our family, our pack, wouldn’t be broken. That wasn’t on her, but that’s just who she was a person, you know?”

“She sounds selfless,” Stiles commented and that made Derek smile again which Stiles was grateful for.

“She was. And Peter was the opposite. He was waiting outside of her house when she walked out with her bags packed and they had an argument. He said it was innocent - that he was begging her to stay with him - and somehow, the tripped and her head slammed against the stonewall lining her driveway.” Derek shuttered and Stiles had to hold back all of the questions he had. Did he think Peter murdered her? Did he see her? Did he get to say goodbye?

He stayed mostly silent, muttering a brief, “I’m sorry.” As if it would do anything to ease Derek’s pain.

“I hated Peter, but he was family and one of the only blood pack members my mother had left. I saw her struggle with the decision to exile him back then and I can’t imagine the hurt she is feeling right now,” Derek said, guilt clear in his tone. He pressed his hand against his heart and Stiles felt his own tightening in his chest.

“He doesn’t deserve to be here with you,” Stiles said and the words were angrier than he had meant them to be. “I’ve known Laura for a while and the rest of you for only a night, but I knew from the second I met you that the tragedy you went through hasn’t broken you.” Derek looked as if he was about to argue and Stiles took a chance, resting his free palm on Derek’s cheek. He was surprised to find it dry as even Stiles’ eyes were tearing at the story.

“I tried for so long to push aside the pain and anger I felt toward Peter, but for some reason, I feel ashamed that my past is what tore my family apart,” Derek admitted, looking anywhere but Stiles’ face. The hand that rested on Derek’s cheek pushed just enough for their eyes to connect and Stiles tilted his head consideringly at Derek.

“Peter tore your family apart by ripping Paige away from you. And from what I saw tonight, he continued to poke and prod at your happiness in order to prove that he was somehow superior. You have done nothing but forgive someone I never would have. In fact,” Stiles said, clearing his throat, “I probably would have punched the guy if it wasn’t for the fact I was meeting your parents for the first time.”

Derek’s laughter was real and raw, only slightly drowned by unshed tears as he asked, “Oh, yeah? What makes you think you would have done any damage?” Stiles considered the question and shrugged.

“I wouldn’t have made a dent in him. But I’ve been told I’m good at provoking people so best case scenario, he would have gone after me and I had at least 4 werewolves ready to attack when he did,” Stiles said with a coy smile. Derek shook his head and reached up to take Stiles’ hand on his face in his own.

“We wouldn’t have let anything happen to you,” Derek admitted and Stiles knew it was the truth.

“Yeah, you wouldn’t have. Just like you wouldn’t have let anything bad happen to Paige and how even through your own suffering, you didn’t let it tear your family apart,” Stiles urged. Stiles was sure if he could see Derek more clearly, there would be a blush on his cheeks and the thought made him a bit giddy even with the heavy conversation behind them. “Look, I don’t know you yet, and there was a while in there where I thought I never would,” Stiles began, holding Derek’s hands tightly in his, “but I would like to. I mean, I know what is possibly the most traumatic thing that ever happened to you, so we can only go up from here, right?” Derek smiled wider and Stiles grinned right back.

“I don’t see the harm in that,” Derek muttered. He stood up slowly, gesturing to the opening of the treehouse for Stiles to make his way down. “I can hear Laura pacing from out here. We should…” Stiles took Derek’s outstretched hand in his and nodded.

“Yeah…” Stiles trailed off, pulling Derek back to facing him when he started to drop the ladder. “Hey, Derek?” Stiles asked, gulping when he saw the moonlight reflecting in Derek’s eyes.

“Stiles,” Derek whispered and Stiles thought that he could get used to Derek saying his name like that. It was soft and sultry when he wasn’t even trying. Stiles briefly considered how it would sound when he did try.

“Thank you for telling me,” Stiles said, his lips pulling back into a shy smile before he could stop them. Derek huffed out what sounded like a relieved laugh and squeezed Stiles’ hand in his.

“Laura’s lucky to have you,” Derek responded, but Stiles knew it was as much of a thank you as Derek could probably give.

“Well, I’m feeling pretty lucky, too,” Stiles muttered as he watched Derek lower himself from the treehouse. He was grateful that his extremely platonic soulmate was Laura because that meant he would never be rid of Derek. Derek who he could see becoming friends with, who he could see annoying until he was red in the face, who he could see himself falling in love with… “Yeah, I’m really lucky.”

#sterek #stiles & laura #stiles stilinski #derek hale #laura hale #platonic soulmates #my writing #evanesdust #thank you so much for your support!!#i hope you enjoy this rendition of your amazing idea!! <3

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clean-bands-dirty-stories · 5 years ago

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Normal ~ A.L.

