#it’s gonna be a flashback chapter

[forgedroyalseal]

Not me writing an entire pirate themed Chapter of Reputation because I can’t stop thinking about Will in eyeliner.

[ywpd-translations]

Ride 793: The palms of their hands

Pag 1

1: Holding hands with you rival

Pag 2

1: Grasping tightly the gratitude

They're moving forward... to the future!!

Pag 3

1: 1500m left until the mountain line!!

Pag 4

2: You're kidding....

He's coming....?

He's getting closer?

3: So odd, and yet I thought I had left him behind completely

This is “three times”, isn't it?

5: He's coming

And moreover

Pag 5

1: He's doing it while singing!!

Even though Hakogaku's Manami had left him so much behind in a moment...

Mountain King is getting closer!!

He's not giving up!!

The distance is closing!!

That's right ♪ I know ♪ If you do this ♪

Pag 6

1: The princess' wish ♪

2: Will come true ♪

3: Mountain King is amazing!! He's humming a tune!!

I heard of this, Mountain King becomes faster when he hums a tune!!

What, amazing!

The magic singing!!

I'll try singing too next time I'll climb!

4: No

It's not magic

5: For you, that “song”

Pag 7

1: it's a device to activate your power!!

2: Like a car's key

3: To carry people and luggage up a mountain road a vehicle needs both a sturdy body, small parts

4: and a powerful engine

5: For bikes, the “body”

Pag 8

1: Practice, repetition, recovery, determination, challenges- everything

2: piles up!!

3: Only someone who has worked

4: tirelessly, without rest....

Pag 9

1: Could get to this position of the mountain stage on the Inter High's first day!!

2: And he can even keep up with my “three times”!!

4: I see, so that's what it means

You piled everything up during this past year...

Pag 10

1: Ouch

2: Ah, damn, I pressed something weird

Ah....

3: Oh, I have a message

Ah, it's from Sakamichi-kun

Ah... it's from three months ago..

Hehehe, ops

4: What is it, what is it...? “Do you remember? The promise we made on the last day?”

Oh... I remember

“We said 'let's race for the mountain stage on the first day next time'”

Ah.. we did, we did

6: “Are we still on for that?”

8: “Of course”

Pag 11

1: To protect your promise with me!!

Wait, Manami-kun!!

Princess ♪...!!

2: Sakamichi-kun!!

3: Manami-kun!!

Pag 12

1: Mountain King caught up!!

He caught Hakogaku's Manami, who had attacked and opened the gap!!

2: He's not surrendering!!

Neither of them is surrendering!!

1200m left until the mountain line!!

Pag 13

1: Now another race...

2: starts!!

4: They're both taking the curve

5: while colliding against each other!!

Pag 14

1: Aaaaaa

Soooreeee

I won't surrender!!

2: They're still neck and neck!!

3: Amazing!

Pag 15

1: From the inner side!!

2: Sooreeee

Manami fell back for a moment and then forced his way forward!!

They hit each other!!

5: The trees are getting lower again

6: One more time...

Pag 16

1: Let's go, “three times”!!

Pag 17

2: Manami used the wind and accelerated again!!

Incredible, what's that!

3: What about Mountain King!?

Pag 18

1: Musical note shaped wings!?

Pag 19

1: Aaaaaaaa

2: Amazing

3: It's just like you

4: You were so desperate to catch me that you unconsciously used the wind to accelerate

5: Interesting!!

Pag 20

1: Mountain King is clinging to him!! I thought Manami had attacked but

Manami didn't get away!!

He caught up with such a weird acceleration!?

Amazing!

2: Maybe your singing is something more than a key

3: Ahhhh

5: These past three years have been fun

Huh!?

Pag 21

1: I'm glad you were here for the past three years

3: Huh... ah!!

4: Thank you

Pag 22

2: Such a close battle like this, such a once-in-a-lifetime battle like this, it could only have been with you

3: Yeah... yeah!!

“The past three years”....!!

4: No, that, I should be the one saying that, really!!

5: That's right... this is my match against Manami-kun...

Pag 23

1: Let's go until the mountain line

2: Let's give everything we have

3: Let's make the most of every second of the time we have left!!

5: 1km until the end....

Pag 24

1: It's the final climb!!

Pag 25

1: Yeah!!

Pag 26

3: Th-thank god I made it in time...

This... I couldn't miss this today

4: Sangaku said that

5: “It will be the culmination of the past three years”

[captainofthetidesbreath]

Candela Obscura: Needle & Thread is about, if it is about anything, parent-child relationships and the desperate desire for a closeness in the face of a yawning chasm of separation, physical, emotional, or both.

