#like i understand where you’re coming from but sora very much has killed people

[daylighteclipsed]

Blaming KH2 Sora’s anger and aggression all on Roxas really downplays how ready to throw hands Sora is in KH1 and CoM.

[m-y-fandoms]

1 Thing I Love & 1 Thing I Hate About EVERY Danganronpa Character Part 1

Part 2

SPOILERS FOR ALL THREE MAIN GAMES

I’d love to hear our opinions as well in the comments or my inbox or DM’s! If you try this trend with DR characters, tag me!

Sayaka Maizono

♡ Her passion for her career and friends.

✘ The way she tries to screw over Makoto when the game had just begun. Like wait and see what happens before screwing over such a great guy? Leon didn’t deserve it either.

Leon Kuwata

♡ His voice actor (English), and how real and human his execution was in that we all would be so scared and irrational. It was just so iconic and sad as it’s our first introduction to the death in this series and we all think: “shit, this is real... they are really killing these kids.” I didn’t think it would be that brutal, just seeing his body limp at the end with the haunting music.

✘ His design is disgusting. I hate how he looks.

Chihiro Fujisaki

♡ So innocent, so kind, so intelligent

✘ Shouldn’t have been killed for such a stupid reason, also they did Mondo dirty with that motive for killing as well. Just a mess. As for the actual character, Chihiro cries right off the bat when you do your introductions and that was kind of annoying to me personally.

Mondo Oowada

♡ He has a lot of respect, understanding and emotions for someone I thought would be a hard-ass douche biker.

✘ The worst motive to kill ever in a game where you know you’re getting executed if you’re found out. Like you’d be extra careful and that’s his reason to kill? Lazy writing.

Celestia Ludenberg

♡ Bad bitch energy and her goth lolita design.

✘ Manipulation and double murder. Bad bitch energy only goes so far. Confidence is different then selfishness. Also, of all the chapter 3 triple murders... the worst motive to kill.

Kiyotaka Ishimaru

♡ Emotions: secure in his masculinity, able to cry, show emotions, and apologize when he’s wrong. He’s funny and likable.

✘ The Ishimondo white hair thing was stupid. Taka was fine on his own.

Hifumi Yamada

♡ Writing takes talent, fan fiction as much as any other style or genre. Also the talent of his voice actor (who also voices Kiibo/K1-B0).

✘ Literally everything else about him.

Sakura Oogami

♡ I love everything about her. I love her wisdom, loyalty, design, voice etc. Just step on me, mother.

✘ Why the hell would she ever agree to be a spy even if it meant the end of her dojo? I just don’t think she would do that rationally because she isn’t selfish. The others would suffer for her spying. She remedies this with redemption in her letter in chapter 4 but still she should’ve said no off the bat. Everyone had something to lose. The dojo wasn’t worth spying for monokuma. Also I just don’t think she would commit suicide. She can’t help the remaining students survive and redeem herself truly if she’s dead.

Kyoko Kirigiri

♡ Bad bitch energy, calm and collected when I could never be.

✘ Especially in future arc of the anime, damn can you show some emotion please? Through your words and expressions not just your actions. Sure she was willing to “die” for Makoto but like I just want more emotion from her sometimes, even in THH.

Makoto Naegi

♡ So pure. I Love Bryce Papenbrook. Makoto reminds me of Sora and I love his design.

✘ In THH I didn’t mind his innocence but in the Danganronpa 3 future arc anime, when people started straight up abusing him and accusing him, he needed to grow a little backbone.

Byakuya Togami

♡ Love my dad, king shit, also love how over the progression of the games and animes he becomes a little more kind to his friends.

✘ Why the fuck did he mess with Chihiro’s body? Just so cruel and disrespectful.

Yasuhiro Hagakure

♡ Funny magic man. Sexy voice.

✘ Please. Please Hiro use your brain just once. Why do we have to prove Kyoko isn’t a ghost?!

Toko Fukawa

♡ Character development in UDG and I love Genocider.

✘ Putting down herself and others constantly gets old in THH.

Aoi Asahina

♡ Love her voice actress and her personality

✘ We really just gonna get everyone killed in chapter 4 huh? Surely you know they don’t all deserve that.

Junko Enoshima

♡ A very memorable villain with great hair and design.

✘ I just can’t stand her. I hate her so much.

Mukuro Ikusaba

♡ Her mercenary background is super cool as a concept.

✘ Too bad it wasn’t explored nearly enough.

Hajime Hinata

♡ Seeing the protagonist be a little less naive, innocent and positive than Makoto was a refreshing change, although I loved Makoto. I liked Hajime’s cynicism and expressions that sometimes just screamed “this shit again, huh?”

✘ I enjoy the way Izuru looks but I hate him as a character. He is sexy to look at but Hajime is just a better character overall

Teruteru Hanamura

♡ His love for his family and mother especially is so cute and heart breaking if you know the full story.

✘ He needs to know when to dial it back and quit with the perversions. And no it’s not just how he looks, Miu needs to chill at times, too.

Twogami

♡ I feel like he genuinely cares about his friends, just hides it well

✘ His death felt like a cop out and poorly written. It just didn’t sit right with me. Also his design is disgusting to me, his outfit and such.

Mahiru Koizumi

♡ Loyal to her close friends.

✘ I just have no interest in her as a character and I find her boring.

Peko Pekoyama

♡ Loyalty. Loyalty is something I value very highly in every form of relationship. Peko is also very hot.

✘ Come on girl... I know how you were raised but you should’ve known Fuyuhiko didn’t think of you as just a tool and you two should’ve expressed your true feelings long ago. Like even in secret. How do you live like this? Also I feel like killing Mahiru could’ve been avoided with a calm talk.

Ibuki Mioda

♡ Cute design, positive vibes.

✘ Cringe sometimes in the way she talks.

Hiyoko Saionji

♡ Beautiful character design and some very good insults and snarky remarks at times.

✘ Just irredeemably mean and annoying. Even when you do her free time events she is just so annoying.

Mikan Tsumiki

♡ I like her design as well as her hair, expressions, sprites and clothing.

✘ I hate her. I just hate her whether she’s in her true psycho form or timid stuttering form. She’s just annoying in my opinion.

Nekomaru Nidai

♡ So supportive, can hold my drink at a party. Respects everyone and wants the best for them.

✘ Bro Mechamaru was a stupid plot point. I just couldn’t stand looking at him and couldn’t take it seriously. Still sad when he died though.

Chiaki Nanami

♡ From chapter 5 of sdr2 on she is impossible not to love if you didn’t already. Just the selflessness, the sadness of the reveal and execution, how she returns to help Hajime at the end???? I love her. I love her hair design, color palette, her personality, everything.

✘ I’m bitter and miserable about her being the only class member to actually die (the despair arc anime) also her falling asleep at random times is kind of odd and she doesn’t seem to be like that later on in the game??? Like it seemed like a cheap joke but not actually who she is? Hard for me to explain.

Gundham Tanaka

♡ King shit, couldn’t praise him enough. He’s sexy, loves animals, and is funny as hell sometimes. His voice actor is a saint and a cool dude and I named my guinea pigs after the Dark Devas (yes I know they are hamsters in the games.)