A/n: Ah yes, this is going to be fun.

Request: “...Alec lightwood x male reader. Maybe the reader is mundane and shows Alec what it’s like being human for a day and then Alec shows him what it’s like being a shadow hunter. And maybe the whole time Alec is like o my word I love this kid...” by anon

Word Count: 5100+ (this is why it took me so long CHRIST I’m sorry)

MASTERLIST

You know, the thing that kept Mundanes seeing into the world of the Shadowhunters was a funny thing. It was supposed to always work, blocking humans from seeing monsters and those that hunted monsters. The problem was, nothing was perfect. Everyone made mistakes. Everything glitched from time to time.

I guess you could call Y/n a glitch.

The thing that kept humans from seeing things they shouldn't? It didn't work for Y/n.

When Y/n had first been seen facing down a vampire, it had seemed a little odd. The woman the vamp was going after seemed miffed that some dude was cutting in on her date, and everyone was confused. When they had killed the thing and Y/n had thanked them afterward, they'd all assumed he might have been like Clary - unaware of his Shadowhunter background somehow. But he had assured them he was human, and had proved it. Thankfully, since the plan had been to use a rune on him and if they had, he would have absolutely died.

Y/n was just immune to the magic that should have kept him far out of the knowing of what was really going on in the shadows of his town. Which left him unable to do anything, other than gather information and share it when he could. Y/n had no magic and no way to fight when he had no training or run protections, but he did have a talent for tricking monsters with their one weakness. He was human, and they were hungry.

Long story short: Y/n was really good at being bait, and he didn't mind it either.

Alec minded it a lot.

The two boys had gotten close pretty quickly. Alec refused to admit it, but Y/n was pretty charming. He had a nice smile and a contagious laugh, and a sort of lightness about him that was incredibly refreshing. It wasn't that he was untouched by darkness, or that he was fresh and innocent and waiting to be destroyed, like they all were before their line of living had ruined them. Y/n had been aware of monsters all his life, and being surrounded by people who could not see what he could see had landed him in either very near death situations, or mental hospitals a few times before he'd learned how to lie. He'd even been medicated really heavily a few times, but when that had done nothing, Y/n had come to terms that there was something going on that other people couldn't see. He had been in this business for a very long. No, Y/n was just the kind of person that refused to lose that inner child. He was soft and strong, and could make anyone smile and any situation bearable.

The way he made life so much more beautiful drew Alec in so aggressively, the Lightwood boy lost his breath every time.

Y/n was good at getting along with everyone else too. He wasn't good at much other than writing, leaving him to connect with Clary because of the similar vibes of their childhood, as well as their mutual passion for art. He and Simon bonded over poetry as well. Izzy enjoyed having someone who could keep up with her flirting, without it meaning anything or leading to something neither of them wanted. Even Jace was enjoying Y/n's presence when he proved that despite his lack of an ability to fight monsters and the such, Y/n WAS well trained in self defense. The two sparred while Y/n cracked jokes and made Jace laugh. Yeah, the blonde and brooding Jace was actually LAUGHING.

Having Y/n around was very refreshing.

So they all missed him a lot when he wasn't around.

Y/n attended college to chase am Arts History degree, and worked two jobs to keep himself afloat. The day Alec got permission to let Y/n move into the Institute was a great day for everyone. Now he was around a lot more- especially because now that he didn't have to pay rent, he could quit one of his jobs. In his free time, Y/n spent cleaning gear and learning how to hone his lame cooking skills. He wasn't great, but he was better than Izzy and was usually the only one with the energy to try it at the end of the day. When Hodge... went rogue, Y/n took charge of keeping up the Garden and learning all he could about how this world worked so he could take care of things and keep everything running smoothly. This left him spending most of his time in the library, reading up on history books.

One day though, Y/n needed Alec's help. Tensions between the two boys had risen almost to over spilling, but every time Y/n thought they were going somewhere, Alec stepped back. Y/n respected the boy's hesitance and never pushed, but the dragging was getting to everyone else. Izzy especially, who wanted the coolest mundane ever to get with her brother.

That wasn't why Y/n was bothering Alec now though. "Hey can I clean the glowing weapons things, or like... will those kill me?"

Alec couldn't help slip a small smile when he heard Y/n's voice. He turned around to see the boy coming in, a huge book in his hand but a confused look on his face. "Please tell me you're not talking about Seraph Blades."

"Those are the ones," Y/n confirmed without hesitation.

Alec shifted, raising an eyebrow. "They're just... fire."

