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hanbinniesmango · 2 months

Note

zb1 top 3 kinks pls!!

zerobaseone’s top 3 kinks

—all my opinion 😓🫶🏾 (no gunwook or yujin!!)

jiwoong

primal play

i can just imagine jiwoong one night wanting to get some relief and the releasing all his emotions out onto you while you guys fuck, resulting in him growling, marking you, and saying things like, “you’re all mine you know that, hm? no one else can fuck this pretty pussy like me.” with a grunt. he’d just be going at it like an animal.

breeding kink

would imagine you all the time full of his cum, he loves keeping that image in his head while you fuck. when he actually can he honestly puts his all into it, he knows what he wants and he’s gonna get it.

impact play (f. receiving)

if you’re being bad, best believe he’s pulling you over his lap and pulling down you bottoms. likes to smack both cheeks until their red, sometimes slapping your pussy as well. it just brings him joy to see you writhe on his lap to no avail.

zhang hao

humiliation kink (m. receiving)

when you started calling him mean names one day he went silent. you thought you striked a nerve, but no. you had actually turned him on a lot. to the point where he felt himself getting hard, and once you figured it out a big grin hit your face. “you’re getting hard just from some words? fucking pathetic hao..” he wanted to open his mouth to complain and justify the situation, but instead he let out a slutty moan. let’s just say you used his weakness for the greater good..

bondage kink (m. receiving)

he loves the feels of the restraints straining against his flesh, the tight fabric refraining from letting him move and touch you. especially when you pull out a pretty color of ribbon and wrap him in it, it makes him feel so good.

somnophilia kink

you’ve both talked about fucking while asleep and giving your consents and everything and views on it, after that calling it a night. a while later you’re asleep and he’s really aroused for some reason, he turns over to you watching you in slumber, your chest slowly rising and falling. he exhales softly, biting his lip at the situation. next thing you know he’s slipping inside of you from behind and gently fucking into you, breaths quickening. he starts to lose himself pace getting a bit quicker. your slumber is interrupted, you waking up, pants heavy and soft moans coming out of you as you feel his cock slowly drag between you warm walls. “someone couldn’t wait til the morning hm?” you say before pushing your hips back on to his, you being met with a groan. you both made sure you spent the rest of the night going til you were satisfied.

hanbin

exhibition kink

he definitely gets off on knowing people could see them messing around at anytime. the type of guy who you play with you in a dressing room, smirking at any of your moans or groans saying, “you don’t wanna get caught right, lovebug?”

collar kink (f. + m. receiving)

he loves watching you sit pretty while he puts a collar on you, him giving you commands every now and then, the collar reminding you of your place and that you’re his. he watches as the the pendant on the collar glitters in the light when you suck him off, him biting his lip at the dirty situation, you both knowing how it gets him off.

dacryphilia kink

he’d see tears start pouring out of your eyes from the overwhelming pleasure, them coming out like a faucet. something in him clicks in him at that moment, suddenly he’s wanting to do more to get more of those sweet tears out. “does it feel that good, lovebug? poor baby…” he says with a little pout, kissing your tears away. “it’ll be over soon love, endure it for me.” he says with a gentle smirk, stroking your head before continuing with his thrusts, your continuous tears egging him on.

taerae

voyeur and or cuckholding kink

one day he came home earlier than usual, and called your name, but you didn’t answer as you usually do. once he found you he heard your soft whimpers and moans of his name. and he just had to watch you. even though everything said to just walk in, he liked looking through the crack of the door, something about it was just so naughty and addicting… with cuckholding, he was very open to the idea of one of his beloved members to fuck you and him spectating. when it did happen, believe he was rock hard the whole time.

cock worship

he loves the days when you both are just feeling romantic together, the days where you just let him sit back and you worship his pretty cock. he’s sitting back on the bed as you kiss softly all over his cock telling him how pretty it is, darting your tongue out to lick up any pre-cum that leaks from his tip. “f-fuck baby..feels s-so—good..” he says struggling to get all of his words out from the pleasure. he doesn’t tell you, but he really really loves when you treat him like this, makes him feel small and warm inside.

mutual masterbation

you both are away from each other one day and are both really horny, but can’t do much. you both find a solution and call and it ends up to you spread open in front of the phone camera and his cock out in the open, him stroking it slowly while giving you instructions. “finger yourself, slowly baby…fuck just like that..” he says pants getting breathy. he watches as you follow all of his intrusctions, you getting close him the same. he makes you hold it, a smile on his face while his groans at the pleasure coming with his hand. “damn baby..i’m getting c-close…” he says stuttering a bit. “cum with me baby, let go.” he says finally before giving a couple more strokes and spurting all over his hand with a choked moan.

matthew

praise kink (f. receiving)

when you suck of him off, he loves telling you how much of a good job you’re doing, smirking at the way you moan around his cock at the praise. always lets you know how much of a ‘good cock slut’ you are, no matter what. never lets up on teasing how you react to his words.

anal play

matthew would def trust you with stuff like this, it was actually something he wanted to try. when he finally gets toys in there he’s in heaven. he didn’t think it would feel as good as it is. when you start thrusting your strap inside of him hitting his prostate, he’s becoming a incoherent puddle. he’s gripping the sheets and everything, begging to have it harder, faster, whimpering and moaning loudly. even pushing his ass back when you try to slow down or stop. it feels so good he starts crying, when he finally gets to cum he’s crying out out of pleasure. he gets silent right after, you getting a little worried until he speaks up, “t-that was…c-can we go again?…please..” him panting whilst you send him a sweet smile and giggle.

orgasm control (m. + f. receiving)

matthew loves when you tease his cock, taking your hand away whenever he says he’s close. “just hold it matt, it’s not that hard, right?” you say while you stroke his hot, pulsing cock. all he can do is just whimper out and try his best not to cum, not knowing what could possible happen if he does. when it’s turned around he’s pulling the same move on you, laughing at your frustration. “i can’t be that hard, right?” he’s just sending you the cruelest smile, teasing you to no extent.

ricky

dollification

ricky loves seeing you get dumb on his cock, before you two fuck he puts you in the prettiest lingerie, pulling you in by the waist and whispering, “my needy little dolly looks so pretty, hm?” you just whining out in response. he praises you as he keeps pumping his cock inside of you, your expression the definition of cock drunk. none of you mind tho..

breath play

likes to wrap his pretty hands around your neck while fucking you, loves the feeling of you clenching on him whilst he does it. “you’re taking me so well baby…maybe i’ll let you breath as a reward.” him chuckling after the statement.

bondage kink (f. receiving)

he likes to wrap you up in the prettiest color of rope, he also has a thing with seeing you struggle, your frustration giving him more satisfaction. “stop moving or i’ll have to restrain you from cumming, doll.” he says with with the sweetest smile, his eyes the opposite, hunger and arousal burning in his eyes.

gyuvin

degradation kink (f. receiving)

he calls you the meanest names with the nicest smile on his face, and it still wrecks you. while you’re on your knees sucking his cock he’s still calling you those names, watching how you shudder with each name. “dirty cock sluts like you are meant to be on your knees like this. do what you’re good for baby..” he says with a pleasured groan.

edge play (f. receiving)

gyub will literally edge you from dusk to dawn, only letting up when he feels he’s had enough. you’re not done until he’s satisfied, and it takes a while. he’ll eat you out for the longest, his tongue hitting all the right spots, problem is he won’t let you cum. he’s told you to hold it until he lets you cum, but with the rate his tongue is ravaging you at, you might not be able to hold it any longer…

overstimulation kink (m. + f. receiving)

gyuvin loves to tease and torture you, either that’s him denying you an orgasm or giving you too many to handle. you’d beg him so bad for an orgasm, groaning in relief once he finally gives you one. suddenly when you expect him to stop, he’s still pleasuring you, you’re starting to be confused, pants getting heavier and cry’s getting louder. “g-gyub!! t-too—i-it’s too much!!” you sob out only being met with his menacing grin again.

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miraclewoozi · 1 year

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NETFLIX AND-- ? - c.hs

you try everything in your power to try and help your workaholic boyfriend unwind on his night off. you quickly find out that vernon doesn’t know how to just do nothing.

pair; vernon x fem reader. genre; domestic smut. MINORS DNI. wc; 2.3k (short n sweet <3) note; saw a prompt while i was scrolling through some things and it had me feeling feelings. experiencing experiences. apparently i am soft needy for him today. barely proof read. smut tags utc. xoxo

smut tags; soft!dom/service top vernon but he’s also a fucking tease. fingering (f rec). sort of edging, more of a continued stop/start. squirting. implied that vernon has a praise kink (shock horror). let me know if i've forgotten any.<3

in your defence, you started out with perfectly innocent intentions.

vernon works himself too hard. you wish he wouldn’t, but he does — it’s a fact, and even though he’ll always shake his head and deny it, you know it’s true. self care, to him, is working. it’s in the fulfilment from a job well done. it’s the clap on a shoulder from a higher-up that recognises how hard he’s been slaving away at his computer screen. it’s in getting results, and he doesn’t get results if he doesn’t do. if he doesn’t maintain. if he doesn’t nigh-on exhaust himself for the sake of the company he’s employed by.

so, you’ve made a plan. on friday, in the few hours he’ll have free between finishing work and settling down to sleep, you’re going to do whatever you can to look after him.

it starts with dinner. heartfelt, home-cooked food. he drops his bag by the front door and his entire face turns so soft he thinks it might melt clean off him. the aromas from the kitchen hit him and he floats across the apartment like a cartoon, all the way to where you’re stood waiting for him, a sort of dopey grin spreading across every single one of his features.

“that smells so good,” he whines, putting his arms around your waist and nuzzling into your neck. when you ask how his day went, he says he doesn’t remember, he doesn’t care. because he’s home now, and because loves you so much — he doesn’t want to think about anything else.

he clings to you until the food is ready and laid out on the dining table, only pulling himself away when it becomes apparent that he’s not going to be able to have his dinner sitting in your lap.

you eat together with the lights slightly dimmed, a few candles illuminating the table. you talk, a little, but the quiet that surrounds the bubbles of conversation is just as comfortable, so neither of you are bothered when your minds are more focused on the food in front of you than conversing with each other. after, he helps you clear the dishes and stack them over by the sink: you’ll deal with them later on.

your hand finds his, then, fingers intertwining, and vernon lets himself be dragged all the way to your bedroom. he changes out of his work clothes, tosses them into the laundry basket, and slips into an old, worn, stained and atrociously ugly pair of sweatpants instead. he bypasses a shirt at your instruction and lies face-down with his head nestled between the pillows.

with one of his own playlists already filling the air around you, you straddle over his hips and start to massage your way up his back. your hands smooth over his skin, thumbs working at a couple of tight spots that have him gasping and grunting, threading his fingers through his own hair to try and keep still. it hurts a bit, but it’s a good kind of pain. so, he lets you work your magic on him; vernon feels all soft and loose, a bit like a deflated balloon animal, by the time you sit up enough for him to be able to roll over between your legs and face you again.

“i thought we could watch a movie tonight, too,” you say quietly, just barely audible over the soft r&b tune in the background. your fingertips tickle up and down his sides as you speak; he sighs at the softness of your touch. “anything you want.”

“what’s all this in aid of, exactly?” he asks, quirking up an eyebrow. his voice is deep and kind of rough-edged. the way you like it most.

you laugh, quietly, and bend low to kiss the corner of his mouth, caging him in with your forearms either side of his head. “just… because i love you.”

his hands snake up your body to rest against your cheeks and he holds you in place for a second longer. one of the many, many things you love about vernon is the way he kisses you. every time, like it’s the first time. (a symptom of being a closeted rom-com enthusiast, perhaps?) but each press of his lips to yours is always so infused with passion: even the small ones, like this. with his eyes closed, his nose pressed to your cheek, the corners of his mouth pulled up into a shy smile. there’s adoration in every single moment.

you roll off him when he lets go of you and sit up against the headboard, letting him go through the motions of choosing something for you to watch. a few minutes (and no less than three coin tosses to make the decision) later, you open an arm out for him at the sound of the movie starting, and he curls up into your side. his head rests peacefully on your shoulder, one of his legs hooked over one of yours, your arm snaked around his back. you settle into each other’s embrace in a way that you’ve not had time to do in a long while, matching hums of tranquillity vibrating in both of your throats.

the grand budapest hotel has only been playing for about twenty minutes when you feel him start to move slightly, the tips of his fingers gliding slowly across the hem of your t-shirt. you don’t make anything of it at first, because vernon has always had slightly restless hands, no matter what he’s doing. this is very normal for him. he’s probably just mindlessly feeling the fabric beneath his touch as he watches one of his favourite movies.

another few minutes pass and you feel his nails drag against the bare skin of your tummy. you raise an eyebrow and look at him, but his eyes are trained on the tv, even if one side of his mouth is lifted up in a sly kind of smile.

“what are you doing, babe?” you ask him. he lifts his head from its place on your shoulder and shrugs.

“nothing.”

“mhm, sure you aren’t.”

his hand moves down, then. down, towards your shorts. down, to where his palm wraps around your thigh, half resting on the material of your clothes and half sitting on your bare leg. his fingers make small, light, circular movements against your skin and he nudges your other thigh over slightly with the knee he settled between your legs earlier, effectively spreading you open for him. just a little.

just enough.

“vernon,” you chuckle, but you don’t make any attempt to move your legs back together. “come on, relax. watch your movie.”

“i am,” he says matter-of-factly, not taking his eyes off the screen. “wish i could say the same for you, though.”

“you’re terrible,” you sigh.

“mm. no, i’m not.”

he creeps further and further up your thigh, until his hand has slipped completely under your loose fitting sleep shorts and he’s effectively pulling them to one side. a breath catches in your throat and you accidentally arch a little as you feel him brush over your underwear.