✘ Come on dude. I get that being from Hell and magic and having evil powers is your shtick, but we all know that you and Nekomaru sacrificed yourselves so the others wouldn’t starve. We know you care about your classmates. There comes a time when it’s time to let personas and facades fade and be true to your heart. I just feel like him denying he cared at the end hurt. We all know he cared. I didn’t like how he was haughty until the end. He deserved better. I love him.

Nagito Komaeda

♡ I love him so much. So cunning and intelligent, always a step ahead. And he’s big sexy.

✘ Him killing himself in chapter 5 hurt me so bad I was like in denial for days. Also hate how Bryce Papenbrook gives him a raspy stoner psycho voice in the game then a light airy higher-pitched voice in the despair arc anime. It just bothers me. I love his voice still but the inconsistency just hurts my OCD

Sonia Nevermind

♡ I love that she’s so interested in her passions and love her feelings for Gundham

✘ Her outfit and bow are atrocious. Also why didn’t she start liking and talking to Gundham sooner on? Their romance bloomed late and it would’ve made for a better chapter 4 ending if they were a bit closer.

Kazuichi Souda

♡ Cool design and outfit, love his voice (also voices Kaito in V3) and his backstory is relatable at times. He’s also very human in that he’s scared a lot of the time or insecure or blames others in panicked situations. It’s not always a good thing but it’s human and realistic.

✘ Gosh he can be so annoying. Sometimes flirting or whining too much is well... too much.

Akane Owari

♡ Strong-willed and definitely someone I would be friends with

✘ What the hell is her outfit? Gymnasts and athletes don’t wear that shit. Stop objectifying her when it doesn’t even make the product or plot better. Like there’s absolutely no point to making her dress that way. I was a gymnast for 15 years. Even those who do parkour (which Akane seems to do more often than actual gymnastics in the anime and game) don’t wear what she wears. Also she’s underrated.

Fuyuhiko Kuzuryuu

♡ I love him. He’s the DR character I’m most like out of all the games and anime. Tenko is a close second. I think he’s adorable, love his character arc, development, redemption, and love his voice.

✘ In the anime/despair arc, Fuyuhiko is not done justice. He doesn’t get enough lines, has a different voice actor, just doesn’t give off the same vibes.

Izuru Kamakura

♡ Sexy man long hair good.

✘ Boring character. I wish he were just Hajime.

Kaede Akamatsu

♡ Loyalty and leadership are such attractive qualities in her. Also she faced her death with such class and dignity and I respect her because I could never.

✘ Some of the voice lines Erika does for her are just weird and cringe. Just random moans or grunts... I don’t know it’s like when Ann Takamaki from Persona 5 (also voiced by Erika) makes suggestive noises as well. Just grinds my gears. Also hate her outfit down to the hair pins.

Shuichi Saihara

♡ I love his nasally voice. I love his design and he’s so adorable. I love how emotional and compassionate he can be. He ties with Makoto for favorite protag of mine.

✘ That sprite where he sniffs his hand. And his ugly ass hat.

Rantarou Amami

♡ Sexy man, sexy voice, sexy piercings

✘ Ugly outfit, and wasted potential

Ryoma Hoshi

♡ I respect him and feel bad for his outlook on life and for how poorly he views himself. I love his little hat as well and he’s the first “different styled” character (Hifumi, Bandai, Teruteru) that I liked the design of.

✘ I hate when he says “got a long ways to go,” it’s overused and annoying, and wish he gave himself more credit. Also hate that when you first meet him he warns you that he’s killed people and is dangerous to be around. Come on buddy, you know you wouldn’t hurt your friends. Stop pushing them away.

Kirumi Tojo

♡ Competence, well rounded, skillful

✘ Boring as hell. I wouldn’t waste one free time event on her.

Angie Yonaga

♡ Dark skin, super cute, love her talent as an artist myself.

✘ Gives religious people a bad name and is super manipulative which I hate.

Tenko Chabashira

♡ I relate to her and feel bad when she’s misunderstood. She’s a good person deep down. Also love her sprites.

✘ There’s more cunning, funny and clever ways to write her digs at men.

Korekiyo Shunguuji

♡ I’m in love with this man. Long hair, voice, mystery, mask, intelligence, passion, talent.

✘ He definitely was a victim of abuse and a lot of people refuse to see that and just hate him. Team Danganronpa should’ve given him a redemption arc where he realized his sister abused him and changed.

Gonta Gokuhara

♡ I love his design except for his suit. Also he’s so cute and naive. I cried for his trail.

✘ No need talk like caveman. Better way to do this.

Kokichi Ouma

♡ Like Nagito, I value his intelligence and crazy cunning.

✘ Shouldn't have died. Also shouldn’t have manipulated Gonta. That was just cruel.

Miu Iruma

♡ She has her hilarious moments and her death surprised me and was sad.

✘ Sometimes she lacks basic empathy, i.e. calling Tenko “Tencrotch” when she just fucking died.

Maki Harukawa

♡ Amazing character development. Didn’t see her surviving until the end at the start. Also her love and passion for Kaito.

✘ “Do you wanna die?” gets old.

Kaito Momota

♡ Just the overall best bro you could ever have.

✘ Has some toxic masculinity issues and anger issues.

K1-B0

♡ Pretty much everything about him. His design, his attitude and personality, especially how amazing and cool he is chapter 5 onward, his execution made me so sad. He’s so innocent and funny without trying.

✘ When you do his free time events he’s very arrogant and just talks about himself a lot... it seems odd and not similar to the Kiibo we see throughout the game.

Himiko Yumeno

♡ Super cute design, love her voice and “Nyeh...” and her sprites. Her character development is great as well.

✘ Why did they take so long to make her important and likable?

Tsumugi Shirogane

♡ An excellent and well hidden reveal

✘ I hate her. So annoying, from the voice to the references and her personality.

[shihalyfie]

No, Miyako and Iori’s Digimentals were not switched, can we please stop endorsing that

There’s a really common argument that Miyako and Iori’s initial Digimentals should have been “switched” (i.e. give Knowlegde to Miyako and Love to Iori), and accusing the series of trying to pigeonhole Miyako into a “girl” box by giving her the two Crests that originally belonged to her Adventure predecessor girls (Sora and Mimi). While I am not ever going to say that Adventure or 02 were the paragon of feminism, I seriously take issue with this reading, not only because of the fact that I feel it’s a misreading of Miyako and Iori’s characters to consider these Digimentals inappropriate, but also because the “alternative” suggestion of swapping them is an even worse misreading of what said Digimentals are actually about, and would result in an extremely unfitting result.

I would say that the major reasons these misconceptions get drawn a lot are mostly pertinent to the following:

A common misreading of the actual meaning of the “Crest of Knowledge”

The fact that Daisuke, Miyako, and Iori’s initial Digimental traits actually kick in the most in the latter half of the series, after they get their second set -- i.e., the secondary Digimentals are actually more obvious than their first set, even though the secondary ones are the ones to get focus episodes. (For a brief example with Daisuke, his “courage” resembled reckless foolhardiness for a lot of the first half, but at the end of the Kaiser arc and the entire second half it became very clear that Daisuke was still standing resolute in the face of what he knew were increasing stakes, which is a much, much more genuine show of courage.)