"Well yes," Y/n drawled, rolling his eyes. "But the tubes. I mean, when they deactivate there's still something there, right? Doesn't that get covered in blood and stuff? Won't it getting all icky mess with the magic? And I've never seen any of them dirty. So do you guys have to clean them, or can I?"

That was very confusing to Alec. "Okay hold on. Have you never seen us kill a demon before?"

Y/n got rather sheepish then. "In my defense, I usually get in the way if I help, so I run unless there's someone in immediate danger. The last time, when I tried to help that girl, I almost got her, myself, AND Jace killed.

Alec flinched at the memory. "Jace is an idiot. Him jumping in when he did was his own fault."

"Wouldn't have been necessary if I wasn't provoking a damn vampire," Y/n mumbled.

"That girl probably would have died if you hadn't. We couldn't have attacked him with her there without chancing hurting her, or exposing ourselves. You saved her." Alec was ready to argue this, far too used to Jace's tendency to see the worst in himself despite the fact that he was actively a hero.

Y/n had to relent. "Fine, whatever. So, the blade?"

"Demons don't bleed," Alec explained. "They... well, it depends on the demons actually. Some turn to dust, or explode into fire. Some just kind of fade away. No need to clean blood off our weapons."

Y/n nodded, but obviously had a follow up question, so Alec waited for him to ask it. "Doesn't the dust get on your clothes? Does the fire ever burn you? Perhaps I should pick up some medical skills as well in case you guys come home hurt. Might make me more useful."

Alec rolled his eyes this time. "If you're seriously stuck on the idea of running this place instead of going out there and working in an art museum like you told Clary is your dream job, I won't stop you. That's not my decision to make." Y/n blushed, but Alec pretended not to see it. "However, if you're going to be one of us there are things you have to understand." He hesitated. "I want you to follow us around me around sometime. I can show you what it's like to be a Shadowhunter. You can even come on a mission if you want, but I want you to stay FAR out of danger, do you understand?"

"Yes sir." Y/n was grinning, and between that and what he had said, Alec felt his chest heat up with a weird emotion he refused to address. "When do we start?"

A soft chuckle came from Alec then. "How about tomorrow? I'll wake you up bright and early, so be prepared."

Y/n nodded eagerly, already walking backward - presumably to return the book so he could head to bed. "Great! See you tomorrow, Alec!" He turned around and jogged away then.

Alec couldn't help himself but appreciate the view as Y/n retreated down the hall. He heard someone clear their throat and looked over to see Clary, whose smirk was so wide it wiped the smile off of Alec's face. He turned away from her and moved toward his own room. What had he gotten himself into?

When Alec got to Y/n's room that morning, he was expecting to have to wake the other boy up. Unfortunately for him, when he opened the door, Y/n was already awake. And getting dressed. He wore the long, dark pants a lot of the guys around here wore when they weren't in Mundane clothes. He did not, however, have a shirt on. "Oh, good morning Alec," Y/n greeted brightly.

Alec almost exploded right there. Y/n wasn’t especially muscly, but he was rather lean. Y/n did a lot of walking, running, and casual work outs every once in a while before meeting the Shadowhunters. He knew self defense after all, and liked that the occasional work out filled him with energy after a while, even if it tired him out at first. Since joining the Institute though, Jace had enforced a daily workout. Some days Y/n got even more done when the two boys sparred, or when he had to move things around for research (those books were a lot heavier than they looked) or rearranged his room again because he liked to have a new layout every once in a while. Y/n had become the extra pair of hands everyone was excited to have. He was strong enough to spot for a lot of the other Shadowhunters even, leaving him in that comfortable middle between ripped and soft. He had angles and lines, but plenty of soft edges too. He looked like he could pick Alec up and then cuddle him just as easily. It was a body type that looked very good on the boy, and seeing him shirtless did things to Alec that should not have been being done.

It was then that Alec realized Y/n was talking to him. "I'm sorry, what?"

Y/n laughed, shaking his head in amusement. He put a shirt on, leaving Alec wondering if the boy knew what had left Alec so distracted. "I asked you what was first on the agenda today."

"Have you done your morning workout today yet?" Y/n shook his head. "Then that's where we'll start." And they did. Alec pushed himself further usual, and he knew he was doing it to show off to Y/n, but he also knew a little part of him wanted to outshine Y/n too. The boy kept up pretty well, and Alec didn't want to have a Mundane do better than him. After, they got breakfast, parted to shower, and then rejoined again to head to the sparring ring.

"You guys do a lot of training here," Y/n realized aloud.

