#i never write thinking there’s anything to analyse in my writing

[sil-te-plait-tue-moi]

i wonder if u agree, but sometimes when i read old man rust x younger oc, it's weird to me picturing somebody in early/mid twenties bc, realistically, that would make the oc around his daughter's age, and i don't think rust can go for that. i say that as somebody who's 23, so i don't mean to exclude younger women or whatever. anyway, that's why i really like your oc bc she seems like an actual match for rust and not bc of age, but bc she's just the type of person i can see him falling for, i guess? like directly canonically in the series, so yeah, thank you for your work!!! but that got me wondering: when u started to write, did you have somebody in mind already and thought of how that sort of oc will work with rust, or did u ask urself what sort of person compliments rust best? sorry if this is too much trouble.

NOT TOO MUCH TROUBLE i think this is acc a super interesting ask!

my opinions below the cut…

⋆.ೃ࿔*:･

RIGHT so i wanna preface by saying EVERY SINGLE rust oc story ive read so far has meat to it, like the authors know their shit and they should get their due snaps and kudos

i think i read younger ofcs with like a pinch of salt in the sense that i know it’s a bit crazy — btw this is coming from someone who had a “relationship” with a much older man at the ripe age of 16 — but i think it’s still good to read

things we experience can be ugly and uncomfortable but it’s still real and a part of me appreciates like keeping it real 💀 this is going to sound a little femcel of me but let’s be honest, sex is about power and the dynamics of that power give intricacies to stories that make them interesting! rust is a man (😔) and have you ever seen that one study of like ages of women men find most attractive and it’s a consistent 20 even as men get to like 70

yeah

keeping it uncomfortably real but real nonetheless

true detective is southern gothic and what i love about southern gothic is that it doesn’t shy away from touching on the less palatable corners of human existence/nature/WHATever. do i see why a daughter woman child thing as a love interest to a middle aged man with a dead baby is off-putting? YES. do i still read things along those lines because it’s interesting? ALSO YES. because more often than not creators are self-aware and explore these topics with nuance, which i respect massively

now onto like the sort of second part of you ask, beautiful anon…

when writing The Idler Wheel, idk if i was thinking as deeply when creating an oc as i was fixated on the weirdness of rust and ocs like yearning 😭? for each other, and the fact that he felt anything at all was a massive woaaaahhh for them both. the way we experience / act on desire (not even sexual just any kind but actually maybe especially sexual) says so much about a person and i guess that’s the single point from which i branched out, and every other aspect of her came later

the reason she/oc is not like twenty is because, similar to what you said, i cannot picture 1995–2002 (around that time) rust with a youngYOUNGGGG woman becaaaause holy shit i think he’d just die, like out of sadness or hurt, i think he wouldn’t be able to look at her at all 💀

old dog rust on the other hand does not give a shit about doing what’s “right” imo if that makes sense, like he’s who he is and he feels what he feels and i think this version of rust would be much more receptive to a younger woman, even if it’s “wrong” because he literally just doesn’t care anymore

i think the only reason The Idler Wheel girl was able to sneak her way in around that time is because she’s grown and a part of his workplace and therefore she should be “safe”, no more than any of his coworkers. so he lets her in his space and he lets her bring him coffee and he lets her do him favours because she’s just like the others and he just has to tolerate her, just has to see her

but of course she’s not like his coworkers and he can’t place why he wants her so bad, only that he does, which is bad because she should be mundane and she should be nothing and yet unfortunately he wants to be her dog

does this answer your q or did i go off on a tangent

i love you anon 💕💕💕💕

[itsalwaysforyou]

jay not asking coach about letting lonnie onto the team bc he doesn’t want to do anything coach might disagree with…….

[just-sp-in-inginthevoid]

Takeomi, Self-Esteem and Denial (and more)

@raizelswitch, thank you for waiting!

TL;DR : I want a BD spin-off and I want it from Takeomi’s POV even though he’d be such an unreliable narrator (and like that we could also have a Akashi siblings spin-off, two birds, one stone). Takeomi has a lot of issues and making him raise children and naming him vice captain was a bad idea since it only made things worse. He had developed both an inferiority and superiority complex to cope. And we were robbed of any interaction between him and Inui, the other famous ‘can’t let go of Black Dragon even after x years’ character.

Who wants to read about 17,000 words about Takeomi (I didn’t expect to write this much, what the heck)? Clearly not Tumblr because I spent way too much time having to reorder this post, it mixed it all up everytime ! It also refused to post it for hours

The translations of Wakasa’s and Benkei’s ‘a day in his life’ as well as Takeomi’s failure story come from the Twitter user RanHaruchiyo

I feel like I made a few mistakes so there : English is not my native language, I apologize if some sentences don’t make sense. Sorry for any type of typos as well.

I referred to the past (beside the final timeline) as ‘canon-timeline’ several times because I had no clue how to name it. It’s not the futures, it’s not the original or final timeline, it’s… it’s the past until the final timeline comes in.

When you reach the top – the only way is down. (and up and down…)

Let’s get started with something very quick – Takeomi was created to be the exact opposite of Shinichiro. And when you’re the exact opposite of a character who’s perfectly good, loved by everyone (other characters and fans alike), then the writer uses you to be bad. Not necessarily evil - Takeomi isn’t evil - but ‘not good’.

And Wakui doesn’t shy away from that. I’m keeping the analysis of the kanji of the Akashi and Sano siblings’ names for the end, so I’ll just talk about the ‘shi’ of ‘Akashi’ here, to show what I mean.

司 (Akashi) means ‘administrator, official, a governor whom the emperor chose to carry on the imperial policies in provinces’. It fits Takeomi’s role pretty much, right ? He had a high rank in Black Dragon, but Shinichiro was above and that’s when it starts to be very interesting. 司 upside down gives 后. And it means ‘monarch, king, emperor, queen, empress’ – nice coincidence, isn’t it ?. It’s literally the same kanji upside down. Takeomi is Shinichiro upside down. Is that why he’s the rain bringer while Shinichiro, always being seen in a positive light, would be linked to the sun ? I already thought of Takeomi as a ‘teru teru bozu’ since they’re supposed to bring rain when hung upside down and it’s not stupid to think of Shinichiro, oh so perfect Shinichiro, as a ‘sun bringer’ – after all, like Mikey, he took over Japan, did he not ?

Plus, the sun is their most famous goddess (Amaterasu)’s symbol, Japan’s symbol, and by such the emperor’s symbol.

And when you’re that. When you’re the mirror of such a perfect character, how can you not be made but only of flaws ? You’re made to be bad in everything he is good – and the opposite isn’t guaranteed to be true. What if making you good in things he’s bad in makes you good ? No, no, you’re supposed to be bad. Because he’s good, and you’re his polar opposite. He’s bad in excusable things. You’re bad in barely forgivable things. It’s not important for him to be a horrible fighter, even in a story centered around gang fights. It’s unforgivable for you to not know how to raise your siblings, in a story built on siblings' relationships.

And Shinichiro is great at raising Mikey and Emma, while Takeomi isn’t that much of a fighter. We see him fight a bit when he goes with Brahman to confront South about Draken’s death, but it’s not big important fights, Benkei and Wakasa, and later Senju, are the ones fighting. And Benkei and Wakasa were Black Dragon 1st generation’s main fighting power, as the guard and special attack unit captains.

(Heck, Shinichiro is listed n°1 best in bikes riders, Takeomi is n°3 worst - yet another thing he's either bad or average at. (Wakasa is n°3 best, we dont know where Benkei lies. Mikey is 2nd best, Takemichi and Senju are respectively 1st and 2nd worse))

Shinichiro is good, even when he kills. Takeomi is only ever bad or less-bad. Perhaps Wakui initially planned scenes where he was ‘good’, but they never came to be, so instead we’re stuck with a character who has a potential for a redemption arc and who never got it.

(Look at this ! He became self aware! And finally stopped living in denial !)

(We never see him again after this btw. He never gets to talk to Sanzu.)

If there’s one thing Takeomi is good at, it’s strategy.

He is feared, he is called « God of War », he is named vice-captain…

By other people. By other delinquents. By Shinichiro.

He doesn’t think he’s the reason all of that happens. He isn’t those things, he receives them (use of passive voice). By such, if people don’t give him, then he’s left with nothing. No matter if he is good at something, if people aren’t there to tell him, then he doesn’t think he is. Takeomi thinks of his worth, his validity as a person by how others perceive him - they praise him ? He must be great ! They ignore him ? How pathetic has he become.

When do people say that ? When he’s Black Dragon Vice-Captain. When is he Black Dragon vice-captain ? When Shinichiro is on top. That’s why he panics in chapter 230 when Shinichiro tells him about disbanding the gang. If the gang gets disbanded, what does he have left ? If Shinichiro tells him to stop following him around (chapter 230: “I was always by Shin’s side”) what is he supposed to do ? He is but “an ordinary kid. Whether it be in sports, or studies, [...] just average. [...] a normal child, not special at all” (same chapter) whose childhood friend “had a mysterious charm that attracted people around him. Even with that charm, Shin never resorted to violence.[...]he was just very earnest and kind” (same chapter). Without Black Dragon he’s nothing. Without Shinichiro he’s nothing. Because he never learnt to let go of Shinichiro‘s hand, nor did he wish to. But Shinichiro just.. let go one day. We know how Shinichiro is. If he was aware of how much he is needed by Takeomi, he would have done things differently. And while he shouldn’t be responsible for Takeomi’s well-being, he is the reason whether Takeomi’s self-esteem is stable (or a bit too much over the top) or not. Takeomi made him responsible for it, and Shinichiro surely would’ve helped if he figured it out, (because Takeomi is a stranger to himself and wouldn’t have ever asked for help (he doesn’t know he needs help after all)), but Shinichiro didn’t. The same way Mikey didn’t notice why Baji acted the way he did during Valhalla arc until it was too late. It’s not because they’re childhood friends that they read each other like an open book.

Shinichiro, while he never intended to and we can’t blame him for this either, is the reason Takeomi turned out like he did. Takeomi followed him everywhere, he wouldn’t have entered delinquency if Shinichiro didn’t. Takeomi tried so hard to climb to Shinichiro’s level and kept comparing himself to him and it got worse when he was appointed the role of vice-president. His ego skyrocketed. And even if Shinichiro had noticed it, would he have figured out how to change that ? For sure, if he knew how to help he’d have helped – then again, would Takeomi accept this help ? He’s a professional when it comes to denial, he pushes everyone away. And denial is what he does best. From denying he would be nothing without the other Black Dragon founding members and hiding behind his God of War persona, to denying his involvement in Senju and Sanzu’s life. Even if Shinichiro, Wakasa and Benkei did try to help, you can’t help someone who doesn’t want to be helped, who refuses to believe there’s something wrong, and by doing so who refuses to talk about it. It’s all made to protect himself from the truth. Because the truth will hurt him, facing it will make him realize he’s not special and that will shatter his self-esteem. It will make him feel painful emotions he can’t deal with. So he runs away from it, and thus, dives deeper into misery. If you refuse to see the problem, then it will grow, and Takeomi’s problems, his mistakes, grow a lot. The world changes but he doesn’t, he keeps the same behaviors, and soon they turn against him. His fame turns into debts. Debts he can’t pay anymore, but he refuses to admit it. Because he would have been able to pay, if Black Dragon had remained. Takeomi likes to live in luxury (his dream is to be a multimillionaire), so he’d keep on denying the fact he can’t afford it anymore just to carry on living this way.

Maybe the reason him and Wakasa & Benkei aren’t close isn’t that they see him as ‘Shinichiro’s childhood friend we’re obligated to endure/tolerate even though he’s insufferable’ (when the BD founding members interact, Wakasa and Benkei always tease, laugh at Shinichiro, chapter 230, Benkei “Look at all your battle scars !” Shinichiro, “Quit it !” Wakasa, “A loser in both fights and love !” Shinichiro “Hey man, that's none of your business”; chapter 269: Benkei “You sure are dumb, Shinichiro !” Wakasa, “Haha. Well, that's shin-chan for ya.”) they’re never shown as friendly toward Takeomi) but more that, even if they did try, Takeomi, unconsciously, never let them know who he really was underneath it all. To be fair, Takeomi lied to himself so strongly he wasn’t aware he wasn’t this façade he had created. I’m not sure if Wakasa and Benkei succeeded in seeing through his lies, Takeomi himself surely didn’t. Shinichiro was left but whether it be the original timeline or not, he didn’t succeed to help Takeomi. Takeomi compares himself to others (him being an ordinary kid vs Shinichiro not being one), is sensitive to criticism and compliments alike (while he didn’t seem hurt when Kakucho uno-reversed him by asking him if he had forgotten about Shinichiro after Takeomi had asked him if he had forgotten about Izana, he did react, unlike Kakucho who remained unfazed; “Drunk in the praises of my name, I became arrogant”), seeks attention and validation, makes things about himself (“[...]He talks about the Brahman Senju created as if he created it. [...] I remember he used to brag about Shinichiro's achievements as if he himself had done them[...]”, Benkei’s ‘a day in his life’) and has troubles admitting his faults (even if he eventually apologizes in chapter 230 to Senju, he is fighting back tears while doing so). Those are all things inferiority and superiority complexes share (beside the low self-esteem). And while there are signs we can’t be 100% sure he has, reading about Takeomi echoes to those two complexes. First, inferiority complex. Feeling insecure, incomplete or unworthy → “not special at all”; “I was broke and powerless“; ”at the lowest of low. But they accepted me as I was”. Withdrawal → “I got news of Shin's death. But I was too busy in struggling for money.”, that ‘too busy with money’ (in good (“treated as a VIP [...] never got short on money” and in bad “my debts piling up”) seems like the perfect excuse to avoid your friends and family. All or nothing thinking, things are either good or bad → he’s either at the top of Japan and everything is doing great or he’s not and nothing’s working in his life. Insecurity in relationships → Benkei and Wakasa are his disliked/feared people because "they look down on me" (3rd guide book) (there is no proof of that but I’ll dig into that later). Feeling good when doing better than others → only felt at ease when he was the God of War. Finding fault in others, demeaning others as a way to transfer their feelings → will go back to it way later, but his relationship with Sanzu is basically that. Shutting down because of shame, guilt, embarrassment or an inward sense of defeat → once again, what he did after he started to be indebted.

For superiority complex there’s : hiding feelings of mediocrity and underlying or persistent low self-esteem or feelings of inferiority → hiding his “powerless”, “ordinary” and all behind his mask of second in command of Black Dragon and Brahman. High valuation of self-worth, a self-image of supremacy or authority, overarching belief that they are better than others → “the first generation Black Dragon once ruled the nation - with me as the vice captain. I was feared, since my decisions determined how any conflict would end. I was called the « God of War »” . Feelings of entitlements and boastful claims that aren’t backed up by reality → he brags about Senju and Shinichiro’s achievements, they aren’t his own (even though he must have some). Which goes with: need to be in control → he’s the one who’s in charge of making Brahman gain money (and he’s the one who decided of it, Senju is against his ways), Brahman listens to him when he says they’re attacking Rokuhara Tendai and not to Senju who tell them to stop, and is convinced Senju is only where she is thanks to him, Wakasa and Benkei being around and dealing with everything (chapter 229, Takeomi: “Senju got herself included in the ‘three deities’ only through first gen Black Dragon’s support. Senju can't take this fight alone !”).

There are also signs which I can’t find quotes or panels to say Takeomi has them but, knowing the character, it wouldn’t be surprising. These include : feelings of hostility, frustration, nervousness, or aggression (he does express those but given the context it's justifiable; he's impulsively decide to go against Rokuhara Tendai even though Senju tells him no because they aren't ready, Benkei says "It's no use, Takeomi has lost his cool". There's also his nicotine addiction which does not help). Highly competitive, perfectionist paired with an avoidance for any kind of competition where efforts might be compared with others’ ; don’t do something if there are risks one would fail (he dislikes efforts (3rd guide book), so that may mean he only does things when he’s sure of his own capacities and refuse to leave his comfort zone, he doesn’t participate/try if he’s not sure of succeeding). And : unwillingness to listen to others (if BD founding members tried to take his head out of the sand, it failed). Overcompensation to specific elements of life (perhaps linked to his childhood but we have no information about it). Mood swings, often made worse by contradiction from another person (→ him seemingly aloof, becoming mad very quickly at Sanzu when he or Senju do something wrong ? His whole reaction to Draken’s death; “I'm gonna destroy Rokuhara Tandai right now.[...] Assemble everyone in Brahman for an emergency meeting !!”, followed by South’s comment in chapter 225: “It's so rare to see Akashi getting all rowdy like this.” and Senju’s trying to calm him down (only making it worse). Takeomi’s interaction with Kakucho about Izana and Shinichiro in chapter 212 too maybe). Gets offended if there’s no positive feedback.

I will like to add that no official list of signs exist or if it does, I didn’t find it. But knowing how both of these complexes work, it was interesting to talk about it, in my opinion.

(By the way, Takeomi was listed number 1 worst at ‘who is needy when dating ?’ (whereas Sanzu and Wakasa were 1st and 2nd best). Except that in Takeomi’s case the reason he’s not needy is because he's straight-up avoidant which isn't better. As opposed to Senju and Draken (2nd and 3rd worst) who seem non-needy in a healthy way.)

Takeomi wants to stand at the top, Shinichiro knows how to go up there, so he just has to tag along, easy-peasy. But like for a jungle gym, you have to get down one day. Did Shinichiro want to become Japan's number 1 ? I’m not that sure. It may have been a goal, but not the main one. What he liked most was the journey, not the destination, if it was then he wouldn’t have disbanded Black Dragon. But Takeomi wants to go on top of the jungle gym. Takeomi wants to be Japan number 1. Forever. Takeomi wants to learn how you get up there and how to stay/keep standing still.

That’s one of the most tragic point with Takeomi in my opinion. He was the brain of Black Dragon, he was the brain of Braham (it may have been an excuse but Senju recruited him for his guidance, his wisdom), and he was, supposedly as Mikey’s advisor, the brain of Bonten. He knows how to get on top of Japan. He knows how to become influential, how to make money (Brahman’s B-1 fighting club), how to recruit people and make them stay, he knows which decision to take to assure victory or defeat.

He’s smart, insanely. And he. doesn’t. see. it. If he did, he could have managed to live without the gang.

For Takeomi, it’s not that he becomes number 1, it’s that there’s a number 1 by his side and he knows how to follow them (his special skill is ‘taking advantage of others’ (3rd guide book)). He is aware he was the lead actor as to why victory or defeat were but – Takeomi isn’t a fighter. Wakasa and Benkei are. Shinichiro sucked at it but he was still insanely strong.

Takeomi doesn’t fight and that’s not his role. He likely knows how to pull out punches and other fight moves but as a ‘God Of War’ he’s mainly a strategist. He takes decisions, Shin agrees or not (and Shin is the one who has the last say), Wakasa and Benkei, and the rest of the gang, apply. (chapter 224, Benkei answering “yes, sir” to one of Takeomi’s command (even though Senju is clearly against it))

However, he’s not the one who brought them together. All of what he has. It’s thanks to Shinichiro. Wouldn’t be number 1 without him. Wouldn’t be friends with Wakasa and Benkei without him. Takeomi lives on what Shinichiro gave him. Him, an average, good-for-nothing kid. And when it’s time to say farewell to all of that – he doesn’t.

Shinichiro has his own shop. Wakasa and Benkei have their own gym.

Takeomi stays as if he was still on top. As if he wasn’t already falling, as if the impact on the ground wouldn’t damage him. As if Shinichiro, who decided climbing the jungle gym wasn’t fun anymore, didn’t stop stabilizing him.

He lives in denial. And it works at the beginning. People still think of them as number 1 so it’s not too hard. But then they realize they aren’t. But Takeomi is an average kid. In everything. He’s only good at what Shinichiro designed him as. And he didn’t think he'd be good at it. He isn’t good at anything else. He can’t do anything else. So it goes on.

The debts pill up.

Shinichiro dies.

And ? And repeat. Without the debts, this time.

Senju, joyous, cheerful, strong-willed Senju, asks him to join her gang. As her second in command. Even though he is “broke and powerless”. “At the lowest of low” (chapter 230). Even though Wakasa and Benkei are right there.

(Shinichiro asked him to be his vice captain. Even though Takeomi was average, good at nothing but following his childhood friend around. Even though Shinichiro had become friends with Wakasa and Benkei who were in this world since way longer.)

And so Brahman is created.

Their prestige comes back. They remember mannerisms days after days, they remember how you do it. Brahmam grows. They have hundreds of members, they make a lot of money with deals and underground fights. Whereas Wakasa and Benkei moved on (or, way more than Takeomi did), Takeomi didn’t and it shows even in their Brahman uniforms. If you look closely, they don’t have the same patterns on their sleeves – Wakasa and Benkei both got flowers, although different from the other’s (same thing for Senju) but Takeomi has a dragon. (Average Brahman members have the same thing they have on the back of their uniforms)

Draken dies. Draken dies. He shouts it – It’s not a childish brawl (chapter 224). I find it hard to believe that during Black Dragon 1st Gen, they never lost anyone, but Draken’s death snaps him back to reality. It isn’t like it was with Shinichiro. There’s no fun. It’s war. Standing at the top isn’t like standing on a jungle gym. Draken is dead and so is Shinichiro. Why isn’t he ? (chapter 225, Takeomi: “Souuuuuuuth !! Why did you kill Draken !? He wasn't even a formal member of Brahman ! If you wanted to kill someone it should've been me !”)

Either Draken dies, or Senju does.

For what else would have Takeomi joined Bonten ? Actually, let me change that question ; where is and what does Senju do in Bad Toman and Manila timelines ?

Because Mikey goes down a dark path in all the timelines so, did she try to stop him ? If yes, is she dead ? The three deities battle might or not have happened (South wouldn’t have the same members if that’s the case – Tenjiku never came to be in Bad Toman and Izana is alive in Manila). And… And if that’s the case or not – why are Wakasa, Benkei and Takeomi nowhere to be seen ?

Wakasa and Benkei work in a way that opposes Takeomi. Not only with how they dealt with Black Dragon disbandment but how they dealt with Senju’s death. No matter how it happened, Takeomi joins Mikey after his sister’s death (Bonten), Wakasa and Benkei join Kanto Manji when Senju doesn’t (nowhere to be seen in Bonten).

Difference being, if Senju dies, Wakasa can’t witness Mikey’s dark impulses and can’t talk to him about it. And even if he witnessed it, if Senju is dead, would Wakasa care ? Wakasa must know there’s nothing against the dark impulses so why join Kanto Manji ? They love Senju, their princess, do they want to keep her safe ? Surely. Why take this option then?

It's never stated. So it's interpretation/theory time.

Wakasa would choose Shinichiro over Mikey. In chapter 270, he says "Honeslty speaking, I'm glad that Manjiro has passed. I was worried that you'd be first to die [...] Right now, you're just rotting away", now, Wakasa from the original timeline and from canon-timeline aren't the same. Original timeline Wakasa had the time to accept Shinichiro had lost his brother (and Mikey could perhaps regain consciousness one day, but the more day passes, the more the chances lower), but he couldn't see his friend rot away. His previously bright and charismatic friend was being devoured by sleep deprivation, helplessness and so much more. Hence, if Mikey dying would free Shinichiro from his suffering (although it would also add to it, he wouldn't have to work himself to the bone to take care of Mikey, and would finally have time to process all of what happened to him) then Wakasa is okay with it. Shinichiro is important to him, more than Mikey could ever be.

Wakasa, is the only person Shinichiro talked to about the original timeline. Out of the two people knowing about it, Wakasa is the one Shinichiro went to to tell him about it (Sanzu is the other and he came to Shinichiro asking about it). We don't know if Shinichiro planned to tell more people, and if yes, Wakasa was on the top of his list. Thus, this means Wakasa had heard Shinichiro telling him he killed a man and then himself. Because Mikey died. So that Mikey won't die. And he probably was murdered because of it later on too, because Shinichiro told him the homeless man's last words – because Shinichiro told him everything with every details.