If you do want to make the argument that Miyako got this treatment “because she’s a girl”, you might as well argue that she was initially built from the ground up as someone who mixes core personality traits from Sora and Mimi. But she was absolutely not “pigeonholed”, and, again, I think it’s a severe misreading of her character to think that she was.

All quoted translations are by Ryuu-Rogue (Adventure) and PositronCannon (02).

The Crest of Knowledge

The Crest of “Knowledge” is a bit of a misnomer. It’s tempting to read it as simply “knowing a lot of information”, but note that there’s nothing really virtuous about that. You could easily be someone who “naturally” has a knack for studying or information, and then takes that information to be a smart-aleck who lords over everyone. Considering that the Crests were normally supposed to be about personal growth and virtues, “knowledge” seems like a very poor and incidental thing to be valuing.

In actuality, Adventure’s episode in relation to Koushirou and the Crest of Knowledge (episode 24) made it very clear that being intellectual had nothing to do with it. The entire episode revolves around Koushirou willingly giving up his “inquisitive heart” to the point where Tentomon considers him basically having thrown out himself. Koushirou spends the duration of the episode blindly accepting pseudoscience until Bubbmon snaps him back to his senses, and the “epiphany” that powers AtlurKabuterimon’s evolution later in the episode is as follows:

Koushirou: Staying ignorant isn’t what makes me, me! Wanting to know everything is part of who I am!...My inquisitive heart...I’m sorry for throwing you away. I want to know. I want to know!

The “actual” meaning of the “Crest of Knowledge” is defined here: it’s not about how much knowledge you currently have, it’s about how much knowledge you want to have -- wanting to not only have more information, but to also understand more. This is what fuels Koushirou’s character throughout all of Adventure -- he’s the one who can’t let something go whenever something interests him, and therefore he becomes the team’s valuable analyst and the one making the most progress in understanding the Digital World.

So when we get to 02 episode 2, and Iori claims the Digimental of Knowledge, Koushirou has this conversation with him to indicate him worthy of it:

Koushirou: Iori-kun, what do you think of the Digital World? Iori: What do I think...I don’t know, I just got here. Koushirou: But you’re thinking something, aren’t you? Iori: Yes...I have my own theories, but new questions keep popping in my mind and I want to know more. Koushirou: You have a really curious mind, as I thought. Iori: A curious mind? Koushirou: If you have any questions, please ask me. We’re your friends, and we’ll always help you out.

Just in case there were any ambiguity, Koushirou clarifies the “actual” meaning of the Crest of Knowledge right then and there: it’s not about having knowledge, it’s about curiosity, and that’s what we’re supposed to be looking out for with Iori’s character for the rest of the series.

Nevertheless, this conversation in episode 2 is a little misleading, and probably comes off as performative to many because Iori doesn’t actually show that much interest in the Digital World for the rest of the series, even though Koushirou had expected him to be like-minded in this regard. But what does happen is that once the Kaiser arc passes, and we reach the second half of 02, Iori starts to entertain some very interesting questions in regards to his stubborn insistence on black-and-white morality.

His first major shake to his frame of morality is episode 29, when he realizes that pacifist principles don’t mix well with a Digimon that professes to having no desire beyond wanton destruction.

In episodes 34-35, upon seeing Takeru gung-ho against BlackWarGreymon and the darkness to levels that disturb even him, he immediately goes up to Yamato to get answers on what’s up with Takeru without hesitation.

In episode 43, he starts to contemplate his stance on pacifism again after the SkullSatamon army ultimately forces the kids’ hands on breaking their anti-kill stance.

He asks his grandfather about his father in episode 47, and, upon coming face-to-face with Oikawa in episode 47, starts actually questioning him about his motives before he learns about Oikawa’s connection with Hiroki. The framing of the scene indicates he is very desperate to understand how Oikawa’s mentality could possibly make sense. Once he learns about the connection between the two, he gets even more desperate to understand how a friend of his father, whom he admired so much, could end up like this.

Eventually, his experiences with Ken and Oikawa lead him to become a defense attorney in the 02 epilogue, which is reiterated in side material (Spring 2003, Character Complete File, etc.) to be representative of his desire to “understand the hearts of criminals”.

Iori is not Koushirou, and his curiosity is not tied to intellectual pursuits or the Digital World, as much as he very much wants to understand morality and other people. He starts off the series with a very black-and-white view of it, but the more his intuition about it starts to crack, the more desperate and interested he gets about getting to the bottom of it. It’s a very unconventional way to see “knowledge” when such a term is usually applied to intellectual knowledge, but when you see it in terms of the Crest’s actual definition of “inquisitiveness and curiosity”, it fits like a glove.

What of Miyako? Well, she’s certainly got a lot of intellectual knowledge in the way Koushirou has, in terms of being good with computers, but...that’s...about it, actually. Unlike Koushirou, she doesn’t seem to be motivated by a drive to learn anything new with it. She can be curious about things, but that’s in the same way that everyone has a least a little of each Crest virtue within themselves to some degree; it’s not a driving part of her personality, and in fact, while she’s certainly not dismissive or callous, she sometimes even has a tendency to shut down at things she doesn’t understand and ask that it be simplified for her. In that light, “inquisitiveness and curiosity” actually feels very unfitting.

In fact, Miyako’s “intellectual” pursuits of being good with computers actually have very little to do with her character or personality. She has it as a peripheral hobby, and she engages in it, but unlike Koushirou, who uses his computer work as a way to gain more information and analyze things further, Miyako’s computer work really seems to be largely in the range of hobbies for her. A lot of her work is portrayed as favors for other people -- she helps fix Iori’s family computer, she helps out Yamato’s band, and she’s helpful to Koushirou as his junior -- in fact, the most pertinence Miyako’s computer abilities have with her actual personality is how much it puts Koushirou in her high esteem. So in actuality, all of that ties more into...

The Crest of Love

The Crest of “Love” is too often conflated with the potential for romantic love, especially because Sora was involved in the franchise’s most infamous love triangle, but the name of the Crest is actually aijou, i.e. “affection”. It’s a pretty neutral word, all things considered, and it has to do with being affectionate with and supportive of those around you.

Miyako starts off the series as a bit shallow and sometimes self-centered, but the way she interacts with Iori (someone from the same building quite a few years younger with her) already demonstrates that she’s open-minded about making friends and being friendly. On top of that, Miyako immediately demonstrates herself off the bat as being emotionally sensitive (see how she endears herself to Jou and Mimi in episodes 5-6 and has a bit of a mental health crash in episode 10).

Again, episode 2 tends to be a bit misleading, especially when Sora explicitly compares Miyako more to Mimi more than herself when she guides her towards the Digimental of Love. But observing Miyako’s behavior in most of 02′s second half indicates she is actually more than worthy of her title:

Starting as early as episode 3, she brings food for people, and does this a lot. She does this partially because she has privileges when her family runs the i-Mart, but she’s very much doing it to show her affection for all of her new friends -- it’s implied she’s the ringleader behind the “picnic” idea in episode 6 so that everyone can have a bonding session, despite it (at the time) having no relevance to the territory war and the fact that she’d just met everyone. By the time of episode 33, the way she cheerfully keeps in touch with Koushirou during her trip to Kyoto and brings souvenir yatsuhashi home for everyone (Koushirou included) indicates that she’s always got her friends on her mind.

