#it's just that this time is a pretty big shock without context from the previous night

[duckapus]

Some ideas for the first chapter of the livestream au:

consists of both the Viridian forest episodes because there's not enough going on there for more than one chapter

chat agrees that Caterpie is a precious bean and Misty should apologize

chat freaks out when Team Rocket shows up both because WANTED CRIMINALS and WHAT DO YOU MEAN "NOT YOU GUYS AGAIN!?"

Ash gets some training tips from the viewers because some of them have realized that a flying type, a bug type that will soon become flying, and an electric type don't exactly have good odds against Brock's no-badge team

chat gets weirdly invested in the Metapod vs Metapod battle, mostly because of Misty and Pikachu slowly going insane from boredom in the foreground

Misty accidentally catches a Beedrill during the swarm. It is just as confused and freaked out by this as she is

Butterfree takes over his own rescue when he fully evolves and it turns out that his Confusion is about as overpowered compared to a normal Butterfree's as Pikachu's Thundershock to a normal Pikachu's

Somehow Misty is convinced to keep the Beedrill

[kyanitedragon]

I'm finally watching The Original Series for the first time (after having watched basically every other Star Trek series) and man is this a fun trip!!

I know all the Trek lore from the other series, but amazingly I've managed to avoid the majority of TOS spoilers. And the few spoilers I do know, I have very little context for them.

And so, with that unique perspective, here are my thoughts:

TOS is equally so similar to and so different from the later series.

The lore, the characters, the set up — it's all the same. It's clear that Gene Roddenberry knew from the get-go what he wanted this series to be.

And yet the series is just so 60's. The dramatic music cues, the dramatic zooms, the over-acting in the fight scenes. Even the starship design looks so foreign to me — so angular and square and with so many buttons.

It's entertainingly frustrating to me how ill-equiped Kirk's enterprise is against inside threats. Kirk doesn't have a main head of security, and he rarely uses security on-board at all. The amount of times that people just waltz out of sickbay when McCoy turns his head, how so many antagonists straight up walk onto the bridge, the amount of times characters enter others' rooms without permission??

Kirk is so casual as a captain and I absolutely adore it. Voyager is my favorite Trek specifically because of how they all become a found family throughout their journey. And TOS has that from the get-go! The very first scene we see is Kirk and McCoy joking around on their mission — clearly old friends.

And it's not just his friends McCoy and Spock, but Kirk is rather casual and lax with his entire crew too. I love TNG and I love Picard but I was never a personal fan of how authoritative and professional he liked his ship.

I like seeing all the likely inspiration from these early episodes. There's so many episodes with mischevious god-like aliens, and I just know they had to be inspiration for Q. Especially Trelane, who literally put Kirk on trial like the very first episode of TNG. So many episodes revolve around computers wanting to achieve "perfection", which likely lead to the Borg. Especially Landru which had a speech that sounded a lot like the Borg.

And Kirk and Spock. Man, where to even begin? Obviously I knew people shipped them, but... Wow.

I'm honestly a little shocked that Trek did go more authoritative in later Treks. Kirk and Spock are just so close. Kirk is so handsy. They banter and joke back and forth all the time. It's so far away from the professionalism of any other on-duty starfleet officer in any Trek. And I absolutely love it.

Kirk and Spock start the show already friends. I had no idea this was the case going in, I thought episode 1 was going to be them meeting for the first time as Captain and Second Officer, the first day of their mission — just like all later Treks do. And I got so excited when I realized they were already best friends.

And I love how, despite already being so close, their relationship just evolves from there. For the first half of season 1, I thought they were cute, sure, and they had some moments, but I didn't see the big deal. But by the second half? Oh. Ohh I understand now. I get it.

And I love the consistancy between episodes. The show isn't serialized, it's episodic, and yet if you pay attention, you can catch little references and connections to previous episodes. Kirk mentioning he has a brother at the start of the season, and one of the last episodes is about his brother dying. Kirk learning that "half-breed" bothers Spock early on, and knowing to use it when he needs to get him angry in the last episodes. Just to name two. And I've poked around the fandom and seen you guys mention so many more little callbacks that I had missed.

Later Treks do a good job giving pretty equal screentime to their large casts. But TOS is so heavily focused on the Kirk, Spock, McCoy trio. It's not a bad thing, I love them together, but it just feels weird to me. Similar to the security thing, it also feels so inefficient and dangerous to have the Captain, Second in Command, and Chief Medical Officer on almost every single away-mission.

McCoy is so interesting to me. Later Treks tend to keep their doctors mostly in sickbay. But McCoy is almost constantly on the bridge just hanging out. It feels weird to have the doctor as a main character, but I had always wanted the doctor characters to have more screentime, so I'm definitely not complaining!!

And on a similar note — Spock is blue. He's the only Second in Command of all the Treks that wears blue and not Command colors. I've been so used to seeing barely any blues among the bridge crew, and now TOS has Spock and Bones both in blue and on the bridge near-constantly. I always wanted to see more Science officers in the main cast, so it makes me really happy to see it.

I've only finished Season 1 of 3, but already I have a feeling it's gonna be competing with Voyager for my favorite Trek series.

[strwbrryvagabond]

wanted to get on here and yap about American Girl for some reason today

I'm far from a brand loyalist, and honestly, I was shocked I didn't grow up with the off-brand dolls you could get at Walmart or Target since I grew up poor until recently when my mom informed me that I would save money up for months and months at a time so that I could buy the dolls, and my parents only even actually purchased one for my birthday once we started to do a bit better financially, and after they saw how much I loved and took care of the dolls

I bought accessories for them myself as well, both from the actual company and from other brands like Target and Walmart ones, and even paid my mom to order me a bunk bed for them off of Etsy or something because I was so distraught that they didn't all have their own beds.

Anyways, I know brands are bad and stuff, and American Girl is not without faults and controversies, but tbh those dolls really shaped me as a kid, like I intentionally bought Rebecca Rubin as my first doll when I was a kid after seeing her in a catalog that we got sent by mistake because she was Jewish and looked like me. I had never seen a doll or character, or pretty much anything at that age who was Jewish like me and looked like me, and she wanted to be an actress, and at the time, I also wanted to act

I took that doll very literally everywhere, half the pictures of me from that age, she's tucked under my arm in a different outfit, her hair as well taken care of as I could manage for being so little. I accidentally messed up one of her curls while trying to fix her hair, and I cried for like a solid half an hour until my mom helped me fix it. even after I got other dolls, all of which I still loved and took care of religiously, Rebecca was the one who came everywhere with me

I'd already been a big reader before that, which is a whole other post, but I devoured those books, and I totally blame them for my current love of learning history and historical fiction. and the different dolls were all depicted as activists and feminists, and do not get me wrong here (I say on the 'taking things out of context' website) they were far from perfect with their diversity and activism, like oh jeez they did some very questionable things sometimes, but for the early 2000s and 2010s? revolutionary

the store closest to me closed a little before my birthday last year. I didn't know that it was even happening, and honestly probably still wouldn't have known if I hadn't been shopping with my friends at that mall like two weeks before my birthday since that was the only day we could all make work. Despite not having touched my dolls in a while, everything was super on sale, and I had been planning on taking Rebecca to college with me, so I figured I might buy her an outfit or something.

while the store was pretty ransacked, I was shocked and, no joke, teary-eyed over how many things they had for different cultures, different religions, and how many little girls I saw in there with big starry eyes looking at a doll that looked like them

I ended up buying a Channukkah outfit, and one of the friends I was with convinced me to, against my nature, let them buy a Lunar New Year outfit for me as well, which almost made me cry again. What really did it was seeing one of the previous Girls of the Year, Corrine Tan. Oh my gosh if they had had her when I was a little girl, she would've gone right beside Rebecca with how obsessed I was with her. I don't think I've mentioned it here before, but as a kid, I LOVED Mulan, and when I went to Disney World and the dress up boutique they had, I was DEVASTATED that they didn't have a Mulan costume. I latched onto her so hard for a very similar reason that I latched onto Rebecca so hard; because even though she wasn't the same ethnicity as me, Mulan was Asian, and so am I. I wore out I think three burned copies of that movie I watched it so often

I'm just weirdly sadder than I expected that American Girl is closing so many stores and not making as many sales I guess. I'm really fighting being a brand loyalist right now, because there are about a million other brands that make super similar dolls that I'm sure little kids all over loved, it's just always stuck with me that they at least seem to care about representation in the stories they make for these dolls

I mean, it clearly impacted me growing up, and I think it was for the better. I remember reading Addy's book being one of the first times I was exposed to the idea of children being slaves because they obviously didn't talk about that in an elementary school in the 2010s. I really just wanted to get all of my thoughts out, I've been thinking about it a lot recently since I took Rebecca to college, and I've now been hearing stories from girls who see her in my room about what doll or what toy shaped them as a child. Very excited to dress her up for Channukkah when it comes around, and tbh I've been looking for more outfits for her online. I just want her to be something I take with me throughout my life I guess. I mean, I took her everywhere when I was little, so it kinda feels wrong not to take her with me on this super big part of my life.

yeah anyways uh, if you had one of these dolls go... idk kiss em on the forehead or something. remind the toys that shaped you that you love them for what they did for you and all that. yap session over

[the-heart-of-a-monster]

OKAY AS PROMISED IM BACK WITH SOME GOOD OL GOVERNMENT SLANDER LETS GOOOOOOOOOOOO

And as usually I haven’t read the page in the past 5 minutes so some details are most certainly lost within the inner machinations of my mind so please don’t excuse me if I get some things wrong. I’m also a high school student so I also don’t know every little detail about how government organizations work but let’s pretend I do for the funny.

Now, what we see of GUN (Will not be using the periods because that’s too much work lmfao) is pretty antagonistic at first glance. First they won’t permit Amy to be in the base without specific permission from anyone in charge, then they see one little thing wrong with Omega and treat it like it’s the black plague or something, and then they don’t even refer to Omega as a real person, AND THEN THEY PREPARE THE GUY FOR EXECUTION????????? YEAH WHAT A NICE TRACK RECORD THEY GOT GOING ON!!!!

However, I do have the obligation to defend a majority of the things they do here. First we’ll start with Amy’s initial rejection.

Again, a ton of details about this part are lost to me as they came out nearly a year ago and I just spontaneously decided to send in this ask.

When Amy waltz’s right on into GUN’s base of operation, she does arrive with the consent of Rouge, but our badass bat queen is not the one in charge. Yes, Rouge is a very well-respected spy in the business and she is held in high regard, but she’s only one of the higher-ups. She isn’t “The Big Man” upstairs or whatever. Not only that, but she is allies with some pretty suspicious individuals, like Sonic for example, who was already on GUN’s hit list a few times now. And not to mention, she treats Omega like he’s a real person instead of just some Eggman robot that went rogue. In this context, not only do GUN have reason to be suspicious of Rouge just allowing a random girl into their top secret operations base, but they also have reason to be wary near Omega. (I’ll get into this later) And by the way, Amy is practically unheard of to GUN, at least from what I know. They have Sonic and a majority of his friends on file, but I’ve never seen Amy interact with GUN at all until this point. Even if she had, GUN would still know very little about her. So for her to just waltz right on in and claim she’s working with Rouge, the only other Mobian besides Shadow btw, it’s understandable that GUN is gonna be pretty weird about that.

Now sure, Amy did claim she was working with Rouge, but that’s just it. Rouge and Shadow are the only Mobians within a mostly human organization, Mobians who do have previous criminal records. I am honestly shocked the two were able to work with GUN in the first place. So allowing another Mobian onto the team, even temporarily, is a big deal.

Alright that’s enough of that I’ve basically sang GUN its praises from heaven and back so we’re gonna get into the nitty-gritty now muahahahahahaaaaa

Now about everyone just hating on Omega? Well, they still have some reason to do so. Before Shadow and Rouge, GUN was quite strict in who they let in, as with any scientific/military operation that’s in cahoots with the government. Oh, and they also hate Eggman. So allowing Team Dark’s third and most op member Omega to be hired was quite the stretch. In real life, allowing a robot to work at all would basically be a felony as it could lead to harmful outcomes like software malfunctions, miscalculations, harming other workers, etc. To many things can go wrong when a robot is on the clock, and in this case, the robot is also very genocidal and wants the death of anyone who gets in his way. The only attribute that GUN can have any hope in is the well-known fact that Omega despises Eggman with a passion. Ya boi hates Eggman more than the whole of GUN, which to them is saying a lot! So GUN is already taking enough risk by allowing Omega to exist within the workspace!

But that’s the thing here. Everyone is so focused on the what-ifs with Omega that they never stop to think about what he’s really like. Everyone is afraid of Omega, or at least afraid of what he is capable of, so they all avoid him like the plague. On top of all that, due to their honestly not unfounded fear, they’ve been preparing for the worst from the guy. GUN probably has a ton of unnecessary protocols now all thanks to Omega’s mere existence, and so if anything were to go even a little bit wrong… Welp. We all know what they’d have to do.

To me, this does seem slightly reasonable, at least given how Omega truly is. The guy is a loose cannon, literally and figuratively, and his rage is unmatched! So it does seem understandable to an extent as to why Omega is treated in this way.

What isn’t reasonable though is how he’s treated on the other side of things. Yes, ya boi is a hazard. Yes, he could burn the whole place to the ground and not feel an ounce of regret. Yes, Omega is very unpredictable! However, that’s just how some people are in real life too! Real people are unpredictable and violent, and yet we don’t see everyone treating them like a plaything! To GUN, Omega is seen as both a useful tool and an unpredictable hazard, just like I said, and both these qualities combined make for a very demeaning description. Because while Omega is a robot, he still can feel and have emotions similarly to, if not exactly like a regular person! (See my previous essay to get a bigger picture for what I mean by this) He acts and feels just as human as the others, and we can tell he clearly wants to be treated as such! Omega doesn’t seem to mind the over-the-top precautions necessary for his own existence, and he doesn’t care if he gets the occasional glare or two from a coworker. What he does clearly care about is being called a violent yet necessary tool, a monster, a robot, an emotionless tin can, an it…! Omega hates being undermined. He despises the fact that he’s constantly being misjudged for what he is, not because of who he is. No one treats Omega like a real living creature, and instead treats him like another tool in the shed, a faulty lawnmower or a dulled bush trimmer. Yes, he’s useful, and yeah he is on their side! But he’s also just a bunch of code and numbers, nothing but ones and zeroes, and they’re all treating him as such. Nobody really cares about him. Nobody sees Omega for who he really is. Which is why whenever he can, Omega always gravitates towards the only other oddballs in the workplace, the only Mobians, the only people who will treat him with respect.

And finally, we come to the last section of this very very VERY LONG ESSAY ABOUT A SINGLE CHARACTER, the execution. Or I guess the attempted execution.

So, like I said beforehand, Omega has a LOT of precautions on his belt, and also like I stated, one of them is his execution. If anything were to go wrong at all, if Omega were to step out of line, the guy would have to at the very least be taken apart just to see what’s wrong. If GUN were feeling nice, they wouldn’t straight up kill the guy, and at this point in time it’s clear that the higher-ups have taken a liking to Omega. So going this far was not their intention in the slightest. It would be considered though if anything like it were to happen again, but thanks to the new pages I think they’re beginning to reconsider this. Omega has now been taken over/amplified by Dark Gaia, (Also see my previous ask to know what I think on all that) and that is seen as an accident worthy of an execution in the eyes of the government. And in some cases that’d be understandable, but in this case it isn’t. GUN has been working with Omega for a while at this point, and not only that, but like I JUST SAID, they like him. Or at least they think they do. Executing Omega for something that was clearly out of his control is not necessary in the slightest and it is exactly why I did this whole thing.

okay so as you can probably tell I’m getting tired of typing on my iPad generation 10 screen keyboard so I’ll try to keep this short.

Summary: Omega is an unpredictable force of nature that GUN clearly doesn’t like. They like the concept of him being on their side and the General likes him personally, but Omega in theory and Omega in practice are two separate robots. Having robots in the workplace at all can have dire consequences, so not only have GUN taken multiple extra precautions just in case something bad happened thanks to Omega, but they also treat him like a piece of junk! It’s terrible, but at the end of the day that’s kinda just what needs to be done. GUN is a government operation that hates Eggman, so anything trouble-making within the business is seen as a liability or a hazard, which includes our favorite homicidal maniacal robot.

AND THATS IT I FINALLY DID IT I FINALLY GOT IT DONE I FINALLY WROTE THE WHOLE THING WOW THAT WAS A LOT OF GIVERNMENT SLANDER QOOOOOOOOOWWWWW

AIGHT THATS IT IM DONE IM LEAVING THANKS SO MUCH FOR READING ALL THAT AND HAVE A GREAT DAY/NIGHT

THANKS FOR SENDING IN ESSAYS LIKE THAT!!!!!!!!! very interesting read cant wait for u to see the conclusion of this arc

[uh-oh-its-bird]

Back on my bullshit w some more context on how I'm thinking they got into this mess, kind of long fic overview under the cut:

Rolling with the "yokai, big and small, are generally accepted to exist in this world" for baseline, the mission both Tobi and Izu were individually sent out to take care of was some small little "spirit problem" belonging to a tiny village rather notorious for calling in false alarms on spirit shenanigans.

Super superstitious little corner of the land of fire, has a real tendency to blow any reports of spirits way out of proportion. They're screaming kitsune at the sight of a regular fox and everyone in the surrounding areas know it.

So they call in a mission from both the Senju and the Uchiha, and due to a stroke of bad luck Izuna and Tobirama have this mission given to them as something like their first 'public' missions. Seperate from currier missions, supply runs or helping patrol their lands, this is them cutting their teeth on a proper solo mission that should be pretty safe -- if the countless previous similar missions to subdue nonexistant yokai from that village are anything to go based off of.