“watch the movie,” he says, a little more sternly, and you swallow thickly but settle down more comfortably again. if this is how he chooses to decompress… who are you to stop him, really?

but he knows you too well. knows your body like it’s his own. knows exactly how to make you tick without making you jump his bones and take control. his thumb starts to trace small circles over your covered clit, eliciting quiet gasps from your mouth, but every time you react – what he deems to be – a little too much, he stops. removes the pressure. leaves you to squirm.

“vernon,” you sigh after the third time, agitated but needy and squaring your jaw at his teasing. your panties are soaked by now and you need to feel more of him, but your boyfriend seems to be more than happy to work you up on his own terms. how long will he keep going like this for? there’s at least an hour left of the film; surely he won’t make you wait that long?

“focus, baby.”

or maybe, he will.

his lips find home at the base of your neck and he presses a series of small kisses to your skin, returning his thumb to your panties and rubbing you through them a little harder, pressing the fabric into your heat, smirking at the way your arousal seeps through them and coats his fingertips. your breaths start to pick up again, and you do everything you can to stop him from noticing, but he’s maybe a little too caught up sucking the sweet spot behind your ear to notice how fast your heart is beating from the way he touches you.

so when he drags your underwear out of the way and slides an elegant finger through your folds, you really don’t think you can be blamed for the fact that an unstifled moan leaves your lips.

vernon disagrees, though. because of course he fucking does.

“baby,” he challenges you, his finger just millimetres away from your clit when he stops moving it. “come on. you wanted to help me unwind tonight, didn’t you? that’s what all this was. you were being good to me.”

you nod at him, and he kisses your neck again.

“then watch.”

keeping your mouth tightly shut and fighting against the noises that your body so desperately wants you to make, you let him continue. you let him trace your arousal over your clit, let him dip his finger lower and press just enough inside you that your walls flutter around it. you let him work deeper, and add a second, and try your best not to clamp your legs around his poor wrist when he brushes against the sweet-spot inside you the way that only he knows how.

“s’that feel good, baby?” he asks you.

your eyes are all but glazed over and you don’t think you really know what’s going on in the movie anymore. you can’t remember the names of the characters. is there even a plot? or is it all just pretty, symmetrical imagery now? who the hell is the person that just showed up – surely you haven’t seen him, yet? fuck, you’re completely, hopelessly lost in his fingers and the way they’re buried inside your pussy. every reaction you want to give, you can’t, and it’s so difficult.

but you nod at him anyway, because the least you can do is tell him he’s doing a good job. he likes to hear that sort of thing.

and if there’s any dialogue in the grand budapest hotel, you don’t have a damn clue what’s being said. his fingers move faster inside you and the heel of his hand puts enough pressure on your clit that all of your muscles are tight in an attempt to do what he’s asked. the only sounds in your ears are the smacking of his lips on your throat and the lewd noises that come from the way your pussy sucks his digits in deeper.

you feel like a little toy, wound up to high heaven. waiting, waiting, waiting to be released. waiting to fall into oblivion.

“vernon,” you gasp eventually, silently begging that he won’t stop, that he won’t leave you hanging when you’re so close to the edge.

thankfully, he doesn’t.

“mhm?” he curls his fingers again, a little harder, making you buck up into his hand. whatever game he was playing, he seems to be moving past it now. maybe he wants you to come as much as you do.

“close,” you strain. he nods, slowly, positioning his wrist differently so that he can lay his thumb over your clit instead. the much more deliberate pressure has you seconds away from seeing stars.

“m’gonna ask you about this movie tomorrow, you know,” he chuckles, but he doesn’t slow. he fucks his fingers into you over and over, bringing you closer and closer, and when your toes curl, when you grip his wrist with one hand, when your head falls back against the headboard –

euphoria rushes through you. wetness gushes from you. you feel your pussy contract around his fingers, hugging them tight even though your release tries to expel them; he lets you ride the high out, lets you make a mess on his hand as your hips roll down to meet him, a series of whines and moans falling from your lips. his own continue their gentle caress of your neck. you’re in bliss.

he pulls his fingers from you when you tug at his wrist to tell him to do so, lifting them to his mouth and sucking them clean of your arousal and your release. you close your eyes when he kisses you deeply, letting you taste yourself on his tongue, and his (granted, still kind of sticky) hand comes up to cup your face.

adoration in every moment. like it’s the first.

“don’t bother asking me about it,” you tell him as he pulls away, bumping your nose against his and hearing, from the quiet wet smacking sound they make, how his lips grow into a smile. “i don’t know anything that happened.”

“this is the fourth time i’ve tried to get you to watch this movie, y/n,” he chuckles.

“and this is the fourth time we’ve ended up here. what, does tilda swinton in that ugly wig really do it for you or something?”

“shut up,” he snorts, ever so gently pushing your cheek to move your head away from him. “no-one ever said you had to give into me that easily.”

“oh, you shut up,” you huff, closing your thighs and feeling how your shorts and panties cling to you uncomfortably, only half covering you after he failed to put them back properly. “i was supposed to be helping you chill out. it’s not my fault that you can’t go five minutes without getting handsy.”

“it’s absolutely your fault,” he challenges, getting to his knees and facing you. you can see his cock tenting his sweatpants now and you’d be lying to say that it doesn’t stir something in the depths of your stomach. “you know i can’t resist you in those shorts.”

“you’re so stupid,” you grin, opening your legs up for him to settle between, and he moves over straight away.

“yeah, well,” he chuckles, reaching down to pull your t-shirt up off your head. “you happen to love my kind of stupid.”

thank u sm for reading!! likes, reblogs, comments + feedback are all greatly appreciated!<3

#vernon smut #seventeen smut #svt smut #hansol smut #choi hansol smut #vernon chwe smut #vernon x reader #j writes.#*

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nicoleheichou · 3 months

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i miss you, don't call me - chapter twenty: for a little bit

♡ masterlist ♡ - 《 prev | next 》

synopsis: when your acting careers start to pick up you and your boyfriend zoro both decide that it's better to go your separate ways. you didn't want to, but you knew he was right. fast forward to a couple years later, when you're finally starting to heal, your friends score a deal to shoot a movie together with your ex and you're starting to think maybe you haven't really moved on.

you find yourself standing in front of a door you're all too familiar with. you exhale a deep breath before slowly entering the passcode. you feel your heart skip a beat when you hear the door unlock, the date you first met forever engraved in your mind. you slowly peek your head through the opening before walking in. you immediately notice that apart from the various knickknacks you took with you during the breakup, everything was still the same. it was as if nothing had changed.

"zoro?" you call out as you kick off your shoes and slowly enter deeper into his apartment. you place the bag of sushi onto the counter before taking a seat on the couch. you notice his script laying open on the coffee table, no doubt on the section he's having trouble with. you shut it and set it aside, before deciding that instead of waiting around, you would use the time you have alone to set up the area to better suit your plans for the night.

you open the freezer and see some chilled glasses, smiling to yourself as you grab a couple, before grabbing a few beers, and finally the sushi, before returning to the living room. you set them down on the coffee table before you begin fluffing some pillows to create a little nest area on the couch.

you're too absorbed in trying to make the space as comfortable as possible that you fail to notice him enter the room. "hey." you startle before turning around to see him smirking at you. "oh, hey." you do your best to try and keep your voice steady as you take him in fresh out of the shower in a grey hoodie and sweats. your heart skips a beat seeing how good he looks. you're too busy staring at him to notice the way he's eyeing you too.

only when he clears his throat, are you snapping out of your trance, before you turn your attention back to what you were doing. "i started getting everything ready, i hope you don't mind." you say as you start to fluff the pillows again to keep yourself busy. "it's fine. thanks again for coming." you motion towards the couch before taking a seat. "are you ready?"

he nods and makes his way towards the couch, taking a seat beside you, but still making sure to keep some space between the both of you. "do you want to talk about it or do you want to just jump right in?" you watch as he lets out a sigh before sinking into the couch. "i don't know what's wrong with me. lately i just haven't been able to focus." he drags his hand down his face. you use this time to get a good look at him and you realize the dark circles under his eyes. "oh, z." you say as you hesitantly reach over and run your fingers through his hair.

he lets out a sigh and closes his eyes. "i don't know what's wrong with me." after a few moments you pull your hand away. "there's nothing wrong with you, maybe you just need a break. you just need to reset. so let's reset. yeah?" he grunts in response before opening his eyes.

he pulls up netflix on his laptop and quickly clicks on your favorite anime to watch together, haikyuu, your heart melting at the realization that he never continued the show after your breakup. you grab the blanket from the back of the couch before placing it on your laps. "is this okay?" you ask as you get comfortable. "more than okay." he replies before hitting play.

after a few episodes you find yourself getting more comfortable with each other. using your chopsticks, you bring a piece of sushi to his lips. without looking away from the screen he opens his mouth and lets you feed him. you smile when you see the delight on his face as he realizes you gave him the last piece of his favorite roll.

once you finish all the sushi and have had a few glasses of beer you decide it's time to do what you came to do. you lean over and shut his laptop before grabbing his script. "okay. let's start from the top." he groans but nods his head. it becomes apparent pretty quickly where he's struggling, it's not particularly hard dialogue but he seems to get tripped up by it easily. "stop thinking about how you always mess up this part, whenever you get in your head you tend to make mistakes. go over it real quick while i clean up and we'll try again." you instruct while handing him the script and getting up to tidy up the area.

it doesn't take long to put everything away so you plop yourself down beside him and go over the script with him. after a few attempts he's still making mistakes, and you can see the frustration written all over his face. you glance over his shoulder before you get an idea. you stand up and motion for him to follow you. he doesn't hesitate as you lead him out onto the balcony.

"let's reset one more time, z." you turn your attention to the buildings across the street, eyes darting between the various windows and the people in them. "what's really on your mind? normally haikyuu and sushi would do it for you." he sighs, shaking his head and taking a swig of his beer.

"promise you won't think i'm weird?" you can't help but feel your heart tighten at how insecure he sounds. "you know i'd never think that." he nods and looks away. "i've been struggling ever since we started hanging out again. i think i'm still getting used to the idea of being friends that it's messing with my concentration." you feel your heart squeeze at his admission, you make a mental note to analyze that later. "should we slow down? i can always come up with an excuse whenever the others ask so i don't have to go."

he smiles and turns his gaze towards you. "no. that's the last thing i want you to do. this is my own issue. i'll overcome it. don't worry." your eyes scan his and you see how genuine he's being. "good. because we're not a complete group if either of us is missing." you grin before tapping your glass against his and taking a sip of your beer. you let the silence envelope you and just allow yourselves to enjoy being in each other's company. "i think i'm ready to try again." he finally speaks up and you can't help but smile.

you let him lead you back into the living room and grab the script, flipping to the section you've been practicing. after a few tries he finally nails it. you can't help but smile when you see the joy on his face at finally being able to recite the lines that have been bothering him. "thanks for helping me." you smile and shake your head. "that was all you. all i did was eat some sushi and watch haikyuu." you joke. he rolls his eyes before putting his script aside. "well, i should get going. i'll see you around. okay?" you say as you get up. he walks you to the door, watching as you slip your shoes on.

"thanks again for coming and helping me out. you really saved me." you wave him off before stepping out. "you can always count on me, z." you say as you give him a wave. "i know." he replies, a smile creeping onto his face as he watches you walk away.

i'm not sure how i feel about this chapter but i really wanted to show what happened when yn went over. i wanted to show how their relationship is progressing and of course we needed more interactions of them together.

as usual, leave a comment or send an ask and let me know your thoughts!

taglist is open! just comment or send an ask if you want to be added. if your name is highlighted, please fix your settings so i can tag you!

taglist: @queen-aria-things @soranihimawari @youraggedybitch @captaincyberqueen @yukichan67 @roselleviennesstuff @yukimaniac @minssecret @meosq @himezoro @youmake1mistake @aixaingela @ayeputita @writing-wh0re @asterizee @redpool @hikkarins @chamomilespetal @murnsondock @firefistsimp @mimisweetz @moonlight-dreamer04 @shuujin @gespirida @diarythroughmylens @kenziereadsfiction @haitaniwhor3 @greenvita

#roronoa zoro x reader #one piece smau #op smau #smau #one piece #roronoa zoro #imydcm #i miss you dont call me

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howlingday · 9 months

Note

Jaune Arc fell into ice. That's the last thing he remembered. Now he's in a strange grove with spirits watching him all the time.... He thinks they might be broken.

Team RWBY are faunas researchers who've found the discovery of the century. A human man still alive in ice. It's a contested theory that ancient humans eventually evolved into faunas and with a member of the previously thought extinct species they might just be able to prove it. Now how to get closer to him

(tldr stone age jaune dealing with modern day faunas RWBY being horny on main for him. The spirits must be crazy)

Last Man Standing

The last thing Jaune remembered that cold winter evening was sulking across the ice to get away from his cheating ex-girlfriend. What was supposed to be a romantic night of welcoming in the new year instead became the worst heartbreak of his life, made worse when she called him out as a spineless nobody that no woman would ever want. She also said his hair looked shaggy, which didn't hurt as much as the betrayal itself, but it still stung.

Then everything got fast. Then everything got cold. And then everything got dark.

When he awoke, he took a deep breath through his nose, inhaling a sweet scent of strawberries. His eyes still shut; he leaned forward to get closer to the smell. This earned him a yelp, a slap, and a scream. As his eyes adjusted to the light, he saw a girl in a red hood running around the corner. Did she have dog ears?

"Where..." Jaune groaned as he leaned forward, noticing the hot air blowing over him. Though he was still partially frozen in ice, he managed to push his way through the, at best, hard slush of his cocoon. He looked down to see his clothes were soaked. "Ah, man..."