Anytime she likes something or someone, she is perpetually open about her feelings and makes it very clear that she likes such a thing. Again, see how she immediately endears herself to Mimi, and later Michael in episode 14. (14 is interesting in that her “purity” is front and center that episode, because she calls herself out for being too straightforward about her own shallowness, but it’s worth noting that the way she manifests said shallowness is by being openly affectionate.)

Episode 24 has her notice that Daisuke’s feeling left out when Takeru and Hikari walk off on their own, and immediately assign him to nursery care duty where he can have fun and feel a little fulfilled teaching them soccer. This is a very often-overlooked scene, but she had basically no motive to do this except to make Daisuke happy, and the way she looks on the scene fondly indicates she’s very proud of herself for doing so -- she knew exactly what she was doing there, and is actually far more emotionally in touch with others than she’s often given credit for.

She is the second most proactive (behind Daisuke) to bid for Ken’s acceptance into the group, and while she initially seems to take a slightly more passive approach than he does, she immediately goes into given name basis with him (before Daisuke does, even!), takes a personal investment in seeing him become friends with Iori in episode 30, has a stake in reaching out to both Hikari and Ken in episode 31 (and is self-conscious about her running-her-mouth behavior being too insensitive), and Ken’s emotional well-being and welfare is a perpetual thing on her mind for the rest of the series (see: her going out of her way to accommodate his worries in episode 46).

Although Miyako’s propensity for affection is actually quite clear throughout the entire series, I do really think it’s the second half of 02 that brings it out the most, because her way of connecting to otherwise emotionally closed-in characters like Hikari and Ken ultimately demonstrate a lot about how outwardly proactive she is about those feelings, and how integral she is to keeping the group of friends together -- there’s very good reason she’s often referred to by third parties as a “mood maker”, someone there to keep everyone in high spirits.

And what about Iori? It’s hard to argue he doesn’t have love, of course. He has a very deep and passionate love for those around him! But, again, while he does have a propensity for it, that doesn’t mean it’s a trait that necessarily defines him, especially because his stubborn and passionate hatred of certain things ends up making the others have to pull teeth a bit with him at times.

Of course, one could argue that it comes out of his love for the things he wants to protect. But, nevertheless, I would still say it’s rather inaccurate to say that the trait defines him nearly as much as it does Miyako, who is openly and passionately affectionate, actively tries to be open-minded towards new things in her life, and spends a lot of her time doting on others and her hobby work doing favors for her friends.

[oveliagirlhaditright]

Together

https://archiveofourown.org/works/33196183

Kairi creeps into the Hall of the Cornerstone and ends up seeing a memory of Minnie's--and perhaps gets more than she bargained for, as her own emotions and regrets come to the surface--and with it a friendship that will carry her through any trial.

For @mademoiseli Happy late birthday, sweetie!

Kairi sat down on the steps that led out of the Hall of the Cornerstone, wondering if she should go down there or not

She wanted to be a bad girl for once—as a sort of fun, perhaps, as her world had so recently fallen down—and go there against her better judgement … and some of the other Guardians of Lights’ judgement as well, if she was being honest.

Because now that they all knew that strong lights could be used to house darknesses without being corrupted—and strong lights and darknesses might call to each other like moths to a flame—there was even the chance, that a strong light like the Cornerstone of Light could resonate with Kairi too strongly. What if it tried to pull her into it, or she pulled it into herself?

These were the reasons that the Guardians had thought it a good idea that Kairi stay away from the light that kept Disney Castle safe from harm.

…But curiosity had killed the cat, and Kairi found that was very much her case when she found herself wandering down into the basement, anyway, just to get a look.

Though what ended up drawing her attention was not the Cornerstone of Light. Rather, it was this almost liquid—thought not quite—with wisps going into it, on a nearby table that had recently been erected, if its drying silver paint was anything to go by.

Kairi grew closer to it, peering into the water, where she curiously saw what looked like Lady Daisy, Huey, Dewey, Louie, Chip, Dale, someone who looked as though they were related to Goofy, and Aqua watching as Queen Minnie gave Pete an earful!

Kairi had no idea how this scene was playing out before her, without sound, but she definitely wanted to find out! So, she walked even closer to it, but ended up tripping, with her face falling face first into the water… and there, she could see this memory—perhaps that’s what it was—in all its glory.

“…Pete, we counted the votes very carefully. Ventus, Aqua, and Terra won. Oh, Pete. I think you tried to do something good, but you were doing it for the wrong reasons, and you went about it the wrong way. Still, a couple of citizens must have thought you had goodness in you, because you actually got a few votes. They knew you were looking out for them.”

Kairi didn’t know what was going on exactly, but maybe she could make some guesses based off of the Queen’s words? But Pete seemed to be boiling with anger, as he often was, and Queen Minnie seemed to be very sweet in dealing with him now and trying to reassure him that the people still cared about him, Kairi saw.

And though this was surely a memory of the past, the Princess of Heart almost wanted to believe that the other light wielder could get through to him. And that maybe things could be different for them all, going forward, if she could…

But then it all took a turn for the worst, as Pete turned towards Queen Minnie angrily.

“Big whoop! I don’t need their lousy votes! Just cough up my prize!”

And then he extended a hand towards Queen Minnie. And Kairi didn’t know if he’d meant to harm her or steal the prize, but she felt her heart go out for the small queen all the same, and her plight here.

And Kairi wanted to believe she would have had such strength and heart in the situation, without her own king.

“Pete!” Queen Minnie exclaimed. “They voted for you because they believe in you and care about you. How could you look down on that? I’ve tried to forgive a lot of things you’ve done, but this is too much. Now you’ve finally crossed the line.”

“Like that matters to me,” Pete shot back rather expertly, not seeming to care how he’d hurt Queen Minnie in the slightest with his line. And it pained Kairi to see.” Besides, what are you going to do about it?” he challenged.

“Ha! I’m gonna let you cool off for a while. Guards!” And at that point, some of the magic brooms showed up and carried Pete off, while Queen Minnie frowned at him, heartbroken, the whole time.

Kairi wondered if this was when he was banished to another dimension—another world—for all he’d done, like Sora had told her about before. She wouldn’t have been surprised.

And with that last sad image of the Queen being the last thing Kairi saw, the memory must have been over, and Kairi was pulled out of it, gasping. And she was surprised to see none other than Queen Minnie herself was watching her now!

“Quite an ordeal, wasn’t it young Kairi?” she asked. And somehow, she seemed to look at Kairi with sadness for Pete, she guessed. But not for Kairi. And no disappointment, either. It was as if she was okay with Kairi spying on her memories. Even though she’d had no right to do it at all.

“Your majesty,” Kairi stammered, dropping to a bow right away, and trying to find her graces, and the girl who might have once belittled Sora and Riku for getting into a situation, because her past self never would have… how sad it was that her present self would. “I’m so, so sorry. I had no right at all to do any of this. Especially since you’re being so kind as to let us look all over your world for Sora right now… I’ll go now.”

Queen Minnie laughed. And it was a pretty sound… and an encouraging one, that had Kairi stopping from going back up the steps that led to the audience chamber, and rather turn around to face the woman. “I acted quite like the Queen there… but part of me regrets it, you know? Because surely Pete had done worse things than that. Why was it him not appreciating people believing in him, that was the final straw for me? Was it that I was just too angry that day?”