So they bump into eachother and are immediately like "oh FUCK."

After a near scuffle they basically come to the consensus of "I refuse to let my first ever solo mission thats already so beneath my skill level go wrong bc your dumb ass couldnt keep your sword in your sheath." and form a tentative truce that theyre both very sure will last like 3 minutes tops but ends up going? Pretty well? Neither of them want to fight right now, not really. They're miles from home in unfamiliar forests and heavy rain, so if the fight turns ugly unless theyre getting away without much damage (unlikely) theres just as much of a chance that theyll trip into a ditch somewhere and bleed out in the cold than make it back in one piece.

And say what you will, Izuna and Tobirama both are smart enough to see this is a stupid time and place to start a scuffle.

Anyways, spirit time!

I think it'd be funny if there was a bit where Izuna accidentally traps himself into saying he doesnt believe in spirits, and despite knowing hes being stupid, is forced to double down rather than admit he's just saying shit to say shit.

Tobirama scowled. "I doubt there's any real yokai here. People in these small backwater villages are always calling for help dealing with yokai and it always ends up being nothing. The spirits have better things to do than haunt grannies and steal pies." Izuna quietly agreed with him, (a horrifying thought on its own) but his pride refused to let him do so outloud. So instead he found himself opening his mouth to scoff and blurt out— "Hah, You believe in yokai?" Fuck. Why would he say that, that's just asking for bad luck. Red eye's snapped to him, almost comically shocked. It was the most expressive he'd seen the Senju, his usual cool anger wiped off his face and replaced instead with pure disbelief. "You don't?" No, no Izuna definatley did. It was stupid to not believe in yokai, and even stupider to announce your disbelief outloud, that was just asking for a trouble of all sorts of variety. Not to mention the fact that the Uchiha were an especially superstitious clan. Izuna had been raised on stories heavily featuring yokai and the fact that you were to give every one of them, big and small, as much respect as possible. For your own safetys sake. But Izuna refused to take back his words, not to this Senju bastard. Not even with his self preservation in mind. So despite the fact he could feel his face heating with the incredibly stupid lie, he tossed his hair and rolled his eyes "Of course not! I believe in, uhm, science." "Science." Tobirama said flatly. "You." "Psshh, yeah. Have you ever seen a yokai before? I haven't. Thus it must not exist!" Oh god he was going to get eaten in his sleep by a tsukumogami for this. "I've never seen the daimiyo before, does your science mean that mean he's not real either then?" Tobirama snipped, and Izuna doubled down even further. "Maybe not! Yokai, the daimiyo, who's to say if they exist or not! I'll only believe it when I see it with my own two eyes!" "You know what Izuna, maybe you're right." "Wh— I am?" Izuna blinked dumbly at the sudden 180° "Yes, after all, I haven't seen your brain before. Clearly that doesn't exist either." "EXCUSE ME—?!"

To both of their genuine surprise, there is some sort of spirit to be found in these woods!

A floating ball of light that they debate first what it even is, then how they're supposed to take care of it in any way. An actual yokai should be taken care of by some sort of priest or shaman or something, not two teenage shinobis who were more sent to disprove rumors and calm the over-excitable locals, and maybe kill a bandit or two if they happened to be disguising themselves as yokai to steal (something that happens more than you'd think)

So they just kind of stare at it dumbly, then at each other, then back at the light, and I don't know how or why exactly, but for some reason they end up touching the damn thing.

Maybe it overheard Izuna's comments about not believing in yokai and decided to teach them a lesson. That's definitely what Tobirama is going to be very loudly blaming their misfortune on for the rest of this adventure.

And as it turns out, this little ball of light is no simple speck but apparently an interdimensional ball of light. Because when it touches the boys, they're officially launched into their ✨besties road trip of doom ✨

Launched into the multiverse at the speed of light! Slingshoted into the time stream and back out again! Evicted from their plane of reality and into the next!

The whole adventure is basically them chasing after this little ball of light, which seems to fade in and out of existence and can only interact with / be touched by the boys. Whenever they touch it they get launched into a new time or dimension, and they can only hope that eventually they'll be slung back into their own.

They end up visiting all sorts of realities — early Konoha in a world where Izuna died; another Konoha where Tobirama died instead; Konoha in Kakashi's time where they definitely freak the fuck out of the entirety of Konoha's political circles when they just sort of appear in the middle of what looks like a clan head meeting; Maybe an omegaverse just for the comedy aspect; That one really climatic battle with Madara; A genderbent universe where neither of them die and Konoha has to deal with toxic lesbian madatobi (this one sends both of them into epileptic shock get them OUT OF HERE); A modern AU that caught them very off guard and left them very confused; An incredibly traumatic visit to the night of the Uchiha Massacre; A world where there is no war between their clans, where all their sibling are alive, which leaves them feeling things and having thoughts; Etc.

Some of the worlds they visit are directly connected, with them literally time traveling in a single world. Others are completley disconnected worlds. Some of the worlds have super obvious, immediately noticeable differences and some are impossible to tell apart.

I think theres a bit where, in the worlds where Izuna dies and Madara looses it, Tobirama calls him Izuna's "psycho brother." Then they visit a world where Tobirama died instead and Hashirama somehow managed to lose it to an even greater and more terrifying degree than Madara ever did and now Izuna gets to rub the "psycho brother" label back in Tobirama's face (they are both terrified.)

There's more than one very tense scene with Madara, having lost his Izuna, maybe losing it a teensy bit when he sees our dimension hopping baby Izu. But his twitches and clear consideration at stealing Izuna away do NOT compare to the absolute freak out evil!Hashi goes through when he sees his own baby Tobirama, that whole chunk of the adventure gets ugly.

A big thing about this adventure is that in seeing all of the different worlds out there; All the different potential endings, good and bad, Izuna and Tobirama do not know what ending their world has in store for them. There is no moment where they learn Izuna dies and Madara looses it and resolve to just not kill Izuna or anything like that.

They are their own people, and their choices are still theirs to make. Their futures are still being molded, each step that they take. There is no clear "right step" to get that one world they might see as the "good ending"

They end their adventure, laying on the floor of the forest, almost instantly drenched in the rain. Not a single second has passed in this world, for all that they are both now months older than they should be. The ball of light they'd chased through world after world blinking at them one last time as if saying good riddance before disappearing.

They're . . . well, they're friends now. No matter how much they may deny it out loud. They've been through too much, seen too much, now know too much not to be.

The story ends on them deciding to share the walk home, lingering on the themes of their futures being their own to shape. Every choice matters, every bond they make — starting with this one, right here, right now — enough to change the world itself.

Fic idea;

"Tobirama and Izuna's super spectacular BFF road trip through time and space"

In which a vuagley 14/15ish Tobirama and Izuna bump into eachother on unrelated missions and get hurled through time and space, visiting multiple (sometimes connected sometimes not) events in time, alternate universes and more ✨️

And just ruining so many peoples days along the way, like, so many.

For Reasons(tm) they agree to stick together and instill a temporary truce as they stumble along this (road trip from hell) super spectacular amazing besties field trip.

Like I need you to imagine the Uchiha / Senju feud but also they're like 14, Izuna is yelling about them being ultimate rivals, Tobirama is done with everyone's shit, and they're very quickly moving past genuine attempts on eachothers lives into slap fighting territory. Also like 8 times out of 10 when they bump into any version of an older Madara he makes eye contact with Izuna and almost immediatley has different flavors of the same mental breakdown and Izuna is kind of concerned and kind of terrified and ahahah wow this is awkward but I kind of need to go now

At first they're trying to take it seriously but after the 3rd or 4th time of running into the same fucking scene in a slightly different universe they're kind of just speed running their way to the next time and or universe (in the hopes that it will be their original one) and throwing subtlety out the window

Like they COULD be careful not to disturb things and potentially upset the balance of time but they sort of already fucked that up. Uhh. Like 3 times now actually. And there weren't really any consequences and look they're really tired so how about they just kick in the door and take this round by storm yk

[dem-obscure-imagines]

Try

Warren Worthington III x Reader

Fandom: Marvel/X-Men

Summary: Warren has been through hell and then some, but will meeting his soulmate turn that around?

Note: That’s right, it’s ya girl, back on my BS. I watched Apocalypse again and BIG SURPRISE, I’m in love with Warren and Kurt all over again. Still hyperfixating on Pietro also, so…expect more fics for him as well. Anyway, I’m a ho for soulmate aus and I haven’t written one for birb boi in literal years, so here ya go.

Reader is: Gender Neutral

Warnings: swears, mentions of alcohol

Word Count: 2.8k

Warren knew one thing beyond a shadow of a doubt: he didn’t deserve a soulmate. He didn’t. There was no question in his mind. Anyone who was destined to end up with his winged, alcoholic ass had been fucked over by the universe. No one deserved to be stuck with him for the rest of their lives. And yet, these thoughts didn’t seem to erase the words written on his forearm:

Hey, um, you’re Warren, right? The Professor wanted me to talk to you.

Professor. He scoffed. He was never going to college. If his parents had gotten their way, their son “cured” of his wings, he would have ended up at Harvard or Yale or somewhere similar. But it was far too late for that. Sitting in a cage in the back room of an illegal underground mutant fighting club in Berlin…it was far too late for that. He’d probably die before he met his soulmate anyway, rendering the prophecy on his wrist—and theirs, for that matter—useless. A waste of space.

That was all he was anyway.

He spiraled. His dependence on vodka got worse. The fights got harder. He wasn’t making it out unscathed anymore, winding up with burns and scrapes and cuts, depending on what kind of mutant he was up against. One night, one of his cuts had gotten dangerously close to the writing on his wrist. He stared at it for a long time, tears burning his eyeballs until they escaped and dripped down his cheeks, angry and hot.

He hated it, but even after everything, he still had hope. He still had hope that things would get better; that he could be better, even if it seemed impossible.

And then it got…worse.

Apocalypse had come, turned his wings to metal, tuned into his anger, his rage at the world, turned him into a monster, complete with knives for feathers and winding tattoos framing his face. He wished he could blame it on mind control or something, but Apocalypse hadn’t brainwashed him, only used his anger against him. Turned him into a weapon.

And then everything went black.

When he woke up after the battle, he was in an unfamiliar room, large and white and sterile; it smelled like hand sanitizer. He heard the steady beeping of a heart monitor and when he sat up, he noticed how sore he was. His whole body hurt. His head spun. But he was alive. And when he looked down at his tattoo, the words were still there. Wherever his soulmate was, they were fine. His stupidity in joining Apocalypse hadn’t caused anything to happen to them.

For the first time in what felt like years, he breathed.

“You’re awake.” A voice said as a tall man with brown hair entered his room. “I’ll let the Professor know.”

“Where…” his deep voice rasped and the man pointed to a glass of water sitting on the table adjacent to the cot he was situated in. He picked it up and took a few long, greedy sips, not realizing just how thirsty he was until the cool drink hit his tongue. “Where am I? What is this place?”

“This is the infirmary at Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters.” The man told him, pushing his glasses further up the bridge of his nose. “You’re safe here.”

Warren nodded hesitantly, but didn’t say anything else. Safe. The word was almost a myth to him at this point. But at least he felt like he could rest for a little while.

***

It had been a few weeks since Apocalypse and his horsemen had almost ended the world. Erik had decided to stick around, and two of the younger horsemen, Storm and “the Angel of Death,” respectively, had been absorbed into the school’s student body. You didn’t know the Angel’s name. No one really talked to him, not even Ororo, Storm, who had been quickly adopted by your friend group.

Supposedly, Peter had tried to talk to the Angel guy, but he didn’t say anything to him. Ororo theorized he probably felt guilty about the whole thing. She did. But you all knew she didn’t know what Apocalypse was really trying to do. He probably hadn’t either, but that didn’t seem to keep the grim expression off of his face.

It was on a nice, sunny day that Xavier called you into his office, and you went down without complaint, knocking on the door a few times before he called you inside. You sat in the chair across from his desk.

“Hi, Professor. What’s going on?” You asked.

“Ah, yes. Just the empath and healer I wanted to see.” He smiled brightly. “(Y/N), if you don’t mind it too terribly, I have a small job for you.”

“Of course! What do you need?”

“I’m sure you’ve seen our newest pupil, Warren, around.”

You thought for a moment. “The, uh, guy with the wings? The big metal ones?”

“Precisely.” He nodded. “Warren…he’s been having quite a hard time adjusting.”

“I’ve noticed.”

“He came to me yesterday discussing…well, quite simply, he was wondering if any of our mutants here would be capable of…reverting him to his previous state. His wings, before Apocalypse, were made of feathers. They’ve been serving as quite a reminder to him and it’s been weighing pretty heavily on him, both literally and emotionally.”

“Yeah, I’ve, uh, caught his vibes from across campus.” You nodded. “It’s like there’s always a rain cloud hanging over his head.”

“Yes,” Xavier agreed. “It doesn’t have to be right away, but at your nearest convenience, if you see him around, would you talk to him? Tell him I sent you?”

“Yeah, of course. I’ll see what I can do.” You promised him.

As an empath and a healer, your first priority was helping others. And even if he was known to be a bit intimidating, you wanted to help him if you could.

So, you walked out of Xavier’s office, attended your final class of the day, and when it was over, you wandered out into the courtyard where, because of the nice weather, students were everywhere. And luckily for you, just as you suspected he might be, Warren was sitting under a tree, still sporting his leather jacket despite the warm weather.

You shielded your eyes from the sun and walked over towards him, your heart racing as you built up the courage to talk to him. So, you took a breath and said, “Hey, um, you’re Warren, right? The Professor wanted me to talk to you.”

He stared up at you for a long moment, his green eyes wide in shock. He took a breath, blinked a few times, glanced down at his wrist, and then back up at you. You could have sworn you saw tears beginning to form along his waterline, and you didn’t realize why until he said, “You’re my…No…Oh my God…I’m…I’m so sorry.”

You froze, your knees going weak. You glanced down at your bare forearm and read over the words he’d just said, exactly the way he’d just said them.

You’re my…No…Oh my God…I’m…I’m so sorry.

“Why are you sorry?” You whispered, lowering yourself onto the grass beside him, not trusting your legs to support your weight for much longer. Now you were the one with tears in your eyes. “Don’t be sorry.”

“You deserve so much more than me.” He insisted, his eyes locked on his boots, unwilling and unable to meet your gaze. “I can’t drag you into…this. Me.”

His emotions were heavy, a bleak blue and gray haze and you felt it radiate off of him in waves. His pain, his everything. And you felt it, deep within his chest. He thought you wouldn’t want him anyway.

“Warren…” You shook your head. “Why…Why would you think I don’t want you?”

He was shocked into silence for a few seconds, thinking over his words carefully, his jaw tense and hands shaking. “You’re a telepath?”

“Empath.” You corrected quietly. “And…a healer. Which is why Xavier sent me.”

“Oh. Right.” He swallowed thickly, nodding. “Did he…tell you why?”

“He did.” You smiled softly. “And I’m willing to try if you are.”

Finally, his eyes met yours and he could tell that you meant more than just the healing when you said it. The weak little voice in the back of his head was screaming for him to push you away like he pushed away everyone else, but looking into your eyes, a genuine and warm smile on your face, he just…couldn’t lose you.

He couldn’t lose anyone else.

***

Today was the day. Warren was sitting on a stool in the infirmary. Hank had run his vitals and the two of them were in the room waiting for you to come down after your class was over.

“(Y/N) is the one who saved you, you know.” Hank told Warren while he jotted down some notes.

“What?” Warren asked, snapping out of whatever daydream he had been caught up in. “What do you mean?”

“(Y/N) found you in the rubble. We didn’t think you would make it, but…they healed you. They insisted we bring you back here. Give you a chance.”

Warren was quiet for a long time, thinking about what that meant. Part of him wondered if (Y/N) had known back then that he was their soulmate, but he decided that would have been impossible with just their tattoos alone. Especially without context. They hadn’t known and yet, they’d still wanted the best for him.

“Didn’t know that.” Warren said, his voice soft and deep. He stared at the words on his wrist for a little longer, a hint of warmth swirling around in his stomach. Was this happiness? Was that what happiness felt like? He barely remembered anymore. But he knew there must have been a reason that when you walked through the door, his heart started beating a little bit faster.

“Sorry I’m so late. Professor Leaf kept us a little later than she was supposed to. Are you ready?” You asked taking off your backpack and setting it against the wall. As soon as you looked up at Warren, you felt the way his heart rate was increased and you didn’t miss the warmth swirled with the anxiousness. The anxiousness, you had expected. Even you didn’t know if you could pull off what you were going to attempt to do, but the warmth…it was a pleasant surprise.

“Don’t worry about it.” He told you, shaking his head. Was he…was he smiling? It was a small smile, sure, but you didn’t think you had ever seen him smile before. It looked good on him. “I’m ready when you are.”

“Alright.” You nodded, walking over towards him. Underneath where he was situated on a stool, Hank had laid out some pads from the training room, you assumed, to catch his metal feathers if they fell out rather than transforming back to his normal…feather feathers. None of you really knew how this would unfold. “Again, I’m not sure this will work. I don’t want to get your hopes up in case it doesn’t.”

“I’m not expecting it to.” Warren assured you, but it wasn’t in a rude way. “If it does, I’ll be pleasantly surprised. Cross my heart.” What he didn’t say was: You could never disappoint me. Not even if you tried.

“Okay.” You nodded, taking a few steps closer until you were standing right in front of him. He looked up at you and for the first time, you didn’t feel any negative emotions from him. Only anticipation and that lingering warmth. “Here goes nothing.”