So, when Wakasa finally sees Mikey again, sees the level of destruction he causes, sees that he kills like it's nothing, like he's enjoying it, this boy his friend killed for to keep alive... Well, Wakasa, dragging Benkei along, joined Kanto Manji to keep Mikey alive — because that's what Shinichiro sacrificed himself for, so, so many times. He can only stay near Mikey and try to not have him killed when they're in a world where being murdered is common. Mikey is strong, but he won't ever survive a bullet shot in the wrong place.

For Takeomi though, when he joins Bonten, his sister is dead. After his best friend. He failed the two people who meant the most to him and who appointed him as their second in command because they trusted him. He let them die. It’s not a child game anymore. South signed his death warrant.

And Takeomi hasn’t seen Mikey or Sanzu in years. (They’re the only ones left, he can’t leave them alone. He can’t stay alone.)

That’s the first theory. Second is, he crashes, he and Mikey end up meeting again, he gives him the role as his advisor. Rinse, repeat. The circle continues ; Bonten is at the top of Japan. Mikey is at the top of Japan – and that, even without Kisaki. 

Even without Kisaki.

Is Takeomi on the same level as Kisaki ? I don’t know. Kisaki is the moon to Mikey’s sun. But what was Takeomi to Shinichiro ? Perhaps his rain. And I'll keep going with the ‘perhaps’, because we’re never shown what Takeomi is to Shinichiro, beside a friend. Every meaningful interaction they have is from Takeomi’s POV. In Shinichiro’s chapters, Takeomi is briefly mentioned once when Sanzu gets out of the juvenile center, then when Shinichiro time leaps, he is too focused on Mikey to give (me) us any useful interaction/thought about Takeomi. There’s only one case, “Takeomi…” in chapter 273 but without that ? The start of chapter 269 is shallow. It gives us information on Shinichiro’s relationship with Mikey and Takeomi’s own relationship with his siblings (“I'm like his father figure at this point. Its best from him to learn from his peers” /"What kind of parent would let their kids learn from gang rides ?”) and also a quick information on Black Dragon founding members but that information is basically ‘they’re good friends :)’.

Anyway, Shinichiro nicknamed Takeomi ‘Rain Bringer’. So what does rain symbolize in Japan and does it somewhat fit Takeomi ? Rain is strongly linked to death and rebirth (as water usually is in Japan), to becoming something, someone else. This makes a nice little link with his siblings as Senju’s flowers are sakura (and so is her image color, pink sakura) which also symbolize the cycle of death and rebirth, the fleeting nature of life, how short if is, but also renewal and optimism, and Sanzu got his name from Sanzu no kawa, the three-crossing river, who is a river souls have to cross to get to the afterlife and/or to resurrect.

Takeomi’s other nickname, which wasn’t given by Shinichiro, is God of war. Japan has two gods of war, either Hachiman from shintoism, or Bishamonten from buddhism (since it’s Japan we’re talking about, those two got mixed up a bit but). Hachiman is a god of war and agriculture and was said to determine a samurai’s fate in battle (chapter 230 : “[...] my decisions determined how any conflict would end”). Bishamonten is a god of war and warriors, a punisher of evildoers and the ruler of rain. Bishamonten also carries a chatra (a kind of umbrella that symbolizes kingship, sovereignty).

This, while it gives more tracks to analyze Takeomi, doesn’t answer the question ‘What was Takeomi to Shinichiro’. So, if the story refuses to give us the answer, we have to find some parallels with other characters and see if they fit.

Shinichiro’s...

...Baji

That’s right ! Baji and Takeomi share the same role. For this topic, Sanzu (and Senju) is the anomaly between him, Baji and Mikey.(and although we could say Sanzu is Baji’s parallel, he’s mostly Kakucho’s.)

Let’s start with why Wakui decided to depict them that way.

For Mikey and Baji, it was mostly there to show how long they’ve known each other. Mikey had said they were childhood friends but that doesn’t give us a time indication as to when they met. Then, there is the ‘Baji is behind’ aspect. It isn’t a problem between them, that Baji never wins against Mikey, no matter the years. Baji is just after Mikey and can’t reach the top yet.

For Shinichiro and Takeomi, it’s the same. ‘They’ve known each other for how long?’ ‘Probably since then’. Takeomi is behind Shinichiro who is standing at the top. Takeomi wants to do so too, and Shinichiro helps him to. Takeomi can’t stand here unless Shinichiro holds him still.

Shinichiro doesn’t enjoy being Japan’s number 1 - standing at the top. He became a delinquent to form relationships, to have fun, to deal with his father’s death and his mother’s stay in the hospital. He wasn’t against becoming the strongest but it wasn’t his goal (chapter 142, Shinichiro, in a quick Inui’s flashback: “Is winning really that important ?”). After all, if there’s nobody above you, the only people left are below, and Shinichiro says it, it’s only bullying and that’s meaningless (chapter 230, “Now that there's no one better than us, at this point it's just gonna be bullying the people weaker than us, wouldn't it ?”)

However, the childhood friend dying changes. For Mikey and Baji, the one climbing dies ; for Shinichiro and Takeomi, the one at the top does. How can we interpret this ? We already did for Takeomi – that means the one climbing falls. But for the one already on top ? The person who (tried to) followed him there died on the way. He’s still on top, but now he’s alone. Mikey is never alone, but after Shinichiro, Baji’s death is one of the last indispensable nail on his coffin. A nail aggravating his isolation and loneliness.

Personality wise, Baji and Takeomi are awfully different. Takeomi is awfully different to all characters – he is one of the most flawed and most fans don’t find him any redeeming quality.

Baji does share one of Takeomi’s characteristics, and that’s what (ironically) led to Shinichiro’s death. As Kazutora says in chapter 44 while stealing the bike: “You might complain but you always go along with whatever I'm doing”, Baji follows people. He can do well on his own (Valhalla), but if it wasn’t for his stubbornness in pursuing Mikey around (chapter 39, Mikey: “We lived in the same neighborhood. It’s not like we got along that well. He was always picking fights with me”), they wouldn’t have become childhood friends. They are also younger than their childhood friends (Sanzu and Shinichiro are the oldest).

Baji is Shinichiro in one aspect though: he is the one to have created Toman and to have assigned every founding member their role in the gang. (Baji does it in a flashback of chapter 63, Shinichiro gave Takeomi his position as vice-captain so it won’t surprise me if he gave Wakasa and Benkei their). They both also challenge people stronger than them. (Shinichiro on a daily basis “He'd challenge guys way stronger than him to fights”, Baji with Mikey “He was always picking fights with me. And I handed him his ass every time.”).

If there are parallels between Shinichiro and Baji – are there parallels between Takeomi and Mikey ? The answer is yes. They both don’t know what to do after Shinichiro’s death (and Mikey is even more lost after Baji’s), so much that if you push them in the wrong path, they end up as the number 1 criminal organization of their country (Kisaki for Mikey (Bad toman, Manila) helped to speedrun the process — as we see with Bonten, Mikey’s circle in Bonten (Sanzu “There they are ! The dark impulses ! I've been waiting for this” Haruchiyo) helped too. And the one thing to do to get Takeomi back in his prime is to restore his self-confidence (Bonten, and what he was close to do with Brahman)), they both cope with their emotions the same way as well, ‘I’ll keep all my emotions right here. And then one day, I’ll die’ as one may say. They hide between smiles or blank faces. Little things matter as well, so.. chapter 123, Mikey “I wanna stand out” - they both do (even if Mikey is about 4 in this chapter).

...Kisaki

the fact takeomi is both baji and kisaki is hilarious pls. Those two hated each other so much. Well i wont be surprised if Wakui made it official that Takeomi hates himself

Yeah you read that right. Takeomi is Shinichiro’s Kisaki to the same extent he is Shinichiro’s Baji. Like with Baji, he fills Kisaki’s role while dealing with it differently – they don’t have the same personality so it’s not that surprising.

They’re both the gang’s ‘brain’. Whereas Takeomi was given the position, Kisaki approached Mikey with this exact idea in mind. Kisaki wanted to make Tenjiku Toman (chapter 126, “I'm going to make my own Toman”), and Takeomi was about to transform Brahman into (a much darker) Black Dragon (Chapter 219, Senju: “Brahman’s gotten bigger.. and Takeomi has changed. Now, instead of making brahman ‘stronger’ he thinks that making it ‘bigger’ is more important”  → all the more people to praise him). Both had the same goal too (to become number 1), and end up being criticized for it because of their way to attain it by Mikey (“in order to make Toman bigger I've ignored your underhanded methods until now. But that ends here [...] Your arbitrary decisions will screw up my dream”) and Senju ("I get that not all the jobs we take will be clean. However, thinking about dirtying Brahman for trash like that pisses me off”) when those two asked them are the one who asked them to guide them (chapter 265, Mikey: “there has been ‘something’ dark inside my heart. Sometimes that ‘something’ expands and drives me to destroy absolutely everything. Kisaki… I want you to stay by my side with that part of me. I want you to guide me, Kisaki” (and worse, when Kisaki asked him if he’s sure, even if Kisaki doesn’t guide him the way he wants, Mikey answered “yeah, I don’t care.” But then, it was before Takemichi waltzed in his life); chapter 230, Senju: “I want someone who I can trust ! Someone who can give some guidance to the team ! Will you fill that role, big bro ?”). They had different reasons, for sure, Kisaki wanted Hinata’s love, Takeomi wanted (to keep) that idolizing love other people had for him, but those different reasons have the same roots.

They never grew up from their child-mindset.

Kisaki kept that childish logic of ‘Hinata loves Takemichi. Takemichi wants to be Japan's number 1 delinquent. Hinata loves Japan's number 1 delinquent. If I’m Japan's number 1 delinquent, Hinata will love me.’ (and he wanted Hinata’s love because she was the only one interacting with him and being nice to him, she said “He’s a good kid” when everyone else doesn’t, even back in elementary school where he is described as “creepy”) and Takeomi kept that childhood wish of being important, needed, validated.

Now, they turned out differently because of a very essential point :

Chapter 182, first chapter of Kisaki’s flashback : “When I was in elementary school, they called me a child prodigy.”

Chapter 230, Takeomi’s chapter : “Whether it be in sports, or studies, I was just average. I was but a normal child, not special at all.”

Kisaki was made aware from an early age that he was smart. He is as arrogant as much his intelligence allows him to be (sure, it’s insufferable, but he is as smart as he says). He is well-assured of his capacities and is the one to make his life decisions, he is very independent from Mikey or anyone else. Kisaki has an actual self-esteem. He doesn’t under or overestimate himself. He knows what he does, he knows he is the one doing so. Takeomi is the opposite. He’s too arrogant, doesn’t know in what he is smart, but the others say so, so he must be, he makes his decisions while looking at Shinichiro – he got there thanks to Shinichiro. And Kisaki got there thanks to Takemichi, although in another way. Kisaki also followed Takemichi around. By stalking him, but still. And unlike Takeomi, Kisaki is very conscious of it when he lies, it is but another strategy to manipulate people.

Kisaki is Takeomi if people had noticed and talked about his capacities in his childhood. Takeomi is what Kisaki could’ve been if people never praised him, if he never finished number one at any national mock exam and if he became childhood friends with Takemichi (instead of stalking him).

Both of them corrupted Toman and Brahman (and Black Dragon if Shinichiro hadn’t been Shinichiro). “Brahman is closer to a group of adult gangsters than they are a motorcycle gang. Some nasty rumors follow them, too.” (chapter 215, Inui); “Money is power. How valuable do you think your ‘strength’ is !?” (chapter 229, Takeomi); but are also the reason why they became huge organizations. They are the reasons why Brahman (almost) and Toman fell into criminal organizations (although Toman would’ve anyway).

They also both first got into a gang when they were 13. (Black Dragon was created the 22nd February 1995 – Takeomi was born the 10th march 1981 (the year after Shinichiro’s own birth btw, Shinichiro who is the oldest Black Dragon founding member), so he was about to turn 14 BUT HE WASN'T, and in 2005 Kisaki is 13 since he was born the 20th january 1992 (two years younger than Mikey, one year younger than Takemichi))

...Draken.

Shinichiro and Mikey both have their “This is the breeze of a new era !”(chapter 230)/”I’m gonna seize this world” (chapter 223) speech that only Takeomi/Draken could hear ; and they’re both vice-captain/second in command.

When Black Dragon gets officially disbanded (their final garthering), Wakasa and Benkei shed a tear or two, Shinichiro being the crybaby he is, has a lot of tears running down his face, and Takeomi… too. Takeomi is the only one with his eyes close. He grins his teeth. He can’t accept this reality, can’t look at it. Even if Shinichiro talked about it with him beforehand. And… it’s the same with Draken. Not that Mikey informed him before saying Toman was over (and they didn’t have a second generation to lend the name too, as opposed to Black Dragon), but with how he reacted. On paper, he said he agreed with it (even after his “What ? What’re you goin’ on all of a sudden ?” in chapter 189 which is the same as Takeomi’s “Disband !? But why !? I mean, we just became Japan's number one !” in chapter 230, and Mikey also disbanded Toman after becoming Japan’s number 1), that since it was Mikey’s choice, he had “no objection to the leader's decision” (chapter 189), but in reality, not only do we learn it’s not true when they dug up the time capsule (chapter 198, Draken reading his letter : “I’m at a crossroads in my life right now. Toman disbanded. […] I actually regret it. Toman is everything to me. Im sure everyone in toman felt that way ? I’m worried… I cried”), but he also joins Brahman. There was nothing prior to that revelation pointing at it. In Bonten he has his shop, he says “I’m retired” and “I left everything i had back in Tokyo Manji” to South (chapter 211) in his letter he wrote “So, I'm leaving all of my regrets in here” and that’s what teenager Draken tried to do. But he joined Brahman instead. And we learn why after, when he says in a flashback to Mitsuya (chapter 238) : “Have you grown accustomed to living life without Toman ? Because I can't seem to move on from it. That’s why I think i’m gonna go back to the life of deliquent. I’ll continue following Mikey [...]”. Draken couldn’t leave Toman, his whole life behind. Then why did he in Bonten ? Because Senju died. Not only must it have affected him, but it affected Takeomi, Wakasa and Benkei. And, yes, we can say Senju died in Bonten regardless of the fact it’s never said. Why ? Bonten is a memorial for Izana, its symbol, its members’ tattoo come from Izana’s earrings and the (天) ten of Bonten 梵天 from Tenjiku 天竺, the (梵) bon of Bonten 梵天 comes from Brahman 梵. The executives, advisor, second and third in command, are either former Tenjiku member or Senju’s brother (or both for Sanzu but again, can we really say he was a Tenjiku member when it’s clear he was acting as a spy on Mikey’s unaware behalf..) - and its leader had a deep relationship with those two as well. There’s no need for Senju to have the same role as Izana in Bonten if she’s not dead. So, Senju’s death is the answer as to why Draken utterly left Toman (and Mikey) behind in Bonten timeline (he loves Mikey very much but he can't lose any more loved ones). But Draken’s wish to get back to Mikey until then, his refusal to abandon Toman, was what led him and Takeomi to understand each other. That’s what led to Takeomi recruiting Draken (because he must have been the one to come up with the idea, like he is the one to have thought about recruiting Takemichi). That’s what leads Takeomi to get this angry at his death. Not only is Takeomi is partially responsible for it, Draken is essential to bring back Mikey, and Takeomi is not. And so, “If you wanted to kill someone it should've been me !” (chapter 225). And also why he becomes even more angry when Mikey arrives (“Fuck off, Kanto gang ! You guys abandoned Draken !”). Takeomi takes his role as Senju’s second in command very seriously, she asked him to guide the team and he accepted, he swore to give his all for them (chapter 230). He is the one telling her to keep cool and not being driven by her emotions (chapter 218), which is ironic because he’s the one to act before thinking after Draken’s death whereas Senju tries to calm him down (and fails).

Kanto being “a three-way state of equilibrium between these three teams and has entered the three deities era” (Yamagishi, chapter 208) was not an innocent choice when it is also revealed in chapter 226 by Senju that “Benkei and Waka. Before the first generation of Black Dragon happened, these two divided the Kanto region. Kanto used to be divided into two parts”. South takes the role of Benkei, and Senju, who created Brahman for the only purpose of stopping Mikey the same way Kodo Rengo was formed to stop Ragnarok’s expansion, takes the role of Wakasa. This is also backed up by their fighting style and body type. Mikey takes Shinichiro’s role, but whereas Shinichiro ‘defeated’ Wakasa and Benkei and became their friends and leader which lead to them ruling over the region, Mikey crushed South/Rokuhara Tandai and made Senju disband Brahman, for the same result (Takemichi could’ve taken on Shinichiro’s role but the power of friendship can’t do everything). And Draken is in Takeomi’s role. Not Sanzu. (because Sanzu doesn’t care about Toman while Draken just wants it back.). Furthermore, I like the fact South, in the final timeline, “is a heavyweight champion of foreign martial arts. When he visits Japan, he hangs out at the Gojo gym” because not only does South finally have friends (like Senju, he is friendless in canon-timeline) but because Benkei’s dream is “to produce a MMA champion from Gojo gym”, which while not being exactly the same thing is still close enough for me.

A difference between them worth mentioning is that while Draken is the oldest of Toman founding members, Takeomi is the youngest of Black Dragon founding members.

(+ Inui, Kokonoi:

The other character introduced as refusing the end of Black Dragon is Inui. He's a character who is developed alongside Kokonoi who can't accept Akane's death.

But whereas Takeomi seemingly doesn't do anything by himself to get out of his vicious circle and debts, Inui actively tries to keep Black Dragon alive. He even takes Shinichiro’s shop as his hideout (with Kokonoi), although it has been abandoned. Nobody else came to keep that place alive – it reminds them of a too painful reality. And it could've with Inui too, but Inui has only good memories of this place (chapter 143, Inui: “All those senpai who’d stop by were so dazzling and awesome. [...] I heard so many stories in this bike shop from our senpai. They all had so much fun talking about their old leader [...] Even as an adult, he could still laugh about the dumb stuff he did years ago together with his friends.”). Not to say the others don’t; but Inui is able to see pass the pain of this happiness unable to come back.

Inui is the first out of the three to let it go. He finds Takemichi and realizes that.. maybe he could live without Black Dragon. It takes a bit but Bonten Inui has let it go completely, unlike Kokonoi and Takeomi, both going deeper and deeper into criminality ; both still running away from reality, refusing to look back and see what they loved isn't there anymore.

Inui heals in Bonten. He doesn't in Bad Toman, where he's with Hakkai who became BD 11th leader. He doesn't in Manila, where Izana who was the 8th BD leader and the first leader Inui worked under comes back. Always running after BD shadow. Manila Inui met Takemichi, but Manila Inui wasn't separated from Kokonoi, not for years, not for more than a decade, since Tenjiku merged with Toman. They probably didn't have their 'Akane is dead, I'm Seishu!' talk, and if they did, it clearly didn't change anything.

We don't know how Inuis family life is. We know his parents couldn't pay for his sister's surgery and she ended up dying. We know he had had to witness his best friend lose himself in the prospect to make money. We know somewhen, he met Shinichiro. Spent time with him at his shop. Perhaps to stay away from home ? Home who burnt him? Home who took away his sister ? Meeting Shinichiro did a lot to him accepting his sister's death, surely. A bit of positivity in his life. But nobody was there for him when Shinichiro himself died. When Izana disappeared nobody knew where and the Haitani Brothers left Black Dragon when it became to hard to deal with, leading it to fade away (chapter 105, Kokonoi: “They ended up in a tough spot when the Haitani brothers of Roppongi came to power… So they ditched the gang, and disappeared.”).

Inui learnt about it after getting out of juvie. He went to juvie for Black Dragon. For Izana. This can't be the end of it. So he makes Taiju the 10th leader. He's not loyal to him because he's Taiju, he's loyal to him because it's the Black Dragon leader (chapter 143, Inui: “That good old Black Dragon I used to know was no more. I panicked when Black Dragon died for a while. That’s when I sought help from Shiba Taiju.”). But the Christmas Showdown happens, and Inui witnesses the force of nature that is Takemichi Hanagaki. And he's like Shinichiro was.

He leaves Black Dragon behind when he puts on Toman uniform for the first time. Black Dragon won't ever leave him, but he can let it go and cherish the memories he has. He didn't get to be in Black Dragon when he wanted to (chapter 143, Inui: “I’ve always admired such a team. That’s why I joined Blakc Dragon. But by the time I joined Black Dragon it was the eightth generation. It was shit.”) and that changed him (as being in a gang changed Takeomi) (chapter 143: ”During the eighth and ninth generations.. our gang did extortion, robbed people, sold drugs, all sorts of heinoius stuff. There was no trace left of the gang’s original intentions. And before i knew it, the gang’s evil had an influence on me. I landed myself in juvie.”), but he can maybe experience a similar thing with Takemichi, or maybe it'll be completely different. It's okay, he has turned the page. Now, he has to bring back Kokonoi and make him turn the page as well. Except Inui had a slow and nice 'turn the page', while Kokonoi won't.

Kokonoi needs more time, Kokonoi can't let Akane go just yet, even if Inui yells at him to stop acting as if he was seeing his sister instead of himself. Inui practically slaps him up. He has failed during Tenjiku, but this failure planted a seed in Kokonoi's mind which finally bloomed during the battle with Kanto Manji. It's a more abrupt realization than Inui got, but it doesn't hurt him. Akane tells him to let go, that she's glad he did all of that for her but that he doesn't need to continue – she's dead. Seishu is not. And even if that's meaningless, even if he knows he's, they're, going to lose, he goes help Inui against Wakasa and Benkei.

Takeomi's realization of having done something wrong falls upon him all at once. A part of it. His realization concerning Brahman, about Senju and Sanzu is there ("I've failed Brahman principles"(chapter 230)/"But me going crazy and Haruchiyo going astray[...]"(chapter 241) and it hurt him. Acknowledging his mistakes to himself and to others, to Senju, made him cry.)

But where is his realization about Black Dragon and Shinichiro ?)

But not Shinichiro’s Takemichi.

Takeomi isn’t Shinichiro’s Takemichi because for starters, Takemichi is Shinichiro as it is constantly repeated throughout the story.

Takemichi changed Mikey’s life (if it wasn’t for him, he would’ve kept listening to Kisaki, kept thinking he only needed darkness, he would’ve killed Kazutora (chapter 265)). Takeomi didn’t change much Shinichiro’s. Not the same way Takemichi did at least. Mikey, like Takeomi, needed someone to guide him, to follow around, whether this person was Takemichi or Kisaki depends entirely on the timeline’s events. Shinichiro could guide himself, he didn’t need somebody to show him the way. So what ? Why does it matter? It matters because all the friendships in this story have an impact on the characters it concerns. Whether it be the Twin Dragons, Izana and Kakucho, Inui and Kokonoi, Mikey is changed by Pah (going to jail), Kazutora (Shinichiro’s death), Baji (him siding with Kazutora and his own death), Draken (“Draken is Mikey’s heart. He compensates for what he’s lacking”) (not Mitsuya though. Which is very sad. I want a concrete example of how Mìtsuya impacted Mikey's life!!)… And the Black Dragon are out of this rule. Especially Shinichiro. Takeomi, Wakasa and Benkei all changed because of him (in good for Wakasa & Benkei, in what could’ve been good but ended up bad for Takeomi) but the other way around isn’t shown to be true. Wakasa & Benkei became friends, really good friends since they own a gym together in several timelines, and Takeomi got something to fill his lack of self-esteem which then got taken away from him without him having learnt how to cope with it in the meantime.

And Wakasa & Benkei aren’t supposed to have a gym in canon-timeline. Wakasa is a gang leader in the original timeline – supposedly he only changed vocation because Shinichiro told him about the original timeline and he decided not to go down that path. But then, when did Shinichiro had the time, during his time in the past, to tell Wakasa about his time leap ? He barely stayed one day. So did Wakasa, in the original timeline, came back to the illegal world so he can produce/obtain money and help Shinichiro out ? We don’t know what Benkei does in the original timeline, but I’d find it hard to believe he’s not with Wakasa. As for Takeomi, his situation is most likely the same, he’s in debt (which would explain that brief “Takeomi…” from chapter 272 from Shinichiro before he has to focus on the date, and very much alive Mikey). Or, if we want to look at another option, since Shinichiro got into “shaddy stuffs” (as he says in chapter 270), they could’ve followed and got back into delinquency. If they did it fast enough, Takeomi probably didn't get to the point of having debts. If you add the “Join my gang, Shin. With you we'd be the top gang in the world” of Wakasa (same chapter)  to any of this option, and the lack of negative response from Shinichiro you end up with one terrifying timeline where Shinichiro could have become, actually, a bad guy (or kill himself anyway).