Thankfully Alec had caught it, because he was super distracted by the way Y/n's wet hair shone under the lighting of the Institute, and the way it made his eyes look brighter. He didn't need to get caught for staring again. "Yeah. It takes up time, but it also keeps us ready for any surprise attacks, and prepared for nighttime hunts." Y/n nodded but didn't say anything else as they reached the rings. Alec grabbed two long staffs, passing one to Y/n as they stepped up to spar. Y/n knew what to do - he did it often with Jace. Alec was sure he'd claim victory over the Mundane.

Which left him rather speechless when Y/n pinned him. They were both out of breath and Y/n loomed over Alec, his feet planted and knees trapping Alec as the end of Y/n's staff rested threateningly against Alec's throat. "You're dead," Y/n joked.

Alec looked at Y/n with new eyes. What was with this guy? Why did Alec have to try so much harder to end up on top? Mundanes were like Clary and Simon, before they'd been trained. Alec could still remember how long both of them had lost time and time again to even the newest and youngest Shadowhunters. How could Y/n win against Alec? "How are you so good at fighting? I thought your thing was writing stories."

Y/n moved back, letting Alec go. He offered a hand and Alec took it. He was once again knocked breathless when Y/n hauled Alec to his feet without seeming to even struggle. "I'm stronger than I look. And... when I was younger, I didn't have shadowhunters and parabatai to have my back. I had to learn how to defend myself. Whether it was running from monsters, or making sure I didn't get pummeled by bigger kids who called me crazy and laughed at me because of the stories I supposedly made up..." He shrugged.

That didn't settle well in Alec's stomach. "I don't think any of us know what it's like to live like that. Clary doesn't remember, and the rest of us grew up with each other. I... I'm sorry, that's terrible."

There was a second when Alec saw the heaviness that Y/n hid so well in the boy's shoulders. Suddenly Alec was stunned by how someone so burdened by pain and sorrow could still radiate so much light and joy and comfort. How did Alec only now know that Y/n was capable of winning against even a well trained Shadowhunter, if he was really trying? Why was it such a shock that someone who grew up with deformed nightmares roaming around, would be able to kick some ass and defend himself? Alec realized then that Y/n made everyone feel safe. Y/n didn't seem able to hurt anyone, even if he wanted to. It made Y/n even more amazing that he was capable of defending someone if he had to, but chose not to in favor of making people feel safe around him. I dare say it made Alec feel even more safe.

Y/n sighed, and the moment passed. He was smiling again and Alec felt his heart swell with a feeling that terrified the dark haired boy. A feeling that also made him feel... really great too. "So what's next on the agenda, Lightwood?" "Jace will have our goal for tonight. Come on." Alec lead the way as they both headed to where Jace was. Alec explained the situation, and with Y/n's assurance he'd be plenty safe, Jace agreed. Y/n had been around a lot, and Alec was right - if he was up keeping the place, he had to know what being a Shadowhunter was actually like. After that had been settled, the trio headed to track down Izzy and Clary for the mission tonight.

"First thing first, Y/n's joining us tonight. He won't be getting involved, and will only be tagging along for educational purposes so he can know what he's dealing with as he gets more involved with how this place work, as well as the people in it," Jace began. Izzy and Clary both nodded, no arguments to be heard. "Okay, now down to business." Long story short, there were two demons who had teamed up and they had to kill it. Usual stuff.

Since when had demons and murder become Y/n's normal? Yikes.

The kill went rather smoothly, just like it was supposed to. It was a nice change from all the odd things that had been rocking everyone's world since Clary, Simon, and Y/n had joined the team. Very good for teaching as well. Y/n stayed back as promised, taking notes mentally and internalizing it. He thought about his thought earlier on how murder and demonic beings had at some point gone from nightmare to reality. Normal, even. For Shadowhunters, there was no shift. They grew up and lived a life where monsters were more than nightmare and you learned to kill from a young age. Perhaps it was fair, since they were bad guys surviving off of killing humans, but still. Alec knew how to kill Y/n. He probably could, if it was required or just if he wanted to. He could do it and he would get away with it too. Shadowhunters leave no trace and no Nephalim was going to care about Y/n being dead.

As the dark thought started to rise, Y/n pushed it down. As much as he seemed a bundle of effortless happiness and light, even he had his moments. He was just better at keeping them in check.

Everyone came home and got ready for bed as Y/n made food. He finished up before anyone came to eat so he killed time by making everyone's plate and putting them on the counter. When he was still alone, he sat on the counter and let himself get lost in thought. Just as he was, Clary popped into the room. "That smells amazing."

Y/n smiled. "I hope it tastes as good as it smells then." They both chuckled as Clary grabbed her plate and began to leave. "Going so soon?"