You focused on the warmth in your own chest, the tingling yellow healing power that constantly swirled around your heart, and you forced it into your palms. You reached forward for his hands and he took the hint, his larger hands wrapping around yours.

Immediately, he gasped at the sensation, warm tingles running up his arms, down his spine. It stopped in the center of his back, right where his wings intersected with his body. At first, he didn’t feel anything. And then, he felt everything. The pleasant warmth flooded his metal wings, and one by one, the knife-like feathers fell out, each one landing with a thud against the mat situated underneath him.

Hank’s pencil jotted against his notebook as he took notes. He knew you were powerful, but he’d had no idea you were capable of something like this.

Neither had you.

Once the metal wings were gone, Warren felt a new sensation: another pair of wings, this one soft and familiar, slowly emerging from him. Part of him expected the process to be painful, like the one Apocalypse had forced upon him was, but it wasn’t. Warren chuckled to himself. Of course you would never hurt him. Not even unintentionally.

After a few minutes, the feathery wings had fully emerged, stretched out to his full former wingspan and he stared up at you in awe. You stopped your flow of power to him, but he held onto your hands, squeezing them to keep them in his grasp.

He looked back at his new wings, flexed them and moved them. They felt familiar, like they had always belonged to him.

“Thank you.” He said, giving your hands another squeeze, the warmth in his chest brighter and bolder than it had been before. “Thank you so much.”

“Of course.” You told him, squeezing his hands right back in a way that caused his heart to lurch. “I’m glad I could help.”

“I don’t mean to interrupt, but do you mind if I keep some of these for research?” Hank asked.

“Keep all of them, if you want. I don’t want them.” Warren told him, standing up from his stool, his hands still in yours. “So, um…do you want to go grab dinner or something?”

“Sure.” You nodded, smiling up at him. “See you later, Hank.”

“Bye, guys, have a nice night.” Hank said as you and Warren walked out of his lab. He couldn’t help but notice the way one of your hands remained in one of his as the two of you left.

***

Later that night, after dinner and after you and Warren had split for the evening, you were walking back to your room from Jean and Jubilee’s and you found Warren, lingering in his doorway, his toothbrush sticking out of his mouth. His eyes widened when he spotted you and he held up a finger, indicating you should wait for him, so you did while he went into his bathroom and rinsed out his mouth, returning a few moments later.

“Hey.” He said, the word casual as it fell from his pink lips.

“Hey yourself.” You chuckled, feeling ridiculously underdressed in your pajamas. But then again, he was wearing his pajamas, too, a large black Metallica shirt and a pair of plaid pants.

“How…how are you? Feeling?” He stumbled over his words, chuckling as he rubbed the back of his neck. You felt a wave of nervousness rush through him. “Hank said sometimes you get tired after, uh, bigger healing jobs?”

“I’m fine.” You nodded. “For whatever reason, I never get tired when I’m healing you.” You chuckled, your cheeks heating up the slightest bit. “Well…I think I know why…”

“Heh, yeah.” He nodded, mulling over his next words very carefully. “Did you, um…I don’t know how to ask this. Did you mean what you said about…trying? About us trying…this. Trying us.”

“Of course I did.” You nodded and took a few steps closer to him. “You’re my soulmate.” You reached for his hand and he gave it to you, letting you play with his fingers. You felt the way his heart fluttered when you did. “Of course I want to try.”

“I’m broken.” He told you. “I’ve never done this before. I’m…I’m a lot, and I know that.”

“Well it’s a good thing I’m a healer, huh?” You tilted your head. “And if we’re being honest, I’ve never done this before either. So how about we teach each other? Learn together?”

He smiled softly, nodding. “Yeah. Yeah, let’s do that.”

You let go of his hand and instead took the last few steps between the two of you, wrapping your arms around his torso. He froze for a few seconds, unsure of what to do. It had been…a long time since anyone had hugged him. But after a few moments, his arms got the hint and wrapped around you, pulling you to his chest. He rested his head atop yours and exhaled a long, long breath. And for the first time since you’d met him, you felt a wave of peace wash over him, encasing him entirely as his wings gently cocooned you in their warmth.

You felt his lips brush against your temple, pressing a soft kiss there. You looked up at him and his eyes met yours before fluttering shut as he leaned in to press his lips to yours.

[the-insomniac-emporium]

Serenade (Daniela Dimitrescu/Reader) Pt. 5

Fandom: Resident Evil: Village Pairing: Daniela Dimitrescu/Reader (Gender neutral) Rating: T for language and mentions/references to an (emotionally) abusive relationship. Mild, brief violence. Warnings: TW for referenced emotional abuse, mild TW for possible physical abuse (sorry, angry Dani is not 100% gentle with people she doesn't love-love) Notes: Music for this chapter here. If you're following this story and really want to continue reading, but worry about the TWs for this chapter, just send me an anonymous message and I'll write up an alternative version of this post. It's not something I would do without it being requested, but it's also not a big deal so don't feel like you're bothering me if you want that. Previous Chapters: Pt. 1: Nocturne, Pt. 2: Overture, Pt. 3: Accelerando, Pt. 4: Tocatta

Chapter 5: Poco a Poco (Italian: Little by little)

Finding a schedule for lessons to follow proved to be an insurmountable task. Consistency was something that Daniela struggled with greatly, even when it came to things that she genuinely cared about. Things like ensuring you lived long enough to entertain her. Instead of working with you to find a balance that worked for both of you, the youngest Dimitrescu daughter seemed intent on doing things in her own time. Little by little. Which would have been fine, if the two of you weren’t restricted by time.

Fate wasn’t entirely unkind, however. There were still a few things that Daniella recalled from her “youth”, bits and pieces of musical theory, the bare basics of reading sheet music. Not having to teach her proper posture or the structure of a piano would save you a little bit of time. On top of that, you had been informed that, somewhere in the castle, there were a few books of sheet music you could borrow. Assuming you were eventually able to find them, that is. So far they had eluded you, but you hadn’t even had much time to search, as you were still expected to perform your usual Maiden-related tasks.

In the end, it was Daniela herself that proved to be the biggest obstacle in your way.

“Look,” Daniela said one day, barely ten minutes into a lesson, “I think we should take a break… maybe have some fun?” One of her hands is resting on top of yours, the other tucking your hair behind your ear. There’s a smirk on her lips, unsurprisingly, and she’s mere inches away from kissing you. If not for the heavy threat hanging over your head, you would have already thrown yourself into her arms. Instead, all you can do is sigh, turning away from her as you do. “Don’t be like that, sweet thing. C’mon, no one can hear us right now. Might as well enjoy ourselves.”

“Babe. Darling. Buttercup, honey, cute little button on a bear, you are not the brightest bulb in the lighting department,” you replied, holding the bridge of your nose between two fingers. Instantly Daniela is upset, giving you a (thankfully) playful smack on the arm. Before she can protest more you continue speaking. “Your family would not hear us making out, true, but they would definitely hear us not playing the piano. I’m pretty sure your mother already thinks I’m doomed to fail as a teacher, and the last thing I need is to give her a reason to drop the curtains this early into our performance.”

“First of all, I am not an idiot,” Daniela said, a bit of a growl to her voice. “Secondly, what harm can a few minutes really do? Don’t you think I’ve been working hard enough to earn a little reward?” Now she’s holding a finger under your chin, lifting it up, making sure you’re looking right at her. There’s no dissuading her, it seems, as she leans in for a soft kiss. This was one of the more frustrating aspects of dealing with (courting?) her; communication felt like a one-man play, except the audience was as likely to throw knives as rotten tomatoes. Whenever Daniela acted like this, pushing away your concerns in favor of her pleasure, it felt helpless to try and resist her.

So you kissed back, wrapped your arms around her, and hoped that she’d be more open to compromise afterwards. At least kissing her was nice. Even though it had only been a week since you first kissed her, she was already getting better, evidently learning through experience. The passion behind her movements had grown as well, leaving you a tad breathless. Regardless of her odd perception of romance, and her insistence that she knew best, you found yourself charmed by her. It was scary. Terrifying, really, how you felt yourself falling under her spell. Wait. Hadn’t you been in this sort of situation before?... Staying with someone who wasn’t good for you? Why were you kissing her? Why were you starting to tremble, tears in your eyes, mind falling down a slippery slope of memories?

By the time you snap out of it, you’re sitting on the floor, Daniela awkwardly kneeling by your side. What the fuck? You think, sniffling a little. Head spinning, mind reeling, you struggle to form coherent thoughts. Next to you Daniela is unsure of how to help. But she’s trying, sort of, one hand holding your own, the other gently rubbing your back. She’s saying something, the words going right over your head. Understanding her takes times, focus, like tuning an instrument until the pitch is just right.

“I don’t understand, we were only kissing, what happened? Can you even hear me? Is this your way of tricking me into not making out with you? Because that’s a total dick move and-” she rambles, only stopping when you give her hand a soft squeeze. Then she’s meeting your gaze, looking uncomfortable, shoulders tense. “You’ve been weird for a while. Distant. Like you don’t want to touch me anymore. Don’t you still love me?”

There’s real, honest pain in her eyes when she speaks. If the timing had been different… you’d have thrown your arms around her and covered her face in kisses, promising to hold her onto she felt better, promising that yes you cared. You cared so fucking much. But she’s making you exhausted; every second has to be focused on her, not you. Every moment of concern is flipped around until she’s the victim, or at least the one that needs comforting. You didn’t think that she even realized what she was doing. Well, you hoped that she didn’t, wanted to believe that if she understood she’d change.

“Remember the first day we kissed?... how you pulled me close, and I kissed you harder, and we started…. Remember how I made a move and you pushed me away? I’ll never forget the look on your face. I felt like shit afterwards. I should have asked before I tried anything,” you explain, letting go of Daniela’s hand so you could pull your knees to your chest. Somehow you can’t bring yourself to maintain eye contact with her- not right now, not when you could still remember what it felt like to be on her side of this story. “I don’t want to push your boundaries, or make you feel pressured to do something you don’t want to do. The last thing I’d ever want to do is hurt you like that.”

“Oh bullshit,” Daniela snarled, shocking you, before getting to her feet. Confusion doesn’t begin to describe how you feel in the moment as you watch her pace back and forth. Both her hands are clenched into fists, and she’s refusing to look at you. There’s a buzzing sound in the room, faint but growing louder, like she’s a split second away from entering swarm mode. “We’re a couple, aren’t we? Shouldn’t you be able to tell what I want? Shouldn’t it be obvious what I desire, when I’m pinning you to the wall and shoving my tongue down your throat? What more do you require?”

“Holy shit, Dani, I know communication isn’t your forte, but have you really not even considered talking to me? That’s simple, easy, literally the first thing that should come to mind!” You snapped, too in disbelief to keep your voice down. For a moment Daniela stops her pacing, turning to stare at you with narrowed eyes. If you weren’t so mad, you’d be convinced she was ready to kill you. But she doesn’t move to grab her sickle, or otherwise advance on you, instead groaning and tugging on her own hair in frustration.

“Because that’s not romantic, genius!” She replied. Some dots start to connect in your mind, but you lack the full context, as if looking at sheet music with no clefs or time signature. It’s not until Daniela continues that you really understand; and, by extension, realize just how ridiculous this whole mess is. “None of the books I’ve read involve conversations like this. People just… they just love each other! And figure it out as they go along, reading each other’s body language and facial expressions, inferring what they need to know through touches and reactions. Why can’t we do that?”

“This isn’t a fucking book, dumbass! I don’t have powers like you, I can’t just read your mind and figure out what you want. That’s not how relationships work! Communication is key. And you can’t just talk, you have to listen, hard, and understand,” you continued, still on the floor, heart pounding so furiously you thought it might leap from your chest at any moment. As angry as you are, you wonder if you’re being too loud, too angry, wonder if there was a better way to get through to Daniela. Before you can think of a solution the air is ripped from your lungs. Your “partner”/student is grabbing you by the front of your shirt, yanking you to your feet. Instinct makes you struggle against her, as useless as it is.

“I. Told. You. I’m not an idiot!” Her free hand comes up to your face, cupping your cheek for a moment, then pulling away just as fast. When it moves back up she’s gripping onto her sickle. The sharp edge ends up resting against your neck, the slightest movement threatening to cut you open. This is the most Daniela has ever openly threatened you, and in that moment all your anger melts back into fear, tears spilling down your cheeks. A flicker of something shows in her eyes, making you think that even she doesn’t like where this is going. “Give me one reason not to end this right now.”

“... I don’t… I can’t think. I… Why would you?” The words leave you in a rush, even with the pauses, and each syllable makes the sickle press into your skin a little more. There’s sure to be a cut there, though you can’t even begin to estimate how bad it is. The blade is sharp, clearly, and it hardly even hurts as it slices you. Thankfully the sensation doesn’t last long. Once you’re done speaking, Daniela’s grip loosens considerably, hand slowly letting your shirt go. Her other hand takes a few seconds to move, but eventually pulls away without any fuss. For a few seconds she just watches you, eyes filled to the brim with a rich sorrow, mouth open but unmoving.

“No lesson tomorrow. I need a break,” Daniela whispers, barely audible. Then she’s dusting herself off, no longer looking at you, and heading towards the exit. Just like the first time you met, she pauses in the doorway. “How’s that for communication, hmm?” When she laughs, it’s empty, forced. Part of you wants to stop her and ask if she’s okay.

Instead, you watch her leave, unspoken words tangling with your tongue until you almost can’t swallow.

Then your feet move, automatically, leading you to the piano. You sit down without thinking. You touch the keys without thinking. When you play, you play without thinking. It’s just a song, the world tells you, and you have no choice but to play. It’s not just a song, you know this, but you can’t think. Can’t argue against the personification of your isolation, or the embodiment of your trauma. All you can do is let yourself get lost in the music, softly, recalling lyrics from a forgotten time.

I’ve been running all my life, trying to find a place to hide ‘Thought that I had settled down, but I guess things are changing now Don’t make me go, don’t make me go Just don’t make me go, this feels like home

As soon as the last note fades out you stand, wordlessly, and leave. Your feet carry you down corridor after corridor, past maidens working, some of whom gasp when they see you. But you don’t stop, not even when you cross paths with Lady Bela, who eyes you with surprising concern. She doesn’t try to stop you, though, and you doubt you would have cared if she had tried. It’s not until you are within your shared room that you finally stop moving. It is there that you sit, shaking, finally pressing a cloth to your neck. Blood stains the fabric, first in just a few dots, then spreading out. There’s not enough to make you fear for your life, but there is enough to make you cry harder. Washing the wound will sting… so you don’t do that. Soon you will have to return to your work, and the thought puts pressure on your skull, summoning an all-too-familiar migraine.

When you close your eyes, you don’t mean to fall asleep, but that is exactly what you do. And when you dream, you do not wish for nightmares. You never do- and fate never denies you their company.

[nctsjiho]

JiHo vs Geo (NCT JiHo’s Duality)

Fan Video by ‘NeoVerse’ on Youtube

(indented text = comments added by the maker of the video, in this case NeoVerse) So we all know JiHo. One of NCT’s rappers and dancers. She’s always portrayed as cool, confident, intimidating, so for today, let me introduce you to Geo.

The cute, easily embarrassed 00 liner, whom everyone in NCT (and the fandom) has a soft spot for. Though whenever Geo comes out she’s usually getting teased by the boys...

^^ Let’s get started!

[JiHo Vlive ft. Taeyong & Taeil 190407]

“So we’ll be in America soon for the second leg of the Tour.” Taeyong said. “Are you excited?” JiHo asked looking at the oldest of the three. “Yes, we’ll finally get to see all our overseas fans. And we’re even going to see Johnny’s home-”The 3 of them looked off camera once loud noise started to fill the room. The voices obviously belonged to Dream. Taeil and Taeyong shrugged it off and Taeil continued to talk. The noise wasn’t too loud, but it was still a bit distracting non the less.

JiHo continued looking off camera every once in a while. It looked like she finally made eye contact with one of the young boys, because she squinted her eyes a bit more and suddenly the room became silent besides for Taeil talking. The girl gave the tinniest nod before looking back at the camera and joining the two other men in their conversation.

In the background you could hear a door close just after a few silent “sorry’s” were heard. 

JiHo: the NCT member who can make Dream, who never stop talking, shut up without even saying anything. The power this girl has

[‘NCT - RESONANCE Pt. 2’ Departure Ver. Jacket Behind the Scene]

Loud cheers filled the echo-y room as JiHo walked in. All the 23 boys were already in their spots, but the girl had walked in late (for an unknown reason). She hides her face in embarrassment as she approaches Renjun who was standing on the far right side of the bleacher-like structure. “JiHo needs to go up one level!” One of the staff members yelled.

JiHo gets up on the structure a hand helping her up, it was Johnny.  As she stands up completely she notices she is standing between Johnny and Sungchan. “Please tell my I’m not standing between these two giants.” She looks in the direction of the staff, face full of concern. Her comment causing almost everyone to laugh. “Why? Don’t you like standing between us?” Johnny teased poking at her side. She squints her eyes at the taller man, triggering a few more laughs out of him.

The director instructs the girl to stand between Ten and Shotaro on the other side of the structure and she quickly walks over to them, almost tripping on her way over, where Ten greets her with a big hug. “Ah so cute~” Mark cooed, looking at the embarrassed girl.

[NCT World 2.0 ep 4]

It’s really no secret that JiHo is a very athletic person. She works out and tries out new sports for fun. So even though she might not have the strength as her male colleagues (well most of them, sorry Kun), she was definitely one of, if not the most, agile members in the group.

When they announced the next game, JiHo’s team mates had look slightly worried. The vault was already at 1.70 m which was already taller than her, though JiHo would never openly admit that.