What did all three of them do to make Shinichiro grow, positively or not ? Nothing (concrete that is, his admired/respected people are ‘’the Black Dragon First Generation Members‘’). Shinichiro’s entire personality, and that’s one of the only if not the only character, is centered exclusively around his family, mostly but not only, Mikey. He is changed by his father’s death and his mother’s hospitalization and starts to be a delinquent, he is changed by Mikey’s accident, by Emma running away, by his grandfather dying, by Mikey’s death and is so broken he is ready to believe in time travel, maybe was he also changed by Izana’s reaction when he discovered they weren’t blood-related. Only Wakasa is here in his flashback. No Benkei, only a mention of Takeomi. That’s not right. They’re his friends, why aren’t they here ? Why do we have so little information ?

Shinichiro stays the same until Mikey has his accident. He isn’t shaped by anybody else, not even his childhood friend whom he has known for more than a decade.

Shinichiro didn’t need guidance like Mikey did, but he didn’t need to stagnate either.

– which beg the question : Why did Wakui decide to put the exact same kanji, pronounced the exact same way in both Takeomi (武臣) and Takemichi (武道)’s name ? As a writer, making this decision means something (most of the time), alas, i didn’t find what. (Takemichi like Takeomi has self-esteem problems at the beginning of the story because he got beaten up as an middle school student by Kiyomasa but other than that..)

What I did find was Wakasa, Benkei and Takeomi pages in the third guide book. There’s still not much about Shinichiro (he is listed as all three’s admired/respected person), but there’s a bit more about their relationship with Takeomi. First, the one thing that actually surprised me : Wakasa and Benkei are listed as Takeomi’s disliked/feared people. Then, Wakui was kind to explain since it’s followed by “(They look down on me )”. Now, to see if it’s true or not (if they do think that, or if it’s just Takeomi (who must be such an unreliable narrator)) we have to take a look at Wakasa and Benkei’s own page.

Takeomi is only mentioned once for Wakasa, in his ‘a day in his life’ :

“I had a one-week holiday, so I went on a quick trolling trip to Okinawa. I wanted to enjoy fishing alone, but Takeomi and Benkei came along. The aim was yellowfin tuna. Takeomi got tired of not being able to catch anything after 3 hours on the boat and said he wanted to go home, while Benkei was seasick and exhausted. I knew I shouldn't have brought them along.”

We learnt that Takeomi isn’t that patient (to be fair, fishing isn’t something he likes to do, unlike Wakasa) but not that much is said about how Wakasa really thinks about him and him alone. He is irritated by both of his friends, who ruined his holiday, equally. You can’t say if he looks down on Takeomi or not.

For Benkei, Takeomi is also mentioned once and it’s in his ‘a day in his life’ as well :

“The gym is closed today. Takeomi persistently invited me out for a drink. I usually don't go, but we went to an izakaya together. His drinking is long. At first its fun, but as we get deeper into it, he starts to brag. He talks about the Brahman Senju created as if he created it. He has always been like that. I remember he used to brag about Shinichiro's achievements as if he himself had done them. Shinichiro liked him, including such a bad part of him.”

It gives more than Wakasa’s did. First, Takeomi, although he dislikes/fears them, still tags along with both of them when he can. Second, not that much of a news, Takeomi brags and takes on Senju’s achievements, the same way he took on Shinichiro’s. Third, Shinichiro was aware of it and didn’t stop him ?

While we can say Benkei is probably irritated by it, like for Wakasa we can’t say he looks down on Takeomi.

It pains me that there’s not much interaction between them. You can say Wakasa and Benkei are friends – but do they consider Takeomi a friend ? I don’t think he’s still labeled ‘Shinichiro’s friend’ in their mind, but – especially with Takeomi’s fall – they aren’t close, have they ever been. They don’t have that kind of relationship like Toman’s founding members have for example. Perhaps they did once.

Takeomi’s page, in my opinion at least, is the one that gives the more information on the character it‘s about. He likes Akechi Mitsuhide because he has the same birthday as him (sure why not – Akechi Mitsuhide, to make it very short, a general in the Heian period who attempted to become Shogun, and whose reign as Shogun lasted thirteen days), he dislikes making efforts (makes sense, he makes others’ achievements his own, which also leads to:), his special talent is taking advantages of people, and his dream is to be a multimillionaire (he is also ranked number 1 best to ‘Who has a way with words ?’).

Except confirming what I was already thinking, it still doesn’t offer much (but i’m so glad it has been explecitely written). But his failure story, that’s, well, another story.

And all of that offers a great transition, but let me change the topic first –

Family - the first thing you learn to run away from

(You were probably waiting for it from the start, sorry it took so long for me to talk about it !)

Takeomi’s failure story goes like this :

“I was their father figure. My father was busy because we are a motherless family. I was strict with Haruchiyo because he’s a man. He cut my face with a knife one day and left the house. He’s a hell of a fucking brother. I vowed that one day I would let Senju punish him.”

Sanzu gave him the scar.

Worse, looking at the timeline, Takeomi doesn’t have the scar when Black Dragon is founded (in February 1995 Sanzu would have been 4 so, not that surprising) but he gained it along the way, before Black Dragon disbandment (in late spring, early summer 1999, so Sanzu was either 8 or 9 (Takeomi was 18 – they have a 9 years gap)). That’s… young. What could have pushed Sanzu to do this ? Did Takeomi really do such a poor job raising him, Sanzu decided that attacking him was the only way out or something like that ? Sanzu, who says to Senju, “I wish I knew how to talk back to big bro like how Mikey and Baji do…” (chapter 241), cut his brother’s face with a knife before the age of nine? (he was nine when he said that, so perhaps he did stand up for himself before but then he gradually stopped (or all at once, it depends on how Takeomi reacted to being cut i suppose.)).

This leads to a question : did any outsider of their family know about it ? Sanzu probably wasn’t running around yelling about what he did, but did Takeomi complain (to Shinichiro) or did he keep his mouth shut about how his scar came to be. Both ? Complained about how hard it is to raise Sanzu (who ran away after what he did) while saying his new scar is from a fight he has gotten into ?(of course he didn’t get his scar from a 4-9 years old. Who do you take him for, he wouldn't let anyone, let alone a child, scar him like that.) Since we know Sanzu doesn’t go home when he’s in Toman (chapter 206, Muto : “What's with that look in your eye ? You don't have anywhere you belong ?”), it may not be an unusual thing for him to run away. (Which begs the question: what does his grandmother and father think about it ? Are they even aware of it ?)

Looking again at the timeline, what did Mikey and Takemichi do during the final reset ? They came back in October 1998 (Sanzu 8, Takeomi 17), yet Takeomi has his scar during the wedding. So either Sanzu cut his face before (and be 8 years old at most), or Mikey and Takemichi failed to prevent it.

this baby cut his brother’s face.

Talking about scars… We never got to see how Takeomi reacted when Sanzu got his. Did he blame him (he thought Sanzu was the one who broke the toy plane before Senju confesses she is in chapter 241) ? Did he just not do anything and left (oh sweet guilt) ? Did he decide to stay away from Mikey a bit ? Did he go to the hospital ?

For both Sanzu cutting Takeomi’s face and the toy plane incident, I pity Senju for having to witness it and feel guilty for not doing anything, but also because she knows sometimes she should be punished and not Sanzu. Her and Hakkai should get along well (once he stops freezing everytime girls talk to him).

But above all, I pity all of them for witnessing how the Sano family works. How, even though they also have absent parents, they’re healthy. How Mikey talks back to Shinichiro, how Emma loves her brother without feeling unwanted or lonely, how Shinichiro knows how to raise his siblings even with his family life, his parents' condition. And my heart ached the first time I read chapter 273 and Sanzu called Shinichiro ‘Shin-nii’ – thing Mikey never did. They addressed Takeomi as ‘Take-nii’ in their childhood, but they stopped. (Sanzu calls Shinichiro ‘Shinichiro-kun’ in the original timeline, which makes you wonder why, but I think he did since he was young and stopped because, for one, Shinichiro is too busy with his study and taking care of Mikey, and two, Sanzu went to juvie.) And Sanzu goes directly to Shinichiro after getting his memories back. He shares his confusion with Shinichiro, even if what he says seems unbelievable (even for himself) because he trusts him and knows he can share his worries with him. And Shinichiro answered to this 13 years old needing reassurance by telling him he killed a man.

I’d give a lot to see how the Akashi father is. I’d give a lot to see how Takeomi was raised. Because with Shinichiro it’s easy. Mama Sano and Papa Sano, for the little we’ve seen of them, seemed like good, stable people. They must have raised Shinichiro great until they couldn’t anymore. We don’t know when Mikey’s mother got to the hospital, but his father died when he was 3, so Shinichiro at least spent 13 years of his life with (guidance from) his father. Sure, it would’ve been better if it be longer, but it’s already more than.. Taiju (which, with some calculation, was 8 when his mother died). But we don’t know for the Akashi. We only know that Sanzu and Senju don’t call themselves Akashi. That Senju says “ We’re the mysterious siblings !” which is funny but makes me think about ‘let’s not talk about whatever’s going on in our family/at home’ which is not funny. Think of it, if the Akashi parents were the same as the Sano, they wouldn’t have turned out that way. It’s not fair to compare families or even people but to be fair they’re characters so they’re meant to be compared. And maybe the Sano siblings would have turned out like the Akashi siblings if their dad survived and their mom still died, who knows.

Takeomi didn’t take Senju and Sanzu to gang meetings, or anything gang-related whereas Shinichiro did. There could be two reasons (which can both be true at the same time) : 1, gang stuffs are dangerous, who would bring kids along, seriously, Shinichiro ? (chapter 269, Takeomi “are you stupid ? what kind of parents would let their kids learn from gang rides ?” after Shinichiro said “I'm like his father figure at this point. It's best from him to learn from his peers”) 2, it was the only thing he had that wasn’t family/home, where he could be himself and not have to care about his siblings (and be completely crushed under his responsibilities and doing a poor job because of it--). The fact he didn’t isn’t that important, Sanzu didn’t want to be part of a gang to start with (chapter 277 : “Nah! I don’t wanna be a delinquent!”), he only joined Toman after having his memories from the original timeline back and talking with Shinichiro about it (and Shinichiro dying). But Black Dragon, like for Shinichiro, was Takeomi’s life and by not bringing Sanzu and Senju in it, he didn’t interact with them much, he let them out of his life. Mikey and Emma “followed him [Shinichiro] everywhere” (chapter 109, Mikey), Takeomi needed his me-time, far away from his siblings. He couldn’t, unlike Shinichiro, put on the ‘perfect big brother’ role/façade.

Since he left his house often, Sanzu was left in charge (chapter 241, Takeomi “[...] you have to set a good example for her”; chapter 249, Sanzu (to Senju) “Did you forget who raised you [...]?”). If Takeomi had to take care on their father's role, it’s easy to understand that he delegated his big brother role to Sanzu. This was clearly not a good move, but Takeomi back then didn’t understand how strict he was with Sanzu, nor how unfair it was that he would blamed him for things Senju had done (following the rule of ‘you’re the older, you should have taught her better’) (perhaps Takeomi was so strict with Sanzu because he lashed out all of his self-anger/hatred on him; there's also the fact he may have recognized himself (his childhood self at least) in Sanzu – shitty move, but as a professional of denial, Takeomi might not have even been aware of it). But Takeomi wasn’t meant to be their father figure in the first place, and he could have failed his big brother role as well even if their life had been different, but he shouldn’t have had to endorse the responsibility of raising his siblings, had he been given the choice or not. It’s also somewhat ironic, that Takeomi did take on their father’s role the same way their father did – he left home for work and everything to the oldest child who stayed. Just like Shinichiro took on his father’s role. Not only because Shinichiro spent time with his siblings, which their father seems like he would have done, but also because, like his father, he gifts Mikey a toy, and tragedy soon follows (his father’s death in the car accident, Sanzu’s scars or Mikey’s accident). He was also a crybaby – although his father never cried in public (chapter 263, Mikey: “My father also cried easily ?”, his mom: “I wonder if he ever cried in public? That man was hopeless”). Mikey looked up to him, like he looks up to his father. I honestly think Mikey, who was also a crybaby as a child (chapter 263, Mikey’s mom: “[...] you too… used to be a crybaby when you were younger. All you did was cry and wail.”), started to stop crying (in public and in private alike) after his father’s death. Sure, he was very young when it happened, but children lack life experience not intelligence, sometimes they’re very capable of reading the room, and Mikey, who probably didn’t understand what was happening, knew that weeping wouldn’t help his already crying brother and mother. Mikey saw his father as this very strong, capable man who protected the family and decided to take on that role by being ‘strong’, by not crying and by beating people up (chapter 263, Mikey: “I am not going to cry. That's why, mom, I'm going to protect you, so come back home”; “I met that big guy from east elementary’s third grade. And I beat him up !”, his mom: “You're so strong, Manjiro. Just like your father.”). He has one memory of his father, where he hands him a superhero figurine – and what are fathers if not the superhero of their young children ? 

Sanzu was a better big brother than Takeomi was. Sanzu, like Takeomi in the past, doesn’t want Senju to be in a gang and much less a gang leader (chapter 216, Senju : “Haruchiyo doesn't like the fact I’m the head of Brahman. He doesn't like that I'm the strongest and that Takeomi endorses me.”). “Because of my mistakes, Takeomi got mad at Haruchiyo even so Haruchiyo was always nice to me” (Senju, chapter 241) ; he could have. He could have let out the anger he had on Senju since he couldn’t talk back to Takeomi. He didn’t, because Sanzu was a kind child, but also because seeing how Takeomi favored Senju (in his actions, this does not mean he loved her more) if he had learnt Sanzu got angry at her or even made her cry… Sanzu was already aware of how his brother acted when he got angry.

I refuse to believe “The curse Shinichiro created by killing the time leaper, that is what my ‘dark impulses’ are. It affected everyone around him” (chapter 274) as the reason behind Sanzu and Mikey’s behavior. Simply because, if it did, then why was Wakasa, Benkei, Emma, heck even Sano grandpa, not affected by it ? And why was Kazutora ? The only way I accept it is with ‘it affected Sanzu because he was Shinichiro’s trigger, so they shared the power and by such, Sanzu had to carry a bit of the curse’ (im not going to talk about mikey’s case here but i also came up with a more complex reason as to why he was affected, that is not just ‘he was close to him’). However, we don’t know what the curse does. The homeless man only said ‘’curse you’’ (chapter 271), any explanation from a character who isn’t the homeless man can’t be taken as the perfect truth. Anyway, all of that to say that behind Sanzu (and Mikey’s) actions, there was a bit of genuinity. The curse pushed them to act, but a part of them wanted to act, the curse made them unable to stop (and think of alternative solutions), worse, the curse made them like it. (okay, it’s theory time heck it. the curse feeds on tragedy, the more tragedy, the more it grows, the more it grows, the more hungry it gets, the more it wants tragedy, the more it triggers tragedy. And by feeding on tragedy i mean all the negative feelings that go hand-in-hand with. Sadness, despair, helplessness, rage, regrets, guilt… It clings to someone who already has a tragic life (Mikey, Sanzu, … Kazutora,…) and it worsens it. End of theory time.) ANYWAY. All of that to say that, this ?

Was something Sanzu would (without the curse) regret, but did anyway because he couldn’t stop it (because of the curse) because a part of him wanted to (not necessarily, hit Senju with a pipe, but get a pay-back from what he had had to go through as a child. Who knows what he would have done to Takeomi if Wakui decided to not drop our ‘God of War’ by the road before the last fight of the story). And he says things her ‘always nice to her’ brother wouldn’t have said (especially) to her such as “fighting all flamboyantly like that.. you buzzing disgusts the hell out of me. You disgusting fly !” (chapter 248)

Sanzu knows Senju isn't responsible for Mikey's curse, but he learnt about it when he was 13; not before (i'm not saying that's why he hit her, that’s not my best transition). Who knows, maybe somewhere in his mind he did blame Senju before memories of the original timeline flew back to him and he realized whether the toy had broken or not, Mikey would've turned up like that either way. This also begs the question : what did Sanzu think about the accident, before Shinichiro admitted what really happened on that day, before he got his memories from the original timeline back ? What did he think about staying friends with the one who scarred him for life ? Did he really wholeheartedly agree to stay friends for life with Mikey to Shinichiro?

Speaking of the original timeline, Takeomi is said to be on “non-speaking terms” with Sanzu. But let’s put everything back into context : Sanzu “used a damn katana and slashed all of his friends” (Baji ; chapter 270) (which also doesn't support the 'it's because of the curse' explanation or the "You can't erase the curse! [...] I've been following Mikey as if I was in a trance [...]"(chapter 275) of Sanzu. Because there wasn't a curse in the original timeline to 'explain' Sanzu's behavior), and Baji himself says to Shinichiro “Why do you give a fuck about somebody like him ?”(same chapter). Whether Takeomi blames himself for how Sanzu turned out or not, Sanzu at best hurt his friends, at worst killed them. And in this timeline, Takeomi still has Senju to look after – hence, he can’t let Sanzu interact with her, and he refuses to talk with him after what he did (whereas in Bonten, Senju is dead and Takeomi came back in the game and ends up accepting murder as part of his, their, life) Takeomi is also against Mikey killing (South), as he says “Are you even human!? There’s no reason for you to go that far, y’know?!”(chapter 233) which Mikey kindly answers to by kicking Takeomi in the chin and saying “you're better off dead, too.”(same chapter). Shinichiro, like Sanzu, justifies it ; “He just attacked them because they were talking shit about Manjiro. Isn’t that how Haruchiyo is ?”. Would Shinichiro have justified it in another timeline, though ? If Mikey was okay, if Emma was there, if his grandfather didn’t die… Would he have accepted Sanzu’s actions ? Shinichiro in the original timeline, is in deep, deep denial about his entire life collapsing around him.

One second he’s working at a job he likes and wants to do, the other he is a university student, a nurse and his brother’s main and only caregiver. One second, he lives with what is left of his family, the other his brother is his only family left, and he can’t leave the hospital. Not only did his life go downhill after Mikey’s accident, he must blame himself for it too. Why did Mikey have his accident ? Because he didn’t want to lend the Concorde to Baji and the rest. Who bought the Concorde as a gift for him ? Shinichiro. He guided his brother, the boy he raised, to his death, and the girl he raised is nowhere to be seen (which might have been in part his fault since he was too busy studying for Mikey to pay attention to her), even though he had promised to his father to look after the both of them (chapter 269, “Father [...] I’ll take care of both Manjiro and Emma for you.”). His parents, his grandparents, he had nothing left. But Mikey is still alive. So he keeps on focusing on that, only that. Mikey can’t interact with people, nobody knows if he is aware of his surroundings, but he is alive and that fact alone is the only thing keeping Shinichiro from facing reality, from realizing that at this point, he is his family on his own, it’s the only thing keeping him going. He has to keep Mikey alive, to the price of his health (chapter 270, Baji: “In order to get the qualifications to be a caregiver he had to study while working in the hospital. I’m sure he doesn't even have time to sleep, his life is a total mess”; Wakasa: “I was worried that you'd be the first to die [...] Right now you're just rotting away”), his money, his morals (same chapter, Shinichiro: “I've gotten involved in many shady businesses. So I could help Manjiro in whatever he needed. I've done whatever therapies and even paid a lot for those suspicious religious groups”) anything, anything for Mikey. So of course, Haruchiyo was justified in his actions, no matter what Baji or Takeomi might say (plus, Baji says all kinds of things (“He isn't right in the head.”) but he still tags along and interact with Haruchiyo, he doesn’t fool many people. Then again, does Baji have any friends ? If “there’s nothing great about middle school”, he can’t meet Chifuyu, and who knows if he met any other founding members, if he met Kazutora at least.) because killing for Mikey is exactly what Shinichiro does.

The homeless man tells him to gain the power he killed his predecessor, and for a man who has lost everything, killing isn’t much. Except it doesn’t work. Shinichiro doesn’t go back to the past instantly after killing this man. His last hope is gone. And it wasn’t even one – he helplessly believed in the idea of time leaping because it was the only thing left he could believe in. So he kills himself. There’s nothing left anyway. Wakasa, Benkei, Takeomi, Haruchiyo, Baji ? Not enough. And then it works. He’s back. He saves Mikey. Then when he unexpectedly goes back to his present (2003) and goes look for the homeless man, he doesn’t find him. Probably to talk, to thank him. But the thing is, he killed this man. But not once is he seen feeling guilt about this. Denial ? Maybe. Or maybe it’s because he finds it justifiable. He killed for Mikey, for his baby brother, for his own sanity. One doesn’t mean the other isn’t true – he could justify it to stay in denial. He dies too soon after for him to learn to cope with what he did anyway.

There’s also the fact that out of everyone, he goes to Wakasa to tell him about the original timeline. Not Takeomi (who isn’t doing well in any point anyway), and not Benkei (who… we don’t know), but Wakasa. And he confesses his murder to him (as we’re told by Mikey, chapter 268 : “I was informed by Wakasa” ; chapter 274 : “the curse Shinichiro created by killing the time leaper… that is what my dark impulses are.”), the same way he confessed what he did in his previous timeline and what he thought of doing (“In these four years, I've gotten involved in many shady businesses [...] Maybe I should kill them all for deceiving me.” (chapter 270)).

So, while in the original timeline, Takeomi focuses on Senju even if that means neglecting Sanzu, Shinichiro focuses on Mikey which leads to Emma running away (to where, we don’t know). And those two little sisters fit their role differently. While Emma cooks (she is seen several time cooking; and to Draken after he asked her if she was housekeeping “well, gramps is old and…” (chapter 263)), likes cute things (the teddy bear she wanted and Draken got for her birthday), isn’t a fighter and in the final timeline becomes a housewife, Senju chases Mikey, Baji, and Sanzu around, wants to play with their toys (Mikey’s concorde), trains at Wakasa and Benkei’s gym and is a gang member. Takemichi refrains her to buy punk clothes and even though she still buys a lot of items, she prefers Brahman’s uniform and she goes shopping because Takeomi tells her to (“We’re shopping in Harajuku because Takeomi told me to ‘do some girly stuff sometimes.’ This is his card.”) and gives her his credit card (whose money comes from Brahman’s activities, so as to whether it’s his or Senju’s decisions leading to him being rich..). They’re both feminine, but Senju is a bit more of a tomboy in what she likes. Emma doesn’t feel lonely (“Since then, I've never felt lonely. Not even once”)(she has friends her age, such as Hinata), Senju clings to Takemichi the moment he joins Brahman (“Brahman’s full of old guys, so I’m glad people my age are joining”(chapter 216);”So can i think of us as friends now ?”(chapter 219))(seemingly, her only friends remain Mikey and Baji, whom she likely hasn't seen in years, even before Valhalla arc). They are also the only girls Takemichi saw in bra (chapter 9/chapter 216) but uh.. I don't want to know if that was made on purpose or not. But it joins the feminine/tomboy dichotomy – when Emma undressed, she had something else in mind (which, fortunately, didn't happen) and she has lace underwear, whereas Senju is very uninhibited (“Oh, it's fine. It's just sports bra”, chapter 216) and is wearing a sports bra like she says. They were raised the same way (Emma taking care of/helping her grandfather with chores ; Senju being forbidden to use ‘ore’ by Takeomi because it’s not ‘girlish’, making her go shopping for her to ‘do some girlish stuffs’; both being surrounded by men/boys (who are gang members, or former)) so it’s not because of outside influences they came to have different personalities and behaviors – Senju doesn’t fight or is tomboy-ish because she was raised among men (heck, she lives/lived at her grandmother’s while Emma had no woman/girl family members), she simply likes what society deems ‘for boys’ because she is herself and likes those things ; same for Emma, she doesn’t force herself to be someone she isn’t.

