#i still have plenty more to adapt until the big gap

[sabraeal]

NaNoCryMo Day 12

Excerpt:

“Mm,” she agreed, a low drone behind the clang of her work. “When one log catches fire, the whole house burns.” She cannot look at him, but her attention is palpable, a touch. “The wheel turns in Koshstena.”

Ah, he had been afraid of that. “Unfortunate. Koleso is seldom kind. Though,” he added with a bitter laugh, “you will not have another Chuul here. The Zhartisov will not allow it.”

“There are no more Zhartisov.”

Konstantijn’s gaze snapped to her. “No more…? Does the Deathless’ Throne sit empty?”

“No,” she said, though her mouth wraps around the wors as if she wished she could say yes. “Ivan Ivanovitch sits there still, tsarevitch of all Kiva.”

“Ivan.” He laughed, weary. “It is always an Ivan, is it not?”

She cocked her head. “The Zhartisov have always been partial to the name.”

“Ah, never mind.” He grinned, even though his chest ached. “A joke. An old one. But if a Zhartisov sits on the throne, then Kiva has nothing to fear.”

[type1cyclingdan]

Better Days Are Coming

Life is a funny thing, one minute you can be as low as you can be and the next you can be high as the stars. Last weeks race was the worst I have ever felt after riding my bike, normally my happy place where no matter how bad life is I can get on my bike and everything is instantly better.

I picked myself up, dusted myself down, had a pretty good week on the bike, and with controlling my diabetes, I worked on my breathing and visualising how I was going to race on Sunday. The night before the race was a bad one where my levels kept dropping, so through the night, the low alarm kept going off on my phone. I eventually I ended up getting up at 03:30 and having something to eat to get some carbs in to me and shut the pesky alarm up.

I could have let this get to me and affect how the day went but it is what is, you cant change it you just have to roll with it, so I made sure I had all my kit ready and read for a while. I did my Wim Hoff breathing and listened to some calming music instead of the music that I usually listen to. It's a 100-mile drive to Darley Moor race track, so over 2 hours of driving and thinking time on the way there I was listening to the Men’s World Champs Road Race. So, not to think too much about my own race.

I got there to find out that the race had be change from 13:45 to 15:00 so I took my time getting ready and just chilled in the car listening to music that would relax me. I did my Wim Hoff breathing and then got the bike out of the car and went for a short ride. My heart rate monitor would not link with my bike computer, so there is no HR data from the day, but again, it is what it is.

15 minutes before the race started, we got the opportunity to ride some laps of the track and find what way the wind is blowing as the track is so open the wind really does affect the racing. It was pretty strong on the back straight, which, to be honest, is the perfect place for it to be a headwind for what I had planned. My plan was to sit in the wheels for the whole race and do no work on the front until two laps to go where I was going to kick on the afterburners and go for a one man break to win solo.

However in life and racing plans are never concrete you have to adapt to the conditions and what others do sometimes and I had been watching one rider in particular that looked good and like he was up for a breakaway. So when he decided to go after around 18 minutes I followed him and we got a gap never a big one but enough after around 5 laps of us working really well together one other rider joined us so we were in a 3 up break and continued to work well together. It started to rain which was really good for us three in the break as around the tight turns and the hairpin we could pick our lines and hold our speed where as the peloton would be sketchy as hell and that would slow them down.

It was really tough and I did way to much of the work into the headwind section but if I had not I don’t think we would have stayed away. In the last 3 laps my levels started to go up a lot and with a lap to go I was up to 15 and felt the power drain out of me. I gave everything I had and managed to stay away to finish 3rd, over 40 minutes in the break it was an amazing feeling to know that I was finally seeing my strength on the bike come back.

I still have a long way to go to get back to anywhere near where I was 2 years ago but it felt good to see what I was capable of when I got my levels under control before a race. The win is coming and I have not even started the off the bike training with strength work and flexibility work so plenty more to come.As I said there is a long way to go to be able to achieve my goals, one being to win a National Masters title, but Sunday showed me that I can be competitive even with Diabetes. Do not ever let someone tell you that you can not do something and do not let anything stop you from being the best that you can be. Just because we have setbacks in life, get diagnosed with illnesses, it is never the end, only the beginning of a new chapter.

Keep Trying Never Give UP, set your self huge goals that people will tell you that you are insane to think you can achieve because if you even get close that will be one hell of a mighty achievement. Be flexible with your plans, you don’t need to change them just tweak them like I did on Sunday.

I know that there will be plenty of bad days to come, but I am bloody certain that there will be more good and outstanding days to come.

Dream big, work hard, keep trying, never give up, and believe that you can achieve 👊

[grailfinders]

Fate and Phantasms #202

(Woof, we were almost a day late. Sorry about that, just got a second job. The first one at Facebook isn't working out that great. Anyway!)

Today on Fate and Phantasms we're getting a little bit beastly with the help of Atalante (Alter)! Move fast, hit hard, and outlast anyone who gets in your way. She's a Beast Barbarian for some beastly armaments and extra mobility, plus a Brute Fighter to hit harder and last longer.

Check out her build breakdown below the cut, or her character sheet over here!

Next up: They say every mentor learns from his students. This next servant really took that lesson to heart.

Race and Background

This Atalante is still a Shifter, but thanks to that beast's hide she's wearing, she's now a Beasthide Shifter, giving her +1 Strength and +2 Constitution (Thanks, Tasha!) She also gets Darkvision, Keen Senses for Perception proficiency, and a Toughness that gives her proficiency with Athletics. The big purpose of the class, however, is Shifting. You can transform into a fuzzier version of yourself for up to a minute once per short rest. Because you're a beasthide, your shift is a bit tougher than most; you gain 1d6+your level+ your constitution modifier temporary hit points, and your AC goes up by 1.

You're also still an Outlander, giving you Survival proficiency to live off of hydras. You would normally get athletics too, but you've got that already, so grab Persuasion instead. You're able to keep Yagas together, that's no small feat.

Ability Scores

You might be a wild animal now, but your speed is still your greatest asset, so your Dexterity should still be pretty high. Second highest now is your Constitution, that hide you've got on is really tough. And distracting, I mean you look like a goddamn Power Rangers villain. You kill things with your bare hands, so your Strength has to be up to snuff too. Your Wisdom is also above average, the Yaga seem to like you fine. This means your Intelligence isn't that great- you're not Chiron's star pupil this time. Finally, dump Charisma. You're a terrible liar, and you're hard to get along with.

Class Levels

Barbarian 1: Starting off as a barbarian makes your AC even better, thanks to Unarmored Defense. Now you can add your constitution and your dexterity modifiers to your AC while unarmored. (I know you technically get armor later, but it completely avoids your vital organs, so I'm not counting it.) You also get Rage, spending a bonus action to make you stronger (advantage on strength saves & checks), tougher (resistance to physical damage) and more brutal (bonus damage from strength-based attacks). Oh right, you also get proficiencies. Strength and Constitution saves, plus Intimidation and Nature skills. You're a scary wild animal, yes you are, yes you are!

Fighter 1: You still need weapons though, and rather than wait for two levels for your subclass, we'll go into Fighter right now for an Unarmed Fighting Style. You can punch people for 1d6 damage (1d8 if you have two hands free), and you can deal damage to grappled creatures if you start your turn holding onto them. You also get a Second Wind, healing yourself as a bonus action.

Barbarian 2: Second level barbs can make Reckless Attacks; you get advantage, your enemies get advantage, everyone wins! Except your enemies, because they'll all be dead before they get a turn. You also get a Danger Sense that gives you advantage on dexterity saves. You're still kind of a cat, I guess.

Barbarian 3: Third level barbarians set down a primal path, and the path of the Beast is for those who want to rip and tear, until the job is done. Right now you get a Form of the Beast when you rage, giving you one of three natural weapons. You can bite, dealing 1d8 piercing damage and regaining HP once per turn if you're bloodied. Otherwise, you can use your Claws to deal 1d6 slashing damage, and you get one extra attack with them per turn. The last one's less in character, but you can still grow a Tail if you want, dealing 1d8 piercing damage on attack, and you can use your reaction to apply a d8 to your AC against an attack that hit you. You also get Primal Knowledge in another barbarian skill. Pick up Animal Handling, it might help with the Yaga.

Barbarian 4: Bump up your Strength for better fighting. Real simple.

Barbarian 5: Fifth level barbs get an Extra Attack each attack action, as well as Fast Movement giving you an extra 10' of speed each turn. Turns out, you're fast! Who knew!

Barbarian 6: Sixth level beastbarians find their Bestial Soul, making their rage weapons magical against resistances. Whenever you finish a rest, you can also Self Evolve in one of three ways. You can gain a swiming speed and breathe underwater, a climbing speed that negates the need for climbing checks, or you can add an Athletics check to your jump distance once per turn. Normally, you can make an 8 foot long jump without runnig. Now you can jump a distance between 15' and 34'. It's a pretty good jump boost. The jump is the most in-character, but feel free to evolve whatever you need for the situation.

Barbarian 7: Seventh level barbarians grow even faster, with their Feral Instincts giving them advantage on initiative rolls, and you can ignore a surprise round by raging. Which you'd probably do anyway, so just roll with it. Speaking of raging, when you do so, you can make an Instinctive Pounce to move half your speed as part of the bonus action. You're not as fast as your archer self, but this'll help close the gap.

Fighter 2: Yep, we've got enough primal stuff, time to make it hurt. Bouncing back to fighter now gets you an Action Surge. Once per short rest, you can add an extra action to your turn, no strings attached. Use this to attack and you can hit people four times per turn, or five times with your claws!

Fighter 3: Third level fighters get their martial archetype, and becoming a Brute makes you a bit more heavy-handed. Your Brute Force lets you add a d4 to every damage roll you make with your weapons, and the die grows as you level up. This means your teeth are now arguably as strong as a greatsword.

Fighter 4: Another ASI! Bump up your Strength.

Fighter 5: Unfortunately, the fifth level of fighter gets you absolutely nothing. Extra attack doesn't stack like that. :(

Fighter 6: Use this ASI to grab the Mobile feat, for extra movement and the ability to shut down the attacks of opportunity from anyone you tried to hit this turn. Getting hit is for slow people.

Fighter 7: Seventh level brutes get Brutish Durability, adding a d6 to every save they make, up to and including death saves. If this brings a death save to a total of 20 or higher, you automatically pop back up with 1 HP. Barbarians tend to make the most death saves out of any party member, might as well be good at it.

Fighter 8: Another ASI! Grab the Martial Adept feat for a superiority die (1d6) that you can use to perform one of two Battle Master Maneuvers once per short rest. A big part of this build is adaptability, so the final say in what maneuvers you get is up to you. That being said, I highly recommend Ambush for a boost to stealth and initiative rolls, or Maneuvering Attack for even more mobility. It adds damage to your attack, and you can let one friendly creature (including you) move half its speed without provoking opportunity attacks from the target.

Fighter 9: Now that you're Indomitable, you can re-roll a failed saving throw once per long rest. I know berserkers are glass cannons in FGO, but that's just how they flavor their easily tricked nature, really they're hard as hell to fight, even if you've got fireballs and shit.

Fighter 10: Tenth level brutes get a bigger Brute Force die, now you add 1d6 to every attack, so your hands are as powerful as a greatsword. You also get an Additional Fighting Style, so grab Superior Technique for a second superiority die per rest and a third maneuver of your choice.

Fighter 11: Eleventh level fighters get another Extra Attack, and this one does stack, so you can attack up to 6 times per turn, or 7 with your claws and your action surge.

Fighter 12: Use your last ASI to become Resilient to Dexterity saves. You get +1 dexterity, and proficiency with that kind of save. So yeah, you now have advantage, proficiency, and an extra 1d6 against that fireball. Good luck, spellcasters.

Fighter 13: Our capstone level is a second use of Indomitable per day. Not the flashiest way to end a build, but at least you're not a sorcerer.

Pros and Cons

Pros:

When you want to hurt someone, they really hurt. With four claw attacks and three unarmed attacks, all boosted by rage, maneuvers, and brute force, you can deal 3d8+13d6+42. And those are all with advantage, so you've got a good chance of dealing a crit. Even without that chance, you can still deal over 100 damage in a single turn with average rolls.

You've also got plenty of Mobility to stay on top of your prey, with a base movement of 50' per turn and the ability to jump an absolute minimum of 20', or you can swap in other kinds of movement if you're going to the sea or a cliff face. You've also got several ways to pour more speed in if you need it. You won't be able to win a race against your archer self, but you'll definitely make her work for it.

Your saves are ridiculous, especially your physical ones. You've got proficiency in all three, good scores, an additional 1d6, and your strength and dexterity saves probably have advantage. If people try to get through your hide, they'll find your skin is just as tough, with an AC of 16-17, damage resistance, almost 200 HP, and plenty of ways to heal yourself.

Cons:

If you can't catch up to a person, your range means you're screwed. Your best weapons are all melee range, and you'll just end up chasing them around like a fool. (Technically you can just... pick up a bow and use it, you're a fighter after all, but we're playing to character.)

Despite your save shenanigans, your low charisma means you still might end up getting shunted to another dimension. That would explain how you got to the lostbelt, though....

We spent a whole feat and fighting style on those superiority dice, and to be honest they're probably not worth the effort. Bumping up your strength and picking up the Mariner style would be just as useful, if less customizable.

[popculturebuffet]

One Year Anniversary: Top 12 Ducktales Episodes!

Happy anniversary all you happy people! Yes it was one year ago today I started reviewing animation and it’s been a ride to be sure. I’d always WANTED to be a reviewer: I love going on and on about stuff I love, really digging into it and picking it apart... but I could never get started. I tried youtube but I didn’t have the money for the equipment nor a proper shooting space to record, so my efforts.. were not great. And while I TRIED text reviews, my own looming pile of self hatred meant every attempt I made was shot down when it got hard as me not being good enough. 

But one year ago I finally got past that. I’d already been reviewing a bit, doing invididual issues of comics... but got way in over my head trying to do the current line of X-Men comics as it came out, and wisely bowed out of that. But that left a gap: I had nothing to cover week to week and with a demanding new job, I drifted into just doing in charcter chats, little fan fictions script styles. Not bad work, I should do some more at some point and I even got a comissoin once in a while, but nothing I could really live on and not what I wanted to do with my life. 

Enter Ducktales. I’d always WANTED to review the show.. and when the double premire happened, I decided fuck it, and put up my thoughts. And then decided.. hey maybe I can do this every week.. and slowly.. my work evolved, getting better and better, getting more and more likes. I picked up Amphibia when that came by week to week.

And eventually.. this went from a hobby, if one I was passionate about to a career. Not a largely paying one, as only one person was really intrested in paying me for it, friend of the blog and our fincial backer @weirdkev27, but .. it’s money and i’m now making about 30 dollars a month due to a comination of comissions and patreon. Other contributers are always welcome mind you, my patreon is here if your curious and comissions are 5 dollars an episode, but i’ts just nice to have money coming in. To have gone from simply WANTING to review things and make a living off it.. to simply doing it. 

And it’s been one hell of a year.. and not just because 2020 felt like hell or 2021 began with a full on insurrection. I feel like i’ve acomplished a lot in the year i’ve been doing this: I finished what I started with Ducktales season 3, getting better and better as I went. And I didn’t stop there with ducks: I started covering what brought me to Ducks in the first place, the Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck, and while that retrospective has slid a bit on the schedule, I intend to get it back on track this month. I reviewed a bunch of Darkwing Duck episodes leading up to the Just Us Justice Ducks.. chronologically anyway. The actual airing order reads like someone took 50 issues of a comic, made it rain with them, then just started reading whatever ones they picked up randomly. I also covered some of Duck Master Carl Barks work with the classics Night on Bear Mountain, A Christmas for Shacktown and Back to the Klondike, with more to come. 

And the Duck didn’t stop at just reviews I did on my own: Kev comissioned two MASSIVE retrospectives from me: My first for him was Ride of the Three Caballleros where in just a few short months I covered the boys entire televisied careers together from the movie, to house of mouse, to mickey and the roadster racers, to ducktales (again) and finishing with the wonderful Legend of the Three Caballeros. It has probably the worst Daisy imaginable, but otherwise is really excellent and i’m glad I finally watched it. I also covered Don Rosa’s two stories with the boys as part of it. It was a fun ride and I enjoyed every minute of it... okay most of them again Three Cabs Daisy is the worst. And once that finished Kev started up another idea: Shadow Into Light: a look at Lena’s character arc from start to finish that has gone on to be my most popular series on this blog, and that finishes next week. And there’s more to come as after that there’s a short breather with a look at Lilo and Stitch’s crossover episodes.. folllowed by me looking at all three of season 2′s ducktales arcs. And I fully intend to have covered every episode of the series by this time next year, so stay tuned. 

Outside of ducks though I didn’t slow down. I restarted my Tom Lucitor retrospective, covering what i feel to be one of Star Vs’ two best characters, tied with eclipsa, and my personal faviorite as he redeemeed himself, found love and I bitched a lot about the horrible directions the series took and probabably will more as that’s still not done yet. I did what I always wanted to do and started looks at some of my faviorite comics ever, starting with Life and Times and adding in New X-Men and Scott PIlgrim. I also threw in the awesome comic Blacksad. I did pride month for the first time and not only came out publicly, but also did two whole arcs i’m proud of with The Saluna episodes of Loud house and the rednid episodes of OK KO, and generally just had myself a good old fashioned time as an out bi man reviewing childrens cartoons. 

I started Season 2 of amphibia with it’s lows of an endlesss road trip and highs of adding Marcy to the cast and giving us more of the silky voiced keith david. And finally Patreon wise Kev’s taken me on a hell o fa journey: In addition to the restrospectives i’ve covered some additional darkwing duck, and a simpsons homage to the duck comics... but also got a bit weird and obscure with detours like the lost animnaics sucessor Histeria, the apocalyptic comedy where Santa dosen’t know how doors work Whoops! and the adventures of Santa’s bratty teen daughter jingle belle. In short.. it’s been a long year but damn has it been fun and there’s more to come. I’d like to thank all of you for reading, thank my Patreons Kev and Emma for supporting me, and thank my family for doing the same.  So with that out of the way, I figured the best way to celebrate was to do something i’ve been wanting to do for a long time, something honoring the show that gave me this calling in the first place. And with Season 3 sadly being the last, and enough weeks having passed for me to digest it between the finale and today, I could think of nothing better than my top 12 episodes of Ducktales.

Ducktales is one of the best cartoons of the 2010′s. Brilliantly taking EVERYTHING that had come before, the comics, the original cartoon and every bit of duck media period to craft a masterful, unique and wonderful reboot. It was funny, it was insane, and it had damn good character arcs. By the end every member of the main cast along with major supporting cast members like Fenton, Drake and especially Lena, had changed and signifigantly at that. The show was everything I could’ve dreamed of and more and I miss it terribly, hoping DIsney will do a revivial movie at some point. For now though, Frank and Matt’s run on ducktales, as they called it and I do too since i’m a massive comic book nerd, it’s time to look back on my favorite tales of ducks. So grab your sharks, your number one dimes and your friendship cakes with clear gay undertones and join me under the cut as I celebrate one of my faviorite shows and my anniversary in the best way possible. 

12. House of the Lucky Gander! 

 So as i’ve gone on about before and no doubt will again, Donald kinda got the short end of the stick in season 1. While Frank and Matt had good story intentions, keeping Donald away from adventure since he had no interest in it, in practice it meant a beloved Disney Icon who they and disney HEAVILY promoted as part of the series and whose being here this go round was a big draw for fans of the comics.... was only in a quarter of the season and only got TWO plots centered around him in 23 episodes, with only one being the main plot of the episode. The PIlot and Finale both centered around the family more as a whole if your curious how I counted those so while he got plenty of focus in both, it’s still not a day in the limelight sort of thing. 

But unusually for Donald, he lucked out as his one big starring role for Season 1 was both one of my faviorites and one of Season 1′s most inventive outings.  A lot of the episodes enegy comes from a one two punch of a great guest star and one of the series best settings. The guest star is of course everyone’s faviorite overly lucky himbo Gladstone Gander. The show adapted the prick perfectly: The original Gladstone from the comics.. was the worst asshole imaginable, utterly insufferable. And for a villian, and Donald’s rival, that’s all well and good.. but his super luck meant he RARELY , if ever, suffered any consequences for being just...

The 87 series simply made him nicer, while Going Quackers simply removed his luck. No adaptation really got how to make this fucker work.. until this one. Here Frank split the diffrence: Gladstone is still smug.. but he’s no longer actively malicious. While he is an insensitive prick to Donald in this one, unlike the comics he’s not constantly bragging about his luck or how great he is or actively BAITING Donald to fight with him or trying to ruin his relationship or a million other reasons he sucks and I hate him.

This version by contrast... is generous. He’s not the most empathetic, because he doesn’t get how life works, but he does share the riches of the casnio with everyone and in a cameo appearance in “Treasure of the Found Lamp” gladly offers his nephews some diamonds. He’s got a nice surface level charm to him that makes you understand why people like him.. but it’s also clear ther’es nothing UNDER that of value, making you equally understand why Scrooge and Donald hate him. Gladstone in this reboot is a perfect example of why we need reboots or new adaptations in the first place: Because sometimes the original got something wrong or something can be done much better by the new writers. 

He’s perfectly paired with the setting: The House of Lucky Fortune, a mystical casino with an East Asian astatic based in the country of Macaw and provides two great plots. Donald’s really highlights his character: His understandable jealousy at gladstone earning the boys love through nothing while he struggles to make a living for them, and how he feels like a looser and like Gladstone is simply showing that off instead of just not knowing what empathy is. Having Louie be the one to bond with Gladstone was also just pitch pefefct, as is showing some depth for the boy by having himr ealize his hero is an asshole and be the one to help donald in the end. 

The other plot is just pure joy though and is where the setting REALLY shines: Scrooge and the rest of the kids try to leave.. but can’t find the exit. This is where the creative part comes in: The Casino simply morphs to keep people trapped, and caters to them, giving them whatever they want to keep them trapped. In the cases of the kids it’s all hilarious and adorably in character: Huey becomes entranced by a fancy water show, in one of his best bits of the season, Dewey gets a pet tiger who sadly did not come home with him and Webby gets to live the dream we’ve all had of stuffing her face directly in a choclate fountain. Scrooge’s escape is likewise clever: He simply prepares to get a room.. then books it as the check in desk is ALWAYS near the front. 

We then find out Gladston’es trapped get the whole mystical contest with absolutely gorgeous animation, i’ll talk about it in full some time but this episode is just a treat to watch, has a great arc for donald and had some memorable gags. I can’t help but smile when I watch it. 

11. The Dangerous Chemistry of Gandra Dee!  As I mentioned before i’m a superhero nerd so naturally Fenton was one of my faviorite parts of the show. Frank and Matt were just damn good at crafting superhero stories, and like gladstone improved fenton turning him from an awkward donald stand in to an awkward peter parker-esque science nerd who just wants to be a good person and the best hero he can be. He got into science not just because he thinks it’s neat, but because he honestly wants to help people and you can’t help but foot for him whenever he pops up. Lin Manuel Miranda is a large reason for that, bringing his incomparable a-game to the character. While we sadly didn’t get a ton of gizmoduck focused episodes, the fatct we got AS MANY as we did and that Lin didn’t drop out for a minute even with his busy schedule was a miracle and I’m acknowledging that. 

As for why this one, I feel it builds brilliantly on the previous Fentoncentric episode Who Is Gizmoduck?! which just BARELY didn’t make this list and uses the fact we haven’t seen fenton in a while as both a plot point and to move some things forward without having to spend screentime they clearly didn’t have. By having Fenton be just burnt out on superheroics it finds a way to both explain where he’s been, he’s been busy with his new job, and give us an interesting angle to the old “superhero is tired of the life” thing. He never once complains about saving people or stuff... it’s just like any job it gets tiring after a while. As someone who has his dream job but has struggled with it from time to time, I vastly relate. 

Though while I love my boy and Lin is game as always, the episodes real MVP is my other boy Huey. The episode has moved Huey up from being simply Fenton’s fanboy to being his best friend, and adorable as hell relationship. The two clearly respect and appricate each other and Huey is looking out for his buddy the whole episode. His love of love is also just really cute. Added in the mix is Webby, who in one of my faviorite gags of the series, finds out Fenton is  Gizmoduck because Huey is incredibly and insanely blatant with his unecessary coverup. But she of course is game to help while Fenton is trying to play it casual. We also just get a waterfall of great gags as everyone overdoes it wingmanning for fenton: Huey sets up an itallian bistro and tries to purposfully create a lady and the tramp situation, and sings opera (With Manny on acordian), the wonderfully 80′s suit from Fenton’s dad his mom gives him to wear, and Launchpad, who gives us a tremendous list of his exes, and plays my favorite song of the series: It’s a Date, a micheal mcdonnel riff. 

This episode also wisely ups Mark’s Beaks game as Fenton’s arch enemy, still keeping him hilaroius, with the guy acting like a bored teenager and guzzling so much nanite jucie he turns into a hulk, as well as said hulk mode leading to a ton of great gags from kidnapping the children (”I got your kids.. are they your kids? I don’t know how this family works), to “take that coach dad” to eating a pie with tins and all and wondering about said tins. But he’s an actual threat now, taking on fenton in one hell of a fight, and having an utterly transcendent scene where he hacks his way past gyro’s security while dancing.. and dabbing because of course he does. It’s a fun, well done character piece that’s mostly here for i’ts laugh but Fenton’s struggle with Gizmo overtaking his life, and finding out someone he truly hit it off iwth only wanted him for that.. it’s really good stuff and Lin’s delivery after Fenton finds out, the pure pain and betryal in his voice, is just excellent. Also that opera scene is poetry. 

10. Quack Pack!

One of the episodes that started my career naturally landed here. Not for that reason though: Quack Pack is a fun riff on sitcoms, specifically the tgif ones of the 90′s that Disney Afternoon Kids no doubt also watched, the kinds Disney Channel still makes today, and most importanly the kind the Disney Afternoon itself made like Goof Troop and well... Quack Pack. 

Riffs on sitcoms are nothing new and the last year has been FULL of them. 2020 gave us this episode, Beef House and the wonderful “The Perfect House��� episode of Close Enough, and this year gave us WandaVision, my second favorite MCU project so far, right behind Black Panther, which used the sitcom deconstruction to create one hell of a character study. 

So you’d think with a year having passed and this concept happening as an entire mini series would dull this one.. but no. it’s still damn funny, having fun at the cliches while, again like WandaVision, having one of the main cast be responsible by accident but go along with it. The episode pivots from glorious affectionate parody of cheesy sitcoms, to that plus horrifying “Humans”, and a character piece for Donald. This brings Donald’s hatred and fed up ness with adventure to a head revealing his fondest wish is just to have a normal life and not loose anyone again. 

It takes one of his best friends to snap him out of it. Look Goofy is my second faviorite of the sensational seven, an episode with him was already an easy sell for me.. but the episode uses him really well. First for laughs as he’s gentically dispositioned to be a perfect sitcom neighbor.. but also for heart. With his family preoccupied and a bit hurt, i’ts Goofy who cuts to the heart of the issue, pointing out NO ONE is normal and even his normal domestic life raising Max, who we see go to prom with roxanne eeeeee, has all sorts of chaos. Normal is what you make of it and pining for some ideal that will never happen was just tearing donald apart piece by piece and by letting go of that.. he finally begins to grow as a person throughout the season. It’s also a great thematic tie in to the season’s overall plot with Bradford and what Makes donald, despite also disliking the chaos his family gets into, different. Donald accepted it and grew as a person.. Bradford clung to his hate and it ate him alive. Or turned him into a non-sapient kind of vulture. Before I close this part out Jaleel White is also excellent and I wish eh’d get back into voice acting. He’s so freaking good at it. Seriously man i’d love to see him and ben in a sonic property together as a mythology gag. Same with Jims cummings and carey. Just think about it whoever owns the sonic movies.. think about it. 

9. The Last Adventure!

Look I knew this was coming, you knew this was coming. But it had to be on here. The Last Adventure is not perfect: The lack of a build up episode like the previous two finales had really hurt this one: even at about 70 minutes, it still feels rushed in places and Huey, one of hte main characters of the season, dosen’t feel like he has a full payoff to his character like Dewey and Louie got. 

But despite those flaws.. this episode is just a damn good ending. Almost everyone gets a big moment paying off their character arc, everyone in the party that comes to rescue webby and huey, along with the two themselves, gets a moment to show off, and everything comes together to give us one last epic sendoff. There’s just moment stacked on moment stacked on moment from Launchpads heroic second wind and donning of the gizmoduck armor, to Webby’s tearful confrontation with Beakley, to Huey using the greatest adventure of all line to foil bradford in one of the most deligfhully nuts moments of the series, I could go on for days with just how triumphant this finale felt. While it left a lot of doors open.. that feels like part of the design. It’s the end of the fight with FOWL.. but our heroes will never stop adventuring, never stop going and never stop being in our hearts and the curtain call at the end is now my faviorite bit of end credits ever, perfectly giving the main cast and friends one last chance to take a bow in their own unique ways. I will always miss this show but I will never be disapointed by the note it went out on. 

8. The 87 Cent Solution!

Look some episodes are show stoppers, some are heartfelt tearjerkers, some are all this and more.. and some episodes are just clever and hilarious. The 87 Solution is the second funniest episode of Ducktales with me and my go to episode when watching the show. It’s just pure fun and with a clever premise: Scrooge notices 87 cents have gone missing, and already coming down with a cold, goes mad with paranoia as the kids slowly don face masks, something that has become even eeerier given everything, one by one realizing he needs to stop. 

While David Tennant is an EXCELLENT dramatic actor, his comedy timing is really something that shoudln’t be ignored and i’ts on full display here as his performance gets more and more deranged, to thep oint he thinks an 8th dimensional imp is repsonsible. He nicely balances the disturbing side of Scrooge’s paranoia, his distancing from his family, with plenty of great gags about it too, the standout being when he offers 2 million dollars to whoever took the money like he’s publicly appeasing kidnappers. It’s fucking brilliant. 