It’s only when the vault is at 2 m high that the members realise the smaller girl had cleared all the previous heights successfully. She’s now standing at a couple meters away to sprint towards the vault.

“We didn’t expect JiHo to make it this far.” Defconn commented. “She’s definitely an ace.” Kim Hwan, the other presenter, added.

We’re talking about the same JiHo right? This girl can literally carry her members on her back!

“Wow~ Look at noona’s face.” Jisung pointed out to his team mates, who unfortunately didn’t make it. The girl had her eyes set on the vault. Completely focused she put up her fist. “JiHo, challenge!” Her first few steps were big but slow, then her pace started picking up, until she had reached the vault.

“Ji-” The camera picks up the shocked faces of the boys as her team members jump to her aid. JiHo was laying on her back on the blue mat, the vault in pieces all around her, with one of the pieces almost making its way towards the girl’s face. Thankfully because of the concerned boys’ fast reflexes they helped avoid a big accident.

“Are you okay?” Johnny asked now that they were standing again. “I think I can make it though...” She furrowed her brow, shocking the boys with her comment. Despite all the boys’ protest JiHo was one again standing at the starting position to run towards the vault.

Taeyong stood up in a panic. “She isn’t going to try again right-” “JiHo, challenge!” And without a second of hesitation she ran towards the vault, 5 boys ready to save her in case she was to fail again. Once her feet hit the mat she looked at the camera with a smirk on her face and a fist in the air. She had cleared the vault.

“I swear to God her confidence is going to be the dead of me.” Taeyong let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding.

[NCT World 2.0 ep 2]

JiHo’s challenge was to do a rope skipping routine. Since she has been rope skipping for as long as she can remember, it wasn’t really that hard. The challenging part came from that she had to learn a specific routine and execute it perfectly within 10 minutes.

After 3 minutes she had the short routine down, some moves were slightly more difficult, but nothing she couldn’t do.

“JiHo, challenge!” She yelled out. She pulled of the routine effortlessly. Or that’s what she thought at least. Everyone had jumped to their feet, cheering JiHo on those who never saw JiHo rope skipping completely in awe at what she just pulled off. “Let’s go-” Mark had yelled, just before the lights turned red. “Mission failed.” The deep voice boomed over the speakers. Everyone stunned, they could’ve sworn she just did it right. But after review JiHo realised her mistake.

She stood closely to Jaemin’s seat who asked her if she got the routine down now. JiHo nodded while she absentmindedly swung around the jump rope. A particularly hard swing causing the rope to round her back and hit her left arm harshly. The loud sound of the rope hitting her skin was accompanied with a wince at the sting. Jaemin had jumped up asking if JiHo was okay. The girl had slapped her hand against her reddening skin before she started whining that it hurt.

Jaemin took the opportunity to baby her. “Aigoo~ You need to be more careful.” He said rubbing her arms, before pulling her into a hug. The boys who sat a bit further away had started laughing once they realised the girl was okay. “Jaemin-ah, they are laughing at my pain.” She pouted and the boy pulled her closer, glaring at the other members.

Yangyang... I saw you laughing at our baby girl... 

[NCT JiHo notices SASEANG at the Airport]

In the shaky fan video with not much context you could see NCT at the airport. The reason why they weren’t moving unknown. The only thing you could tell from the first half of the video was that NCT was standing in the middle of a clearing in the airport with tons of fans surrounding them.

Jeno and JiHo were standing next together, being filmed by the fan. She kept on glancing in a particular direction. At some point Jeno leaned in to whisper something in her ear and she shrugged in response, her body seemed a bit tense.

After another couple of seconds went by, JiHo suddenly starts moving in the direction of the fans - the same direction she kept glancing at. This caused the fans to start screaming and a body guard to quickly try and catch up with her.

It isn’t clear what’s being said, but JiHo exchanges some words with a male fan. She then puts her hand out, the fans around her going quiet. The man hands JiHo his unlocked phone and she starts scrolling through it. With a bitter look she hands the phone back, grabs her own, takes a picture of the man and then leaves. Once she reaches the boys again an indifferent expression remains on her face. Jeno’s hand massages the girl’s shoulder but she doesn’t seem to relax until they are able to leave the airport.

Apparently the male “fan” was a sasaeng and on his phone were pictures he had taken of JiHo and the rest of NCT (?) during their overseas schedules in places no fans were allowed. She deleted them and taken a picture of him for the security, possibly also for the authorities.

[NCT 127 fan event @ Capitol Records]

After everyone had gathered on stage, it was time for each member to introduce themselves. JiHo was last in line and when she started talking in her mic, it was clear that her mic did not work. The girl looked back at the staff, but they didn’t seem to notice directly, so she turned to her right and grabbed Doyoung’s mic. He didn’t let go of it, causing the girl to lean in towards Doyoung and start introducing herself. “Hi! I’m JiHo.” She giggled slightly embarrassed, which emitted a chorus of “awe’s” from the fans.

Later on in the interview, now with a working mic, the question “Who is the most attractive member of the group?” had been asked. Some members had answered already but the interviewer asked JiHo’s opinion. “Uhm...” She hummed as she looked over her members. “I think everyone is very attractive.” She gave as her final answer which left everyone a bit “disappointed”. A fan interjected, yelling, “We all know you think it’s Jungwoo!” JiHo’s face turned the brightest shade of red as she looked at the audience in shock. Everyone at the event had burst out laughing and JiHo sank back in her chair.

[NCT JIHO Choreography | More Than That (Lauren Jauregui)]

JiHo’s know as a bit of a tomboy. I mean she hangs out with dudes pretty much 24/7. So when she dropped this video, let me tell you, we NCTzens were shook.

As the music starts playing the lights slowly turn on. JiHo is sat in the middle of a dance practise room in a chair, head tilted slightly backwards, exposing her neck.

The camera comes closer and JiHo makes eye contact with it, her mouth is slightly agape and she stands up. She hits every beat, dancing in her own, cool style, nothing very girly or sexy, until a certain line comes up.

“I got a situation, I can tell you wanna know“

She brings her clasped hands up, stretching them out above her hand, before pushing her right hip out circling it from the front to the side. She lets her hands drop back down.

“How you can take an honest girl and turn her to a”

Her facial expression turns more cocky. Her left hand goes down the side of her body onto her left thigh while she moves down to an almost squat position. Her right hand comes up from her chest to her neck at the end of the line where the singer lets out a gasp.

Turn her to a WHAT? Explain Lim Jiho! Into a what exactly?!

Stan twitter of course went crazy at the sight of their tomboyish, innocent girl choreographing such a seductive dance. Besides those two lines, most of the dance was just her usual boyish hip-hop style. But the whole vibe of the song, along with her facial expressions had caused such beautiful chaos. Also JiHo in those sweatpants and a sports bra/crop top was something NCTzens weren’t ready for yet.

[Weekly Idol ep 410]

This is probably my favourite JiHo moment ever. For a bit of context. The people sitting down on pillows have to come forward for the members they want to be partnered with and show their charm. After everyone has “seduced” the sitting member, they must close their eyes and if their rose gets picked they are partnered up.

The reason I like this so much is because JiHo was already pouty since Doyoung and Yuta were both seducers as well so there was no chance of partnering with them, but she really wanted to team up with either of them.

After Mark danced to ‘Pick Me’ (and JiHo did everything in her power not to cringe, she failed), he turned around to see which members would come over. When he turned around he saw 4 faces. Those of Doyoung, Jaehyun, Yuta and JiHo. The last two he didn’t expect to come.

One by one they all had to explain why they picked Mark. “Dude, honestly I just don’t want to be picked last.” The girl said in English sending Mark into a fit of laughter. They than had to show show their charm through singing, dancing or acting cute. Once it was Doyoung’s turn, he started dancing to ‘Pick Me’, just like Mark did earlier. “Oppa! I wanted to do that.” She said annoyed to which Doyoung looked shocked. “You were going to dance to a girl group song?” She just rolled her eyes.

Once it was her turn the host had encouraged her to dance to ‘Pick Me’ like she initially planned. “If you do it better than Doyoung, you will have a better chance.” One of the boys had reasoned, that was enough for JiHo to stand up.

She patted down her sweater before getting “in the zone” and she started dancing and singing the song as if it was her own. Some of the boys started cringing at the unfamiliar sight of their female member acting girly and cute, willingly. Then the camera shows Yuta and Jungwoo who were clearly enjoying the show and Taeil smiling fondly as well.

omg this is peak Geo behaviour <3 How is she this cute? Is she really a member of a mostly male group?

Cut to JiHo getting rejected right after Doyoung gets rejected. They sit back next to Johnny, the girl’s head resting on Doyoung’s shoulder. “I guess dancing to that song wasn’t the way to go.” She sighed.

This time it’s Jungwoo’s time to choose a member. He danced to ‘Havana’ to which everyone joins in. Once seated it’s time to start the next round. When Jungwoo faced the group again everyone, including JiHo has come forward.

Johnny danced and Jaehyun and Doyoung sang for Jungwoo, then it’s the girl’s turn. “JiHo! Aegyo!” Haechan yelled and before she can say anything, Yuta agrees. She looks at Jungwoo with a sigh. “Oh it doesn’t look like JiHo really wants to team up with Jungwoo.” Doyoung teased. JiHo quickly dismissed his claim, poking his side which had him twitch.

“Oppa... I think we could make a really good team.” She said with her face rested in her hands. Than she points at her heart. “It would really hurt right here if you reject me.” At the end of her sentence she stands up and throws her rose away. Everyone is dying from laughter or second hand embarrassment. The girl takes a few deep breaths to calm down and she sits back down.

ngl even though that was very cringy, how is JiHo this good at aegyo? I’m sure Jaemin would love it...

They have to make eye contact with the Jungwoo now and once it’s JiHo’s turn she locks eyes with him with ease. Her eyes never faltering which intimidates Jungwoo a bit. “JiHo, you’re supposed to make a connection, not scare him away.” She swats Doyoung’s arm at his remark.

Guess what. Our poor girl was rejected once again

JiHo stands up with her cushion and walks back behind the line. “I danced for you!” She points at Mark. “I acted cute for you!” She points at Jungwoo. “And this is what I get?” The girl actually looks a little agitated which prompted in Jungwoo hugging her and apologising, but she pushes him away. “Whoever my partner is, he and I will end your team.” She threatened while raising her brow. But she only manages to look cute, because she still has a pout very evident on her lips. The tall boy cooed at her and patted her head before walking back to his chair.

Finally Taeyong takes his place on the seat. Once he turned around he could only see Jaehyun and Doyoung sitting back at the line, making a heart with their arms together. A look of despair washed over his face for a quick second before he realises JiHo wasn’t there anymore.

“Where’s JiHo?” He asked and the boys motioned him to turn around once again. When he does he finds JiHo holding her hands up in a heart above her head. “I’ve been rejected twice by those men there.” She points towards Jungwoo and Mark. “And now Doyoung has betrayed me as well. So please be my partner.” Her tone is slightly sad and Taeyong nods and pulls her into a hug.

My heart! :’( She wanted to be in a team with Doyoung from the start, how could he betray JiHo like that!

“Let’s win this!” JiHo yelled, a smile finally finding it’s way back on her face after she found a partner.

That was all for today’s video! Thank you so much for watching! 

---

Side Note: This post is inspired by a post by @nct-aria​. They’re an amazing NCT addition blog, which I definitely recommend you check out.

[tl-notes]

Kobayashi’s Maid Dragon S2 Episode 9 Notes

...設立から大分地盤が固まってきており、少しずつだが、業態は改善されている。

One thing to note here is that Kobayashi(‘s narration) isn’t saying the company has already made solid improvements, it’s that the company has finally established itself somewhat (as it was only founded relatively recently, and typically new companies are especially busy while trying to get off the ground) and now is starting to make improvements.

Similarly in the second sentence, it’s not “was” slow going, it’s “is still” slow going, and the working conditions “are” improving, not “have improved.”

This is がんば ganba, short of course for がんばって ganbatte, which I’m sure most of you are familiar with: the (in)famous “do your best.”

I only mention it because I like this shortened version of it. Ganba!

This is a fun little idiom(?)/saying: 鼻で笑う hana de warau (conjugated as hana de warawareta), lit. to laugh using the nose. It’s used to describe laughing at someone you’re looking down on for whatever reason (not necessarily in a super serious way, could just be a friend being dumb etc.; in this case it’s Elma’s being naive).

Typically it refers to like a “heh-but-through-the-nose” kind of “laugh,” but as you can see in this scene (where clearly Kobayashi is laughing with the mouth, even starting with “pff” lips) it works idiomatically even if the laughing isn’t only through the nose.

You may have heard that Japan is/was a “lifetime employment” country, where typically people would get hired right out of school and stay at that company until retirement. While that’s much less true today than it was even a couple of decades ago (and has become kind of controversial in ways), it’s still much more common of a practice than in say the US.

One result of this is that there’s a much bigger distinction placed between hiring people in spring as part of the annual graduation rush (the Japanese school year ends in March), and mid-career hiring. Typically you can’t participate in the fresh grad hiring if you aren’t one, even if you’re new to the field in question. 

For larger employers (i.e. 5k+ employees), roughly two-thirds of all hirings come from fresh grads, and only small employers (<300 employees) hire more mid-careerists than people directly out of school.

Of course, this split tends to apply mostly to “standard” full time jobs, not so much part time, and is not necessarily a thing in every industry/at every company.

Just as a minor point of clarity, this “organized text” in Elma’s document refers to the phrase まとめられた文章 matomerareta bunshou. In a literal sense, matomerareta can mean organized/consolidated etc., and bunshou text/passages, but meaning-wise it’s more like “writing that gets its point across clearly/cleanly.” 

This is a pretty big compliment and a very useful skill to have in organizations like this, as writing such that people can quickly and easily understand exactly what you’re trying to say often saves a ton of time and frustration.

我々はエルマの気迫に押されるがままにその書類を読み始めた。

Another minor point, but where the English could imply that they were overwhelmed by Elma’s intensity through the act of reading her report, the Japanese implies more that they started reading it because of how intense Elma was being. 

It doesn’t really make much of a difference either way, but it stuck out a little for me. 

To justify mentioning it, I guess I’ll explain the grammar point Kobayashi uses: されるがままに sareru ga mama ni. Sareru is a generic verb/verb conjugation for having something done to you (technically here it’s 押される, to be “pushed/pressed/pressured”), and mama refers to a state, condition, or “way” (like “do it this way”).

Put together, the whole phrase is used to indicate “you” do/did something that someone else wants you to, without (meaningful) opposition. (Something similar in raw meaning but with a very different connotation would be “going with the flow.”)

If a friend says “hey let’s go do something,” and next thing you know you’re out bowling despite preferring to stay at home, this is you.

You can stick the mama ni to various other things as well to come up with a similar idea, but without the sareru the nuance may end up different. 

The word for clairvoyance here is 千里眼 senrigan, lit. “eye(s) [that can see] a thousand li”, li being a Chinese unit of measurement for length (shorter than a mile, but for general purposes “eyes that see a thousand miles” is basically the gist).

Despite the perhaps physical-sounding nature of the term, it does actually describe the same power as “clairvoyance” in English: being able to perceive things outside your actual range of vision, including potentially into people’s hearts and minds etc.

Hence why it’s a thousand screen display, when she updates it with tech knowledge:

“Tainted by work” here is 職業病 shokugyou-byou, lit. an occupational disease. The “proper” definition is a disease one gets from working in a particular job, such as black lung for coal miners or even posture-related health issues for desk workers. 

Additionally, it’s used colloquially to refer to noticeable habits or quirks that people in a certain profession pick up, like a baker always waking up super early or a programmer using programming lingo out of context in normal conversation. The latter being especially noticeable in Japanese, as a lot of such terms are English in origin.

“Shocking” here is a fun word: ドン引き don-biki. “Don” here is added just for emphasis; the main meaning revolves around 引き hiki/biki, from the verb 引く hiku, meaning to pull. 

The idea is that someone does/says something that you recoil from. Maybe it’s gross (“I only shower once a week”), maybe it’s mean (“They didn’t smile enough so I didn’t leave a tip.”), maybe it’s creepy (“I sent like 30 texts yesterday but still no reply.”), just anything that has you feeling like you might want to create some distance because... phew. 

It’s kind of similar to the current use of “cringe” as an adjective/noun, though with less of an internet-slang feel* to it, and generally used more as something the speaker is doing rather than describing whatever/whoever is being cringe. 

(*I think it started being used popularly in this way in the early-to-mid 90s, with the “don”biki variant specifically popping up around 2005.)

A “Premium Friday” is the last Friday of the month, where you get to leave work at 3 pm. It is largely theoretical. 

The idea was created by the Japanese government as a way to reduce working hours and encourage domestic spending (boost demand), but it has not been implemented by all that many employers, and especially not many smaller employers. There isn’t, after all, any mandate or government-provided incentive for doing so.

Evidence from the places that did implement it suggests it is actually good for the economy, but good luck convincing bosses to give extra paid time off.

“Last Friday of the month” was chosen because most people get paid on the 25th each month (Japan tends to pay monthly instead of every two weeks), so it would usually be right after payday, when people are more willing to get spendy.

Kobayashi saying eight hours here reminded me of a “fun” fact: the typical Japanese work day is eight hours plus a one hour break. Plus a one hour break, not with. So a typical work day is actually nine hours. Most commonly 8 to 5 or 9 to 6. Not many “nine-to-fives” here.

The characters for Joui are 上井, which usually read as Kamii or Uwai. It’s “Joui” because that means, when written as 上位, “superior.” As in “a superior life-form.” Like a dragon, say.