She nodded. "I have this... it's sort of um..." she seemed to be struggling. "Drawing. Can I show you later?" It was a habit she'd gotten from Y/n, losing her words when she was excited. She had been a little like that before being a Shadowhunter, when it came to art. Y/n fueled it again and set off her fire. She was more into art than ever and Y/n loved to see it, even if it meant one less person at the dinner table.

Y/n had been trying to have family dinners, but most of the time his efforts dissolved. Rarely did he get everyone. Usually he only managed to wrangle a few, and sometimes he ate alone. When a Clary left, it wasn't long before Simon and Izzy meandered in, lost in conversation about something. Y/n wasn't totally listening, as they were obviously midconversation and Y/n was lost as to what they‘d said up until now. They each grabbed a plate and headed out. Y/n sighed and watched them, but still said nothing.

Jace came next. "What did you think about the fight tonight?"

Y/n jumped and then chuckled. Jace gave a sort of guilty look. The blonde tended to hide his emotions, but when it came to Y/n he was always sorry to disturb the boy. Y/n had just seemed very pensive - nearly sad - and Jace hated the expression on Y/n's face. He was too used to the others who were trained to notice other people in the room even if they were quiet.

Quickly composing himself again, Y/n responded. "It was... cool, I guess. You guys are incredibly talented and there's something aesthetic about watching demons vaporize. It gave me a lot to think about."

"Like what?" Have asked, eyebrow cocked.

For a second Y/n hesitated but then Jace doned a prying look and Y/n was a terrible liar so he gave in. "You guys don't know what it's like to be human." Jace's expression darkened and Y/n flinched. "I mean, you have this angel blood that puts you above everyone else. You slay demons and purify the world and handle the boosting power of runes that any other creature would be destroyed by. You know what it's like to be angel. Except maybe the flying." The joke lifted Jace's mood a little. "But you don't know what it's like to... I mean, you're half human. But I can't imagine any of you getting jobs or going to high school. Being vulnerable without the protection of your runes and the insane immunity they grant you. I mean- like earlier, I realized that Alec could one hundred percent kill me if he wanted to, and he would get away with it. No human would know, and no Nephilim would care so-"

"Clary, Izzy, and I would care." Jace seemed to have not meant to say it out loud. But he had and it stopped Y/n short.

He felt cared for and it made him uncomfortable. Jace could sense that. "Well that's... not the point." He blushed. "But thank you."

Jace nodded, then moved on to spare Y/n. The other boy obviously wasn't used to having people care about him. It made Jace remember that Y/n's life had been really hard. Y/n had spent almost all his life alone. Sometimes it was easy to forget with how kind and loving Y/n was. He was used to taking care of other people but being taken care of? Yikes. "Does it bother you?"

Y/n immediately shook his head. "Not at all. I don't feel in danger, at least. I trust all of you guys and know that none of you want to kill me. It does bother me though that you don't get to experience that normalcy. I mean does anyone here bake just for fun? Or have hobbies outside killing literal demons?" Jace went to speak but Y/n cut him off. "Clary doesn't count, she wasn't raised a Shadowhunter." Jace's mouth closed and Y/n sighed. "I just wish more... safe things for you guys. More fun and laughing and loving and less sneaking around in the shadows and killing. Thinking like that all the time... living a life where you only survive and hide and kill. I can't imagine it does good things for your mental health."

"I'm in perfect health," Jace reassured Y/n.

Y/n rolled his eyes. "No you're-" He stopped, shaking his head. He hesitated, perking up when an idea occurred to him. "What if I incorporated a little humanity into how we run things here? We can have like arts and crafts rooms and encourage people to utilize the library and the garden for things other than just necessities. I can enforce family dinners and we can congregate and have awkward family dinner discussions like normal people."

Jace smiled. "That sounds really nice actually."

That encouraged Y/n a lot. "Perfect, I'll start tomorrow."

"Start what?" Two sets of eyes turned to see Alec coming in the room. His eyes lingered on Jace, who seemed to be light on fire by the eye contact, as he was instantly on his feet, grabbing his plate, and heading out.

"Y/n can explain. He has a really great idea." He paused, smiling wider. "I'll see you at dinner tomorrow." Then he headed out, leaving behind a grinning Y/n. Alec snagged the last two plates, setting one by Y/n and the other on the counter next to him. He then pulled up a chair, turning it backward so the back of the chair was against his chest as he sat down, beginning to eat on the counter rather than the table to keep Y/n company. "What was that?"