The Akashi are a motherless family but we don’t know why. If the Sano parents are dead (beside Karen, Emma’s mom) then I have two theories coming to mind. Either, the Akashi parents are alive or, they are indeed dead and the father in charge of raising them is Senju and Sanzu’s but not Takeomi's (or a mix of both, who knows). There are various details pointing to Takeomi being half-siblings with Senju and Sanzu.

First, it would be another obvious parallel with the Sano → Emma is Shinichiro and Mikey’s half-sister, but make it a twist by making the half-sibling the oldest instead of the youngest. Second, Manjiro (万次郎) and Shinichiro (真一郎) share a kanji and so do Haruchiyo (春千夜) and Senju (千咒)– if their parents wanted to give them names with a same kanji why don’t they all share it ? I get it with Emma (her mom probably named her and we don’t know how involved her father was in her life, plus, 郎 is a kanji that literally means ‘son/boy’, but she could have have a name ending with 子(ko) meaning ‘child’ and who’s only used in feminine names), but Takeomi ? If they wanted to do that, even if Sanzu and Senju came after, couldn’t they choose 武 or 臣 ? Both feminine and masculine names with those kanji seem to exist (and even if they didn’t, it’s the Japanese name system, they could very much invent it – that’s what they did for Senju!(can’t find information on this name like Wakui decided to write it)). And third, the Sano brothers look a lot alike (Mikey did get his hair color from his father but beside that, they both look a lot like their mother) while Emma looks like her mom (they don’t realize straight away she’s their sister “Isn’t she a foreigner ?”, chapter 123 and Takemichi, Hinata and Naoto don’t realize it either and think she’s dating Mikey for a brief moment in chapter 66 (although Takemichi ends up saying “They do have some sorta resemblance actually” after being told, but Mikey asks him “Really ?”), Sanzu and Senju both look extremely alike while Takeomi doesn’t (different hair color, eye shape, eyelashes, eyebrows - perhaps same eye color).

If we go along with this theory, which also makes their mother the parent they share and not their father like the Sano do (like they stay at their grandmother’s but the Sano stay at their grandfather’s), then the answer as to when Takeomi stopped living with his biological dad and moved in with his step-father would be important. Which one is responsible for how he raises his siblings, or perhaps they are both at fault ? When did their mom leave/die? Did someone ever tell Sanzu and Senju Takeomi was their half-brother ? If Takeomi’s step-father’s family name is Akashi, then Takeomi doesn’t use his birth family name either. And since Takeomi’s mom left him, does he feel the same way Emma feels about it ? (not saying his mother left for the same reason/the same way)

Or they could share the same father and have a different mother like the Sano. Either way, I’m craving for more information about them. They better not stay the “mysterious siblings” forever. Wakui pls

The Sano siblings are 4, we all know that. Izana is a Sano. So what if he throws the parallels off-balance ? He doesn’t. If you’re as delusional as I am, Muto is the Akashi’s Izana.

While Izana knew Shinichiro and Emma, and never got to know Mikey before dying in Tenjiku, Muto knew Sanzu and never got to know Takeomi and Senju. When they met, Mikey had lost Shinichiro and Emma, Sanzu left his home (and most likely stopped interacting with his siblings - although the “Haruchiyo doesn't like the fact im the head of Brahman. He doesn't like that I'm the strongest and that Takeomi endorses me” of Senju in chapter 216 means that he made his disapproval known). Izana knew of Mikey (Shinichiro kept talking about him), Muto didn’t know of Sanzu’s siblings. Muto also has the same age gap with Sanzu (and Senju) that Izana has with Mikey (and Emma). Izana was meant to parallel Mikey, Muto was meant to… parallel Takeomi. He parallels Sanzu too, in some points (staying loyal to their first ‘king’, being very harsh on betrayers/spies, having nowhere to go, Muto to Sanzu, chapter 206, “You don't have anywhere you belong ? You and I are pretty alike.”) but Sanzu said “I would've loved to have a big brother like you”(chapter 206) and so… either Wakui came up with Mucho or Takeomi first. Maybe he didn't even intend to narratively tie them in the first place. But they're still shaped in a way to be opposite. Sanzu took Mucho as his big brother figure first because he’s the opposite of the big brother Sanzu got and who failed him. Mucho’s betrayal against Mikey leaves him to die by Sanzu’s hands anyway, however, by betraying Mikey, he also betrayed Sanzu’s trust. His big brother failed him, again. A brother who told him “it's fine to be devoted to the king, but take care of yourself, too.”(chapter 206), not only validating his actions but saying he’s important as well, a brother who gave him his jacket, a brother who is the reason behind his favorite food (Sanzu’s favorite food is cheesecake for Cozy Corner and Mucho’s failure/heroic story explains why : “to make Haruchiyo Sanzu open up, Mucho bought him cheesecake from his favorite shop, Cozy Corner. The atmosphere was awkward and Mucho asked if something was wrong, to which Sanzu replied that he hated cheese, but would give it a try. There was no conversation after that.”), a brother who tried to make him open up, who tried to understand him, a brother who thought handing him a mask was a good idea because he was “missing out because of those scars” (chapter 206). Another perhaps useful information is that Sanzu dislikes “smothering people”, which was probably what Takeomi was to him (we already know Takeomi likes, has to be in control).

We only have one example of a moment the Akashi siblings spent together, only the three of them. And that’s Senju’s “it's super sparkly ! I haven't been [in an amusement park] since second grade of elementary school !” (chapter 219) and her hidden volume cover (which happened the same year Sanzu got his scars so between April 1st and July 30th 1999).

(Takeomi is the only character, on a (hidden or not) volume cover, we can’t see the face of. Most of them look directly at the reader, and if they don’t we can still see a bit of their face (just like Sanzu and Senju here).)

Final Timeline

It’s not a rant about the entire ending, that’s not the purpose of this post so I’ll only stick with Takeomi.

He’s the only one I have a problem with in this ending. Not him in particular, but his role, his job. Mikey and Takemichi fixed everything (the best they could), including the Akashi siblings’ relationship. All three of them work together.

I won’t say it’s bad for Takeomi’s development, it depends how it’s done and since it’s a happy ending for everyone, it shouldn’t impact anyone badly, But. Was him being the ‘self-proclaimed producer’ necessary ? I’m not against it, especially not if he has another (official) job on the side (and we know he’s smart enough to have one, and one who pays lots, which would also explain how he succeeds to ‘produce’ Senju & Haruchiyo). The only small problem I have with this is – he still lives by being someone important, needed, for somebody else, living on somebody else’s success. And it can be healthy ! But why is it ‘self-proclaimed’. Yuzuha isn’t Hakkai’s ‘self proclaimed’ manager. She is. Takeomi could very much be Haruchiyo and Senju’s producer. Sure they’re youtubers and I don't know if they can have official producers, but why? Takeomi, especially final timeline Takeomi, doesn’t need to brag about others’ achievements as if it was his own, he needs to brag about what he can and what he does by himself, without the need of anybody else.

And I don't say it’s what happens in the final timeline. But it still leaves a bitter taste in my mouth. I hope he has another job where he constantly realizes he is the only reason why it succeeds. Because I don't need him to say ‘I raised them’ or ‘I produce them’ when someone praises Senju and Haruchiyo, as if he was the reason they became famous. I don’t need him to get Haruchiyo and Senju under the spotlight to steal it from them. I need him to be their producer because he can, because he wants to help and bond with them, without taking what they did for himself. I need him to have an individual job, to have built his career without anyone’s help, to see that he can succeed alone. And unfortunately, that’s not what this last chapter made me feel was happening.

Still, it is (and that’s why we’re here for, not me rumbling about how Takeomi’s job is the only one to piss me off because he’s the only character who ends up with a job that can screw up his development). First, I'm so glad the Akashi actually get to be siblings. There are still some issues they had had to fix (with Mikey and Takemichi’s help-), Takeomi and Haruchiyo’s relationship was already pretty bad (Takeomi has his scar on his face) but it got fixed ! Second, Takeomi deserves to feel needed (and to be), which he is by being their producer and i wish, if both sides do take advantages of the other, that it’s in the most healthy way (if that makes sense) – that “the money [...] spent out of Takeomi’s pocket” was his idea and Haruchiyo and Senju accepted (with perhaps the intention of paying Takeomi back later, maybe not with money, since Takeomi doesn’t seem to need it, but still, to do something to show Takeomi it was appreciated) and that Haruchiyo and Senju thanks him publicly, without his ego feasting on it.

I hope he got his self-esteem restored. Which of course that’s what happened, we’re in the final timeline and everything’s good. But. I really hope he did.

And I choose to believe that the “same old Takeomi.” from Shinichiro means Takeomi the same as he was when they were kids. Maybe not exactly, because Black Dragon 1st generation and Takeomi’s superiority complex happened, but that Shinichiro recognizes his childhood friend is doing well, that he’s still here somewhere and got healed.

+ What’s in a name ?

(I'm gonna do something I didn't do for the Shiba (there wasn't much to say about it for them))

Writers are careful with how they name their characters (I'm making generalities here) – and it's especially true with Japanese and Chinese Writers whose characters' name change meaning depending on how they decide to write it

So it's been odd to me, when I realized the ‘Take’ in both Takeomi and Takemichi were the same. Why would Wakui do that? It can't be a coincidence, right ? And indeed. The Akashi siblings' names hold meaning.

Let's start with 明司 (Akashi). 明 (aka) means light, bright and is made of the Kanji used for sun (日) and the one used for moon (���). Then, 司 (shi) means official, director, administrator and was once used to design governors the Emperor had appointed to carry out the imperial policies in provinces. So 司 is for people in power, but not at the top. As said before, 司 seems to come from 后 which is the same kanji upside down and which means ‘emperor, king, monarch..’.

武 from both Takeomi and Takemichi means ‘military, war’. Takemichi's name is actually made of the exact Kanji as Budō (武道, way of war/way of the martial arts). 臣 (Omi) means ‘retainer, subject’ and could be used as a ‘I’ when addressing one's master. Ah, and it can be pronounced ‘Shin’ by itself. Because of course it does.

Takeomi is either: the warrior retainer or the war/military retainer. But he can also be in some way, the director of the light (and so can be Sanzu and Senju.)

I've got more to say about Sanzu than Senju so I'll start with her. Search "Senju Japanese name" into a search bar, you won't end up finding it written like Wakui decided to write it. Not that it means it doesn’t exist, but it's not popular. And for cause, Wakui chose to write Senju: 千咒 – A thousand curses.

Now, who would name their child "curse", I don't know. Perhaps it's one of those names where they're supposed to be degrading so as to push bad spirits/ghosts away? I have two theories for this but they’re without any real basis. One of them is ; the person who named her was really angry at her birth and since we don’t know where is/what happened to their mother.. Yeah (either she died giving birth or for some reasons she named Senju that way before leaving/disappearing). Or it could be one of those ‘Kira Kira names’ (names outside of the norm parents decided were cool). Anyway, Senju thinks she is the reason why both Mikey and Sanzu (+Baji) turned up that way, which isn't true as we're being told after, but Senju thought she was the reason behind Mikey's curse – without knowing it was a curse.

I didn't find any real concrete stuff about Kawaragi. Which is sad. 瓦 means roof tile and 城 means castle. When put together with the Kanji 礫, 瓦礫 means rubbish, wreckage, debris. With the Kanji 解, it becomes 瓦解; collapse, downfall. Normally I won't dare to talk about things who seem to be a bit too coincidental. But 土崩瓦解 doesn't feel coincidental. It can either mean 'complete collapse' or, '(something) going to pieces', meaning 'broke beyond repair'. Which she did. Or rather, thinks she did (not only the toy plane, but “Ever since that day, they all changed… mikey, baji and Haruchiyo. They all changed, and it's because of me” (chapter 241, Senju)). Also, 瓦 is 万 but backward and 万 is the first Kanji of ‘Manjiro’ (万次郎). Which makes a lot more sense. I guess ? For 城; there's 成, meaning 'promoted' it's notably used in Shogi where some pieces can be, well, promoted.

I like to think Sanzu started calling himself such because Mikey and Baji decided to find themselves different names (even if Baji is never even once referred as Ed or Edward). But whatever the reason, Sanzu is one hell of a name. Quite literally, hell. If you look up "Sanzu'' and ignore the Tokyo Revengers-related things, you'd scramble upon: 三途の川 – Sanzu no Kawa. River of the three crossings. A place the deads have to cross after their deaths, and which leads them either to heaven, to hell, or to resurrection. Souls get punished there. Every sin gets met with a trial.

(Plus, it's interesting to know that those you get drag to Jigoku, "hell", fall in the water/river where a bunch of snakes await them. Whereas people who get a pass to Tengoku, heaven walk over a bridge. Sanzu is never called ‘sanzu’ in the original timeline. But you know how Shinichiro died the first time ? Yeah, you do. He isn’t called Sanzu once in the original timeline, and even if he is in the final timeline, I decide to believe it’s because Mikey and Takemichi are too used to calling him that way to realize it and he just picked it up.)

春千夜 (Haruchiyo), is the only name among the Akashi who don't have any kind of negativity in it. Senju has curses, Takeomi has retainer (which isn't a negative thing in itself, but we've already established that Takeomi wants to be so much more than to be at someone's else service), Haruchiyo means "Spring of a thousand nights". Just like Senju, he has 千, ‘a thousand’ in his name.

Remember the 武 from Takeomi and Takemichi ? Yeah ? Well I'm a bit of a liar. Rather than a liar, I didn't say everything. There's a third character with 武 in his name. But it isn't pronounced 'Take' for one, and for two, it's in his family name, not his first

武藤  泰宏

Muto Yasuhiro

(I can't imagine the pain he has to go through every time he writes his name down. 藤 is one hell of a kanji.)

Ah... Mucho. Sanzu's big brother figure. Better than the other. But who did the only thing Sanzu would kill anyone for: betray Mikey. But that's not the point here, we're here to talk about his name. Beside the obvious 武 meant to add to the fact he's Sanzu's big brother, like Takeomi but reversed, 藤 means wisteria. 泰宏(Yasuhiro) means "peaceful' and 'broad' which describes Mucho's personality accurately but, but, but. In 泰 there's 𡗗 just like in 春 ;) (it actually doesnt mean much because taiju also has it in one of his kanji but shh). Or, just like Sanzu shares a kanji with his sister, he shares half one with his not related by blood brother. And ⺢ is a variant of 水, water, just like Sanzu is a river.

朕 is also in there. It's the royal ‘I’, ‘we’ – completely opposite of the servant 臣, ‘I’. More globally, wisterias represent the imperial family in Japan; thanks to the Fujiwara who impacted Japan by a lot when they were the ones ruling the country. And I’ll stop there with Mucho because I may be going too deep here and at some point digging further is meaningless.

Shinichiro and Mikey’s names are… It made me chuckle, not gonna lie. Not because of what the kanji means, but because those are extremely common kanji found in names. 一郎 in 真一郎(Shinichiro) means ‘first’ and ‘boy/son’. 次郎 in 万次郎(Manjiro) means ‘next’ and ‘boy/son’. These (reading ‘Ichiro’ and ‘Jiro’ by themselves) were rather common names for children from not-upper class families. It’s much less common nowadays. Then there’s 真 who means ‘real, sincere, genuine, truth’ and 万  who means ‘ten thousand’. And I didn't quite understand why their parents would choose that kanji, but if you add 全 to it then it gives 万全 or, ‘perfection, flawlessness’, and suddenly it makes my heart melt and also more sense. (it also seems to come from his grandfather’s name Mansaku (万作))

Sano 佐野 too, is a rather common name. Or at least half a common name. since 佐 may make you think of 佐藤 (Sato) which is the most common Japanese family name. However, the 藤 comes from the Fujiwara clan, since the Sano don’t have this kanji (unlike Muto) we can say they don’t have samurai ancestors (or if they do, it got lost along the way). It seems like family name with two out of three of the following kanji : 田, 中 or 村 are reasonably common. And 野 (Sano) has both 田 and 村. (although unlike Tanaka(田中), Nakamura(中村) and others they are stuck inside one kanji).

Unlike Akashi which describes someone of the upper-class, the Sano are everyday average people (Sano means ‘to help’ and ‘field, plain’ but also a prefix meaning ‘wild, lacking a political post’). Except they aren’t. But Wakui must find himself funny for this.

EDIT: 'Sano' is a city in the Tochigi Prefecture in Kanto, which economy revolves around agriculture and light manifacturing. It was also once the name of a clan.

(By the way, the -no of Terano (寺野) is the same kanji. As in, Terano South. And there are some parallels between Mikey and him.. (ill mother, no father, a parent who's a foreigner – but Mikey was born and raised in Japan while South had Brazil), person who raised him showed him the world of delinquency (but they had clearly different view of it), go live with their grandparent(s), person who raised them died when they were 12 (Shin died before Mikey had turned 13) because of ‘dark impulses’ (South himself; Kazutora), they both have ‘dark impulses’ (although we might never know why/how/if they are really the same dark impulses for South), they are both known by a English name rather than their official Japanese one (but Mikey chose his while Dino named South)… We don’t have enough about South and I don't like it.)

(Even worse, because if you’re as delusional as I am, you would notice that if you take out two strokes of 南(South) you end up with the kanji 幸. And since Mikey loved his mother very much, and she loved him very much, and South loved his mother very much… Then his mother must have loved him very much as well (even if she was incapable of fully taking care of him). And 幸 means ‘happiness, luck, blessing fortune’. But then it’s a girl name. But perhaps that’s what his mother wanted her child to be named if it was a daughter ? It’s still hidden in the ‘’Minami’’(南) Anyway, as I said, I’m being delusional and 南 is not an unusual name in Japan. Leave me and my headcanons alone. There's also the possibility it was his father who was Japanese, of course. After all South’s name is Japanese, but then, we don't know a thing about his father so we can't say if him and South’s mom were married. But no matter which one was his Japanese parent, he either had no vocabulary in Japanese or only the basis and had had to learn everything when he was sent to live with his grandparents in Japan – who probably don't speak a word of Portuguese so it didn’t help South having very violent habits. They couldn't communicate.)

I didn’t find something that caught my attention with Baji’s kanji. Sad. But Edward means ‘guardian, protector’ so at least he chose a name that does describe him well. Micheal means ‘who is like god ?’ and of course reminds you of Michael the Archangel and knowing his mother called him ‘my angel’, well my heart is currently aching. I mean… Baji is made of a kanji meaning ‘place’ and another meaning ‘ground’ (the kanji for Keisuke means ‘jewels/corner’ and ‘meditation’ and i really have no idea for those) – Michael is one of the most famous angel name and Sanzu is linked to the afterlife so.. perhaps Baji is the ‘human’ of them three ?

(Baji Keisuke is written 圭介場地. Out of all these kanji there's only 圭 I perhaps found something interesting about. In Shogi, there's a piece called 成桂; 'promoted Katsura' and its abrevation is 圭. Btw, in Shogi, the 'king' is 玉将 or 王将 (if you're a lower rank player or a challenger VS if you're a higher rank player or a reigning champion) notice the dot ? It's 瓦 from 'Kawaragi' vs 万 from 'Manjiro' again)

Emma and Izana's can't be analyzed this much. I didn't find anything for Izana (If i go on Behind the name, in japanese the name Izana (rare and only used in pop culture) comes from the verb izanau ; to invite, to ask someone to do, to call for, to tempt, to lure, to entice ; but honestly, searching for the etymology of this name doesn’t give you a lot of answer (not enough sites say the same thing for me to believe it)) and Emma is "universal, whole" when it comes of German etymology and "all containing" when it comes of Hebrew etymology.

Also it’s interesting how Sanzu and Senju decided to change their family name and not their first like Mikey and Baji. Plus, Baji gets called by his family name every time so it didn’t serve much – like Senju who changed her family name but is never addressed by it in the story (even Brahman members yell ‘’Senju’’). But then Mikey changed his first name and gets called by it and Sanzu changed his family name and gets called by it. One option for each possibility, so it could be in/Wakui’s purpose! The one who didn’t use their other name as much as their real one are the ones to die, whereas the one who, to overstate the point, changed their identity by identifying with something that wasn’t initially them, actually got those selves erased. It’s more clear for Sanzu. Sanzu came up with ‘Sanzu’ and ‘Akashi Haruchiyo’ wasn’t anymore. Mikey came up with this name for another reason but it was still to get rid of ‘Manjiro’. And he didn’t get rid of ‘Manjiro’ until his brother, the only person left to call him that, died. Mikey’s flashback (chapter 264-265: “I.. really like ‘strong’ people [...] Until that day [Shinichiro’s death] [...] I was looking for ‘something’ other than strength [...] All the guys in Toman are good. They're so good but there's something I can't figure out. I wonder how long… there has been ‘something’ dark inside my heart [...] ‘strong’ alone is not enough [...] After all, all I need is ‘darkness’.”) tells us he was already starting to follow his Dark Impulses ; after his brother’s death. He confesses it to Kisaki (“I wonder how long… there has been ‘something’ dark inside my heart. Sometimes that ‘something’ expands and drives me to destroy absolutely everything”). Manjiro Sano died with his brother. Other people may still call him that way, like his grandfather, but Mikey is Mikey. And this innocent name he once chose to make his sister feel less lonely became a metaphor for his incoming loss of sense of self.

We can also add that Shinichiro may have not changed the way he called Mikey because since his brother, 'Manjiro', was the only thing left from his life before it went downhill, calling him 'Mikey' instead of 'Manjiro' would have created even more of a distance between Shinichiro and his past 'normal' life from his childhood.

Baji and Mikey chose their name (Micheal & Edward) to try to make Emma open up. To get closer to her (especially Mikey). And Emma gets her birth name (Kurokawa) changed as Sano, which makes her even closer to her two brothers (and less from Izana). Sanzu and Senju chose their name to separate themself from Takeomi (and each other).

Of course, they aren't the only characters being best-known as a name they chose themselves of have been given by others. Draken for example, doesn't show any kind of resentment or even neutrality against his name; Ken is still present in Draken. We also know he chose it as a child (like the others), but (unlike the others) a reason is never given - he most likely thought it was cool; just like Mitsuya's dragon and his new tattoo were. Same with Benkei. It is written in katakana in the manga, but with kanji Benkei and Keizo have the same 'Kei'. Benkei is one of the most famous historical figure in Japan, by the way. (He is the servant of Minamoto no Yoshitsune, born Ushiwakamaru. Birth name which shares a lot of kanji with 'Imaushi Wakasa'. Both were great fighters). South, is another example of a name given to change one's identity – but South didn't name himself 'South'; Dino did, after making him kill someone, or giving him a bloody baptism if you prefer. And 'Minami' means 'South' but Minami never grew up enough for us or himself to know who he was.

(+ 

mikey baji sanzu and senju are four and so are bd 1st gen doesn’t feel like a coincidence. But i cant think of something that makes it very interesting. Wakasa and sanzu both know about the og timeline, baji and takeomi are used as parallels at least once, senju has some commons traits with Shinichiro, but mikey does too (and more), senju and benkei.. both like MMA ? And their favorite catchers are rivals ? Thats not much for me to talk about ngl)

[lily-claw]

Respect tagging etiquette and take your cope out of the izuocha tag. Why should we be unhappy. It doesn't matter that he didn't catch her. Bakugo caught Izuku after apologizing yet Izuku never thought about that moment or acknowledged it, he only thought about Ochako cheering him on which made him emotional in the same way he was when All Might allowed him to have his dream.

Omg if my thoughts upset you that much sorry but I was just sharing my thoughts, of course you dont have to be unhappy😂 I never even said "izuocha shippers should be unhappy". I said "if *my* main ship was izuocha, *I* would be disappointed".

Also if I gotta talk about "the same way Izuku being happy just like when All Might allowed him to have his dream." thing, I'd say I think you are wrong.

And if you really are an izuocha shipper, It's funny how you equate Ochako (the love interest) with All Might (his idol and he kinda looked like a dad figure in the last movie). 💀

When All Might said "You can be a hero" Izuku had nothing. He gave him hope. When Ochako cheered Izuku; I think he felt extremely happy and blessed to have a really good friend.

He didn't have any time to think about romance then so I think that we can say he never thought about that moment too💀 Now this doesn't come to you so logical too, right? After Katsuki apologized to him, he cried while running to him dude, lmao.