But while David is awesome as ever what really, truly makes the episode is my boy, one of my faviorite characters on the show if not my single faviriote FLINTHEART GLOMGOLD. Keith Ferguson is ALWAYS a dream as the character but this is his best performance by far. Part of this is the addition of Zan Owlson, Kev who I mentioned earlier’s faviorite Ducktales character. She’s not only throughly likeable in her own right, but provides the one thing Flinty was missing; a straight man.. or woman in this case. Scrooge wasn’t TERRIBLE in the roll, but can easily step away from his shit or foil it. Owlson has to put up with Glomgold’s nonsense while desperatly trying to stop him from undoing all her hard work with sheer force of jackass. The two jut play off each other brilliantly, Glomgold not getting sh’es not his employee but his equal and Owlson constnatly snarking at him. 

And of course both things hit their peak in the climax with the family staging a fake funeral (Though no one told donald it was fake), and we get the funniest scene in the entire fucking show as Glomgold burts in in a white suit, money shades and full dance number to “All I Do Is Win’, which when first watching this I was convinced the song was somehow accidnetly on in the background but nope. They got it after using it in the test phase and the scene is better for it. Glomgold twerking on Scrooge’s casket, trying to get on it to dance, and having to be placated like ac hild is the icing on this very rich cake

And the reveal scene is also gold as Glomgold gets into a YEARLONG staring contest with a baby, fails to steal more than the 87 cents and, in my faviorite touch, put on an imp costume just to make scrooge seem crazier... then keeps the damn thing on the rest of the time for no explicable reason. The episode is the show at it’s comedic peak while giving Glomgold a chance to be a genuine threat and that’s Glomgood. 

7. Let’s Get Dangerous!

Frank’s Rebooted Version of Darkwing Duck is probably his greatest achivment with the show. While this show is a team effort, something I slowly realized as I reviewed the show, it’s very clear from the way he talks, how well he knows the show and how much effort was put into porting Darkwing into the reboot that this was his baby. While redefining ducktales for the 2010′s was clearly a huge dream of his... doing the same for the master of suprise was an even bigger goal. And as a huge fan of superheroes i’ve seen my fair share of half assed takes on laired and complex characters. The XCU alone is one giant grab bag of missed opportunities for me. 

So i’ts no exageration when I tell you Frank.. nailed it. In one of the most brilliant moves i’ve seen for a superhero work Frank worked his love of the show into the reboot.. by having Darkwing have been a show, one Launchpad loved.. and so did Drake, who was inspried by the show to become an inspriation himself and while his attempt to do that through a zack snydery reboot failed, Launchpad encouraged him to do it for real. Drake was still himself, but the meta aspect and the toning down of some of darkwing’s more obnoxious traits that didn’t work in a universe that, while patently rediciulous still took it’s characters seriously, he made a BETTER version of the character.

This is where all that comes to it’s peak, and hoppefully convinced Disney to let Frank , and possibly matt, run the reboot. And no, even if Point Grey is producing that dosen’t stop that: Thanks to Invincible i’ve now realized that Seth and his friend Evan producing the show dosen’t mean it’ll be RAN by them, nor unrelated to this. It just means their helping make it and if anything given how lush and gorgeous invincible’s animation is, it’s a VERY good sign their helping out with it if it’s true. 

But wether this versoin continues or not, Frank gave it his best shot. Part of his diffrent angle is having Drake as a rookie here and as such here we see him truly struggle: he’s had his origin, he ahs the cape, he has the gadgets (in a brilliant turn thanks to fenton, who he actually likes... but is so far the ONLY person to not get he’s Gizmoduck), and the city.. but no crime to fight and no real idea how to go about his lifelong dream. The events of the episode slowly shape him: WHile he already had the spirit for darkwing, never giving up, looking good in a cape etc, this episode gives him the heart the same way it gave his original it: With Gosalyn. Dimantopolis and Beatriz just play off each other perfectly, as the two go from neimies to slowly bonding as Drake realizes this kid needs him and that he needs to fight for more than just filing the ohle inside, and goes to hell and back to help her get her grandpa back, with one of the best moments of the episode to me being when Launchpad helps her realize how hard he’s been working at it, an exausted drake refusing to acccept that he can’t get her grandpa back because he promised. He grows from simply trying to live the dream.. to surpassing the original. We also see more from Launchpad, who grows into his new family and helps push his boyfriend and newa dopted daughter in the right directions. The episode really evolves these characters from the simple disney afternoon versions, who while awesome were made into fully fleshed out characters. Gosalyn still has her edge but now has a hard lesson to learn about doing the right thing, forced to give up someone she loves for the greater good but finding a new family in the process. 

Part of what makes the episode work though as while it is funcitonally one big darkwing duck reboot pilot that’s awesome, heartrending and a joy to watch... it’s still a ducktales episode in parts without either part hurting each other. Huey plays a vital role, figuring the ramrod is too good to be true.. and discovering just how it is, then when captured, slowly unravling why Bradford’s there and being at least in part responsible for outing him as a FOWL agent. While this is largely Drakes story the rest of the cast is still vital to it: Scrooge trusting in huey, Louie serving as his logical counter and Dewey meanwhile bonding with team darkwing and helping Gosalyn, knowing exactly where she’s been and providing a nice foil. The episode is just one long and impressive love letter to the original show while creating it’s own thing and that’s really this reboot in a nutshell. It also has some of the best fights of the series, with the first fight between darkwing and bulba, where our hero, unlike his original counterpart, easily troucnes bulba using his speed and skill, is the standout. 

6. Woo-Ooo!

I covered this one recently so I won’t go on for too long.. but I will say I hold this one up as the gold standard for first episodes. In one hour, hell even in jus the first half we get a sense of the whole cast, the tone of the show, and the world we’ve been thrust into. It gets all the table setting out of the way by weaving it into a compelling story of Scrooge getting back in the game, finding a reason to get back to what he does best in those he loves most and setting up the season long arc effortlessly in the process. The worst I can say about the episode is it sets the bar a bit high for Season 1 and a lot of the first half really struggled to reach these heights. This episode is a masterwork and the perfect showcase for what the series would be at it’s height. 

5. Moonvasion!

Speaking of Golden Standards, Moonvasion is one of the best season finale’s i’ve seen. it’s not THE best.. but that’s a really high bar to clear and that spots currently taken in my heart by “The Crossroads of Destiny” from Avatar the Last Airbender. But while not the best of it’s kind, it’s sitll the best the series put out and is an utterly satisfying epic that ties up season 2. 

While I love the Last Adventure, it had a LOT to tie up and was really hampered by having to do all of that with no direct lead in. Moonvasion by contrast hits the ground running with the Moonlanders arriving on earth and all hell breaking loose, and the episode itself breaking into two stellar plots. Scrooge leading an army of every ally he has against the invaders, and Della seemingly going for reinforcements.. but really just trying to keep the kids safe from it, to their anger once they find out. 

Both sides end up going badly: Scrooge looses most of his army as Lunaris was one step ahead of him and is left iwth Beakly and Launchpad, while Della ends up marooned.. and finds Donald. The reunion between the two is the highlight of the special, as the two argue as you’d expect (And Dewey cutting in seemingly to stop it.. only to rant at Donald for costing him “ten years of turbo” is the best gag of the episode), before embracing. 

Our heroes naturally find ways to bounce back though. Louie, capping off his growth for the season, convinces his mom they can’t just hide.. and in the second best scene of the episode sings the lullabye she wrote.. one Donald sung them every night

And no sooner than Della gets her step back and realizes that dangerous or not she and her newly reunited family have to get back in there, do the cousins show up on Fethry’s giant shrimp/girlfriend Mitzi, and our heroes head back. 

Scrooge’s plot hits i’ts peak though as he’s forced to accept the help of an unlikely and unwelcome ally: Glomgold, who turns out to be exactly what they need: While his plan is as stupid, short sighted and insane as you’d expect, complete with forcing Scrooge to dress up as santa just to piss him off and dressing his sharks in parkas (”I call them sharkas”), the sheer lonacy throws Lunaris off as he dosen’t know how to deal with this and Glomgold not only gets the better of him but gets his company back as part of his scheme.  “You were prepared for our best but not our dumbest!” “And i’m the dumbest theirs ever been! Muahahahaha! Wait...”

And of course our other heroes arrive just in time to save things.. and the episode still manages to pull off what many works struggle to, something tha’ts very hard to: a SECOND climax. Lunaris decides to just say fuck it and blow up the earth and i’ts up to our core family to kick his ass in space. Epic space battles, Della’s girlfriend meeting the family and more insues and an emotoinal, action packed and fully satisfying finale is had by all... and it’s all topped with one of the best sequel hooks i’ve ever seen as FOWL makes themselves known to us.. and prepares to strike. 

4. How Santa Stole Christmas! This one will also be short as i’ve talked about this one.. a lottttt. The initial review, my best christmas specials list and my best of 2020 list. I stand by all of that: this is a unique and wonderful christmas special, i’ll be watching it every year, and i’ts full of charm, humor and gay subtext. In short it’s this series but on christmas footing. 

3. Last Crash of the Sunchaser! 

Another one I covered very recently, this episode is a master piece of suspense, slowly building tension as our heroes get closer and closer to the truth about Della.. and to death, the simple but deadly stakes making this an absolute nailbiter from start to finish. This is some of the series best pacing bar none... but what seals it is the ending: the masterful flashback finally explaning whatever happened to Della duck, our heroes lashing out at each other.. all cumilating in the best Scene of the show. I said it might be in the review but no I can confirm: Scrooge bitterly ruminating over things while we find out just how much he’s lost... ending with him tearfully and angrily sitting once again alone in one hell of a powerful shot echoing Scrooge’s first apperance. Damn fine stuff. 

2. Escape from The Impossbin Only one episode not only matches Last Crash in mounting tension and atmosphere but suprasses it. With FOWL and Bradford’s true nature now out in the wind, this episode uses that to create tension and rattles it’s two most unshakable characters: SCrooge’s normal boundless confidence is shot, not sure he can win this time against an opponent who knows him as well as he knows himself while Beakly slowly unravels, pitting Webby against the boys.. and pitting herself against Webby when Webby sees her terroizing them is only dividing them. Both plots start out funny enough but slowly escalate in tension and stakes until by the end your on the edge of your seat. The Beakly plot is the standout of the two, giving Bentina the starring role she badly needed, having gotten even better in light of the finale. Everyone is at the top of their game and everything builds up to one hell of a twist ending and one hell of a badass boast from our heroes: Their down.. but their far from out and this is far from over. 

1. Nightmare On Kimotor Hill!

I”ll be reviewing this episode in full later this week as part of my Lena retrospective, but I stand by putting it up top. This episode is ducktales in it’s purest form and focuses on it’s best original character as Lena grapples with her self hatred and her past. That core helps anchor an amazing concept: going into the Kid’s dreams and finding out their greatest desires. The results.. are all gloriously rediclous and are easily the best gags of hte series as a whole: Dewey’s high school musical santa claus is going ot high school nonsense from getting a’s in Dewology to running away from the abstract concept of a love intrest, to not getting the sybolism of himself crying a moon made of his own tears. Louie quite literally becoming garfield, and my faviorite scene of the show: Huey, wanting to be the tall older brother..g iving himself horrifcly long leg. While everyone else is just understandably baffled, what makes the scene is the banter between Dewey and Huey, with Schwartz and Pudi at their best as Dewey first freaks out and then asks what the hell man, while Huey defends his weird decision (”I”m not good at imagination stuff okay!”), and then tries to get a jar of pickles. Each dream is just so oddly and wonderfully specific to each kid and each one of the triplests dreams, as well as violets being color coded down tot he backgrounds is a very nice touch. The visuals here are just peak ducktales, using the setting for all it’s worth and the climax is utterly emotoinal and heartbreaking... and Lena’s break from her abuser, finally realizing she has the power now is not only a wonderful metaphor... but also just so damn cathartic. And that’s why this one’s the best to me personally: it just packs so much into 20 minutes: some of the series best and most creative jokes, a gripping emtoinal arc, and so much more. It’s just that damn good and tha’ts why it’s the best... that and starting Huelet for me. Seriously that LIbrary scene is so fucking cute. 

Thank you all for reading. If you liked this artcle, join my patreon and help me get to my stretch goal for monthly darkwing duck reviews, a review of super ducktales and more after! Until the next rainbow... it’s been a pleasure. 

[cheswirls]

[ pt 1/2 of the tensemi track au!! small note, when i started this (almost) a year ago i confused the one mile records with the 100 meter records, so this fic goes w/ the assumption the 100m record is 4 seconds. yes i know the 100m record is 10s. no i am not going to change it. just read it regarding this info, and it should be smooth. ]

year one |

the spring before eita’s freshman year, he has a growth spurt. it’s not anything big, only a handful of inches, but it’s enough to make a difference as he works around it in his training regimen. his legs get longer, his steps grow wider, and by the time track and field tryouts come around, he’s confident he’s adjusted enough to the change to make a difference.

“next, semi-san!”

a whistle blows as eita lines up and crouches on the third lane, eyes lifting to catch the 100 meter mark in his sight. he tenses his arms and lifts his figure, and on the next whistle he’s off.

eita likes running. he can’t remember a time in his life when he didn’t. but it’s the short bursts he likes best. he doesn’t have to worry about pacing himself. he doesn’t have the time to watch anyone around him. ten seconds and it’s over. ten seconds and he’s at the finish line, breaking a couple paces after, hands on his knees for a brief moment before he straightens up and turns.

everyone is silent around him. it wouldn’t bother eita so much, but they’re all watching him, and a feeling of unease creeps up his spine. it’s only elevated when they all start breaking out in chaotic whispers, and he turns his head to see the assistant coach blinking at his stopwatch.

“semi-san,” the head coach calls, and eita steps forward, shoes leaving the track for the grass on the inner field. the assistant coach finally moves his gaze away, looking incredulously to semi, but it sharply turns to pride and something else, like he just found an old treasure buried deep in a treasure chest.

“what was your average last year?” the head coach asks, and eita stumbles through his answer, mind still fixed on the expression of the assistant coach and the implications it suddenly held.

and that was how semi eita first learned he could run 100 meters in six seconds.

-

they have him come to day two of tryouts to run another. just to prove it wasn’t a fluke. eita knows it wasn’t, because he had run several that past night, just to prove to himself that it was all real. the same result happens. 6.4 seconds and his feet cross the line.

one of the football coaches that served as an assistant during off-season casually flips through a stapled bunch of papers, frowning slightly when he reached the end. “this is your only event?” he asks semi.

eita nods, and the assistant coach from the other day hums, taking the list to flip back a couple pages.

“why don’t you try for a 200 as well? i’m sure with-”

“i’m sorry, but i only run sprints.” both coaches look up in surprise, and eita bows sharply. then he turns and jogs off, done for the day.

when the list of names comes out the next day, he isn’t surprised to find he’s made it. he is surprised that there is only a single reporting time, and that they aren’t all separated by event immediately. he seeks out the head coach with a frown, bemused by the provided training. eita trains alone. it’s not that he minds the company, but he has his own routine. it worked through middle school, and it worked through the spring, and it would work now. besides, going through the same practice the long-distance runners did wouldn’t help him. it was just impractical. especially with his results.

the head coach takes his speech in stride, and then he tosses his head back and laughs. after calming down, he pats semi on the shoulder and shakes his head. “tell you what, kid. you place at nationals, and i’ll let you do whatever you want. but this year, i want you to try things our way. you came to shiratorizawa for a reason, right?” he winks.

the suggestion irks him, but he can’t deny the truth in the words. so, with a long-suffering sigh, eita bows his head and hurries off to join practice.

-

midway through pre-season is when eita has enough. usually, they’re divided by mid, long, and short distance, and given slightly different training exercises. today, though-

“everyone is running three miles.” one of the coaches points to the perimeter of the field, where a gate lines the outside. “there’s a road around the gate that circles the football fields and the tennis courts. twice around and back should be the distance you need. once you’re done, you’re free to go.”

everyone starts heading off, and eita snaps from his frozen position. “i can’t run three miles!” he bursts. a few people pause to look, some snickering, but he ignores them. a look from the coaches has him backing up, however, switching out his words. “i can walk three miles. can i -can i do that? that wouldn’t be that long. i could do it in, uh-” he breaks off, mumbling the math, the 20 on average so times three- “an hour. can i do that?”

one of the assistant answers him with another question. “can you run one mile?”

eita blinks. “yes,” he says, because he might be a sprinter, but one mile is nothing. the coach nods.

“okay. then walk two and run one. is that acceptable?”

eita purses his lips. “yes,” he mutters, and doesn’t stick around to see them change their minds.

-

shiratorizawa is an elite school. he knew this coming here, he knew the competition would be rough, he knew everyone around him was the best in their field. he thought he was good enough to be able to keep up.

but with a near four second improvement in his time, semi goes from good to untouchable.

there’s one other shiratorizawa athlete in his event, an upperclassman eita had never spoken with, but they’re in different heats and his concentration is pinpoint. it’s hot, but the breeze is there to cool him off, and eita sits down on the grass to do his stretches. if anyone approaches him, he doesn’t notice. there’s a group of girls a few paces away wearing the same purple uniform as him, but they don’t pay any attention to him, so he does the same.

he lines up when his rotation comes up and takes a deep breath as he crouches into position.

in, out. bang.

eita’s eyes lock on to the finish mark and he unconsciously speeds up, lungs burning, muscles twitching, giving his all for this short burst.

he doesn’t look behind him when he finishes, only up, but it’s not the same as middle school. the scoreboard still has results from two events ago. he sighs and walks off the track, hands on his head. he’d been used to having results immediately, but miyagi was a big region, and there were still three more heats to go before they compiled the results.

one of the assistant coaches comes up and hands him a water, congratulates him. eita nods in thanks, taking it, but he doesn’t feel excited. he may have won his heat, but he still didn’t know where he placed overall.

he kind of zones out, one minute gazing at the track as people line up for the 200 meter, and then the next he’s met with people carting out hurdles from the infield. he blinks and looks up to the scoreboard, and right on cue an announcer comes on to reveal the results for the mens 100 meter.

eita lets out a breath as he sees his name first. it’s not until he sees the point gap between him and second place does he realize how easy a time he had it. there’s nearly a five point lead. he’d completely crushed the competition.

later, as eita descends the podium with his medal, a handful of people in purple come up to congratulate him. eita doesn’t really recognize their faces, much less know their names, so he just does his best to smile and nod.

practice doesn’t change. and of course it wouldn’t. the coach’s offer was for semi to place at nationals, not a regional meet. the win didn’t count for anything but his pride. none of them did until the qualifier, it was all for the experience.

eita still practices alone, within the team. he’s divided up with the short distance runners and sent through the same paces, but he keeps to himself as he completes the drills. he doesn’t even know what the other runners think of him, and he really doesn’t care, either. he’s there to run.

-

end-of-term exams come around on the first week of july, and the track team is given a full ten days off in light of it.

at first, eita does as usual. grades have never been anything he’s really needed to concern himself with. he spends the extra time training, pushing himself in his newfound solitude.

but then all his tests are over, and school is preparing to shut down for summer break. before the week can let out, with five days to go until practice resumes as usual, eita runs, breathless, into the staff room, managing to corner one of the assistant coaches before he can leave.

“you want a key to the gym?” eita nods and he scratches his head, lightly frowning. “you know, the break is there for you to rest, and not just because of exams.”

“i get plenty of rest,” eita argues.

the coach sighs. “of course you do. look, we’re not supposed to let first-years wander off with keys, but . .” he shrugs, leaning forward in his chair to sort through a desk drawer. “you’re a good kid, semi-kun. if you think you need the equipment in the gym, i’ll let you borrow this.” he holds out a plain keyring and eita takes it with a nod. “give it back next time you see me, okay? and don’t forget when the next team practice is!”

eita is euphoric when given the opportunity. he’s halfway home when he notices the skip in his step, and then he realizes just how much energy he was pent up with, immediately setting off in a different direction. it takes half an hour before he’s sure he can return home without his mom yelling at him to quit bouncing off the walls, and by the time he’s on the porch steps he’s panting so bad he tries to use the gym key to unlock the front door.

his usual solo workout he’d adapted to before high school serves him well in the break, and adding on the private use of the gym makes it even better. the lights still turn on, thankfully, and the windows let in the sun just enough that even if they didn’t, it might not even matter. it’s not unusual to be here alone like he thought it might be -mostly it’s just quiet, which -even if he was reluctant to admit it- has grown quite odd. he’s accustomed to the low rumble that accompanied a large group -feet on the turf, murmurs, whistle blows, the shuffling of equipment.

on the morning of the eleventh day, eita wakes up early and jogs down to the school, keys jangling hidden in his pocket. he finds the particular coach he’d borrowed them from and manages to sneak them back without anyone else becoming wiser. if he was lucky, that would mean he’d have earned the trust to have them again.

-

the miyagi prefectural athletics meet in the middle of july doubled as the national qualifier for two weeks later, in august. even if the venue hadn’t been close by eita’s home, shiratorizawa still put the school’s budget to good use, transporting all the students in one go once they had gathered at the school.

eita’s internal musings he’d had since middle school of but i could have gotten there faster if i had walked from home take a hard backseat to the thrumming in his veins, the pure ecstasy he feels where he was headed and what he was headed there for.

the coaches camp out a big spot on the infield and shiratorizawa gathers into a cluster, throwing down personal bags and coolers and various other things until all around eita is a sea of royal purple.

there are three hours until his event, but he starts stretching right away, slipping off his warmup jacket and his trainers so he has enough traction to rest his feet on his shoulders. his eyes glance to the track periodically while he goes through the motions, watching as various smaller events take place.

noise to his left makes him glance up, sliding both legs to the turf. there’s a large crowd gathered around one of the field events -he can’t tell which one from his height. eita eyes the time and thinks, just for a moment, about going to investigate.

then he tunes that part of his brain out, resuming his stretches.

he goes for a run, careful to keep out of the way. he sprawls out on the infield, staring up at the sun as it tracks higher in the sky. it’s a nice day, overall. not too hot. a little cloudy, but not enough to threaten to rain.

his shoelaces get readjusted as someone comes to inform him of his heat. he has a number pinned to his back, the sun appears just a bit from behind thin clouds, and the roar of the crowd pulls him finally onto the track.

he’d missed competing in this spot. prefecturals were the same location no matter what school grade you were in. it felt like coming home.

he breathes out deep and crouches in his lane, looking down to adjust his footing before looking up to the finish line. it’s a singular focus, and slowly but surely, all the noise around him fades, until it’s only the internal sounds of adrenaline ringing in his ears.

bang. and he’s off.

his spikes dig in on the line before he fully realizes, having to force himself to stop several paces after, nearly tripping over himself. he looks back over his shoulder, breathing heavy, and throws his arms over his head.

there are still runners crossing the finish line. it’s a wild feeling, one eita’s never bothered to cash in on, and one that makes him absolutely dizzy with delight.

he crushes the time from his previous meet, and seeing the seconds lined up with the overall results has him feeling almost insane. there truly was no competition out here anymore. if he wanted a challenge, he’d have to go looking for it.

and that was exactly what he was going to do, he realizes, as he steps off the podium with a gold medal in hand and the proud gaze of the head coach on him.

-

nationals is in fukui, a six hour train ride away, on the second of august. on the first of the month, shiratorizawa loads onto a train in the morning. eita is not surprised to see many of his peers around him that would be competing in nationals -shiratorizawa was simply that kind of school.

eita has been on the shinkansen before, and knowing what kind of trip it would be, takes some of his summer homework to finish. since he also knows that they would be changing lines in tokyo for the one to kanazawa, he picks some of the less challenging, mind-numbing ones so that he’ll have enough awareness to switch trains.

eita sits in an aisle seat next to a boy he doesn’t know. it’s mostly uneventful, with him scribbling away at his papers and the boy leaning forward to talk to the students that sat in the row ahead. when eita feels like the noise around him is too much, he puts an earbud in and plays songs at random from his phone.

at kanazawa, they switch to a regular train for the last leg of the trip to fukui. it’s definitely hotter closer to the coast like this, and eita feels the lingering regret in his choice of clothing as his track jacket starts sticking to him. the train ride this time should be less than an hour, so everything is packed up in his backpack, and his overnight bag rests in his free hands as he waits for the train at the station.

“semi-san?” he hears as he climbs aboard, sighing in relief at the air conditioning. he looks over to find a girl with a high ponytail leaning out of her seat and into the aisle to address him. she smiles when he makes eye contact. “there’s a free seat here. come sit with us!”

and that’s how he finds himself nestled in with a few second-years. the seats face each other here, which means there was more leg room. everyone has their bags by their feet instead of the overhead slots, and eita follows suit, pushing his overnight bag under the window seat he’d been given and unzipping his other bag as he places it against the wall.

“-don’t understand why i had to give up my seat,” the boy to his left is complaining. it gives eita pause, as he’s reaching for his earbuds. the girl adjacent to him visibly rolls her eyes, rocking her feet forward to knock against the boy’s.

“semi’s a first year, silly. he’s probably never seen this before.”

“if it matters that much to you i’ll switch,” the boy across from eita says, and at that point he’s got one earbud in and his music switched on, so he no longer pays attention as they begin to switch around.

he does end up gazing out the window as they begin to move, and is surprised that he can see the coastline from here. a tap on his arm makes him glance to his left, where the girl has apparently switched seats to. she half-waves and points to her ear, and eita startles, moving to pause the music.

“you’re only wearing one,” she notes.

he shrugs. “i want to be able to hear if something happens.”

she lets out a little laugh at this, slouching in her seat. her legs are thrown over her bag, and she switches which is crossed over the other at the ankle. “don’t worry about that,” she tells him. “i’ll let you know.”

it’s an odd bout of kindness, and eita suddenly feels weird that he doesn’t know her name, or any of their names, really, even when they knew his. she moves into a conversation with the boys, leaving him to his own devices, and eita takes the chance to shrug off the awkwardness, pushing both earbuds in and closing his eyes.

maybe he falls asleep, he’s not sure, but a shaking on his arm gets him to open his eyes. it takes a moment for his vision to settle, and then his arm is shaken again, and he lolls his head to see the second-year girl nodding toward the aisle, where one of the assistant coaches stood.

eita takes the hint and pulls the earbuds out.

“-passing out your room assignments,” the coach is saying, handing stacks of envelopes to whoever was in reach. the boy adjacent to eita accepts the bundle, flipping through to grab the one with his name, and then handing the other three their own. eita takes his gingerly, frowning lightly at his name, and then tugs the flap open to find a list of names on a slip of paper next to a room number, and a key-card for the place they were staying.”

“oh, cool,” the one across from him, in the other window seat, was saying. eita glances up and then glances back up when he sees he’s being watched. “looks like we’re sharing.”

eita looks back down to the names, pursing his lips. maybe he lucked out, then, that out of the three he didn’t recognize, one of them he’d already met.

“that’s convenient,” the girl says. “who else is there?”

instead of listening to him list off the names, she leans into eita’s space and reads for herself. eita takes this in stride, turning the paper to face her, and her eyes light up when she recognizes the connection.

“oh, it’s all the short-distance. i guess there are only five of you. take care of semi-san, okay? he’s the only kouhai you’ve got on this trip.”

eita blinks, caught up on the last part. he misses his roommate’s confirmation as he puzzles this out, and ends up speaking before he realizes. “i’m the only first year?”

they all look at him, and then one by one, start bursting into laughter.

“man, you’re really out of your element here, huh?” the other boy, the not-roommate, says. eita’s lips purse as he tries to think of a comeback. he holds out his hands. “i didn’t mean anything bad. just, well-”

“you’re not very social, is what he’s saying,” the girl says. “there’s a girl on the relay team that’s a first-year, but you’re the only one with an individual event.”

oh. there had been so many that morning that he had just assumed almost everyone had placed for nationals. knowing most of them were second and third-years was . . well, it certainly helped his ego. not that he was letting that go to his head or anything.

before he can ask more, the train arrives, and he’s quickly grabbing his things before being pushed off and led away by one of the boys he’d be staying with.

-

fukui is nice. hot. humid. it’s a dizzying combination that has him staying in the hotel lobby instead of venturing out to see the sights, declining every invitation he’s offered. he finishes the portion of homework he’d been working through on the shinkansen, then puts the rest away for the trip back home. his mom calls after he’s procured a bottle of water, and he visits with her for a minute, lounging on one of the seats in the air-conditioned space.

after showering away a morning’s worth of travel, eita lies down in the unit on one of the beds. he’s the only one in the room, and after his lightheadedness doesn’t quite clear up upon consuming an energy bar, he doesn’t wait for any of the upperclassmen to return to tell him to take the pull-out bed, falling asleep on top of the duvet.

he ends up skipping dinner. when he wakes it’s late, around eleven, and the only light in the room comes from a small lamp near the wall on the other side of the bed. eita glances over to see the boy from the train leaning back against the pillows, scrolling on his phone. he looks up when eita turns and nods to the bedside table on eita’s side, where a peeled orange and a handful of crackers sat.

“for me?” eita murmurs, noticing the room’s other occupants are asleep.

“mhmm. you should try and sleep more, but eat that first. you’ll need something in you before tomorrow.”

“thanks,” he mumbles, reaching over to pull the meal into his lap. he doesn’t necessarily feel bad anymore, but something is still off, which is concerning. maybe it was the change in weather.

the salt from the crackers helps. the orange is good too. eita can’t believe it’s peeled. he sure lucked out with the upperclassmen he was assigned.

“i’m going to bed,” the boy says, after eita has finished and tossed the napkin away. he reaches over to turn off the light, and waves his lit phone for eita to see. “i set an alarm for the morning, so don’t be scared when it goes off.”

“oh, okay,” eita whispers, climbing under the covers. “thank you.”

“nah, don’t sweat it. that’s what i’m here for -to make your life easier.”

“not to win tomorrow?”

“well, that too. night, semi.”

“night.”

-

the next morning eita’s head is swimming, and nothing helps. his pained frown persists through a hot shower, a light breakfast, two medication pills, and the bus ride over to the stadium. he tries to ward off his concerned roommate that he really should be remembering the name of, but all that really gets him is more persistent near-coddling, until eita finally has enough and goes to sprawl in the grass near a corner of the track.

the sky is cloudless and the sun bright, this time. the heat is not helping in the slightest. eita rests a condensating water bottle against his forehead and extends his arms into the air, trying to convince himself to sit up and stretch.

maybe it was nerves. though, he’s never experienced anything like that before. maybe not never, maybe when he was younger, but it’s been a long time, and it wasn’t really something he’d think to concern himself over anymore, so this had to be the cause of something else.

he hopes he’s not sick. that would suck.

he goes through warmup and forgets everything as soon as he’s done it, leaving his body thrumming and his mind blank. he’s not the only one who’s noticed, either, as one of the coaches comes over to have a look at him, coercing him back into the fold and closer to where the rest of shiratorizawa is gathered.