“I think my subconscious mind, though not my conscious one, partly wondered about that when I saw your memory just now, too,” Kairi admitted, offering Queen Minnie a small smile, in seeing that they thought very much the same.

“N-not that you were too angry!”, she quickly explained, realizing her words could be misconstrued. “But what it was about that day in particular… And sometimes I wonder about my own anger. Like why I was so livid at Organization XIII. Maybe if I hadn’t been, I wouldn’t have been part of the Keyblade War and Sora would still be here…”

And God help her, Kairi was crying now. Something she definitely didn’t want to do in front of this Queen at all.

But Queen Minnie was merciful and kind, and motioned for Kairi to lean down, so she could wipe her tear away. “You mustn’t blame yourself for that, Kairi, dear. As I understand it, if you hadn’t been there, Sora would have died, and that awful prophecy about light expiring would have come true. So, it was a good thing you were there!

“And goodness me, you don’t have to be so formal with me. I’d like to think we’re all friends here. Call me Minnie!

“But it- it’s hard, isn’t it? I think we who strive closer to the light, often doubt ourselves when we get away from it. But I think those reasons happen for a reason, too. Like with Pete: when you can’t see the goodness of people recognizing you, I feel you can no longer see anything. And you can too easily become caught in the darkness then… and I think that’s why I did what I did with Pete … Do you understand, Kairi?”

“Yes, I think I do!” Kairi beamed, pulling the mouse Queen into a hug. And she didn’t know if this was right or dignified or whatever, but since Queen Minnie said that they could be friends, she decided to just go for it.

And when Queen Minnie hugged her back like it was the simplest thing in the world—magic and healing seeming to fill up Kairi’s heart as she did—she wondered if this was the start of something here.

“Thank you so much for comforting me today… Minnie. I don’t know what I would have done without you. And thank you for not caring that I accidentally spied on your memory!”

The two women started out of the audience chamber now, and would begin a journey through the hall and back to the library, much like the one Queen Minnie had taken with Sora before—feeding off each other’s light as they did so—and it would end up being a key to them finding Sora.

Queen Minnie held Kairi’s hand in hers, like Donald and Goofy had Sora’s multiple times, and Mickey had Riku’s, that many times, as well. “Hehe. Of course, my dear. And know that we’ll find Sora together.”

“Together.”

Author’s Note: Yes, it was a pensieve Kairi used. And my explanation for one being here, is that Disney apparently almost made the first Harry Potter movie. This is mentioned in the “A Conversation Between Daniel Radcliffe and J.K. Rowling” video on the Deathly Hallows DVD.

Written for you, Mademoiseli! I hope you enjoyed!

[fizzingwizard]

Ep 38 is another good one! We are on a roll. I have some thoughts on why and whether I could still end up whining in future episodes again... but for now let’s just enjoy the moment.

We are finally catching up with Yamato (and Jou) who has the sort of episode you’d expect from the brooding lone wolf of the group. I wish they’d pushed it just a liiiittle further than they did and I’ll tell you why below. Still, the point is we learned some things we needed to about Yamato, and with some higher than usual stakes (for a side plot) than usual.

Pic of the day, though, is all about his highness, our lord and savior, JOOOOOOOOO.

You will bow before him, peasant!

More below.

Like I said, the stakes are a bit high this week:

Right off the bat, Gabumon’s been beaten, captured, and tied to a cross...

... where Mephismon (this guy) is apparently planning to kill him in ritual sacrifice.

In other words, this episode is: Yamato and Gabumon Go To Digimon Hell

:P

I mean... Mephismon even looks scary. Very Satanic. Gives me chill, lol. Probably not as scary for kids who didn’t grow up being hit over the head with a Bible every day by evangelicals, though. Sometimes I look back on my childhood and just think “wtf?”

That being said, Mephismon is the sort of lackey you’d expect Millenniumon to have, much more in the vein of Devimon or DarkKnightmon. Aka, pretty darn scary. I was so frustrated for so long by all the small fry Digimon Taichi “struggled” with by himself for no apparent reason - they felt like filler episodes, tbh - filler for a show that has no reason to have filler!

And I STILL do NOT understand why we got WarGreymon’s evolution over a totally forgettable nobody Digimon, but these recent episodes with Koushirou, Mimi, and Yamato have all been serious crises where the characters put everything on the line, and yet nobody evolves. It’s not that I think they HAD to evolve here - I can see they’re leading up to it and since that guarantees more focus on them in the future, I’m totally down for that. What I don’t understand is why Taichi DIDN’T get that. Why play WarGreymon so early? The episode itself did involve Taichi challenging himself, but it all felt so setup. And so unmemorable that it’s just hard to care.

Anyway... I’m ranting about things that didn’t happen in this episode. Rant over xD Back to Yamato.

His desperate play to rescue Gabumon by himself goes as well as you’d expect.

Yamato: I’m too cool for this shit

He is chased by those gas mask-wearing Digimon whose name I forget. But they are conveniently blown back by the gush of a timely geyser. Geyser, you say? That means hot springs must be nearby. If hot springs are nearby...

Jou: Now I know what it feels like to be Team Rocket!

Jou falls out of the sky and right into Yamato’s path. Dressed in nothig but a towel, he looks to Yamato like a scrawny, nerdy, guardian angel.

Yamato: You’ve gotta help me, Clarence. Fly me to the top of the mountain.

Jou: I can’t, I haven’t got my wings.

Yamato: Yeah, you’re about what I’d expect my guardian angel to be like...

So, Jou immediately starts to chatter at Yamato, and it looked to me like Yamato might be getting annoyed. If this were 99 Adventure, he’d had snapped and said something like, “Can’t you see Gabumon’s gone? Aren’t you even going to ask about that or do you only think about yourself?”

But this is 2020 Yamato, and 2020 Digimon Adventure, where the kids are all Very Nice and don’t have much in the way of flaws. That’s my number one complaint about this show so far. So Yamato just waits for the moment where Jou needs to take a breath to break and ask for his help rescuing Gabumon.

(Gomamon reminds Jou to get dressed first, thankfully.)

Up on the mountain peak, Mephismon sacrifices the Data of poor blue!Elecmon to the fragment of Millenniumon he is guarding.

At first I was like, why do Yamato and Jou know about these crystals?? But then they’re like, we heard from Taichi over the digivice. Ah, of course. I kind of miss the old digivices that pre-date smartphones :P

Yamato explains how they ended up in this situation, and I REALLY like this. They came across Mephismon sacrificing innocent Digimon on their journey to reunite with the rest of the team, and it was Gabumon who insisted they had to stay and save them. Gabumon!

So this is not the first time we’ve seen the Digimon partners take initiative this season. The lack of personal flaws and personality clashes are my least favorite part of the reboot, but the increased agency of the Digimon themselves is probably my favorite. When DanDevimon swallowed Taichi, it was Agumon’s pain that caused his warp evolution. Not saying Taichi had nothing to do with it, but the focus was certainly way more on how losing his partner sent Agumon over the edge. Now we’ve got Yamato actually arguing with Yamato because he feels so passionate about rescuing the captured Digimon.