I think Izuku thought about both of those moments. I put izuocha tag there because I talked about izuocha too and as long as izuocha shippers are respectful with me, I would love to listen and talk with you too. Care to explain to me how this is not respectful please?

One of the izuocha shippers in that post's comment pointed an izuocha moment I forget and I thanked them. When I wanted to answer them, I put that pic there too so any other people would see that too. I've never said izuocha shouldn't be canon, I said "if izuocha is gonna be canon, it should be better than this" because Izuku and Ochako deserve better than this. How is this not respectful, please tell me 😶‍🌫️

Also if you are gonna be like this, PLEASE read whats written there carefully before jumping to anonym asks, you might hurt someone's feelings like that while harassing people like this💀

[malachitezmeyka]

Forever torn between “If I get my first F since I was in the fifth grade that might actually be my final straw” and “Omfg I am so beyond giving a fuck at this point leave me alone”

Of course, there’s always a chance I could successfully argue my point that hey, it’s gonna be very unfair if you give me an F for not writing an essay I don’t know how to write. Like, the essay I’ll have to write to be allowed to sit my exam in May is a pain in the ass, but it at least has a structure that is relatively easy to follow. But essays for literature class? They’re actually fucking beyond me. I’ve written like.. three of those in my life, two were bullshitted so completely that in the one based on Hero of Our Time, I said that Pechorin is somehow both a fatalist and NOT a fatalist at the same time and I still have no idea how I got an A for it, and the third took me three tries to do and it still was barely passable. I don’t know how to do them, nobody will fucking EXPLAIN how to do them, and… honestly, I’d much rather take the F and not bother than work my ass off and write something my teacher will ruthlessly pick apart. It’s less humiliating that way

But will my teacher listen to me? Probably not. She low-key hates me anyway

[calmlb]

It’s been clear that the Tanizakis aren’t siblings from the very beginning

here’s some evidence now that it’s been confirmed canon…

everyone who’s read irl Tanizaki’s book knew that Junichiro & Naomi weren’t siblings as soon as they introduced themselves

BUT just because the Tanizakis aren’t siblings doesn’t mean you can’t feel uncomfortable about them. if you feel uncomfortable, GOOD. that’s exactly what they want

the Tanizakis, Mori— they all use these disturbing ruses to disarm or distract people in order to protect themselves, or to accomplish their goals. this is a writing device that asagiri commonly employs as a way to parallel the irl literature (it’s actually ingenious)

there are 4 main indicators that have always made it clear to me that Junichiro & Naomi are not siblings:

1. most obviously— their character designs. Harukawa is extremely intentional with character designs, & she very intentionally made Naomi & Junichiro look nothing alike

their eye shapes are purposely different

their color palettes are contrasting

even their differing styles of clothing have meaning

this was all done so that the audience could PLAINLY see that they’re not related— so that WE know that they’re lying when they say they ARE related

2. how the people around them respond to their act.

the general reaction is “don’t question it”— which is exactly what they want. “be distracted by how uncomfortable you feel so that you look away from what we’re hiding” (this is likely a protective measure)

3. most importantly, this is meant to parallel irl Tanizaki’s book “Naomi,” where the main character Joji picks up Naomi to raise her into his ideal woman, but since she's so young (& a minor) they call each other cousins (Joji makes no sexual advances on young Naomi btw)

however, his plan backfires because when Naomi gets older & they get married, she flips the script on him & manipulates HIM so that he's under her thumb (which is why bsd Tanizaki is at a domineering Naomi's mercy). Joji let her have her way because of his masochistic tendencies

4. lastly is the emphasis that Asagiri and the Tanizakis themselves put on calling each other siblings.

over & over, it’s “my brother this” & “my sister that”

like they’re desperately trying to convince us that it’s true (“don’t let your lying eyes deceive you”)

here are just a few of many examples from the light novels…

again, if you’ve read “Naomi” you knew that Junichiro & Naomi weren’t siblings as soon as they introduced themselves

just like if you’ve read irl Mori’s works, it’s clear that bsd Mori isn’t a pedophile

just like if you’ve read No Longer Human you know that Dazai’s an unreliable narrator. he makes you think he’s a bad person bc he believes he’s a bad person, but those around him see him differently (btw this doesn’t mean he’s never done anything “bad,” though bsd isn’t about morality— but that’s another discussion)

anyway, i’m so excited for the Tanizakis backstory to be revealed so that we can better understand why they use this defense!!

also let this be a reminder to READ THE LITERATURE if you’re able to!! even reading synopses & analyses of the coordinating books makes bsd make much more sense 🥹

reminder that this how you’re supposed to react while reading bsd:

also, if you’re interested in a post explaining how Mori isn’t a pedo, i wrote this analysis on twt. OR you can read this document that one of my moots sent me (remember: analyzing a character does NOT mean you condone any actions they may or may not commit!)

[sol-iscus]

❗️Mild arcane spoilers ❗️

Miiight ruffle some feathers.

Not EVEN going to lie, unnecessary ship wars aside, the fan base has developed such a deep love and understanding for these characters (because let’s be honest, there are some pretty intelligent people giving eye opening analyses) that after the finale, it appears that we have a better understanding of them than the actual writers.

We deserved better as the audience after all the hype over the years, all the waiting, even after some episodes got leaked a while ago, most of us remained respectful and waited to see what this season would bring us. The core characters ABSOLUTELY deserved better as well.

It felt as if I was watching all of the characters’ development be erased in real time, or become sidelined and nearly mute after being propped up to appear as if they were going to have a significant arc.

With the amount of episodes we had, it felt like they were trying to cram a bunch of different storylines into one 9 episode season and that left us with annoying plot holes and rushed sequences.

And I’m just gonna say it.

If a certain relationship needed to be sacrificed if it meant that other characters had the proper development they needed and DESERVED, then I would have preferred that much, MUCH more than that undercooked finale.

Don’t. Even. Get me started on that caitvi scene. In the cell? Right after that conversation she had with her sister? Don’t give me that nonsense about how it’s vi reclaiming her power or something. (An actual weird ass statement from Amanda Overton in a Q&A video about how that was Vi reclaiming and working through her trauma in that cell).

No apology? No groveling for forgiveness? That little argument they had lasted like five seconds and didn’t even address the earlier conflict that happened in the show after cait left vi. And before any of you say “cait apologized with her actions”

I don’t care. Two things can be true at once, she can and should have apologized directly as well as displayed that with her actions.

Moving on to Mel??? We did not nearly have enough time to explore her new abilities as a mage, her armor, and her connection to the black rose. As I said, the storylines this season should have been more refined so we could focus on a central group of characters. They did nothing but hint at her armor from the end of season 1 all the way up until now.

Also maybe I’m hallucinating, but did we ever find out what happened to the firelight’s tree?? That’s one of the main reasons Ekko and Heimerdinger went to the lab isn’t it? HELLO?

Next on my list, Jinx. This girl has suffered to no end.

- Lost her whole family except for Vi.

- Almost died once and was brought back to life.

- Tried to end her life several more times

And you slap us all in the face by writing her off?

“Oh but she may not be GONE gone, look at the glitching at the end!"

I. Don’t. Care. It’s the principle.

I’m sick and tired of seeing characters that struggle with mental health and keep having one bad event after another happen to them, never receiving a proper ending. What messages are the writers sending with this? That death is basically the answer because there’s no hope for them? Cool. That was not an honorable act of self sacrifice, that was plain insulting.

Instead, if they still really wanted to have a Jinx redemption arc and a chance to rekindle her relationship with Vi, having her tap into engineering for the betterment of Zaun would have been the better route.

We should have gotten an extra extended episode since this is last season for the Piltover/Zaun region, and for Jinx and Vi's story. I really want to blame Riot for being greedy and possibly becoming too cocky with the popularity of Arcane that they think anything would suffice because It's Arcane.

[daisies-and-domming]

Side Effects (NSFW)

Guys I’m so sorry I know I disappeared forever ago but I am back! I updated my page, and I look forward to writing for all you lovely people again! I’m back on my same old shit (absolutely vile dom!reader smut) so I hope you’re ready >:) This one's a little softer because I think Nanami deserves a bit of a soft!dom...I hope you enjoy! Feeling a little rusty so sorry if this isn't my best work :/

Summary: Your boyfriend has been on edge recently - most likely due to a rapid increase in curses over the last few weeks - so when you get a call from Shoko, you assume the worst. Lucky for you both, he’s not dead. However, she informs you that he’s experiencing some strange side effects, so you find yourself rushing to Jujutsu Tech to deal with a rather unfortunate… problem.

Warnings: swearing, smut, dom!reader, reader has a vagina, p in said v, subby!nanami, sex pollen/sex curse, semi-breeding kink, nanami gets his shit rocked, begging, overstimulation (reader and nanami receiving), unsafe sex (wrap your wee-wee please), a bit praise, nanami calls reader wife once

Let me know if you think I missed anything!!

All characters are over 18 :)

– – – 

Bzzt, Bzzt!

You groan, eyes tearing away from the screen in front of you. Life had been in a bit of a slog recently - with your boyfriend constantly away on missions and you trapped at your boring desk job, a phone call was a welcome reprieve. What was odd was the fact that your phone was ringing at all - the only calls that can get through when your phone is silenced is your parents, Nanami, and -

Shoko.

Bright letters flash at the top of your screen as you scramble away in a hurry, phone in hand. You mumble some half-assed excuse as you fly out the doors of the office, keys already in hand, and shakily answer the call.

“Shoko? Is everything okay?” you force out, nearly slipping as you speed-walk to the car. “Is he okay?”

“It’s Nanami,” she says, panic evident in her voice. “He came back from a mission today, won’t stop asking for you. I can’t quite get a read on what he got hit with yet, and I’ve never seen him like this, is there any chance you-”

“I’m already in the car, I’m on my way,” you confirm. “He’s okay, though? No obvious signs of injury?”

“Nothing physical, no,” she says, and you let out a breath you didn’t know you’d been holding. “But something’s still clearly wrong, and having you here might help me analyse it. Clearly he’s been hit by some effect of the curse, I’ve never seen this man frantic like this in my life.”

“I’ll be there soon as I can. Call me if you have any updates.”

Shoko hums a confirmation and hangs up, leaving you alone with your thoughts. Your grip on the steering wheel tightens, and you take in a shaky breath. What could possibly be wrong? Why did your boyfriend need you, right this instant? At the very least, Shoko didn’t seem to think it was life threatening, but what relief was that? Being a sorcerer was dangerous, hell, that was why you and Nanami had quit in the first place, but you always knew he couldn’t avoid the call of it for long. You prayed that whatever this was would be out of his system in no time.

You take the turn into Jujutsu Tech far faster than you should, haphazardly parking your car. You think you hear the beep! of your car locking, but all you can really hear in your head is the pounding of your heart. Weaving across the grounds, you rush to Shoko’s office, almost barreling into her when you throw the door open.

“Where is he? Is he okay? You didn’t call me again so I assume it’s fine, but-”

“Hey, breath,” she says, oddly calm considering her call earlier. “I figured out the issue.”

“You did?” you exclaim, a little frustrated she didn’t call you. It must not be serious if she didn’t call, but still! She could’ve at least sent a text…

She wiggles her eyebrows at you, a smirk growing on her face. “You guys have to bang.”

“What??” you flush, throwing your arms up. “S-shoko, this isn’t the time for jokes-”

“Not a joke,” she says with a grin, making crude gestures with her hand. “You guys have to bang it out of his system. Fuck. Two-man tango. ‘Make love’, or whatever. Not the worst curse to get hit by, huh?”

“You had me all worried for nothing!” you groaned, dragging a hand down your face. “I thought he was injured, or worse, dying! I could be at work right now, I didn’t even clock out! God, I’m going to be in so much shit when I get back.”

“No.”

“No?”

“No. He needs your help,” she explains with a sigh. “The gas that the curse released from its body works as an aphrodisiac, a deadly one. If he doesn’t, uhm…‘mate’ any time soon it could be lethal.”

You flush deeper, blinking at her owlishly. You waited, hoping she was joking, but she was clearly dead serious. “Where is he?”

“He’s got his own room, all the way down on the left,” she sighed, rubbing her temples. “Don’t ruin my equipment, you hear me?”

You salute, grinning at her, “Aye aye, captain!”

She rolls her eyes, watching you go. It’s going to be a long shift, she thought, rubbing her temples once again. They don’t pay me nearly enough for this.

You make your way down the hall, fluorescent lights flickering above your head. It smelled like chemicals and death down her, a terrible combo. You wrinkle your nose. How does Shoko put up with this all day, every day?

Lost in your thoughts, you don’t even realise that you’re at the end of the hall until you hear it. Frantic, almost manic, heavy breathing from the door on your left. You gulp, rubbing your thighs together. Fuck, in all your time with your boyfriend, you’ve never heard him this desperate before. Like the world was going to end if he didn’t get his dick wet. Lord, you haven’t even seen him yet, and you’re already soaking through your underwear, you can feel it. Tugging on the hem of your sleeve, you nervously raise a hand to knock on the door.

“Kento…?” you startle at the sound he lets out at the sound of your voice. It sounded like…a whine?

“Darling, ooh, darling,” he groans, pitchier than you’ve ever heard him. “You shouldn’t be here, love, get out of here.”

“Ken, honey, I can’t just leave you like this-”

“Please, before I do something I regret, you have to go- hngh!”

There’s a wet splatter on the other side of the door, so quiet you almost didn’t hear it. You freeze momentarily, not wanting to believe it.

“Ken, did you just…?”

“Fuck, darling, you don’t know what you do to me,” he groans out. You can hear it now - how he’s rutting into his hand on the other side of the door. The wet shlick of dick sliding in his hand, the way he didn’t stop, even after he came. And he’s certainly never swore this early on, before he’s had your hands on you.

“You don’t know what you do to me,” you say, fingers finding the buttons of your shirt frantically. You don’t care that you’re in the hallway, you don’t care that Shoko’s just down the hall - there’s nothing in your head but the needy sounds of your boyfriend on the other side of the door.

“Please, you have to leave-”

“Open the door, honey,” you say, voice syrupy and sweet. “Want you to fill me up so good, can you do that? For me?”

You hear a quiet “Fuck!” from behind the door and the door handle rattles as he struggles to open it in his haze. At this point, you’re dripping, and you reach a hand out to help him. Easing the door open, you can feel the heat coming off of Nanami in waves. There’s a heady scent of pure sex in the air, and you don’t get a chance to take him in before he’s closing the door and trapping you against it.

“You shouldn’t be here, love,” he murmurs against your neck, hot breath tickling your ear. “Please, go before I lose control.”

Without hesitating, you pull him back by the hair and smash your lips to his. He’s motionless against you, for a moment, before his lips slot against you frantically. His hands come to grope your sides, mean and careless with his touch. He slots his legs between yours almost absentmindedly, and his hips begin to cant against you.

You separate, panting. “So desperate you’re already humping my leg like a slut?”

He flushes, slowing his hips down. You could feel his cock twitch against you, and you grin up at his dishevelled state. He’s a wreck - his tie pulled loose from his neck, the first few buttons of his shirt undone, his pants not even off, just hanging loosely around his ankles - and you’re grateful, for a moment, for the curse that hit him. 

“S-sorry, love,” he breathes, barely more than a whisper. “Can’t control it, please, need you, need you so bad- mngh, fuck!”

You grin, lazily palming his angry cock. “Oh, honey, I’ll help you out. Think you can get on the bed for me?”

He nods, whining softly when he pulls away from your hand. He stumbles over to the bed, losing his pants along the way. He sits and looks at you expectantly, flushed all the way down his neck. His hands are shaking from how much he’s holding back, and he bites his lip so hard it bleeds as you walk over, stripping as you approach. Ever the gentleman, he doesn’t reach out and touch, though it’s clear that he wants to. But right now, you’re in control, and even with the heat coursing through his veins, he lets you take what you want from him.

“Oh, sweetheart,” you say, voice thick with need. “Gonna let me ride your cock? Let you fill me up, breed me?”

“God, darling,” he says with a groan, a bead of precum running down his angry cock. “Want to fill your pussy up, put my kids in you, make you nice and round- mmph!”

You slam your lips to his, guiding him to lay back on the bed. You throw your legs on either side of his and grind down hard, smiling against his lips at the way his hips twitch up against yours. You reach back, fumbling to grip his cock and guide it to your waiting hole. You’re soaking, and there’s a wet shlick as sink down to the base of his cock.

“Shit, fuck, sorry, honey-” His hands find the plush of your hips, and he holds you down as he cums, hot and warm inside you. Your surprised laugh quickly morphs into a moan as you feel him fill you. It’s neverending - you’re certain he’s never come this much in one go before - and you quickly regain your senses, grinding your hips in slow circles, riding him through his orgasm. His eyes are squeezed shut, and his back is arched as he twitches, but he never softens inside you.

“Already came again?” you mock, looking down at him condescendingly as he blinks back into reality. “Some curse you got hit with, must feel so good to let go, huh, baby?”

“C-couldn’t help it, fuck!” he stammers out, hips bucking into your slow grinding. “Need it, need to cum again, need to feel you cum around me as I fuck you full, please, darling, can I?”

His eyes flick up to yours, desperation evident in his gaze. Your boyfriend, who rarely swears during sex, begging you to cum? You were certainly in no place to say no!

Without warning, you pick up the roll of your hips, holding his hips down so he can’t buck into you. He moans, flush spreading all the way down his chest. His thighs are flexing below yours, aching to buck up into you, but you won’t let him.

“If you want my help, you let me control the pace,” you bluff, trying your best to keep your head with how his tip is brushing against your sweet spot oh so sweetly. “Keep trying to buck up and I’ll leave you here to take care of your little predicament yourself.”

“No!” he pants out, frenzied. “No, please, darling, don’t go, I’ll do anything, I’ll be good for you, please-”

“Yeah?” you say, grin feral as you pick up your pace even more. You’re barely able to get words out anymore, but he’s certainly not faring any better. “G-Gonna be good for me? Gonna- hngh, fuck! - fill up my pretty pussy, give me your- ahn- give me your babies?”

He nods, hand fumbling to rub at your clit. His fingers are mean, out of control, but the rough feel of his fingers against your clit is delicious nonetheless. Your head falls forward, and your hips get frantic, pace inconsistent as heat coils in your belly. 

“Close, ‘m getting close-” you moan out. “Need you to cum with me, make me full, can you do that for me?”

“Mhmm, anything for you, love,” he says, eyes fluttering shut as he loses himself to the feeling of your gummy walls around him. “Love you, love you so much, please, can’t hold on much longer, need to cum- oogh, fuck!”

With a soft ahn, ahn, ahn, you’re cumming around him, grinding your clit down into his hands as he cums, shooting his seed deep into you. You can’t help but keep grinding down, dragging your orgasm out as long as possible. You shakily drag your hips to a stop, head falling forward to knock with his. You let out a soft breathy laugh as you swoop down to kiss him again, his cock finally starting to flag inside you. As you move to get up, he grabs your waist, wincing as he holds you on his cock.

“Sorry honey, ‘m still sensitive,” he whimpers, twitching out a few more spurts of gooey cum into you. “Can- can you sit here, for a little longer?”

“Of course, Ken,” you say, smile soft as you place a kiss against his temple. “Whatever you need. Are you feeling better?”

“A little sore, for sure,” he notes, eyes roaming up your body. “Though you’re probably hurting too, is there anything I can do for you?”

You bark out a laugh, shaking your head. Really is such a gentleman, you think as you struggle to control your face. After all that, he’s worried about me?

“I’m okay, Ken, I wasn’t the one hit with a curse, after all,” you note, hands absentmindedly running up his sides. He smiles up at you, eyes heavy with exhaustion, and pulls you down into him.

“Hey, we need to clean up-”

“Just a second, darling,” he says, yawning as he speaks. “Just need a second to hold you, that’s all.”

You melt against him, knowing that you weren’t going anywhere any time soon. As his breath steadies and he drifts under you, you trace circles on his chest, letting your heavy eyes fall closed, too. He’s right, just a second…

– – – 

You wake up with a jolt to a banging on the door, a chorus of voices on the other side.

“Nanamin, I heard you got hit by a curse, are you okay??”

“Be quiet, Itadori, he’s probably trying to rest.”

“Shut up, Fushiguro, you don’t know that-”

“Will both of you shut up?? Either way, he’s definitely awake from all the racket you’re causing-”

You groan, tuning them out as you rub the sleep from your eyes. You glance up at your boyfriend, disagreeing with Nobara - Nanami was still asleep, a little bit of drool coming out of his open mouth. You cringe as you sit up, every muscle in your body burning in protest as you disentangle yourself from Nanami. You wince as you slide off his cock, his release trickling down your leg as you make an attempt to gather dress yourself. Nanami finally stirs awake, groaning softly as his bleary eyes peel open. His eyes find yours as your fumble through the clothes on the floor, throwing his pants to him. He rubs his eyes and rolls to sit on the edge of the bed, watching you intently.

“We need to get dressed,” you say, voice scratchy with sleep. “The kids want to see you.”

“Mm, they can’t wait a little longer? I want some alone time with my wife now that I’m feeling better.”

“Your wife?” you say, grinning at him. “I know I gave you a good time, but you gotta put a ring on it first, mister.”

He laughs, pulling you against him and burying his head into your stomach. Your fingers come up to play with his hair, and he breathes you in, for a second.

Soon, he thinks. Soon I’ll put a ring on that finger.

Word Count: 2675

[dovedrangeas]

sooooo haha when will the feeling of being stupider than all my peers for not being better at school like..... go away lol

[oblique-lane]

hey since you’ve posted two pieces in a row about my boy Scout I was wondering if maybe you could write more your thoughts/your hcs about him? I think he’s really interesting and I don’t often see people realize that he’s more complex that what he seems, like this man just seems very sad inside. i really like your analyses and your takes are some of my favorites

hope you have a good day!

Appreciate it! Although I probably won't say anything particularly new... Okay, let's talk about Scout!

Though he no doubt wears the persona of a confident cool guy, protecting his ego from vulnerability, I wouldn't say there's sadness inside him. More accurate would be fear.

People with sadness baggage are pretty passive and quiet. And Scout's reaction is to hit, run, scare away, cling anxiously to the object of security. That's fear. He's fearful.

He doesn't think about it much, he's a pretty happy guy in the environment he's in. But if something makes him go off the rails and he starts, God forbid, thinking.....

His core fear is not living up to his place in the world. He knows there's a place for him, but for some reason he feels like people think he's not good enough to take it. Anyone better and stronger could take his place at any time. He's on bird's rights here.

Growing up with older brothers, being not good at school, being the smallest and youngest mercenary of the team, this feeling doesn't leave him ever. It's a tiresome inner struggle: "How do I make my stay secure?", "How do I become worthy?"

Falling into this cognitive trap of searching for self validation in the outside world instead of inside of himself, he was doomed to be stuck in ambivalence:

To continue to pretend, risking being exposed as an imposter, or to be sincere and inevitably endure the unbearable pain of rejection and loneliness?

He laughs and taunts and overexplains himself so much. He clings to the only thing he's better than everyone at. He overcompensates; he demands attention and tries to make himself bigger. He hates being alone as it basically feels like being actually pushed off his place in the world. He clings to people but immediately pushes them away for being too dangerously close to finding out his fears. He needs to be with everyone to know and to control what they think about him.

And it never makes him calm down anyway, since all those efforts take a lot of energy. Tiresome to be, tiresome to pretend. And the prize is nowhere near the sight.

This loop of pain will never end, unless he breaks the very core mindset of his. The answer is stepping into this fear, but he can't even think about it! It feels like death! His ego will die and it's going to feel like he's dying as a whole.

A full existential, primal fear of an child to be rejected by his parent. "Not worthy of living".

(Based on the Lise Bourbeau's model of 5 soul wounds: Abandonment)

[coefore]

Looking back on, D-16 always had a violent side he suppressed, but Starscream is the one that planted the idea that violence gets you somewhere, technically tfone's equivalent of Whirl's role in IDW

Sorry this is not going to touch on SS or Whirl at all lol

I will write maybe an unpopular opinion, but it seems to me that many people have latched onto the idea that D16 has "always had a violent side" and I really dislike it. The point of his character was that he was meek, remissive, careful and/or fearful of authority. That's not because of any deeper meaning other than 'I was born in this society and that's just how things are'.