“you still don’t look great,” he says, and eita snorts.

“i’ll be okay,” he mutters.

“still wanna run?” he asks, and eita nods. “alright, that’s your choice. just take it easy until then. keep yourself hydrated. you eat enough this morning?” another nod. “good. come grab someone if you get worse.”

it’s less than ten seconds. he’s only in one event. and it’s nationals, for crying out loud. even if he was dying eita still wouldn’t give up his chance to run.

but when he finally steps into his lane, he feels like his insides have been replaced with cotton. he squeezes his eyes shut and his vision clears, but he still feels slow, heavy. uncoordinated.

at least he knows he can stay in-between his own set of lines. he has enough awareness to position himself with the others, and to hear the signal to start.

that’s about the only thing he remembers. one of the coaches hands him a water when he comes off the track, tells him to eat something. he sits in the grass and drains half the bottle, then nearly passes out.

eventually he does end up falling asleep. he doesn’t feel any better when he’s woken up, but he’s regained enough awareness to put that as secondary, and his results as priority.

when he sees them his heart falls.

-

at eita’s first athletics nationals for the 100m sprint he clocks in at 8.6 seconds. the time is still leagues above his peers, and the only ones ahead of him are third-years.

he places fourth.

even with a remarkable time in his less-than-perfect condition, it’s still not enough for a medal.

the head coach finds him on the field as the sun is setting, and everything is beginning to wrap up. he sits easy beside eita, who rests with his head on his knees. “you still feel sick?”

“sorta?” eita mumbles. he’d eaten lunch, and drank a lot of water and pocari, and camped out in the shade near the bleachers. he’d thought, briefly, about watching other events -at the very least the event of the senpai who’d watched out for him- but he just hadn’t felt well enough to try.

“you timed in at under nine seconds feeling like shit,” coach says bluntly, and eita blinks, moving his head to face him properly. he shrugs. “c’mon, semi, you’re sixteen. i know you’ve heard worse.”

he wasn’t wrong, but it still was a little unexpected.

“you’re the only sixteen-year-old to place in the top twenty. wanna know how i know? because there’s only fifteen slots for 100 meter at nationals, and there’s not another first year around who’s come even close to touching those times. i’ve had enough people on my ass this afternoon telling me that to start to believe it.”

“people have been talking about me?” eita mutters in quiet disbelief.

“yeah, kid, had to beat ‘em off with a stick. wasn’t gonna let anyone interview you while you still looked like you would keel over at any moment. i saved you the trouble, let me tell you.”

he leans back further, gaze rising to the sky, as eita blinks and tries to come to terms with this.

“you didn’t do as well as you wanted, but you still did pretty damn amazing. fourth in the country out of people between sixteen and eighteen is nothing to scoff at. you’ve given me a lot to consider.”

eita looks up. “like what?”

coach shrugs, climbing to his feet and holding out a hand for eita. “i’ll decide on the train. you’ll hear about it by the time the new term starts.” he grins, pulls eita close to pat him on the back. “good work today. can’t wait to see what you’ll do when you’re in good condition.”

-

as promised, eita is greeted with news coming into the second term. big news.

even though he didn’t place at nationals, the head coach allows him a training exemption -two days a week with the team, and that was it. that was all he was obligated for, anyway. if he wanted to show up every day, they’d be happy to have him. if he wanted to focus on his own regimen, well, the staff knew how serious he was, and were happy to oblige him to a certain extent.

semi forks over his adjusted training regimen and has it added on to by one of the assistant coaches, and then sent loose. he pushes himself, balancing mediocre classwork with punishing workouts, and begins to spend less and less time with the team as a whole.

winter break comes and he again borrows one of the gym keys -this time asking the head coach directly. the granted request marks a sudden shift in eita’s mindset. they’re watching me, he realizes. it’s euphoric. he’s a first-year at a powerhouse school like shiratorizawa, and yet he’s being given this special attention.

by the time third term rolls around, it’s too cold to bother with anything but indoor workouts. eita is a regular occurrence in the staff room to borrow and return the gym key. he takes care of his health when he goes running outside. and he pushes himself, faster and harder and further and higher, to the point it becomes noticeable by his peers when he shows up for team practice that he was aiming for another level.

year 2 |

eita gets asked at the opening ceremony to show up to the first day of tryouts, so during the second week of the new term, he forgoes his study period to head out early to the field. none of the first-years are there yet, since school isn’t technically out, but a handful of second and third-years are, gathered close with the coaching staff.

there’s no skirting around them, especially since he didn’t know the reason his presence was required. one of the assistant coaches gets his attention and beckons him closer.

“i’m sure you’re wondering why you’re here,” he says, and eita nods. he grins, holding up a stopwatch next. “it’s about time to reevaluate your record, right?”

oh. oh. suddenly he feels a million times more excited.

“there’s a little more to it than that,” he continues, but eita could care less at this point. “not that you stuck around long enough to see it, but those of you here are our little exhibition gang for the next few days. something for the new kids to be excited about. it’s one thing to know shiratorizawa’s accolades by name, but it’s another thing entirely to see the competition yourself. so we’re re-assessing a handful of you now rather than at official practice, and in return, the first-years get to see what the track and field team is made of.”

“fine by me,” eita answers, nearly unable to keep still. he was used to being watched at this point. and this was beneficial for him, too, so who cared, really?

the coach rolls his eyes. “somehow i knew you’d be less-than-interested in that last part. but that’s okay. the group for day one is everyone you see here, and there will be separate groups for the other two days, so after we’re done with you today we’ll just see you again when practice starts.”

eita was ushered off to join the other students until tryouts began, with instructions to come find that particular short-distance coach so they could time him and cut him loose. he’s greeted after a minute by the relay girl he’d met at nationals, and they engage in idle conversation about the new school year until a plethora of students start to trickle in through the gates.

“i know it’s intended to be the other way around, but this is a good chance to observe them, too,” she ends up saying, and eita, confused, turns back to her. she rolls her eyes. “you never know who’ll end up being your competition. i remember last year, everyone was kinda shocked when a first-year timed in at under ten seconds on a sprint.”

it takes him a moment -too long, really- to catch on, but when he does, he sits up straight in a hurry, pointing to himself. she throws her head back and laughs, her long ponytail trailing on the track.

“you do what you want,” she tells him. “but keep in mind: it’s not a bad idea to watch at how they do.”

one of the older girls calls to her, and she jumps up to go get her hair braided before tryouts really began. eita sits, partially shocked, and thinks that this year, it would maybe be a good idea to not be so self-absorbed.

-

he thinks that, but in actuality, he doesn’t engage with the first-years at all. he stays around the short-distance group his assigned coach was watching over, and while he’s close enough to watch, he’s also far enough for them to not try and engage him. it probably helps that he’s in his track jacket, so they know he’s an upperclassman and not another first-year for them to try and make friends with.

the coach signals for him after he’s warmed up, and eita moves to the track where a third-year short-distance runner was waiting. his arms go over his head in a stretch as the third-year takes a seat near him on the infield, glancing to the coach waiting at the finish mark.

“okay,” eita puffs out, crouching down. “ready.”

the third-year moves to face their coach entirely, cupping his hands over his mouth to be heard over the bustle that was tryouts. eita’s fingertips tense on the track.

“go!” he shouts, more for the coach’s benefit than eita’s own, and eita rockets off. any lingering thoughts he’d had before that moment evaporate. he has a sole focus, leaving no room for anything, not even the pounding of his heart in his chest.

he breaks around three feet after the line, puffing out breaths and feeling the heat of the sun stark on his skin after the exertion. after giving himself a moment he turns to see the coach jotting something down on a clipboard. he glances up and nods at eita, and eita comes closer, meeting up with the third-year that hangs half a step back.

“6.1,” he’s told, and eita’s eyes widen. even if it’s within expectations, the notion that he’d improved is sending him. his mind keeps flashing back to the scoreboard at fukui, to the leading two times. if he could outrun those now, and he would only keep getting better, then. then-

“you’ve shaved off .3 seconds from this time last year. very nice.” the coach nods behind eita, and eita cocks his head slightly and then turns it fully over his shoulder when he finds the head coach standing close by, hands on his hips.

“nice going, kid,” he says, and eita nods. a clap on his shoulder has him looking forward again. the third-year is grinning, lips pulled wide enough to show teeth.

“that’s amazing, semi-kun! i’ve never met anyone with that kinda time before.”

“thanks,” he mutters, suddenly numbed by all the praise. shit, he could be able to thank this guy by name. he didn’t even know what event he ran. was it the 300m? the 150?

the hand moves from his shoulder to his hair, ruffling the two-toned strands, but eita is unbothered, letting it happen. “we’re done, right?” he asks the short-distance coach.

“you two can go,” he assures them. “but take semi by the mids before that. i want him to see kawanishi, and they should be about to start.”

“got it!”

eita lets himself be dragged away, towards another end of the field. “who’s kawanishi?” he mumbles.

“a first-year high jumper. well, that’s what he’s known for, but field events are tomorrow, and they wanted him to try an 800 meter today.”

“hm.”

they take a seat near the mids group, more aligned with the edge of the track. it’s easy enough to spot kawanishi before he’s pointed out to eita -he’s the tallest one there. definitely looked like a high jumper. did he even have the stamina for two laps? long legs weren’t everything.

but thoughts like those quickly dissipate when the first six are lined up and take off. he tunes out his upperclassman to watch, overanalyzing as the mid-distance runners ran around the track. kawanishi wasn’t bad, actually. he needed to pace himself better, but if they thought he was a good fit, the coaches would teach him how.

his form is good. eita hasn’t seen textbook form like that in a long time. he wonders, briefly, if that was kawanishi’s style, or if he didn’t know any other way just yet.

regardless, he clocks in first out of his group. when he crosses the line eita finds that he’s been leaning forward, and sits back in a hurry. his companion muffles a laugh and eita huffs, standing. “that was it, right?”

“almost,” the third-year says, cheerful, and jumps to his feet as well. “swing by the clubroom with me. i’m supposed to give you taiju’s things.” eita must look confused again, because he’s grabbed by the elbow and hauled off. “geez, you’ve never been to the clubroom, huh? i know you don’t show up to practice that much, but c’mon, semi-kun, that’s like, a sacred space! especially now that you’re a second-year, you should practically be living there!”

“i remember a taiju, i think,” eita mutters.

“he was the third-year 100 meter runner the year before. club vice captain? clocked in at ninth in nationals? any of this ringing a bell?”

“uh, sorry,” eita ends up saying, throwing his head back.

“dude, don’t beat yourself up about it.” they stop and eita looks back down to see the other jangling a key into a scuffed door. “he’s only the guy you outran while you were on the verge of heat exhaustion.” he snickers. “plus, he’s gone now, so there’s no one around to offend, right? let me look -ah, here it is.” he pulls out a stack from a cubby and gestures eita closer. “coach wanted you to have his keys, said something about you not bothering him anymore for ‘em.”

“oh.” eita takes them numbly. “thanks.”

the other shrugs. “eh, he said it fondly, so i don’t think he was too pinched up about it. take care of those, alright? here, he left these too.”

eita is handed a thin plastic bag, and his grip goes tighter on it when he realizes what they were. “really?”

“yeah, he wasn’t gonna run in college, so he left his spare spikes here. they’re pretty cool, i think he got them from overseas. well, it’s your choice if you wanna use them, alright? don’t feel like you have to or anything.”

“i don’t really use spikes,” eita admits. “i mean, i haven’t really tried.”

“first time for everything, right?” when eita looks up the third-year is smiling. “if you do decide to try ‘em out, you’ll have top-dollar ones to experiment with.”

this year really was . . starting to look different. and season hadn’t even started yet.

-

the second week of practice, and the third time semi shows up in the new term, the track team is graced by a visitor.

eita is collapsed on the slanted part of the hill leading away from the track after an exercise, breathing deep and clenching a water bottle tight in his hands. he raises it up for a drink when a loud ‘HEY!’ gets his attention, and ends up squirting water in his face, gasping at the cold sensation. one of the other runners near him breaks out into laughter. he’s not the only one, and eita sits up to look over his shoulder, catching the offender as he meanders down the hill.

he’s tall, even doubled-over, having caught sight of eita’s accident and burst into this howling laughter that immediately gains the attention of everyone around who had overlooked him. eita purses his lips, setting the bottle in the grass between his legs.

“s-sorry, i didn’t meant to scare ya like that!” he assures eita, but his expression suggests he didn’t quite mean it.

“what are you doing here, tendou?” someone asks, and now eita has a name to put with the face.

“just checking in,” he says, waving the other off. he’s still in his school uniform, eita notes, even after school had been out for a- wait, checking in for what!?

“student council need something?” someone else asks. “what did we do for the vice president himself to come all the way out here?”

tendou flaps his hand harder, if possible. “nothing! i’m serious. i’m supposed to go check in with the clubs throughout the week, see that everything is running smoothly. it’s just a courtesy visit.”

“where’s ushijima, then? the president too good for courtesy visits?”

“waka’s at practice,” tendou states, a little too blunt. he stops short, hands in his pockets now, and a little too close for eita’s liking. “he’s done his share, so i told him to skip out today. i’ll bring him next time.” he perks up. “oh! yama’s here! later!”

he runs off, shouting loudly for one of the mid-distance runners, and eita collapses in the grass again, breathing out slow now that the wake of the hurricane has passed.

-

it’s the same day the following week that the student council shows up at the track field. eita spots the shock of red hair from across the field and inwardly grimaces. as expected, over time the volume rises, and by the time eita’s group is given a moment to cool down, two sets of footsteps are fast approaching.

“oh, perfect, you’re done,” tendou addresses the group as a whole, and eita closes his eyes as he flops to the ground, no longer willing to squint up at the bright sun.

“for now,” someone says.

“hey, you brought the president this time!” someone else says, and eita risks the sun to open his eyes.

before he can make out the other properly, coach is urging them all to get up. three laps around the track, and then they were good to go. eita is relieved, honestly. it had been a long enough practice already, and he didn’t really wanna be stuck around the two outsiders for longer than necessary.

his luck doesn’t last, though, as his name is called halfway through his second lap. eita slows to a jog, then stops entirely when he sees just who was vying for his attention, trying his best not to gawk.

the man was a hulk, for lack of a better word. if he hadn’t been in a student uniform, eita would’ve thought him a teacher. he blinks, pointing to himself, and the guy nods, moving down the hill a little to get closer. eita purses his lips, looks to the side at the others running, then sighs and moves to the outside lane.

“who’s this guy, waka?” tendou asks, and damn if he didn’t come out of nowhere, making eita jump, unable to contain himself as he’s startled. tendou blinks in surprise, then his face lights up, placing eita from the week before.

“semi eita,” waka says. “we’re in the same class.”

“we-” eita cuts himself off before he can finish embarrassing himself. if this guy says they were, eita would believe him. the student council president definitely had more social awareness than the likes of him.

he seems to catch on anyways, frowning slightly and offering his hand. eita takes it after hesitating long enough for it to matter. “ushijima wakatoshi,” he tells eita, and eita nods, reminding himself to commit the name to memory.

“hah? you mean you have waka in class and don’t even remember?” tendou starts laughing. “how do you miss a presence like that?”

eita turns his head to the side, fighting back a blush. ushijima must take pity on him, because he gestures to another group of people further down the way. “satori, there’s still more people, right?”

“yeah, yeah, go on ahead,” tendou says, waving him off. ushijima shrugs.

“good to see you, semi-kun.”

“uh, sure,” eita mumbles.

he turns to get back into a center lane, but tendou stops him. “hey, wait! i wanted to ask you something.”

eita’s careful as he bites down on his lip. “what is it?”

“your hair is neat!” tendou’s smile shows all his teeth, this time. “did you do it yourself?”

“oh.” eita reaches up subconsciously, fingering the darker tips. “yeah, last summer.” he probably needed to do it again, since he’d gotten his hair cut since then. though he’d really just been planning on growing it out, so that he wouldn’t have to mess with it for a while.

before tendou can say anything else, eita points to the track. “i’m. um. gonna go.”

“yeah yeah yeah.” tendou flaps his hand again and eita fights back a grimace. must be a habit or something. “thanks for letting me steal your time. i’ll let you get back to it.”

-

eita picks a different day of the week to show up for practice. the reason he gives isn’t anything special, but he was unwilling to admit the true reason was so that he could avoid the student council.

unfortunately it doesn’t matter.

he has his shoes off so he can balance his heel on his shoulder better, camped out on the grass a little further apart from the others moving about the field. once he feels like he can do it, he leans back and uses his hand to push his leg up by the ankle, until it’s extended all the way in the air. he sets his other hand back in the grass and breathes out, mentally counting down to when he could release.

“damn, you’re pretty flexible, huh?”

eita’s arm falters and his leg curls a little. he leans back to see around it, and his face goes carefully blank when he sees tendou satori standing there. he lets his leg drop fully, foot loud on the grass.

“what?”

“bet that’s good for all sorts of things,” tendou says, and eita frowns. he really needed to stretch his other leg, but like hell was he going to put himself on display for tendou to see, not after that comment. he moves his arm across his chest instead, looking straight ahead across the field.

“don’t you have other people to bother?” he says after he’s done with both arms, then promptly snaps his jaw shut, a little mortified. he hadn’t meant to say that. out loud.

tendou takes it in stride, laughing as he settles on the grass. “i’m just checking up,” he assures eita. “don’t have to go talk to everyone. i’m too busy today anyways.”

“then why me?” eita mutters, and if his ears are red then he can’t help it.

“you’re interesting.” eita frowns, glancing over at him. “no, really. i’m not being mean or anything. you just seem like a cool guy, semi-kun.”

“i’m pretty average,” he mumbles.

“yama says you’re good at your event.”

eita raises a brow and tendou rolls his eyes. “seriously? do you know anyone in your grade? yamagata hayato! he’s a mid-distance runner?”

“um.” eita turns away again. “uh.”

“semi! you ready or what?” someone shouts from across the field. eita takes the chance and climbs to his feet.

“gotta go,” he mutters. then he leaves tendou to sit there.

-

“waka!” a voice drawls out, and eita, who had bent down to retrieve a fallen object, jumps, ramming his head on the underside of his desk. he breathes out in pain, moving back to his knees, and his hand comes up to feel around his head.

“oh? semisemi, is that you?”

“what?” eita opens his eyes to squint, glancing to the open classroom door. tendou stood in front of it, one hand still on the handle.

“what are you doing on the ground, semisemi?” tendou moves fully into the near-empty room, hands in his pockets. eita drops his hand from his hair and slowly moves to his feet.

“that’s not my name,” he mutters, placing his pen back on his desk.

“oh, come now.” tendou waves his hand. “haven’t you ever heard of nicknames?”

“don’t people get those from their friends?”

tendou stumbles back for dramatics, holding a hand over his heart. “semisemi! you wound me. and here i thought we had something special.”

eita rolls his eyes and resumes packing up his bag.

“hey, have you seen waka around?”

“ushijima-san already left. no, i don’t know where.”

“oh. hum. too bad.” tendou’s eyes are still on him, curious, and he leans back against an empty desk. “you’re not in a rush to leave. no practice today?”

“not today,” eita answers, zipping his bag shut. it was actually one of his days off, since he’d been coerced into taking a day of rest during the week, so there wasn’t any self-practice, either. hm. actually, now that he thought about it, maybe he shouldn’t have said-

“then come do something with me!” tendou proclaims, and eita falters, missing he bag’s straps and dropping it down onto the chair instead. he forgets it momentarily to stare up at tendou, who doesn’t give him a moment to refuse or reconsider. “i have to gain that friendship status if i want nickname rights, right? don’t suddenly tell me you have stuff to do, either! even if you do, well, i’ll just come with you! moral support! the works!”

he truthfully only caught about half of that, and that was enough for a headache to develop. eita frowns and picks up his bag proper. “i don’t have anything to do,” he mumbles. “but-”

“so it’s settled!”

“don’t you have student council things to take care of?”

“already done!” tendou kicks off the ground to sit fully on the desk, swinging his legs in the air. “i was gonna grab waka, but this works better! c’mon, semisemi, we’ll do anything you want. it’s your off day, so you can treat yourself, right? let’s go get ice cream! i’ll buy you some taiyaki! can’t go wrong with kakigori!”

“why are they all food related?” eita mutters, then shakes his head. “fine, okay. we can go.”

“yes!” tendou jumps from the desk and raises his arms high. the next moment he’s dragging eita from the classroom and down the hall. “oh this is gonna be so much fun. there’s a combini not far from here me and waka hit up sometimes, they have the cutest cashier, you’ll love it, i swear.”

eita pulls his phone out on the outskirts of school grounds, sending a quick message to his mom that he’d be home later than usual. tendou catches on and stops talking, trailing back from where he’s ahead of eita to look down at the phone.

“who’s that?”

“my mom?” eita snaps the phone shut and stuffs it in a pocket. “i’m usually home by now on fridays, so.”

“you don’t live in the dorms?” eita shakes his head and tendou hums, leaning his head back with one hand under his chin. “come to think of it, i’ve never seen you around. still, i didn’t think we had any commuters at shiratorizawa.”

“home isn’t far,” eita mutters. “school is already expensive as is.”

“you don’t have a sports scholarship?”

“it doesn’t cover it all,” eita admits. “really, it’s not that big a deal. can we talk about something else?”

tendou loops his arm through eita’s own. “sure thing, semisemi!” he gets dragged up a set of steps, then automatic doors open for a rush of cold air to greet them. “here’s the place i was talking about. taka-chan! hi!”

eita looks over to see the girl behind the register wave at them, a slightly exasperated smile on her face. he’s tugged over to the freezer before he can contemplate that.

they sit against the railings outside the store while they eat so they can catch the shade. it’s not bad. tendou had paid for his melon ice, and it was amazing to watch him tackle his own double popsicle, insisting he could finish both.

eita ends up finishing first, and in the end they start moving before tendou has a chance to toss his second popsicle stick. they trail up the road and tendou starts whining when he’s halfway done, complaining of a stomachache.

“gari-gari-kun would be disappointed,” eita drones, as he watches melted blue spill onto the sidewalk. tendou whines louder and eita hides a snort with both hands, turning his head away.

“so mean to me, semisemi. won’t even help me finish.”

“you took on that challenge all on your own. leave me out of it.”

“mmmm, i guess.” tendou sighs and drops the hand with the now-empty stick to his side. his fingers are all sticky. “hey, where are we going?”

eita perks up. “you have to go back, right? i was-”

“yeah,” tendou drawls, cutting eita off. “but not now. being there is so stifling sometimes. plus, i’ll have to work when i get back!”

eita raises a brow. “i thought you said you already finished?” tendou turns away and his lips curl up. “or is this you running away?”

“it’s n-” tendou cuts himself off, face suddenly as red as his hair. “not,” he mutters, quieter. “maybe,” he finishes.

“the vice president, skipping out on his duties.” eita shakes his head. “what will people think?”

“nothing if you don’t tell them,” tendou bites, moving closer and raising his sticky hands. “got it, semisemi?”

eita moves back, shuddering. “don’t you dare.”

“i bought you ice cream.”

“i took you off campus.”

“i made your day more exciting!” tendou winks and eita rolls his eyes.

“i’m indulging you.”

“yeah, you are.” tendou steps back. “let me walk you home.”

“huh?”

“you have to go back, right?” he says, echoing eita’s earlier words. “i’ll take you there. don’t worry, i’m good with directions, and i have waka on speed-dial if i get lost.”

eita blinks. “if you’re trying to be convincing you’re doing a terrible job. what’s in it for me?”

“getting to bring a friend home to your mom?”

eita crosses his arms over his chest. tendou tries again.

“helping a friend shirk his responsibilities for a little longer?”

“mhmm.”

“semisemi, please! i’m begging you!” he falls to the ground. “i’m on my knees!”

eita, unable to contain his act any longer, bursts into laughter. tendou’s expression breaks as he realizes he’s being messed with, and he reaches forward with his hands again. eita jumps back, laughing harder, a little more panicked now. tendou stumbles to his feet and eita runs off, not surprised that the other follows.

“i have long legs, semisemi!” tendou calls.

“if you think that means you can outrun me, that’s a bad call,” eita answers, speeding up around a corner. he spins on his heel to break and presses himself to the concrete wall, watching with baited breath as tendou appears and moves right past him, then pauses several paces away, confused.

“this is my street,” eita admits, and tendou whips around. eita points ahead. “we just go all the way down, then take a left. easy, right?”

“oh.” tendou stops, panting from the exertion. “easy,” he echoes. “sure.” he swallows, regaining some of his composure. “you can run really fast.”

eita raises a brow and tendou waves him off. “i know, i know. let’s just go already.”

-

there’s a practice meet with two other schools a week before midterms. perhaps because of this, shiratorizawa hosts, enabling their live-in student population the option of not having to travel while they were busy trying to cram for tests.

for eita, it didn’t really matter that much. he had always tested well. as long as he had the practical portions down, any sort of written exam wasn’t something he bothered himself with stressing over.

the rest of the team was another story. he discovers this when he walks into the clubroom on the day of the meet.

papers are strewn absolutely everywhere, enough so that he has a hard time walking around them all. about seven people are gathered around the low table in the corner, and the rest are laid out across the floor, each inhabiting their own space with textbooks, highlighters, notecards -the works. eita feels like he’s entered through a portal into another world. his presence doesn’t get much attention. those that do notice only offer a simple greeting before resuming their studying.

eita does his best to maneuver around it all and plant himself in front of his cubby, pushing his bag into the space and unbuttoning his summer uniform. he pulls on a loose shirt and ties his jacket to his waist, and only then does he bother addressing the room as a whole.

“y’know, there’s only an hour until we start,” he says, raising his voice just a little. it takes a moment for everyone to process, and then one more for the tumultuous effect to appear, people scrambling to their feet, the sound of books shutting audible as they raced to get out of their uniforms.

eita opts to leave the chaos behind, trailing from the room with his shoes in hand.

there’s already people at the field, but they all leave eita alone. he walks along the concrete until another path becomes unavoidable, then sits out of the way to put his shoes on, observing the surroundings as he does so.

the ones in green he thinks are datekogyo. he doesn’t know about the others -he hadn’t really asked, either. eita rolls onto the grass proper and moves himself into a more isolated corner of the hill, spreading his legs out in front of him.

“semi-san?”

“mm?” he pulls his head back to see a ginger in purple standing behind him. something about him is strangely familiar.

“mii-san is looking for you. said something about causing an uproar earlier.”

it takes a moment to click, and when it does eita resumes stretching with a snort. “their own fault,” he mutters. “where is she?”

“helping another school get settled.”

“that’s the captain for ya.” eita throws his arms over his head and locks his hands in a stretch. “okay, thanks for telling me. i’ll go see her in a minute.”

“taichi!” someone calls, and the shadow over eita disappears. he locks his knees and splays out sideways on the ground, twisting to stretch his midsection and hips at the same time.

mii’s long hair is already braided when he reaches her. she’s still in conversation, but pins him with a look that has him stiffen where he stands, waiting until she’s done. when she breaks away, it’s to a stab a finger to his chest that has eita reflexively moving back.

“i know you were trying to help, but have some tact next time, please.” she rolls her eyes as eita opens his mouth to protest. “some of them practically live in the clubroom right now. they’re stressed enough as is with midterms coming up. don’t make it worse.”

“got it,” he mutters.

“tai-kun grabbed you, right?”

eita raises his head, blinks. “the . . ginger?”

“oh.” mii covers a laugh with her hand and eita frowns. “i thought you had gotten better with names. kawanishi taichi. the first year in high jump? you saw him at tryouts, right?”

“isn’t he a mid?” eita remembers the face, now that he thinks about it. “his form was all stiff, though.”

“that’s what he’s trying today. i think they wanted him on a 300 too, but his field event happens at the same time, so it’s a no-go.” she shrugs, and a call of her name captures her attention. “anyway, i just wanted you to see him again. play nice with the first years today!”

-

short-distance events are the last of the running events this time -if you didn’t count relays, that is- so that gives eita plenty of time to warmup and then sit back and do whatever. it’s during some of this downtime that a loud call of his full name has him turning to attention, spying a burly man in dark green approaching.

eita points to himself in question and the man’s face lights up. “i thought so!” he calls, louder even as he’s far closer than last time. “it’s been- oh, right! introductions.” he holds out a hand. “i’m kamasaki yasushi! we ran against each other in-”

“middle school,” eita finishes, finally placing the face. “you’ve gotten taller. uh. a lot taller.”

kamasaki throws his head back and laughs, loud enough to attract unwanted attention. if eita hadn’t already been subjected to the whirlwind known as tendou satori, he might’ve been intimidated.

“word is you’ve gotten faster! can’t wait to see it in person.” he holds out a fist. “may the best man win.”

eita bumps it with his own, accepting the challenge. “sure thing.”

-

he ends up corralled into watching the mid-distance events, having nothing better to do at that point. one in particular catches his attention, and he squints down at the track as he spies familiar ginger hair.

“oh, taichi-kun?” reo, one of the particular people that had roped him into this activity, and the secondary vice captain of the team, reclines back in his seat in the stands. he moves his hands from behind his head to below his chin as he muses. “hmm. i think it’s just the 800 meter today. he should do pretty well. he’s loosened up since pre-season, at least. but if you want my opinion, haya-chan is beating out everyone today.”

eita must look as outwardly confused as he feels inside, because reo rocks forward to point over the railing, at another shiratorizawa athlete pacing near the starting line. “yamagata hayato. he’s a second-year like you.”

“i’ve heard of him,” eita mutters.

reo smirks, leaning back again. “well, guess that’s the bare minimum. his older brother, hayashi, has the school record for the 600 meter. he was outgoing when i was a first-year, got injured or something, so that’s about all i know. haya-chan’s real serious about running. he’s kinda like you, in that respect. though, he definitely has more social awareness.”

eita hunches further into his seat. “you don’t have to rub it in.”

reo laughs, reaching over to slap eita’s back. “i’m just messing with you! cheer up, kid.”

“hm.”

he can’t lie that he’s intrigued by yamagata, knowing he was the one tendou was always running to when he showed for practice. but as the first heat lines up, his attention diverts to kawanishi.

eita doesn’t really . . mid-distance events were fine, but it still took a minute for the results. it wasn’t like watching short-distance, way less engaging, but it was at least more entertaining than watching the mile-runners.

eita’s interest dips after the first several seconds, and he feels his eyes wander over the gathered crowd in the stands. he’s not sure who he’s looking for, among all the students that had come out perhaps for a break from studying, but he doesn’t find them before there’s a swell in noise that has him facing the track again, watching several runners enter the last lap.

kawanishi taichi’s form really has loosened, but he’s not sure that’s a good thing. he seems more lanky in his movements now, and while his long legs made up for it, the dip in speed was still noticeable.

he ends up crossing the finish line in third. it’s close, but there’s still another heat, so eita has doubts about him placing.