Sean and Margaret, the creature and mother, Nathaniel and his father, Jean and hers, Allison and Lucas. Even Beatrix and the child she never had, transferred onto Sean. (Marion is the only major character who does not fit neatly and completely into this pattern, despite the brief look at his relationship with his father.)

That desire for closeness—even when there is immense strain in the relationship, even when that desire has been suppressed into more of an involuntary instinct—escalates over the chapter until incredible violence is being committed in an effort to reduce these distances.

These parent-child relationships are even weaponized repeatedly in the finale. Sean takes the deal to save his mother. The person in the cage observes that Nathaniel's father never liked him as a device to rattle him and his father's face is worn to force him to hesitate. Violet lashes out at Jean before she dies by telling her that her father was happy when she told him that Jean was no longer going to visit.

There is so much longing for a parent or a child in this chapter. Sean wants to be with his mother again, and Margaret wants her sons. Nathaniel craves his father's love, and in the end, his father reaches for him. Jean grieves for her father. The creature wants to be with their mother, and their mother is distraught when her child is killed. Beatrix is wistful for the child she did not have. Much of Lucas's screentime is devoted to missing his mother, and Allison misses her son terribly.

There is also much to be said about sibling relationships here: Sean and his brothers, Nathaniel and his, the creature and their sister. Sibling dynamics inform the relationship between Sean and Marion, and Sean and Nathaniel. That's not the focus of this post, though.

I believe that it is specifically this web of parents-children and the various distances in their relationships that really is the core of the chapter. This is about a desperately intense, even violent, desire for a closeness in those relationships and the willingness to do basically anything to overcome the distances.

[chiarrara]

the core idea i'm working with concerning the jjk finale discourse is that people are mad about the wrong things.

I have had serious problems with the writing in jjk since at least shibuya, and I even found criticism in the hidden inventory arc and the sister school exchange arc (though the main problem there is that it was boring pre-disaster curses and the characters suck).

Similar to Game of Thrones, some people were criticizing the broken writing choices as far back as seasons 3 and 4 while most people were glazing the series until the cracks in the foundation caused the entire story to crumble right at the end, leaving most of the fanbase confused how it "suddenly" got so bad.

The commonly held sentiment is that JJK fell off after Shibuya. I disagree. I think it fell off during Shibuya where the entire worldbuilding, power system, and plot broke irreparably.

HOWEVER where JJK never fell off was in character writing, relationship writing, and the overall themes of the story which were all consistent, had strong throughlines, were well integrated into the action (another strength), and were in my opinion, the core appeal of the the entire project.

And yet, most of what I hear people complaining about is either a) missing or dissatisfying character moments and a lack of satisfying exploration of the themes, or b) contradictory outrage over plot and worldbuilding elements not lining up as if these issues haven't been there from the start.

I know a lot of people don't operate this way, but when there are fundamental problems with the storytelling, but there are other parts of the story that I find incredibly meaningful and impactful, I find it really easy to glaze over those problems and even justify and rewrite them in my head so they make more sense. When good character writing shows up in JJK, I stop caring that the plot sucks.

The finale chapters of JJK had amazing character writing, delivered on the main themes of the story, and made literally all the broken plot elements, lack of focus, and shoddy worldbuilding secondary concerns for me. They don't break the important parts of the story, I don't care that they aren't wrapped up because I didn't like them in the first place, and their lack of exploration just cedes more ground to fan creation allowing the story to thrive for years into the future.

If you were reading JJK for the complicated plot, complex scheming, or intricate worldbuilding, I can see why you're upset, but you made a mistake a long time ago because that stuff has sucked for ages. But I know most of you fuckers on this website were reading for good characters, impactful themes about love, and yaoi bait, so why are you mad????? I really don't get it.

Who cares that the shittily written American Military subplot didn't come back? The fucking basis of the power system doesn't make any sense and isn't well thought out, so how was it ever going to deliver on the solution/potential for cursed energy? You're mad that the random New Shadow School subplot was randomly thrown in at the end, I've been mad since that random fucking grasshopper showed up in the fucking subway!

And some of you are literally admitting YOU DIDN'T EVEN READ THE TRANSLATED CHAPTERS so how would you KNOW if the story themes and character writing had been delivered on? based on summaries? that is the absolute worst delivery system for a story, you have to know this. you're getting mad at machine translations of out of context pages like WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT.

In conclusion, most of you are mad at the wrong things and none of what I wrote up there is really about what the things you should be mad about are, because they don't matter. The point of a story is to mean something and JJK did. It was always good at what it was good at, and I wish people were engaging more with the story in it's own domain instead of being mad it wasn't exactly what they wanted it to be. The finale delivered on everything that made me care about this story. It made me love it even more, and I'm never going to regret spending so much time on this series. Everything else is just criticism for fun.