Yamato’s not heartless, of course - he just prioritizes the people closest to him first. And I have no idea if we’ll see much more of this sort of willpower from Gabumon - it’s partly there for convenience, since no one else is around. (Last time, it was Sora who wanted to help others at their own risk and Yamato clashed with her over the same thing.) The other reason is, this is the episode where we find out how Yamato and Gabumon became friends - which is especially important for the guy who gets the Crest of Friendship - so they needed something a bit more meaty than “the proof of our friendship is I follow you wherever you go and do whatever you want.”

But I love it because it really makes them feel like partners.

Of course, Yamato can’t say no in the end, so he and Gabumon go to save the Digimon. But they’re overwhelmed.

The vision of his partner’s bony ass shrinking into the distance as bullets fly overhead will haunt his dreams always ;^;

Yamato: Once a psychic read my palm and said I have an unusually short life line. I guess she was right. But she also said I’d marry Emma Stone and have eight children.

Jou: are you sure she wasn’t just playing a game of MASH?

While Yamato and Jou plan their strategy, we switch back to the rest of the team, where the girls are having tea time.

I know I complain about this every time but WHO DA HECK decided Sora and Mimi should wear the same color scheme look what you did now they both blend into the couch

The boys talk a bit of shop, then Takeru reveals that he and Yamato don’t live together because their parents fight and don’t get to see each other because they both work so much. He doesn’t really come out and say “they’re divorced” but he says he and his brother are separated. Even though Yamato calls Takeru to talk a lot, Takeru still feels sad that there are things he misses since they live so far apart.

Taichi assures Takeru that Yamato will be fine, pointing out that Yamato had already been adventuring in the digital world for an unknown amount of time before Taichi’s group ever got there. Wow, haven’t referenced that in literally ages. I’m glad these things are finally relevant again. Also like how it seems to confirm Taichi still kinda holds special admiration for Yamato. That seemed like the route they were going way back when Yamato joined the group in episode 8, but then it wasn’t touched on till now.

Then we get the long-awaited Yamato & Gabumon origin story! Yamato appears to have arrived in the digital world in a similar way that Taichi did. He looks the same, so probably it wasn’t a huge time difference (in human world time anyway).

At first, Yamato’s like, “leave me alone. I don’t have any interest in the digital world. Where’s the exit?” And Tsunomon says, “Fine, then I will just protect you whether you want me to or not.”

Yamato: Reeeeeally wishing Ikkakumon could fly, lol

Yamato recalls how, despite his chilly behavior, Tsunomon still jumped to his rescue.

(The rescue involved Ikkakumon shooting torpedoes up the mountainside so Yamato can grab them and climb to the top. What I don’t get is why this didn’t draw Mephismon’s attention :P I guess he figured his gas mask lackeys would handle it but uh.)

Past!Yamato rescues Tsunomon, who is so touched that he is able to evolve. Yamato makes an attempt to remain aloof...

... but in the end he turns into Taichi :P

So that’s the origin story! It’s more or less what I figured. Kind of surprised we didn’t get any scenes of them in the digital world proper, since I got the impression Yamato was familiar with that world as well as this plane that seems to be a sort of interface between worlds. But maybe not, who knows.

What they try to do here is set up that Yamato is an aloof type who tries to avoid relationships. But he snaps out of it and warms up to people so fast that it’s hard to really appreciate it. Plus he doesn’t really do much to push them away other than say “leave me alone.” Eh.

Lol it’s funny because he’s strapped to the cross but because his leg fur hangs like that, from behind it looks like he’s just standing there....

Mephismon starts to sacrifice Gabumon!

A power blast of dark energy starts to pulse from the mountain, sending everyone to their knees. Jou thinks fast and hides inside his bag. Nylon is good at blocking out satanic chanting after all.

His eyes fall on... his textbooks! Social studies, chemistry, the periodic table, Japanese history memorization textbook... these useless books! Could they actually be useful?!?!?!

no.

no they couldn’t

Yamato: Ahh! That’s it, I have got to start lifting more.

But wait - Jou gets an idea. There’s something that calms him when he’s stressed and that’s... chanting passages from his rote memorization technique books x’D So he sits down and... it’s basically a throw back to the Bakemon episode in 99. I believe he’s chanting things from the Japanese history book, but as I’ve never been a Japanese kid, I’d have to do more research than I want to to figure out for sure.

He then switches to chanting the numerals of pi! He has pi memorized! x’D I don’t know why that should surprise me. He soon begins to glow with the Zen energy of a cram school trance.

Jou: 3.14159265359... 3.14159265359...

Gas mask Digimon: 3.14159265359.... 3.14159265359...

These bright ripples emanate from Jou, counteracting the evil ripples coming from Mephismon’s mountain. It soon pulls the gas mask Digimon into the trance as well.

Ikkakumon: ... I have no effing idea what is going in this episode on anymore

Jou comes out of the trance to discover the gas mask Digimon ARE NOW HIS OBEDIENT SUBJECTS. WHAT.

(see I told you you’d bow)

seriously what just happened! XD is this Jou’s mutant power

or is this something all Japanese children who survive juku can do as a result of spending so much time memorizing shit

Ikkakumon then is able to shoot a bunch better pathway of torpedoes for Yamato to climb and MEPHISMON STILL DOESN’T NOTICE

Yamato finally makes it to the peak!

Mephismon’s like, “nice try, but what were you planning to do now? You left your friend at the bottom of the mountain and I’ve got your partner. And I doubt you’ve memorized all the numerals of pi.”

He kindly creates an evil burning vortex to increased the hellishness of the landscape. He understands that a Yamato episode needs the proper ambience.

Gabumon’s about to be sacrificed to Digi-Satan lmao

Yamato steps into the pentagram and get shocked. But he presses on despite the difficulty (and the hellfire), thinking about how much his partner means to him.

He drops to his knees while Gabumon begs him to save himself.

Yamato: “You’re my... friend!”

The power of friendship destroys the pentragram and also frees Gabumon from the cross.

The Crest of Friendship glows...

Gabumon is strengthened and becomes... WereGarurumon.

:P

Yeah... seemed like a good time for MetalGarurumon but whatever.

After a cool but brief fight, Mephismon is defeated.

He appears frozen? Can Gabumon freeze stuff? Whatev. Anyway he’s frozen and then disintegrates.

Gabumon is tired but happy. Their bond is now even stronger.

Cute Takeru on Pegasusmon flies down to his brother at last.

And the others wave up to them from Komondomon. Aw. So finally the team is back together! ;__; Please let it last this time, please please please....

Kay so, overall... I liked this episode. The whole “You’re my friend!” bit would have been stronger if we’d seen more of Yamato resisting that though. I don’t really know why but the reboot seems to pull its punches a lot. I really wish they’d let the kids be mean to each other like 99 Adventure did sometimes. Being mean doesn’t mean you’re a bad person and a terrible influence on children watching your show. It just means you are human and your viewers can learn from watching your mistakes and seeing your growth. Try to understand that, showrunners :P

A missed opportunity in this episode: Yamato and Jou. I was excited that they were gonna be together because they often clashed in 99. And in the reboot as well, it was established that Yamato is annoyed by Jou, although he’s much more polite and hadn’t said anything about it till now (just stayed away from wherever Jou was until he fell asleep lol). So I thought, in this ep, we’d see them butt heads and learn to work together, something like that. But aside from the very first moment where Yamato might look a teensy bit annoyed, they just get alone fine. Idk. Not interesting.