でも、ゆっくりやる事業改善案を見せてもらえたじゃない？

This one is actually kind of a critical mistake. In the English it sounds like she’s talking about the improvement proposal that Elma made and that the boss looked at. In the Japanese though, she’s talking about a different plan, one the boss showed them*, that is similar in idea but is going to take longer to be fully implemented**. So we’re being told that while Elma didn’t get what she wanted as fast as she wanted it, it is still basically going through at a slower pace.

*In ”見せてもらえた misete moraeta,” the misete vs mite means they were the ones who got shown something, rather than the ones who got someone to look at their stuff. 

**Which you can tell from the ゆっくりやる yukkuri yaru, where yaru is basically “do” and yukkuri means (in this case) at an unhurried pace.

(Re previous note: Hence why she says “immediately” here.)

“Black (ブラック)” and “white (ホワイト)” in the context of Japanese employers refers to how well employees are treated: a company with good benefits/pay, reasonable levels of overtime, and feels safe to work at is “white,” while a company that has excessive overtime, often pays poorly, breaks labor laws, and allows harassment to fester is “black.” 

While “white company” was created simply in contrast to the term “black company,” the latter finds its origins in front businesses for organized crime, which were called “black” in the sense of “illegal” (similar to “black market” or something being in a “grey area”). Given the international reputation of Japanese work life, you can imagine that “black company” as a term sees much more use.

There’s been some discussion about maybe replacing it due to the racial implications (especially since it uses the English word “black”), but while typically English translations drop the color for that reason (e.g. ブラック企業大賞, an “award” given to Japan’s worst employer each year, is officially “Most Evil Corporation of the Year Award” in English), it hasn’t really penetrated to the mainstream at this point.

The rice there is in a 飯盒 hangou, a metal container that looks… like that, and is the stereotypical item of choice for cooking rice while camping. It has its origins in the mess kits used by the military, but these days they’re primarily marketed as portable rice cookers for camping use. 

You can get round ones too, but the bean shape is very popular.

“Settings” here is 設定 settei, lit. exactly that, “setting(s).” E.g. if you open a computer program and look at the settings menu, it’ll be settei in the Japanese language settings (settei). 

I bring it up here because there’s a bit of a difference in how it gets used colloquially like this. In English, the “setting” for a story typically refers to where and when it’s set. In Japanese, “setting” in that sense is usually 舞台 butai. But settei is still used when talking about fiction, just in a different, more expansive way.

Often in these cases settei is used to refer to the various conceits that provide the context in which the story takes place. In this show, for example, one such “setting” is that dragons are real: another is that magic exists. It comes up especially often in fantasy/sci-fi type stuff where there are major distinctions between that universe and the real world—not that stories in a real-world setting don’t have settei of their own, but they often are lumped into descriptions of the plot in that case (”a dragon comes to live with an office worker in her apartment”).

It also refers to the “settings” of characters, like name or age, and things like “they run a bakery that’s going out of business and are trying to save it.” Basically all the details you’d have in a character profile.

It also gets used in conversation to refer to pretend things or (basically) lies: like here, where Saikawa thinks Shouta is playing pretend with his ley-lines talk, or e.g. if someone is trying to tell you some outlandish story (“my uncle works at Nintendo…” or someone asking for love life advice for “their friend”) and you’re just like “Okay so that’s the settei here, I see.”

Not really a big deal, but Elma’s line here in Japanese implies she won’t let Tohru call her that anymore (see her もう mou). Tohru’s response is also more of a “I haven’t been?”, since of course she wasn’t aware of Elma’s-mental-image-Tohru tormenting Elma in the previous scene:

The word for “full of” in the title here is ざんまい zanmai (a suffix form of 三昧 sanmai), usually meaning that there’s a whole lot of [whatever] to immerse oneself in. I mostly bring it up because there’s a famous restaurant chain called Sushi Zanmai that specializes in, obviously, sushi.

And you know, Elma is a water dragon that looks kinda like an eel… I’m just sayin’…

Not really a translation note, but wild that Elma didn’t even touch her parfait. (Not so wild that Fafnir finished his so quickly.) Serious business ahead...

“Genuinely” here is 素直に sunao ni, where the “ni” is used like “-ly” to make sunao work as an adverb. Sunao itself is an interesting word that falls into that category of “simple concept that is often hellish to translate.”

For some context, the first character, 素, is also used in the word 素顔 sugao, which is a face without makeup and 素材 sozai, basically raw ingredients/materials. The second, 直, is used in words like 直線 chokusen, a straight line, or 正直 shoujiki, honest.

Put them together, and you’ve got a word with connotations of directness and being unadorned. The original definition of the word tends toward “simple, natural” in the sense of e.g. life growing up on a rural farm. 

The more common use for it these days is to describe people and their actions. Positively, it can mean something similar to a person being happy to help, or kind of like the opposite of conniving; open, frank, genuine. Less positively, it can mean someone is too trusting and easy to trick into doing things OR someone who is “too honest” and says hurtful things. 

(If it helps: tsundere characters are often described as explicitly not sunao.)

In this case, the idea is that Tohru accepted the invitation easily as-is, without putting any conditions on it, or doing any “ugh, what a pain, do I have to, jeez” rigamarole—she just accepted. Another way you could put it in this case might be “It’s even more unusual for Tohru to accept an invitation like this without a fuss.”

Just to point out the hand on head thing again.

Also just to point out that this is another example of otsukare, as a reminder of how ubiquitous that word is.

And it makes a good place to end on: thanks for reading!

[fbfh]

light up the dark [VI] - leo x reader

genre: mid adventure domestic fluff overture, romance, smutty lemony bit towards the end

word count: 3k

pairing: Leo x gothy!child of eros!fem reader

requested: very much so, yes

warnings: magic manipulation powers, feelings are hard and weird and scary, some innuendos, the phrase hot gusher out of context, the word dirty talk, trying to "proposition [someone] in front of two for one cookie crisp", brief credit card theft, jason thinks ketchup is spicy and gets clowned on for it, one use of the word lube in reference to mechanical lubricant, shirtless leo remember that one piece of shirtless leo viria art?????? remember the caption?????, your facade is beginning to crack, deadpan joke about being dead in space, making out, whole lotta sexual tension, brief mention of a boner, teeny tiny bit of grinding, getting interrupted, c*lypso

summary: after an extensive shopping trip, you, Leo, and Jason settle into your airbnb and wait for the others to arrive. Jason takes a nap, and Leo helps you dye your hair. You return the favor by helping him make dinner which leads to two things; a well timed boner, and a poorly timed visitor.

listen to: power and control - marina, 100 bad days - ajr, all I ask - adele

a/n: let's play spot the zack and cody reference within the first paragraph

also surprise the series isn't dead!! a shock to all but mostly me!!

as with all smexy smutty nsfw content, all characters are aged up to 18+

Standing in front of a wall of hair dye taller than you are should have been exciting. It would have been, except for the fact that all the colors were various shades of honey mist auburn. You really don’t want to have to make a separate trip to a beauty store for hair dye. Your eyes land on a firetruck red box, and gratefully, you realize you won’t have to.

“Perfect,” you muse, throwing it into your cart, along with the other stuff on the list you’d divided between you. You grab a few other things from the beauty section while you’re there; some makeup, eyeliner, a glass nail file, and a tiny pair of oil slick cuticle scissors.

Nearby is a guy a little older than you in a varsity hoodie and sweatpants squinting at a two in one shampoo label.

Perfect, you think, beginning to approach. You work your magic - literally - and within a few minutes you have his credit card. It takes way less time than it used to. You also didn’t have to smile and flirt nearly as much as you used to. You’re relieved that you don’t have to fake enthusiasm around rich douchebags the way you used to, and a new inky drop of fear begins to stain the corners of your mind. You can’t even bear to admit it to yourself, but you’re kind of scared. Before you can begin to question if you know what love is and if you’re capable of experiencing it without the influence of your divine heritage, you shove it all away. Not the place, not the time. You speed up a little, passing an endcap of candy, and knock a box into your cart.

On the other side of the store, Jason checks off items from their half of the list as Leo tosses items in the cart, talking along the way. Of course, you came up in conversation rather quickly.

“She’s… a real piece of work.” Jason says, treading lightly.

“You said it, man,” Leo agrees, sliding a pack of coke onto the bottom of the cart. Jason thinks for a moment before continuing.

“She seems to,” he tries to figure out how to phrase their dynamic, “not hate you as much as everyone else.” Leo laughs at the accuracy of the statement. He can tell Jason has something else to say, so he’s quiet while putting paper plates and napkins into the cart.

“Hey, Leo?”

“Yeah?”

“Just… don’t let her hurt you, okay?”

He stops for a second. He’s so lucky to have a friend like Jason, one that will genuinely look out for him, but sometimes people caring for him still catches him off guard. Really off guard. With no idea how to begin to verbalize that complicated mess, he takes a split second to collect himself.

“Thanks, man.”

His smile is sincere.

Don’t let her hurt you. Can he just do that? Not let someone hurt him? Especially someone like you. He’s only had a few long term crushes before, all just out of reach and only getting further away. Only one had amounted to something - not that he could call what he had with Calypso ‘something’. She certainly wouldn’t. He looks around, trying to shake off the sting. He starts to get that unsettled, itchy feeling when he focuses on stuff like that for too long.

‘At least I got some good stories out of it,’ he thinks, messing with the back of his hair and fixing his hoodie strings.

“Here.”

He turns around, coming face to face with you, holding out a box very close to him.

“Hot gusher.” You say softly. What? His cheeks heat up, pulse speeding up suddenly. He glances at Jason, who’s at the other end of the aisle asking an employee something. Are you implying something? Are you trying to proposition him in front of two for one cookie crisp? He’s unable to look away from your gaze, intense and striking. You couldn’t possibly mean what he thinks you mean. Your fingers brush and he’s struggling to find an elegant way to say ‘hey, maybe the grocery store isn’t an ideal place for dirty talk’.

“W- uh, sorry, what?” he says, laughing in an equally hushed tone, needing to make sure you meant what he thought you did. You glance down, then back up.

“They’re spicy gushers. I thought you’d like them.” the feeling is gone in a split second, the same time it took to arrive, and is replaced with relief. He looks down at the box, realizing he’d taken it from you at some point. He laughs at the ridiculousness of his previous panic.

“Thanks,” he says, a reflective smile on his face.

You realize how comforted you are to see him smile, really smile, when you catch yourself having to keep a neutral face. One of the first times your resting bitch face has been intentional. Before you can say you’re welcome, Jason comes back over. You hand him the card.

“Pin number’s 0401.”

They both stare at you, skimming the label of a granola bar, completely unperturbed.

“How…”

“Credit card theft.”

The logical part of Leo’s brain starts to speak up, telling him to raise his guard, that his stomach should be twisting. If you can just take someone’s credit card without a hint of remorse, who knows what the hell kind of damage you could do to him if he got closer to you? And he really wants to get closer to you.

“Oh,” you pull a small pop top tube out of your cart and hand it to Leo, “this is for you too. You know, since you don’t like coffee,” you trail off as he reads the label. Caffeine and electrolyte drink tablets, red berry rampage flavor. He looks up at you, feeling warm and… something else, something ineffable, at the gesture.

You stare at each other, eyes locked, surprised at the strangely intimate feeling stirring in both of you.

“What are those?” Jason asks, snapping you out of whatever that was.

“Spicy gushers,” Leo says, smiling again, “I didn’t even know they made those.”

“Hot mango,” Jason reads from the side of the box, “that actually sounds pretty good.”

“No way dude, you can’t handle spicy food.” He starts to protest, and Leo continues, “You think ketchup is spicy!” He looks shocked.

“Okay, that was one time! It was a weird brand and there was way too much pepper in it!”

You bite back a giggle at their bickering, taking note of how much better Leo seems to be doing and finding surprising comfort in their banter.

It doesn’t take long to get to the airbnb and get set up. You all dump your bags in your rooms, bring in the groceries, and shove everything into the cabinets in a reasonably organized manner.

Jason heads upstairs to unpack and call Piper, announcing a few minutes later that they should be here in less than two hours.

“Perfect,” you pull out your hair dye from the last bag. It’s not exactly the manic panic wildfire red you’d initially wanted, but it’s definitely better than nothing. You stare at the box for a second, then up at Leo who’s trying to get one more bag of chips to fit in with the others.

“Hey,” you say, just loud enough to get his attention, “do you… can you get the back of my head?” He looks at you, questioning, and you hold up the box dye. He smiles, once again noting your softened edges around him.

“Yeah,” he agrees, and minutes later you’re in the bathroom, adorned in a big tee shirt covered in all your previous hair colors. He’s staring at your shirt, eyes dancing over the swirls and splatters of color. It reminds him of a painting he’d seen once, unable to remember the name.

You shake the bottle, skimming the instructions again, then start speaking to him, eyes still on the box.

“Take a section of hair, about this much,” you demonstrate, holding out a section of hair, “rub in the dye like this…”

You hand him the second bottle of red dye, and he starts on the back. His fingertips start separating out a section of your hair, and you still, a shiver running up your spine. He hesitates for a moment, then continues, and you hope he hadn’t noticed. His breath fans your ear, and you can feel the heat radiating off his chest. Your lungs are shallow suddenly, squeezed tight like a bouquet clutched in a shaking hand. You find it almost impossible to focus on dying the front half of your hair.

You don’t want it to stop, you realize. His fingertips dancing along your hair, the glimpses of his incredibly focused face in the bathroom mirror, the way he’ll gently turn your head to make sure he didn’t miss a spot.

“Shit,” he leans back, hunching forward. You look behind you, eyes landing immediately on the spot of red dye on his shirt.

“Shit,” you echo. He looks back at you, waiting to see how he’ll react.

“Oh, it’s all good - no worries. I already have a ton of motor oil and lube - lubricant… machine grade, petroleum based engine lubricant-” he laughs, “stains on this shirt anyway. Don’t sweat it.”

You almost laugh. A giggle bubbles up from your chest and stomach, but catches in your throat. Before it can come out, he slips off his dye stained gloves, and tugs off his dye stained shirt from the back. It seems to happen in slow motion. In a mere moment, your eyes engraving every detail, every line and curve and freckle to memory.

There’s really no delicate way to put it; he’s fucking jacked. Deceptively so. You’re frozen in place, cheeks flushed. You suddenly wonder what it would be like to be wrapped up in his arms, held so close to him.

You snap yourself out of the thought, all of that occurring in just a few seconds. He leans past you, setting the dye stained shirt carefully on the counter, glancing at you intensely.

“Are you checking me out?”

You make yourself roll your eyes and turn away, replying, “I’m sure you’d love that.”

Angled away from him, you momentarily reprimand yourself, squeezing your eyes shut and mouthing oh my god. You turn back to him, not recalling the last time you had to deliberately keep up your aloof front around someone like this.

“So, are we finishing my hair or just gonna leave it like this?” you ask rhetorically, motioning to your half done hair.

He watches you do this, confirming his suspicion that you’re really not as cold as you let on. A smile blooms on his face, and he doesn’t think he’s ever seen anything as… cute as that.

“Yeah,” he replies, slipping his gloves back on. The things you do around him seem to mean more now. He notices the way your eyes flutter closed for a moment when he plays with your hair, working in the dye, or the way you still for a split second when he gets a little too close to the side of your face, checking that he didn’t miss a spot.

He doesn’t want this to end either. But eventually, your hair is fully saturated with dye, the timer on your phone counting down slowly. There’s still some dye left. He sits on the closed toilet.

“Your turn. Do me.”

“What?” you laugh.

“Yeah, a little streak - up here.” He leans forward, sectioning off a part of his hair.

“Seriously?” you ask.

“Yeah. Unless you don’t want to match…” he muses. Your eyes get this dreamy look for the briefest second, then you’re turning back to shake the bottle some more.

“I guess… I mean there’s too much dye to throw out, we might as well do something with it.”

It’s his turn, now, to feel the warmth from your body, your hands running through his hair. His eyes want to close, and bask in the feeling, but he refuses to miss out on the view of you so soft, so close to him. It doesn’t last nearly long enough for either of you, and much too soon you’re pulling away and throwing away the gloves and empty bottles.

By the time you finish cleaning up and throw out the garbage, it’s time to rinse your hair. Hanging your head over the tub, you let the water flow over your head until Leo tells you it’s running clear. He does the same, and you point out too late that he only had to rinse the dyed part, not his whole head.

You both laugh as you wrap a towel around your hair, teaching him how to do the same.

“Sweet, I’ve always wondered how to do the spa snail towel thing.”

“The spa snail towel thing?” You try in vain to fight another laugh.

“Yeah, you know… cause it looks like a snail, and they do it at spas…”

“Oh… my gods…” you laugh, exiting the bathroom and heading down the hall, “I”m going to get changed.” you call.

“Am I wrong?” he asks after you, and you bite your lip to stop yourself from laughing. He heads to his room to do the same.

A few minutes later, you’re carefully pulling on your top, when he calls through your door.

“Hey, I’m gonna be in the kitchen, come down when you’re ready.”

“...Okay,” you agree.

You check your outfit in the mirror. You can still feel his fingers brushing your neck. Your head tilts at the memory. Snapshots of him pulling off his shirt in slow motion flash in your memory.

You realize how much of an affect the last hour has had on you. Your stomach drops.

You can’t possibly be falling in love. No way. Not a snowball’s chance in hell.

You’re not the falling in love type. At most, you’d hook up with someone a couple times on the rare occasion you thought they were hot, too.

Oh, you decide, that must be what’s happening. I just think he’s hot. I mean, duh. Of course he’s hot. Did you see him in there?