Another idea hit Y/n then. "I'm going to bring some goddamn humanity to this Institute. You're all half human and you act like that's a bad thing or something! I'll start with a crafting room, and then using the garden and library for fun stuff instead of just what we need. We'll have a calendar with birthdays and celebrate each one with a proper little get together. AND, we're having family dinners from here on. Spread the word."

The authority in Y/n's tone took Alec off guard. "Will do." He found himself smiling a little. "I show you what it's like to be a Shadowhunter and you took from it that we need to be more human?"

Y/n mulled that over for a second, rather than letting it go as the joke Alec had intended it to be. "I don't want to erase your angel half. I know what you do is important, and that you guys save people and stuff. But even though you do good things for others, none of you do anything for yourselves. Self care isn't just staying in shape and getting food and sleep and healing yourselves when you get hurt. Do you have any hobbies other than fighting, Alec?" The Lightwood boy considered before conceding that Y/n had a point. "You showed me how to be a Shadowhunter. Now let me show you what it's like to be human." Alec's smile grew. "Tomorrow?"

"Tomorrow," Y/n agreed.

The day started the same, with Y/n respecting that Alec still had a routine and also that said routine was one some people carried as well. The waking up early and doing a morning workout, more than the killing demons and keeping vampires, werewolves, and fairies in check, but still.

Next, Y/n pulled him over to his laptop where he was going to online school. As Y/n worked, he answered questions about high school and even middle school. The more he talked the more Alec's face twisted in a bitter expression, like he'd bit into a lemon. Y/n busted up laughing when he got to math and Alec moved away from the screen as if it had offended him. "Not as glamorous as kicking ass and taking names and saving lives and shit, but it's cool. I guess."

Alec shook his head. "Is this... necessary?"

"I wouldn't go that far," Y/n snorted. "Do you use math like this? Ever?" Alec shook his head no. "And you're far more productive than most people who graduate college- and debt free!"

There was a moment where Alec seemed speechless. When he spoke again, it was slow. "This is kind of nice though. Easier to.. handle." He eyed the math page again. "No, I take that back. This is much scarier."

Y/n laughed at that. "Less deadly though. I get it." Alec smiled at him. It was so small it practically wasn't there, but it was, and it was sweet.

After a while, Y/n put his homework away. "That's not due for a while. Having to balance the human world and the shadow world was difficult at first so one night I pulled an all nighter and got weeks ahead on homework. My teachers were a little miffed since thy hadn't taught me the material yet, but easy ones like English were easy to swallow. Just, read a book and write an essay. You know?" Alec did nod knowingly at that. "My point is, we've had enough of this and don't have to finish it for tonight, so now is a good time for a break." He hummed to himself, thinking. "Do you guys have a TV here?" Alec rose his eyebrows. "That's what I thought. Come on we're going to go to my place."

So they did.

Alec had never been to Y/n's apartment before. Y/n had been clearing it out slowly, but there were still some thing here. Things that he couldn't take with him to the institute. Things like the fridge and the big furniture and, yes, the TV. It wasn't that he couldn't fit his bed and couches in the Institute, it was just that it would make it official if he did, and things still seemed to be up in the air for him.

"It's nice." It was perfectly clean and bright. The curtains were drawn to let the sun in and the walls were painted a light baby blue. The whole place made Alec relax his body. He sat on the very comfy couch and practically melted. There was just a sort of ambiance here that gave Alec the impression nothing bad could ever happen here. Which went against logic and reason and experience and training... but I guess that programming wasn't enough to fight the way the couch dipping with Y/n's weight, next to Alec, felt like... safety personified.

The two watched a few movies Alec had never seen or even heard of. Halfway through the Lion King, Alec felt his body lean into Y/n's. Without missing a beat Y/n shifted his arm so Alec could lean into in more, even rest his head on the other man's chest. Every time Y/n moved or laughed or spoke Alec didn't just hear it. He felt it. It was amazing.

All too soon, the sun was down and it was nighttime. "Do you want to watch another one, or should you be heading to bed soon?"

Surprise overtook Alec when he realized what time it was. His body was completely undone and his heart rate had evened out. He'd never been this calm in his life. "I'm surprised Jace hasn't come hunting me down."

That made Y/n smile. "I told him the plan for today. Told him that I was commandeering you and if he showed up to steal you tonight I'd kick his ass personally. I may be a Mundane but that won't stop me from finding a way to knock the blonde out of his hair." A jerking laugh bubbled from Alec then at the mental image of Y/n doing such a thing. "Yeah," Y/n agreed, chuckling along. "Took some convincing to get them to all take the night off. Jace argued, but as much as saving people is important, taking care of yourselves is just as important. And after you showed me what you guys do every single day... Holy shit."