In the end, though, the ep was clearly meant to be Yamato only and Jou was just there as a matter of convenience so the whole group would be together at the end. Since the team is finally reunited, I hope we do start to see all of them interacting in different ways that show their personalities more. Might not be the same as 99 (or, I should say definitely won’t be, at this point), but just something more than “look how well we all get along.”

Next week...

Looks to be a light and funny episode. The Burgermon were one of my fav bits of Frontier. But I’m a little nervous about this being a Jou epiosde. It’s his turn, I know, but everyone else got something meaningful. Even Mimi - though there was lots of humor in her episode, she was also major league cool the entire time. Maybe that will be the case with Jou here, but I’m not sure because 2020 Jou is a little different - more scatterbrained, more open, more talkative, less serious, less likely to act sullen... he’s quite different, now that I think about it. So I’m actually having difficulty imagining what his personal test will be in this episode. Guess we’ll have to wait and find out. Maybe it won’t even be that kind of episode anyway.

Also, just a guess, but next week is ep 39. So ep 40 maybe will be the start of something big again. It would be good timing: the team’s together and everyone’s had a chance recently for an episode to themselves...

See y’all next week! As usual didn’t check for typos :P

[mame-bean]

Basic summary of One Percent and some Rai headcanons!

One Percent is a soft romance and slice of life story that follows Rai Mamezuku, starting out during his school years and progressing through the early part of his adult life, with his adult years being the largest chunk of the ongoing story.

I do keep to the canon story in some aspects, such as his parents both being killed by WoU when he’s fourteen, but I’ve altered some things with the intention of giving him a happier and less lonely life.

I like the idea of him being taken in by Norisuke after the deaths of his parents, where the Higashikatas become like family to him. He respects Norisuke as a father figure, and becomes much like another older brother to Hato, Joshu, and especially little Daiya who he develops a very sweet relationship to. The romance aspect of this story is between Rai and Jobin, who have been close friends since they were eight (another divergence from canon because it makes more sense to me, considering they’re pretty much the same age and most likely would have gone to school together)

Aside from the Higashikatas being his new much larger family, and Jobin as his closest friend and love interest, he also makes friends with a girl named Sora as well as Yoshikage Kira. Sora is in the same class as he and Jobin, and dated Jobin just before the start of the main story with the hope of actually being noticed by Rai, but with no such luck. Despite her failed attempt to gain his interest romantically, she becomes a good friend to both him and Jobin. Though Kira is a few years younger, when they encounter him they discover that he, like them, is a stand user, which is what brings them together as eventual friends.

Of course, the story is a romance, and Rai and Jobin begin dating when Rai is fourteen (before his parents deaths), they stay together through high school and after graduation. When Rai is about to turn twenty is when Jobin decides to take the risk and buy a home for the both of them (a lovely villa in the countryside, close to the mountain that Rai works on) and proposes to him the first day he brings him to their surprise new home. 💕

I have quite a few personal headcannons for Rai that come into play during the story and are a big part of how I interpret his character and personality. It’s pretty clear to me that he’s neurodivergent, likely somewhere on the autism spectrum (like me), so I hint at some of his quirks, triggers, and struggles throughout the story and how Jobin learns all of these things, how to understand him, comfort him, and work with him.

I also headcannon him as being a demiromantic asexual. As an aromantic asexual myself it feels like a very possible orientation for him to me based on his character and temperament. Based on what we know about him it can definitely be assumed that he’s never been in a relationship in canon, nor does he seem to have any romantic or sexual interests, being that he’s kept almost entirely to himself for at least 14 years, lol. So, asexual? It’s definitely possible. I based the demiromantic part on what he expresses of his relationships to other people. Rai doesn’t trust people and refuses to engage with people until he decides they’re trustworthy. Once they’ve gained his trust, he’s exceedingly loyal and becomes attached to them, as he does with Josuke. If he’s like this when it comes to friendships, it’s safe to say he would be even more cautious when it comes to romantic relationships, and it is unlikely that he would experience romantic attraction until he built a very close friendship with a person first.

Rai’s personality in One Percent-

I tried to keep pretty close to his canon personality, just expanding on it. So, in the story, he’s fairly awkward and antisocial towards most people. He typically seems almost perpetually grumpy and unimpressed with everything and everyone, never smiles or laughs (at least not quite like most people), and feels unapproachable to most. He struggles to connect with others, has a hard time communicating his emotions, and is often misunderstood as being rude and uncaring. In reality, he’s quite sensitive and requires encouragement and validation from the few he trusts. He can be stubborn, arrogant, logical to a fault, and difficult to fully understand his true intentions, all of which make him a challenge to work with and befriend, especially when combined with his naturally suspicious nature and distrust towards people in general.

But these things are only a fraction of him, and once his trust has been earned he shows much more of his deeper traits. He’s incredibly loyal, willing to do anything for those he loves, even die for them. He will stand by his loved ones even if there is nothing for him to gain from it personally, even if he doesn’t fully understand... if it’s important to them, it’s important to him, and he’ll do whatever it takes to make it happen. He is honest and observant, you never have to worry or wonder about how he thinks or feels about something, and he’s never the type to lie or be manipulative, he’ll always be straightforward and genuine. You can trust him with anything, and he’s a good friend to go to for advice since he’s very smart and logical (just... don’t go to him if you’re only wanting someone to tell you what you want to hear and spare you the hard truth, lol). Rai loves deeply when he finds people that he considers his friends and family, and though he isn’t very expressive about it with his words, he conveys his love with his actions. He loves to cook for his friends, making their favorites often, and tends to express himself through giving them gifts and making things for them. He is quite thoughtful and enjoys doing nice and helpful things for the people he cares about. Because of his observant nature and great memory and attention to detail, he is fantastic at remembering “the little things” about people. He’ll remember all the little things someone likes and dislikes, their favorite colors, shows, books, foods, their favorite flower, whether they get cold easy or if they’re uncomfortable with a specific sound or texture, everything. He can tell exactly how someone is feeling just by looking at them, nothing gets passed him. All of these traits make him a friend to really treasure, because friends like him truly are difficult to find, so his friendship is well worth the effort. 💕

Though Rai is fairly antisocial, he’s certainly not shy. He’s self-confident and can be very chatty, especially when it comes to any of his special interests. He is authentically himself, and entirely unapologetic about it. He tends to be quite chill and laid back, with an energy level on the low side. Too much chaos and drama exhausts him quickly, so he avoids it as much as possible, and tends to dislike people who are overly emotional or dramatic. He likes to take life at a slower pace, which is why he finds joy in nature and the “simpler” pleasures of life, such as gardening, cooking, reading, sewing, crafting... he’s just a peaceful soul, and would prefer the world around him to be that way as much as possible.