"I'm telling you, Weiss, I know what I saw!"

"Ruby Rose, the specimen has been frozen for at least a thousand years! Even if he did manage to thaw out, he wouldn't... be..."

The two young women stared at Jaune as he twisted his hoodie like a used dishrag, water spilling onto the floor. He turned and saw them, his eyes nearly as wide as theirs as they stared at one another.

For Jaune, he'd never seen anyone like them before! It was like something out of an anime. Two beautiful girls, one with pointed, dog-like ears, while the other had a long and bushy tail twitched back and forth. For them-

"CODE GRAY!" Screamed the tailed girl. She then rushed out of the room, dragging the other girl behind her. The dog-eared one glanced back with sort of sad eyes. None of it sounded good to Jaune, and considering the wailing sirens and flashing lights, he had to get out of wherever he is and fast!

Tossing on his still damp shirt, he made for the exit, accidentally knocking over a poor girl with rabbit ears. He gave a hasty apology as he continued to bolt down the hallway. Unfortunately, this caught more people's attention, and eventually a woman came barreling after him, hand on her beret to keep from flying off her small, round ears. He couldn't see much of her eyes past her designer shades, but what he could see spelled death.

"Incoming!" Jaune looked ahead, flipping backwards as his neck slammed into an extended arm. He gave a hoarse groan as he looked up to see three women towering over him. One was the same woman as before with round ears poking from her beret, the cute appearance contrasting with her snarling scowl. Another had gave a cheeky grin as she leaned forward a bit, showing off her cleavage to her catch, all the while a long, blonde tail swished about.

But the third and final woman gave no hint of any sort of emotion. Neither anger nor joy, but simple indifference. She reached behind her and pulled out a pair of handcuffs, tethered by a thick cable with glowing blue lights that ceased and revealed an opening with the click of a button. Her pointed, red dog-like ears made her look all the more intimidating.

"You're under arrest."

#rwby #rwby au #lone human au #jaune arc #ruby rose #weiss schnee #velvet scarlatina #yang xiao long #pyrrha nikos #wolf!faunus ruby #squirrel!faunus weiss #bear!faunus coco #horse!faunus yang #fox!faunus pyrrha

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ox1-lovesick · 2 years

Text

ᥫ᭡ 투바투 ── reaction to you being close with another member

ꜝꜝ🍓 pairing. txt x gn!reader genre. fluff, angst, crack warnings. swearing (?) wc. 100-200 each

ꜝꜝ🍓 synopsis. how txt feels about you being close with the other members

ꜝꜝ🍓 a/n. back with another reaction cause writing is hard 💀👎 hope you enjoy !

𖤐 YEONJUN

i think we can all agree that yeonjun is the type that get's jealous pretty frequently 💀 he just wants your attention to be on him and him only at all times 🫶

of course he was ecstatic that you got along so well with his friends and how they basically adopted you into the group the second you walked through the door

although what he's not so ecstatic about is you and taehyun giggling amongst yourselves like the rest of them aren't there 🤕

with taehyun being one of the more shy and conserved members, he was both in awe and really happy that you were able to get him out of his shell and that taehyun could be comfortable around you

and he still is, don't get me wrong. he just wished the two of you would tone it down a notch

he's not exactly a fan of seeing you two cuddling with each other, cooking with each other, reading with each other, joking around with each other 😟

so when he comes home later that day and sees you both huddled up on the couch together watching some animal documentary while sharing snacks, he's not very happy

that was your thing, the thing you did with him almost every night, he should be there all snuggled up next to you devouring a pack of oreos instead of taehyun 🙁

he's not toxic of course and isn't going to cut you off from each other, but he will shove himself in the middle of you to create a barrier and assert dominance

although that doesn't seem to do the trick because even as yeonjun is literally ontop of you, you continue talking to taehyun about killer whales and what not like he isn't there

he swears his blood starts boiling when he sees taehyun feed you an oreo, right infront of his face too 😟

unfortunately loses his cool a little and tells taehyun to back off before stealing the packet right from his hands

immediately feels guilty though because taehyun decides to leave, leaving him with a very angry partner

and although you are really upset with him for talking to taehyun like that, you decide to let him explain himself because yeonjun isn't one to lash out for no reason

after you both talk it out and come to an agreement, you drag him over to taehyun's room so he can apologize

and then all three of you head back to the couch to finish your documentary (with taehyun sitting at the other end of the couch this time)

𖤐 SOOBIN

being the leader of the group, i think soobin would be very hesitant to introduce you to them because he feels like he has to be sure of himself and the relationship

after all why would he waste his member's time if he wasn't ?

so when he finally does decide that it's time, he's so relieved that all of them really liked you 💔

although when one of them startd to like you a little too much for his liking, it creates a problem

beomgyu was a ray of sunshine, there's no doubting that

he was kind, he was caring and most of all he was funny, what wasn't there for you to like about him?

soobin didn't like your new found interest in gyu not one bit.

he's so nasty to beomgyu when you two are together HELP ME

if beomgyu tried to hug you he'd physically pry him off you because he should be the only one touching you 🤨

of course he's only pushing his luck because it's beomgyu and beomgyu finds it funny, he's not actually so jealous that he doesn't want beomgyu breathing near you (maybe he is)

with that being said beomgyu will do everything in his power to provoke him

he'll sling an arm around you, give you cheek kisses, hold your hand when walking in crowds or have it on the small of your back, feed you and a whole bunch of other things just to get soobin angry 💀

HATES IT WHEN YOU AND GYU MAKE JOKES ONLY YOU TWO UNDERSTAND HE FEELS SO EXCLUDED

will 100% try and extend on the joke or just laugh with you both and it embarrasses him every single time 😭

tries to make jokes like that with you but they're mostly based off a one time experience so you never get them 💀

get's especially jealous when beomgyu sits himself ontop of you and you play with his hair because that. should. be. him.

would probably yank beomgyu off you and angrily lay on your chest and put your hands in his hair

if you don't start playing with his hair too he will cry

but beyond his temper tantrums he finds your relationship with gyu really cute :(

watches you two fondly from afar when you're playing around with each other

will often encourage you to invite beomgyu along on your trips together

especially if you're doing something beomgyu likes or is interested in

he'll be the one holding your hand though beomgyu can figure himself out

𖤐 BEOMGYU

beomgyu finds you and hyuka adorable

you could literally kiss kai infront of him and he'd coo (not really but you get what i'm saying)

he loves that you become more energetic around kai, especially if you're more quiet and peaceful but even if you are already a pretty lively person kai just brings out a different side in you that he loves to see 🙁

will sit in a corner and watch you two bounce off the walls together

the others would whine about how when they so much as look at you beomgyu get's angry but kai could do just about anything with you and get a free pass

he would melt on the spot if he finds you and huening playing with his plushies or cuddling them 💔

there are some times when he gets a bit jealous like when you baby kai and coo at him or cuddle up to him because he wants to have things that only he can do with you

please hold him too he might actually start crying

or when he's in need of your reassurance and affection, he wants you to himself in those moments and kai respects that and leaves you two alone so there's not really much reason for him to be upset

loves when the three of you gang up against the others

teasing soobin or calling yeonjun old together are his favourite activities

you obviously have a handshake that you all have to do every time you see each other 👆

aswell as many inside jokes that always leaves the other 3 scratching their heads

as long as you give him just as much of affection as you do hyuka all is well !!

𖤐 TAEHYUN

he tries to play it cool, he really does, but on the inside he's dying

"oh you're hanging out with yeonjun today? that's cool, be safe" and then you leave and he's ripping the whole apartment to shreds

it's cute sometimes like when you and yeonjun talk about dogs or something but not when he's holding your hand and flirting with you

he does set boundaries of course and yeonjun is respectful of them, but in all honesty? taehyun just wants you to himself 😟

will never get angry at you though it's yeonjun who's the problem

even if yeonjun's just existing in your presence he's still a problem

you could fall asleep on yeonjun's shoulder and he'll be like "👹👹👹"

poor yeonjun won't even do anything and he's still angry

both of you find his jealousy very cute though and tease him

and he'll let it slide most of the time because you're there, but later he's spitting in jun's coffee

although taehyun seems to be constantly enraged by you two he does find you both really cute

is especially soft when you take care of each other, such as preparing meals for the guys together, helping take care of each other when one is sick and so forth

really appreciates yeonjun looking out for you when he can't be there to do it himself or in ways that he can't

and ultimately happy you = happy terry so as long as you're happy so is he

𖤐 HUENINGKAI

he loves the fact you and soobin are close hello ???

his besties are besties ??? what more could he want !?

will 100% buy you all friendship bracelets and necklaces and you MUST be wearing them at all times 🤨

has a group chat with the three of you in it where you bully the others

loves wearing matching outfits with you two as well!

especially on halloween and things like that you all rock up to the party as the totally spies girls

genuinely not a jealous bone in his body

you and soobin are cuddling??? he'll get a blanket and cover you both

you and soobin are feeding each other? he'll put more food in your plates

you and soobin are going out together without him? that's cool, as long as you bring him back food 🫶

you could peel soobin's perilla leaves and he's still so unfazed

the others are a bit scared by it tbh

there are some times when hyuka wants your attention on him and not anyone else, so as long as you give it to him he's as happy as ever !!

sometimes he can get a little annoyed or frustrated like when he wants to tell you something or do something with you but you get distracted by soobin, although that's something that you two work out together

overall he's just ecstatic that two of the people he loves most love each other too 🙁🫶

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novelmonger · 8 months

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Continuing to watch through the Writer/Director commentary of LotR (with Peter Jackson, Philippa Boyens, and Fran Walsh) and jotting down any new-to-me information I come across. Here's what I gleaned from TTT:

When they got the New Line logo to put on the movies, it was very old and scratched, so PJ gave it to Weta to touch it up. They joked about how they should bill New Line for it XD

Originally, the studio wanted TTT to start off with a prologue too, with Cate Blanchett narrating what sounds like it was basically going to be a "Previously on..." spiel, even though they didn't like the idea of the prologue in the first one. Thankfully, these three ignored the studio's advice both times XD

The Uruk who says "Manflesh" is also the guy in Sauron's armor in the prologue!

In the scene where the Rohirrim find Theodred, it's not actually raining! They used rain towers for the close-ups, but any wide shots just have CG rain. I would never have guessed!

Andy Serkis did the voices for the Uruk-Hai who says the "maggoty bread" line, and the orc who says, "Yeah, why can't we have some meat?" (The actor in the suit for the latter is, of course, Jed Brophy, who went on to play Nori in the Hobbit movies.)

Somehow it never registered for me that Orlando Bloom has brown eyes, and so he had to wear blue contacts when he played Legolas ^^' But sometimes he wasn't able to wear the contacts (or forgot), so there are some scenes where they had to fix it in post.

PJ called the Treebeard from the animated Bakshi movie "a walking carrot" XD He also said that Treebeard is his favorite character!

The scene with Smeagol killing Deagol was originally going to be a flashback right after Frodo says his name, and then the Nazgul shriek would pull the audience out of the flashback. They decided not to do that for pacing reasons and because we haven't spent much time with Gollum yet, so that's why they put it at the beginning of RotK instead.

Bernard Hill had his son with him on the shoot and would play with him in his downtime on the Edoras set. Puts things into perspective when you hear that he was the one who came up with the line "No parent should have to bury their child."

They were originally looking at Bernard Hill for Gandalf! (I feel like I've probably heard this before, but anyway.)

They filmed a flashback to Aragorn and Arwen's first meeting?! Viggo shaved to make himself look younger, and it was a scene of the two of them "frolicking about the forest." It was originally going to be put in the Lothlorien sequence, but they cut it out in favor of that scene between Aragorn and Boromir, because they decided it was more important to earn Boromir's death scene than to remind the audience of the romance. I agree with that decision, but it would be cool to see that footage! (I say as someone who prefers to skip the TTT Aragorn/Arwen scene entirely XD)

Originally, the warg battle was going to happen at Edoras itself. It was going to be at night, everything was going to be on fire, and ultimately that was going to be the reason everyone evacuated and went to Helm's Deep. Also, a warg was going to be set on fire and end up dragging Aragorn through the streets, and that was going to be how Aragorn would be left for dead. Ultimately, the reason they did it the way they did was because the studio wasn't sure Weta could do a flaming warg (something all three of them laughed about, considering everything Weta did manage to do with flying colors), and because it would have been a nightmare to light the Edoras set at night, because that location was so remote and so windy. Which is why every scene in Edoras takes place in the daytime!

In the scene where Faramir talks about his dream where he saw Boromir in the boat, you can see a sort of pinkish color in the water around Boromir's body. That's because the dye from his shirt (surcoat? idk) was leaking out into the water! XD

When Andy Serkis did ADR for the Forbidden Pool scene, he couldn't manage to sing the song off-key, so they had to use the audio from the motion capture footage XD

They shot some additional footage of Aragorn unconscious on Brego's back, riding past an orc encampment, that they never ended up using.

Theoden was originally going to give a speech to the soldiers in the armory, but Bernard Hill's performance was so inspiring that it defused most of the tension they were trying to build up before the battle, so they took it out. Would love to see that footage!

So the boy Aragorn encourages before the battle ("There is always hope.") was Philippa Boyens' son, who was 13 when they filmed the scene. But by the time they went to do ADR, his voice had broken, so they had to get a different child actor to say his lines.

Aww, the extra who was missing an eye said he always felt self-conscious about his missing eye, so he always wore an eyepatch. But then after they gave him a close-up and the guy saw the movie, he said he felt much better about his appearance! :')

Treebeard's line "I always like going south; it feels like going downhill" was ad-libbed!