That’s all you have to do; hook up with him once, maybe twice, then you’ll get over it. It’ll make his ex jealous, and they’ll get back together. It will go just like it always has. Then you can move on to whatever the next crisis is.

You take a breath, resolving to follow the plan, exit your room. You throw yours and Leo’s old clothes and towels in the hamper, and head down stairs. He greets you, and pulls you into the kitchen.

“I have something to ask you.” Your brow furrows.

“...Okay.”

He takes your hand in his, the other behind his back.

“Will you…” he looks at you, gaze piercing, “...be my sous-chef.” he finishes, holding out an apron, matching his.

You study him, a hopeful, surprisingly confident look on his face. His hair is still damp. You’re sure yours is, too. You wait a beat, before replying slowly.

“Yes. But I’m not wearing that.”

“That’s fair,” he says, setting the apron on the counter, “I will have to dock your pay for being out of uniform, though.” You let out a puff of air from your nose, biting back a laugh. He pulls out a skillet, bowl, and oil, and begins preheating the pan. You watch him pull out more ingredients, and begin to set things up.

“Right now we’re waiting on that,” he says nodding at the stove. You nod, inspecting a bottle of seasoning he’d pulled out, and settle into a comfortable silence.

He thinks back to the last time you had time like this - playing twenty questions at your apartment. A pit forms in his stomach as he remembers the conversation veering to Calypso, as it always seemed to. He shoves it away. Not this time. He steadies his nerves. “So, you want to play twenty questions?”

You agree, coming closer to him.

“If you could go anywhere, where would you go?”

Your eyes flick over to the clock. You have a solid hour, hour and a half before the others are supposed to get here. You stare at him, brushing hair out of his face.

“I’d be dead in the endless void of deep space.”

He cracks a smile at how on brand that response was. Your fingertips trail down to his neck, rethen shoulder. The smile doesn’t leave his face, not completely. Your heart beats loudly in anticipation.

“My turn. Do you want to make out?”

His head snaps up, eyes locked with yours, trying to tell if you’re serious or if this is another example of your distinct sense of humor. But he can tell it’s not - there’s something a little too close to the surface in your eyes.

“Yeah. Yes, totally-”

You grab his collar, pulling him in for a kiss, and leaning back against the empty counter.

His lips are soft and warm, moving gracefully with yours. You barely register that the first kiss ends before you dive back in. You angle your head, deepening the kiss. He plants one hand on the counter, the other making its way to the small of your back. You flick your tongue past his lips, and his grip on your waist tightens. You clutch his collar tighter, other hand moving through his hair, still damp at the ends.

You can tell he’s enjoying what you do by the way his mouth quirks up ever so slightly at the corners, and by the way he starts to harden beneath you. You roll your hips into his, and he falters, sighing, breath fanning your lips. Not quite a moan, but you’re getting there.

The front door opens before you can.

Leo pulls away reluctantly, very reluctantly, and turns off the stove.

“That was fast,” he says, panting slightly and still very flushed. They’re not supposed to be here for a while, still.

A tall girl enters the kitchen, dark strawberry blonde hair pulled over her shoulder. She looks between you and Leo with a sour expression on her face.

“Calypso,” Leo says.

"...Hi."

[fluffyferalkacchan]

Kacchan & Deku: Win to Save and Save to Win - A circular path of parallels (part 2.1)

I mentioned it in part 1, but Bakugou and Midoriya's character development relies heavily on them working on their basics flaws but also on removing their own internal shackles. Only after doing so, would they be able to properly become the hero they thrived to be.

In addition to the Win to Save and Save to Win transition they need to go through.

Midoriya must also work on mastering his quirk so that he could use it without hurting himself, and he must get rid of his shackles that is his admiration and idolization of All Might.

Bakugou on the other hand must also work on not acting on his own, in other words cooperating with people, and he must get rid of his shackles which is the huge Deku-complex he's got.

This post is going to showcase how Midoriya's and Bakugou's progress were nearly always mirrored and paralleled throughout the different big arcs.

Actually this post got way longer than I expected and I reached the 10 pictures/video/gifs per posts limit pretty quickly, so this part will only go until the Stain arc.

(more under the cut)

USJ

The USJ arc is where we see Midoriya and Bakugou taking their very first step from their respective starting lines (albeit a very small and almost accidental one).

In the first part of the USJ attack, Midoriya and Bakugou are thrown into a situation where they are outnumbered and surrounded by enemies.

Midoriya quickly comes to the conclusion that if they wanted to go and save the others, they'd have no choice but to fight and win. What is interesting to note is that Midoriya thought that in order to win this he needed to act like Bakugou, which of course led to the goldmine moment where he was leaping from the side of the ship yelling "DIE" to the villains.

This is also the first time we see Midoriya actively trying not to hurt himself with the "egg in the microwave" image, instead of just trying to minimize the damage to one small area like he did during the quirk assessment test. Well he didn't really succeed there but at least he's trying.

Bakugou on the other hands is seen working with Kirishima in order to defeat the villains. There were no real teamwork or cooperating moves worth speaking of there, as they were basically both doing their own thing independently. But what I think is worth noting is that moment where we saw them fighting back to back. I don't think at that point in time Bakugou truly trusted Kirishima completely with his back, it's a little too soon for that. But it was more probably something along the lines of "I acknowledge that if you got into UA then it must be for a reason, so better not mess up".

This is also the first time we see that Bakugou isn't just blindly trying to fight people who pissed him off, but he also have quite a rational and strategic mind.

As an aside, I think it is very telling that Midoriya's next move plan was to go help Aizawa, while Bakugou's was to go fight Kurogiri. It was two very diametral mentality and strategy that nevertheless led both of them to the very same place. (Story of their lives amiright?)

Speaking of them being in the same place... What we witness next is their first success...even if it's an accidental one.

Accidental quirk use success | Accidental saving success.

He had intended to smash Shigaraki and his punch just happened to be intercepted by a Nomu with a shock absorption quirk, so it was purely accidental. But this was still the very first time Midoriya used his quirk against someone else and didn't break his bones or hurt himself in anyway.

On the other hand, we've got Bakugou who blasted in and neutralized Kurogiri and he 'just so happened' to save Midoriya who had been recklessly rushing toward the villain. It might not have been completely intentional (though that's debatable) but this is the very first time we see Bakugou intercepting an attack for someone else.

Sports Festival

The sports festival arc is touch and go in term of characters growth for both Midoriya and Bakugou. But, what I think is really interesting with this arc (which is one of my favorite btw) is that the narrative - directly or indirectly - rewards/punishes them for their growth/regression.

Successful use of his quirk against Todoroki | Successful Cooperation against Monoma

This is the very first time Midoriya is purposely using his quirk against another human being, in a friendly-fighting/training context and he doesn't break his bones in the process. This successful use of OfA allowed him to one up Todoroki and to steal his headband (reward).

But as Midoriya himself noted "It hurts, but it's not broken", because using the quirk this way still hurts him in some way, it cannot be considered a full success. Plus, Midoriya wasn't really fully trying to control his quirk since "It's not going to touch [Todoroki] either way". And so Midoriya fails to get the headband he was truly aiming for (punishment).

On the other hand, we see Bakugou fully cooperating with his teammates for the very first time. It's not some half-assed attempt or anything but a fully thought-of quirk combo that allows him to literally blast his way through Monoma's defenses and get his and several other headbands (reward).

But, Bakugou only started to truly cooperate with his teammates at the very end. The rest of the times, he was seen jumping and attacking without really warning his own teammates. And so, Bakugou fails to get the first place position he was aiming for (punishment).

Successful hit against Todoroki | Successfully staying rational against Uraraka

So I mentioned above that Midoriya's use of OfA against Todoroki during the cavalry battle wasn't 100% successful because since he had no intention of touching/hitting Todoroki he didn't really bother to fully control his quirk. This is not the case here. In the Midoriya vs. Todoroki we see him truly hitting someone else. This is the first time his "egg in the microwave" imagery worked. And I guess that if Midoriya had not been recklessly breaking every single fingers of his, it might even not have hurt his arm. But well since he's a self-sacrificing dumbass who tried to punch someone with broken fingers *shrug*

As for Bakugou... I mentioned before that he has this huge, huge, Deku-complex. (It's this weird mixture of superiority and inferiority complex which atomically burst out whenever anything Deku-related is in proximity... so yeah. Deku-complex).

And here comes Uraraka, who was part of the Deku-Uravity combo winning against him in the training battle, who is Deku's friend, whose fighting strategy could be quite similar to Deku's at times. And as a reminder Bakugou went against her fully expecting that Deku might have given her some kind of secret strategy against him, so he went in fully expecting a Deku-proxy. (Which by the way is totally untrue 'cause Uraraka is a badass strategy queen who needs no Deku to think her battle for her thank you very much)

But regardless of all the deku-factor, Bakugou fought against Uraraka without underestimated her and being super focused from the beginning to the end. And more importantly he was 100% rational and had full control on his temper.

Midoriya vs. Todoroki | Bakugou vs. Todoroki

Okay so we can all agree that breaking and double-breaking one own fingers (and arm) in order to prove a point isn't really the epitome of self-care. So I don't think I need to comment on Midoriya's failure to control OfA here.

About Bakugou though... So of course Bakugou is pissed because he didn't manage to get the indisputable win he wanted, but raging and getting handsy at unconscious opponent like this? It's the first (and I think only time?) we see him so irrational and out of control with rage at someone who isn't Deku. But is it really unrelated to Deku though?

Bakugou was already pissed that at the beginning of the Sports Festival that Todoroki would recognize Deku as a threat and not Bakugou. Then the fact that Todoroki willingly used his fire against Deku despite his previous resolve not to use it, translated into Bakugou's mind as Todoroki recognizing Deku's strength. (Which as we know isn't really what it was about, but that's how Bakugou is interpreting it.) Bakugou even explicitly asked something along the lines of " Am I not strong enough to make you use it?" at Todoroki during the fight.

So his train of thought was probably something like this:

Half-and-half refused to use his fire quirk > Deku somehow managed to make the bastard use it > Deku is strong enough to force him to use it > the bastard won't use it against me > I am not strong enough to make him do it > Deku managed to do something I couldn't > I lost against Deku again

And well... is that really so surprising that his Deku-complex exploded after that? So yeah huge failure to control himself and deal appropriately with his complex Deku-related emotions here.

One of the reasons I absolutely love the Sports festival arc is the way the Bakugou-Todoroki and Midoriya-Todoroki dynamics really reflect the Win to Save and Save to Win situation.

Midoriya went into that fight fully intending on making Todoroki use his fire side in order to save him from his clearly traumatic issues (and if he managed to win the fight while doing so, it would be an amazing bonus).

On the other hand, Bakugou went into that fight fully intending on making Todoroki use is fire side in order to win against him (and if it somehow managed to save the half-and-half from his issues, well who the fuck cares).

They had the same task in mind, but they tried to solve it from two diametrically different directions of the spectrum. Why is why their results were diametrically different too.

Midoriya managed to reach and "save" Todoroki but he failed to win the fight, while Bakugou managed to win the fight but failed to "save" Todoroki and by extension failed to get his undisputed win.

Internship

During the internship/Stain arc, both Midoriya and Bakugou are confronted with a mentor figure who points out their flaws.

Gran Torino: You're stiff! And there's discord within your mind. [...] The way you used One For All in the cavalry battle and the tournament... You should already have realized it. But your admiration for All Might and your sense of duty are like shackles. You're thinking One For All is more special than it is.

Best Jeanist: I watched you at the sports festival. You were able to freely manipulate a Quirk with high potential, and had a good grasp of application as well. [...] However, you have a fatal flaw. You believe yourself to be the strongest, and you try to put in into practice not caring how that looks... you have a ferocious nature.

Here, their shackles are textually - and almost textually in Bakugou's case - laid out to them. (Best Jeanist has no way of knowing about the whole Deku thing so he went to address a tangential problem: Bakugou's "ferocious nature").

By the way, I think it's very interesting that Gran Torino chose to make his point by beating the shit out of/fighting Midoriya, while Best Jeanist chose to restrain and lecture Bakugou on "hero nature and moral". It really emphasizes on what they think their "mentees" currently lack.

And so thanks to Gran Torino nudging him into the right direction (and Midoriya's obsession with everything Kacchan), Midoriya manages to come up with Full Cowling, which is like one of his first major breakthrough in term of quirk mastery and fighting style. His All Might-shaped shackles is still very much there and he is still at a stage where he is imitating other's (Kacchan's, the incarnation of flexibility and versatility as far as he is concerned) rather than truly having his own yet, but it's a very huge progress in the right direction.

And it shows Bakugou had listened to BJ's previous words... Even if he was missing the point by a whole a mile, seeing as what BJ meant by 'deal with them properly' was to calm the kids down but well, at least Bakugou is trying. *shrug*u did manage to internalize some things that Best Jeanist tried to teach him.

"Your hero name is supposed to inspire hope. You do not yet see the world in that context. Once you return to my agency next year, I will hear your name out."

This is what Best Jeanist told Bakugou in a flashback (chapter 293) and I think this is when Bakugou started to seriously think about what a hero -and by extension the hero name - should mean to the public and civilians. Bakugou took Best Jeanist to heart which is why he wanted BJ to be the first one to know about his Hero Name once he found it.

Another sign of Bakugou listening, was a anime only scene in S2E19, where BJ told him that patrolling was important because it gave "the public peace of mind" and it built "a sense of trust between those who protect and those who are being protected". And right after that Bakugou is called out by three kids.

Kid A: Oh, I've seen him on TV before!

Bakugou, exasperatedly thinking: Is this going to be about the sports festival again?

Kid A: He was caught by a villain and looked like he was about to cry, right?

Bakugou, yelling: What did you just say?!!!

Cue kids crying.

BJ: Did you already forget what I taught you? Deal with them properly.

Bakugou, to the kids: Listen here, I wasn't caught by the villain back then, I was thinking about how to defeat him. It wasn't that I lost. I'm the man who'll become the number one hero! There's no reason for kids like you to worry about me --

*Kids crying harder*

Okay so, on the surface layer it seems as if Bakugou has not learned anything at all and is unable or unwilling to change. And true, he didn't manage to calm down the kids and even made the situation worse, but he was trying in his own way.

According to what the kids were saying, Bakugou was remembered and depicted as a "victim", someone in "need of protection" which is the opposite image of what he is trying to instill: a "hero", someone "protecting others". (And let's not forget that for Bakugou, the very essence of a hero is someone who always wins.)

How can they "trust" Bakugou to protect them if they still see him as someone who needs to be rescued? So in his own way Bakugou was trying to reassure those kids and reaffirmed his identity as a future "hero", so that they'll be able to trust him to protect them properly.

And it shows Bakugou had listenned to BJ's previous words... Even if he was missing the point by a whole a mile, seeing as what BJ meant by 'deal with them properly' was to calm the kids down but well, at least Bakugou is trying. *shrug*

The "coming back to normal hair when angry" thing is 100% a comical effect... but like 85% of Bakugou's seemingly comical behavior shows a more emotional and vulnerable aspect of him if analyzed seriously, so I'm taking the "comical effect" with a grain of salt.

Anyway what is interesting is that Bakugou's hair got stuck that way even if he'd tried washing it after the internship and the only way for it to go back to normal is for Bakugou to be super pissed off. But if it changed back, then it stayed that way. So we can deduce from that, that whenever it exploded back to "normal", BJ would have needed to tame it back again.

And I don't know how many times BJ needed to do that, but if I had to bet, I'd say not as many as we might imagine. Because Bakugou said that his hair "got used to it" which meant he spent more time with his hair "tamed" than spiky. Which meant that apart from the kid scenes from ep19, Bakugou probably didn't have a lot of "ferocious moments" and mostly tried to hold his temper like BJ instructed him to.

Anyway....

Like I said above, i'm going to stop here, because I reached the pictures per post limit. OTL

So yeah tldr: Midoriya externalizes while Bakugou internalizes, both of them are showing growth and development but they still have a long way to go.

Part 2.2 will be about how their progresses are faring while directly confronted with their respective shackles (spoiler alert: not well) during the final exam and then it will (hopefully) go until the Deku vs Kacchan 2 where they'll finally manage to remove their shackles.

[mugichaaaa]

Bad Batch Analysis prt2

Welcome back everyone to part 2 to my Bad Batch analysis trailers. The trailer just happened to be posted around midnight and my wifi went out in the morning so I couldn’t really do much until now. Since we got another AMAZING trailer for the Bad Batch series I believe it’s time to do another analysis. If you haven’t read my first analysis from the first trailer you can read it here 

Without further ado let's get started. 

The first scene we get from the trailer is a shot after that one shot we got from the first trailer. This could probably be around the time they landed on Kamino because if you look in the top right corner there is the Havoc Marauder. 

Training Sequence

Next we see one of the many training grounds on Kamino. It’s strange seeing only one training ground and not multiple. It seems like this specific training ground might be underwater, as there is this long pole in the center with surrounding lights around it. Now that might be a reach, but honestly where could you see that training ground on the round houses above the ocean. 

Along with that in the Legends there was a Kaminoan Jedi who lived under the sea to try to prevent the vision she had. (the vision was the clone army betraying the Jedi) So it could be possible when the Kamioan’s were building the floating city they builded the bottom levels to be used as training grounds or something. 

In this scene we can see that Echo is using a vibroblade. Now is this Echo’s own vibroblade or does this belong to Hunter and Echo just picked it up to destroy one of the droids?

I feel like this shot can tell us a lot about the bad batch and how they interact with each other. Hunter and Crosshair are looking at the camera to which I can probably assume where Tarkin speaks to them. Echo lightly turns towards the direction of Tech, Hunter, and Crosshair. Tarkin probably said something that would make Echo turn to look at the three of them. 