Weird feelings began to twist in Alec's stomach. He could lie very well, about a lot of things. He could lie so convincingly that Jace would back off, and Izzy would let it go. He could lie to his mother to meet her ever demanding expectations. Unfortunately, he could only lie to himself for so long until his realist side kicked in and demanded him to accept what was.

He was in love with Y/n.

Well, shit.

"What are you thinking about over there?"

Alec felt his stomach flip. Double shit.

"Just... uh." He flinched at his sudden awkwardness. Y/n frowned, noticing it since they were so close. "I just want to thank you. The way you've thrown yourself into our lives and way of living and have done your best to keep everything going and then improve upon it? It's amazing. You work really hard to make life better for us."

Y/n swallowed, his face relaxed but his eyes intense. There was something in those eyes that was begging to be seen and known, but Alec was too scared to acknowledge it. What if Y/n could see through him and wanted to just be friends? What if Y/n was trying to be polite? But if that was the case, wouldn't he have pushed Alec away? Why was he pulling him closer?

Then they were kissing and it was all because of Y/n and Alec didn't have any doubts anymore.

When they parted again, Alec's mind was racing and Y/n's voice was soft. "I'll always be here Alec. All I want to do is make your life better and easier and more pleasant. You deserve it."

This time Alec kissed Y/n, and it lasted much longer and was much more intense. When they parted for the second time, Alec whispered, "Will you move in for real? I want you around all the time. I want you close and safe and I don't want you to go anywhere else. I don't want you to have to."

Y/n smiled. "Anything for you."

Male reader tags: @sheepfather

#alec lightwood #male reader #shadown hunters #x reader #imagine #alec lightwood x reader #alec lightwood imagine #shadow hunters x reader #shadow hunters imagine

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steve0discusses · 4 years ago

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S5 Ep 4: But His Name Backwards is Nomolos????

World is still kind of a mess, so lets go back to Yugioh, during an arc that is so incredibly tame that no one has died. Not even a little bit. No one has risked the destruction of the ecosystem with Pegasus’ historical fanart drawn on digital playing card. No angry gods have done really anything. They’re all on break.

Except for Pharaoh, but Pharaoh isn’t that angry anymore ever since the Orichalcos thing. He mostly just talks about card matches I couldn’t care less about because it’s Grandpa and Joey.

hey you know what bro just noticed that I haven’t noticed over these past 4 seasons--Look at Yugi and Yami’s hair.

Yugi’s hair has 3 extra floppy down bangs by his eyes. I just always assumed those were the same number as Pharaoh’s bangs--but turns out no, those are Pharoah’s streaks but flopped down.

Which means when he de-charges, his hair just flops over directly into his eyes.

And now I have an urge to animate something for the first time in years (spoiler: I do not have the time to animate this.) because WHY would they never animate this hair flop for us??? The POTENTIAL.

Grandpa spends most of the time saying “Joseph, can you guess what card I’m holding???” and Joey is like “Why would I tell you that? I’m trying to play a game? Would you stop explaining the rules? it’s getting kind of weird.” and I got a little bit of an insight into what the homelife of Yugi Muto must have been like growing up with a Grandpa who is just always talking about cards.

It does explain why Yugi plays so freakin slow, though.

(read more under the cut)

This is clearly just a visual gag but also maybe this is also how the Doctor just gets around?

Speaking of visual gags and getting around, it’s our two most inconsequential minibosses, refusing to leave the series.

Y’all let me know last time that we are in fact, still in America, and I guess this is proof of it, because there’s no other way they could have walked here. I mean Yugioh is real bad at geography but they seem to have a good grasp of a big ass ocean existing betwixt Japan and the US.

Not sure where they got those rad Hobbit outfits, though. If this is their new look, I’ll accept it.

(Yes, this is a new font. Again, I’m trying out stuff to try and make it accessible. I will figure this out before the season is over)

Honestly, I didn’t think Rex and Weevil could get much worse than being dead. Thought that maybe waking up in a hospital bed after joining the Big Bad would be enough of a wake up call to the direction their life is heading.

But, considering that this arc has no real villain so far other than a guy who likes the color purple and bathing in milk...maybe that’s fine. It’s not a BAD thing to play cards, necessarily. This doesn’t make them bad people...it’s what you do with those cards.

Like destroying a Caltrain with it, for instance.

Unless of course, the amount of energy it takes to do a card hologram is the same amount as an NFT, in which case I guess that would make them bad no matter who you play against. But we live in a universe with Noah in it, who probably had enough energy pumped into that orb to fuel like 15 Americas. Fossil fuels seem to be just fine in this universe.