When Saruman turns and reacts to all the water pouring in and washing his machinery away, that shot was actually a reaction shot to Wormtongue on top of the tower from the RotK movie that they repurposed for this scene instead, since they hadn't shot any reactions to the flood.

At least at the time of the recording of this audio commentary, the final shot of Gollum, where he's arguing with himself and ultimately decides to lead Frodo and Sam to Shelob, was the longest CG shot in any movie. (I tried to google what the current record is, but couldn't find anything, so if anyone knows, I'd love to hear about it!)

Fran Walsh: "All cinema storytelling, to a degree, is shallow. That's the nature of the medium. You've got two or three hours to present a world and a dense story with a hundred themes and a ton of backstory, in this instance, and 22 characters...so you can only really have the veneer of depth. You really can't have anything that comes close to the depth of the books, or the experience of the books. So I think what we attempted to do was to use the language of the books where we could and to certainly invoke them, the iconic images, where we could, but to keep the storytelling very much...to modernize it, if you like, in terms of cinema language. So we didn't, for example, use the style of storytelling that was in the books between these different after-the-fact storytelling, of Sam and Frodo and then a chunk of the Aragorn story. We completely undercut it. That was a far more immediate and engaging way to connect it to the audience. You can't really hope to satisfy people who adore this book, with the movie. You can only ever give them the sense of what might have been. That's all a film can do. I think, in that sense, films...I mean, they're entertainments. They're just not going to give you the pleasure that a book can give you."

#lord of the rings #lotr #the two towers #peter jackson #philippa boyens #fran walsh #i feel like i learned more with this one than the fotr one which was cool!

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gatorbites-imagines · 2 years

Text

The request

“Hey! I think your doing him so if not just ignore this but could I get a Corey Cunningham x male reader we’re the reader is already a slasher and it’s basically like what happened with Michael and him but with the reader instead as well as them ending up in a relationship together?”

Corey Cunningham x Slasher male reader

Headcanons

(This gif makes me go feral omg)

Halloween ends spoilers, don’t want spoilers? Don’t read

Reader replaces Michael in this universe, the reader is still older than Corey just not as much. I might have really embraced the whole, Michael Myers is fear itself in this.

Tw for slasher things, like murder, blood, gore, that kinda stuff

- Michael Myers still exists in this universe, but he dies before Halloween Kills, and instead if you who take his place. You couldn’t explain why you did it, you just felt like it was your duty to continue where Michael Myers left off.

- You had been a normal person once, maybe too normal. Normal education, normal family, normal job, normal house. Everything was like… normal. You worked a job that paid not too little but not too much, and you lived alone after finishing university with normal grades.

- You grew empty and felt nothing. You were empty and hollowed out of everything that made you human. That’s when you hurt yourself on accident. You had sliced a large cut across your palm when making dinner, and the sight of blood had flickered a spark in your chest you thought you had lost.

- From then on you started hurting yourself just to feel something, and soon that wasn’t enough. You tried to hurt animals, but it didn’t give you the same spark as yourself. That night you killed your first human, and it was like what little was left of your humanity vanished.

- You put on a mask you had leftover from last years Halloween, a blank mask that had a shape that reminded you of an owl, sharp at the bottom with large round dark eyes.

- That Halloween you massacred more people than you could count, and you didn’t care to count in the first place. The action of killing others made you feel alive like you never had before.

- Your fun was cut short though, when you were attacked by the mob and they beat you, and ripped off your mask. Amongst the crowd of people, you saw your family, who all looked at you in fear and distraught, seeing their son become the cities new boogeyman.

- You beat you and stabbed you until you could be nothing but dead, and as most people left you rose to your feet once more, killed the few people still there and dragged yourself away, the non-human feeling in your chest spreading throughout your entire body. Slowly you dragged yourself into the sewers and disappeared, your fire subdued as you went to lick your wounds.

- What you didn’t know during your time in the sewers was that your future partner was born that night, during an accident.

- They called you many names, The predator, the Owl, the Bird of Prey. They never used your name, like rejecting to name you removed you from who you once were and made your old self into one of the Owls many victims.

- Your family left Haddonfield and disappeared, not able to put up with the shame and disgust that was given to them by the rest of the city after what you did.

- Things continue like the movie, and you end up dragging Corey in the sewers, watching from your crack in the wall as the curly haired man slowly woke up and staggered around. As he staggered past you, you lurched from the shadows and grabbed him by the throat, your hand covering most of his throat as you choked him.

- Corey looked deeply into the bottomless shadows that were the eyes of your mask, and you saw the fears and deeply buried darkness in him. As you dropped him, he fled, and you felt it when he killed the homeless man, the acting sending a shiver through your body as if you had been the one to do the kill.

- It continues like the movie and you both kill Doug, Allyson’s boss, and her coworker. You couldn’t help but feel what must be jealousy whenever Allyson is mentioned, or you kill for her. And as Corey falls further and further into his darkness his attraction to Allyson disappears.

- Instead, the two of you are drawn more and more together. Instead of stealing your mask, Corey gets your help in killing the bullies who gave him the cut on his hand, whilst Corey wears his own mask, it’s like a higher quality scarecrow mask, more like a sack pulled over his head with dark bottomless eyes and a sewn-on smile.

- That Halloween Haddonfield doesn’t go into chaos like the movie, and Laurie and Allyson are left alive. Even the radio guy is still alive. As morning comes the two of you retreat to the sewers for another year, neither of you human enough anymore to need sunlight, food, or water.

- Down in the darkness of the sewers you and Corey hold each other, your masks pressed together as if your lips could meet through the material. Corey runs his tongue over the inside of his mask, some part of his brain knowing you are doing the same and shivering at the action.

- In the past you might have removed your masks, but now it didn’t feel right, like taking the mask off was the biggest wrong one could commit in the world.

- And so, you spent the next year with only each other, in the darkness, hands running all over one another and grabbing and pulling, your masks pressed together in some type of kiss, as you waited.

- Waited for the next Halloween, where the Owl and the Scarecrow would descend upon Haddonfield once more, and rake in all the sacrifices they wanted before disappearing until the next year once again.

#male reader #corey cunningham #slasher reader #slasher male reader #slasher #corey cunningham imagine #corey cunningham x male reader #corey cunningham headcanon #corey cunningham x reader #slasher imagine #slasher headcanon #slasher x male reader #slasher x reader #halloween ends

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amywarrel · 5 months

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Sonny Boy and The Lost Youth - an anime analysis by Amy Warrel

This analysis is enormous. You have been warned.

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The world is confusing. No one knows how to properly navigate it. You’ll get a grasp on it eventually and there might be people to help you out, but one day you might also drift apart. That’s a very sad notion, but it also one that reminds us of one thing: what we lived has value, those memories of old are meaningful and our connections to other people will continue to shape us long after those relations are over. Sonny Boy is not subtle in its commentary about getting lost in the world and society. The characters are all transported to a world in which their school is the whole extent of said world. Everything beyond it is pitch black; you can reach for it, but you don’t know what you’ll be getting yourself into. Inside, teenagers try to make it into a functional society, but are obviously all lacking in resources and life experience to do so. Some people are more talented or stronger than others, and that is enough for social bubbles to emerge. I’m sure most of us can relate to the notion that we are getting left behind, that other people are finding their careers, finding what they are good at, have a decent idea of what their life will be like once they step out of school or even already have a future guaranteed, but we — or I — always feel like the outcast.

As someone who spent their whole teen days knowing the only path I could pursue in life was the path of art — which ultimately led me to turn to literature —, I can highly relate to coming of age stories and the anxiety of stepping into adulthood. I can barely manage adulthood even after having been an adult for supposedly four years and “getting ready” — you eventually learn that school is not as good of a leeway into working life as you were led to expect — for it for many more years, so I can see a lot of myself in these character’s emotions, struggles and decisions.

Nagara is the closest thing to a stand-in for the audience in this show, but has enough of a personality that he does not come out as simply self-insert material. Being an introvert does not mean you don’t have a personality, it just means yours doesn’t come out as much, especially in such a confusing age and place where opening yourself up to others is hard when you don’t know how they will react and harder still when you might not even understand why you feel the way you feel. Nagara’s character is used to talk about others' expectations in a very direct way in a couple of episodes, as well as the importance of social connections, while the “speaking up for yourself'' part is also shared mainly with Mizuho.

I am surprised to see Mizuho not being revealed as a transgender character later in the series, since she is reading Stop!! Hibari-kun! In her first appearance, a 1981 manga about a transgender girl going through school who also turns out to be the daughter of a yakuza. Mizuho is by far the easiest character for me to relate to because of this, because of her relation to cats — I have more than twenty of them, it has gotten out of control, someone please help —, because I would have loved to look similar to her through my teenage days — having come out as a transgender girl myself after over a decade of suffering with gender dysphoria — and because she is just very entertaining to watch on screen. I also love her voice; Yuuki Aoi sounds like she is very close to the microphone when speaking just like how all the other characters are doing, which couples with the anime’s more simplistic art style dedicated to giving each character more distinct facial features instead of just telling everyone apart from their hair color, these being techniques that invite a lot more intimacy from the audience and drags them closer to the characters and, by extension, the themes. Having said that, something about Yuuki Aoi’s voice just entices me. I believe she communicates Mizuho’s melancholic and occasionally smug personality with impressive effectiveness.

Of course, the character’s don’t stand in school for long. The first episode’s arc is a very self-contained one about rules, authority and the dangers of it, in which losing said authority leads a kid to hit another one with a baseball bat in the head. Power is a dangerous thing, it messes with our morals, it makes us scared of risking it and can be used both for good and for evil, even by the same person. Give someone too much power and it’s a matter of time and circumstance until you get yourself a war.

I believe the first episode was presented this way with airing conditions in mind. Sonny Boy overall lands itself incredibly well on the style of episodic storytelling with a narrative and thematic throughline to glue it all together, honestly one of the best I have seen yet in that department. Making a first episode that presents the audience with a simple premise in a restricted environment is a great way to ease the viewer into the story.

That structure gets quickly expanded upon as Nozomi takes a leap of faith towards the unknown world, and all the students now find themselves on a new island and with the information that there are many “This Worlds”. All weird places that no one understands exactly, all connected in some fashion that they are still to uncover, and all of it can be conquered by the kids’ specific powers — talents, as they are thematically shown to be — and give them different rewards that they then have to learn how to use. It is not hard to see what that means: its plot significance is one of adding flavor and mystery to the world to better mark the student’s progress as they peel off the mechanics of these worlds little by little, but its thematic significance is one of putting your talents and skills to use and being rewarded for your work.

However, that is just the first episode and there are eleven more to go. Yes, I’ll be going through this commenting “briefly” about what stood out to me in every episode, which I never do, but this anime is an exception and it deserves it. Full on spoilers from now on, you have been warned.

Each episode deals with a couple of different themes but there are always one or two clearly main ones. The series is more interested in discussing these themes in its surreal world than properly grounding every facet of the worldbuilding, which is totally unnecessary once you are shining so many lights on the relevance of the themes above everything else. Yes, the anime has a lot of small little mechanics the characters need to understand about each world, but these mechanisms are generally intrinsically tied to the theme of each world, so don’t expect the type of worldbuilding we are used to seeing. It is not important that we know everything about the island, how far apart things are and where everything is being built, it is more important that we understand how the characters react to their environment and how they communicate — or attempt to — through said world.

Episode two, for instance, leads to the canonical creation of cryptocurrency by everyone’s dearest Rajdhani, but really the important aspect of it is commenting on how a society gets formed à la Lord of the Flies. There are other elements to this episode, such as Mizuho having to speak for herself as I commented earlier, the fact that value is attached to things by our own decisions and how this value can be altered through the means in which these things are obtained, but episode two is still primarily about introducing Mizuho’s character and her struggles with being a kid who wants to be more than just a kid.

I particularly love the fact that at no point does the plot judge Mizuho for having a crush on her teacher. That sort of stuff happens. She can’t be blamed for developing feelings for a figure she sees as a guiding light in a twisted world. We are very clearly led to understand that she decided to wear a ring not because she was in an actual relationship with him, but because she saw that as a stating of her own maturity. Other characters later bring attention more than once to Mizuho’s emotional dependency, it used to be put at least partially on her teacher, but because of the blackmailing she suffered and the circumstances of being stranded, that then turned exclusively to her cats. And I ask again: can she be blamed for it? No, she can’t, and I appreciate the writing for being self-aware enough to understand that and respect her character instead of turning this into what could have been a generic villainization of teen sexuality. Please note that I am only talking about her emotional dependency and her having a crush on her teacher, I am not saying that actually being involved in a romantical and or sexual relationship with a teacher is ethical, especially considering that Mizuho is sixteen years old.

One of the great things that fantastical elements in a story allows is the literalization of metaphors. Episode three does this by using a rule that makes recluse people totally isolated within a pocket dimension of endless black curtains, all connected to each other through gaps in these curtains, meaning there is a way for them to communicate with each other. In this dimension they are all doing what they want to be doing: one guy is livestreaming Pacman, there is one buff dude that only wants to work out and a girl that is sewing multiple stuffed toys… you get the idea.

Society isolates people and that should be a given in any system created by humans. There is simply too much idiosyncrasies in our relations and personalities and it would be goddam boring if everyone was the same. Of course it can get to a point where it is detrimental to the isolated person, but that begins as a way to cope with our inability to communicate with people we feel we should be able to communicate with — because everyone else does, apparently — and our interests and passions not being well-seen or simply really hard to turn into a living. Who wouldn’t like to live in a world in which subsistence is a given and we can do whatever we want and repeat our hobbies for as long as we can stand them because we enjoy it?