“not bad,” reo mumbles, leaned on the railing. he crosses his arms over each other and looks over at eita. “for someone new at it.”

“good point,” eita answers. he watches as yamagata moves to clap his junior on the back, taking his place in the same lane. eita can’t tell -he thinks kawanishi looks off-put. whether it’s from the results or yamagata’s reassurance is up in the air.

“i think haya-chan is really gunning for ishikawa this year,” reo notes.

eita blinks. “ishi- what’s there?”

“nationals.”

eita frowns. “there hasn’t been a confirmed location yet.”

reo rolls his eyes. “my god, you and mii are both the same. it’s between ishikawa and ibaraki. and ishikawa is further to travel to, so why not get my hopes up for it?”

“but we went to the west coast last year.”

“ishikawa is twice as long a trip as ibaraki,” reo argues, holding up two fingers and moving them apart to illustrate his point.

“i think you need to get out more,” semi says, before the other can begin a tirade he really doesn’t want to hear.

“all i’m saying is-”

the starting shot interrupts reo, and they both turn to watch as the second heat takes off. yamagata instantly pulls a lead, but he’s pacing himself, because it doesn’t last, two people on his heels once they’re out of the first bend. eita loses interest on the second straight, but reo’s narration keeps him entertained enough to keep his eyes from wandering.

“see how they’re dropping off now? but watch haya-chan. he’s not speeding up or slowing down -it’s all been the same pace since the beginning.”

he was right. lap two comes around, and everyone besides yamagata was beginning to stagger, losing form or speed as they tried to push themselves, or recover from an earlier stint. he comes around the final bend several paces ahead of the rest, and in the final stretch pushes off into a dead sprint, easily placing first.

“wow,” eita mutters, as he lets reo stand and wrap an arm around his neck and shout in celebration. the crowd goes crazy and then settles as the results are compiled, and reo releases eita to stretch his arms above his head.

“alright, time for me to go.”

“good luck out there,” eita tells him, and he tosses him a thumbs-up in return before running off.

-

eita is on the infield, spread-eagle, when it finally gets dark enough to switch on the stadium floodlights. he takes it in stride, eyeing the setting sun, and is grateful that there was no school the following day.

“must be nice to have a two minute walk home,” he mutters to himself, thinking about everyone that lived on campus.

“there you are, semi! ready to go?”

he looks up from his legs to see the head coach ambling over. he can’t make out his eyes underneath the shade of the hat he wore, but his lips were pulled into a low grin, and that was enough to go on.

“ready,” he replies. “you sticking around to watch?”

“well, i’ll see what happens. there are a few things going on that i’ll have my eye on.”

eita nods, bending his legs so the bottoms of his feet press together. his shoes are in the grass to the side. coach eyes them for a moment.

“you got taiju’s old spikes, right? thought about trying them out yet?”

eita hums. “maybe. i don’t know. that seems like a big change to make.” he relaxes his legs, sitting up properly. “what i do now works.”

coach shrugs. “just a thought. you do what you want.” his pocket buzzes and he pulls out his phone. “hm. gotta run. i’ll find you again later, alright?”

“yeah.” eita waves him off, settling back to pull on his shoes and tighten the laces.

there’s only one heat for the 100m, and it supercharges eita, knowing he didn’t get the chance to instantly know results like this very often. kamasaki catches his eye from the far lane, but eita only distractedly nods at him, already slipping into hyper-focus mode. his record for the new term was 6.1s. as long as he aimed for that, he was golden.

he presses his fingerpads onto the track, looking up from them to eye the finish line. in, and out.

the breeze ruffles his hair, but he’s never let his bangs grow long enough to fall into his eyes. everything he does prepares him to run. every inconvenience considered.

his toes curl in his shoes, and very briefly, he wonders what a little more traction would feel like.

then the signal fires, and all his wonders disappear, taken up by one single focus.

he breaks easy three steps after the line, one foot in front of the other, and takes a moment to breathe. then he looks up to the scoreboard, not a moment too late, results flickering into the screen.

6.12 seconds. that was his time. second place was in the nines, and everyone else fell from there.

eita breathes out again, lifting his hands to rest on his head. that was the best he’d ever done, and it was for a practice meet.

“god, semi, they really weren’t kidding with saying you got faster!”

eita snaps out of it as kamasaki approaches. he didn’t catch the first part, but context wasn’t needed as he continues, so eita forgets about it.

“six seconds? that’s almost unbelievable, man.” kamasaki shakes his head. “here i was, thinking my height gave me an edge. you sure proved me wrong.”

eita glances at the scores again, confirming kamasaki’s time was second. “yours is still good,” he says, and kamasaki wrinkles his nose, so he presses on. “no, really. it’s not pity. that’s a top time in miyagi for sure.”

kamasaki laughs, but it’s awkward. his hand lands on eita’s shoulder. “well, thanks. good job today. it’s hard to believe we’re the same age.”

a roar from the crowd leaves them both distracted, and eita angles his head to the side of the field. “what’s that?” he mutters.

“i think high jump is still going on,” kamasaki confesses. “or maybe it’s triple. listen, i gotta run, i’m in a relay event soon. it was good to see you!” he pounds a fist to his chest. “next time i won’t lose!”

eita watches him go, replaying their conversation in his head as something catches his attention. he only realizes it was the comment about height, the same thing tendou had said to him, when mii comes up from behind and pokes at the backs of his knees, leaving him stumbling forward.

“sorry i missed it, but hey, that time speaks for itself,” she says, laughing off his annoyed expression. “seriously, how are you a highschooler? that much dedication should be illegal.”

“you really sure you wanna say that, captain?” eita quips.

she raises her hands in surrender. “hey, all i’m saying is that there are limits. you better do well on midterms, alright, or coach will have my head. even if you’re not here full-time, you’re still my responsibility as part of the team.” she hums, prying off her headband and smoothing back her hair so she can readjust it. “oh yeah, satori was looking for you earlier.”

eita perks up. “tendou?”

“don’t know what the vice pres wants, but he seemed pretty adamant about it, so i thought i’d warn you.” she jerks a thumb over her shoulder. “he should be near that way somewhere. well, field events are over now, so maybe now. worth a shot though.” she shrugs. “relay is starting, so i’m off. come watch if you have time!”

“good luck,” eita calls, moving away as well.

even with the swell in people, it’s not hard to spot tendou. ushijima is with him, but upon noticing eita, tendou breaks away to meet him, waving wildly.

“semisemi! i can’t believe you were competing- listen, this event we were watching was crazy! that first year you got has some serious talent.”

eita, confused, tips his head. “elaborate.”

“high jump! kawanishi-kun! yama made us watch, and wow, i’m glad he did. oh, did you see yama run? he’s pretty amazing, right? that’s really what i came for, but yama promised kawanishi-kun he’d watch his event, and then we got roped into it, and now the sun isn’t out anymore, but y’know, no school tomorrow, so it’s cool-”

“tendou,” eita interrupts, watching the other’s jaw snap shut. “mii-san said you needed me.”

“mayu? oh right! come with me!” tendou takes him by the arm and drags him forward, until they’re near ushijima again. “waka! look! i found him!”

“it was more like i found you,” eita mutters, but it goes unnoticed.

“hello, semi-kun,”ushijima says. eita nods back. “i look forward to working with you.”

“what?” eita stumbles, caught off-guard.

ushijima hums, taking his reaction in stride, then turns to tendou. “satori, you didn’t tell him yet, did you?”

tendou waves him off. “not yet, waka, geez, way to jump the gun. where’s yama?”

“with his junior.”

“oh fine then, forget about him. hey, semisemi, listen.” he turns to grab eita by both shoulders, and eita, shocked, lets it happen. “i need a favor.”

his lips downturn, slightly. “w-what?”

“be on our relay team for sports day.”

“huh?” eita deadpans, mentally tracking the dates. “but that’s weeks away!”

“it’s on june fifth,” ushijima supplies, and eita’s eyes fall shut.

“and student council’s already planned it,” he realizes. “why me, exactly?”

“we need a fourth person!” tendou finally releases him, stepping back. “and you’re perfect! no matter how far behind we are, if we put you as the last leg, it’s a guaranteed win! at least, that’s what yama said,” he finishes, trailing off and losing some of his energy with the last bit.

eita’s brows rise. “you have no idea, do you?”

tendou snaps his fingers. “relay runner. right? that’s why yama-”

“those are going on now.”

tendou falters, but he regains his energy in a heartbeat. “please be on our team!” he holds a thumbs-up and eita’s arms cross over his chest.

“if it’s that important to you, i suppose i can consider.”

“you’re messing with me again, aren’t you?” tendou mutters, turning his hand so it’s a thumbs-down.

eita snorts. “who plans out stuff this far in advance?”

“me! it’s literally my job!”

“oh, right.”

tendou sighs, turning to ushijima and slowly shaking his head.

eita shrugs. “well, if that’s all you-”

“wait, wait!” tendou yells, stopping up. “it’s late. come eat with us.”

“i can’t leave until this is all over,” eita admits, a little touched by the invite.

“then i’ll bring you something. you must be starved from being out here so long. here, give me your line.”

eita feels strangely coerced, as he enters his line info into tendou’s phone, but he doesn’t mind, either. his own phone was still sitting in his jacket, out on the field. he should probably go grab it.

“just sit somewhere i can reach you,” tendou tells him, and eita assures him he would, waving the two off. he could at least get his jacket before retreating to the outskirts again. it was cold, even for may. and tendou was right -he was hungry. even if he went home to a hot meal waiting, it would still have to be after everything was wrapped up here, and that would take time.

it was. nice. for him to bring eita something. to go out of his way like that.

he’d never had a friend quite like that before.

-

miracleboy. what can you even eat??? waka is being unhelpful miracleboy. theres fruit miracleboy. you want an apple? miracleboy. oh wait miracleboy. [photo attached]

eita is reclined on a higher part of the hill, having a better view of the entire track from up here. he’s distracted from relays by tendou’s incessant messages, but he doesn’t mind, smiling and rolling his eyes each time his phone chimes.

semieita the muffins look good

miracleboy. noted! ill grab a couple

semieita thanks

miracleboy. yama says hi, btw miracleboy. [photo attached]

eita squints up at his phone, opening the attachment to see a blurry picture of yamagata hayato halfway forming a peace sign. the background is obviously the school cafeteria.

semieita odd, since he’s supposed to be here

miracleboy. hes “““lost””” rn semisemi miracleboy. b back before it ends

semieita right. sure. got it. whatever you say

miracleboy. how can you b that sarcastic thru text

“semi-san?”

eita looks up from his phone to find kawanishi taichi hiking up closer, hands stuffed into his jacket pockets. he drops his phone to his chest, sitting up a little more.

kawanishi stops short, looking ruffled. “have you seen yamagata-san around?”

“no,” eita says, perhaps a little too quickly. “but i can help, if you need something,” he tries, trying to smooth it over. “you’re kawanishi, right?”

“you can just call me taichi,” he mutters, face turned to the ground.

“taichi-kun, then.” eita blinks, as taichi stays like that. his phone buzzes and he pockets it, moving to properly sit up. “everything okay?”

“uh, yeah.” taichi shrugs. “sorry. i’m just a little lost.”

eita gestures to the grass and, after a moment, taichi sits down. “i saw your event,” he starts. this gains taichi’s attention, and he finally looks up again. “not the main one,” eita clarifies. “the 800. you did pretty well, for your first time.”

taichi’s lips quick up, turning wry. “not really my strong suit, huh? you should’ve seen my field event.”

“next time,” eita promises.

taichi perks up a little more. “really?”

“as long as they don’t overlap again.” he nods, committing before he can back out.

“i’d like that,” taichi admits. “and, um, you were really amazing today! i’ve never seen someone that fast in person.”

eita blinks, and then it all hits him, and he can’t believe he didn’t realize sooner. the bashfulness, the quiet, the wanting, the praise -kawanishi taichi, to a certain extent, looked up to eita.

it’s the first moment being an upperclassman has really hit him, really set in. he doesn’t know what to do with this information. actually, he has an idea, but he thinks trying to ruffle taichi’s hair would be too much.

“’in person’ is an interesting distinction to make.”

“well, i mean.” taichi turns his head to the side. “i’ve seen the olympics,” he mutters.

eita can’t help the laugh that tears from his throat. taichi doesn’t seem to mind. he wants to say something, eita can tell, but before he can eita’s phone starts going off, and he pries it from his pocket.

it’s tendou, calling. “what?” he answers.

“semisemi, thank god! i thought someone got you! how could you just not reply like that?”

eita’s smile is easy on his lips. “i was busy.”

“well, get un-busy! i need to know where you are.”

eita rolls his eyes and relays his location, then glances down at taichi. “hey, is yamagata sneaking back with you? tell him he forgot something.”

“shhh, semisemi, secret, remember? and forgot wha-”

there’s noise on the other end, muffled, though eita makes out a tai-chan in the midst.

“noted,” tendou eventually says. “see you soon. don’t move or anything! you’re a lot harder to find than i am!”

eita hangs up and tosses the phone into the grass next to his feet. “alright, kid, you’re all set. wanna wait here?” he points down to the field. “or you can join the party down there.”

literal, as all the members of the shiratorizawa boys 4x400m relay are dog-piled by their peers and then lifted into the air. the victory shouts reach all the way up here.

“oh, nao’s in there,” taichi says, mostly to himself. eita smiles and leans forward.

“go see him, then. yamagata will find you soon enough.”

“okay.” taichi stands, moves down a few feet, then turns back. “thanks, semi-san.”

eita waves him down.

-

“one delivery for semisemi!”

eita leans his head back to see tendou sliding down from over the incline. he presents a package made from a wrapped napkin that eita reaches up to carefully take.

inside are two mixed-berry muffins, each just smaller than his fist, and a handful of ocean crackers. there’s warmth coming from the muffins.

“thanks,” he says, while tendou takes a seat next to him, spreading his lanky limbs across the grass.

“no problem. oh hey, mayu’s race is starting!”

eita turns to the field with one of the muffins in hand, biting into it. he squints when he makes out the girls dressed in purple. “which one’s she?”

“there!” tendou points to the leadoff, and when she turns to address the others, her braid flies over her shoulder. eita hums.

“mii-san?” that would make this the 4x100m, and the last race of the night.

“yep. man, i’m glad i caught it, since she asked me to stay. would’ve had to ask someone for the results otherwise, and that’s a whole hassle, y’know?”

eita stuffs some of the crackers past his lips. “you mean, to make it seem like you watched?”

tendou winces, then turns hard to face him. “listen, semisemi, do you have any idea what mayu is like when she’s mad?”

“a little,” eita answers, recalling earlier that afternoon. he shivers, suddenly understanding. “good point.”

mayu. something about that bugged him. and, hadn’t she called him satori, earlier?

eita finishes the first muffin and glances over at tendou, finding him completely transfixed as all the relay runners get into position. well, if he came to that conclusion, it was understandable, right? it made sense, right?

eita finishes his food, and the girls win their race, and the two of them pick their way back down to solid ground as the commotion settles. eita hangs back a step or two behind tendou as he moves easily across a corner of the field and onto the track. “mayu!” he calls, gaining the track team captain’s attention with ease.

“satori!” she calls back, and then she’s swept up into a hug. “you actually stuck around!”

“you were amazing! are you like that every time? why aren’t you on top of the world yet?”

mii blushes at this, pushing him away. “that’s too much,” she says, and tendou backs off with a laugh.

“nice one, captain,” eita chimes in, and mii looks over at him, her eyes lighting up.

“semi!” she folds him into a hug, too, probably still high off the euphoria. “i know you’re glad this is all over. thanks for sticking around.”

“no problem,” he wheezes, and she releases him with a laugh that breaks into a thoughtful look.

“hey, how are you getting home? it’s so dark out now.”

eita shrugs. “i’ll-”

“you still have your bike, right?” she asks tendou. “why don’t you take him?”

“oho!” tendou claps his hands together. “i like the way you think, mayu. i even know the way,” he sings, dragging the last word out.

“don’t i get a say?” eita asks, disgruntled.

“nope!” both of them reply in sync, smiling at him.

“just tag along with this guy a little longer,” mii orders, pointing to tendou. “for my peace of mind.”

“i’ll have to go grab my bike,” tendou notes, and mii shrugs.

“you can go now. just meet semi at the clubroom.”

“isn’t there a meeting soon?” eita asks, gesturing to everyone around them packing up.

mii shakes her head. “yes and no. it’s not important. i’ll tell them you went home early. just remember there’s no practice next week.”

“sure i won’t miss anything?”

“i’ll message satori if it’s important.”

“why do i feel like you’re trying to get rid of me?”

“nah.” she flaps her hand, gesturing for him to go away. “you’re imagining it. try not to move anyone’s stuff around when you grab your things, okay, or i’ll have to kill you to appease the masses.”

that certainly explained away the ulterior motive. “sleeping there is unhealthy,” eita calls, once he’s further away.

“some of us don’t test well like you do!” mii shouts back as she takes off her headband. she moves it over her thumb and uses it like a slingshot, firing at another third-year who screams in response.

eita leaves behind the track field’s happy atmosphere for one of his own making. he throws his button-up on over his shirt, letting it hang open, and trades his shorts for shiratorizawa’s standard slacks, knowing it was only bound to get colder.

tendou is waiting for him when he leaves, sitting easy on a bicycle, legs splayed on the ground on either side of the front wheel. he looks up and his smile grows when he sees eita. “all ready?”

“there’s not a stand on the back,” eita notes, hesitance growing as he approaches. “how are we doing this?”

“pegs!” tendou kicks back at one and eita nearly rolls his eyes to the back of his skull.

“that’s one solution, i guess,” he mutters as he climbs up, placing his hands on tendou’s shoulders for balance. tendou hums and kicks off, and eita hopes his biking skills aren’t as wild as the rest of him.

surprisingly, there are no incidents. eita is deposited on his doorstep in good care, and he waves at tendou until he can’t make him out anymore before going inside.

-

eita is cooling off in the shade from a day’s worth of events when tendou finally manages to find him and inform him of their latest plight.

“what?” his face scrunches up. “yamagata’s sick? is he skipping? how does that even happen?”

“yama just has the worst luck like that,” tendou whines, stomping his foot. “waka went to find us a replacement, but as far as i know he’s only planning to ask reon, and he’s already on a team with the other volleyball second-years. we might be outta luck here.”

eita shrugs, not really that disappointed by it, even as tendou resumes his whining. eventually he lets tendou pull him to his feet, and they re-join the festivities.

“oh, but i did enter you in the 50 meter,” tendou says, the only part of his never-ending rant that eita tunes in to listen to, and it has him braking, so that tendou is forced to pause when he refuses to release eita’s arm.

“what?”

“the race?” tendou frowns. “you have to race, eita. especially since the relay is off. i know it’s not far, but c’mon, running is your thing. you’ll love it.”

“i wish you would’ve asked before doing it,” eita mutters, still refusing to budge.

“aw, c’mon semisemi, do it for yama! think at how miserable he is, missing out on all this.”

“yeah, whatever, i’ll do it.” he looks down at his sneakers. “but i need my shoes if i’m doing this for real.”

tendou perks back up. “then let’s go!”

eita raises a brow. “to the other side of the school? ha ha, tendou. very funny.”

“if we’re careful we can go and be back before anyone notices.”

“and since when are you careful or tactful about anything?”

tendou winks. “you’d be surprised. plus, i have a fallback card. and if you’re with me, it applies to you too.”

“yeah?” he crosses his arms. “let’s hear it, then.”

“student council perks mean i can run around the school without anyone batting an eye. if someone asks i’ll make up an excuse.”

oh. that actually was a good point.

his thought must show on his face, because tendou grins, and he knows he’s yielded the argument with no further conversation necessary.

“this room is nice,” tendou notes, looking around as eita jerks his duffel from his cubby.

“‘s fine.” eita gives up on subtlety and kicks his sneakers off, then sits down on the ground to wrestle his socks off. he’d come grab them before practice.

he’s stretching several minutes before the all-out race was due to start when tendou asks the question he’d been pondering in the clubroom.

“hey, semisemi, so yama showed me this magazine article the other day, and it said all the pro trackletes never wear socks. so what about you? you switched from the school-issued ones, but the half-size you have on now are still a layer between you and the shoes.”

eita pauses, bent forward. “please never say trackletes again,” he says absently, gears turning in his mind as he looks down at his feet.

while tendou is blubbering about something he could care less about, eita rips one shoe off then pries the sock from his foot and wiggles his free toes. his gaze moves between them and the shoe. “i’ve never thought about that,” he admits, and tendou stops talking.

“the article said for some it was for comfort, that others could feel the ground better underfoot, or their shoe fit tighter without the added layer,” tendou adds slowly, watching as eita unties the laces and slips the shoe back on, barefoot.

he doesn’t quite frown, but his lips twist, once his foot is all the way in. he pulls on the laces a little, shifts his foot around. then he pulls tighter and ties a single knot, and stands.

“it’s weird,” he mumbles. “but not bad. it’s-” he sits back down and slips his other shoe off to repeat the process, and tendou hangs back and watches until he’s back on his feet, rocking back and forth on his heels.

“yeah, okay,” he starts, and then there’s a call for the race participants, and he bends down to pick up his socks and press them into tendou’s hands. “hold onto these for me.”

“what?” tendou cries. “you’re giving me-! semi!”

“hey, this was your idea!” eita calls, already heading off, bouncing every other step.

it’s not an all-out race, because there’s only so much space, so eita is delegated to waiting a while. he walks around in his shoes for a spell, getting used to the feeling.

50 meters was nothing. a perfect test, really.

and like that, the competition had, for eita, turned into an experiment.

-

“that didn’t feel too bad,” eita admits as he stuffs his socks in the pocket of his shorts. tendou cries out when he sees this.

“you could’ve done that from the beginning!”

eita shrugs. “consider it payback for entering me without permission.”

“yeah, whatever.” tendou slouches. “have fun at practice. i’ll be here, cleaning up.”

eita knocks at his shoulder. “thanks for the suggestion.”

“don’t get any blisters.”

“i’ll be careful.”

-

the first open track meet for miyagi prefecture is almost three weeks since eita started running sockless, and ten minutes to go to his event, he’s panicking.

a rewind is necessary, so in simple terms, this is what happened to cause the needless panic.

eita stretches. it’s hot. he pulls on his shoes, doing the laces up tight, but after a lap around the perimeter of the infield, his feet feel clammy, and in particular, his left shoe is loose. not enough to come off, not by far, but enough to where it matters, to where it’s an unnecessary distraction.

eita sits back down and undoes the knot, then pulls excessively tight on the laces to lock his foot into place.

and they snap.

-

“it’s over,” eita groans, lying with his hands over his face and his eyes closed to the harsh sunlight overhead. not that it mattered, because the combined shadows of mii and reo crouching over him blocked it out. they both share a look.

“yeah, that sucks,” reo starts, but he’s cut off abruptly -eita suspects it’s because of mii, mostly because he’s been on the end of her sharp elbows before.

“you still have time.” mii hums, pulling out her phone. “i wonder if concessions sells any as trinkets. would be worth a shot.” her voice trails off as she moves away, raising her phone to her ear. reo crouches down near eita’s head.

“you need new shoes?” he ponders. “maybe they’re too stretched out.”

“i can think about that after the meet is over,” eita mutters, removing his hands from his face. he opens his eyes to half-mast. “where did mii-san go? i don’t want to wallow anymore. she’s good at snapping people out of it.”

“well, sorry for not being good enough emotional support. she’s-”

“hey, semi, get up.” mii kicks at his foot -specifically, at the shoe with the broken laces. “i called satori. he’s at the edge of the field.”

“tendou?” eita mutters, leaning up on his elbows. “what’s he gonna do?”

“didn’t say. but you have five minutes, so i’d just go along with it.”

“maybe he’ll put me out of my misery,” eita sighs, leaning his head back and letting the rest of him go slack.

“four minutes and counting,” reo sings, and that’s enough to drive him to a stand, stumbling in the direction mii points to.

tendou is indeed waiting, just on the other side of the small fence separating the turf from the rest. when eita reaches him he immediately jumps it with zero regards to his inability to be there, then pulls eita down to the ground so they’re both out of the way.

“give me your shoe,” he demands, and eita tugs it off and tosses it over. with deft fingers, tendou removes the bright laces, mapping the path at he tugs them loose. then he pulls an old pair of white ones out and starts lacing them in the same pattern.

eita’s brow creases as he watches. “that was fast. how did you get spares out here?”

“they’re mine,” tendou says. “as in, from my kicks, now,” he elaborates, and eita blanches, looking down to tendou’s left shoe that was indeed laceless.

“what? why would you do that?” he sputters.

“you don’t have any time.” tendou shrugs. “you can give them back after your race, alright? here, i’m done.” he hands the shoe back and eita numbly slips it back on, doing the laces up tight until everything is snug.

“thank you,” eita mumbles, nearly at a loss for words. tendou helps him to his feet and claps him on the shoulder.

“if you don’t win with my laces, i might have to fine you,” he jokes. eita rolls his eyes, the numb spell officially broken as he shakes off tendou’s hand.

maybe he’s still frazzled, or maybe he’s not quite used to the new style just yet, because eita’s time is less-than-impressive, for his standards. he clocks in at just under seven seconds, which is more than enough to place him at first, but there’s a lack of self satisfaction from it.

“time for new shoes,” one of the assistant coaches suggests, when he tries to explain this. “shame about the laces. i don’t think you’ve gotten slower with no socks, so if you like it, keep doing it. you’ve got one month until the qualifier, so there’s time to figure out what you do and don’t like.”

that was pretty solid advice, actually. another of the short-distance coaches makes a note about modifying his regimen if he had to break in new shoes, and it leaves eita strangely touched.

he finds tendou nearly in the same spot he’d left him in, back on the correct side of the fence but leaned so far over it that it almost didn’t matter. he grins as he catches eita’s eye, and eita knows that this time, he’d caught his event as it happened.

this time it’s eita that climbs over to settle on the concrete on the other side of the barrier. tendou slides down until he’s sat beside eita, accepting his laces back when they’re finally pulled free. he’s doing them up in his own shoe again when he finally bothers to speak.

“wanna go shopping for more?”

“you seem like the last person i should go get shoelaces with,” eita say before he can help himself. tendou throws back his head and laughs.

“why not? we could get some cool ones. like in neon colors, or stripes, or words, or-”

eita breathes out in annoyance and tendou breaks off as he catches the tail-end of a mock-deadpan expression that conveys this was the exact reason he was hesitant to take tendou along. then he’s turning the other way to hide a smile, a brief upturn of the corners of his lips, and tendou reaches out to jab him in the side, causing eita to squeak.

“wanna go later?” tendou offers. “not like you’re tired or anything. you only have one race, right?”

eita shakes his head. “yeah, but. tomorrow. tomorrow,” he promises, and tendou settles back.

“no backing out now, semisemi.”

“don’t make me regret this.”

-

there’s no school the next day, so eita and tendou meet up at the shopping district in the early afternoon. the first sporting goods store they wander into is small, and it doesn’t take long for them to be the only ones occupying the space.

eita pulls off four boxes from the shelves from the same brand as his current track shoes and drops them to the floor next to a bench. tendou leans over and pries the tip of one of the lids up, whistling when he sees the style.

unfortunately, the pair he really liked end up being one of two eita near immediately nix as he removes them from the box, not even bothering to try them on as he finds faults with closer examination that he couldn’t live with.

“shut up, tendou!” he snaps as the other’s whining becomes intolerable. “i practically have to live in these shoes! they need to be perfect, or as close as possible.”

eventually it gets to the point where eita wonders why he’d invited tendou in the first place, and banishes the other to another section of the store. that only meant he’d have to deal with having replacement shoelaces forced onto him later, but he was willing if it meant getting through this part quietly.

he puts one shoe from the remaining pairs on each foot and gently kicks the ground with his heel. it felt weird to try on shoes without socks, but if he was going to be wearing them like this anyway, it was the only good way to test them out.

after walking around some eita finds a frown forming on his face. there was only one thing he needed to see about, and he couldn’t-

wait.

“hey, tendou,” he calls, and after a moment, the redhead appears from behind a shelf, expression suggesting he was still sulking. “are we still the only customers?”

“yeah. staff is in the back, too, so-” he breaks off, blinking, and then grins. “what are you planning?”

“i need a straight shot,” he confesses. “twenty meters or so.”

“if you’re at the back wall you could run down the center aisle.” tendou rocks back on his heels, thinking. “you should hit twenty before the door. let me see if anything’s in the way.”

technically there weren’t any other customers to disturb, but eita is silently grateful none of the staff was around to catch them, knowing it would be something they’d disapprove of.

with tendou’s help they clear a path and eita leans one foot against the back wall, eyeing the distance. the store wasn’t big, but he’d brake well before the door.

he crouches down, lets his fingers run over the smooth flooring.

then he rockets off, near full speed, and his teeth are clenched by the time he’s stopped. tendou moves forward, humming in approval.

“that’s not a good sign,” he says, as eita tugs the left shoe off.

“no, it is. it’s this one.” he vaguely points to the shoe on his right foot. “this one’s good.”

“as close to perfect as possible,” tendou quotes, nodding. he trails eita as he wanders back to retrieve the box, and the other shoe to the pair. “except the laces are white, so you need better ones.”

eita rolls his eyes, but he’s still in front of tendou, so it’s purely for his own satisfaction. “they are a little short,” he mentions, and that’s enough to have tendou running off again.

in the end he ends up with the shoes, a lavender pair of laces (“because school colors, semisemi!” tendou had insisted) and a black pair of spares. he’s smiling when they exit the store, and tendou notices, nudging him with his shoulder.

“well that was fun!”

“nope,” eita argues, but there’s no heat to it, and he’s still smiling, so tendou reads it as a joke right away.

-

before the end of the month, eita is coerced into seeing a volleyball game. he has better things to do -like break in the shoes- and doesn’t really know anything about volleyball -and would rather break in the shoes- and wants to focus on other things -like the sho

but tendou tells him he could run to school and back home, and that’s enough to make eita show up at the gymnasium that evening, looking a little lost among the teems of people that had showed up for a mere practice match.