Also Tech although very subtle looks at the ground. Now this could be two things, if Tarkin said something then it might be tech looking at the ground like a Child does when their parents scolds them. Or it might be Tech is exhausted and is looking at the destroyed droids all around him. 

Hunter is seen talking to someone (probably Omega) telling them that their squad (aka the Bad Batch) is nothing but trouble. We can see Crosshair and Tech walk to a door which I can assume to be their barracks for the time being (before they escape). 

I really like this scene from Crosshair. This seemed to show how well the Bad Batch worked together. Hunter throws his knife in the air and Crosshair goes and shoots it in place. Which might make it even more sad if Crosshair betrays the Bad Batch. Imagine this, The bad batch is in this certain situation where a duo between Crosshair and Hunter would work. Hunter turns to where Crosshair would normally be. 

“Cross lets-” 

All he sees no one, and the feeling of betrayal and pain seeps through him. 

“Right…” 

Hunter Civilian Clothing

So we see Hunter in Civilian clothes which is like. UGH please let me hold your hand Hunter. The first time we see them is at 0:31 where Hunter steals a speeder, probably to catch up to Fennec as we can see in 1:39 who has a kid. 

We get a better look at Hunter’s Civilian clothes, it really reminds me of Cut lawquane’s outfit from The Clone Wars Season 2 “The Deserters”. Maybe we might see Cut lawquane in the Bad Batch, if so I think that would be really great to see. Cut’s children with Omega might be the cutest thing we might get from Bad Batch, that’s if it happens.  

Now in this scene we see Tech piloting the ship, but if you look at the corner there is Hunter on a control panel with bandages wrapped around him. So this might be either Hunter getting injured from a mission (maybe from Fennec Shand??)

This kid (not Omega) is dangling onto a cylindrical object. The Following scene with Hunter and the kid following a speeder that belongs to Fennec Shand. 

The Final Part of the Clone Wars 

At 0:37 we see the Batchers coming down from what seems to be like a hill destroying B1 battle droids. While the next shot is Tech and Echo shooting down said droids. 

So in my previous analysis I mentioned how for one the explosions I was wondering if it was the Batchers or the Empire. Now with this new Trailer it seems to be leaning more towards the Batchers doing this. 

We see Hunter putting away his knife with Wrecker carrying what seems like to be a destroyed droid. 

Now I mentioned in my previous analysis that the snowy planet might be a Crosshair arc. But now with these new scenes with the snowy planet it might be a set up to Crosshair being something that most Bad Batch Stans don’t want. 

Crosshair as the traitor

So I know I talked about this in my last trailer analysis and I said this was very unlikely. But uhhhh now with this trailer I'm 70% sure Crosshair will betray the Bad Batch. Now the reason why I said Crosshair wouldn’t betray the Bad Batch was because the Purge trooper and Crosshair just didn’t have things that lined up. But now with this new trailer I am pretty worried for our boy Crosshair. 

This is the ONLY scene we get of Omega and Crosshair together. Any other scenes with Omega and the Bad Batch Crosshair is nowhere in sight. 

I literally called this when I wrote about my predictions about the Bad Batch series. Where I wrote two paths. One where Crosshair was not the traitor and stays with the bad batch and one if Crosshair was the traitor (I censor the right since it had my actual name since I did the bad batch analysis during school)

And 1:19 seems to likely prove my Crosshair is the traitor snippet I did. All the batchers + omega are running through what seems to be like the late night halls of Kamino. Who knew Echo would be following his brother’s footsteps. 

Again Crosshair isn’t here 

… or maybe he might be hiding him behind Hunter to give us anxiety about what happened to Crosshair. But if Crosshair is gone then they need a new sniper to fill in his role...

Omega

We are first introduced to a new character who is called “omega”.  Now who is Omega? Well we don’t know this is the first we EVER got to see them anywhere. Now when I first saw Omega I immediately thought of Satine’s Mandalore. We are not talking about the houses and clans (like house Wren). We’re talking about Satine’s Mandalorians (the pacifist) in which when we see her people in the clone wars they are normally pale with light colored eyes. Omega almost fits that but without the bright blue eyes. Another thing is that Omega kinda sounds like they have a Satine Mandalorian accent. As I was listening to Omega speak I was comparing it to Korkie and his friends and Omega lowkey sounds like Korkie’s friends but that’s probably a really big reach.

This is where I think if Crosshair betrays the Bad Batch this is where Omega would come in and take Crosshair’s role as sniper. We don’t know how good Omega is but with Hunter’s heightened sense his sight might be just as good to teach Omega to work with a bow and arrow

The Explosion

Now we have an explanation for the explosion we saw in the last trailer. It was definitely the bad batch and now we know it was part of the thrusters from a broken Venator Star Destroyer. Since now we got more context to that explosion, I believe that this will be on Bracca where maybe MAYBE we might see a young ginger Cal Kestis. 

Rex

*breaths in* 

REX I MISSED YOU SO MUCH 

I’m so happy Rex and Echo are going to a reunion. I really hope Rex and Echo have a moment where Rex completely vents to Echo about everything that happened. Like Umbara, how much Five’s death took a toll on him, and when he left Jesse and his brothers during order 66. It would be really interesting to see if Rex has some sort of survivor's guilt. I know we see a little bit in Season 7 when he’s talking to Cody about the Domino squad but after order 66 I think it would be nice to dwell onto a little more. 

Another thing I really hope we get to see how Rex meets up with Wolffe and Gregor. 

AT-ET Walker

We get a couple of scenes here of the AT-ET but here look at this. The republic symbol and the red paint is completely removed, it’s completely bare (which is so boring). Another thing is that the AT-ET are completely cutting across a group of people, these could be protestors of something that we yet not know of. 

It seems like Hunter and Tech snuck into and AT-ET, now the next scene we get is an AT-ET blowing up another AT-ET. There are two possibilities on who shot at the AT-ET, one could be the Bad Batch themselves shooting at the other AT-ET or two it could be the Empire shooting at the Bad Batch stolen AT-ET 

Saw Gerra

It’s really nice to see Saw Gerra, we have seen him in 5 star wars projects (Clone wars, Rogue one, Rebels, Jedi Fallen Order, and now Bad Batch). Since this is the beginning of the Empire we get that small time between Clone wars and Jedi: Fallen Order to see what Saw was up to. 

Fennec Shand

My wifey, I love her so much. But I did get something wrong and right with Fennec Shand in my last analysis. 

First of all the explosion we see with Fennec Shand is NOT connected to the factory arc but instead connected to Hunter saving the kid. 

But the thing I did get right was that one scene where Fennec was holding a gun out. That fog is from a fight and Fennec and her opponent are at a standstill. 

One thing new about Fennec is that she had a Kid dangling off her speeder. First of all that’s not safe at all and 2 why does Fennec have a Kid with her and then why does Hunter have the child in the next scene?

Small theory but this kid might be just like Omega that escaped. Fennec is sent out to retrieve the kid but Hunter is like “not on my watch” and takes the kid. Fennec looks shocked that Hunter interferes with her job and looks ANGY. 

Or this kid might be just some random kid that Fennec took. 

Now a recurring segment called Cool things I saw on the Trailer 

Just any scenes from the training scene with Wrecker is just cool and I’m like yes sir go off. 

I swear every scene with Wrecker is a joy to see. He just brightens my day all the time

Bad Batch are taking notes from Waxer and Boil about adopting kids during war times. 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This segment was short due to most of the trailer being analyzed and not much random spread out scenes. 

And that’s that! Thank you all who read this far, I hope I was able to make this clear enough for you all to understand. If there’s anything else you saw in the Trailer that I miss I would love for you to comment about it! I think i’m going to do a countdown for Bad Batch, idk let’s see how I keep this up. 

[ryoyuftw]

german sj commentators are the most biased people i know lmao. they never fail to mention how bad the wind was and what they could've done if they had the same conditions as others. however though i didn't feel like they were trying to tell us ryoyu's victory was undeserved. it's more about 'oh we're treated so badly' than 'oh the other ones don't deserve it' (if that makes sense)

Thanks for the answer! And thanks to everybody commenting in the tags and anonymous for this:

as a German I heard the commentator mention that according to statistics/a study there is a bias among judges to score jumpers from their own country higher (and I'm pretty sure it was in the context of markus' jump and the German judge). they also complained about ryoyu's low style marks. they said that it would be hard for Markus to do a telemark at that distance but they also praised ryoyu for managing it. there is bias towards the Germans in their commentary but it's not as egregious as the posts on here make it seem. The tag is working again by the way!!

A lot of babbling below:

It was such a strange contrast for me to read all the German comments online that were pretty much the opposite of what I got from the Norwegian broadcast.

After Ryoyu got 18s and 18.5s for landing a telemark at 143m, and then Eisenbichler got the same for almost falling and pulling his ski over a meter to the side on a shorter jump, the Norwegian commentators (Maren Lundby and Kasper Wikestad) were literally laughing at the ridiculousness and the coaching staff was livid. Clas Brede Bråthen spent the whole break between the rounds saying that this judging was a scandal and made a mockery of the sport. He even went to Pertile and complained that if this is how the judging is done without consequences, there's no point having judging at all when it's just another lottery. Then of course (enter national bias that every country has) he spent a long time talking about Lindvik getting 15.5 for a similar landing at a good distance in Oberstdorf. This whole judging debacle even made it to the headlines of our biggest newspapers!

Then in the 2nd round when Eisenbichler didn't even bother to try to set a telemark (even though Ryoyu had managed it in the previous round, and others had done it before) the Norwegian commentators were joking like "will the judges give him 19.5 for this? will we be seeing a 20?" and when he got 16.5s Maren was like "luckily he got more fair style points this time, hopefully the judges got a talking to after the first round". And of course when he jumped that far and Ryoyu who jumped two meters further than him in the first round was next, it was only logical for the jury to take the gate down, but the Germans were complaining about it and saying Markus was robbed??? Like... how???

And after Ryoyu won, Clas was literally cheering, saying that if the wrong winner (Eisenbichler in this case) had won because of such a massive and inexcusable error of the judges, it would have been a scandal, but luckily justice prevailed. Of course, this was not against Markus himself, but against the judges. He also made that clear. And the Norwegian commentators were of course mentioning Geiger's bad luck with the wind in both rounds, and thought it was really unfortunate.

Anyway, sorry for this gigantic post, but it was just such a shock to see so many people making all these ridiculous and incorrect claims. After we got a whole competition full of "the judges are incompetent which gave this German a big advantage, so he almost won unfairly" there were suddenly so many comments about "this German was given a big disadvantage and he was robbed of a fair victory". Just a big whiplash, and I didn't understand where they were supposedly coming from.

[plus-size-reader]

Sixteen pt.3

Derek Hale x Plus size!reader

Word Count: 1202 words

Warnings: none

Summary: Derek comes back home

Part 1

Part 2

——————————————————————————————————

You had no idea what happened out there.

All you knew was when you opened your door, standing there with the rain and raging storm behind him was Derek Hale, your Derek Hale. He wasn’t sixteen anymore, and for that, you were glad.

It didn’t matter how it happened or what was going on out there, all you could think about was the fact that he was back to normal and nothing was ever going to be better than that.

At the very least, you wouldn’t have to try and keep the pack out of danger by yourself now. It was getting to be pretty difficult without ‘sourwolf’,as Stiles called him, there to call the shots.

You were in a little over your head and you didn’t want to mess anything up.

“Can I come in?” he hummed after a few minutes, tired of standing in the rain. He was relieved to see that you were okay, and still reeling from the previous events but that all took a backseat to how he felt about you.

In the time that he’d been that way, he’d had a lot to think about and it all had to do with you. No matter how hard he tried, he always came back to you and there was something he had to change.

It wasn’t right.

He had woken up with every memory he’d had from his blast from the past, and though they were a little fuzzy, there was no changing what he knew to be true.

When he found out, at the ripe age of sixteen, that the two of you weren’t in a committed relationship, let alone married, he could hardly believe it. It had broken his heart and in some ways, he still felt that way.

In those days, he had always felt like his future was in your hands and that the two of you would be together forever but that just wasn’t how it worked out.

As you grew older, you were constantly focused on your career, and Derek had become closed off and selfish after the fire. It just wasn’t as simple as it was supposed to be in those days.

...It had never been that simple.

Looking back at it, Derek wondered if the two of you ever had a chance at being more than you were? You were close, sharing space and an unwavering connection but you couldn’t call it a relationship.

To call it that would be a lie, but that didn’t mean that Derek didn’t want that.

He had always wanted to be something to you, and after what he’d just been through, he was starting to think that the risk was worth taking.

“Yeah, come on” you urged, reaching out to snag the fabric of his shirt to pull you through the doorway. He was soaking wet and you knew that he was going to track water into the house, but you didn’t care.

Right now, you just wanted to make sure that he was safe and there was nowhere he’d be more safe than in your arms.

“I missed you so much” you gushed, content once the door had closed that nothing bad could happen, so that you could give him a big hug.

It was nice, albeit trippy, to see Derek all young and tiny but you didn’t love that kid anymore. You loved the man that he had turned into, no matter how grumpy he may have been.

“I missed you too” he muttered, though he could hardly focus on the words falling from his lips as he held you close. It was insane that he was even thinking about this, but it had to be this way.

He knew it and you knew it.

It was just a lot harder to make a reality than he thought it should have been.

After all, the two of you had been best friends all your lives and he knew perfectly well that he was in love with you, but for some reason, admitting that was difficult.

Maybe he was afraid because it was just someone else that he could lose at the hands of some horrible enemy but that wasn’t really it. All things considered, even his mother knew the two of you would always be together.

That was why she had prepared you for all the things being in this life would throw at you and he was never going to be without you, so it was only natural that he took that next step.

Neither of you had anything to be afraid of.

“Will you marry me?”

It came out of nowhere, even shocking Derek, but he didn’t even move to correct it. He wanted to be as smooth as possible, but it wasn’t going to happen. This had been a long time coming, and there was no use fighting it now.

There was silence for a moment or two as you tried to figure out what he was asking. You understood in the traditional sense of course but not in the context of both you and Derek.

You had never even considered getting married before this but for some reason, the look in Derek’s eyes told you that he was serious. This wasn’t like the other times when he suggested it like a joke.

Especially not after everything he’d just been through.

“Are you serious? Why do you want to get married now?” you asked, not necessarily shutting him down but just curious. Of all the opportunities he’d had to ask before, this was kind of out of the blue.

Not that you were going to consider his offer any less than you would have any other time.

“I’ve just been thinking about it. Why haven’t we gotten married by now? Didn’t we always talk about it?” He wondered, sitting down on the couch with you following close behind.

Derek had a point.

Looking around, you noticed that everything in this space that the two of you shared was confirmation of what he said. There was proof everywhere, from framed pictures of the two of you together to a shelf of yearbooks from both your years at Beacon.

It was all there and nothing was ever going to change that.

At this point in your lives, you were constantly surrounded by tribute to your past, present, and future that you were sure would always include Derek. In truth, there was no reason not to get married.

All you had to do was agree.

“You really want to do this don’t you?” you clarified, searching his face for any clue that he could have been bluffing and when you found none, you could have cried.

Derek was actually asking you to marry him, and you weren’t going to deny him. You never thought this day would come but now that it was here, you could have been happier.

Maybe it had been a hard few days for both you and Derek, but there was one good thing that came out of it. It had taken a blast from the past to realize it but you were going to make sixteen year old Derek and current Derek very happy regardless.

[x0401x]

Jeweler Richard Fanbook Short Story #17

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Play of Color

Shaved ice.

A summer that everyone, from kids to adults, knew about. But how to say this in English? I’d never been taught that. Could I even say it to begin with?

The beautiful man responded clearly to my offhand doubts, “‘Shaved ice’. Other options such as ‘ice frost’ and ‘snow cone’ also go into the category, but if you are to to regard the context of ‘ice that was shaved’ as important, then I believe ‘shaved ice’ is appropriate.”

“I see, so it’s a direct translation for ‘ice that’s been shaved’. Got it... A-Aaah! Didn’t you put too much syrup? Ah—”

“I will add more ice.”

A rattling sound echoed through the jewelry shop, where there was nobody but the shopkeeper and his employee. Sitting on the tabletop was an ice shaving machine. As one would expect, we couldn’t commit the barbarianism of placing it directly on a glass table, so three cloths were stacked under the machine’s legs. It wasn’t the manual and nostalgic type but an electric one.

A customer had come over with a paper bag from a famous home appliances mass retailer and bought a glittering yellow diamond that they had reserved, but on this occasion, they ended up forgetting the bag from the electronics retail store. The shopkeeper immediately noticed it and contacted them by phone, but they were in the Narita Express, going straight to Bali for vacation. Apparently, they would only be coming back in the beginning of autumn. What luxury.

The customer who was heading to the southern island had casually said, “You can use it if you’d like—actually, please use it and tell me how it went”, then bid goodbye to Richard with a lighthearted voice and hung up. Inside the paper bag was a brand-new ice shaving machine. It also came with small syrup bags. Seven types of them. The mango, ramune, cola, lime and peach ones were a shock to me, as lived in a world of strawberry, melon and lemon ones. So people could enjoy even things like the pleasure of actually visiting stalls at home nowadays?

That was how we decided to choose at our own discretion a time on the following day when there were no reservations, and began holding a shaved ice party for just the two of us. However, when I said in a joking tone that I honestly never thought we’d really get to be the first ones to use something that a customer had forgotten, Mr. Richard Ranashinghe de Vulpian sighed grievously.