I have seen times where the fact that he is 'violent' in his words with Orion is a smoking gun to point SEE! SEE! THAT'S MEGATRON, but it isn't. Megatron is born out of violence in a world that has completely destroyed the character's, D16, own framework of reference. The seeds of Megatron exist as soon as D16's worldview is completely destroyed: he has lived a lie his entire life, and he has been a good stupid boy the entire time. It is an insulting feeling; it is complacency. So, he stops caring because nothing makes sense anymore. Then, if nothing makes sense anymore, you might as well set it all up in flames, right?

D16's main characteristics are frustration and escapism. His quick turn to violence is freaky to Orion because he has never been violent before.

Coming from a culture that is very vocal and direct with friends/family, the way D16 speaks to Orion is very similar to how I myself talk to my friends and family: I do tell my friends that I might just beat them up for a stupid joke. So do they to me. That's normal, that's not seen as violent at all, it's just cathartic. It's just... whatever really. I didn't even think that could be picked up as a "this guy is violent!" because he doesn't do anything else that is intrinsically violent in how he acts with other people: sure he can be sassy, mistrusting, a bit rude but he is not violent.

The "punch" scene, if analysed, is 1) comedic, as the punch is the literal punchline 2) D16 is doing it to protect Orion from worse repercussions, because he knows how hard he is going to punch his friend lol 3) D16 punches Orion and the guy isn't angry, or upset, or even cares at all about that, implying that's just how they behave with one another. These dudes are two jocks. Jock on jock violence is just communication babyyyy 4) he literally gets punched for his friend lol????

The thing with implying that D16 has always been violent and/or 'evil' (fucking... fucking hate the word... kills character analysis tbh uugh) removes the focus of his character besides him being this guy from that franchise: anyone can become Megatron. Because anyone can be D16.

[moonieandi]

snapshots pt. 8 | stanley pines x f!reader 

summary: you and stanley go fishing 

warnings (TW): swearing, panic attack/panic-inducing scenarios, slight gore/violence 

tags: mutual-pining, fluff, angst, action, affection

notes: idk anything about ice fishing so pls don’t get my ass for this okay, this was v different to write than my usual long drawn out heart gutting character analyses that I love (not that that is NOT here) but all the movement was deffff hard so it took me a minute but hey this is what I wanted imma do it ya know 

Also i configured this chapter in like three separate ways in my head and it was so hard to chose? But i think the one i did end up writing is most true to their dynamic so far. To be of note for the v stubble reference im giving here but yall know The Kiss by painter Gustav Klimt? Ya… that…. Thats here (spot it if you can) as always thank you for the kind messages and notes and comments, love yall <3 also comment below if you'd like to be on a tag list I should maybe organize that hehe

word count: 6.5k

| masterlist | ix |

January, 1987

She had found them both nice fold-out chairs at the flea market just that last season, along with fishing poles the nice old man insisted went with the seats also. Talked her ear off about how he used to go ice fishing with his son, before said son went off to college. 

Now he wouldn’t be home during the ice fishing season, so he saw no use for his chairs or his poles. But she did. 

Stan would tell her flippantly about his youth from time to time, usually if not always said stories incorporated Stanford in one way or another. It seemed that the two barely, if ever, separated during their youth. Something that upset her more, that her friend had never spoken of his brother to her in the six years they had known each other. She didn’t think he would speak of it all as fondly, these memories, considering he never confided in her about Stanley, to begin with. 

Stan would speak of the shoreline in New Jersey, of the sharp sand beneath his feet and hidden caves along the coast they both would trek through. Talk of the setting sun, of racing his brother home in the dark down paved streets back to their shared room. 

He spoke most fondly of a boat though, one that had taken both twins years to configure. 

She figured the fishing poles could be some sort of link, at least in her mind. 

That and they spent some of their summers down by the dock at the local lake anyway. Splashing in windy tides off the dock and watching boats go by until sunset was a great way to cool off. That or revisiting the pool, where Stan would insist upon ice cream for the short drive home. 

She figured he would wait for the season opener to go fishing. Considering she gave him the poles and chairs in December, a quick wave to Christmas, a holiday he laughed off on the regular. He would routinely celebrate it with her, just for the holiday cookies and cheesy movies he wouldn’t admit he loved. But he was Jewish, after all. At least raised in a Jewish household, he told her flippantly, after opening his gift this last December. Laughing at her blushing face, and flabbergasted stuttering, asking him why he would bother with all this. She sat straight when he said it was for her. Because she wanted to, so he would. Not that he was a religious man, anyway. 

He found it amusing this holiday season then, to find her struggling to make some traditional dishes his mother would make each year come December for the holidays. Nothing he necessarily missed, but something he found endearing nonetheless. Her usual attention to detail, and odd need to ensure his comfort. 

The fishing poles were a welcomed gift though, and he lit up at them and the differing tackles the nice man at the flea market had also gifted her. Hugged her into his side, while he ranted and raved about being able to fish off the docks come summer. 

But he didn’t want to wait. 

Something she thought rather glumly in the very early morning that January weekday. The sun not even having made its appearance, she had stumbled out of her bed around 4 a.m., having promised to reluctantly go ice fishing with said enthusiastic man. They stood before the porch door now, while he knelt in front of her, lacing up tall winter boots and pulling over her snow pants. Tucking her in, layer upon layer. Putting to use some winter clothes they both had rangled out of donation bins that very first cold season. The snow pants and boots had only ever really been used when they would trek through the outskirts of the woods, searching for clues to Stanford’s other journals. 

She was still half asleep on her feet, falling forward into Stan’s bent shoulder in front of her to groan. For some reason, he was wide awake, and grinning like a fool despite it being 4 a.m. That dumb look on his face reminded her why she even crawled out of her cacoon of blankets. He was beyond happy to be able to go fishing. Something he couldn’t even wait for a warmer season to do. 

He seemed a smidge like his younger self when he was closest to water. Some of his favorite memories are those ones with Stanford by his side and sand intertwined in his hair. His skin dark in the sun and his toes were deep in the tide of the sand. 

It seemed more distant now, as distant as Ford was to him now. He wanted to ground himself here too, and some of his new favorite memories are of them hanging at the end of the dock. His feet in the cold water of the lake, and her nudging his shoulder. Teasing him, edging him off the docks’ wood and into the cold water with her. He preferred the summer to the snowy winters, but he figured they could make some new memories by the water now also. Even if they were colder ones. 

So he more or less begged her to join him. Promising that he would handle the fish after she made a disgusted face at the thought of stripping the fish of their skin and bones for the meal they would make of the catch. She agreed though, happy to tag along if it pleased him. 

He stood from his knelt position in front of her, standing to reach behind him to grab his red coat from the coat rack. Turning back to her to fold her arms into the coat also, her eyes still blurry as she smiled at him slightly giddy. 

He had a gift for her that last December also. A coat folded into shitty wrapping newspaper he had thought to repurpose. She smiled at the blue coat but quickly became confused when she pulled it out of the wrapping to find it was far too big for her own physique to be for her. He had quickly pulled out another present for her, presenting her with another newspaper-wrapped gift. Which she tore open with haste, and rocked up quickly to her feet to dance around their small living room, his old red coat in her arms. 

It was hers now, and she reveled in the shitty coat. His smell still lingered in the seam line, and when she leaned her head far back into the hood she could pick up on his shampoo. It kept her warm, despite also not fitting her physique. 

He had woken up earlier than her that morning, putting the appropriate supplies for ice picking into the trunk next to their foldable chairs, the tackles, and the fishing hooks. So they made their way out into the dark, ducking into the car next to each other to make for the lake in the early morning. 

She hummed along to the radio as per usual, random songs interspersed in between the local morning forecast. She stopped though now, picking her head up from the back of the seat to look over at Stan. 

“We missed the entrance to the dock.” 

“Nah there's another one we can go to. Farther down, less people.” 

She hummed, smiling over at him. What he actually meant was there would be no lake office to report to. So no need to register them for the lake that day, and no stupid state fee to pay for fishing on the lake. Amused at his shortcuts, she turns back to watch the pine trees pass out the car window. 

It was a sharp, nose-burning 10 degrees Fahrenheit that day, according to the radio forecast. Only made worse somehow with the creeping darkness from the horizon line. The sun slinked slowly in the coldness of January. 

He made his way out first, the car’s cabin light flashing on as he grinned over at her. Securing his blue coat closed quickly before getting out to stomp a path in the fresh snow around the car. Pulling around the sides to pull open her door, before chugging around to the trunk to unload the supplies he claimed they needed. 

She knew how to fish, but had never ventured into ice fishing. Mainly because the cold was beyond unappealing to her. But the thermos Stan had presented to her before making out the door that morning heated her hands enough to dismiss the onslaught of negativity thrumming through her. And partially woke her up on the drive over. Stepping out into the crunchy cold snow to help Stan gather supplies. 

He shuffled her chair into her hands, slugging everything else into his own broad arms. He could reasonably carry everything, stomping forward in the snow to make a path for her to follow in. 

They had made a spot on the ice, the snowy shoreline a good bit away. Stan claiming the best spots must be farther out. Because the farther out, the bigger the fish. She sat, glancing around the empty ice. When Stan meant fewer people he meant no people. A frozen dock far off near the shoreline also, its wooden structure covered in ice. She watched him now, the fishing poles cradled in her lap, and the thermos warm in her hands. He’s bent in front of her, his mittened hands working an ice auger to break a solid hole through the thick layer of ice. 

Grunting, he stands back up, hands on his hips admiring his work. 

“Is the ice too thin here?” She observes. 

He tilts his head left, turning to her now. “No, doll. Perfectly fine right here. We’ll only be here until a little after sunrise anyway.” 

He sits in his own foldable chair that she had set up for him while he was finagling with the ice. Their chairs positioned side by side, a little distance between them and the whole he had just made. He reaches between them, opening up the tackle box to shuffle around drawers, looking for something in its depth. 

“Close your eyes, hun.” 

She rolls her eyes, closing them, while shuffling the thermos between her thighs to hold out her hands in wait. He places something in her mittened hands, it’s slightly heavy in them now. 

“Open ‘em.” 

She opens them to see an odd black contraption in her hands. Two knobs, a dark screen, and a long antenna on what she presumes is a battery-powered electronic. Almost too dark to make out what it was, but it hit her and she gasped. 

“Ta-Da!” 

“A radio!” She sings, clutching it closer to her chest and swinging in her seat to knock her knees with his. Clawing at his shoulder to fold herself into his neck and coat’s furry trim. She wouldn’t question where he got it, just revel that he had thought to, for her. 

“I know you weren’t too eager to go fishing with me, doll. But I figured this could make up for some of it.” He chuckled, readjusting his hat on his head after they pulled away. Knee’s still knocking between them. 

“I’d do anything with you Stan.” She hums, unthinking, as she looks down at the device in her hands. Tweaking around the knobs and the antenna to turn it on. She misses his flush next to her. 

She gets it working quickly, the music faintly staticy in the background of Stan attempting to put lures at the end of their poles. 

He gets her’s ready first, leaning forward in his seat to situate the pole in her hands. Pointing out the slack line and the type of lure he put on the end of her pole. She’s too distracted, like she always is when he’s probably explaining something vaguely important. 

The music hums between them, perched on the tackle box he had closed. His cheeks flushed from the cold, his hat slumping down the back of his head, hair peeking out around the rim and sticking to his forehead. He leans in closer, his knee and thigh along her own. His own covered hand reaching for hers, folding it around the pole for her to hold. 

They enjoy each other's company until the sun peaks up along the horizon, a good hour in. As they pass the coffee-filled thermos back and forth, she hums to the radio. Enjoying stories Stan told about tourists from the end of the last season. Telling her about their ridiculous questions he had to work around last minute. 

“Then he asked me if they were extinct!” 

“What you tell him?” 

“Well he couldn’t have been more than eight years old, and he got all teary-eyed when he asked me.” Stan waves his hand around, drumming up the memory of when a child had asked him if the fake displayed plady-beaver was the last of its kind. 

“Annnnddd?” She hums, sipping on the last of their shared beverage. 

“And I may or may not have said they were not.” He shrugs. “Was easy to convince the kid’s dad to buy him a plushy.” 

She laughs, thinking about the stupid merchandise she’s still not used to, that she sometimes restocked in the front of the house. But of course, Stan didn’t have the heart to really crush the kid’s spirit. Sad kids equaled less money probably, in his mind. That and he had a weird affinity of being about to communicate with them like no other. 

There’s a tug on her line suddenly, not the first in the hour they’d been at their spot, but the first real strong one she’s ever felt. Jerking her pole, bending it forward. Both her hands met the pole, yanked straight in her seat suddenly. 

“Woah!” He says, sitting forward and reaching for her pole also. His hands encased hers around the pole. “Hold it tight, hun.” Grunting in her ear. 

But the pulling got worse, had them both standing from their chairs. His arms around hers, helping her reel back the pole, pulling it back towards his left shoulder. His arms encasing her, pulling her flush with his front. 

“I gotcha.” He grunts again, close to her ear. 

“Do you?” Gasping at the strength of the pull along the pole. 

It seems to drag them closer and closer to the ice hole he had put in the ground not even an hour ago. His feet planted firm, yet scrapping against the ice. Hers fumbling, dipping under the strength of being pulled forward. Her hands tight, beginning to sweat and ache in the casing of her mittens. A heat around the ring of her hat. He’s hot behind her, warmth seeping out from his coat and onto her back. He feels firm, and yet they both continue a slow crawl forward. 

Until it tugs. It tugs so hard that she instinctually releases her grip. Her hands were still steady against the pole though, still beneath Stan’s own hands. 

The jerk has them both flung forward, his feet no longer steady, flipping against the ice. She’s still between his arms when they fall forward, inching towards the hole. He turns them somehow, taking the brunt of it on his right shoulder. 

Her head swims, having met the ground rather suddenly. But she’s between his arms, her hands having let go of the fishing pole. He’d let them slip from the pole, his arms tight around her, trying to take the force of the impact. 

“Stan.” She mutters, mushy between them. Her head pounded for a minute, as they continued to slide against the ice. His chin propped on her head, warm around her still. 

He doesn’t respond, because he’s given no time to. Another harsh tug on the pole sent him forward quickly towards the hole. He thinks fast though, bending his arms, hooking his feet along her legs, and pulling her out of his grasp. 

She slides along the ice and snow, his push along her legs and waist burned. She turned, pushing herself up on her hands. Grasping at the snow to get some balance. She had run into the chairs and tackle box. All their supplies scattered along the ice. The radio was static behind her. 

It had all happened so fast, her voice cracking in the cold air. Calling his name but not finding him. One moment he was there, the next gone. The water still. 

They had been pulled forward so suddenly, a quick five-second span between the tug and her head meeting the ice. And he was gone as soon as she had lifted herself again, the ice cracking along the sides of the former small hole. 

“Stanley!” Scrapping, crawling towards the hole. The surface wet and slick from the cold lake water that had seeped through the cracks along the hole now. Stan’s visage far from view, the top of the water dark. 

She stares in what feels like forever but is only quantifiable in the movements of the sun. It’s rising now, around her. Sparkling on the ice and water around her. Something she’d marvel at, have her grasping at Stan’s shoulder. Nudging him to see as she does. 

She thinks only briefly before shucking off her hat and gloves, beginning to unlace her boots. She’d follow him, into the dark depths. 

A deep continuous thump. Running along the ice. First near her feet, then farther and farther from her. It has her racing towards it, the vibrations along the ice guiding her along. It must be him, must be that something that pulled him into the dark murky water. The rhythmic thudding has her racing back to the supplies. Fumbling for the axe Stan had packed to help pick out the ice in the hole. 

Running full force back, the ice cracking beneath her legs. Shoelaces dancing around her feet, her fingers nippy and uncovered around the wooden handle of the axe.

It cracks, sickenly loud and sudden. Water bursts beneath her shoes, seeping up and around her. The ground opens up in front of her, splitting along the horizon line. A flash of blue precariously balanced in the large maw of a blurred creature. 

It shakes the ice, splintering and fracturing it below her feet. The weight of the creature resting the front of its body along the ice. Shaking the striking blue figure in its jaw, trying to subdue it. 

She stands still in the ankle-deep water, trying to make out the blurry figure in the maw of the anomaly. It strikes her then that it could be nothing else but Stanley, confirmed by the sputtering grunts the figure heaves, coughing up cold water from his lungs. 

She stands frozen only until then, stepping forward into the slowly sinking ice bath. Ax swung behind her shoulder, ready to slice along the neck of the beast in hopes it would release her husband. 

He clamors in the cage of teeth above. Raised his large hand into a well-practiced fist, blindly throwing said fist to meet the eye of the beast. 

The hit startles the beast, cracking open its jaw to release Stan, a sudden sharp screech creeping up its large neck through its throat. Rattling her bones as she leaps forward in the ice and water, bringing the ax into the meat of the beast's neck. 

It crawls back further, slinking back into the dark cold waters. She stumbles back through the ice and the water until she feels snow beneath her unlaced boots again, the ax gone from her grasp and embedded in the skin of the anomaly. The beast is there and gone in a flash, scrambling back beneath the water. 

Stan has the air knocked out of him, having landed on his back. His head cracked against the ice and water below, the cold creeping in through his clothes. He opens his mouth to groan but finds only his shallow breath and the puff of heated air leaves his mouth. The sun creeping above the horizon now, something he can only gauge by the heat on his face. The rest of him rock solid and shivering under the weight of his wet clothes. 

A sudden eclipse above his head, the sun, and shadows shaded by a beautiful face. Her face shadowed by the sun, her hat gone and her hair spilling all around her head like a halo. Her cheeks flush from the cold, from the adrenaline. It could be the cold or the way the light looks around her head, but he swore she must have been an angel. 

He’s muttering when she finally reaches him, stumbling through the cracked ice and wet water. Her only thought was getting to him. He was beyond sense when she did make it to him, clutching at his tattered and soaked blue coat. He was soaked, drenched to the bone. His hat gone and his hair icy along his head, his gloves gone also, a boot missing from his left foot. And he’s drenched. It all stuck to his body, freezing quickly in the icy temperature. She had to get him home, get him out of these clothes, and heat him up. 

She runs her hands along his coat first, checking for punctures, for blood. He had been dragged several yards under the water in the toothy jaw of said beast. But no punctures and no blood made themselves apparent through his coat. Something she’ll have to access later. 

A thump along the ice has her whipping her head around. The vibration rippling along the ice and the shards of the broken lake surface. The beast lingered in the area, waiting for them to be off guard again. 

She wastes no time, lifting Stan’s large arm up and above her shoulder. Leveraging his body up to be leaned against her side and her back. All those stories about mothers and daughters and adrenaline ring in her head, a truth to the stories of women and abnormal strength in times of strife. She would ache tomorrow, and be glad of it anyways. 

He unconsciously shuffles his feet, and she makes note that he’s somewhat conscious. The ice helps her slip them both along the good hundred yards she has until they reach the shoreline. Their supplies the least of her worries, and the anxious thought of the beast meeting her back out there in the wreckage of it all. She does not turn back to look when abandoning it all. 

It’s harder folding his stiff body into the passenger seat. His legs flopped into the car last. She curses, reaching over him to buckle him in and then making for the driver's side. She rarely drove them, it was more of a special occasion between the two of them. She had only ever driven once in the winter and had been deeply scared of the slipping ice and heavy snowfall. But the sky was clear and she’d put the thought of ice away for a long while. 

She curses again, reaching over to Stan to feel up the inside of his coat pockets for the keys. He stirs at the movement, shrugging off her touch, shivering in his seat. 

“Not Doc’.” He mutters, his head spinning. 

“What?” 

“You’re not Doc’.” He grunts again, his lips loose. His head hurts like a motherfucker. 

“I am!” She hisses, hands pushing his away, reaching for his pockets again, looking for the keys. 

“Oh.” He looks back, eyes blurry under the odd pressure along the back of his head. This person sounded like his wife, he’d admit. Shifting his head to lean against the back of the long bench, making out the flush on her face and the halo of hair around her head. He thought this was his angel? He guessed it was the same thing in his mind, anyway. 

She’s still ruffling through his soaked half-frozen jacket. “Hi, angel.” He says, smiling down at her frusstrated face. Why was she so frazzled? 

He’s grinning like an idiot, and he just acted like he didn’t know who she was. Like she wasn’t her. Calling her angel? He’d only ever done that in her dream. That achingly sick dream she had of them, of them in this very car. Of his weight above her, of his breath along the crook of her neck. Of his kiss. 

She shakes it off. Finally finding the keys folded into a very frozen and flat pocket along his chest. Turning back to the wheel, starting the car up, and peeling out of the parkway backward. Leaving the same way they had come in. 

She races home, glancing over at Stan stiff in the passenger seat. His eyes hadn’t left her figure but seemed distant. His thoughts far beyond him, and his coat and pants were frozen against him. His hair melts off his head in the car, still wet but no longer frozen to his scalp. Messy wet hair tucked around his big ears. 

She parks and throws open doors as quickly as she physically can. Slipping in the snow, tripping over her loose boots. Fingers frigid when she reaches for him to move him out of the passenger side. 

She knows the signs of hypothermia. Knows the dangers of prolonged exposure to cold, and dropping body temperature. Doing math in her head, hoping he had been exposed short enough for her to physically raise his temperature before his heart began to slow. Before blood began to sludge its way through his veins. 

He looks as blue as his coat, his arm slugged back over her shoulder as she attempts to get him up the stairs. The slurred speech, the confusion, the dulled skin. It made her heart race, taking steps two at a time to drag him to the upstairs restroom. To the bath. 

She sets him against the open door, running and slipping along the tile, turning on the bath to its warmest temperature. The water would be scalding against his cold skin, would sting and tingle in contrast to his wet clothes, but it was the only way she thought to raise his temperature. 

She rushes back to him, kneeling in front of him, grabbing at his coat and pants to pull the wet clothes from him. He’s smiling again, giggling at her attempt to uncloth him. 

“Could have asked hun.” He jokes, but she cries. He’s so out of it, so gone from this reality and it shakes her bones. He’s here and not all at once. 

He thinks he sees her clearer here in the yellow bathroom light, hot fog swelling around them from the facet. She has her hands all over him, eager to get him out of wet clothes that stick hard against his body. Didn’t she know? That all she had to do was ask and he would shed any layer to get closer to her? He giggles again, leaning into her hot hands against his cold blue body. 

She manages to get everything but his boxers and socks off him, a flush to her face. Not for lacking of trying though, but Stan would laugh and shake her hand away. Muttering under his breath between them when she would reach for the waistband of his usual blue loose boxers. So she luggs his wingspan along her back again, leveraging him up to move him to the scalding water. Heat bubbling up in clouds around the water. Bruises along his chest have begun to form from the pressure and weight of the beast's teeth and jaw. They’d turn purple and swell soon, a good sign she sighed. A swell meant blood was flowing fast still.

He hisses, his head rocking back along the edge of the clawed tub when he finally is able to sit in the water. It’s hot, too hot. It hurts to breathe in the heat, and he attempts to lift his lungs above the water to gain air again. The muggy water hurts his skin and burns him. But her hand meets his chest, pushing him back into the scalding water. 

“Stay.” She commands, eyes wavering when she looks at him now. Melted into the porcelain of the tub. He’s still shivering. He doesn’t even register it but his body has been shaking, vibrating, this entire time. Moving his muscles in an attempt to warm him up. 

She reaches to turn the hot water back on, cursing, beating her hand along the rim of the tub when the water comes out cold. It’s all gone. She looks down at him again, her hand moving along his chest, trying to generate heat where her hand was. “Stay, Stan. Stay in the fucking water.” 

“Yes ma’am.” He mutters, still smiling at her like an idiot. God, she was pretty, god her hand felt nice along his cold bitter skin. She was out the door so quickly. Was it possible to miss someone who was just in the other room? 

She’s barreling down the stairs, flipping on every gas burner in her wake on the kitchen stove. Stumbling to the cupboard, pulling out saucepans and the like to put water in. She’d boil it, damnit. Like her grandmother used to do for her when she was preparing her bath. 