“no one has anything better to do,” tendou tells him, leading him over to a few free spaces in the stands. eita recognizes oohira from 2-B when he turns to address tendou, having heard the remark.

“it’s pre-exam jitters. people will take any chance they get to focus on something that isn’t academic related.” he nods to eita from tendou’s other side. “hey, semi.”

eita nods back, gaze falling to the court. “ushijima-san. is he any good?”

oohira coughs, trying to be polite, but tendou has no problem in throwing his head back and cackling, and eita leans away, frowning as he realizes he’s asked a stupid question.

“waka’s on another level,” tendou tells him, once he’s calmed down. “well, all of our sports teams are top-tier, and volleyball is no exception. just watch. you’ll see.”

eita sees.

shiratorizawa destroys their opponent in the first set 25-14. ushijima ends it with a spike into the court so hard eita feels his teeth chatter. if anyone had gone for that, their arms would’ve come off, for sure.

they’re switching sides for the second set when a shuffling occurs further down the stands, and suddenly oohira is being pushed over, causing tendou to suddenly very much be in eita’s space. “what-”

“sorry i’m late,” the newcomer says, peeking out from behind oohira’s bulk. “i couldn’t find my phone.”

“yama!” tendou exclaims. “it’s about time!”

“you always have the same excuse,” oohira notes.

“because it’s true,” yamagata protests. “it keeps happening to me! i must’ve rolled some bad luck at new years, because this didn’t happen at all last year.”

“he’s very forgetful, semisemi,” tendou turns to tell him, holding one hand over the side of his mouth.

yamagata perks up as he catches the words. “semi’s here?” he leans more around oohira.

“oh, right! you two don’t really know each other, huh?” tendou slings an arm around eita, ignoring his grunt of protest. “yama, this is semi eita! semi, this is yamagata. you’re in the same club. if you bothered to show up more than twice a week you might’ve had-” he breaks off to gasp “-a real conversation before all this!”

“it’s not like i’m skipping,” eita protests, brows furrowed. he waves distractedly to yamagata, who returns it after shaking a look with oohira. “i just get more done by myself.”

“that sounds like a motto you shouldn’t strive for,” tendou points out, and eita finally escapes from his hold as the whistle to start the second set sounds.

yamagata snorts. “well, semi’s leagues better than the rest of us. the coaches are practically fast-tracking him for the all-youth.”

eita blinks, attention ripped from the match, and he has to physically turn his head to look down toward yamagata. “what?”

yamagata glances over, sees eita’s expression, and then turns to him properly. “yeah, the under-eighteen reps? wakatoshi’s one of them too.”

“they’ve said that?” eita asks, a little stunned.

he shrugs. “no, but it’s implied. they’re helping you with individual training. it’s like singling you out of the group. no one on the team can deny that you’d be the one deserving of special attention. i mean, did you see your time at the practice meet? impressive doesn’t cut it.”

“you’re over-exaggerating,” eita mumbles, barely audible over the roar of the crowd as shiratorizawa earns another point.

“they could be prepping you for worlds,” yamagata muses. “never can tell what coach is thinking.”

“wait wait wait.” tendou throws his hands in the air. “you’re telling me semi is potentially qualified to compete internationally?”

yamagata shrugs, and there’s a pointed look in his eye. “you tell me. you saw him run last time.”

“i still think that’s a bit much,” eita protests.

“you wouldn’t want to?” yamagata smiles, and though it’s more along the lines of a leer, it’s sincere, too. “if they give you the chance, you should take it, semi. you’re good enough. everyone on the team knows that.”

those words stay with him through the rest of the match, and on his run home. everyone on the team. it wasn’t said with any sort of malice. and before, when he had talked about eita getting special attention, there wasn’t any jealousy coloring the words. the consensus was that eita was amazing, incredible, even, and everyone on the team respected that.

but he hadn’t thought. well. about that before. he knew he liked running. he knew he was good at it. but he’d never thought about competing outside the nationwide school system. much less globally. he’d never even considered it before.

and now that the seed is planted, he can’t deny that if he was given the chance, he’d probably take it.

that’s why he leaves early, just after the practice match ends in shiratorizawa’s victory. tendou is high off the win and anxious to tell ushijima so, but he stays back to see eita off, recognizing there was a lot on his mind and he wasn’t going to stick around.

“it wasn’t a complete waste of time,” eita ends up saying, and tendou sputters.

“just admit you had fun!”

“yeah, fine.” eita sighs, then smiles. “it was fun. thanks for inviting me. i’ll see you around.”

he leaves fully invested in internal thoughts, so tendou’s sudden blush goes completely unnoticed. well, to him.

“dude,” yamagata says, coming up behind tendou. he pokes tendou’s arm, making sure his friend is still alive. “you got it bad.”

if anything, tendou blushes harder, spinning on his heel to glare down at yamagata. “SHUT-

-

practice today is one of those longer exercises that cover the entire team, and they’re free to leave after they finish. after dismissing everyone to get to it, one of the mid-distance coaches calls out to eita, stopping him before he can begin.

“how are the shoes?” he asks, and eita is a bit taken aback. “are they broken in?”

“for the most part,” he answers after a moment.

“well, take it at your own pace, then. wouldn’t want you getting blisters. it’s been pretty hot lately. usually when you stop running with socks one of the main things you look out for is making sure your feet stay dry. are those breathable enough?”

eita looks down at his shoes, then curves them in, feeling around. “they’re good. i’ve been washing them, too, but not too much. i’m worried they’ll lose shape.”

“start putting in powder and you’ll get away with washing less.” eita’s face screws up and he takes this into account. “not a lot. not enough to lose grip. just a little here and there. i have some in my bag if you ever want to try it out.”

“yeah, thanks.”

he notices, now. has ever since the volleyball match. the coaches do their best to accommodate him when he shows up for practice. they care about everyone, of course. he wouldn’t know for sure unless he hung around more, but he’s almost positive they looked out for all the athletes under their care. made sure they were doing well. checked in when they weren’t.

and yet, it’s different. when they give everyone the same set of exercises but tell eita he can change his to a certain extent, yeah, it’s noticeable. it’s not uncomfortable. he doesn’t mind. just merely an observation, one that makes yamagata’s words take root, that makes the gears in his mind start turning, start hoping.

maybe if i make a good impression at nationals again, it’ll open up more doors.

“no,” he mutters later, as he’s running. “i’m going to win nationals. that’ll open up more doors than i’ll know what to do with.”

“you’ve got some high ambitions.”

eita perks up, turning his head to see kawanishi taichi suddenly keeping stride with him. he slows a little to make it easier for the first-year, but it’s apparently unwelcome, because taichi’s lips twist into a light frown.

“you heard that,” eita states. taichi looks at him funny and eita rolls his eyes. “yeah, guess i was talking aloud. i don’t know. i think nationals last year in fukui has been the only real competition i’ve had since i came here.”

“that sounds depressing,” taichi answers, deadpan. eita snorts before he can catch himself, and slowly, taichi’s lips quirk up in response.

“and you?” eita asks, suddenly curious. “you’re the track star of your grade. what do you think of everything so far?”

taichi takes a minute to answer, but it’s worth it, because eita likes his response. the change to a mid-distance event. the challenge. being encouraged to push himself. having upperclassman around willing to help him where he needs it.

“i like it here,” he finishes.

“yeah,” eita echoes. “me too.”

“do you?” taichi shrugs when eita turns to look at him questioningly. “you just said there’s no real challenge. and you’re never here. i mean, you are, you are right now, but not a lot. not as much as you could be, if being around a support system was something you really cared about.”

“i think,” eita starts, after mulling it over, “that i like to do things my own way, and that takes priority. being here hasn’t changed that. but the experiences i’ve had with the team have changed things. changed me. everyone motivates me to do better, to be better. better at, like, normal things, not just running. i like shiratorizawa because everyone is at the top of their game, and yet everyone stays humble. like you. you’re amazing at your field event, and yet you’re trying a track event to experiment, even if it means getting lower results than you’re used to. you didn’t mention high jump at all when you talked about why you liked this place.

“so that’s why, even here in miyagi, every meet i’m so excited i can’t hardly stand it. i’m pushed to improve myself. even if it’s only me versus the clock, i still have so much fun. it’s supposed to be fun, in the end, right?” he smiles. “i’m glad i came to a school that makes running fun.”

taichi is quiet, but he still keeps pace with eita. it’s not until they’re almost done that he speaks again, expressing his desire for eita to see him compete again.

eita laughs, admiring his determination. “i said i would, right? if-”

“no,” taichi interrupts. “the mid-distance one. i wasn’t sure, before, because i’m still not nearly as good as i want to be. but.” he bites down on his lip. “but, after hearing all that, i realize it doesn’t really matter. i’m not going to be amazing right out of the gate, and i don’t care. i still want you to see me run.”

“then it’s a promise.” taichi looks over and eita smiles. “at the qualifier. work hard until then.”

-

tendou and yamagata exchange looks as eita rehashes his conversation with taichi the day before.

then yamagata’s look turns into a leer that tendou rolls his eyes at.

“semisemi, i’m not sure i’d call that admiration,” tendou says.

“huh?” eita looks up from his lunch, brows creased. “then what is it?”

“it’s-” yamagata is cut off with an elbow to his stomach, wheezing, and tendou takes control of the conversation again.

“don’t worry about it. kawanishi-kun will mention it when he wants to.”

eita hums, but doesn’t probe for further explanation.

-

exams come and go, but even as summer rears its head full-force, eita still finds himself venturing out to school.

it would still be a few days until regular practice resumed, so the only reason he had for being here was one tendou satori.

“waka’s family live on the outskirts of the city,” he explains to eita one afternoon, when they’re sprawled in the shade of one of the big trees in the front courtyard. he spreads his arms in the air. “big place. he’ll come back for volleyball, but being home is more important to his folks, so he makes a point to divide his time.

“yama’s mom lives alone with his younger sisters, so he goes home during breaks to help out. i think the girls would cry if their big brother decided not to come, so it’s always been an easy choice for him.

and my parents aren’t in miyagi, so it’s either i make the long haul home, or choose the easy option and stay here.” his nose wrinkles in quiet distaste. “i’d rather be alone here all summer than go back to that house.”

eita doesn’t know what all to think of that, but he doesn’t ask, either, not wanting to bother tendou. he seemed on the verge of being upset. better to not make it worse.

“well, i’m here.” he lolls his head to the side to stare at tendou. “i’ve got nothing going on. my parents are chill. if you get tired of campus you can stay over.”

tendou turns his head to look back. “and if i don’t?”

“i can keep coming back, just like this.” eita’s fingers twitch, ruffling the grass. he doesn’t move them further. “whenever you want.”

tendou grins. “that’s a dangerous game to play, semisemi.”

“well, i mean, if it’s absurd enough i can always say no.”

“damn. here’s me thinking sneaking you onto campus at four in the morning would be pretty awesome.”

“yeah, you’ll have to try something else. you wake me up in the middle of the night and i’ll have to contemplate killing you.”

“scary.”

“normal.”

“i’m telling you, that’s not a normal response.”

“and what would you know about normal?”

“hey.” tendou kicks out, landing a blow under eita’s knee, and he winces. in the next moment he’s kicking back, hard enough to bruise, and all tendou does is flop from his back onto his side, facing him, and start laughing.

“you said you had something to try,” tendou says later, when they’ve both calmed down.

“yeah. i’m thinking about putting spikes in,” eita admits.

“your shoes?” tendou sits up halfway, leaning on an elbow. “like yama has? the ones for better traction?”

“i got some at the start of first term,” eita mumbles, nodding. “really good ones. i’ve been debating using them. lots of people want me to try, so i think it’d be good to indulge them if they think i’ll like it. but at the same time . . i don’t know. i’m worried, i guess. about the change. being elevated like that, even if it’s less than a centimeter from the track -it makes me nervous. i like to be able to feel myself push off at every step. having spikes in means i’ll be sacrificing some of that.”

“you can always take them out,” tendou notes. “if you don’t like them.” he sits up fully. “let’s go now! no one’s on the track, so it’s perfect. the spikes are in your clubroom, right?” eita nods. “and you have the key, right?” another nod. tendou grins and pulls himself to his feet, then offers a hand to eita to do the same.

eita lets himself be hoisted up, and then tendou is physically dragging him across campus, until they’re in front of a battered door and eita is wrestling the key into the lock in his sudden excitement.

it takes a minute to put all the spikes in. they do it in the clubroom, even with the lack of air conditioning, because it meant being out of the hot sun for a bit. eita leaves barefoot when he’s ready, shoes swinging from one hand, and takes tendou out onto the track, climbing up the fence and then over the hill.

“no one is around to care,” eita says, as he sits down to throw the shoes on. “besides, even if they do, it’ll hurt your reputation more than mine.”

tendou places a hand over his heart. “ouch, semisemi.”

walking is weird, with the spikes, but walking wasn’t really the point. eita locks his knees and bends down to touch his toes, feeling the strain in his legs. “damn,” he mutters, realizing he wasn’t going to get away with not stretching properly. he kicks the shoes off and flops down on the track’s perimeter, bringing the bottom of his feet together and pressing down on his knees with his elbows. “give me a minute,” he throws over his shoulder.

but tendou isn’t there. it takes a second to realize he’s re-settled in front of eita, and even then, he’s still shocked when tendou reaches forward to grab his leg at the bend of his knee, pulling until it straightened out.

“lean back, semisemi,” tendou murmurs, moving his foot into the air. “i used to do this for waka all the time.”

eita doesn’t know what compels him, but he obeys, lying back on the grass. tendou rises to his knees and pushes eita’s leg until it’s in a deep stretch towards his chest. he tugs eita’s toes down and the entire leg twitches with the added effort.

tendou does his other leg after a spell, the exact same and then a couple extra, and then unceremoniously drops both legs to the ground. eita huffs in surprise as they land, and his eyes pop open. it’s not long until he’s glaring at tendou, even with their angle awkward for eye contact.

this time, when eita settles onto the track, he moves into a low start position. “count me off,” he mutters, and tendou moves to rest in the next lane, nodding.

“three.”

just to the forty. he could see the mark.

“two.”

or maybe the full 100, who was he kidding.

“one.”

actually, if this was a true test, shouldn’t he just go as far as possible? get a feel for it?

“go!”

eita is near the 80m mark before he slows, blinking down at the shoes. he jogs back over.

“well?” when he looks up tendou is bent forward, eager. “how was it?”

“dragging.” eita purses his lips. “it felt like i was digging into the track. but instead of being able to push off easier, it felt like i was getting stuck.”

“you probably have to get used to them.”

“i know. i just don’t like adjusting. i just like things to be good, y’know?”

“i hear ya.” tendou leans his chin against an open palm. “try again. this time go all the way down, then run back.”

they pass the better part of the afternoon like that, indulging eita’s whims. not that tendou seemed to mind. he even takes eita home, as they both realize the only pair of shoes he’d worn out now weren’t suitable to walk around the streets in. eita’s mom is certainly surprised, when she opens the door to find her son barefoot. she waves to tendou just before he leaves again.

“that was nice of him,” she mentions, while eita drops his track shoes in the entryway and explains away his earlier plight. when he stands again it’s in house slippers. “you have a good friend, eita.”

friend. eita wonders when exactly that had happened.

[infinitecrime]

Spoiler-free TFATWS Ep. 1 review:

A strong and promising set-up episode to reintroduce us to these characters and where they’re at now, with plenty of (sometimes a little clunky...) world building, beautiful cinematography and action sequences, and some really likable new characters. Grounded in reality but it still felt big and like everything could kick off at any time. I have some reservations about Sam’s writing so far but got everything I wanted from Bucky’s. 8/10

Spoiler-heavy review:

Plot/Writing:

No big issues with the plot; it was a set up episode so I wasn’t expecting any huge revelations. Everything was very well done.

Sam’s scenes were meant to show the mundane and realistic aspects of being a superhero and the struggles of post-blip life, but at times they felt a little too mundane and repetitive, particularly the bank stuff. I feel like something more substantial could have been done with Sarah to make that plotline more tense and add real stakes - her car getting towed, an eviction notice, a bailiff coming round, for example? We hear that they’re struggling, but we don’t really see it.

There were a couple of moments of exposition that were so clunky and forced that it really made them stand out, because the rest of the script was so smooth and natural. Particularly Torres explaining who the flag smashers were to Sam, Yori suddenly being reminded of his son, and then some of the lines in the loan scene.

The audience isn’t dumb; we can figure these things out for ourselves. For example, the line from Yori about his son could have been cut entirely because it was already obvious. Bucky seeing the photo in the shrine at the end should have been the reveal for anyone who hadn’t figured it out.

In prior movies we’ve had plenty of backstory for Bucky, but no personality, and plenty of personality for Sam, but no backstory. They needed to fill in those gaps in a way that didn’t have us drowning in constant angst with Bucky, or drowning in constant exposition with Sam. I think we were successful with Bucky because he had some light moments, but Sam’s scenes were just a bit too exposition heavy to feel quite natural. I’m forgiving them because it’s a set up episode, but they need to balance this better in the future.

Sam:

Loved Sam’s action scenes, his relationship with Torres, his interactions with members of the public, all the stuff at the Smithsonian with Rhodey, and his banter with his family. Anthony killed the Smithsonian speech scene and his chemistry with Sarah and Torres is great. But most of the reservations I have about this series after the first episode are about Sam’s scenes, even though I liked them overall.

His writing started very strong but then kind of... fizzled out up until the last 2 minutes? Despite Sam being arguably the most charismatic and likeable and emphatic characters in the MCU, his characterisation just didn’t really come across in the latter half, because he seemed a little too out of touch with what Sarah was going through. Having so many scenes of people hero-worshipping him in one short episode definitely didn’t help with this - we put him in a down to earth, everyman setting but didn’t really see him being that everyman that we know he is, especially when we compare him to Bucky who’s living largely incognito. If I had been a first time MCU viewer I would not have been endeared to him or really gotten what his character was about because it seemed a bit all over the place.

I think this could have been fixed by having a darker scene with his family that would have humbled him to the audience and given Anthony an opportunity to flex his range. Like visiting his parents graves, or being unable to connect with his nephew’s because he’s been gone so long they don’t recognise him, or assuring Sarah that everything’s going to be fine with money then looking at an empty bank account and panicking when she was out of the room. Without that scene it just felt like he was brushing Sarah’s reality and struggles off with an “eh, it’ll be fine!” attitude. We got some range from his character at the Smithsonian, but even that felt like it was more about the shield and the symbol than about Sam and Steve, because we weren’t told whether Steve is alive or dead or still in Sam’s life, so we don’t really know what Sam is feeling.

I’m hoping now that the character set up is done and the fight for the shield gets going, this will get better.

Also, while Sam's opening sequence was awesome and really showed the capabilities of the wings and Red Wing and Sam himself, it felt ever so slightly too OP on the tech front. Unless Redwing has semi-sentient AI like Jarvis the way it works is just too unbelievable, and the wings also seemed to be semi-sentient or controlled by his brain somehow? I think they need to figure out exactly how his tech works because right now we’re leaning into ‘magic wings’ territory. 

Bucky:

I love that Sam has been trying to reach out to him as mentioned by the therapist. I wish Sam and Rhodey had paused at his exhibit in the Smithsonian or mentioned him to tie the two storylines together more tightly. 

This Bucky is my exact Bucky. This is the absolutely perfect characterisation for me. Snarky, funny, smart, kind of a dork, morally grey, riddled by guilt, trying to do the right thing, depths of sadness and rage and loss, barely holding it together, regaining his old sass and personality and memories but forever a changed man. He wasn’t a totally broken damsel in distress, he wasn’t a completely lawful good hero, he was an independent but traumatised man trying his best to heal.

I’m happy that they mentioned his family and the ‘man out of time’ thing was dealt with very well. He’s wasn’t totally lost, just bemused but adapting well. I was worried they were going to sweep it all under the rug because they felt all ground had been covered with Steve, but they didn’t.

It’s also great that they showed he was capable with technology. The Winter Soldier would absolutely have used all kinds of tech, Bucky was always a science nerd, and he lived in high-tech Wakanda for a few years. He’s likely fine with technology, it’s the people and culture he doesn’t understand.

I love him trying to date and being flirty. I will continue to fight the people who say he shouldn’t be dating because he has PTSD - it’s fucking ableist and patronising. Also, he’s been free from HYDRA for almost 5 years (10 if you count the blip). When is he allowed to start dating if not after 5 whole years?! 

Sam has previously been the funny one but I think Bucky had better one liners here. I can’t wait until we see both of them together, their chemistry is unmatched.

Seb does all these conflicting emotions and micro-expressions and feelings hidden in the eyes so, so well. You feel it all - the guilt and shame, the desperation to make amends, but also the rage and need for revenge and killer instinct bubbling under the surface that he’s constantly having to fight down. This is a character with a dark side, and no matter how fandom may characterise him, he always has been. Seb really bought the comedy here too. 

Bucky having P.W. Hauser in his book was hilarious. 

New Characters:

All the new characters felt very real and likeable. Loved the girl in the restaurant (did they actually say her name? I think from the credits she must be Leah), Sarah Wilson, the no-shit taking therapist, Yori, and particularly Torres, who I have a feeling will die but I really love.

I see from the IMDB that Leah is listed as appearing in all 6 episodes, so maybe there will be an actual relationship between her and Bucky? Or she’s a secret super hero or not who she seems?  We didn’t actually see Batroc die, meaning he will likely come back too. He’s listed as only having 1 ep on IMDB but so is the therapist and we know she comes back from the promos - maybe IMDB is just wrong, idk.

Other:

The cinematography was really great, some beautiful shots here, especially around Louisiana and the Tunisia stuff. 

It’s such a minor thing but I like when people actually get to speak the languages they would speak in that situation, instead of a room full of French people speaking English for the audiences benefit. It feels so much more real.

Even the end credits were beautiful!

[paradife-loft]

Hi! I absolutely love the meta about NMJ's Empathy memories being unreliable, and it's got me wondering about how his qi deviation and death actually went. Since LXC says he saw the qi deviation (and Fatal Journey says it was in public), what's your take on how JGY got NMJ into his secret room so he and Xue Yang could use the Tiger Seal (and eventually kill him)? Fatal Journey has the Nie sect holding a funeral for him, so presumably NHS had /soneone's/ body to bury, but then in The Untamed LXC later says something like he 'hasn't heard from' NMJ in years and had feared the worst, so things... don't seem to add up? What do you think?

Aaah, okay, so: first off, I’m incredibly sorry it’s taken me so long to answer this, and I nonetheless  very much appreciate your interest in my opinions here <3 If you’re still hanging around/following me/reading my blog, anon, idk how obvious it’s been that I’ve… not been having the best few months brain-wise, but that’s basically all I can offer as an excuse for why this reply is coming so late. Thank you for your patience!

So, okay, I think I’m going to try and tackle this question from a couple different angles. First of all, I think it’s worth looking at the material provided in the contained story of the 50 episodes of The Untamed on its own, to see what that suggests, before bringing in outside or supplemental sources, which is what for this purpose I’d consider spin-off movies, details in other versions of the broader MDZS story material, etc. to be. Also, I want to note upfront that while I do tend to incorporate different details and versions of events from both CQL and MDZS into my personal headcanon, what I write in my fic, etc. because I think they tend to provide interesting possibilities, elaborations, and what-ifs for a broader composite MDZS-adaptation-universe – for the purposes of this post, I’m going to stick to material from The Untamed and Fatal Journey only. Mostly, my reason for that is that there’s a few logistically distinct details of how the qi deviation happens in MDZS compared to CQL – one being, it happens at Qinghe rather than Lanling – that I believe affect the timeline of what Jin Guangyao is doing with Nie Mingjue’s corpse in the first place.

Alright so, in The Untamed alone, the evidence such as we have includes: the Empathy sequence involving the qi deviation in episode 41, and Lan Xichen’s statement in episode 39 recounting that he saw it happen himself at Jinlintai, and that after hearing nothing from/about Nie Mingjue since, he’s been “mentally prepared” - presumably, for the news that he’s dead. What I’m inclined to take from those two pieces of information, is essentially a story like this: NMJ qi deviates, very publically, and at some point while this is happening, he makes a break for it and leaves Jinlintai, and whatever presumably messy trail he leaves in the process ends up going cold for anyone trying to follow, with no NMJ around to be seen. With various factors at Jinlintai invested in retrieving him for attempting to turn him into a controllable fierce corpse, it’s pretty easy to imagine that, besides whatever above-board search party tried to follow him, there would also have been another party closely watching his movements for an opportune moment to slip in and scoop him up to bring him back to the secret treasure room for fierce corpse experimentation – hence why the trail would’ve gone cold.

Now, the actual scene showing the qi deviation itself doesn’t include multiple elements I’m positing or including here – specifically, the presence of a bunch of third parties actually witnessing it, LXC included, and then also the idea that NMJ ever left that one landing at the top of the stairs during the qi deviation at all. But, since we see in other parts of the Empathy sequence that the events shown can be… a bit more impressionistic than accurate; and furthermore since it seems reasonable to posit that the memories of the time when he has a literal break with reality might be even less literally reliable than the rest of them – I think those aspects can be reasonably explained away as that scene portraying more of what the qi deviation felt like from the inside, than what an outside observer would’ve seen. Nie Mingjue’s focus is Jin Guangyao, so Jin Guangyao is all he sees – up until Nie Huaisang breaks through that monomaniacal focus and is seen, finally, as himself.

(If you particularly want to pull out some feelings, I might even suggest the idea that finally seeing a distraught NHS was the thing that pulled NMJ sufficiently out of his rage to be lucid enough to flee – and that he booked it in part because he was terrified and ashamed to possibly hurt his younger brother, whether physically or emotionally by letting him see NMJ in such an awful state.

So then, aside from that: the question of what we see in Fatal Journey. I’ve actually been trying to find an answer about what kinds of mourning customs would be followed or even possible if a family didn’t actually have their loved one’s body on hand to bury, but thusfar my internet searching hasn’t really gotten me any useful information one way or another – if anyone reading has an idea or some good sources to point me to, I’d love to hear them! Everything I’ve read so far seems to very tightly marry the performance of appropriate rites and the presence of a body together.

That said, looking back through the actual funeral scene in Fatal Journey, I also wasn’t able to notice the presence of a coffin anywhere in the set, either? We see a memorial tablet, set up in the front of the throne room at Qinghe, and what looks like a brief shot of some offerings, and NHS stoking the fire, but in the couple brief scenes of the inside of the hall, I don’t think there was a coffin set up there? (Or, for that matter, out in the courtyard which we get a longer look at, either.) Compared to what I at least assume is a coffin with Jin Zixuan’s body inside during the mourning scene in episode 32, I feel like it’s reasonable to guess that, even with Fatal Journey included, whatever mourning rites took place at Qinghe after NMJ’s death, they may simply have not involved a body or a burial at all.

- And actually, now that I’m thinking about it, taking Fatal Journey into consideration overall suggests that it might ultimately be the norm at Qinghe to hold mourning rites without a body present – because per the lore additions in the movie, the Nie sect leaders go down to die on their own at the bottom of the saber tomb, and it sure doesn’t look like anybody had been going down there to retrieve them once they did? So, I don’t know, maybe there’s some sort of symbolic burial of something associated with the sect leader as a Nie custom, to keep things looking a bit more normal and less “we build a tomb for these resentment-filled blade spirits that eat our sect leader’s sanity”, and that’s also what ended up being done for Nie Mingjue?  But, yeah, there’s no real confirmation happening even in the movie that NHS was able to come back with a body to bury, so I don’t think that necessarily contradicts the idea that NMJ could have gone missing during his qi deviation and never been properly recovered for a 100% confirmed death.

(That said, I personally don’t tend to incorporate, oh, most of the specific events or points of lore from Fatal Journey into my own readings on various elements of the story? Like, quite frankly, I don’t really like the movie that much, and I think it opens up a lot more unnecessary character and worldbuilding questions without doing a good job of integrating them back into the rest of The Untamed’s continuity (er, such as it exists XD). So I don’t necessarily have an opinion on whether “the Nie sect generally doesn’t do bodily burials of is clan leaders” is an idea anyone should pick up for The Untamed canon; merely that if you do take the events of Fatal Journey as canon, it certainly seems like it could be a possibility.)

(And again, big, big big disclaimer here that, e.g. if holding any kind of mourning rites without a body present is actually super Not Done, then what I’m saying with this part might be totally moot, and then well…. who knows, there’s plenty of speculation that could be used to cover that gap up – maybe “they never found the body” wasn’t actually widespread knowledge, but rather just information LXC had special access to due to the relationships he had with the people involved? – and some set of people depending on your preferences conspired to get another body to stand in for NMJ’s to allow them to hold a funeral? ….Which honestly sounds incredibly sketchy to me on its own, but considering all the other professionally Yikes-style desecrations of bodies that happen in this story…. who knows? I’m really just tossing out ideas here at this point, not saying I necessarily endorse any of them outside of “I think this could potentially work in some way without being out of character for anybody”.)

Anyway… I hope that answers your question, anon, and is otherwise interesting for everyone else reading? Thank you for the ask, and apologies again for taking so long to respond! <3

[qqueenofhades]

First of all thanks so much for all your TOG history posts! I have a question specifically about the one where you explained the continuity errors with Nicky being a priest. I like your "second son of a nobleman" Nicky that you use in your fics a lot. But I also really like the idea of a lower-class Nicky; TOG already has wealthy merchant scion Joe and literal queen Andy--i love the idea that Nicky comes from humbler origins. Is there any way to make that make sense in a historical context?

I mean, pretty much anything is possible in history? If it can happen, it probably has happened at some point, and even the broad categories and generalizations that historians apply to things are never always right in all cases, even if they represent the major trends. I obviously don’t want to shoot down people’s headcanons or ideas, even and indeed especially from my soapbox of “cranky historian complains about things on the internet.” I have personally tweaked some aspects of Joe and Nicky’s backstories that I use in my fics, since I came up with DVLA before I knew anything about the comics or any bonus content that had been released about the characters. My feeling is that since a) it’s film-verse, not comics, and b) their backstories haven’t been shown on screen and may be subject to change in adaptation, I can, while engaging in transformative fanworks, create them to suit myself. I obviously keep the broad parameters of what canon establishes, but within that space, I do occasionally nip and tuck and move things around. For example in my new AU fic, I DID make Nicky a priest as in graphic-novel canon, but that’s long since changed by the time he arrives in Jerusalem. For the fics I write for them in canon-verse, I tend to use the backstory I established in DVLA, just because... well, I like it a lot, obviously, and that was what I wrote it for. This is just because I am the aforementioned cranky historian and I rearrange the toys when I am playing with them, but my interpretations don’t necessarily have to be everyone else’s.