“After what happened yesterday, he contacted me to inform that he had arrived in Bali. He posted on social media, ‘I forgot my ice shaving machine, so I asked an acquaintance to try it out. I’m looking forward to it’, so it seems we need to take a video of the shaved ice as fast as possible. Think of this as also a kind of service.”

“There’s all sorts of jobs out there these days.”

Marketing that introduced new products on social media wasn’t something uncommon these days. But I heard that this sort of business was strict about many things, such as obligations and deadlines, so it might be serious stuff in its own way. I thought up until this point, but then my head whispered, “No, hold on” to me. If this was really the case, then bringing along an ice shaving machine immediately before going to Bali didn’t make any sense. Could it be...?

“Did that person leave this here on purpose? It’s clearly something that you can’t bring into an airplane and would get in the way during the trip.”

“That is possible. But it is not something for a single jeweler to judge. There is a possibility that they thought they would be able to enjoy shaved ice at a beach resort but were mistaken, and are now feeling down. Oh... oh, mgh...”

“Ah, the ice turned into water. Didn’t you put a tad too much syrup?”

“Nonsense. From the market price, it is obvious that the more syrup, the merrier.”

“You told that wholesaler who came to buy a ring with lots of decorative diamonds the other day that ‘more doesn’t equal better’, though.”

“Those are two different things,” he said in an eloquent, beautiful Japanese that sounded like it had been cut and trimmed, at which I prostrated myself with a “hahaa”.

Despite the force in his eyes being certain, he seemed to be having trouble putting an appropriate amount of syrup. When he put an abundant amount of the mango, ramune, cola, lime and peach ones all together, the ski slope-like white canvas turned into a color that looked like that of Shinjuku’s gutters during a downpour. Richard would surely call this shade of gray “smoky quartz” or something like that. The fluffy pile of ice was gone, leaving a sleet – or just plain water – in the glass bowl. It would’ve been fine if he had added them little by little, but on second thought, I was thinking this way because I was Japanese, so I was used to the way we added shaved ice syrup to some extent.

As the jeweler, not discouraged, put his bowl under the ice shaving machine, pressed the button and added more ice with crunchy noises, I called out to him, “Hey. Can you lend me that for a bit?”

“I do not mind.”

I took the bowl of water in my hands, adding the syrups of each type little by little. I felt like the jeweler was staring fixedly at me, like, “You’ll only use that tiny little bit of them? Seriously?” but I ignored him. As they said, the last drop makes the cup run over.

The result was...

“Tadaaah.”

A snowy mountain had changed its form into a richly colored shaved ice. I thought it was pretty good, if I could say so myself.

His eyelashes fluttering as he blinked for a moment, the gorgeous jeweler whispered, “Hoo. Excellent. Beautiful.”

“Well, being told that by someone who’s like an incarnation of the concept of beauty is flattering.”

“Ahem. Anyway, this color is extremely tasteful. It bears a close remembrance to ammolite.”

“‘Ammo... nite’?”

“Not ‘ni’, ‘li’. ‘Ammolite’. Ammolite is a gemstone that derivates from living creatures, of which the components obtain an iridescent effect during the many years of fossilization.” Saying this, Richard opened a video on his phone and handed it over to me. I exchanged it for the bowl of shaved ice as if it were an assembly-line system.

What appeared on-screen was a cross-section view of the ammonite. It was split vertically like a CT image taken at a hospital. The contents were a rainbow-colored stone that sparkled brightly. A gradation of red, green and yellow. It changed depending on what angle you looked at it. A while ago, when I heard about the opal, it was revealed to me that this kind of effect was called “play of color”. Still, to think that the inside of a shell could go through such a transition. There was too much depth to the things that happened in nature, and they were immeasurable.

“So can this be called... a stone too...?”

“This would be something that happened about forty years ago, but it was classified as a ‘gemstone’ by the Gemological Society of America. Of course, I do not think it should be pushed through, even if the costumer themselves happen to say that ‘this is a fossil’.”

It apparently depended on how you thought of it. Thinking back, this applied even to the general idea of gemstones.

I flicked the phone’s screen, head-over-heels for the prism-like shells that showed up one after another. Some people used them as pendants or brooches by processing the glittering part with gold.

“How pretty. Hey, do we also have ammolites here in Etrang... eh?”

“There is a possibility that we will one day. Something the matter?”

The beautiful jeweler had been scooping the shaved ice with a tiny spoon and eating it. He wasn’t eating it in a rushed way at all, but half of the iceberg was already gone. With perfect moderation, so that the proportion of the colors of the syrups that I had added one by one wouldn’t crumble.

“D-Did you like it that much?”

“I have never eaten shaved ice at Japanese stalls. Having a frozen desert in a refreshing place like this has a nostalgic air to it.”

He had never waged shaved ice at a stall. Did that mean he had eaten shaved ice at some fashionable shop? Probably not, I thought. A normal Japanese person wouldn’t eat shaved ice at that pace. The reason went without saying. This pace was – how should I put it? – dangerous.

“Richard, hey, listen well. Shaved ice is—”

“Why are you coming close?”

“I’m telling you something important. You have to eat shaved ice at a high pace.”

“But why are you shortening the distance between us? You are too close.”

“Don’t get hung up on minor stuff. More importantly, you already ate a lot of this shaved ice, right? Aren’t you tired of it? I can eat the rest.”

“It is terribly disconcerting to hear this from the father of this work of art, but I do not see any reason for that whatsoever, thus I humbly decline.”

“Aah! Don’t gulp it down! I said don’t gulp it down!”

“I am not. I do not eat that way.”

“Like I said, that’s not what I’m talking about...”

“It is impolite for me to eat by myself. Hurry and make yours to eat as well.”

“Whatever happens got nothing to do with me...”

Glancing backwards at the jeweler as he gave me an aloof nod, I began making my own shaved ice.

Later on, after Richard pleased the customer by sending them pictures of the shaved ice, he reported back to me. He probably reported because the pictures he had sent to the customer was of the shaved ice that I had made for myself, on which the colors were scattered in the form of a whirlwind. I smiled back, replying that I was glad, and not saying anything else. I also didn’t tell him that, by the time he remembered we had to do a photo shoot of it, the beautiful jeweler was making a face that looked like a boy having a worrisome migraine due to some anguish towards the meaning of life and death.

Summer was not yet over. We also didn’t know yet whether or not the customer in Bali would come to retrieve the ice shaving machine. Etranger wasn’t that big, so Richard was probably troubled that it was left there. But if they didn’t come to get it, I might be able to enjoy eating shaved ice with Richard in the summer every year for a while, I thought. And each of these times, I’d be sure to make a shiny mountain of ice in the colors of a rainbow, just like an ammolite. Just like the sparkly smile that Richard showed, I thought that it’d be great if such a summer came around and was looking forward to it.

[a-dumb-sarcastic-bisexual]

So I rewatched Raya.

And I was really trying to watch it without a skeptical lens. I wanted to be able to act like the oblivious kids in that theater and just enjoy the movie. But I just couldn't. I've mentioned it before it's a gorgeous movie but there are so many things wrong with it that just bug me. And I’ve mentioned before the changes that could be made to fix it and the main one being just completely scrapping the movie and starting from scratch with a tv show. And because I’m on spring break and I have nothing to do (also I’m a perfectionist and I tend to hyper-fixate on things that I know have easy solutions) I broke down how I would make it better in two different categories. The first one being kind of baseline stuff like animation and character designs and other stuff I had small problems with and the second being plot.

Section One:

Okay so I know we all hate Sisu’s design. As someone who grew up with Naga carvings and paintings all around my house seeing this Elsa fursona was like a slap to the face. Like I know I really shouldn’t expect more from Disney but I did. I mentioned in this post that I would have loved to see a longer series even if it meant the animation quality went down. And I feel like Neeith_ on TikTok did a great job of drawing what Sisu could have looked like which only disappointed me more. Caldatelier on Twitter also pointed out the many flaws with Raya’s outfit design which fully proved to me that Disney did little to no research and chose style points over historical accuracy. I also felt like the designs of the main characters were very unremarkable and before you’re like “that the whole point it’s supposed to be normal people saving the world” I don't mean that I mean it feels like they took previous designs and just made them Asian. Like my sister and I were talking about it and she said the baby just reminded her of the boss baby and Tong reminded her of one of the twins from rapunzel with a little more depth. This is also kind of a small thing but it kind of bugged me that they were all the same skin tone if not lighter. SEA is incredibly diverse and if they weren’t going to represent all of the cultures in full then they could at least shown their features. I feel like the food should have been more important. I know I mentioned it in my last post but food is an incredibly important part of our culture. It’s not a placeholder or a set-piece to make a scene look more aesthetically pleasing. It’s a way for us to bond and show each other we care it’s a way we show genuine love and appreciation. And when you have a main character who is emotionally stunted it felt like food was a perfect way for her to show her love and they blew it. Like can you imagine Raya and her dad getting into huge fights and then bringing each other food as an apology sitting in front of that window not needing to say a word because they simply get each other? Can you imagine Raya visiting Namaari and stocking up on foods that she knows Namaari loves but also hasn’t been able to eat for a while? We could have had genuinely heartwarming scenes centered around food but instead, we got set pieces and props. And one more thing that stuck with me was the voice acting this movie should have been a change for SEA voice actors to really put their names out there and be a part of a really big Disney project but as always out voiced were overshadowed by someone lighter.

Section Two:

(I’m going to warn you this is gonna be really long because I’m essentially rewriting the entire plot because as I said before I’m a perfectionist)

I feel like the first ep should be dedicated to the backstory and the lore

How were the Druuns made how where they defeated

I feel like it would have been interesting to see them fighting over the gem

But I think it would have been really interesting to see from the get-go how Sisu wasn’t the one who made the gem

So instead of having this big reveal alongside Raya, we would know that her hope of finding this all powerful Naga is hopeless because the story was a lie

Another thing I think another person who should have had more screentime was Raya’s dad

I think it would have been interesting to know his backstory and get some questions answered like “why does he have so much faith in the other rulers to help him on his journey to make Kumandra a thing?” “When did he become the protector of the gem?” “And how many attempts of stealing the gem has he thwarted”

Also as much as I love him I feel like his personality incredibly unrealistic because all SEA men I’ve met have been really emotionally stunted

Idk it’s just a small thing that made me go “eh he talks to his daughter. What kind of magic world is this?”

I would have liked to see Raya’s various attempts at becoming a protector of the gem

I think it would have been a really good way to show how resilient she is from a very young age

And when she finally succeeds the audience could have celebrated with her like a small “yes she finally got it and all her hard work finally paid off” moment

I feel like we should have gotten more Raya and Namaari moments right from the start

Like how they meet is basically the same but Raya doesn’t trust her with the gem’s location an hour after meeting her

It's a trust that both of them fought for in their own way

Like you get to see them bond over their mutual understanding of “well the worlds fucked”

So when Namaari finally stabs Raya in the back when she betrays her for the first time it hurts when she says the throwaway line about them being friends in another world in burns Raya

Because she thought they were friends and she genuinely trusted Namaari

Which would have really justified her distrust in the world

And again I feel like we should have seen that 6 year period of Raya trying to find Sisu

We would get to experience the frustration of building up the hope of finally finding her just to have it knocked down when she’s not there

It could also do two more things

Raya making genuine connections with people

And Raya and Namaari’s strange alliance forming

Now for the first one, I feel like it would have been really cool for Raya to be introduced to the different lands

And yeah sure I feel like it would make her feel like kind of a tourist but I feel like it would be really interesting to see her go through culture shock

Because she really thought she knew these places but boom they’re completely different from what she was told

And while she’s making her way around she learns about the different lands and the people inhabiting them and also their culture

We could have seen Raya make genuine connections outside of the main cast

And if you’re feeling a little masochistic we could see her lose those people because of the druune or simply because they died

But the main point is we would be able to see her become less and less selfish

Now back to Raya and Namaari’s alliance/romance later on

I mentioned in my other post that when Raya trusted Namaari to put the gem back together it felt very flat very fake

So I feel like it would be cool for the series to be split into two parts the first part being from Raya’s perspective and the second part being Namaari’s

I also feel like Namaari would have to be a constant in Raya’s journey

And what I mean by that is like she’s there every other episode either trying to stop Raya or she’s trying to save her from life or death situations

And later on down the line, we find out the main reason why she kept helping Raya (in her own way) was that she didn’t want to see her get seriously hurt

But anyway that’s mostly backstory and now we’re in the present tense

And like I said before we know that Sisu wasn’t the one who made the gem so we know that Raya’s quest is pointless

But because we’ve seen her various attempts at becoming the protector of the gem and the six years of looking for Sisu we know she’s too stubborn to give up just yet

So she and Sisu head out to find the other gem pieces

Now with context, her and Namaari’s standoff has more tension because for the first time in years Namaari doesn’t know the motives behind Raya’s actions

I don’t really have many ideas for Sisu other than she starts to trust people less and less

Like she’s still really innocent for the most part but there’s a small part of her a really small part that’s kind of lost faith in humanity

And after this, we meet Boun

I feel like we should have known more about Boun considering the fact he’s the first side characters we met

But it’s very clear they gave no thought to his character I’m sure they just wrote down “funny kid who lost his family”

This is such a shame because he could have been so much more than just “Raya’s funny younger brother”

Like he could have been this selfless kid who hands out food to the orphans around and offering his ship to homeless people during the night

Next with the baby and the monkeys, there’s really not much you can do with them unless you seriously age them up

Like at the very least have Noi be a grade-schooler who can express more emotions than mad and hungry

Like she can still be the baby of the group while taking care of herself and expressing her emotions a great example of this is Polly from amphibia (which is a great show with a SEA main character you should check it out)

With Tong, I have two words: Survivors Guilt which is something Raya would be able to relate to in fact they all would

I feel like Tong’s entire character arc would be him realizing that he can’t save everyone

Which yeah sure would seem pretty contradictory with the ending being them literally saving everybody but I have a fix for that too

And finally, we get to Namaari who is selfless to a fault

Giving me very much typical Disney princess she gives up food to kids who seem particularly hungry

She’s usually the one who tells the stories to the kids but her mom was taking over that day

She helps her people in any way she can and honestly, she’s wearing herself a little thin

Because while she’s doing all that she’s also saving Raya & co from their own mistakes

Giving me very much burning the candle at both ends

So you see all these characters bonding over the course of at least a year

Making and losing more allies along the way

And because Namaari has been helping them they trust her… for the most part

But there have been times when she trips them up and makes their end goal all the more difficult

And because they haven’t known her as long as Raya has each character has at least one moment when they look up at the sky and scream in frustration “What is this binturi’s deal!”

But anyway they finally get to fang and Raya is more open to the idea of just talking to Namaari because she trusts her not because Sisu told her to but because she’s seen Namaari do good

And Namaari is even more reluctant to take the gem pieces by force because she has a decent relationship with Raya like yeah sure they’re not best friends but they’re in a good place

And shocker shocker she’s maybe just maybe head over heels in love with the princess of heart

But her mother gives her an ultimatum and that is “either you take it from her or I will”

Because here’s the thing, Queen Virana isn't a moron the exact opposite in fact and she knows her daughter has been going easy on Raya these past six years

She also knows that she could squash Raya under her shoe if she damn well pleased and Namaari knows this too

So when Namaari gets her necklace back she doesn’t even hesitate to take her crossbow when she leaves

The meet up goes basically the same except its more Raya talking Namaari down than Sisu

And while they’re having their little heart to heart Sisu notices Namaari’s finger twitch and she goes to jump in front of Raya

And Namaari was shaken by the sudden movement and fires and kills Sisu

I feel like this would make Raya furious for two reasons one she killed her best friend and two she deep down trusted Namaari to do the right thing

So when the fight goes down instead of the whole “I don't care if you trust me because Sisu did” it would be “I trusted you and you murdered her”

And when the dust settles Raya realizes that this battle doesn’t matter because fighting Namaari isn’t going to bring Sisu and she’s also sick and tired of hurting the people she loves

And she decides to help people instead not because Sisu would want her to but because its the right thing to do

Which is cliche sure but its better than the scene they gave us which really wasn’t faithful to her character arc of not caring for people who aren't close to her

And I feel like Namaari joining her makes more sense with my context if anything else

And here’s how I would fix this scene even with them fighting the Druune off to the best of their abilities there are still falling buildings and the gem can’t really save people from that

So they lose some people not because of the Druune but because death happens even when the heroes are fighting their hardest

And because I feel like this would just affirm Tong’s character arc because there are people dying under these buildings he knows it’ll take too long to save them and its not time they have

So he leaves them behind prioritizing the people he knows he can save

Anyway, after a long battle scene, they finally end up underground

And it goes basically the same except it doesn’t take Raya as long to convince them

And instead of Raya’s reasoning of “Sisu told us to” it's more “all this fighting isn't going to bring Sisu back” and “I know she’s done something terrible and you can be mad at her after this but for now trust her”

So when they all make their sacrifices it’s less “I’m doing this for Raya” and more “I’m doing this because deep down I know you’ll do the right thing”

And Namaari does do the right thing obviously

Sisu comes back and it's all “yay we saved the world!” but it doesn’t really end there

Because I hate the “lifetime” ending of “even though we all went through incredibly traumatic events we’re all fine months later” no they’re running around for months and years fixing their mess

And while this is happening Raya and Namaari is mending their relationship they’ve apologized for all the terrible things they’ve done to each other

And when they’re fixing their world they’re helping each other become the best versions of themselves

That’s when they really fall in love

Like don't get me wrong they loved each other when all the bad shit was going down but there was too much bad blood them to really process it and talk it out

But that’s exactly what they do when it’s all over they talk it out for hours

In fact, they both said its the most they’ve heard the other speak

They both agree they’re in the best place to start a relationship and so they do