She doesn’t breathe until every corner of the stove is full. Leaned over the countertop next to the burners. Her hand rubbed along her chest, along her heart. Self-soothing, the purpose of the continuous motion above the erratic beating. She had tunnel vision up until now, suddenly noticing that she hadn’t even flicked on the kitchen light. Hadn’t even closed the front door. 

She had been scared. Still was. Shaken beyond something she knew. It pained her to be in the next room, afraid of looking over her shoulder and not finding him there. She’d never lead them through crowds again, never let him stray far from her peripheral. Because then he would be gone, could be gone. 

Ice seeps in through her snow pants, and she tugs off her boots too. Socks wet against the kitchen tile. Her hands shake as she pulls her boots loose. 

She had almost lost him. Lost him for good. It was a shell shock beyond her, beyond her imagination. For the last five years, it was hard to conjure up adventures and trips without him. The thought of flippantly leaving him behind never crossed her mind. Hadn’t ever left her mind. Not after storming in through the shack's door, not after his confession to her across the dim kitchen table, across their kitchen table. 

She sits there now, feeling like it was a lifetime ago, but knowing she could blink and mistake the past for the present. He had reached across to her that night, across the table. Held his palms face up when he asked for help. When he confided in a four-second mistake he had made. She had hesitated then, to reach for him. To reach across and find assurance between them, to fold her hands into his own. She had judged initially. But they had both made mistakes. Both made mirror image mistakes, it felt. She didn't want to hesitate to reach for him ever again. She just feared he would be gone before she could. Feared he would disappear along her shoulder line. 

She had thought it was obvious, the unspoken agreement between them. That they both meant something to the other. That her dreams threaded into a deeper reality, and that the jokes they shared weren’t some passing balm to deal with it all. That the late nights in front of the T.V. analyzing movies were for the thrill of each other's company, and that their yearly poker game was a silent promise of convergence. That the shitty driving lessons weren’t so she could drive away from him someday, that chalkboard lessons were so he wouldn’t scoff when she said he was smart with her whole chest. That the yearly diner dates were just that, just dates. Not something flippant, not something as unkind as the upkeep of an image. That he opened doors for her for a reason and tucked her below his chin because he cared enough to. That he reached across tables, palms up, because he never feared her hesitation. 

Something unwritten between them she believed, everything shared in everything but words and letters. She was a calculating woman throughout her years and didn’t know how to trace the beginning of the feelings she had amassed all the way to the end of it. She didn’t know how to explain that her heart clenched when he leaned over the seat to buckle her in or explain how her hands shake when he reaches for the chalk from her now in the middle of a lesson. It was inconsequential, improbable, and entirely unexplainable to well… explain the sum of him to her. It felt little in comparison to his constant devotion. 

The two front pots begin to boil over, she lifts her head, turning off burners and carrying a stem to a pot in both hands. Taking the stairs two at a time again, uncaring about the burning water running down her arms in her haste to make it back to him. 

He’s still the same shade, but he lifts his head to look at her when she enters now. His smile less doppy, more genuine. His hair beginning to dry along his head, no ice to be found in its dark strands. He’s still leaning heavily along the back of the tub, not yet able to hold himself up. Color coming back to his cheeks, to his face. She kneels beside the tub, the floor wet as it seeps in through her pants. She pours in one pot at a time, swiping the water around to acclimate it to the bathwater. His hands move unconsciously, grabbing a strand of her hair to fold behind her ear. To be able to look at her more clearly through the fog of hot water. 

She begins to pour the next pot into the tub, but he tugs her forward, folds her body against the rim of the tub. Something in her makes her stand, lifting her feet into the tub. The way he looks at her, so disorientated and shivering still. It moves her forward, has her crawling into the tub completely clothed just to lay her cheek against his chest. To make sure it continues to rise under her. Like when she sleeps, and he lulls her back to sleep by simply being there. She wants that, for him to lull her racing heart now. Make her forget about his disappearing visage and still water. He does that, hums like he always does, folding her head under his scruffy chin. Comforting her despite his weakened figure. Hoping she wouldn’t notice how cold he still was against her. 

Something unwritten she believed, something she had never had to say out loud because she had never felt this weird depth before. But he was slipping from her grasp now, heavy against the rim of the tub. And so very quiet it made her sick, made her heart chase up her throat. Made her anxious beyond words, because the thing she meant to say to him would stay unwritten. If he was gone she’d only voice such fantasies in her dreams. The dreams she had of him as hers, those other realities her mind conjured where he wore a golden band and called her his. Where she was his. 

“You're mine.” Her voice was unwavering, something unwritten between the syllables of her words. It blooms and bursts from her throat, a growth that had sprouted long ago, stumbles out of her mouth searching for light. Still folded under his chin, along his chest. Her shirt wet from the water, bunched up along her waist where he had put his hands. 

He gets that look in his eyes despite her intensity, a joke on the tip of his tongue. Something to soothe her racing heart, to stamp down the distant look in her eyes. How she had looked in the car scared him, the rush of her chest but the focus of her eyes. Like they had been driving in the dark, through a neverending tunnel. But she chases it away before he can open his mouth, her hand meeting and cupping his scruffy jaw, pulling back from her comfort to look at him. Turning his eyes to her intense ones, ones that held something unspoken. 

“No.” A shake to her voice, eyes blurry. “You’re mine.” 

He nods, his voice stuck in his throat. Running his hands up her back, his warmer hands. 

“Y-you aren’t allowed to leave me like that, Stanley. You can’t l-leave me all alone like that.” Flashes of a towering beast are nothing compared to turning over her shoulder. Of searching the horizonline. Like she does for Stanford, eyes drifting to tree lines. She wouldn’t, couldn’t compartmentalize doing such a thing for Stanley. She’d take back hesitancies and reach across tables palm up if it meant he wouldn’t leave her again. 

“I promise, angel.” He takes her again, tucking her back to his chest. Her racing heart fluttered against his warming chest. “I won’t leave.” 

Her hand fall into that crook in his chest, the other clutching along his back, trying to bring him closer, trying to make the space between them disappear. She sniffling, from the cold and stress, against his chest and he doesn’t think twice about his words. Thinking of reaching for her, of meeting her across bridges and tables and in tunnels to meet her open palms, her warm hands. Unfurling her from his chest to lean down and place his lips near her ear, something unspoken between syllables. 

“You’re mine, too.” 

His lips traveling to her cheek, hovering against the flush skin before tracing her warmth. Kissing the apple of her cheek as she leans into the front of him. His lips warm against her cheek, like she had dreamed of. He had never been this close in the waking world, something she craved more with each passing day. She never pulled away, sniffling as he brings her forward again. No hesitation to be found in the nod of her head along his scruff, a nudge, and nestle of agreement. Something unspoken, unwritten. 

She forgot about the pots and burners. 

[thoughfullovercreator]

Sorry not sorry. But some people need to read this.

Tw: when I am employing the word « delusional » I am not referring to the medical definition of it.

What I am going to be saying is going to be disliked by some. But I don’t care.

I am going to be talking right now about a phenomenon that I’ve been seeing ever since I started reading mangas and watching anime’s and it has always bothered me.

And guess what ? I am not the only one being bothered by that, which reassures me.

The problem is the following:

Each time there’s a genuine friendship between two male characters or even two females in a manga/anime, people dirty it by gluing on it, their own fantasies and making it somewhat romantic/sexual, by inventing a « sexual tension » between these protagonists.

Always happens in the anime/manga universe.

…and I am going to tell you why it’s a problem/bothersome situation for many :

The problem is that it renders the story less deep and genuine and more people are influenced in thinking that, a male character, by being nice to another male (same for females), is romantic or whatever.

Like some of y’all are sexualising everything. Get it together !

This is, most of the time (actually 99% of the time but okay), LITTERALY delusion because the authors have never, ever meant for their characters to be viewed as anything but genuine friends/acquaintances..

It distorts the story for nothing and, in my opinion, it is disrespectful to the creators of the manga, to just take their characters and create a quiproquo on it. Sorry not sorry to say it.

As an example, let me take the « Dazai x Chuuya » fans.

The readers go as far as to totally disregard the fact that, Dazai, since literally the first episode, has implied that he was not attracted to guys. On top of that, he’s kinda depicted as the guy who likes women. Never ever was anything that would make him attracted to Chuuya as a male.

(It also happens for JJK and others… )

Therefore, you’re disregarding the genuine and complex aspects of a potential friendship and understanding between them, to glue on it what you would have wished it to be : a romantic or sexual attraction. It’s a projection of what YOU would have WANTED it to be.

Simple example for BSD: Asagiri himself has said that there is nothing between Chuuya and Dazai, that they really don’t appreciate each other.

Now for all those who think that they like each other, it’s fine but that means that there is something that you have misunderstood in the story. Go back to it and try to analyse better the interactions and contexts. It’s fine really cuz, it could happen to anyone to misunderstand something, I am not criticising. Just signaling a risk.

It is actually immoral to distort a character’s sexuality like what ?! It becomes a habit and people do it also for celebrities. It’s kinda going too far.

It’s not for you to decide.

When it’s « not a big deal » for some, it could actually represent a big deal for many. And make many people uncomfortable.

Respectfully :

You wanna do your fanfics ? NO PROBLEM really ! be our guests ! but do it in the context of a fanfic, after putting on a disclaimer, as a respectful gesture for the creators behind mangas !

(On the other hand, when people write « character x reader », it doesn’t distorts the original story cuz Y/N just doesn’t exist).

BUT rubbing it down our throats without any context as if it was a general truth provided by the creators, that « these characters are in love/sexually attracted to one another » NO. Keep it for yourself or your group of friends if y’all agree on it.

Again, many many people feel as uncomfortable as me regarding this. It’s kinda also getting out of hands.

It’s getting out of hands especially when I see fandoms like the Black butler fandom where they imagine a « sexual tension » between Sebastian that is an adult and Ciel that is 13 !

Like it or not. I am not sorry for being respectful and realistic.

And I am encouraging everyone to talk about that, because this is not fine.

Some decency is needed :

Not everything is okay with what people are doing on the internet. You can have your « dirty thoughts » but don’t expose them, not everyone wishes to hear about it. Some things have to stay between you and yourself.

Kids/ teens :

And kids/teens (all those below 18) y all need to get off your phone a little and go play outside or meet your friends (for teens ig) if you don’t wanna end up in depression at an early age or with extremely poor social skills.

At least take a real book like ones at the school library and learn things. Instead of learning how to .. by reading explicit content cuz you never listen when we tell you that a certain one shot is +18.

Again, I am not sorry. I am pissed.

[literatureloverx]

Hello! This is my first time asking anything so, sorry if this doesn’t make any sense. I love the way you write & your ideal type for Fyodor. I was curious, how would he have met his ideal type? I understand if you’re busy! Thank you

Hello dear!♥️ You’re not bothering at all, and I’m so happy that I’m the person you chose for your first request.♥️

I’m sorry it took me so long, and I hope you enjoy reading it!♥️

Fyodor likely saw you in a serene and sophisticated setting, such as a café, a theatre, a library, or a museum. I chose the Musée Fabre for this scenario.♥️

Religious themes, art interpretations, intrigued and manipulative Fyodor.

“A Beauty to Behold”

You move a loose strand away from your face, which reveals your small, innocent face.

Fyodor’s gaze lingers on you for a few moments longer, an odd thought crossing his mind: no one else seems to notice you. You were beautiful, undeniably so, and that alone was captivating. Yet the fact that others failed to acknowledge you, as if blind to the art before them, only heightened your allure, drawing his attention to you even more.

You, a beautiful young woman, dressed in fine stilettos and a figure-hugging, midi-length crème dress, holding a coat and a small bag of the same color in your arms, appeared to be the only one genuinely interested in the art before you—reading the text beside it and admiring the piece for more than five minutes now. ‘The Fallen Angel’ by Alexandre Cabanel.

He takes a calm stride toward you, coming to a halt just beside you—like a predator, one might think. His cool aura contrasts sharply with your warmth.

Fyodor moves a little closer to observe you more clearly, studying the way you react to the painting and the little facial expressions that appear on your beautiful features while you’re deep in thought.

After a moment, he hums, his voice light and charming.

“What do you make of this one, miss?” His eyes rest on the painting itself.

You look at him with your doe eyes, widened slightly as his approach seems to have come unexpectedly. You seem like an introverted person, and rather shy.

He finds himself intrigued by the sight of such innocence and naivety, and he can’t help the slight, cold smirk that spreads on his lips.

An unrealistically handsome man, tall and dressed in a dark suit that mirrors the intensity of his gaze, stands before you. It takes you a few moments to find your voice, but when you do, your words come softly.

“When I look at it, I feel the weight of what it means to turn away from God’s light. The angel, once so radiant and close to God, now sits alone, his face full of sorrow and defiance….”

You pause for a brief moment. “….it does not make me feel less empathetic towards the angel that is depicted in the painting. Because he does not embody the true evil that is the devil.”

Fyodor listens attentively, his smirk softening into a small, more genuine smile. Your words are not only intriguing but also reveal a certain depth and maturity. His gaze glides over you again, taking in the details of your face and figure in a subtle, nonchalant way.

“It's truly interesting, and also curious to hear someone not just throw around shallow, superficial phrases but instead look at the painting at a deeper, more analytical level, isn't it?”

“Are you in agreement with my opinion, sir?”

You say softly, with a shy undertone, subtly analysing his fine features. Clearly intrigued in your own, feminine, adorable way.

A quiet, gentle chuckle leaves Fyodor's mouth. Your shy, innocent manner of speaking and acting amuses and delights him, and he likes the way you’re looking at him, even if your gaze is shy, almost a tad timid. When he speaks, there's a slight hint of playfulness in his voice, though his sharp eyes never leave your pretty features for a second.

“That depends. Are you expecting praise, my dear?”

This was something that you did not expect, which makes you blush softly.

“Oh, I wasn't...”

You stutter.

“I…was...just asking if you agree with me.”

You recover quickly. ���Do you have an opposite statement you would make?”

A smirk appears on Fyodor's lips again at the sight of your blushing and stuttering, and suddenly, he's very much enjoying this conversation. He can't put his finger on it, but there's something about this. About you. Something that is new. A lovely young woman that draws him in, makes him want to keep talking to her.

He lets out a small hum before he answers your question, his deep, melodic voice barely above a murmur.

“No, miss. I think you're absolutely correct.”

Your eyes widen, as if saying, 'you do?’. You look at the painting again, and then at Fyodor. He seems rather cold, calculating, analysing, looking into your soul, piercing through your comfort zone by playing a game of cat and mouse, in an almost nonchalant way.

He must be either bored or lonely.

“And you have nothing to add, sir?”

He shakes his head, his smirk fading into a small smile as he continues to study you, both amused and intrigued by how genuinely interested you seem in his opinion.

Your voice is so soft and sweet, he feels himself drawn to you without even realising it, the desire to prolong your conversation suddenly appearing in his head.

He can tell that you’re alone—a sweet, beautiful person like you, all by yourself in this grand museum, pursuing your passion. He figured out most of this —and more— within the first few minutes of meeting you.

The corner of Fyodor's lips curls up into a very subtle, almost mischievous-looking smile. He likes how you want to extend the conversation, and he decides to play along, simply because the thought of leaving you, this charming, beautiful young woman, alone does not please him.

He takes a step closer, now standing right next to you as he looks at the painting as well, his eyes roaming over the colors and shapes that create a fascinating composition.

“Well, I suppose I could say a few more things. Would you be interested in hearing them?”

You nod softly. “Yes, please do.”

Fyodor is satisfied to see that you seem to desire more, and he can’t help but let his gaze flit from the painting back to you, lingering on the soft features of your lovely face for a moment before he speaks again.

His deep voice is as melodic as before, but it’s clear that he’s more interested in you than in the art at the moment—a fact only he is aware of, something you could never tell.

“You're already correct when you say the angel does not embody true malice, but I think, in order to understand the pain and defiance on his face, it's important to look at what has led to his downfall.”

“You mean to say... the rebellion?”

He nods, a sly, almost mischievous smirk appearing on his lips once more with how he watches your reactions to his words, enjoying seeing you paying so much attention to his point of view.

Everything about you is sweet, and Fyodor is slowly becoming more and more intrigued, wanting to see more of it the longer you talk.

It is truly strange. He feels a certain way, and his frozen heart does not seem to keep up with this feeling.

“Precisely, my dear. The fallen angel chose to go against the Creator. That's what caused his downfall. His choice, no one else's.”

You nod thoughtfully, whispering softly.

“One is responsible for whatever one does. Only strong minds can withstand the corruption of the seven deadly sins… but no one can truly escape them, because being human means having weaknesses. One could say that human beings are sinful and foolish, for they cannot help but be corrupted. But then again… that is what makes them human. Being human is not a sin.”

The quiet, barely audible sound of your voice is like music to his ears, and his smile widens slightly at your words. You clearly possess a wisdom and intelligence that goes beyond your age, and this makes the interest and amusement he feels for you only grow. You’re so… proper.

You make for a far more interesting conversation than any intellectual or even philosophical topic he could go on about with other individuals. You lack his level of intellect, sure, but he can’t deny that you’re not someone who bores him.

Rather than challenging him, you present an understanding of his own perspective, which is more comforting than threatening. Something he is not used to. Not naive, but simply pure.

A power so few people have. An objective view on the matter of humanity.

His smirk turns sharp, and the subtle mischief in his eyes is more obvious as he continues looking at you while speaking.

“So very true, my dear. To fall... is your own choice indeed.”

You smile sweetly at him, your gaze demure and soft with intrigue.

“It is not common for me to find someone who shares my views.” You say gently.

“I heard interpretations about his tragic beauty, contrasting with the sorrow and defiance in his expression, symbolising the consequences of pride and ambition. It's often seen as a romanticised portrayal of Lucifer's fall, emphasizing themes of rebellion, loss, and the fragility of even the most exalted beings.”

You look at the painting. “But it never seemed enough to me.”

He hums in thought, allowing his gaze to flicker from your delicate features to the painting and back again as he listens to what you have to say.

Your words are eloquent, and they show an intelligence and depth of understanding that even people a lot older than you are lacking.

And yet, there is still something so innocent and sweet about you, something that makes him want to see those beautiful doe eyes of yours looking up at him in awe... He has to suppress a small chuckle, keeping his voice in a tone just as soft as yours is.

“So it seemed insufficient to you?”

“No one ever truly depicts the true evil in its pure form, don't you think? It was not easy to understand. The idea of there being a true, pure evil. I believe that is why so many people are romanticising it…”

You gaze at Fyodor. “…Because they can’t understand that he is simply, purely, evil. He chose to defy God and rebel—not out of altruistic ambitions, but because of his pride. He’s no human. He should’ve known better.”

You smile sweetly. “But it is nice to know that at least someone agrees with me.”

His smirk returns, and his expression turns sharp as he leans towards you ever so subtly, his deep voice still as soft and melodic as ever, though the slight mocking tone in his words is clear.

Ah, so you crave attention and approval from someone more capable of seeing what others cannot? How very cute. Not that he didn’t already figure that out.

“I couldn't agree more, miss...?”

You say your name softly. “…a pleasure to meet you, mister...?”

You extend your hand towards him in a warm, friendly manner. Fyodor takes it, your hand slender and delicate in his larger, paler one.

His grip is firm but gentle, as though afraid of breaking you. That is unlike him—he is used to breaking and destroying things.

And yet, there is something about you that makes him feel at ease. Your touch is almost like a relief. A sense of serenity in this twisted world.

The smirk on his lips never leaves, and for a moment he holds your hand a second too long, enjoying the feel of your soft skin underneath his fingers.

“Fyodor Dostoevsky.”

The chemistry between you two could almost be felt from a hundred miles away.

“…Mister Dostoevsky,” you say softly.

He hums, the way you say his name causing his smirk to fade into a small smile—the first one that is truly and fully genuine.

Your voice is even more lovely when his name falls from your lips, and he can tell you’re not just another pretty young woman who pretends to have some knowledge about the topics discussed—not when just the way you pronounce his name makes a pleasant shiver run down his spine.

He gently lets go of your hand, although reluctantly, and his eyes never leave your pretty face as he continues speaking.

“You’re not a local if I’m hearing the right accent, are you, miss?”

“Yes, I’m not. I’m (any heritage). And you are… Russian?” you ask softly.

He nods, his eyes never leaving hers as he gazes at your innocently curious expression. You’re so open, so pure and genuine in the way you speak and present yourself, and it amuses and fascinates him in a way he can’t quite describe as he listens to your soft, melodic voice.

“Russian, indeed. I take it it’s rather obvious?”

You giggle softly. “The accent, yes, but the name says it all.”

He lets out a quiet, deep chuckle at the sound of your soft laughter, the corners of his lips curled up into a small smile. He likes your laugh and your voice, how gentle and sweet you are. It is like a fresh breeze.

“Ah, I was correct, then. You truly know more than the average young person.”

“I learned a little bit of Russian at home—that is why—because I enjoyed reading Russian literature, but I’m afraid it’s not good enough for me to present it to the ears of a native speaker…”

You sound shy. He can’t help the way he smiles at the thought of you trying to learn his language, and the fact that you’re doing it out of interest in his nation’s literature makes it only sweeter.

You truly are an interesting young lady, and the more he learns about you, the more your innocently demure appearance and your shy behavior intrigue him. He’s well-schooled enough to keep it hidden behind his polite smile.

“I would be delighted to hear you try, darling.”

You look shyly at him, seemingly regretting having admitted that you know a little Russian, stuttering:

“I—I’d r-rather not…”

Fyodor’s smile only grows at seeing your shy, embarrassed reaction. You truly are adorable, blushing and stuttering as you try to get out of speaking. He decides to have mercy on you.

“Very well, if you’re not comfortable doing so, I won’t pressure you.”

His eyes continue to study you, and he still has a hard time figuring out what it is about you that makes him want to continue this conversation.

You sigh softly, preparing yourself to bid this interesting stranger goodbye with your innocent gaze.

Oh dear, he can read you all too well.

“Mister Dostoevsky—”

“A moment, my dear.”

You are flustered because he seems to have such a sharp mind, which is both thrilling and unnerving in a positive way. The way he could tell that you were trying to leave without giving a real sign is truly admirable—and somewhat creepy, but you were too dazzled by him to know any better.

“I’m listening, Mister Dostoevsky.”

“There will be a party of artists and intellectuals in a few days, here at the opera. One of the more important ones, it is. I would enjoy having someone as intelligent and lovely as you there.”

(That’s a lie; there is no party and no intellectuals—only his rats, which he will use to create the ambiance.)

His amethyst eyes never leave your face as he speaks, observing every little expression you might make while listening to his words.

He can’t deny that he’s interested in you, a form of interest he’s not used to. A very dark, and deeply rooted desire that seems to shine through his icy walls.

Your eyes sparkle as you listen to his words, recognising the slightly flirty but cool undertone of his words.

His gaze is intimidatingly direct and deep, which makes your cheeks flush softly. You can’t help but be flattered by the invitation. And you certainly cannot say no to him.

There is just something about him that makes your heart flutter with joy and excitement. And you do have time during that particular timeframe before heading back to your own country. So… why not?

“I would be delighted, Mister Dostoevsky.”

His smile turns into a soft smirk, and he hums in slight satisfaction as you agree. The feeling is quite intriguing, to say the least. He gives a slight bow, not once taking his eyes off your face.

“So am I, considering I’ll get to see you there, my dear.”

You try to hide your flustered face by tilting your head innocently.

“Is there any dress code I should look out for?”

Fyodor hums for a moment. He has already calculated that you would ask this, as you seem to be a very proper young lady who does not wish to overstep. And you will, of course, wear what he wants you to.

“No, not really. The evening’s theme is white, so it would be best if you wear a white, elegant dress. Other than that, there’s not much to know. However, I am certain you shall look enchanting no matter what you wear.”

You blush. “Thank you very much. Then… s-shall I give you my phone number?” You ask nervously.

He smiles at your flustered reaction. You really are adorable, blushing like a little schoolgirl being asked for her number for the first time.

He cannot recall having had a woman so nervous about giving him, a man, her contact information, and he enjoys watching just how shy you get while doing so.

He takes your number with the same polite smile, but he does not use his phone or write it down anywhere.