On that note, since you did ask for some historical context/plausibility for this headcanon, it depends (again) on how much extra story you want to invent for Nicky and how many gaps you want to fill in. Which is totally fine either way! I talked in this ask about the People’s Crusade of 1096, the involvement of unarmed/unskilled commoners in the crusades more generally, and how that would have impacted on Nicky if he didn’t have any previous training in arms. Once again, as with him being a priest, him being a low-class peasant/freeman of humble status runs into some (not insurmountable, but still extant) problems with where he would have learned how to use a sword and weapons more generally. I also obviously approve of the idea of bringing some class diversity into our historical immortals, but the son of a very poor bondsman (the stereotypical peasant in a cottage or a serf working a lord’s land) is, alas, going to have gotten into trouble in his community if he is training with a sword. (Or at least definitely raised some eyebrows, as well as questions about where he got it and how he paid for it.) As I’ve mentioned, the sword is a knight’s weapon, so if Nicky has been using it at all, he has at least enough status to qualify for that.

Happily, however, there are plenty of ways to make him not be from a rich family. As late as the end of the 11th century, aka around the time of the First Crusade, knights could still be distinguished as “free” or “not free,” and since this was before the rise of chivalry as a major social force, knights and men-at-arms were often (and indeed could be throughout the medieval era) from humble families, minor gentry, or even the working class. Chivalry made knighthood into an especial aspiration for the nobility, but not every man on a battlefield was a nobleman -- far from it. Indeed, the nobleman would call up the families who owed allegiance to him, and they could call up the families who owed allegiance to them, and so on. The definition of “knight” in the pre-chivalry landscape is a little muddy; does it convey prestige or social status, or just that someone was trained in arms? Is there a difference between that and just “man at arms” or “armed man?” For instance, at the battle of Hastings in 1066, the English army under King Harold II was composed of fyrdmen, aka regular working stiffs who had been summoned from the land (and indeed, we know they were of humble status because they had to go back and help their families with the harvest after William the soon-to-be-Conqueror had still not arrived in September), and housecarls, the professional/lifelong soldiers who served in the army as a career and were paid for their service. But we don’t always have the luxury of clear terminology for the many, many kinds of armed men who existed in various social strata in the Middle Ages.

That means, therefore, that Nicky can very easily be a poor knight, a man-at-arms of humble status who has just his sword and his armor and is subject to the vassal-of-a-vassal-of-a-vassal-of-a-lord, or other armed man of unclear rank who definitely doesn’t have money or come from a rich family. Despite the unavoidably classist nature of many medieval history chronicles, the ranks of society weren’t only king, duke, earl, and nobleman. It was a patron-and-client society, and while the king was the ultimate patron, plenty of lords of middling rank or lower would have vassals who owed allegiance to them, and vassals who owed allegiance to those vassals in turn. The word feudal, which has been so misused and turned into an (incorrect) shorthand for constant petty territorial violence, basically just means this hierarchical society of mutual rights and obligations, where (unless you were the king) you both owed fealty to someone higher in rank than you and had people lower in rank who owed fealty to you. That would only end with the serf/bondsman, who wasn’t patron to anyone. But within that, there is plenty of wiggle room to make Nicky non-noble.

This would raise the question, however, of how he was going to pay for his journey to Jerusalem. Crusade financing was a perennial problem even for kings and lords with deep pockets, and the cost of a journey to the Middle East was far, far beyond most ordinary people’s ability to cover, which is why the commoners’ crusades kept ending in disaster. (That and obviously the fact that they weren’t trained in war.) When you are traveling for months and months and have to provide all your own food, shelter, arms and armor, transportation, upkeep, etc., you would either have to have a wealthy lord paying your maintenance, have substantial private financing of your own, have sold most of your property to go (which then implies that you had property to sell), made good with a religious house who had advanced you the cash, etc. We can really go down a rabbit hole here about Duke Hugh of Burgundy making a deal with Genoa in 1192 to provision King Philip and the French army on the Third Crusade. (This is helpful since it deals with Genoa, i.e. Nicky, even if not for the First Crusade.) This covered 650 French knights and their squires and came out to nine marks a knight, which is about £6, for an overall bill of 5,850 marks.

To give you an idea of how much this is in comparative terms: in 1380, a poll tax of twelve pence per person was considered so extortionate that it helped kick off the 1381 Peasants’ Revolt. And this was two hundred years later, when wages had risen and exchange rates had increased. One pound was worth 240 pence, so if twelve pence was an exaction for your average laborer, you can see that they’d get nowhere close even to one pound. A gift of £4 to William the Conqueror in 1066 was also considered a wildly high sum. And this was all on the extremely cheap end of crusading ventures. Frederick Barbarossa, who went on the Third Crusade at the same time as Philip and the French, had expenses coming close to 100,000 marks. Crusading, in other words, was wildly expensive (often ruinously so), and either Nicky would have a wealthy patron (meaning that he was somewhat closer to the top of the heap, even if below the first rank of noblemen) or money of his own or some way to finance his journey. Which again means that he has to have some kind of background that enables him to do it. The issue with the ordinary people who went on crusade (and they absolutely did, despite various attempts to forbid them as not militarily useful) is that, as noted, they weren’t trained in arms and they didn’t have money, and when you’re trying to travel from Europe to the Holy Land under 11th-century conditions, that becomes a big problem.

So yes. Basically: you can absolutely make Nicky a person of lower rank, down to a humble man-at-arms, who doesn’t have a rich family and doesn’t come from money. But if he’s going on crusade all the way to Jerusalem -- and if he’s successful at it, i.e. we’re assuming he didn’t get killed until Joe did it the first time -- then he has to have at least enough social status that he is the direct vassal of a wealthy lord or can make some financial arrangements on his own, has been able to train with a sword, knows what he’s doing with it, etc. You are obviously welcome to invent whatever details or backstory you want for him, but alas, crusading was often the provenance of knights, noblemen, and kings for brutally practical reasons, whether economic, social, military, or pragmatic. So the further you go down the social rankings, the more logistical details you’ll have to think up for him (at least if you want to be historically nitpicky, and it’s fantasy, so you frankly don’t even have to, but hey, what do you people come to me for if not historical nitpicking?) as to how he would have trained in arms, paid for his journey, been able to go on crusade in the first place, etc. So yes.

Thanks so much for this question! It was a lot of fun.

[nyerus]

MDZS  vs.  The Untamed

Differences between “Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation” (Mó Dào Zǔ Shī - 魔道祖师) and its live drama adaptation “The Untamed” (Chén Qíng Lìng - 陈情令)

(If you want to skip right to the differences, please see below the cut!)

I’ve recently fallen into the MXTX fandom by crying through TGCF and I’ve been delighted to see that I’m not the only one who’s been newly inducted. I've been seeing so much of the live action adaptation of MDZS, i.e. CQL, on my dash, and I'm so happy about it. After watching it, I thought it wouldn't be a bad idea to make a post cataloging the differences between CQL and MDZS for those interested.  (ﾉ´ヮ`)ﾉ*: ･ﾟ The goal of this post is for two reasons: First, to help people who are totally new to MDZS and are starting out with CQL as their entry, and then reading the novel (or going to the donghua/manhua). This will hopefully help them get their bearings in regards to the fandom, so that they won't be confused when coming across certain content that isn't in the live drama. Second, this is to help folks who have already read the novel/etc to understand what's different in the live action, so when/if they choose to watch CQL, they aren't caught off-guard by any changes. (I won't get into the manhua/donghua in this post because it's already too long as it is.) Hopefully, this will also help bridge the gap between fans, so that we can have a fun and shared experienced over this incredible world brought to us by MXTX! This post is split into two distinct sections: one without any major spoilers, and one with spoilers. If you want to be as unspoiled as possible and just want to know the big differences between the novel and drama, please read only the first portion. The second //spoiler-filled// portion is divided into other major and minor differences, and is mainly intended for people who have experienced at least one version already. Additionally, if you are completely new to MDZS, there are things which may seem like spoilers to you, but happen in like the first page of the novel/in the summary itself (or in the first 10mins of the first episode), and will not be treated as such. I will do what I can to keep actual spoilers out of the first section….

Before jumping right into it though, I think it’s time to say that many of the differences in CQL are in large part due to the strict censorship laws that China has. Unfortunately, we just have to live with this fact. Thankfully for us, the creators of CQL have earnestly tried their best in keeping the major points and themes of MDZS in tact, and have really stuck to the spirit of the series. Kudos to them and the actors for their hard work!

SPOILER-FREE DIFFERENCES

There is no explicit romance between Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji in CQL. They are literally called soulmates right in the CQL summary, and there are very obvious romantic undertones to their relationship in the drama—but there is nothing explicit on-screen. Naturally, due to censorship. While the novel has the two in an intimate (and very explicit) relationship where they end up literally married, the show tones this down to something more subtle. It’s still pretty obvious that they’re in love though. (Especially in the 20-episode wangxian special edition.) Also, they always seem to be sharing a room with one bed….

The plot is modified for CQL. In the novel, the plot revolves around Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji following an aggrieved spirit as they uncover the truth of what’s going on. In CQL, this was changed from the dismembered arm of said spirit to a sword, but it serves virtually the same purpose as it does in the novel. The other real major difference with the plot is that something known as “Yin Iron” is what drives a majority of the past’s plot. It has its origins tied to demonic cultivation, which I will explain more below. It doesn’t drastically change the actual plot itself, but does change some motivations, etc. This is not present in the novel.

Wei Wuxian is not the founder of demonic cultivation in the drama. Yes I know this seems whack. After all, the original novel is literally called Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation/Founder of Diabolism. But due to censorship laws, they had to change this. Wei Wuxian still uses demonic cultivation, and still invents many things (the compass, the spirit flags, the amulet, etc). He’s still shown as a prodigy—but demonic cultivation is a thing that’s been around long before the story takes place; it’s just that no one uses it except Wei Wuxian. The reason is the existence of the Yin Iron. It was something that was found and revered long ago, and is a source of dark power. Hence, why demonic cultivation already exists, but also why no one follows that path. The necromancy angle is also downplayed in CQL.

Wei Wuxian’s morality is somewhat different. Again, due to censorship restrictions. In the novel, Wei Wuxian is far more of a gray character who does some questionable things. He makes mistakes, there are things which are definitely his fault, and he has many things which he regrets. However in CQL, he is shown more as a victim of circumstance. He’s portrayed as a much more innocent character, who happens to be doing what’s right, and is just continually fucked over. He still does plenty of questionable things, but it’s less so than in the novel. In both versions, he is still Chaotic Good, just the novel emphasizes chaotic, and the drama emphasizes good. Also, CQL doesn’t really portray Wei Wuxian’s breakdown or deteriorating mental health before his death too deeply.

Wei Wuxian’s death in the beginning of the story is different. The novel is much more vague in this regard, and it is more drawn-out. I will return to this point later as well, in regards to spoilers. The live drama has a more… “peaceful” and quick type of death for Wei Wuxian, and given how it’s the very first scene that you see in the show, it may catch novel fans off guard. Still absolutely heart-wrenching though, especially when you see it play out in full later on.

The structure of the live drama’s narrative is different. While MDZS intersperses its main story in the present timeline with flashbacks (as do the donghua and manhua), CQL goes about it differently. After episode 2, CQL takes the viewer all the way to the past and goes through the entire timeline of events which happen leading up to Wei Wuxian’s death as seen in the first few scenes. From episode 3 to episode 33, you are firmly in the past only. Novel readers may find that this causes many things to be revealed quite early on. The change in structure is probably the biggest difference. From episode 33 and onwards, you are back to the present.

Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji’s relationship in the present timeline is different to start out with. The novel has Wei Wuxian first operating under the assumption that Lan Wangji doesn’t like him. This eventually turns around, and deepens into a romantic relationship between the two. CQL on the other hand, has present-timeline!Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji having a much more tender relationship from the moment they meet again.

Wei Wuxian’s appearance remains the same after he is resurrected in the drama. While in the novel and other adaptations, Wei Wuxian takes on the appearance of Mo Xuanyu (who happens to look similar to a younger him, luckily enough), this does not happen in the drama. Probably done for convenience’s sake. It is never properly explained other than the fact that along with the soul-summoning spell, Mo Xuanyu did some other things to ensure that Wei Wuxian returned to what looked like his old body. (Some body parts snatching might’ve been involved.) Thus, Wei Wuxian hides his identity by wearing a mask.

Everyone looks the same as they did when they were teenagers. Again, probably just for convenience’s sake. They spend a lot of time in the flashbacks so getting viewers used to one set of faces, and then changing everything would be jarring—and also expensive to swap out actors. So despite a 16 year gap, everyone looks the same with no aging. #cultivatingimmortality

The time gap between Wei Wuxian’s death and resurrection is slightly longer in the drama. It’s 16 years versus 13 years in the novel. Unsure of why the change, as it doesn’t change much apart from serving to make some of the kids older. Some kids’ ages are also slightly altered. It’s not a huge difference and it plays virtually no difference in plot. Also, I can’t confirm it, but everyone seems to start out older as well.

Xiao Xingchen, Song Lan, and Xue Yang are encountered much earlier in the drama. Before Wei Wuxian’s death, the three of them are encountered in Yueyang before the start of the Sunshot Campaign. The rest of their story plays out after Wei Wuxian’s resurrection.

Jiang Yanli, Wen Qing, and Wen Ning attend the classes at Cloud Recesses. This gives them a lot more screen time. Elaborated in spoilers below.

Wen Qing’s relationship with Wen Ruohan is more antagonistic from the start. Just like how Wei Wuxian is shown more as a victim of circumstance, so is Wen Qing (and by extension Wen Ning). Elaborated below.

The next section is spoiler-filled. It’s divided into two parts: major and minor differences. Turn back now if you don’t want serious spoilers for either CQL or MDZS!!!

SPOILER-FILLED MAJOR DIFFERENCES

After the dancing statue/Dafan Mountain incident — Wei Wuxian passed out, and wakes up in Cloud Recesses in Lan Wangji’s room. Both of them know™ already. Thus, Wei Wuxian doesn’t even try to pretend that he’s Mo Xuanyu in front of Lan Wangji, but he keeps up the appearance for other people until he’s figured out. This allows the two of them to have a very private relationship with each other.

Also lending to this, Wei Wuxian dies in a much different way in the drama, and dies knowing that Lan Wangji cares deeply about him. Thus why their relationship on his resurrection is so soft. He knew that Lan Wangji protected him and tried to save him until the very end, and is far more affectionate as a result.

Speaking of his death…. In CQL, Wei Wuxian chooses to basically swan dive off a cliff after seeing the horrors in front of him. It has a very lucid finality to it, and feels as though he has decided that only his death can bring peace, and so he falls back off a cliff—only to be caught momentarily by Lan Wangji. He eventually wrests himself from Lan Wangji’s grasp and falls to his death as Lan Wangji (and Jiang Cheng) watches in horror. The novel is far more vague and hints that he met a more gruesome end.

Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian essentially make up at the end of the drama—or at least end on decent terms by agreeing to put their past behind them and move on. Wei Wuxian wipes away a stray tear as Jiang Cheng cries in front of him in the temple. After everything is said and done, Jiang Cheng privately and quietly wishes Wei Wuxian well as he leaves with Lan Wangji.

Lan Xichen does not go into seclusion at the end of the drama. Despite his trauma, he’s relatively okay as compared to the novel. The drama doesn’t really comment on this aspect, to be honest.

In CQL, Jiang Yanli attends the classes at Cloud Recesses with her brothers. She is given extra interaction with Jin Zixuan during this. Yanli is in general given way more screen time in CQL. She is present during the destruction of Lotus Pier (she appears with Jiang Fengmian), and escapes with Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng to Yiling.

Similarly, Wen Ning and Wen Qing are also present for the classes at Cloud Recesses. This is where they first meet Wei Wuxian (and Jiang Cheng), instead of Wen Ning and Wei Wuxian meeting in Qishan later. This gives all of them a pre-existing relationship before the events at Lotus Pier. Jiang Cheng also harbors a tiny crush on Wen Qing for a little bit. #same

Wen Qing is handled with much more suspicion by Wen Ruohan and Wen Chao, and during the Sunshot Campaign, she is even locked up. She’s saved by Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng, but goes her separate way until Wei Wuxian encounters her again after becoming the Yiling Patriarch proper.

Mianmian is shown to be a part of the Jin sect in CQL, and is close to Jin Zixuan. She renounces her ties to Lanling Jin after everyone starts hating on Wei Wuxian.

Mianmian is also encountered in episode 1. She and her family replace the random farmer family they meet once they leave Gusu (for the second time) on their way to the Burial Mounds. The timing of this may also be different. This is because there is no real “epilogue” that takes 3 months later, like the final chapter of MDZS.

Mo Xuanyu was not ostracized for the same reasons as in the novel. In the novel, he’s also thought to be insane, but was thrown out because he supposedly “harassed” Meng Yao (i.e. had romantic feelings for him which were found out and he was driven out of Lanling). In CQL, he was thrown out for “harassing” Qin Su, but in actuality was only trying to reveal the truth about her husband, and was thrown out as an excuse to get rid of him before he became troublesome.

During the hunt in Phoenix Mountain, Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian have a heart-to-heart, and establish that they do, in fact, care for one another. (I’m pretty sure they use the word soulmate here, but the subs are like “lifelong confidante” lol.)

The origins of the bunnies is different in CQL, and is tied to Lan Yi—an ancestor of the Lan clan (the one who invented Cord Assassination). Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji find a cave in Gusu during their classmate days, which holds the spirit of Lan Yi. There, she reveals information about the Yin Iron and that she is guarding one piece of it. After all this, Wei Wuxian looks after the bunnies after taking them out of the cave, and as he leaves Cloud Recesses, he leaves them in the care of Lan Wangji.

The Gusu Lan sect is less rekt in CQL, as many of them are able to hide away in the aforementioned cave during the destruction of Cloud Recesses. Su She, then a disciple of Gusu Lan, betrays them by telling Wen Chao that the others are hiding in the cave. He’s summarily kicked out. In the novel, he’s the one that tries to rat out Mianmian when they’re facing the Tortoise of Slaughter. (He is still the one who casts the hundred holes spell on Jin Zixun.)

SPOILER-FILLED MINOR DIFFERENCES

In CQL, after his 33 lashes, Lan Wangji goes into forced seclusion for 3 years first. And then his 13 years of playing Inquiry start. Extra depressing, but it doesn’t change anything else.

The ghost baby that Wang LingJiao sees is replaced with a dismembered eye. Still gory. Don’t really know which one is worse…….. Her death is definitely less gory in CQL, though.

The Stygian Tiger Amulet was made of the strange weapon found in the Tortoise of Slaughter in both the novel and drama, but in CQL, said weapon was actually a fragment of the Yin Iron.

CQL shows a few scenes of Wei Wuxian when he first gets tossed into the Burial Mounds.

Lan Qiren is the head of the Gusu Lan sect, all the way through the story in CQL, including the end. Lan Xichen is never referred to as the sect leader.

Gusu Lan's rules are a little less strict in CQL. And co-ed classmates and cultivators seem to be the norm.

This post is certainly not 100% complete, as it’s just what I managed to pick up as I watched/read and remembered to note down. But if you have questions or comments, please reach out to me and I’ll do my best to answer! I hope this is as accurate as possible, but since I’m flying off memory...  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Take care, all! Feel free to drop into my DMs and scream with me!  ଘ(੭ˊᵕˋ)੭* ੈ✩‧₊˚

[stakehammer]

no light, no light

a revelation in the light of day: you can’t choose what stays and what fades away.

WARNING FOR EMETOPHOBIA!! big ole throwup in this one. also vaguely unsettling horrorterror stuff.

HEIR.

They come to you every night. You are not being overdramatic. Ever since you’ve left your home timeline, not a single night has passed that they weren’t bothering you. They always come in that very moment between sleeping and waking, an inhuman screeching somewhere between your temples, yet silent to everyone else. Sometimes, you sleep, and they talk to you in your dreams. Sometimes, you stay awake until the mornings and try to reason with them, mumbling to yourself on Karkat’s couch.

Those days are over now. You and Karkat are a mostly undefined thing now, and you get to sleep in his bed. You throw him a glance, sleeping peacefully next to you, and sigh. Mouthing silently at the ceiling, you say, What?

THIS IS THE LAST STRAW.

You make a face. What’s that even supposed to mean. They, too, have a penchant for the dramatic, of course, being old Eldritch gods that once granted you all of their power for a revenge mission. They still grant you some, because they think you are useful to them, and you think they are useful to you. Communication, however, is not always easy.

Huh? you mouth this time, which really just looks like you opening your mouth in incomprehension.

YOU WILL RETURN HOME. YOU WILL STOP THE PRINCE.

Your eyes burn when you roll them. You are fucking tired, and yet, this doesn’t sound like a conversation you’ll be able to skip. You throw Karkat another glance, then quietly roll out of bed and slip on a hoodie. Only once you’ve closed his bedroom door behind you and are padding through the living room do you answer, voice as low as possible, “Stop him from what? He went to one board meeting. I can forgive that.”

HEIR. YOU DON’T HONESTLY BELIEVE THAT.

Again, you grimace. Yeah, maybe you don’t. And maybe you don’t want to care. Maybe you want to stay here in a different timeline with a guy who wants to date you and fucked you silly on his kitchen counter. Maybe that’s been better than hanging around your home and trying to get the billionaires to stop exploiting the entire rest of the world. That doesn’t really sound unreasonable to you.

“I want to stay here,” you mutter, both of your hands buried in the front pocket of your hoodie. “He’s not… Dirk doesn’t seem completely off the shits yet, and if he was, I would not fucking care. Let me stay here.”

THIS IS THE LAST STRAW.

“Yes, you already said that. What does it mean?” You want to roll your eyes at them again, but before you can get that far, you’re blinded for a full second by white hot pain in your right temple. Instead, you squeeze your eyes shut, barely fighting back a shout so you don’t wake Karkat. Instinctively, you stumble toward the bathroom, one hand pressed to your head, the other one pawing around for the faucet. The pain fades as quickly as it came, but you still feel groggy in its wake, and reach down to drink water from your hands.

GO BACK TONIGHT AND DEAL WITH HIM SOON, OR THERE WILL BE CONSEQUENCES.

“What consequences,” you mutter, hoarsely, in between gulps.

THE PRINCE HAS BECOME TOO POWERFUL. NO HUMAN CHILD WILL DECIDE ALONE OVER LIFE AND DEATH. ONLY WHEN THE HEIR RETURNS TO THWART HIM CAN WE BEGIN TO RESTORE BALANCE.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” you say, water droplets flying as you wave your hand around dismissively. “We have been over that. What consequences?”

AN HEIR OF LIGHT WHO REFUSES TO DO HIS WORK

(They make a dramatic pause.)

IS NOT AN HEIR OF LIGHT AT ALL.

You say, “I don’t know what that means.” The very next second, your entire body seizes up violently. You choke out a noise, gasping for breath, your hands grabbing the edge of the sink as you feel your insides convulse, shoulders spasming as something seems to claw its way up your throat. Fruitlessly, you try to speak, to swear, to yell for Karkat, your mouth opening and closing but no sound coming out. Your hands slip and your legs give out and you drop to the cold bathroom tiles, and as you land on your back, for one terrible blink of an eye, you think you’re dying.

Whatever is crawling up your throat is blocking your windpipe, but it falls forward when your body throws itself to the side, clawing at the gaps between the tiles until you’ve worked yourself up on your knees. You retch, your elbows quivering, your eyes burning, breath stuck in your lungs as a thick glob of black sludge wrestles itself out of your mouth and lands on the floor with a wet splat. You suck in a breath, try to close your mouth, try to swallow down, but more is on its way, and you shiver from head to toe instead.

Sticky black mass keeps splattering from your mouth, pooling on the floor in front of you until the puddle is almost two feet across. You feel empty in a strange way -- you’ve thrown up plenty of times in your life, and you’re familiar with the empty stomach feeling it usually leaves. This one isn’t located there. It seems to be in your chest, in the hollows of your ribs, in your core. Whatever climbed out of you just now left a hole that feels cold, and desolate in you.

Quaking, you raise one hand to wipe at your mouth. Right as you move, the mass moves as well, rising off the floor in a writhing tangle of tendrils, and you watch the splot you wiped from your mouth detach itself from the back of your hand and join it. Still on your knees, as you sit back on your haunches, the inky blob hovers a few feet above you, tangling within itself, tentacles disappearing and reappearing at random, in constant motion. When it speaks, its voice has finally stopped resonating within your head -- it’s outside of you now. They’ve left you.

SO LONG AS YOU DON’T FOLLOW YOUR CALLING, HEIR. YOU DON’T DESERVE THESE POWERS. WE HAVE TAKEN THEM.

You say, “What the fuck?” Your voice is scratchy and hurts in your throat, but coughing now only sounds like an invitation for more vomit, actual one from your stomach this time. “I didn’t get my powers from you. I got them from the game. You can’t take them.”

Convinced of this much, figuring that the horrorterrors might leave your body but you’ll always have your godtier powers, you feel yet another cold shiver of dread rush down your back as a faint light seems to blink on inside the black mass above you. That’s just for show, you think, they’re conning you, so you try to use what the game gave you, you try to turn into light, you try to procure even the faintest of glows, and it doesn’t work. You have the same powers any other guy outside on the streets has.

THIS IS THE POWER WE WIELD. WE, AND ONLY WE, SHALL BE RESPONSIBLE FOR WHAT HAPPENS TO THE PEOPLE OF YOUR UNIVERSE.

“What happened to establishing balance?” you mutter, running a shaky hand through your hair. “Look, did you seriously just take away my godhood? To make me start shit with Dirk? The guy who could kill everyone except for me, because I was protected by Light? How is this going to motivate me to ever set foot in that dumpster fire of a timeline again?”

YOU WILL SOON REALIZE YOUR NEED. WE WILL NOT ALLOW OUR HEIR TO FIGHT THE PRINCE IN THIS STATE. HOWEVER YOU MUST RE-PROVE YOUR WORTHINESS. GO HOME, JOHN LALONDE. PICK UP THE WORK YOU SO FOOLISHLY LEFT BEHIND. AND ONCE WE SEE THE RICH FALL, YOU WILL SEE THE LIGHT AGAIN.

The air makes a weirdly wet pop when it closes around the space the mass leaves when it disappears. You’re on your knees in Karkat’s bathroom, staring into nothingness. You don’t… You don’t need your powers. They can keep them, then. This is idiotic.

Slowly, you reach up for the sink and pull yourself up, standing on two uneasy legs so you can look at yourself in the mirror. The white streak in your hair is still there, but so is the awful emptiness in your chest. You don’t need your powers, you think. Your hand travels up to the side of your neck, bitten and bruised by Karkat’s vampire fangs. You’ve been letting him feed on your blood for the past weeks, knowing that you’re protected both by conditional immortality and by inhuman luck, so even if he wasn’t as cautious as he is, he couldn’t kill you.

He could, now.

He’d never forgive himself.

You wrinkle your nose. Karkat lets you live here for free, but you get your own food, your own clothes. If you stay for longer, you’re going to want to start chipping in for rent, or at least water and electricity. You have no source of income, because you’ve been living off of gambling winnings, which, again, you got due to your luck, and your convenient knowledge. 

Okay, so you’ll have to start living a slightly less risky life. You’ll manage. You’ll adapt. Living a risk-free life was exactly what pushed you into immortality ennui before, but… Well, you won’t be immortal anymore.

You turn to stare at the door, toward the rest of the apartment, where Karkat is hopefully still asleep, somewhere. He’s immortal. You’ve been living with the comfort of that. Immortality was going to be something you could be tackling together.

Your head feels light, in a way you don’t enjoy. Whenever the Light would pump you full of knowledge, it would hurt, it would knock you out for days and you would hate it, but you’re already missing the place it inhabited up there. Knowing that you will not know things whenever it’s convenient for you in the future is disconcerting, to say the least. You are not a smart man. You make people believe you are, but you know that you’re not. Not without Light.

When you sit down on the edge of Karkat’s bed, you feel sick again, but this time you know it’s just your stomach. You watch him stir awake, watch the worry creep into his features when he sees you, and you give him a defeated smile.

“It’s time,” you say. “We need to go home.”

[recentanimenews]

Licensing of the Monsters: How Pokémon Ignited An Anime Arms Race

  "Hey, what do ya' got there? A rabbit?" Batman asks his mentor, staring at a video of Pikachu on a massive underground computer screen.

  "It's a Pokémon," Bruce Wayne replies.

  Five seconds later, Batman is shocked so hard by the tiny yellow creature that he ends up flying headfirst through another computer monitor (Using a clip from the "Blackout" episode of Batman Beyond, an episode that would've aired for the first time just days earlier.) It doesn't make much physical sense, but this bizarre 1999 crossover promo did establish two things: 1) Pokémon was coming to Kids' WB, and 2) Pokémon was important. So important that Batman actually took time away from obsessing over crime and vengeance to care about it.

  Echoing a 1997 promo where the comedic Bugs Bunny let us in on the "secret" that the serious, dark Batman was coming to Kids' WB, it almost seems like a passing of the torch. Kids' WB, up until then, was a programming service chock full of classic Warner Bros. cartoon properties like Bugs, Daffy, Pinky, Brain, and various members of the Justice League — all animated Americana. 

Pokémon wasn't a huge risk as the 4Kids Entertainment dub of the show had done well in broadcast syndication, they had plenty of episodes to work with (sometimes airing three in a row), and it was based on a game series that was already a worldwide smash hit.

  But the show was ... different.

  And it would end up changing cartoons as we knew them.

  Part 1: Batman Jumps Ship

  It's hard to think of a better scenario when it comes to appealing to kids than the one Fox Kids had with Batman: The Animated Series. Debuting in September 1992 and airing on weekdays just after school let out, it received immediate acclaim due to its moody, beautiful animation and storytelling that didn't talk down to anyone. Little kids could get into Batman throwing crooks around and adults could marvel at plots like the one where a former child actress with a medical condition that keeps her from aging takes her former co-stars hostage and ends up holding a gun, hallucinating, and sobbing into Batman's arms.