Some aspects of Sonny Boy’s multiple worlds can maybe be related to the concept of a noosphere: a state of evolution defined by our consciousness, mental activities and interactions with other people, it is both above and ahead of the geosphere and the biosphere and envisions a world in which Earth is essentially a super-organism and there is a layer of consciousness and information enveloping it all. I am not claiming to be an expert on the matter and maybe the creators weren’t even trying to pursue this idea in particular — seen in the fact that they like mentioning Robinson Crusoe, so you could expect then to mention the noosphere —, but the many This Worlds in the story are described as playing with consciousness and the mind. Also, in a noosphere humans would be united enough to be able to deal with global problems and Earth can self-regulate itself, which these Worlds do by their own set of rules. I’m sorry if anyone has studied this and if I said something wrong about it.

Going back to episode three, it keeps pulling the thread of commenting about isolation with things such as no one noticing these people’s disappearance except those in direct interaction with then and these people might not even go looking for the missing ones, which is certainly how most people I know describe the feeling of being depressed and the notion that no one understands them. It also has some very direct commentary about our capitalist society through reflecting on the fact that the blue flames of the island take everything away from you that you haven’t paid for and with Mizuho complaining about people wanting to be friends with her power — what she can do —, instead of with herself — who she is. It is not a particularly complex exploration of the individual's relation with capitalism and their worth in it, but at least it is something.

This episode also turns Nagara and Mizuho into a duo, which is something we are going to see a lot more of through the remaining episodes. You get the drill: they fail to communicate, fight, then manage to properly communicate — which goes hand in hand with the episode’s theme of isolation caused by an inability to communicate — and solve the issue together, yadda yadda, we have seen that before. It is executed competently and makes sense within the story, but Sonny Boy is not a non-stop flow of impressive big ideas and unexpected twists and turns leading to their incredible solution, it is that just most of the time.

Episode four then comments more directly about how talent can distance people. That is a recurring theme through the whole show, but in this episode we see a story about an ape who wanted to play baseball, but could not because of the physical liability of only having one arm, but that did not stop him from loving the sport and ending up as an arbiter, however he was seen as the common person, relegated to a background position while other, more talented and successful people shine in the spotlights, leading him to be killed by an enraged crowd for standing up to his sense of justice. Before that all the apes were indistinguishable, having to stand out on the basis of their prowess, while some people are like the blue ape, clearly different and talented enough to steal everyone’s attention and moments to shine, which leads him to forget his origin as the target of prejudice and causing harm to another victim when the goal of being perfect becomes more important than enjoying the moment and the success he already has. Ace then goes on to say that the arbiter’s death was fair because there are common people who drown other’s talents — referring to his talent and Nagara causing him to lose an important game back when they played baseball —, but of course he is totally wrong in this. Loving something and having a competitive mindset about it can blind people sometimes and Ace does not realize this, while Nozomi, being by far the most conscious of her surroundings and constantly having insights about the other kids' psychology everytime the “camera” zooms in on her eyes, is the first one to call attention to the fact that the impressive ape in the whole story is the arbiter, for standing up for himself against everyone knowing that he would be seen as the enemy.

I know most of what I just said is spelled out in the episode, but since I am committed to reviewing the whole show I have to mention these details, because Sonny Boy constantly builds upon the themes of the last episode in the next one instead of just going for unrelated yet interesting themes or repeating the same ones like I feel other shows I don’t resonate with very strongly often do.

Nagara is also shown to not have enough control of his own power to determine where he wants to go. We find out that he can only travel to other This Worlds and not back to their original one. I believe Nagara to be the carrier of this power because he is just enough of a blank-slate to fit virtually anywhere while also not feeling like he belongs in any of them, having no clear goal in life and thus not wanting to go to any place in particular, drifting through whatever comes his way. Sure, he can bring other people with him, but it’s not as if he is going to any one place.

We end this episode with the introduction of Aki-sensei, someone the kids recognize as being one of their teachers back in the real world. Aki-sensei immediately tells them that the fun and games have ended and that there is no way to go back to their original world. While a lot of what she says is put to the test later on, Aki turns out to be a figure of authority manipulating these kids and creating even more distinction between the groups, managing to bring every single person that would be willing to trust a figure who is supposed to know what she is doing while the other groups are made of the students that want to find that out for themselves. Her primary target for manipulation is Asakaze and everything that was needed for him to trust her was hearing that he was special, that he deserves special attention and that he has a special future. Again, this is dealing with the psychology of people receiving power and status, in this case especially by someone who he sees as having a better grasp on reality and thus making her words all the more meaningful.

As soon as the sides are clearly divided conflicts start emerging faster and it doesn’t take long until we see three separate groups being formed. That is expected to happen whenever there is a society, especially when it starts to grow and people gravitate towards others similar to them and in whom they believe in. Aki-sensei is not right in her manipulations by any stretch, but her presence merely accelerates an ongoing process. The meaning of Aki-sensei in the story changes a bit once when we find out she is actually not Aki-sensei but another student playing as her, changing what was a figure of authority manipulating kids in vulnerable positions to being one of those kids, just as lost or even more lost than the others, pretending to be a figure of authority who understand the world better than they do and presenting it as necessity of maintaining the status quo while framing the other kids as potentially dangerous precisely because they are trying to lay change upon the world. Knowing all of this, it is no surprise what their actions later escalate into.

One of the most interesting ideas the anime introduces is in episode six, where they find a world that is a giant cinema filled to the brim with records from Nagara’s perspective. It fits his character considering Nagara is used to spending his days as simply an observer that takes no action and the way the mechanics are played with are interesting. What if we edit the records? What if we play it backwards? It doesn’t really matter how much this amounts to, the questions are interesting enough by themselves. Not all changes made to the films actually happen, even if Nagara is present, this probably means that not everything done to the films will actually change his perception of reality. If it is something that he can’t imagine happening or doesn’t have enough suspension of disbelief to accept, then it likely doesn’t affect the real world.

Yamabiko is a particularly interesting addition to the cast: a once student turned dog who has lived for five thousand years and finally gives us some answers, claiming that the reason the drifting happens is because their principal is God, explaining that only the school and students can get adrift and that it only happens with people from the same school they went to, no matter the time in which that happened. Though there is not much that can be said about Yamabiko and the themes revolving around his character before the episode dedicated to expanding on his background, he is still a fun and mysterious character that shares good synergy with Mizuho. He does, however, say that the kids from the current drifting still have time to go back. Our experiences through a structure like school and our teenage days shape us and once we step outside of it, we aren’t the same as when we first stepped in. Since the perception of reality is an important concept in this episode, then this means that if we changed, then the world itself changed, because our reality is simply how we see it. Nozomi, for instance, keeps talking about her compass and the light she believes will guide them home, but we don’t have to actually see that light to believe her. Yamabiko on the other hand simply can’t go back, because he has lost too much and been around for too long, to the point where he doesn’t even fit the actual real world he was used to.

My favorite part of episode six is when Nozomi is talking about how she doesn’t want to walk down the safe paths people have told her about just to think “Ah, good going.” That’s not what life is for her. Nozomi is a very brave and insightful person and she wants to do what she wants to do, she is a free spirit that can appreciate the present more than all the other kids. She can get anxious and scared, but that is precisely why she does it. Nozomi wants to feel, wants to live and wants to take risks. Honestly I would like to be a little bit more like her, but I’m simply not brave enough.

Hoshi’s White Knight Syndrome is also brought to the forefront in this episode. He knew the school was going to go adrift and that is why he went to school that day, because he wanted to help these people, but this is not presented as simply altruism. Hoshi had always been drawn as creepy and scheming if not necessarily evil, but as we also find out, this desire of him to help others does not exist because he actually wants to help them, but because he has a god complex and wants to be a savior. Meaning, he’s going about it the wrong way.

Episode seven is my least favorite of the bunch simply because it was the first to come out as too heavy-handed to me. You see, a lot in fiction boils down to promises and payoffs. The ending of episode six and the entirety of episode seven gave me the impression that the series was going into another direction, having the newly discovered plot about castaways that have been adrift for longer wanting to punish Nagara for ruining their lives take a more prominent place in the story. Don’t take me wrong, I’d much rather this current story that the anime has, but it did gave me the feeling that that was the promise being made for the long run, that this was the direction it was taking and by the ending of episode seven I was expecting it to turn into something similar to “us against the government”, so finding out that was not the case was both a relief and a confusing moment. Even after watching the episode again to try and judge it in a different light already knowing how the story ends, my view on this hasn’t changed.

This doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate anything that episode seven does, of course. Sonny Boy frequently calls attention to Nagara’s personality and the need to speak up for himself, but it is never offensive about it. Koumaru reaches the conclusion that Nagara can’t be blamed for drifting them and Yamabiko notes that God gave him that power with the intention of it being used for the drifting, which also means he can’t be blamed for being who he is since that power is so rooted in his personality. He can get more out of life by forming connections with people, but we don’t need to scorn him for that until he learns his lesson.

The world turned upside down is still a neat idea even if I don’t think it is used to as satisfying a conclusion as most of the other episodes do. It explores the idea of a stagnant society that makes its workers believe that they are changing it, no matter whether they believe it or even know what exactly they are supposedly doing, giving them a blind hope to help cope with their trapped situation. Since Sonny Boy constantly pulls threads from previous episodes it is pretty easy to relate this to Nozomi’s phrase of not wanting to walk down the safe path in life.

All it takes for Nagara to flip the world upside down is to take a step away from the safe spot. I get the message, but I feel like it is slightly too simplistic. Sometimes this anime does not deliver in the themes department as well as I would have liked, but thankfully the strength of the main characters is enough for me to see that as just a minor nuisance.

Episode eight, on the other hand, is among the amazing ones and it does a lot more for the characters and tone than any episode honestly even needs to in order to be satisfying. We jump from present to past as Yamabiko tells his sad story. In the present they are traveling along with Nagara, Mizuho and her cats, but the framing always keeps us close to the characters instead of zooming out to show the scenery, which is great to shorten the distance between audience and characters, hyperfocusing this episode in the people we are seeing and leaving the exploration of the world to the side for at least one episode. The muddier color design and music also helps a lot in keeping this episode tone-perfect all the way through.

The reason why I find this episode to be genius is because of how Yamabiko’s story recontextualizes the characters of Nagara and Mizuho. Yamabiko was a shut-in who simply crawled his way through life just like Nagara, but to a much more intense degree that leads him to completely isolate himself, instead of trying but not managing to speak up like how we see Nagara often doing, leading to a point where Yamabiko reacts violently to try and scare people away. He also brings attention to Mizuho’s emotional dependency by increasing that to the point where he turns into a dog to follow the lead of someone he trusts more than even himself, and it is these two things combined that eventually leads to the ruin of the people around him and himself.

Episode eight is primarily about ignoring your problems until it is too late. Yamabiko’s power gives him the ability of manifesting his mental state, this being the reason why he turned into a dog, but also being the reason why the epidemy hits Kodama and her friends. I don’t think it would be right to call these kids the new family Yamabiko has found, because his interactions happen almost exclusively with Kodama, being the pure guiding light — probably even motherly figure, since her power is called “M”, I know that might mean "Manipulate" or something, but we also know that Nagara has an issue with his mother who is herself a shut-in that doesn’t leave the house — so that he needs to go through life without thinking, leaving all his worries and objectives for someone else to decide. Thus, he is walking the “safe path” mentioned before.

The anime is clearly self-conscious about all of this, since not only do the personalities of these three characters relate in such a direct way, but also because we see Nagara saying he relates to it, while Mizuho starts the episode more playful and smuggy like we know her to be, but then gets quieter with every interlude to Yamabiko’s story. I have praised the anime for respecting its characters until now, but it is an even greater thing that it is willing to bring attention to how dangerous their paths can be. I agree with the message of following your own path and being yourself, but I am also not naive enough to pretend that all is well when it isn’t and, even taking in the fact that we all want to live our successful lives doing what we love, the world is not fair or simple enough to simply allow that to happen without any sort of friction. There are aspects of us that have to be fought against just like there are aspects of the world around us that we should fight against.

Since I mentioned music and tone, I want to take a short while to talk about the production of Sonny Boy. The reason why this anime feels like so much of a breath of fresh air is because it is almost 100% pure 2D animation, with as little post-processing and CGI as is possible. I’m not saying there isn’t great animation out there, but it honestly boggles my mind when I see so many people sharing sakuga moments from anime like Fate or Demon Slayer where half the screen is drowning beneath post-processing, artificial light from above to make every frame feel epic and world-defining and tons of CGI even if it is great CGI. I don’t want to sound like an elitist, I can enjoy those things for what they are, I’m not saying that CGI and post-processing have no place in the industry nor am I saying that the shows mentioned here are poorly produced, but every now and then I want to watch something different instead of having the feeling that every anime that ever comes out is trying to do the same thing to various different levels of success. I am eternally grateful to the team behind Sonny Boy for deciding to go with this style of production because it fits the tone of the series so much better then if it was trying to be flashy in its presentation.

Something else that I really like about the production is how the music is kept quiet. There are exceptions — especially in the last few episodes — for example in the more montage-like scenes, but generally the tracks are kept distant, while the character’s voices are kept closer, rarely having distractful lyrics, leaving the presentation and dialogue to pull most of the weight. What this also does is it keeps it from ever getting repetitive. Sometimes anime — especially more action-centered anime — will play the same tracks over and over again to the point where they run the risk of not being iconic and memorable, but also redundant and annoying. I’m not going to pretend I’m an expert in the matter, but Shouji Hata, the sound director for Sonny Boy, worked on a ton of really popular stuff, some that I even distinctly remember liking the soundtrack — such as Vinland Saga and Log Horizon —, so, if I can interpret the production this way, I also believe that a professional who has probably been working in the industry for longer than I have lived can do all of this intentionally.