In fact I don’t think it’s ever come up? Surprisingly, Seto Kaiba has never had to deal with an eco terrorist, unless you counted Raphael. That is hella rare for a 90′s early 00′s show. I feel like they were contractually obligated to have at least one fossil fuel episode.

Well, good for the Yugioh universe, who managed to solve the energy crisis off screen. Good for them.

PS Hawkins said this and afterward was like “I just want you kids to appreciate what you’re seeing here today.” and it’s like damn Hawkins. Condescend much? This old guy is like King of Throwing Shade While Appearing to be Helpful.

Anyway, the gimmick of Solomon Muto is that he plays a bunch of history cards. Arthur Hawkins was super excited about it, but I feel like the other kids were like “We straight up have never heard of any of these old ass cards for a reason.”

Bro has informed that this card also sucks ass IRL, and like...I’m not surprised.

(grandpa’s font has also changed to something he’s actually wearing, and to something that is way more legible.)

To think that during the time Grandpa spent trying to get this dragon working, he could have been researching the damn God Cards and helping Pharaoh figure out his past history. Youknow...that history stuff that he devotes his entire life to studying.

Course, maybe Grandpa was smart enough to know NOT do that. I feel like Grandpa putting the brakes on revealing Pharaoh’s history is reason enough to just not open that Pandora’s box, but that will be another arc, I guess. This one we’re just showing some ancient dragon merch to sell toys to kids IRL. Gotta have your episodes to remind you that Yugioh is in fact toys.

Also, Hawkins proceeded to point out to Yugi in a way without literally saying it, that Yugi doesn’t go home often enough to distract his Grandpa with cards.

Which Hawkins followed up by throwing shade at Joey Wheeler for the rest of the match, since he was the only one here who stans Grandpa. You can see who Rebecca gets it from, is what I’m saying.

Joey reveals his only motivation to be here--which should be to get a plane ticket. Like their only reason to be in this tournament is already done?

But his other motivation is silly.

uh huh.

Tristan really did lay this specific dunk in the show. He is being given a plane ticket to do nothing. Wow, Tristan.

At least Joey’s motivation isn’t based on fixing some girl. For once Joey is just doing this for himself and not for a relationship that will never happen for at least several years, or to be a Father for his oblivious Sister. Thank you, show. Course I say that, and there could be another Mai arc right around the corner.

Anyway, there really isn’t much else to say about this arc other than Joey has finally bested his mentor in a card game. Still can’t best Yugi or Pharaoh or Seto or hell, probably even Tea or Mokuba if they ever pulled out cards again...

...but he bested Grandpa, who got polished off by being beaten up by several thug-like holograms.

Not sure why he fell over other than...something in the holograms must be real in this universe. There’s no other reason this would happen!

(honestly I can’t handle Grandpa’s face. It looks. SO BAD. There’s something offsetting about it that I really do not like, and I think it’s the eyes and the tiny nose and the very skeletal bone structure--I don't like it)

Like every person here is convinced that Yugi’s grandpa is one step away from keeling over and it’s low key hilarious to me. The man has died and been resurrected. You think Pegasus did that bad of a job??? Grandpa Muto will likely outlive all of you.

This show really can’t lift Joey without taking two more punches to get him back down. Like the show keeps telling me that Joey is a complete idiot, and he kind of is, but I want to point out that he is a talented idiot who was second in most of the tourney’s he’s been in and he should have killed Marik straight up if he wasn’t like struck by lightning first.

Yes, he got distracted and raced after Mai last season so he prematurely died, but that was clearly just a phase because I don’t see Mai here.

Yes, in the actual show, they each said “ohhhh” and it’s like...the brain damage on these kids. We need to get them back to school.

I think there’s like 30+ other characters introduced but the only ones I know are Rex, Weevil, Leon, and...the girl who hugged Yugi once? I don’t remember her name. But they’re probably next. I feel like this is a bit of a slower arc, but hey, if anything it’s easier for me to cap.

anyway, if you just got here, this is a link to read these in Chrono Order!

https://steve0discusses.tumblr.com/tagged/yugioh/chrono

I’ll have you know I wrote this whole thing thinking Nomolos is a Fleet Foxes song and it hellllllllla got stuck in my head, but it turns out the word I was thinking of is Mykonos.

youtube

#ygo #yugioh #yu gi oh #recap #photo recap #S5 #Ep4 #Yugi muto #joey Wheeler #Grandpa muto #solomon muto #tea gardner #tristan taylor #duke devlin #Mokuba Kaiba #professor hawkins #at least this duel was short

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