  It did so well that Fox tried to air it on prime-time Sundays and though this was short-lived — turns out, Batman was no match for Ed Bradley on CBS's 60 Minutes — it solidified the show as "cool." This was a show that could hang with the big boys. You couldn't say the same of something like Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends.

  And then, in 1997, it was gone. A five-year contract ran out and Batman leapt completely to Kids' WB, where a continuation of the show (the often even grimmer The New Batman Adventures) aired later that year. There, it joined Superman: The Animated Series in a one-two punch of programming called The New Batman/Superman Adventures. When it came to Kids' WB, competitors not only had to deal with the Merry Melodies crowd, they now had to face the World's Finest Heroes.

  This, along with a departing Animaniacs, left Fox Kids with a gap in flagship programming. Sure it had various incarnations of the Power Rangers (which was still holding strong) and Spider-Man, but if you look back on 1998 programming, little of it would survive the year. Silver Surfer? Gone by May. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Next Mutation? Out by December. Casper? Dead in October. By May of 1999, Warner Media would announce record ratings thanks to Pokémon, while its competitors, including the Disney-led ABC, Fox, and even Nickelodeon, would suffer losses in the Saturday morning area. Pokemon would have the best ever series premiere numbers for Kids' WB at the time.

    A chunk of that has to do with 4Kids Entertainment's (or to be more specific, 4Kids Productions) handling of the show. Again, Pokémon was a proven concept. If you love monsters, adventure, and collecting things, you'll probably find something to enjoy in the franchise. But the dub was particularly strong. For years, dubbing was seen as an inherently laughable thing in America, full of exasperated voice actors trying desperately to convince you that they weren't portraying three different characters, and lips that didn't match the dialogue. Entire Japanese series were reduced to laughing stocks in the U.S. because why focus on the lovingly created miniatures and top-notch tokusatsu action in Godzilla if one of the actors sounds weird?

  But while Pokémon wasn't the first great dub, it was a remarkably underrated one. Veronica Taylor's work as Ash Ketchum was relatable, funny, and consistent. And Racheal Lillis, Eric Stuart, and Maddie Blaustein's turns as Team Rocket's Jessie, James, and Meowth gave us villains that could've easily been the most repetitive parts of the show  — you can only try to capture Pikachu so many times before you should logically find a second hobby — but instead were one of the most entertaining aspects.

  Aside from some easily meme-able bits — Brock's drying pan and jelly donuts, for example — Pokemon became a seamless addition to the Kids' WB lineup and would end up giving many fans a lifelong love of anime. And it was great for 4Kids, too, as in 2000, they would be number one on Fortune's 100 Fastest-Growing Companies.

  Fox Kids wanted an answer to this. And it would soon find one.

  Well, two.

  Part 2: Monsters Rule

  Saban Entertainment was no stranger to Fox Kids. They'd been the one to adapt Toei's Super Sentai into The Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers for American and international audiences, creating an unexpected sensation that combined monsters and martial arts. And in 1999, they nabbed Digimon Adventure, a series about kids that gain "digital" monster partners when transported to a "digital world," which had begun airing earlier that year in Japan. Based on a fighting virtual pet that had already been around for a few years, Digimon was a natural fit for an anime series and also a natural fit for a climate that was desperately trying to find the next Pokémon.

  Renamed Digimon: Digital Monsters, it premiered in August of 1999. Of course, accusations followed that it was a Pokémon rip-off, considering that they were both about befriending terrifying laser critters, but they offered fairly different things. While Pokémon was more episodic, Digimon gave viewers a more Dragon Ball Z-esque experience (they were both Toei productions, too) with the titular monsters evolving and gaining "power-ups" due to fighting increasingly powerful villains.

  Almost two months later, Monster Rancher would join the Fox Kids lineup, airing on Saturdays at 8:30 AM after Sherlock Holmes in the 22nd Century (a Fox Kids lost relic if there ever was one). Together, Monster Rancher and Digimon would cover the programming block with monster action, sometimes airing twice each. Meanwhile, Pokémon would do the same for Kids' WB, and if you look at their Saturday morning schedules from 1999 and 2000, it appears they just shoved Pikachu in whenever possible.

  Looking back on Monster Rancher is always odd, though, because it's so specifically trapped in the time period where it originated. The video games used metadata from readable discs to create new monsters for the player, meaning that as soon as people gained the ability to download or stream media online without having to travel to their local Circuit City, the game would look absolutely archaic in comparison to its peers.

  Monster Rancher is a very fun show based on some very fun games, and the dynamic array of personalities and their particular squabbles in the core group actually reminds me a lot of One Piece. But even the show itself deals with reviving monsters on giant stone discs — a prehistoric-looking adaptation of a video game gimmick that would, a decade later, appear prehistoric itself.

  The Monster War was waged across 2000 and 2001. And though it appears Pokémon was the clear winner — in 2020, it's the most popular franchise with the widest reach, even if Digimon does produce some stellar shows and movies — the ratings tell a different story. In the May sweeps of 2000, Pokémon (and Kids' WB) took the prize among kids 6-11, but in the end, Fox Kids would score a victory of a 3.1 rating to Kids' WB's 3.0 (the first sweeps win since 1997, the year that Batman left.)

    Early the following year, Fox Kids would score again, narrowly beating Pokémon on Saturday morning in the same timeslot and even coming ahead of properties like X-Men. And what would propel this February 10th victory? The first appearance of BlackWarGreymon, the Shadow the Hedgehog to WarGreymon's Sonic.

  However, Pokémon would still help create ratings records for Kids' WB, even though late 2000/early 2001 saw a slide that would often cede dominance to Nickelodeon. Jed Patrick, who was president of The WB at the time said: "I didn't think Pokémon would fall off as much as it did ... every fire cools down a little, but that doesn't mean it doesn't stay hot."

  Even though, in retrospect, claims that "Pokemania" had died seem a little ridiculous — the latest games, Pokémon Sword and Shield, just became the highest-selling entries in seventeen years — big changes were ahead.

  Part 3: It's Time To Duel ... Or Not

  In early 2001, Joel Andryc, executive VP of kids' programming and development for Fox Kids, was looking for a "Digimon companion series to create an hour-long anime block." He felt they were too reliant on Digimon, as they were airing it three times in a single morning. Likely not coincidentally, that summer Fox Kids Fridays were dubbed "anime invasion," advertising Flint The Time Detective, Dinozaurs, Escaflowne, and Digimon. In one commercial, a single quote zips across the bottom of the screen: "Anime Rocks!" Nicole, TX

  That it does, Nicole from Texas.

  Meanwhile, 4Kids Entertainment would provide Kids' WB with another monster show: Yu-Gi-Oh! Known as Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters in Japan, this anime adaptation absconded from retelling the stories found in the early chapters of the manga — which were mostly devoted to Yugi running into jerks, only to have his Egyptian spirit "alter ego" deal karmic retribution on them — and instead focused on the parts that involved the cool monster fights. So basically the parts that were the most like Pokémon.

  But how would this be received? In 2000, Canadian studio Nelvana had licensed the anime Cardcaptor Sakura and turned it simply into Cardcaptors — an extremely edited version that removed many important relationships and plotlines and tried to streamline the show into a pseudo-Pokémon story. It's gone down in history as one of the most questionable dubs ever, and never really made a splash on Kids' WB. So they wouldn't want a repeat of that.

  But would kids be into a card game? The cards did summon monsters, but in Pokémon and Digimon, the monsters are just there, moving around and not relegated to a glorified checkers board arena. It turned out, yes, kids would be REALLY into that. Yu-Gi-Oh! debuted at number one in multiple demographics in September 2001, and would remain a steady part of its lineup for years to come.

    And how did Fox Kids respond? Did the "anime invasion" work out? Well, sort of, but not in the way they were hoping.

  In 2001, due to diminishing ratings and audiences, Fox Kids Worldwide (along with Fox Family Worldwide) were sold to The Walt Disney Company. By November 7th, they'd canceled their weekly afternoon blocks, and the next year, they'd end up selling their entire Saturday morning block to a company that had provided their rivals with the very same TV shows that aided in sinking them: 4Kids Entertainment. The final show to premiere on the original Fox Kids was Galidor: Defenders of the Outer Dimension, a live action series that stood beside Alienators: Evolution Continues (a cartoon sequel to the mediocre 2001 comedy Evolution) and the underrated Medabots as the block's last gasp. 

  Renamed FoxBox in late 2002 (and later 4KidsTV in 2005), the 4Kids run schedule would, over the years, include anime like Kirby! Right Back At Ya!, Ultimate Muscle, Fighting Foodons, Sonic X, Shaman King, and eventually, in 2004, the infamous One Piece dub. The first Saturday of the new FoxBox lineup would also outdo the previous Saturday's Fox Kids lineup. Disney would acquire the rights to Digimon and it showed up on ABC Family in late 2001 (eighteen years later, a reboot of the original series would air, which can be watched on Crunchyroll).

  Eventually, in 2007, the Monster War would come full circle. 4Kids Entertainment announced they would be taking over the Kids' WB Saturday morning block entirely, renaming it the "CW4KIDS," as The CW had been born after UPN and The WB had ceased to be. Pokémon was long gone by this point, having been dropped by Kids' WB in 2006, and was now overseen by The Pokémon Company International on Cartoon Network.

  "We wish Pokémon USA much success going forward," the CEO of 4Kids Entertainment said. Later sued over "illegal agreements" regarding the Yu-Gi-Oh! franchise, the company would eventually file for bankruptcy in 2016. Pokémon Journeys, the latest installment in the franchise, launches on Netflix on June 12th. 

      Daniel Dockery is a Senior Staff Writer for Crunchyroll. Follow him on Twitter!

  Do you love writing? Do you love anime? If you have an idea for a features story, pitch it to Crunchyroll Features!

By: news+feed@crunchyroll.com

[sciencespies]

What Neuroscientists Are Discovering About Stuttering

https://sciencespies.com/nature/what-neuroscientists-are-discovering-about-stuttering/

What Neuroscientists Are Discovering About Stuttering

Gerald Maguire has stuttered since childhood, but you might not guess it from talking to him. For the past 25 years, Maguire — a psychiatrist at the University of California, Riverside — has been treating his disorder with antipsychotic medications not officially approved for the condition. Only with careful attention might you discern his occasional stumble on multisyllabic words like “statistically” and “pharmaceutical.”

Maguire has plenty of company: More than 70 million people worldwide, including about 3 million Americans, stutter — that is, they have difficulty with the starting and timing of speech, resulting in halting and repetition. That number includes approximately 5 percent of children, many of whom outgrow the condition, and 1 percent of adults. Their numbers include presidential candidate Joe Biden, deep-voiced actor James Earl Jones and actress Emily Blunt. Though those people and many others, including Maguire, have achieved career success, stuttering can contribute to social anxiety and draw ridicule or discrimination by others.

Maguire has been treating people who stutter, and researching potential treatments, for decades. He receives daily emails from people who want to try medications, join his trials, or even donate their brains to his university when they die. He’s now embarking on a clinical trial of a new medication, called ecopipam, that streamlined speech and improved quality of life in a small pilot study in 2019.

Many famous people have a stutter or did so as a child, including (left to right) presidential candidate Joe Biden, actor James Earl Jones and actor Emily Blunt.

(Left to Right: Michael Stokes; U.S. Embassy photo by S.J. Mayhew; Gage Skidmore)

Others, meanwhile, are delving into the root causes of stuttering, which also may point to novel treatments. In past decades, therapists mistakenly attributed stuttering to defects of the tongue and voice box, to anxiety, trauma or even poor parenting — and some still do. Yet others have long suspected that neurological problems might underlie stuttering, says J. Scott Yaruss, a speech-language pathologist at Michigan State University in East Lansing. The first data to back up that hunch came in 1991, Yaruss says, when researchers reported altered blood flow in the brains of people who stuttered. Over the past two decades, continuing research has made it more apparent that stuttering is all in the brain.

“We are in the middle of an absolute explosion of knowledge being developed about stuttering,” Yaruss says.

There’s still a lot to figure out, though. Neuroscientists have observed subtle differences in the brains of people who stutter, but they can’t be certain if those differences are the cause or a result of the stutter. Geneticists are identifying variations in certain genes that predispose a person to stutter, but the genes themselves are puzzling: Only recently have their links to brain anatomy become apparent.

Maguire, meanwhile, is pursuing treatments based on dopamine, a chemical messenger in the brain that helps to regulate emotions and movement (precise muscle movements, of course, are needed for intelligible speech). Scientists are just beginning to braid these disparate threads together, even as they forge ahead with early testing for treatments based on their discoveries.

Slowed circuitry

Looking at a standard brain scan of someone who stutters, a radiologist won’t notice anything amiss. It’s only when experts look closely, with specialized technology that shows the brain’s in-depth structure and activity during speech, that subtle differences between groups who do and don’t stutter become apparent.

The problem isn’t confined to one part of the brain. Rather, it’s all about connections between different parts, says speech-language pathologist and neuroscientist Soo-Eun Chang of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. For example, in the brain’s left hemisphere, people who stutter often appear to have slightly weaker connections between the areas responsible for hearing and for the movements that generate speech. Chang has also observed structural differences in the corpus callosum, the big bundle of nerve fibers that links the left and right hemispheres of the brain.

These findings hint that stuttering might result from slight delays in communication between parts of the brain. Speech, Chang suggests, would be particularly susceptible to such delays because it must be coordinated at lightning speed.

Chang has been trying to understand why about 80 percent of kids who stutter grow up to have normal speech patterns, while the other 20 percent continue to stutter into adulthood. Stuttering typically begins when children first start stringing words together into simple sentences, around age 2. Chang studies children for up to four years, starting as early as possible, looking for changing patterns in brain scans.

It’s no easy feat to convince such young children to hold still in a giant, thumping, brain-imaging machine. The team has embellished the scanner with decorations that hide all the scary parts. (“It looks like an ocean adventure,” Chang says.) In kids who lose their stutter, Chang’s team has observed that the connections between areas involved in hearing and ones involved in speech movements get stronger over time. But that doesn’t happen in children who continue to stutter.

In another study, Chang’s group looked at how the different parts of the brain work simultaneously, or don’t, using blood flow as a proxy for activity. They found a link between stuttering and a brain circuit called the default mode network, which has roles in ruminating over one’s past or future activities, as well as daydreaming. In children who stutter, the default mode network seems to insert itself — like a third person butting in on a romantic date — into the conversation between networks responsible for focusing attention and creating movements. That could also slow speech production, she says.

These changes to brain development or structure might be rooted in a person’s genes, but an understanding of this part of the problem has also taken time to mature.

All in the family

In early 2001, geneticist Dennis Drayna received a surprising email: “I am from Cameroon, West Africa. My father was a chief. He had three wives and I have 21 full and half siblings. Almost all of us stutter,” Drayna recalls it saying. “Do you suppose there could be something genetic in my family?”

Drayna, who worked at the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, already had a longstanding interest in the inheritance of stuttering. His uncle and elder brother stuttered, and his twin sons did so as children. But he was reluctant to make a transatlantic journey based on an email, and wary that his clinical skills weren’t up to analyzing the family’s symptoms. He mentioned the email to current National Institutes of Health director Francis Collins (director of the National Human Genome Research Institute at that time), who encouraged him to check it out, so he booked a ticket to Africa. He has also traveled to Pakistan, where intermarriage of cousins can reveal gene variants linked to genetic disorders in their children.

Even with those families, finding the genes was slow going: Stuttering isn’t inherited in simple patterns like blood types or freckles are. But eventually, Drayna’s team identified mutations in four genes — GNPTAB, GNPTG and NAGPA from the Pakistan studies, and AP4E1 from the clan in Cameroon — that he estimates may underlie as many as one in five cases of stuttering.

Oddly, none of the genes that Drayna identified have an obvious connection to speech. Rather, they all are involved in sending cellular materials to the waste-recycling compartment called the lysosome. It took more work before Drayna’s team linked the genes to brain activity.

They started by engineering mice to have one of the mutations they’d observed in people, in the mouse version of GNPTAB, to see if it affected the mice’s vocalizations . Mice can be quite chatty, but much of their conversation takes place in an ultrasonic range that people can’t hear. Recording the ultrasonic calls of pups, the team observed patterns similar to human stuttering. “They have all these gaps and pauses in their train of vocalizations,” says Drayna, who cowrote an overview of genetics research on speech and language disorders for the Annual Review of Genomics and Human Genetics.

Still, the team struggled to spot any clear defect in the animals’ brains — until one determined researcher found that there were fewer of the cells called astrocytes in the corpus callosum. Astrocytes do big jobs that are essential for nerve activity: providing the nerves with fuel, for example, and collecting wastes. Perhaps, Drayna muses, the limited astrocyte population slows down communication between the brain hemispheres by a tiny bit, only noticeable in speech.

Researchers created mice with a mutation in a gene that, in people, is linked to stuttering. The mutant mice vocalized haltingly, with longer pauses between syllables, similar to what’s seen in human stuttering.

(Adapted from T.D. Barnes et al./Current Biology 2016; T.Han et al./PNAS 2019; Knowable Magazine)

​

Drayna’s research has received mixed reviews. “It’s really been the pioneering work in the field,” says Angela Morgan, a speech-language pathologist at the University of Melbourne and Murdoch Children’s Research Institute in Australia. On the other hand, Maguire has long doubted that mutations in such important genes, used in nearly all cells, could cause defects only in the corpus callosum, and only in speech. He also finds it difficult to compare mouse squeaks to human speech. “That’s a bit of a stretch,” he says.

Scientists are sure there are more stuttering genes to find. Drayna has retired, but Morgan and collaborators are initiating a large-scale study in the hopes of identifying additional genetic contributors in more than 10,000 people.

The dopamine connection

Maguire has been tackling stuttering from a very different angle: investigating the role of dopamine, a key signaling molecule in the brain. Dopamine can ramp up or down the activity of neurons, depending on the brain location and the nerve receptors it sticks to. There are five different dopamine receptors (named D1, D2, and so on) that pick up the signal and respond.

During the 1990s, Maguire and colleagues were among the first to use a certain kind of brain scan, positron emission tomography, on people who stutter. They found too much dopamine activity in these people’s brains. That extra dopamine seems to stifle the activity of some of the brain regions that Chang and others have linked to stuttering.

Backing up the dopamine connection, other researchers reported in 2009 that people with a certain version of the D2 receptor gene, one that indirectly enhances dopamine activity, are more likely to stutter.

So Maguire wondered: Could blocking dopamine be the answer? Conveniently, antipsychotic drugs do just that. Over the years, Maguire has conducted small, successful clinical studies with these medications including risperidone, olanzapine and lurasidone. (Personally, he prefers the last because it doesn’t cause as much weight gain as the others.) The result: “Your stuttering won’t completely go away, but we can treat it,” he says.

None of those medications are approved for stuttering by the US Food and Drug Administration, and they can cause unpleasant side effects, not just weight gain but also muscle stiffness and impaired movement. In part, that’s because they act on the D2 version of the dopamine receptor. Maguire’s new medication, ecopipam, works on the D1 version, which he expects will diminish some side effects — though he’ll have to watch for others, such as weight loss and depression.

In a small study of 10 volunteers, Maguire, Yaruss and colleagues found that people who took ecopipam stuttered less than they did pre-treatment. Quality-of-life scores, related to feelings such as helplessness or acceptance of their stutter, also improved for some participants.

Ten adult volunteers who stuttered were given ecopipam, a drug that blocks one version of the dopamine receptor, for 8 weeks. They stuttered significantly less when they were on the drug than they had before the treatment.

(G.A. Maguire et al./Annals of Clinical Psychiatry 2019/Knowable Magazine)

Ecopipam isn’t the only treatment under consideration. Back in Michigan, Chang hopes that stimulation of specific parts of the brain during speech could improve fluency. The team uses electrodes on the scalp to gently stimulate a segment of the hearing area, aiming to strengthen connections between that spot and the one that manages speech movements. (This causes a brief tickle sensation before fading, Chang says.) The researchers stimulate the brain while the person undergoes traditional speech therapy, hoping to enhance the therapy’s effects. Because of the Covid-19 pandemic, the team had to stop the study with 24 subjects out of a planned 50. They’re analyzing the data now.

Connecting the dots

Dopamine, cellular waste disposal, neural connectivity — how do they fit together? Chang notes that one of the brain’s circuits involved in stuttering includes two areas that make and use dopamine, which might help explain why dopamine is important in the disorder.

She hopes that neuroimaging can unite the different ideas. As a first stab, she and collaborators compared the problem areas identified by her brain scans to maps of where various genes are active in the brain. Two of Drayna’s genes, GNPTG and NAGPA, were active at high levels in the speech and hearing network in the brains of non-stutterers, she saw. That suggests those genes are really needed in those areas, bolstering Drayna’s hypothesis that defects in the genes would interfere with speech.

The team also observed something novel: Genes involved in energy processing were active in the speech and hearing areas. There’s a big rise in brain activity during the preschool years, when stuttering tends to start, Chang says. Perhaps, she theorizes, those speech-processing regions don’t get all the energy they need at a time when they really need to be cranking at maximum power. With that in mind, she plans to look for mutations in those energy-control genes in children who stutter. “There are obviously a lot of dots that need to be connected,” she says.

Maguire is also connecting dots: He says he’s working on a theory to unite his work with Drayna’s genetic findings. Meanwhile, after struggling through med school interviews and choosing a career in talk therapy despite his difficulties with speech, he’s hopeful about ecopipam: With colleagues, he’s starting a new study that will compare 34 people on ecopipam with 34 on placebo. If that treatment ever becomes part of the standard stuttering tool kit, he will have realized a lifelong dream.

Knowable Magazine is an independent journalistic endeavor from Annual Reviews.

#Nature

[popculturebuffet]

House of Mouse review: “The Three Caballeros” or State of Your Outfit Donald

The Ride of the Three Caballeros continues, and with reviewed paid for up until legend, we’re fueled up and ready to ride on for some time now. This admittedly has taken a bit longer than I like to get back on the ride, due to a  number of reasons, but i’m back on the ride and these next two were both a pleasure to get to and cover a show that was LONG overdue to show up here: It’s the House of Mouse! For those of you who haven’t heard of it House of Mouse was a Disney show in 2000 that ran on it’s one Saturday morning block, the follow up to the Disney afternoon. It also holds a close place in my heart as these are the versions of Mickey and Co I grew up with, as I had Disney Channel as a kid and they reaired it a LOT, so the show is sorta soaked into my DNA, and is likely the reason why I like Donald and Goofy so much, as their shorts here and their personalities outside them really drew me in. I’ll still be objective mind, but the show means a lot to me and i’m not going to hide that. 

The show has a really amazing setup: Mickey and Co run a club for Disney characters. While no tv characters showed up, anyone who had been in the movies was fair game, and everyone from Hades to both forms of Simba somehow to the horned freaking king showed up. The only exceptions were as I said Tv characters, though Pepper Ann makes a cameo in the pilot, and the Pixar characters.. which is more fair than you think. Keep in mind at the time of this series, there were only three Pixar Movies: Toy Story, a Bug’s LIfe and Toy Story 2, which came out the same year as house of mouse. Not only that Pixar wasn’t owned by Disney at the time, so there was likely a fear they could loose the rights to use the characters at some point and thus didn’t want to chance it.  But yeah this setting is used for great jokes, it’s the source of the “No one does X like gaston!” meme and it’s funny every time they do that gag. Though the main stars of the show are still mickey and co with each having a fitting position in the club’s hierachy: MIckey and Donald, being equal stars, co-own the club, though Donald sometimes feels overshadowed. Mickey, with his people skills and cheer is the MC and host. Donald, given his jack of all trades nature and butt monkey status, is guest services, in charge of taking care of the club’s featured guests and naturally having it backfire, as well as sometimes envying Mickey’s spot and trying to take it over. Minnie, being level headed, keeps things running, planning the show and managing finaces as well as calming Mickey when he gets panicky. Daisy runs guest services while trying to break out on her own and is somewhat of a ditz in this series, though not overly dumb or incompetent, just a bit of an air head is all, and her sweet bubbly nature makes her very likeable. That and outside the shorts at least, she’s very nice to Donald here and their realtionship is very sweet, hence it being one of the four versions of it I like.  Goofy is head waiter, which fits him because.. I dunno they needed one. But he does the job well even if he naturally screws up a bunch because Goofy. Pluto is also around as a personal assitant because eh why not.  But what really stood out abotu the show to me, even more so as an adult, was  the supporting cast. As a kid, I was introduced to a lot of the disney side characters i’d never heard of before, all of whom get a decent amount of screen time over the series, while as an adult, I find it heartwarming they brought these characters back and fleshed them out after not being used on screen for so long, with one big exception that was still nice of them to use and helps bridge the generation gap. 

The rest of the HOM crew consisted of Hoarce, Mickey’s friend who was used a lot early on and who works as the club’s engineer and handyman, Clarabelle, also often forgotten but thoroughly defined here as a loveable gossip and acted wonderfully by the incomparable April Winchell. I credit this show for making me love both characters especially Clarabelle and wanting to see them more. 

We also have Gus, a far more obscure on screen character. Gus is Donald’s Cousin, and as of this writing is the ONLY one of Donald’s three majorly used Cousins to have not shown up in the Ducktales reboot. Gus is also the only one whose not a comics original, to my shock, instead showing up in the short “Donald’s Cousin Gus”, communicating only through honks and eating all of Donald’s food. He was naturally adapted for the comics, where while still having a huge appetite became more bossed with being a lazy while working with Grandma Duck, his and Donald’s Grandma. He’s so different between mediums I genuinely forgot he was in this show and didn’t realize he and the chef from this show were the same person. Still it’s nice to see him and hopefully he’ll make the reboot before it ends.  Finally rounding out the supporitng cast we have Huey Dewey and Louie, who mostly show up as the quackstreet boys to dance and are kind of inbetween their classic designs and their quack pack versions: They have the hair from quack pack, but seem more like their 12-13, a bit older than standard, but sitll not as old as they are in Quack Pack. They also don’t talk which is a vast improvement over Quack Pack. And finally, and more prominently, we have Max, who as I said bridges the gap between generations and I think was an amazing inclusion. He not only gave younger viewers like me a character they knew better, but allowed the character’s story to continue a bit, clearly taking place after xtreme but having him actually go on a date with Roxanne. Thank you House of Mouse Writers. your doing Golb’s work.  Antagonist wise we have Pete, as usual trying to muck things up and presumibly flush with post divorce cash. He’s the club landlord, and wants Mickey out for reasons that are never explained, but as long as the show goes on and Mickey pays rent on time, the show goes on. Being Pete, he naturally tries to sabotage things. It’s a good device. The other is Mortimer, probably the series deepest cut alongside Gus as he only shwoed up in one short but the series easily made him one of my faviorites: A Sleazy asshole who tries to pick up on Minnie (who thankfully this go round is not at all receiptve), tries to get on the card, and constnatly says Ha-Cha-Cha. Maurice LaMarche, this show had a REALLY talented voice cast can you tell?, really owned the character and has been his voice since and really took him from a one dimensional douche to a LOVEABLE asshole. 

Granted most of this.. really isn’t relevant as only the main cast show up, but it’s an aspect of the show I like so I went into it anyway. Plus i’ll defintely be coverng the show again so this saves me time for later.  Back on point though, the show’s format was a problem of the week, ranging from guest troubles to pete shenigans to internal strife in the club to just general sitcom shenanigans, going on at the club, with shorts inserted in from a previous Mickey Show, Mickey MouseWorks. MouseWorks was a short lived, pun intended, show that didn’t do so good, so they had a bunch of these shorts sitting around including some that never aired on the show, and thus inserted them as cartoons being played for the club patrons. It was a great device and the shorts, while varying in quality , are mostly pretty good and were the first Disney Shorts I saw. It was a good format, allowing the main stories to have plenty of time, but not have to overpad them or anything and with so many shorts on hand they could simply write the story to be as long as they needed and then insert however many shorts were needed. It worked well. 

So yeah as you can tell I truly love this show and it introduced a lot of stuff to me. And naturally.. that includes the Three Caballeros here, with their song here being stuck in my head for years and this being the first time they’d shown up in decades... which is ironically how long it took for me to see their movie but regardless. The boys were back, and you can see how the show did with them, under the cut. 

Something to note, No Disney Plus this time.. because BAFFLINGNLY the show is not on there, despite no rights issues holding it up I’m aware of, and the show having every other mouse and duck related animated series on there. I know, I’ve talked about this before, even in this very retrospective.. but I keep bringing it up because it’s something you easily forget about. Something that may slip away. But don’t let it. Let them know, and get our shows on there already. Christ.  Anyways, due to the show’s format of sliding the shorts in, and to make thing easier on me for house of mouse reviews i’m simply going to do the shorts first, then the main plot. Good? Good. 

This one only had two, though it varied on how many they used, and some were just super short shorts anyway, so it all balances out and as I said, i’ts better they just told as much story as was there than tried to rush it. So without further adue...

Donald’s Fish Fry: Poor Poor Humphrey  Yeah I didn’t like this one. The premise is using the old character Humphrey the Bear.. only here instead of being the antagonist the ranger present basically bullies the poor bear, while the other bears constnatly get more fish than him when it’s their registered time to fish. It’s just agrvating.. and when the poor boy finally GETS a fish, Donald snatches it.  Donald isn’t unsympathetic here, he found the fish fairly.. but it’s hard to tell who we’re supposed to root for here. Humphrey, who just wants what’s his, or Donald whose oblivious but technically in the wrong. This kind of slapstick just.. dosen’t work as well with both sides being sympathetic. It can work with say bugs and daffy, because both are equal, but there’s clearly an antagonistc force in elmer fudd. But this type of shenanigan just dosen’t work when neither side deserves the punishment, and Humphrey did nothing wrong. I felt like this for supporting him the whole time. 

And it ends with the ranger getting the fish. Because he wasn’t unlikeable enough clearly. Though Humphrey does get some beans so yay? Also the house segment after has Ranger Dickhead stealing Humphrey’s dinner, which given he’s at the club he CLEARLY paid for because it’s too fatty. Fuck you dude. I hope Goofy threw you out for that one. Just not a fun sit. I’ve seen this kind of shenanigan done better, in disney classic shorts even. I’ve seen Don as the villian better, See Trick or Treat for a good example> There’s just.. nothing here and it goes on forever. This is a good chunk of the episode! Lordy! Just a genuinely bad short. Thankfully the next one while not as word inducing is also not as headache inducing How to Be Smart: Now THESE were my faviorites as a kid. I loved goofy, so shorts about him were no brainer but even now.. these are still funny. Basically a narrator would follow Goofy around while he tries to learn how to do something, in this case how to get smarter after loosing on a gameshow .. and owing the show three milion dollars. There’s not much ot go into, it’s basically a series of jokes about Goofy going to school from elementary to college and learning his way up while Dealing with Ludvig’s bratty nephew and his own stupidity. It’s a funny short and really well done and these are easily some of the show’s best shorts and this is no exception. Unlike  the Humphrey short, where this essentially happened. 