Now proceeding to episode nine, this is one I’m not so hot on either. The highlights are everything related to the cats, of course. I did not expect them to start turning into actual characters — even if very simple ones — and it adds an extra layer of charm and comedy to their interactions.

I definitely enjoyed it more the second time through, knowing where the series ends and paying more attention to Asakaze’s and Nozomi’s interactions, but the overall plot and complexity of the themes just doesn’t hold up in my mind.

Aki-not-sensei wants the power of the twins, but only one of them. Since they are both the same person, this means that she only needs a part of the person being manipulated, everything else can just be thrown away and does not add up to your value — this is interesting to think about if you remember that Aki keeps pretending like she is saving the world and reducing the values of individuals she doesn’t need and overestimating others to do her deeds.

The twins are fighting over the fact that one of them has a single strand of hair more than the other. Clearly the point of this is that people overestimate the worth of some things only to pretend like they are better than others — and if these are the same people, then it can be seen as him not being able to deal with the fact he is not perfect by externalizing it into an enemy. Their power to reverse everything makes them forget the whole fight and they end up fighting eternally because you can’t simply go back, your experiences change you and nothing is accomplished by trying to go back to square one as if nothing had happened, he has to accept his own flaws and not try to reset everything to zero, but do things differently with the knowledge and experiences he gained on the way. Aki of course gets to him before he can realize any of this and the result is that by killing a part of himself, he kills the whole.

Maybe I would enjoy this episode more if it had been done with a character we already knew. Sonny Boy focuses its characterization in the four main faces of the show while leaving other characters very superficial and using them almost exclusively to explore themes. While I don’t think you can criticize the fact that the secondary characters aren’t that fleshed out since this anime is trying to do twenty times more things than most anime are, I still felt like bringing a wholly new character for this episode ultimately hurt the effectiveness of the message more than it did any other episode.

There are two characters in this show who try to mimic God: Asakaze and Hoshi. In episode 10, we see Asakaze being tricked yet again by Aki, who takes him to see the principal — God — who asks him to kill War, the character we met in Yamabiko’s flashback. Kossetsu — who we find out has the ability to read other people’s thoughts — convinces Nozomi to come along. Kossetsu loves Asakaze, but he loves Nozomi, so she wants Nozomi to help change him to a state where he might end up at her feet. Obviously, only tragedy could come from this.

Asakaze was so obsessed with the concept of a great mission reserved to him that he allowed himself to be manipulated by Aki and ended up losing sight of everything that doesn’t relate to pursuing Nozomi. He confessed to her, but got rejected because she couldn’t respect him. Asakaze then says that he was probably obsessed over her because he felt like he could never be as strong as her. At this point he realizes he should let her go, and, after conquering the world “War”, he actually manages to create death when Nozomi falls off the cliff and into the nothingness at the bottom of war, not managing to save her because as it turns out, his power is spontaneously activated. He did not want Nozomi anymore, therefore he couldn't use his powers on her. Asakaze’s power was born out of his need to keep everything and everyone at his reach. God definitely knew this and tricked him along with Aki.

The War we saw in Yamabiko’s past was still walking around, but the one we meet here is completely empty, falling to the bottom of a deep gorge yet never actually reaching it even though there is one; stagnant. Only Asakaze can bring him to the ground and his reward for that is a weapon.

War is a manifestation, a world himself, and conquering him grants you with the power to kill. There is a chance he was even tricked by God as well, since he was killing people before Asakaze, but God of course never bothered with telling him that death is a phenomenon that can happen there under specific circumstances. Since we find out that the drift was caused by the combination of Nagara, the cats and Mizuho all using their power unwillingly; Nagara creating worlds, the cats copying the kids and Mizuho putting them all in stasis because she doesn’t want to see anyone die, then conquering the world “War” gave them a power that could go against Mizuho’s power.

I like the way the world “War” is presented, as a hard to climb mountainous area that is then abruptly interrupted at the top by “a gorge that goes down forever, but the bottom is crimson.” The fall is the only thing you can expect after warring and whatever lies at the bottom of it is not going to be good. It stretches forever and is a wound delivered in the world itself. It might take time, but it will take its toll.

There might be more to be said about the imagery of War in this episode, but honestly this is all I’ve got.

Episodes eleven and twelve are a two parter to end this amazing ride. As you can expect to happen after Nozomi’s tragic end, the next episode is dedicated to mourning her loss and dealing with themes of grief and death. It is both heartbreaking and heartwarming. I had a slightly hard time breathing through the entire montage opening of Mizuho and Nagara honoring their friend and seeing how far their friendship has come. It hurt seeing both of them cry, it hurt seeing two people seeing their friends crying at their side at different moments of the episode without knowing what to do about it. And, above all, it hurt seeing Mizuho say goodbye to her cats.

Years of trauma and emotional suppression rendered me completely incapable of crying out of emotion, so every story that gets me even close to it surprises me. Last time I “cried” was recently and there was but a single tear, I can’t even remember how many years it was since the last time that I actually cried my heart out, with sobbing and sniffing and stuff. Fiction is what helps me deal with this, and I’m goddamn grateful to Sonny Boy for being on the list of stories that got me close to crying.

As my favorite author — Steven Erikson — once said, “Grief is not something you overcome, but something you get used to carrying the weight of.” I might be paraphrasing that, but you get the idea. We might not see Mizuho and Nagara for long enough after Nozomi’s death to see the full repercussions of this, but we know they are going to carry the weight of everything they lived in these two years adrift for the rest of their lives.

After ten episodes commenting about how things are hard to change, we finally begin seeing some clearer changes in these last few episodes. It began with Nozomi’s death, but we also see how Yamabiko has now completely turned into a dog and doesn’t speak anymore. We see how Rajdhani’s gaze has changed and he reflects on the fact he is growing more apathetic with time. He tells us the story of a man who could not accept reality and would create images of his home and his girlfriend that were not accurate at all, trapping himself in the made-up ideal world of his mind, which relates to the relationship between Asakaze and Nozomi.

Rajdhani also tells us the story of a student obsessed with the idea of creating “death”. Perhaps this can also be interpreted as a character trying to mimic God, since he is trying to create something that was previously impossible . First time through I was sure this was Hoshi, but it is very clearly War, my bad on that. We get the information that he conducted experiments in death and suicide and can assume that he got his badges from that. He created death by rendering his identity completely void, having no desires, no reactions, no emotions and no opinions. He created death by going against everything that defines a person, becoming a mere shape.

As Rajdhani puts it, “Life is an endless exercise in vain effort. But it’s precisely because it’s meaningless that I think the brilliance of this moment in life is so precious. Because that one moment belongs to that person alone.” Ultimately, the message of Sonny Boy is wholly positive. It is realistic enough to recognize the worst parts of life and it does not pretend everything will go right simply because we want it to, but it also finds it important to remind us that, once again, everything we have lived up until that moment is what has shaped us and thus has value. We don’t have to change the world, we just have to find a place to belong in it. Nozomi’s will still lives on, her compass still points to the light, unwavering in its determination, and her mark in the world and in her friends will long outlive herself.

And in episode twelve, we get the confirmation that Nozomi had always been right. The light had been there all along, she was the only one who could see it because she was the only one who's outlook on life matched what the story is trying to convey. It takes an astronomical effort to even get there because that is how much time they lost and enduring how much the world is going to strike you down is no easy thing. They only manage to do so with the combined efforts of Nagara, Mizuho, her cats, Rajdhani and Asakaze — handing them another compass, presumably the original one. But, even after getting to the light, there is this one beautiful scene where they are only able to capture the light by the efforts of Mizuho’s and Nagara’s hands. I always found it interesting that “light” was used for the analogy of the path in life. I mean, try to grasp a light like how Nozomi was doing. She could only reach it, but could never quite hold it, at least not alone. It is light, after all, and it will slip right between your fingers.

The last episode gave me a twist in the stomach when it felt like Nagara and Mizuho weren’t going to talk, but thankfully it was just them having a hard time talking about it. We get to see glimpses of what their life is going to be from now on: Nagara getting a shitty job — yo that’s relatable, kind of —, Mizuho’s grandmother having passed away, Nozomi and Asakaze ending up in a relationship in a world in which they can respect each other. Well, now that I think about it, I don’t think anything that they do in this last episode proves that they are dating, but they are clearly in better terms than their copies that went adrift. If the copies are still adrift and those are the parts of them as people that conflicted with each other, then this original version is the one where things went better for them.

In the past, Nagara ignored the dying bird. Now he cares about the birds that have lost their mother — you could say they are stranded just like the kids were —, but Nozomi had already thought about that and took the only surviving one with her, deciding to taking care of it until it is able to fly by itself, instead of trapping the bird and not allowing it go where it needs to go in life. This interaction shows us that Nozomi is still one step ahead, still striding forward in life and doing what she believes is right. She might not be exactly the same Nozomi we know, but her essence is still the same. Yet again, I wish I could be a little bit more like her.

I am also pleased to see Nagara and Mizuho not turning into a couple. This would have come off as weird and even thematically inconsistent I would say. Since Nagara and Nozomi never ended as a couple, then him ending up with Mizuho would send the message that she was the second option, or maybe that he was looking for the wrong person in Nozomi. The point is, either of these options would have diminished the characters. If they ended up as a couple, then a short arc where they learn to respect each other and brings attention to the morality of Nagara being suddenly romantically attracted to her after finding out Nozomi is with Asakaze would have been completely necessary not to break their dynamic. Either way, I’m much more satisfied with their current friendship than I would have been if any of these characters ended up feeling like a trophy.

I don’t think there’s much more to be said, at least not now. Sonny Boy is about and trying to say a lot of stuff, much more than most anime I watch are, and it accomplishes that in a shorter runtime than most do as well. I barely mind the fact that secondary characters are abandoned or that not every episode is tone-perfect. I didn’t expect it to be and neither does it have to. While I can obviously appreciate several different kinds of stories, my tastes are always changing and I am slowly becoming aware of some elements shared between most if not all of the stories that are connecting with me on a personal level in the past few years. While I would not dare to reduce this anime to a single theme after having said all of this, I just wanted to share one more idea: this story is about the loss of innocence, but it does not end there with a negative outlook on life, it takes the extra step of being about hope for the future and acceptance of our past; acceptance, not surrender.

I’m pretty sure I have told someone that I wish I had watched this anime when I was eighteen or something, thinking that it would have been fundamental in forming my outlook on life — pretty sure it would have lead me to take on the nickname of Sonny Girl as well once I accepted my dysphoria, wait… I actually like how that sounds… — but I take that back. Stupid-ass eighteen years-old me would not have been able to appreciate it the way my current jaded one can. And that is fine, at least that is what Nozomi would try to teach me.

I ended up having a lot more to say than expected while also feeling like there was a lot more to be explored.

Of course, I can't score this anything else besides a 10/10.

Oh, and sorry for the heavy usage of em-dashes — I love these things.

#anime #art #writing #anime review #analysis #media analysis #media literacy #media criticism #madhouse #sonny boy #amy warrel

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sheafrotherdon · 1 year

Text

for @werebearbearbar

When Yusuf returns to their room with his tunic bloodied, Nicolo stills, prepared for the dozen or more eventualities that might spin out from such misfortune. He is relieved that Yusuf has come back—the truce between them is so fragile that he is often gripped by the worry that Yusuf might yet leave—but relief wars with frustration at how rash Yusuf can be, how often he finds himself at the wrong end of a blade. He looks Yusuf over from head to toe, rapidly assesses his healing, and then drags his gaze back to Yusuf’s face, to the expression of defeat he wears.

“What happened?” he asks quietly.

“We will not be traveling to Cairo today,” says Yusuf, as if this explains everything. He sits heavily on the edge of his rough bed.

Nicolo’s temper—the blistering, sharp-edge of his temper that he has yet to master—flares. This man. This infuriating man. His errand was so simple, and yet his arrogance, his stupidity, his readiness to fight—which of these maddening qualities ruined their plans? He swallows hard and opens his mouth that his feelings might pour out, tenses his hand into a fist and . . .

. . . pauses.

Yusuf is not readying to oppose him. His shoulders are not squared in anticipation of argument, nor his body poised to make his lingering disdain for Nicolo’s company known. His eyes are closed, his breathing steady in the way Nicolo has only observed when Yusuf prepares to pray. Something curls, sour, in Nicolo’s stomach, concern rushing from beneath his breastbone to skitter through his limbs, and he goes down to one knee, reaches out to touch Yusuf, then reconsiders.

“What did he do to you?” he asks instead.

Yusuf laughs sharply, mournfully, and looks up. “You would not understand.”

Nicolo watches him for a long moment. “You are not still hurt?”

Yusuf shakes his head. “He . . .” There is a visible struggle within him; his expression hardens, then softens again. “We could not agree on a price. He rescinded his offer and we argued.”

“His blood or yours?”

“Both.”

Nicolo stays still. “And?”

Yusuf looks away and blows out a breath. “He offered the curses of a schoolboy, the needling insults that a child might use.” He looks back at Nicolo. “He said I was my mother’s great shame, my father’s undoing, that my bloodline was cursed, that no son could dishonor his family more.”

Nicolo has witnessed by day and night Yusuf’s wrestling with their destiny. To be thrown into company with an invader whose body knits together like his own; to refuse to sink his blade into Nicolo’s gut despite the provocations of the heavens; the decision—the awful decision—to exile himself from his home lest he grieve his parents with the stain of whatever dark magic animates their souls. . .

“You are none of those things,” Nicolo says earnestly, voice no more than a whisper.

Yusuf makes a small choking sound, and presses his lips together firmly.

“He did not see a truth in you,” Nicolo continues. “A charlatan cannot.”

“And you do?” Yusuf asks bitterly.