[dekukaze]

Still thinking about the Yingdu chapter sypnosis

[dracaelus]

Not enough writers exploring the idea of bruce retiring from batman and becoming the bats new tech guy once lucius fox dies/retires. Like, bruce is actually pretty good at coming up with new gadgets and incorporating new/alien technologies into the bat stuff so really, I think it would be really cool?? Also, he could help oracle on his free time, and I feel like this would work really well with his paranoid and controlling tendencies, and he would be thriving in a job like this. Not to mention that he would still be helping the league with strategies, research and the diplomatic stuff, so no need for him to stop working with them. And he still has his charity work as bruce wayne.

So my point is, while of course we can all agree that everything bruce does as batman is important, I wouldn't say that activelly being on the field is the most important of his tasks, especially by the time he gets old and has dozens of allies doing it with him. I mean, he already trained a lot of heroes to work in gotham and there's a few of them who are just as skilled as him, some who are even better, so really, him retiring from that and focusing on his other duties as he gets older feels very natural and a much more compelling plotline to follow than just yk killing him off and then having the batfam fight about who's gonna take the mantle (i don't even think someone needs to)

[literaila]

JJK 260 SPOILER WARNING

GOJO IS BACK OH MY GOD ITS NOT GOJOVER

yeah so i actually trust nothing and no one ESPECIALLY GEGE AKUTAMI. we’ll see what happens

(i am actually biting through the bars of my enclosure this time. hehehehehehehehehehheehhehehehehehehdhshshUg)

[lavenderjewels]

why is he acting like he doesn’t know his childhood,, he lived through it 😭

[deus-ex-mona]

renren chapter let’s goooooooooooooo

[zaddyazula]

i genuinely lost my marbles last night this is when i went to bed

[theflyingfeeling]

Sixth Day of Gift-Giving: Sappy Sentences

Prompt: “I missed you like I never missed anyone before.”

Short and sweet and sappy with little to no plot, much uwu about nothing if you will 💕 Read the previous part of the story here (day 5 was unrelated to the on-going story)

~

Warmth spread to Olli’s entire body as the two of them softened into the kiss. He felt his knees shake just a bit, probably from having been crouching by the bathtub keeping Rilla entertained during her bath, but likely also from just the sheer thrill of having Aleksi’s mouth on his once again. Combined with the adrenaline still buzzing in his veins from the silly flour fight, Olli was sure he would’ve collapsed at Aleksi’s feet like a fair maiden if Aleksi had not been holding him firmly by his hips.

Kissing Aleksi felt familiar, because it was, yet it felt entirely different than it had That One Night. There was eagerness, but no haste; desire, but no pressuring urge; craving, but this time there was no voice in Olli’s head convincing him he was wrong in submitting to this forbidden lust he had been harbouring for so long, the lust that had at last been lured out in the dark of their hotel room by two or three glasses of wine too many and eight hectic consecutive days of playing late-night shows in a different North American town every night, with radio interviews or promotional events to attend in between. Back then, Olli hadn’t even been in the mindset to really pay attention to detail, such as the gentleness of Aleksi’s touch (or maybe it had just been that much more desperate the last time) or the small sighs he let out when they broke apart to catch their breath before connecting their lips once more (although, it might as well be they simply hadn’t stopped when they had last been intimate like this, too consumed by their hunger for each other that pausing had not been an option until they’d passed out). 

The one thing he did remember and which felt exactly as it had then was the softness of Aleksi’s hair at the back of his neck where Olli’s hands were currently roaming, feeling every inch, tracing the same trails they had once travelled with the fear of perhaps never being given the chance to do so ever again. It was all so lovely that it overwhelmed Olli a little and he was forced to break the kiss again, his forehead and nose still pressed against Aleksi’s as he breathed heavily, a short, somewhat incredulous laugh escaping his mouth.

He tried his best to come up with something to say, but it was as if Aleksi had inhaled all the words out of his brain. Accepting how it was, Olli laughed again, torn between kissing Aleksi once more or just enjoying the comfortable intimacy between them. 

“Oh. Fuck,” Aleksi said after a while, just as Olli had made up his mind about leaning in for another kiss.

“What?” Olli asked. He had to consciously force his looming insecurities aside as to appear lighthearted, despite his heart almost skipping a beat when he saw Aleksi’s regretful wince.

“I, umm… I thought I had turned off the stove before we came here to wash Rilla but… it smells like I maybe didn’t after all?”

It was now that Aleksi mentioned it when Olli, too, could detect a faint smell of smoke, presumably coming from his kitchen.