My soul and I gladly enjoyed How to Be Smart. Dare to NOT be stupid and check this short out. 

The Wraparound: And I”m Donald Duck! As for the main segment it’s pretty good. We open with Mickey hyping up tonight’s act, which is naturally the Three Caballeros! But trouble sets in as Donald, while proud at first, is rightfully annoyed that a man on the street segment shows NO ONE remembers he was in the group. Including his best friend goofy. Only Pumba does, somehow. I dunno maybe he dated Panchito once before meating timon. Point is Donald dosen’t take this well, even if we get a nice moment of Daisy swooning over the fact.. even if being  HOM Daisy, she can’t get the name right. But given i’ve had trouble spelling it right, I’m one to talk. 

So being Donald he overreacts, which I like as.. well it’s Donald. Of course when given a very resonable reason to get upset he takes it a step too far. In this case he’s gotten an army of lawers, refuses to speak to mickey and has put ... THIS on. I showed it at the top of the page but.. well it bears repeating. 

It’s like every bad thing about the early 2000′s, from the douchey shades, to the rings, to the golden knuckles, to the hat that looks like a penis, to the no donald logo. There should be all the donalds, ALL OF THEM. He also has an army of lawyers, and naturally resorts to hot doggin and grandstanding: Signing autographs during the show, putting a giant poster of himself up. It works okay, as it makes him unsympathetic for the next part to work and is really funny which is the point. Even if again he looks like the feces that’s produced when shame eats too much stupidity. 

Instead of just getting Dale Gribble in there, Mickey is at a loss for a solution till the boys show up and.. it’s a mixed bag. Carlos  Alazraqui is excellent as Panchito, slipping into the roll well. Unlike last time the character showed up, they did NOT get a mexican actor, but Carols is still Latino, so it’s still better than what they did for Jose, and still big of them to actually bother to get a Latino actor to play a latino role.  Jose on the other hand.. is played, and not very good, by Rob Paulson. And before anyone throws stuff at me, I love Rob. I will  be gushing about him when I get around to reviewing the animaniacs reboot. He’s a god among voice actors and I love him. But his voice, at least in this ep dosen’t really .. FIT Jose, and he dosen’t really match the characters energy which is VERY weird given Animaniacs was right before this. The guy can DO energy and it’s one of his best talents. He STILL can as evidenced by both TMNT 2012 and the Animaniacs revival. It’s just not one of his better performances. I love the guy but even gods have off days.  And of course there’s the bigger issue of the very white Rob shouldn’t be playing the very Brazilian Jose. Not matching nationatlies is one thing, it sucks, but The Three Cablleros had a much bigger budget than HOM likely did. HOWEVER, it couldn’t of been that hard to find two latino voice actors in 2000, especially when you found at least one. I get this wasn’t as big a thing but when the 1940′s did better than you, you know you screwed up. 

But it probably dosen’t help the two.. barely do anything. Despite the episode being named after them, they only show up towards the end and just sorta say hi to mickey, get cool entrances, and then seeing Donald being a dick and Mickeya sking for their help, humble him with their musical number.  And the Musical Number IS really good, it’s been in my head for years and is just as catchy as the classic “Three Cabllero’s Song”.. why they didn’t sing that I don’t know, but this original one, a light knockoff of la bamba is still really fun and bouncy and the gags are good. It’s a really good climax and Donald deserves his punishment.  The only really issue is the ending, as.. no one leaned anything. No one acknowledges how forgotten Donald felt, Mickey dosen’t seem to get the issue as his “promoting Donald” at the end to make sure he’s not forgotten.. just has a bunch of jabs at his expense, and Donald dosen’t apologize..t hougH daisy is really sweet to him so we got some Donsy at least. It’s just a weak ending to an otherwise excellent wraparound.  Final Thoughts: This one was.. okay. Shorts aside, i’ve said my peace about them, the wraparound is a lot of fun, as is the musical number, even if the “artist formerly known as” joke was played out even in 2000. I mean yeas Prince changing his name to a symbol was insane, I get that.. but by then everyone had clowned on that decision and given he did so in a bizarre act of defiance towards his label, at a time where we now know how scummy record labels can be, it hasn’t aged well. It’s just the weak climax, song not included, really drags things down. The Cabs are just.. a cameo in their own damn episode, even with the full musical number and could’ve been around more. They don’t get to show off personalities or really do anything but teach Donald a lesson and are basically one indivdiual here. It sticks out even more because Rosa had both be utterly distinct and showed the utmost care while here.. their just sorta tossed in so they could have Donald be a primadona.. which itself is funny but on the whole this episode was just.. disappointing to revisit. It was disheartening to learn one of my favorite episodes as a kid wasn’t that good. It is worth checking out if you like Donald or the cabs, provided you skip the first short. Trust me, trust me, but is far from the best the house of mouse has to offer and hopefully the next one will show that.  Next time when the Ride continues, my gig at the house of mouse gets held over another night as Jose teaches Goofy manners and Panchito helps deprogram him from that. Before that I hope to get to the next chapter of life and times and some other stuff i’ve had hanging, including the next loud house and the next part of the tomtropsective, as well as some new things that have come up like said review of the animaniacs reboot and a review of Adventure Time: Distant Lands, Obsidan. Until then if you liked this review, please check out my other pages for more, follow me to see them, and if you’d like to comission your own, just hit me up in my ask box for my discord or personal message me here on tumblr. Until then, ther’es always another rainbow. I’m out. 

[imagineredwood]

Request: Bobby’s biological daughter that he didn’t know he had until she shows up with CPS because her mom and stepdad were abusive. She has to learn to let people in again.

Pairing: Dad Bobby x female reader 

Warnings: Abuse, allusions to PTSD symptoms, trust issues 

Word count: 1,569

“Who the hell is that?”

The Sons all looked up at the security camera as they saw a vehicle pull in and park and well-dressed man and woman stepping out from the driver and passenger seats. Clay watched the screen with furrowed brows as they looked around the complex, the man going to the backseat and opening the door, a teenage girl stepping out of the bar. She held a large bag in her hand that had everyone confused, Jax looking towards Clay. 

“Feds?”

“With some teenybopper? I doubt it. Let's go check it out.” 

Clay and Jax both stood, making their way outside while the rest of the Sons stayed, most of them stubbing out their joints just in case they were feds and came in with a warrant. The rest of the Sons including Bobby watched their President and VP walk out and exchange words with the two people before Clay took a paper that the man held out towards him. Clay read over it and Jax did as well over his shoulder. They both stopped to look at each other before nodding and motioning for the three of them to come into the clubhouse. Tig cursed, taking the ashtray with the roaches to go flush them. 

“Goddamnit. That must be a warrant.” 

Juice ran over to light one of Gemma’s candles and hide the rolling papers while the rest of the Sons stayed sitting nonchalantly and acting normal. Bobby wasn’t paying much mind. At his age, worrying was not something he enjoyed doing and he wouldn’t unless it was something really bad. So he kept his wits about him as Clay, Jax and the kid with the other two walked in, Clay motioning towards Bobby. 

“That’s him.”

Bobby’s eyes squinted at the words. What the hell could these people want with him? 

“Mr. Munson?”

Bobby tried to keep his expression neutral as the man and woman eyed him. You and he locked eyes though and he could see a sense of awe in them. Why, he wasn’t sure.

“Yeah, that’s me. Who’s asking?”

The man stepped forward this time, swallowing drying as he felt the eyes on him and handed Bobby the papers. Bobby took them from his and being reading over them, none of the words really making sense until he saw the file about the police report made after the cops were called for a domestic dispute. It was there that he saw the name of your mother. They had never been overly close, the relationship more of a complicated one night stand that turned into something else entirely. She had been unstable and inherently violent. It was for that reason that he had called it quits, and also why he recognized the name as soon as he ran his eyes across it. His heart stopped then sunk as he saw that the spot for the father on your birth certificate had been left blank. He knew quickly what this was about then. The man verbalized in case he was confused though. 

“This is Y/N, she was taken into the system and given to us to look after a call was received about a disturbance at the house. The investigation is still new but we have enough evidence that the home was abusive so we removed her from her mother and step father’s care. The mother tells us that you are her father, she just never made you aware. If that’s true then you now technically are her legal guardian. We can arrange to have a paternity test if you’d like the certainty...”

The man trailed off as Bobby shook his head, looking up at you. The age gap between the two of you didn’t allow there to be many characteristics that showed resemblance, but your eyes and curls were enough to convince Bobby that it was all true. You were his kid, no doubt. He had a rush of emotions run through him. Anger at missing out on knowing you, guilt at not having been there, sadness that you were now one more child of his that he’d fucked up on. He clenched the papers in his hand and blew out a shaky breath as he looked at you. Your eyes held worry and emotional exhaustion but even still, you tried to smile at him softly. 

“So you are my dad?”

Bobby stayed quiet for a second or two, still slightly in shock at how drastically his day had changed in such little time. 

“Seems like it kid.”

The woman nodded and smoothed her hands down the front of her blouse, giving you a soft smile as she put her arm around you, hand squeezing your shoulder. 

“You do have some family, after all, see?”

You nodded and looked back at your now father and the rest of the men who sat around him wearing wide eyes but small smiles as well. Bobby slowly started to tune out the sound of the social workers talking to you as he looked over the rest of the file, pictures of bruising along your body, hospital bills for stitches, an x-ray of a hairline fractured cheekbone. Whether he’d known you for a day or for his whole life, you were still his kid, and the thought of you being abused was enough to get his blood boiling, an angry huff coming from him as he tossed your file roughly to the side on top of the bar. 

The sound and action of annoyance caught your attention though and made you jump and swallow, thinking it was directed at you. 

“I don’t have to stay with you if you don’t want me to. They were saying I could maybe go to a foster family or something.”

Bobby quickly shook his head, cursing himself for not thinking before he threw the stack of papers. He knew that your background and what you’d been through was going to be difficult to deal with and he knew it was going to take some adaptation on his part. Everything happened in a blur after that, Bobby accepting legal guardianship as your father, signing a paper stating he would take you in, taking the near inch thick packet of paperwork associated with any legal proceedings and the works. 

Gemma had come in at some point and caught the tail end of the interaction. It was enough for her to understand what was happening though and it didn’t take a rocket scientist to see you were uncomfortable bordering on fearful at the new environment and people. She stepped up slow, having seen the picture in the file as well, a warm smile on her face. 

“Hi baby, I’m Gemma. I’m his mom,”

She pointed over to Jax who smiled as you looked back over at him. 

“Why don’t you come with me to the kitchen, we’ll make something to eat?”

She kept her distance, giving you your space, allowing you to make your own decision. You hesitated at first, eyeing her. She seemed friendly enough but you knew better than to be fooled by that. Even still, you nodded and placed your bag down. She held her hand out for you to grab but you shook your head, stuffing your pants into the pockets of your jeans. Gemma didn’t seem to mind, her smile not wavering as she walked with you into the kitchen.  

“This is good. Thank you.”

Both Gemma and Bobby looked up from their own soup as they heard your voice. 

“There’s plenty more if you want another bowl.” 

You nodded in acknowledgment and looked back down at your lunch.

“Im not really used to eating actual meals like this. Like that are warm and cooked.”

Neither of them responded to your comment directly, not wanting their anger to come out. Instead, Gemma smiled, reaching over to lay her hand atop yours. She didn’t miss that flinch that came but this time you didn’t pull away. 

“You’ll always have a warm, home-cooked meal with us, baby. Anything you need or want, you’ll have here.”

Bobby looked over as well, his eyes holding yours. 

“You ain't never gonna have to worry about needing anything ever again. I promise you that. I know you weren’t being taken care of back there with your mother, but you will be here.” 

He saw the small beginning of a smile tug at your lips and you nodded before looking back down at your soup.

“Thanks...Bobby.”

He smiled back, not having expected you to start calling him dad. He knew the police report and the pictures were only scraping the surface of what you had gone through and he knew you weren’t going to start trusting everyone overnight. He would be damned if he didn’t make sure he tried to make you feel safe. He knew in his age he wouldn’t be able to do everything a younger dad would do not would he have the time, especially with the club, but he knew in time the younger Sons would become like big brothers to you, Gemma providing you with a mother figure, the club becoming your family. He would do everything in his power to give you a place to belong.  A home where you would feel safe and protected. That would come in time though. For now, he would start slow and make up for lost years. 

“So, you like ice cream?”

[ask-the-guiding-light-cast]

Guiding Light turns two years old today!

It’s crazy to think this all began only a couple of years back... and also hilarious it falls on the same day as “International Mystery Dungeon Day” over on Twitter. More after the cut. This is gonna be a long one, so I appreciate anyone willing to read this. ^^

For a long time, I had been a casual consumer of fan fics. It started in the late 2000s when I was in a Spyro craze thanks to the more story-driven Legend of Spyro trilogy. I had an itch that I needed scratched and FFN fulfilled that to some extent. I also looked at some Mario fics, including Paper Mario: The Temple of the Sun, which I greatly enjoyed and thought did a good job adapting the formula that made Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door so beloved and putting a unique spin on things.

But it was until the early 2010s that I actually started getting back into Pokémon games with Gen V. After Emerald, I fell out of touch with Pokémon for a time. When Gen VI came around, I dipped my toe into the fandom through Twitch livestreams, but also through reading a few anime-based fics that are very long and still going, even now. 

At the same time, I ended up buying PMD: Explorers of Sky... and damaged my cartridge before I could properly finish the game with my Vulpix/Riolu team. So, I watched cutscenes for what I missed on YouTube, then got Gates to Infinity and, later, Super Mystery Dungeon and had fun with both of them... though more for the stories and characters than the actual gameplay. Truth be told, I don’t care much for roguelikes at all.

It was during the gap in time between Super’s release and the first official footage of Sun & Moon in mid-2016 that I found myself hit with a recurring thought: “What if someone made a PMD story where the hero and the partner are forced to fight one another with the fate of the world at stake?” I wound up (loosely) brainstorming an idea for a PMD story revolving around an antagonistic Hoopa character who would use its ring portals to collect entire communities, including the Pokémon living in them... all so that he would never be bored. This would lead him to “collect” the partner to add to his “toys,” so when the hero shows up, he’d sic the partner on them.

But that was as far as I got with the idea. I ended up graduating college and took a job with late evening hours. It left me pretty tired and exhausted and unmotivated to do much of anything. I withdrew from the parts of the Pokémon community I was involved in.

Then the Generation VII games came out and, while divisive in the fandom, I found myself really liking some of the concepts. There were so many times when I thought, “Gee, I wonder what this would be like if it were in a PMD game?” For example, one of the ideas I had was a sort of edgy rival rescue team akin to Gladion, which would have a Midnight Lycanroc, a Zoroark, and a Type: Null character in it.

So, toward the end of 2016 and early 2017, I started creating an idea for a Choose Your Own Adventure story with the intent of putting it on this really small forum I was a part of. It would be a Gen VII-themed PMD story, but because I didn’t think that sounded interesting enough, I decided that, not only would the human keep their memories, but they would be from the real world and be a major Pokémon nerd. The idea was that the choices the readers made would affect the relationship between the human and partner. I even came up with a point system. The more points the readers earned for their choices, the “closer” the relationship the hero and partner would have and the happier an ending the story would get. If the hero and partner couldn’t stand each other, one of them would likely end up working with the bad guy and winning. If they became steadfast friends, they’d work together to save the world.

Unfortunately, the forum shut down before I got too far into planning it, so I shelved the idea and continued focusing on my job. And things stayed that way for several months, until I ended up getting into med school and scrambling to move.

During the downtime I had when I wasn’t doing moving related stuff, I decided to look at FFN again and found Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Defenders of Warmth. I wound up reading through the entirety of the story quite quickly. I guess you could say it sparked something in my head. The fic itself focuses on what, at the time, was the newest Gen (Gen V). It also has multiple humans and is set on a continent separate from the canon locations (which were just the Air and Grass Continents, since Gates and Super didn’t exist when the fic was written). In short, it renewed my desire to pursue my idea of a Gen VII-flavored PMD story.

So, I set about creating my story outline. It is so... so much different from the actual story, though I’ve gone into that in previous posts (search for #amby answers). Originally, I used Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time as the framework for the fic: an alien invasion in a colorful, comedic world. I took more specific cues, too. Zero was meant to be a (mostly) silent antagonist a la Princess Shroob, for example.

The problem was, I really didn’t have much confidence in myself or my abilities. I’d like to say I was writing for myself, but I really did want validation, too. I think any author is lying to themselves if they say they don’t feel this way at some point. Because of this, I figured if I put the fic on FFN, it would get ignored. The site’s huge! There were, at the time, around 85k fics in the Pokémon section alone. (That number’s since gone up to over 90k!)

Given I had experience with forums, I decided to post it to Serebii, because the fic community seemed much smaller and more open to giving feedback to one another. In an effort to try and, y’know, establish some connections, I actually read other pieces and reviewed them before posting any stories. This also helped me build up a backlog of chapters and prove to myself I enjoyed writing this enough to keep going.

When I finally did post the fic, it was a bumpy start, for sure. I do think I made a lot of mistakes out of the gate, including uploading chapters way too quickly for readers on Serebii to (reasonably) try to keep pace. That probably cost me a few potential readers... or made them silent readers who I never ended up hearing from. Which is why I’m especially thankful to @girl-like-substance (who I can seem to tag, drat) for all of the well-thought-out feedback given throughout the fic’s run. I don’t think I would’ve made such significant strides in my writing otherwise... and there are plenty of long-running fics where the quality tends to stagnate.

In any case... it was thanks to a request from @deliriousabsol to put the fic somewhere more mobile-friendly that I chose to mirror Guiding Light on FFN starting in October 2017. I would’ve kept going on Serebii had she not asked so nicely, so she’s the one you can thank for it showing up there! (She’s a fellow author who does cyberpunk-themed fics and art and her characters have cameoed in the fic.)

And, honestly, I’m just... beyond shocked at what wound up happening to the fic once it hit FFN. Well, actually, for the first several months I was lucky if I even got a comment when I put up a chapter. I’m not sure any of the people who first commented on FFN still follow the fic anymore. I haven’t seen/heard from them at all, so I assumed they moved on with their lives.

In any case, around March of 2018, the word count on FFN passed 300k and... somehow, the fic starting getting more attention. Like, a lot more attention. This was... not really something I was even remotely prepared for.

(Yes, this means there’s gonna be a giveaway. More on that later.) I never would’ve thought I’d reach a number like this. I never imagined I’d meet another PMD author who’d be willing to do a fun collab (thanks @virgil134, Spiteful Murkrow, and Namohysip). I really did not imagine that I’d ever get fanart of characters that I wrote (huge thanks @thebreak-ofdawn, @ask-nicky-and-others, and @cresselia92). I mean, above everything, I not expect the fic or characters to resonate with anybody the way it wound up.

A part of me feels like I don’t really deserve it. I’ve made a lot of serious gaffes with writing this. When initial Serebii feedback had people intrigued by Shane’s jerkass attitude (when I didn’t actually intend for him to come off as a jerk), I dialed things up in the hopes I’d keep their attention. It probably cost me readers. Then there’s the slow pacing of the early episodes and the mistake of making Special Episode 3 as long as it was... which my speaks to my (bad) tendency to give into some of my strongest impulses even though I had an outline I was trying to stick to.

And, I mean, there’s also some of the “shamlessly shameful” stuff I’ve done with the fic. I’m not fooling myself. Guiding Light has grown progressively more furry and, uh, probably fanservicey, too. All the big furbait (and some scalebait) ‘mons are accounted for. There’s a lot more sexual humor when I initially promised myself I would stay away from romance and keep everything platonic. I practically turned Xerneas into waifu bait, if some of these asks are anything to go by. This blog certainly didn’t help in that regard. Maybe I’m just being my usual nervous self? 

I am worried that this fic’s performance has, somehow, affected my thoughts and behavior. There are very popular fic authors who let their popularity get to their head... or chose to open up Patreons (something that makes me uncomfortable) or start doing things like taking commissions for written pieces, which is understandable... though I think it’s an easy way to lose your passion for writing. I guess some of that worry stems from a debacle I learned about on a Discord server I’m in, but that’s not something I’m comfortable discussing publicly. 

And I haven’t even talked much about the blog itself. Like, it somehow passed 100 followers? Where? When? How? I don’t actually draw stuff like many other Pokéasks. And, like, for a lot of folks, I have no idea if they’ve actually read the fic or just check in on the blog. It’s the same with the fic, I suppose. If you’re a silent reader/follower, I would really love to hear from you! I promise... I don’t bite or anything. I’d love to know what (if anything) you’re thinking. And if you’re a blog that’s following this one and we haven’t interacted, please feel free to reach out! It’s honestly hard to tell if people like what I’m doing, so any feedback is always appreciated.

In any case, if I haven’t lost you by now, I guess all I can say is... thank you. Thank you all so much for all of the support... whether it’s on the fic, the blog, or both of them. I really do hope this final episode can meet your expectations. I’ll try my very best to make this an ending to remember. Nothing would make me happier than to hear you guys enjoy it and feel it does justice to the PMD series.

Sorry for all the rambling. The inbox is open again if you’d like to send any messages for the ficaversary. Again, thank you all so much! You’re the best!

[bryonysimcox]

Cutting, calling, sticking, sitting, subtitling: Week 15, Spain

With future certainty and concrete plans nowhere in sight, this week’s blog post is in praise of the mundane. Seven days of everyday life.

When prepping for this blog entry, I started panicking. What’s the overarching message? The big-picture mood of the week or the lesson I’ve learnt? Well this week, there isn’t one. It’s been seven days of everyday life and I reckon that’s worth celebrating too.

We’ve been pitching for some exciting work this week.

I can’t talk about the specifics, but it’s heartening to be actually planning and quoting for real-life projects that could bring in real-life money and real-life experience. We pretty much work on Broaden as a full-time venture anyway (regardless of if it makes us money), so when prospective clients reach out to Broaden to ask us to do more of what we love, then that’s a bonus.

I guess that’s the beauty of filmmaking, it’s so broad and its potential is so great that it can be valuable for a whole lot of people. I also think in the coming ‘new normal’ as countries, cities and communities come to adapt life around Covid-19, that the role of video and online streaming will shift, and perhaps become a more central element in our lives.

I’ve also been working away at editing the video we started filming last week about Economics for a more just and equitable world. It’s starting to take shape, though there is a lot of refinement needed (I’ve cut 150 minutes down to 30 minutes but still have a fair way to go!). Working on this video is also bringing about a newfound challenge of how we make videos like this visually stimulating, when they predominantly feature digital interviews and we can’t film footage out and about due to lockdown. It’s forcing us to get more creative with motion graphics, which is no bad thing.

In what is the culmination of a longstanding project, we also interviewed Rich Evans about The Foundations in New South Wales this week.

‘The Foundations’ is a truly extraordinary project/place in Portland, a tiny town about two-hours inland from Sydney. I first discovered the project when I worked in Australia, and the company I worked for, RobertsDay, was involved in a masterplanning process. Portland was established around a cementworks which went on to not only be the driving economic force behind the town, but also the backbone of the community. It was a source of civic pride (cement from Portland famously went to Sydney amid the building boom, coining it the phrase ‘The Town That Built Sydney’), and also helped establish social infrastructure like the swimming pool that is still a celebrated destination in the little town today. Sadly, as the cementworks decreased in scale and eventually closed in the nineties, it had a huge impact on the town.

(images) Scenes from January 2019 when we started filming at The Foundations, Portland NSW.

Back at RobertsDay, I had the pleasure of working on the masterplan and placemaking work for the next chapter of the cementworks, and I immediately fell in love with the place. Not only was it this incredible place of industrial heritage, but the owners actually wanted to transform the site into something really special - a tourist destination, an asset to the community, and a revitalised part of the town. From its current state - fenced-off, closed, and perhaps even an eyesore, the owners wanted to introduce artwork, markets, community gardens, museum collections, fishing and camping, weddings, concerts and a whole host of other things.

It was obvious that there was a story about The Foundations that deserved to be told, and so in January 2019 George and I spent a weekend there, filming local residents, business owners, and the wonderful Rich Evans, ‘Chief Reactivation Officer’ from The Foundations. This was before we’d even launched Broaden, but we were passionate to use filmmaking to document the transformation that was taking place there. However, over the course of 2019, other things took centre stage in our lives and we never got around to editing the final film.

And so, in lockdown here in Spain, we decided it was finally time to close off this story. Just this week,we called Rich over Zoom and asked him all about how things have progressed since we last visited Portland. Rich is a larger-than-life character who had so much good stuff to report (an artist in residence, growing market attendee numbers, new custom-designed public furniture, and the renovation of a central historic building which involved the removal of 1000s of bees!).

In a strange way, I’d originally thought of this hiatus as a weakness for our film, but it now has added another facet to the story: giving Rich a chance to reflect on progress at The Foundations and show viewers how much is possible in the space of a year.

Making collages serves as respite for the mind.

I return to my collage practice as a meditative practice, and a restorative one too. It’s something I do when I want to clear my mind, and use a different part of my brain from the video-editing-zoom-calling-analytical-planning side of my brain.

That said, the last few paper collages I’ve made have felt like a bit of struggle, and I’ve felt rather uninspired. The collages are never meant to be a forced thing, but instead something visceral and playful, but in recent times they’d stopped being that.

Until this week! This week, inspired to make a collage for my mum’s birthday, I started getting my boxes of magazines and compiled sheets out, stuck my ‘Making Collage’ playlist on, and somehow just found my groove. Shapes and forms shouted out to me, and I was more preoccupied with the mood of the pieces than perfection and precision. I was drawn to more ambiguous textures and the way that they could be layered, and what started as one collage ended up being a series of three (the other two of which I’ll later publish this week).

(image) The collage I made for my mum’s birthday, ‘Flirtatious Textures’.

Whilst I’ve feel as though I’ve found my swing with collage-making again (and have been also considering embarking on some critical writing about my creative process using academic texts for reference), this week I had a piece rejected. I’d made it to enter into a competition, and when the rejection email landed in my inbox this week, the usual heart-racing pangs of inadequacy entered my mind. Not only had I lost money on the entry fee, but my work was ‘unwanted’. I’ve spent some time facing those demons these last couple of days and reminding myself that I make my work for ME.

So if that’s the cutting and sticking, and the zoom interviews were the calling, what’s the sitting and subtitling this week’s post refers to?

We’ve been doing a lot of sitting. Sitting and staring, sitting and watching the sun set, sitting and reading books, sitting and checking Instagram, sitting and feeling guilt for sitting, sitting and swatting mosquitoes away (it’s rather hot all of a sudden), sitting and eating crisps, sitting and calling friends, sitting and laughing, smiling, frowning, thinking.

(images, left to right) Everyday scenes from the cottage, cutting and sticking, and a lot of sitting (as demonstrated by George!)

It feels totally bonkers that as we face a global health pandemic, all I’m drawn to do (or able to do) is sit. And George and I have certainly discussed the guilt, lack of motivation, boredom and soul-searching that’s grown (and comes along with sitting!) in recent weeks. I’m not sure if there’s some grand benefit to all this sitting, but it has called for the enjoyment of many a good book, and also a good phonecall.

One of the most joyful moments (spent sitting!) this week was surely the video call I had for my Granny’s 80th birthday, between my mum, my brother, my aunt and my Granny herself. There were laughs and cheers, ridiculous filters used and lots of talk of birthday booze and plentiful cake. But after the call, there were also moments of reflection and of gratitude; that we are able to celebrate together (albeit digitally) for the momentous milestone that is my wonderful Granny’s eightieth birthday, as she sits alone in her house in Scotland, is a blessing. Of course, I would have loved to have seen her in person, but I am so bloody grateful that we can connect to her even if just through the airwaves.

Birthdays in May seem to be a common occurrence in my family, and this week saw my Mum’s birthday too. Again, there was a sense of loss that unsurprisingly, I couldn’t be with her due to coronavirus (a fact made worse by the fact I don’t think I’ve been with my Mum on her birthday for about five years), but we were also able to chat and videocall. And I was also able to go back through my photos, reflecting on wonderful times shared across the years.

(images, left to right) Looking back at memories with mum - as a child in a sling, on our trip to Sri Lanka in 2018, and at the exhibition opening of ‘Talking Sense’ where one of her sculptures was displayed at the Portico Library last year.

Access to computers and the internet, free time to sit and chill, and family who are safe and sound is not a privilege everyone shares. And I am so aware of that.

I continue to think of the inequalities this pandemic is highlighting, and the gaps it is widening. Access to the fundamental elements for a just and equitable life are basic human rights, and yet as BBC newsnight’s Emily Maitlis reminded us, 'The disease is not a great leveller'. If while I’m sitting this week, I can at least read, watch, learn and share ideas about how we can tackle these gaping inequalities, my sitting was perhaps not in vain.

As our fifteenth week on the road drew to a close, and looked ever less like life actually ‘on the road’, I decided to take on the task of subtitling The Hundred Miler.

Initially, the only motivation to create comprehensive subtitles for Broaden’s thirty minute documentary was so that we could enter foreign film fests. And even then, we’d have had it professionally subtitled if we weren’t looking for ways to save money!

And so I naively embarked on what was to become a two-day odyssey involving Artificial Intelligence transcript detection, manually correcting the script, learning about timecodes, downloading .srt files and working to integrate them with YouTube.

The long and short of it is that The Hundred Miler (which also hit a whopping 100,000 views this week) now has complete ‘closed caption’ subtitles which you can use and enjoy on YouTube! But more than that, through conversations with others I realised the importance of subtitles from an accessibility perspective, as a critical tool to help deaf and hard-of-hearing people, as well as those for whom English isn’t their mother tongue. It was a refreshing reminder that we exclude people without meaning to, but that we can also actively include them if we take certain measures.

So that’s it, Week 15 in all its mundane glory. To those of you who are still here, reading my reflections on these strange and tumultuous times, thank you. Maybe this week you’ve been cutting, calling, sticking, sitting and subtitling too, and for that, I salute you.