“Thank you, and I will ensure to text you the details of the event later on, my dear.”

You are confused because he did not write your number down anywhere. No way he’d be able to memorise it this quickly, right?

“And… you can memorise it this instant?”

He doesn’t try to hold back his amused chuckle this time at your confused expression, and the smirk that’s back on his lips is one of mild mockery.

“Of course, my dear. I happen to have a good memory. It would truly be foolish of me not to make use of it.”

Woah!!! I had so much fun writing this. I’m down bad. ♥️

[fanfiction4sooya]

Pretty Pet (Sana x F!Reader)

Had fun writing this one! Hope you guys enjoy as much as me 💖💖💖

tw: mean stepmom sana, dog leash, pet names, fingering, fisting, oral sex, nipple play, mentions of breeding, cheating, stepcest!, squirting, etc.

You hated her . Oh, you despised Minatozaki Sana with your whole being. That vile, evil woman.

"She took my necklace dad, I know it!" You told your father for the tenth time already, glaring at her. "She knows I only take it off to swim, that's when she took it from me!" Your eyes were full of tears, but you wouldn't give her the satisfaction of seeing them fall.

"It's enough!" Your dad's voice echoed trough the walls of the mansion, startling you. "Don't say those things about your stepmother, she doesn't deserve this" He shouted and she held his shoulder to calm him down.

"Please, don't shout at her" She said, softly. "She is stressed about college, it's okay" Her voice was like honey, but her eyes had this mockery in them. "I'll help her find it ok?" She said and his eyes softened. "When we find it, she'll apologize and everything will be ok, don't worry" He backed down.

"Okay, darling" He turned to her. "Please, excuse my daughter's behavior" He kissed her knuckles and all you could do was watch as that snake hugged your dad. "Her deceased mother gave her that, she is just desperate" She shook her head, letting him go and taking both of your hands on hers. You almost pushed her, but you knew it would only add fuel to your father's anger.

"We'll find it together, don't worry baby" Her condescending tone made you recoil in disgust.

You kept searching, turning the house upside down and she "helped". Of course you knew she took it but you still hoped for it to be somewhere else.

On the third day of searching your dad had to leave for an emergency work trip, advising you that he wouldn't tolerate any sign of trouble between you and his new wife. You just accepted your fate, realizing that you would do anything to have your necklace back. Even if that meant set her up.

"Sana" You knocked on her office's door, she was staring at a book. Her eyes darted to you, a smile appearing on her pink lips.

"yes, baby" She said, lowering the book and going to meet you halfway, her frame quite taller than yours.

"I know you took my necklace..." You told her, staring at those eyes you hated. "Look, I won't tell anything to my dad but please, please give it back" You tearfully said. She pouted, taking your hand.

"I never took your necklace, baby" She smiled. "Please, understand this" Her eyes went to your hand, taking your phone and stopping the recording. "Do you really think I am that stupid, pet?" She whispered on your ear, angering you even more. "I was about to make a deal, but you had to piss me off..." She passed you, sitting on the leather couch of her office and crossing her legs.

"No, please" You pleaded kneeling in front of her, clutching her jeans as a tear dropped from your right eye. "I'll do anything, give you anything Sana, please" You told her, touching her knee with your forehead in order to hide your tears.

"Oh..." She cooed, petting your head. "Anything? Really?" You nodded, looking up at her sly smile, sniffling a little. She lifted your face by the chin, squeezing a bit to bring your face close to hers. She analysed your soft features from your forehead, cheek bones, eyes, everything. "Alright then" She breathed out, letting your face go. "Meet me at my room tonight"

Her face was serious, scarily so. You nodded.

🌸

You realized none of the housekeepers were at home, so it was just the two of you. The realization sent chills down your spine, the thought of Sana hurting you made you anxious. The door was half open and you could see her back turned to you as she was sat in front of her dressing table. Her eyes averted to your figure standing there through the mirror.

"Come inside" She said, looking down to her lap. You did so, a little bit lost at why you were there. She stared at you again, still not turning around, you could see her pupils were blown, her eyes staring at you as if you were her prey. "Will you really do anything I want?" She said, getting up and walking towards you.

"Yes" You said, your voice a bit shaken. She took your answer in, nodding.

"You are going to undress now" Your eyes widened a bit, trying to process what she had just said. "What? You are going to protest now?" She said, cocking an eyebrow.

"I..." You looked down to your feet, heat rising to your cheeks.

"If you don't want to, it's okay then" She traced one slender finger on your shoulder, over your pijama top. "I'll throw that pretty little necklace away" You opened your mouth to protest, frowning at her, but the way she looked at you felt like she was ready to really throw it away so you just shut it.

Looking down, you slowly pulled your top over your head, your breasts on full display for her view; doing the same to your shorts, you stood there only on your white cotton panties.

"Look up, puppy" Her voice sounded strained, out of breath. You were finally realizing what she wanted, that white lingerie under her robe was the last hint. "I told you to look up" She said firmly and you finally did. "That's better..." She stepped forward, putting something around your neck.

A pink dog collar and a leash.

"Sana..." You held her wrist, your heart thumping on your chest . "What you are doing to my father is wrong" You gulped, trying to reason with her.

"You are still thinking about him?" Her breath fanned over your face, heat rising from her body to yours. You shivered when her breasts touched yours so she would talk on your ear. "Just remember that your daddy chose to believe me over you, pet" She cocked her head to the side, taking in your scent. "He took my side, not yours" She smiled, staring at your lips. "You want your necklace back, I'll give it back..." Her voice sounded poisonous now. "But you have to be a good puppy for me" She pulled the leash down hard and you whimpered, clasping your hand over your lips when realization hit.

"I'm sorry"

Why were you apologizing for? Whimpering? Feeling aroused when the woman you clearly hated was basically fucking you with her eyes? Are you sorry for what you were about to do with your father? You were taken from your own mind when her laugh hit your ears.

"Don't apologize" She said, pulling down again. You wanted to scream, run away. But you really wanted your necklace back and her gaze made you freeze on the spot. "Take off your panties, puppy" She sat down on the bed behind her, her feet still touching the ground.

Slowly you did as she told, covering yourself. Her eyes danced around your naked body, they had this certain amused glint; perverted, scary, shaming... arousing.

"You have no idea what I felt when I saw you for the first time, puppy" She said, tossing her head back to take a deep breath. Her gaze came back even darker. "I fucked myself over and over for days just thinking about this very moment" She tossed her robe aside, now her fit body was only in that white lingerie set.

"You are crazy" You said, earning a hard pull of the leash.

"Don't talk to me like that" Her demeanor changed. Suddenly she got rough, serious. "On your knees, now" You did as she told, shivering. "See? You are a good pup, after all" She leaned forward.

Taking off her lingerie she sat back down, fully exposed to you now with her legs crossed. Your eyes lingered on hers, a silent battle as you tried hard to fight the thought of her naked body making you feel anything other than disgust.

She opened her legs and you closed your eyes, turning your head down as a deep blush covered your cheeks.

"Don't" She said, pulling on the leash and making you lose balance. "Don't close your eyes. Watch me" Her voice felt like a wake up call, an alluring alarm.

You opened your eyes, gulping when she presented her dripping cunt to you, her fingers spreading her pussy lips for your eyes only. You didn't wanted to, but were one hundred percent sure she knew how you were feeling. Your breathing was shallower, your pupils a lot more wide than before.

"Come here puppy, make me feel good" She said circling her hard clit with her middle finger, licking her lips. You couldn't move, millions of thoughts going through your mind as she pulled the leash.

You were literally facing her cunt from above, the smell of her arousal made your head spin. Sinful, delightful. With a little resistance, you put your tongue out, looking at her face as your tongue finally made shy contact with her dripping core. She moaned loudly and you closed your eyes tasting that strange, yet delicious taste.

You felt her getting restless above you, her eyes trained on your pretty face as you kitten licked her clit. Pulling your face closer to her cunt by the leash, she panted.

"You'll have to work hard for your necklace puppy" She told you. "Whether I give it back or not will depend on how well you serve me" She shivered when you whined against her pussy. If you had to work hard you would.

With a flick of your tongue on her clit you realized how Sana was aroused by anything you did, she literally just wanted to sodomize you, just make you bend to her wishes; so you literally just started to sloppily make out with her pussy. Your nose brushed against her clit as your tongue swirled around her slit, pressing your whole face against it.

"Good girl" She rolled her eyes, trapping you there with her thighs. It felt hot and so arousing the fact that she would literally take anything you gave her, even if you had no experience in it. You shivered, your own pussy dripping with how well she praised you. "That's it puppy, keep kissing my pussy" She pulled the leash so hard you were suffocating but you didn't wanna stop. "I'm gonna cum on your face puppy, keep your tongue there" Her eyebrows were knit together, her angelic features softening as her cum gushed on your tongue, dripping down to your chin and breasts.

You kept slurping, closing your eyes as you felt your own pussy clench hard, completely deafening you. It was as if her orgasm had triggered yours and you started to shake violently, moaning against Sana's core. You kept shaking with your face deeply buried on her wet cunt, her surprised eyes completely blown with how she stared at you.

"Did you just cum untouched, puppy?" She pulled your leash, lifting you to face her. Embarrassed, you whined closing your eyes. "No no, don't feel embarrassed" She squeaked, kneeling in front of you to shove her tongue in your throat. "That is the hottest thing I'v ever seen, fuck"

Her kiss felt sinful, deep. Maybe the sin was to cheat on your father with his daughter, but at that very moment the sin was that she hadn't done it before. Her tongue danced against yours, moving freely and both of you moaned when she held your face with both hands to suck on your tongue.

You were at her mercy, your body shaking from the orgasm and how she touched you. You were literally just passive, letting Sana do whatever she pleased.

"Sana..." you moaned when her boobs pressed against yours, brushing up and down. Your eyes locked with hers for a moment, then her beautiful jaw slid against yours as she grazed your faces like a cat demanding affection.

"Pretty little pup" She closed her eyes, your tits pressing against hers felt crazy arousing. "I wish I could breed you" She whispered on your ear, her hands caressing on your torso to stop on your pussy, her fingers pressing over your engorged clit. "I would impregnate you baby, make you forever mine" She was talking nonsense by now, you thought.

But she was serious, damn right she was. If Sana had a natural cock she would breed you over and over, let you dripping with her cum so you would have to carry her baby, her possessiveness growing when she thought about it.

"I would fuck you so full, puppy" she kissed you again, your pussy throbbing against her fingers. She pressed the tip of two of them on your slit and you screamed, struggling to hold back. Your arms circled her neck, bringing her frame back to touch yours.

You were so wet the sound coming from your pussy embarrassingly loud. Your hips moved against her fingers, your mind only thought about one thing.

"Mommy, mommy!" Your eyes were doe and teary, making her shiver.

"Oh my fucking god" She rolled her eyes upon hearing that. Time stopped for her to hear you again. Her fingers slammed back into your puffy pussy, now she pressed three fingers. "Mommy please oh fuck" you cried out, feeling that desperate hunger for your orgasm.

She felt so good against you that you wanted to cry. The two of you wanted the same thing, to merge together in one body.

Sana pulled your hand to her mouth, spitting on it, then caressing her own wet cunt with it.

"Fist me" she told you, still roughly fucking your cunt. You gasped, feeling goosebumps on your scalp; that thought felt sinful and unreal.

"I'm - it's gonna hurt" You moaned when she curled her fingers up on your g-spot.

"Do it puppy, don't worry" she guided your hand, both of you looking down at her slit.

Slowly, she stretched her own pussy with your fingers, four at a time. Your eyes widened and hers closed slightly, you sitting in front of each other gave full view for the other. She guided your thumb to her hole as well, pulsing when you pushed it in by yourself. She closed her eyes, her movements stopping.

"Mommy" you whined, scared that was hurting her. That didn't feel real, something you thought it only happened in porn. You gulped, drooling at the sight of her cunt fully stretched for you. She started to hump up, moving her hips against your fist.

"Look what you do to me" She moaned, back to roughly fucking you. She kissed you, her tongue everywhere on your face. Sloppy. Fuck. "I'm so full puppy, fucking hell" She said as you started to move your fist without her bucking her hips.

It was rough and raw and oh, so wet.

"Mommy I'm cumming" You cried out, biting her lips with strange force when her thumb went to your clit.

"Come for me puppy, my baby" She kept her eyes wide open when she felt you clench of her three fingers, creaming on them. Her gaze well trained on your beautiful face as you contorted in pleasure. "Fuck fuck fuck" she screamed, squirting again when your fist reached deep into her.

Both of you stopped, shaking too much to do anything more than pant on each other's lips. She took her fingers off of your pussy and you gasped.

"I had never done this..." you managed to tell her. "three fingers felt good... too much" you whined and she pulled your fist from inside of her as well. Her fingers on your mouth and she licked your fist clean, moaning upon tasting herself.

"Next time..." She kissed your neck, hugging you against her. "Next time I'll make you take way more than three fingers puppy" She caressed your hair, not caring for how wet both of you were. She kissed your cheek. "Now you are mine, ok?" She told you. "Only mine" She whispered.

"my necklace..." you whined and she smiled.

"I was going to give it back puppy, I don't wanna make you cry" She pulled your sore body from the floor to her and your dad's bed. "Mommy just wanted your attention, okay?" she pulled the covers above your body, spooning you. "I'll give it back, don't worry"

You nodded, body light as a feather. Closing your eyes, you allowed yourself to relax on Sana's arms.

"Mommy what about my dad?" You asked her, almost drifting off to sleep. She sighed.

"If we want to keep doing this, you'll have to keep quiet puppy" She told you. "Wanna know a secret?" she whispered.

"Yes, please" Your voice sounded small, sleepy.

"I married him for you" Her voice sounded sweet, sweet enough for you to ignore the obvious red flag on that statement.

You smiled, Sana knew how to mess with your head.

-🌸

The other day when you woke up, you weren't wearing the collar anymore; instead, you felt your mom's necklace around your neck and Sana's body possessively holding you close, completely asleep.

When your dad came home he felt the happiest man alive with his two favorite girls getting along so well.

You even started calling Sana "mommy".

[inuyashaluver]

would you maybe write a Katie McCabe fic with a reader who’s never really had a relationship before so missed out on all the cliche teenage love moments in their teenager years so now that they’re in a relationship Katie goes out of her way to try and make up for all the things she missed and reader just gets to see a whole new, loving side of Katie.

teenage dream - katie mccabe

katie mccabe x reader

description: in which you’ve never been in a relationship, when you miss out on the lovey dovey moments, your girlfriend helps you out

warnings: fluffy fluffy, swearing

a/n: ahh!! such a cute request, made my heart all fuzzy, thank you, lovely, enjoy ❤️

⋆ ★ ⋆ ★ ⋆ ★ ⋆ ★ ⋆

your girlfriend, katie, is a very. determined. woman. she would do anything for you, without a question, without a second thought, without a doubt, she’s there, and she wants to make sure you know that.

when you stumbled into the arsenal training facility for the first time with your big, curious eyes and sheepish smile, she knew she needed to have you, and that was her plan exactly.

—

you had just been signed to arsenal from sydney fc back in australia. moving to england, specifically to london was one of the scariest thoughts you could muster, leaving everything you knew behind to start a new chapter of your life at just 25.

but thankfully, you had your matildas teammates to help you along the way, fitting in almost immediately and settling into a place you now considered home.

the arsenal girls were your family amongst all the chaos and you truly loved everyone, a particular irish, however, caught your heart more than others.

—

it was one of your first training sessions. you were partnered up with steph, kicking the ball to each other back and forth until she sent the ball way over your head, unfortunately landing right at the back of katie mccabe’s head.

“what the fuck!” she groans, hand cradling the back of her head before turning with a glare to figure out who the culprit was.

only, when she turned around to see your shocked face, she visibly relaxed, offering you a charming smile as you apologised profusely.

“katie, oh my god, i’m so sorry! steph kicked it really hard and then i tried to get it, but it went straight to your head, and then-” you ramble, the words coming out of your mouth faster than your brain could think.

“you know, sweetheart, if you wanted my attention, all you had to do was ask?” she grins, you blink and look at her in a dazed state, your cheeks lightly dusted with pink as you looked at each other.

she chuckles at your expression, taking a step forward to be directly in front of you.

“o-oh, um” you stutter, she smiles reassuringly but your brain couldn’t comprehend anything coherent at all.

“did you want the ball back?” she asks amusingly, all you can do is nod, katie smiles and places the ball into your hands, purposefully grazing her fingers against yours, she smirks at the way your breath hitched at nothing but a simple graze of your fingers, she loved this.

you thank her softly before rushing over to steph, cupping your flushed face while she looks at you amusingly. you fan yourself and steal little glances at katie only to see she was already analysing your every move. the fluidity of your movements leaving her in a hypnotised state.

you were both driving each other crazy.

—

katie didn’t try to hide her advances on you, the whole team would tease you for your reactions to her flirting and katie relished the whole situation.

she loved that she made you all shy to the point where you couldn’t look at her, even when she was basically doing nothing.

from small gestures of holding the door open for you, handing you your water bottle, helping you put on your tracker, you were a blushing mess. it was even worse when she would shower you with compliments.

“hey, beautiful, i like your boots, or maybe i just like the girl wearing them” she’d call out cheekily from next to you in the change room, “thank you” you say bashfully, making her grin widely as she analysed your face, knowing your brain was malfunctioning.

she’d always spot you in the gym and it was obvious to anyone that the two of you liked each other from every interaction you had.

you’d be training weights and katie would make an effort to linger around you just in case you ‘needed’ help.

“hold on, babe, let me help you” she’d laugh softly, before you even got to attempt to lift the weight off the rack, katie was there behind you with a soft smile.

she’d hover her hands by your sides as you’d squat the weight, giving you encouraging words and smiles that had your body burning.

“two more, darlin’, come on” she cheered, when you finished the set, she grinned happily, “good girl” she praised, placing a hand on your shoulder and giving it a gentle squeeze.

“smashed it, didn’t even need me” she grins, “nah, i did, thanks, katie” you breathe out, smiling at her when she handed you your water bottle with a wink before walking away, leaving you a blushing mess that steph and caitlin were pissing themselves laughing about.

“stunned mullet over here” caitlin teases, you roll your eyes and push her off you when she attempts to kiss your cheek, steph laughs at the two of you as you bicker like kids. you like katie and you were sure of it now.

—

surprisingly, you were the one who made the first move, tired of all her teasing and wanting to take that next step forward. you cornered her after a game one day and she was extremely surprised to say the least.

when you dragged her to the car park by her hand, she interlaced your fingers on instinct and smiled at you affectionately when you squeezed them for comfort.

“katie” you start, “mhm, that’s me, gorgeous” she grins, pulling you slightly closer by your hand.

“i was just wondering if you wanted to..um, i don’t know, go for a coffee or something tomorrow?” you ask nervously, katie was smiling so hard, her cheeks were starting to hurt.

“what, like a date?” she assured, her grin not once dropping at your new found confidence. maybe you were around her too much.

“um, yeah” you mumble, she moves to grab your other hand and pulls you forward, looking at you lovingly. “i’d love to” she kisses your cheek quickly and you try not to let your knees buckle from under you,

“thank you for asking, babe” she places her hand on your bicep and holds it gently, you smile up at her and nod, letting her walk you to her car, departing with a sweet kiss to her cheek that had her stomach swarming with butterflies.

—

when you went to coffee the next day, it was like you’d known each other for years. you were so similar, both of you would talk excitedly about random things while you learnt more about each other.

katie was incredibly respectful, she just did everything right that you couldn’t fault her. she was perfect. she made you feel so incredibly comfortable, she loved that you were so authentically yourself, she loved everything about you.

katie made you so comfortable in fact, about 4 dates in, you’d told her all about your relationship history.

you’d always been in talking stages with people but nothing would ever come of it, she was incredibly understanding and supportive, listening intently to your every word as she caressed your hand for comfort.

in her head, she was planning all the ways she was going to spoil you, to make you giddy in puppy love. she was incredibly determined to give you everything you deserved.

so, when katie asked you to be her girlfriend, she was proud knowing she was your first.

—

when you were at her house cuddling and watching a rom com, you’d expressed mindlessly how you wanted that teenage lovey dovey experience and katie made an immediate mental note to give you that. gently kissing your cheek with a sly grin as you both watched the movie.

the next day, you’d arrived at training to see your locker with little heart sticky notes stuck all over it. you gasp and moved closer, opening up your locker to see a small bouquet of flowers with a little note attached to them,

‘pretty flowers for my pretty girl, from your secret admirer -k’ you were borderline almost in tears over the small gesture, your heart clutching at the thought of her remembering your conversation.

when you went into the change room to find katie chatting to leah, she was left breathless when you rushed over and pulled her into a sweet kiss, letting out a little noise of surprise into your mouth.

she immediately pulled you closer by your hips and smiled into your mouth, you pulled back with a quick peck to her lips.

she smiles brightly when you pull away, you wrap your arms around her neck and tugged her into a hug.

she sways you gently while you thanked her, smiling at leah to see she was recording the two of you with her phone with her own bright grin on her face.

you wouldn’t let go, holding her close to you in an attempt to convey everything you were feeling. she hums at your embrace, her hands gently caressing your waist as she holds you close.

giggling and whispering in your ear as you hold her. you kiss her cheek and part from her reluctantly when you had to change for training.

—

you both had a day off the next day and katie had convinced you to head out on a date. a mini carnival on a sunday afternoon being the location.

you’d walked around hand in hand giggling and chatting amongst the carnival, stopping for photos whenever the two of you were asked.

you both ate carnival food and went on rides, the bright smiles for both of you being the only expressions you’d had all day.

then, katie spotted a photobooth and she immediately dragged you over. there were four photos, katie had you perched up on her lap with her arms wrapped firmly around your middle.

the first photo was the two of you with happy faces with your cheeks smushed together.

one of you kissing katie’s cheek while she closes her eyes in a giggle.

the next one was katie following suit, grabbing your face and jokingly biting your cheek while you laugh.

and the last one, katie pulling you into a loving kiss, the light pink evident on both of your faces.

she grins at you while she watches you look over the photos with a love sick expression.

you really felt like a teenager at this moment, feeling so giddy over the girl, you were so grateful for her.

—

now whenever the two of you are in the gym, katie uses you as the weight, knowing that it made you giggle.

as soon as she saw you in the room, she gestures for you to come closer with her finger, a smirk evident on her face.

“come here, baby” she entices, you roll your eyes amusingly and make your way to where she was sitting. you stand in between her legs with your hands on her shoulders as she held your hips, looking up at you as you brushed away a loose hair that fell from her ponytail.

she only let the embrace happen for a few seconds until she lifts you up bridal style, squatting with your weight like it was nothing. every time she’d get up she’d hoist you up in her arms and you would yell and giggle at the height, holding onto her for dear life even though you know she’d never drop you.

“katie!” you giggle when she peppers your cheek with kisses while she held you, feeling her smile against your skin.

“mhm?” she mumbles, moving to your other cheek and continuing her little kiss attack. you laugh brightly when she moves her lips around your face before she moves to kiss your lips gently, lasting for a few seconds until she put you on the ground.

she smiles satisfyingly at your pink cheeks, making an effort to playfully slap your behind when you bent down to pick up her water.

“easy, mccabe” you taunt, passing her the water with a kiss on her cheek, she chuckles and takes a sip while she winks at you before she helps spot you as usual.

—

everyday with katie offered something new, she absolutely spoilt you with an amount of love you didn’t even know was possible.

it only got more intense when you moved in together, happily and easily calling you cooper’s other mum.

not to say you didn’t spoil her either, you showed your appreciation to katie through simple gestures that she was incredibly grateful for.

there was a lot of love and mutual respect for one another that was obvious to anyone and you both couldn’t be happier.

⋆ ★ ⋆ ★ ⋆ ★ ⋆ ★ ⋆

you know the drill - just pretend it’s you! ily beffy

liked by stephcatley and 44,232 others

katie_mccabe11: the missus is pretty cute

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yourname: mammy katie

↳ katie_mccabe11: mammy (y/n)

leahwilliamsonn: still don’t know how you pulled this one

↳ yourname: luck of the irish

↳ katie_mccabe11: watch it.