Nicolo feels a strange and unfamiliar warmth creep up his neck. “I am further along that path than some wastrel merchant.”

Yusuf meets his gaze and for a long, terrible moment, neither of them speaks. “Perhaps,” Yusuf says nodding at last. “Perhaps you are.”

It is an unexpected thing to find that this matters, this agreement, the nearness of Yusuf’s body, the fact that Nicolo can find words enough to craft comfort when Yusuf is distressed. There is something here, some puzzle to unravel, but Nicolo cannot fathom the twists of his own mind on this score. “You may take my clean shirt,” he says, and stands again, dusting off his knee.

Yusuf nods and stands too, pulls his dagger from his belt and lays it on the bed. “Thank you,” he says simply, and studies the blade.

#joe x nicky #yusuf al kaysani #nicolo di genova #kaysanova #early days #truce #concern #comfort #grief

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prismaticpichu · 3 months

Text

TW: Major Descriptions of Blood/Injury/Implied Jenova-induced Self Harm ❤️

Extreme angst- Nibelheim- this got escalated somehow???

Part 2 of this!

Quivering hands clutched the blanket tighter, his broken nails raking against the beige swath of linen like talons through tender skin, another whetted breath cutting through Sephiroth’s lips as the broken shape continued to shift and strain against the pillow. What was once pure and white now stood spattered with pebbles and streaks of crimson, writhing like a gunshot animal in torment against the snow, and his hands tensed and raked against the blanket once more.

Acid burning through his eyes, Zack reached out to cup one.

And a small, almost imperceptible whimper of pain was his response.

“Hey… hey.” Zack did everything in his power to placate the older SOLDIER, whispering and soothing, his heart twisting and contorting into an unbearable shape at the thought of causing his friend any more agony than he was already ensnared in. “It’s just me… it’s just Zack. I told you I would come back.”

Seph’s hand trembled against his own, still hooked and straining.

The boy’s throat began to close.

“Docs said there was nothing wrong with you. Nothing they could find physically, anyway…” Zack hazily eyed the bandages gauzed around Seph’s head, the way they stretched all the way down to his temples and cheeks and jawline from when those talons had began viciously clawing at himself, the way those whetted nails slashed and raked and gouged as if wanting to tear the burning meat and flesh off his own bones.

Tensing at the memory, he let out a choke.

“SEPH! SEPH, STOP IT!”

“SIR… OH MY GOD—“

He had crumpled out of his arms, about halfway down the mountain, as if some imaginary yet fatal threshold had been crossed.

“STOP IT! SHIT—! SEPH….!”

When the blood splashed against his skin, it was warm, and Zack had never felt such a purgatorial state of numbness as he did watching ShinRa’s greatest warrior tear through the layers of his own scalp and skin, slashing and clawing like the organ was nothing more than a famished blaze eating him alive.

“SEPH…. SEPHIROTH! STOP IT!”

He was screaming now, and so was Seph.

“YOU’RE GONNA TEAR YOUR HEAD OPEN—PLEASE!”

He tried prying Seph’s hands away, the tips of his gloves completely saturated, his own drenched in the swelling, viscous liquid that was rapidly pooling around the terrain of silver strands.

“STOP…!”

A serrated hiss of protest and was his only response, merely tearing the wounds further agape as he tried to extract the man’s obstinate hands from his flesh, merely dragging two rakes of crimson down the sides of scalp and coppering the sides of his hair with the metallic stench of blood.

“Oh Gaia… SHIT…. Stop it…!”

Zack was losing the will to scream, completely breathless, the tears having long gushed through the levee but too lost in the numbness to register them.

“GET… GET AWAY!” was the only coherent thing the man could scream, his eyes suddenly blazing open and wild and unrecognizably draconic as the words tore from his lips, bucking and kicking and finally relinquishing hold of his scalp to slash feverishly at his sleeveless arms instead.

“HU… M… AN…!”

“SEPH! Buddy…!” Zack was wading through his sopping words, practically pinning down the man’s arms as they grappled like wolves on the jagged mountain terrain. “It’s ME…! Zack! I’m your frien—!”

And a cry tore his throat asunder as Seph’s nails plunged into his wrists, a bloom of warm blood pooling against the tender beige skin, ten whetted talons that raked deep into the flesh and soul.

“SEPHIROTH…!”

Shivering, the bandages mending his wrists curled and tensed as Zack tightened his hold.

Sephiroth clenched his teeth.

“…You really scared me, pal.” Blue eyes glistened under the amber lamplight of the inn. “But I know you didn’t mean to hurt me. I know you didn’t. You would never hurt me…” He strained his eyes for a moment, taking in a deep breath, opening them again only when the words could be formed. “You were just scared… Or—or something. And… and I get it. I would be scared, too.”

The boy’s voice rattled against the still indoor air, chipping against the tumultuous rush of memory, taking in another quivering breath before speaking again.

“Was it… was it just too much?” he wondered aloud, his voice quiet and ghostly. “Everything Genesis said… all that horrible stuff… is that what happened, bud? Is that why you went nuts on us…?”

Sephiroth clutched the blanket tighter, convulsing slightly.

Zack’s grip tightened on his hand.

“You know… you know it’s not true… right?” His voice was quavering with his shoulders, swallowing an oncoming choke. “What Genesis said. Well—I… I don’t know about the rest. The experiments. But… but about you being a…”

He paused for a best, tasting the poisonous, corrosive word on his tongue, and forced it out in a burning whisper.

“About you being a monster.”

Shifting, Sephiroth let out another bladed hiss.

No such luck.

No su… ch luck.

N… su… h l… c…

Something wet plunked against the mattress, its echo silent and absorbed.

“I know, pal. I know. And it wasn’t the first time you heard someone call you that either….”

Cold metal dented as Sephiroth was pushed into the wall, the reverberations loud and free, his shoulders clenched by venomous young hands.

“What the HELL is wrong with you…?! Why would you SEND me to Modeoheim…?”

To be continued…? :3c

#ffvii #tw: blood #the fic in which Sephiroth has a completely different kind of meltdown #tw: self harm #sephiroth #angst #crisis core #zack fair #ff7 #pichu writing #cloud strife #final fantasy vii #writing #ff7 fanfic #jenova

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sewinrat · 1 year

Text

You as Amanda the Adventurer includes(child reader);

You were just walking around for a new adventure with your pet friend sheep, Wooly! Who was hesitant especially when he feel the bad vibes around the place. After walking for quite some time, you saw a diner called, 'Smile Diner'. You dragged Wooly into the diner with a bright smile.

You enter the place and look around happily. There was not a lot of people. Actually, there's only five people sitting together. You dragged Wooly to a random table. Checking the menu only to find weird things on it but that's okay! You're used to it! "Wooly, what do you want to get?" You ask the sheep across you. Unfortunately however, Wooly had a bit of trouble choosing as he felt weirded out seeing the names. You're starting to lose your temper and keep asking him what he wants aggressively. Until eventually you couldn't wait any longer and yell at him, glitching in and out before suddenly sitting there with a smile again as you calmly ask Wooly what he wants, which caught the attention of the other five people.

Luther in a confused tone wonders why is there a child and a sheep without any adult supervision. Nyen was annoyed but couldn't do anything about it without his master's order yet. Nyon and Sebastian basically try to mind their own business while Randal laughs at the poor sheep who was trembling.

For some reason, one thing lead to another and now you're living with the ivory's. You look oblivious to your surroundings while Wooly is scared for his life, especially around the cat with the Nevada shirt.

You are quite the obedient child with a horrible temper and a gruesome sense of view, humour and mind. You fit well together with Randal as friends. Actually, you and Wooly are exactly like Randal and Sebastian. The only differences are that Wooly let it all happened as long as everything is in control while Sebastian is going to escape any chance he can and you have the worst temper or patience while Randal has no temper. Often times, Randal makes you lose it and it results in you attacking him. But it's all fine in the end. Luckily no one was hurt besides Randal.

Going into a different topic, cats. You look at the two adults being cats and ask them if they talk. Nyen grunts and Nyon stays quiet as always. You however don't mind and instead said, "Animals don't talk like that, silly! They make funny sounds like this; Meooww." You unknowingly mocked at them. Wooly just lowers his head down, remembering the time you did that to him and it doesn't end that well.

There was once where you said something about 'a lonely kitten is out there somewhere. Won't you help the lonely kitten?' This perks up Luther but he doesn't understand what you're trying to say. He wants the find this 'lonely kitten' though. Not knowing what it meant.

You laugh at anything dark honestly and try to make games out of anything. You drag Randal mostly to go on adventures while Wooly and Sebastian awkwardly watch you two in a safe distance. You spoke to the unhinged boy like he was an audience. 'Silly mister fox!' 'Kuku~ he is silly!' Refering to a fox with lost half of it's head. 'The opposite of alive iss..' 'DEAD!~' Randal continued and laugh maniacally as you both stand in front of a grave. 'Let's make an apple pie!' Wooly were holding peaches but it suddenly glitches into apples to which Randal clapped at and leaving Sebastian concerned.

Ranfren Characters thoughts on You(ooc);

Randal: "I like them! They're so fun to play with ~ kuku it's always fun to have a friend like them to play correctly! Ahh but they have such a bad temperr... I guess that's partly my fault heheh~ I wonder what they mean by rotting somewhere far but I feel myself rotting away too!~" Best Friends FOREVER.

Luther: "They are too similar like Randal but oh well. At least they are more well behaved. Randal mentioned that they are rotting like him but I don't pay any mind. A nice addition to the family they are♡ Their pet sheep is nice as well, they're like Sebastian but obedient. I want to find this lonely kitten they mentioned so I can help it♡ However I do think we need to keep that temper under control." He's clueless of your cryptic messages and hints but he'll soon figure out. Very soon.

Nyen: "Annoying brat. Always saying that cats go meow. I hope the lonely kitten they had mentioned dies." Doesn't like you. Best to avoid when Luther is not around. He won't kill you however.

Nyon: Nyon doesn't even came close to you. He only came close to Wooly but that happens once in a blue moon. Avoids you more when he saw how aggressive and dark-minded you can get.

Sebastian: "Ugh... Just another addition to the freaks of a family. Somehow I think they're worse than Randal... Everytime they speak, freaks me out because they always say something weird. I wonder how that sheep handle it.." He's... Just don't bother him that much. He already has Randal on his back. However he is glad that you managed to keep Randal away from him longer.

Bonus! Wooly: "I really don't know how we got into this situation but we can't escape now.." Nothing much to say. Wooly has been with you for so long he knows. He doesn't encourage you but he also doesn't do much unless you're close to being in danger or starting the danger.

#ranfren #randal’s friends #ranfren x reader #x reader #platonic y'all obviously #child reader #Amanda the adventurer #sincerely sewer rat #idk how to write

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befuddled-calico-whump · 8 months

Text

T$$ Menagerie AU (summary)

cw: mentioned/implied captivity/enslavement, torture, noncon drugging, noncon, and death

AU Masterlist

×~×~×

When a wealthy man gets it in his head that he wants to start his own private zoo, he’s determined to create something that's a cut above the rest. Instead of simple animals, he wants to fill his manor’s gardens with Mythos, rare, sentient creatures known throughout myth and folklore.

Benji, a jistu, is the first to be taken after he's caught in a robbery. The hopeful collector, Adam Roth, hears of his arrest and pays off law enforcement to hand him over to the menagerie instead.

Kaius, a banished kinnara prince, is the next. He's offered refuge when running from enemies in his human form, and drugged at dinner once Roth realizes he's a Mytho. Jericho, a mer who regularly makes trouble for ships, and Joy, an anggitay, are captured a few weeks apart; after being spotted in the wild, Roth decides he wants them for his collection and hires freelance hunters to bring them in.

Now with four mythos on his hands, he also hires two well-known hunters, Vic Shepard and Ander Sahota, to act as guards and enforcers.

The duo have been working together for years, and they share a secret: Sahota is a Mytho himself, a selkie. Vic stole his pelt and trained him as a hunter to prove a point that any Mytho had the potential to be dangerous, no matter how harmless they may seem.

Roth has a lot of respect for both of them initially, but once Vic makes him aware of Sahota's true nature, he starts treating him with something almost like disdain.

The final acquisition for the menagerie is Hunter, a kumiho.

All five are given gilded cages and put on full display for visitors. They're initially allowed to roam the grounds by day, as Roth underestimates his captives and assumes they lack the intelligence required to coordinate and unite against him. Vic advises otherwise, and he reluctantly listens, moving the cages further apart so they can't talk as a group, and making it so that only one or two of them are allowed to be out of their enclosure at a time for exercise.

The captives are also made to wear custom collars that are designed to track them and subdue them in the event they're disobedient. In addition to that, Vic and Sahota keep the area under guard.

On the first day Hunter is allowed to roam the gardens, he books it, powering through the electrical shock delivered by his collar and making a break for the gardens' wall. The rest of the prisoners can only watch as he's brought down by an unsympathetic Sahota. He and Vic drag him to the edge of the gardens and lock him in a small cage that offers no protection from the elements, telling the rest that this is what awaits if any of them steps out of line. He's left there for a day as punishment, and his collar is adjusted to deliver a more powerful shock.

In spite of all their restrictions and the threat of punishment, the captives find ways to communicate. Jericho, who has experience with coordinated attacks due to past scuffles with fishing vessels, ends up the group's unofficial leader. He and Joy lead the charge in planning an escape. They learn of Kaius's gift with strategizing, and rope him into it, breaking through his reluctance to let himself be a part of the group. Benji, on the other hand, is eager to make friends, and Hunter, while distrustful of anyone else, is eager to escape.

Planning anything is difficult with the tight leash they're all kept on, and it’s months before they're able to carefully map out their surroundings and develop a solid idea of what to do.