Oh. Fuck. 

~*~

“You know what? I say we should’ve just ordered take-out in the first place,” Aleksi said with a grin, scooping the last of his dessert pudding. Olli had to agree; the three-course meal delivered to their door from Olli’s favourite restaurant downtown had been more delicious than probably anything they would’ve cooked themselves (or at least if Olli would have been contributing). 

“Or gone to a restaurant, never mind the weather. Even that would’ve required less effort than…” Aleksi trailed off, glancing around the kitchen. It had taken them a good while to get the floor clean from all the flour and to air out the room to get rid of the smell of burnt food (...again) without letting too much warmth from the indoors be wasted. By the time their actually edible dinner arrived, they had barely had time to wipe sweat off their foreheads and exchange a few easy, yet still somewhat shy kisses: easy because their mouths fit together so perfectly, and shy because they still couldn’t quite believe it really was happening. 

“Would you like to go to a restaurant, then? Tomorrow, for example?” Olli suggested, his cheeks suddenly feeling warmer, as if he was a teenager asking their crush out on a date for the first time.

“That would be nice, I think,” Aleksi smiled. Then he seemed to hesitate for a moment before reaching over the table to take Olli’s hand in his. The simple touch made Olli swoon. He could’ve easily spent the rest of the evening just like that, sitting by the kitchen table, holding the hand of a special someone who had only moments ago made Olli the happiest he had been in a long while by kissing him back in the bathroom (of all places), but the sounds of a little nose sniffing around behind the front door in the hallway brought them both back to earth from the pink cloud they had been floating on for the few seconds they had fondled each others fingers. 

“She needs to go out soon,” Aleksi sighed. In his mind, Olli decided Aleksi would’ve rather stayed like that for a little longer as well (he wasn’t going to make a total fool of himself by asking, for goodness' sake).

“We better bundle up, then. It just started snowing.”

~*~

Rilla didn’t seem to mind the minor blizzard, which was quite uncharacteristic of her, at least according to Aleksi. They could hardly keep up with the dachshund as she lead the way, only stopping to do her business or to poke a suspicious-looking lump of snow with her nose every now and then. Perhaps the fresh tracks left on the snow by a hare gave Rilla the extra motivation to keep going.

Then, she suddenly stopped. Maybe she had heard something the human ear was deaf to, or smelled the hare that had clearly escaped in the nearby woods and was probably watching them from the dark. Either way, it offered Olli an opportunity to slide his hands inside Aleksi’s open winter jacket to warm himself and press soft kisses to his cheek and lips, not caring if his neighbours might see them.

“I’m so happy you’re here.”

“Where else would I be?” Aleksi mumbled against Olli’s lips, making Olli want to kiss him harder (and he did). 

By their feet, Rilla sat down, her brown button eyes staring intensely into the dark forest.

“I mean. I’m glad you asked me to come,” Aleksi said once they broke the kiss. “I’m not sure if I would have dared to suggest it myself.”

Olli said nothing, but kept grazing his nose against Aleksi’s cheek, leaving his lips free in case he wanted to keep talking.

“But I was… losing my mind over how much I missed you. More than I’ve ever missed anyone in my life before. It was… confusing, even.”

“I know,” Olli then responded. He knew all too well what Aleksi was talking about; missing someone who you were not supposed to be missing quite that much; longing for their company although you spent more time together than you did apart during the average year; craving for their touch of which you had only been given a mere taste before. It was baffling, to say the least – heart-wrenching, to be more exact. Some days, Olli had almost felt like carving his entire heart out of his chest and sending it to Aleksi in Helsinki, since it belonged to him anyway and would be of no use to Olli without the man near him. 

“I know,” Olli repeated, for the lack of anything better to say. He doubted Aleksi would’ve found his heart-carving plans particularly romantic, so he settled for just kissing him again, soft snowfall speckling their clothes as the pines and fir trees surrounding them murmured their stories in the December breeze.

[sleepis4theweak]

Sneak peak of something Im working on but probably won't have done for a good while yet....

[hazzybat]

Did anyone have Miha Guštin getting a mention/character on their bongo cards for Monster Hearts? Cause I sure didn't!

Surprise Miha and Martin finally in the main fic lol

[puddingapologist]

wonder how many horny fan artists are deleting stuff right now lmfao

[weregonnabecoolbeans]

Update on how reading Thrawn: Alliances is going

I am s t r u g g l i n g to finish it..im barely past halfway

[flimflamfranky]

the sheer whiplash i got from cheering and crying over coby being an absolute badass to being smacked in the face with garp's just rampant death flags...sure was something.