In that timeframe, Jericho notices that Sahota seems to be treated poorly by both Vic and Roth, and tries to connect with him, with little apparent success. Meanwhile, Hunter continuously gets himself punished by acting out, snapping at guests, and making his own escape attempts. Joy is frustrated with this, and after one too many instances, yells at him for ruining everything for the rest of them.

After this incident, Vic, who's suspicious that the Mythos are up to something, notices that Hunter’s starting to isolate himself more, and seizes the opportunity to catch him alone.

Attempting to scare him into a confession, Vic tells him there's no way they'll all escape, and alludes to letting Hunter go free if he helps him nip any trouble in the bud. Hunter refuses and tries to get away from him, but Vic has Sahota cut off his escape. Once the pair has him cornered, Vic pins him down, but realizing his intentions, Sahota yanks him off, allowing Hunter to get away.

Despite Sahota trying to frame it as following Roth's interests since Vic didn't get permission from him, Vic is furious, and throws him in the punishment cage.

Hunter tells no one about the attempted assault, so the rest are unaware of the reason why Sahota has been locked up, assuming it's due to a dispute between the hunters. Having a general dislike for Sahota because of his role in keeping them trapped here, they don't have much sympathy for him. The only ones who do anything about it are Jericho, who sneaks him water once it starts getting hot, and Hunter, who sits quietly beside him, grateful, but unsure how to express it.

Jericho once again tries to reason with Sahota, insisting that even if they're on opposite ends of this conflict as hunter and Mytho, they seem to share a common enemy in Vic. Sahota brushes it off, saying he earned his punishment by acting rashly.

Later that week, Jericho and Joy are fine-tuning the escape, planning to kick it off on a day when Benji is the one out of his cage, so he can use his lockpicking skills to free the rest. Sahota overhears their plans, but lets the pair know that just this once, he'll forget he heard anything. Joy is skeptical, but after days go by without any additional security measures implemented, she figures that he was telling the truth, and she and Jericho share this information so that the rest of prisoners know they have a tentative ally.

Not long after this, Hunter is once again cornered by Vic, and when pressured, lets a little too much slip, also accidentally hinting at Sahota's involvement. Despite this, Vic doesn't seem overeager to act on the new information, and Hunter once again hides this from the rest, both ashamed and afraid that they'll completely cut him off if they hear about it.

Meanwhile, Roth is growing bored of the menagerie. At Vic's suggestion, he makes plans to sell a few of his Mythos off, and at least profit from his flight of fancy. He discusses the matter with the hunters, saying that he'll get rid of the troublemakers and the more “boring” members of his collection, and only keep one or two.

Vic suggests he sell Benji to a brothel due to the whole “fucking like rabbits” stereotype, and Jericho to a restaurant for exotic sushi. Roth also wants to get rid of Hunter, since he's the biggest troublemaker, and Vic offers to buy him.

Roth wants to keep Kaius, due to him being the flashiest of the bunch, but plans to keep him sedated in order to prevent him from causing trouble. He considers keeping Joy and using Kaius's well-being as a way to keep her in line, but reasons that if she proves to be a hassle, there's probably another rich man out there who'd love to have her in his stables.

Though he tries to hide it, Sahota is horrified at the idea, and tries to talk him down. When pushed, he tells Roth to just let them go. Roth is amused by this, but also pissed off at his boldness, and tells Vic to "get a handle on his pet".

Vic leads him away, hangs him by his wrists and uses him as a punching bag, then brutally whips him. Before Sahota passes out, Vic reveals that he knows about the escape plan, and he knows that Sahota learned of it but kept it from him. He tells Sahota that “if he wants to side with the animals, he'll be treated like an animal”, and covers Sahota with his seal pelt, knowing he can no longer control his own shifting due to the pelt being damaged by Vic. Vic then dumps his unconscious body into Jericho’s tank, leaving it up to fate whether or not he survives.

Jericho, unaware of Sahota's true nature, is quick to aid the wounded seal, gently holding him to ensure his head stays above water. When Sahota weakens to the point that he can no longer remain in his seal form, he shifts back, shocking the mer. Barely conscious, he manages to warn Jericho of Roth's plans, telling him they need to make their move before it's too late. He also tells him that Vic knows, so they'll have to be extra careful.

Jericho passes the message on to Joy, who's initially angry at Sahota, assuming he lied about keeping their plan secret. When Hunter hears about this, he feels immensely guilty, and reluctantly fesses up that he's the one who told Vic.

Joy is upset, but says they'll talk about it later. Right now, they just need to get out.

With Sahota's help, Joy and Jericho disable the collars, and the group puts their plan in motion, starting a fire to distract Vic and Roth, and making for the planned route. They barely make it past the gate before Vic shoots Joy. Unwilling to leave her behind, the group is heavily slowed down. Though barely able to stand, Sahota tells them to run, saying he'll hold Vic off as long as he can.

Jericho is torn, but knows they need to get Joy out of there fast, and reluctantly leaves him behind. They make it to Roth's garage, where Benji hotwires one of his cars for the getaway.

Back in the garden, Sahota faces off against Vic, managing to hold his own long enough to buy the other Mythos time, despite his injuries. Vic overpowers him, and forces him to watch as he throws his pelt into the fire that's consuming the gardens, telling him he can never go home.

In a final, desperate move, Sahota manages to get the gun away from Vic. He shoots him in the chest, but it looks like neither of them will make it out of the gardens. Vic is quickly bleeding out, and Sahota is too weak to escape the fire. Then, as the flames are closing in, Roth's car crashes through the bushes, and Jericho jumps out, managing to grab Sahota before it's too late.

Injured but free, the crew drives away, leaving Roth to his burning manor.

#and then they go to the woods where joy kjows all the survival shit and heal and build a community #t$$ menagerie AU #synopsis #yes i make it as whumpy as possible ahaha #whump

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floatingcatacombs · 9 months

Text

Bandai Taketh Away

12 Days of Aniblogging 2023, Day 1

Last year I wrote a post extolling the virtues of Birdie Wing, 2022’s breakthrough “how the fuck did this get made” mafia golf campfest. It’s the little show that could, animated on a shoestring budget to an audience of maybe two dozen extremely online yuri fans who tried their hardest to get literally anyone else to watch it.

It was almost certainly a financial failure for Bandai Namco, whose hopes for kicking off a VR-focused franchise fizzled in real time during season 1. But the resulting anime was a blast, a shoujo sports melodrama where literally anything could happen.

Birdie Wing took a few seasons off between its cours, during which Bandai Namco’s second lesbian anime of the year began airing: Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury. My jaw dropped as I watched the first episode recreate Utena’s setup beat for beat, including the female main character taking another girl as her fiancé. It’s a gutsy move which set my expectations high. G-Witch was my introduction to Gundam, and the highs of the first season were amazing. Even if I had some occasional complaints with the pacing, the cliffhanger ending and narrative ambition left me very excited for more.

Season 2 of Birdie Wing was set to fill the gap between cours of G-Witch, but ~something~ happened behind the scenes. It ended up being delayed to Spring 2023, where the two shows would air together. Great! That means double the lesbians. Or…zero?

Fair warning: From here on out I will be both a hater, and a spoiler.

Both seasons start without a hitch. G-Witch finally pops the safety bubble of its setting, with a terrorist attack on the academy followed up by an episode from the viewpoint of Dawn of Fold soldiers trying to survive a retaliatory crackdown from the Spacians. It pulled no punches with its violence and war orphans and trauma, a good sign for the struggles that awaited the main cast. Meanwhile, Birdie Wing continued to pay tribute to old-school Class S after its boarding school arc by involving its cast in a nightmare incest soap opera concerning Eve and Aoi’s parentage and the sins of the previous generation. Both are great developments for their respective shows, suggesting plenty of good stuff ahead.

Unfortunately, this is when both of these shows begin to fall apart. Eve and Aoi manage to beat the incest allegations, but afterwards their relationship just…stops. Their chemistry all but dissipates, the homoerotic rivalry giving way to their personal relationships with golf instead of with each other. The plot keeps the two of them apart as much as possible, devoid of the angsty longing from season 1, as the girls each succumb to a different form of golf cancer (even without the gay-baiting, at least Birdie Wing is still insane).

For G-Witch, a much more ambitious anime, this decline manifests as a creeping realization that they’re simply going to drop most of the open plot threads. The show takes its sweet time, even as it becomes clear that it’s barreling towards a finale at 24 episodes. The long-awaited plot twists are handled fine, I guess. But any sense that the show is aiming for greatness fades away, as it simply tries to drag itself to the finish line, buckling under its own weight. What we see on screen is what we get, and you’ll have to fill in the blanks yourself to really be happy. The Earthian-Spacian conflict ends up as mere set-dressing, and characters who clearly had intertwined backstories never even get the chance to interact. The obvious examples are the man who killed Suletta’s dad in the prologue resurfacing and that never really coming up, and everything to do with Chuchu and Nika’s backstories. I’m not here to nitpick, but it’s a shame that everyone’s characterization is left so thin. G-Witch really feels like it was meant to be a full 50-episode series, and I’m led to believe that this trimming down happened during production, as there’s just no other reason to set so much up without resolving it.

At last we reach each show's conclusion. Birdie Wing is saddled with a final arc full of professional tournaments, which is always going to be weaker than the dirty mafia golf on a conceptual level. The timeline begins to rapidly accelerate and suddenly we’re skipping ahead months, and then entire years. We don’t get to see most of Eve and Aoi’s final game, or even the period of time where they reconcile. An enduring friendship and rivalry is implied at the end, but it’s nowhere near the mutual obsession that the prior season depicted. Not an ounce of queerbait remains, even for the terminally yurigoggled such as myself.

Meanwhile, G-Witch dedicates some of its precious final minutes to a fight with Lauda (Jesus Christ is the Schwartzette is wasted on him), and just like Birdie Wing the two girls at the heart of the show barely get any time together as the end draws near. They ultimately opt for a Macross-Symphogear ending in which Suletta pilots a Gundam that shoots gay rainbow lasers and defeats her mom with the power of love and friendship. That’s fine! But that’s the ending for a show that didn’t happen! In its last act G-Witch retreats into its shell, unable to commit to the moral weight of the world it had built up. Laughably, the epilogue time-skips to a neoliberal utopia where Miorine solves the earth-space conflict through her sheer girlboss acumen. Suletta and Miorine’s gay wedding is implied at best, and an after-credits message states that this is the conclusion of The Witch from Mercury as a story, prematurely killing any potential follow-up.

The rest is history. Kadokawa redacts an interview to remove references to Suletta and Miorine being married, Bandai releases a statement that their status at the end of the show should be left up to interpretation, and everyone is mad forever.

What happened? Both of these shows fell apart at the same time, and both in a manner that defused their implicit queerness. Birdie Wing was always a bit of a trainwreck even at its best, so in a vacuum I would have just concluded that the production ran out of steam, unable to live up to its earlier writing. But the timing of Season 2’s delay, combined with the corporate meddling that affected G-Witch, makes me downright conspiratorial. Something went down at Bandai Namco, and it led to them ordering their productions be revised halfway through to scrub out all the gay shit and play things safe. I wouldn’t be surprised if this occurred at the same time as G-Witch was trimmed down from its initial 50 to 24 episodes with no chance of a continuation. It’s also not too much of a stretch to imagine Birdie Wing receiving a “stick to sports" mandate and Yosuke Kuroda subsequently phoning it in. I don't know how else to say it: there's no reason to do an incest fakeout if you're not even going to follow up on it afterwards once you've gone through the difficult work of exonerating them.

Witch from Mercury was a commercial success (it sold a shitton of gunpla, at least!) so it seems like a surprise that Bandai Namco would clamp down creatively in such a destructive way. Or maybe not. This may be the first female-led Gundam, but in a lot of other ways it’s fairly restrained as far as Gundams go. Perhaps BN decided that G-Witch had to be a balancing act to please everyone, preventing the creative staff from truly swinging for the fences in the end. Of course, that backfired horribly and they ended up pissing off himejoshis and regular mecha fans alike. I know it’s something of a fool’s errand to expect undeniable LGBT representation from anime, but when you begin with an explicit Utena homage, I expect better.

This has all been a bit of a downer, so I wanted to end things by sharing the anime I watched this year that actually gave me what I wanted out of those two shows.

Watching through the original Mobile Suit Gundam made me realize just how conservative G-Witch is in a lot of its storytelling. 0079 is a deeply radical show for its time, and still would be if you made it today. The unhesitating depiction of war and death through the aesthetics of a 70’s children’s show is particularly bold, and even the parts of the anime notorious for being overlong successfully reinforce the overall mood of the work. Amuro’s transformation from innocent child to unrelenting psychic soldier is as inevitable and upsetting as it should be, and even with all the “filler” the script feels much tighter than the G-Witch, which ambles around with side stories that don’t resolve and characters that don’t go anywhere. Imminently watchable. I love that the mommy issues in Gundam go all the way back, and I'm also starting to understand why you fuckers have been arguing about Char Aznable for 40 years.

you.

I also watched Kakegurui this year, which served as a great alternative to Birdie Wing. It doubles down on the best parts of that show – mostly-female cast, high stakes gambling, dubious lesbian rep – with an all-consuming sleaze to it. Grab some friends who aren't easily scandalized and try not to worry too hard about gaze or the intended audience, and it will be a hoot. The production values are great, even if most of it inevitably goes to girls making upsetting faces. The first opening in particular is an animation highlight. Of course, this is a MAPPA production, so they’re far too busy flaying their workers alive in the pits of hell to ever get around to another season. May their company unionize or perish.

#12 days of anime #gundam #birdie wing #gundam the witch from mercury #kakegurui

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