It’s obvious that he loves nature and plants, but he also gets along well with animals and enjoys taking care of them. He can connect with and understand animals better than people most of the time, and finds comfort knowing that animals don’t judge him or misunderstand him the way that humans do. He keeps cows and chickens that forage freely on the mountain, and has one special chicken in particular that he and Jobin keep as a pet at their home. Why special? Well, because she has a stand! I’ll tell more about Pita and her stand, “How Bizarre,” another time. 🐓💕

So anyway, if you actually read through this far I am glad that someone out there is as big of a fan of Rai as I am and hope you enjoyed my headcanons, and maybe you’ll enjoy my fanfic One Percent 🥰

[a-student-out-of-time]

Is... Is contestant 2 the blue child? (Don't remember his name rip)

No, she means me. When Hajime passed out last night, I stayed up a bit after getting back to Hope’s Peak and learned a bit from Yoruko-san and Sora-san.

I found out what you pressured Hajime into doing. Do you even realize how much pain you probably caused him? Plus he only has a limited number of resets, and he lost two of them thanks to you! All just to prove your stupid theories when you could’ve just talked to us!

Well, sorry about that, but I had to be sure that this would actually work. By your own logic, because he had knowledge of the future, there was no way he was going to trust me, and talking it out would’ve taken far too long.

And if he died, then he died. There was no getting around that it was a test, to be sure.

A test?

What sort of a test? You mean when your girlfriend and her sister get back to Japan?

You know, there’s another thing about that that’s really been bugging me. You killed Umeko-senpai and Hajime, then you eavesdropped on us and decided to tell me you were aware Hajime must be Kasugano and a time traveler.

And I was willing to give you the benefit of the doubt. I wanted to believe that maybe, just maybe, you had good reasons for this and you were willing to turn against her because you wanted to save lives.

I do want to save lives. Why the hell do you think I went through all this trouble? Not just here, but in those other times before he reset.

Oh, so when it’s the actions in your future we’re talking about, suddenly it does matter?

My point here, is that you and your friends are doomed if you keep this up. There’s no way in hell you’re gonna beat Junko with the methods you’re using now.

You’re all so concerned about standing up there on your moral high ground as opposed to doing things that’ll actually change the course of history. If you actually tried, I think maybe you could’ve ensured Junko’ll have no edge when she finally comes.

What? By killing people?

You can’t expect to actually win this without a few sacrifices, can you?

This is the fate of the entire world we’re talking about here.

If you were smart, you’d understand that, sometimes, you need to put your morals aside and do what’s necessary. Beating Junko means we’ll need to get our hands dirty.

Okay, one, no. There is no “we” in this discussion. You are not part of our team.

Second, how would that make us any different from her? If we just started randomly killing people we were sure posed a threat to us and the world at large?

Are you really worrying about that stupid “I’m not better than them” argument?

Here’s the reality, gamer girl: you either win this or you don’t. You stop the Tragedy or whatever from happening, or it happens and everyone you care about still dies. This is not a game with a morality system. This is not pagentry.

The only thing that matters here is winning. You can worry about the ethics of it later. In fact, I’d say it’s more ethical since a few dozen lives barely compares to 7 billion.

How very utilitarian of you. Is what you suggested for Kanade you testing the waters for us? Seeing how far we’d go?

Not exactly, but I guess it still works. And you’re still getting hung on up on this stuff, you’re never gonna stop her. You don’t know Junko like I know Junko. If I can take two of your boyfriend’s resets, he’s gonna lose so many more to her and her tricks.

...

You know, I actually might’ve thought you had a point for a second if I didn’t consider something else.

What happened yesterday, really? We found someone making a deal with the Police Commissioner, who we know is working with her. Then Kanade goes missing from her prison cell and makes her way to Hope’s Peak, meanwhile someone blows a hole in Fuchu Prison and lets a ton of prisoners into Tokyo.

And then, after we catch Kanade, you come in and tell us that, no, we really need to mindwipe her. You force us debate about it, telling us we don’t have time, we all have conflicting thoughts on it, but we go along with it anyway. And you don’t even bother to help Mitsume-sensei or Nakamura-kun afterward.

The only thing you gave us as evidence that you’re not telling her about all this is your word. But you still expect us to follow you just because you act like you’re smarter than us. If I didn’t know better, I’d say this was all planned to get us to start turning on each other.

Oh goody, a conspiracy theory. My favorite.

If I wanted you all to fall into despair, why would I do anything at all? Sounds to me like you all aren’t ready for grown-up discussions and you can’t handle getting your hands dirty. You’d have no chance against her anyway.

...

You know what? You might be right about that. Maybe we’re not ready, and maybe we did need this wakeup call.

And you can act all smug and arrogant, like you always know what you’re doing, even thought you have no idea how time travel works and would rather just test your own theories instead of talking to us. But in the end, Kanade is a normal girl again. I’m not particularly happy with that, but it’s how things are now and I’ll learn to deal with it.

But I’ve saved a lot of lives already. I’ve helped change the future, even if it’s in small ways. Your girlfriend is not as strong as you think she is. I know people who’ve beaten her and an AI based on her, who almost trapped my friends in a no-win scenario. They still won, and they did it without resorting to the horrible things you’re saying we need to.

So you can look down on us all you want, you might think you’re smarter and more qualified, and you can try and tell us we can’t win against her. But we’re gonna try anyway.  And you’re so convinced that morality can’t help us here, that nobody has a shot against her but you.

No. That’s wrong. I’m gonna show you just how wrong you are.

And I’m also gonna say this: right now, we know who our enemies are: Enoshima, Storm, people like that. You aren’t going on that list. You’re most definitely not our ally, but you’re not going to be our enemy either. At most, we have the same goals.

But if you’re lying, if you ever turn on us and hurt my friends for whatever reason you might come up with...there isn’t a single timeline, no possible future, where you’ll find a safe place to hide. 

...

Noted. I’d show myself out, but this is my lab.

Yeah. We’re going. C’mon, senpai.

(I have...never see her that angry. Wow.)

[panharmonium]

round 3 of in-progress naruto thoughts, featuring me crying tears about pretty much everybody

[spoiler policy disclaimer first, as always: i’m only still in the early stages of shippuden (we just finished the asuma arc).  i literally had zero interest in naruto growing up, so i remain unspoiled for virtually everything that happens past this point.  i would love to stay that way, so please don’t interact with this (tags included, because the notifications now show them to me automatically) with any spoilery commentary, including even general things like “oh i love this show but it gets less good after X point” or “X season is better than Y season” or any general assessments of quality/likability/etc re: future seasons.  Thank you! <3 ]

- well, folks.  i have apparently reached the point in my viewing experience where i am deeply emotionally attached to virtually all of the characters and i care when bad stuff happens to even the most minor of them, because the asuma arc really ripped my heart out and used my feelings as ping-pong balls

- that said - i have to admit, if you’re going to kill a character, that was the way to handle it.  it wasn’t glossed over or dropped like a hot potato; it had a huge arc attached to it and major development for the other characters involved and it came full circle at the end in such a quiet, complete way.  i was hoping from the very beginning that the answer to “who’s the king” was going to be “children” (all i could think about was asuma yelling at kazuma “children aren’t pawns to protect the king!” during the sora arc) and ultimately that ended up being true, and i found that so satisfying.  (painful.  but satisfying.)

- SHIKAMARU.  HERO.  i always loved him, but what an incredible arc he had.  and that episode, “team 10″ - WOW.  wow.  they really kicked it up a notch for that one - that was legitimately beautiful television, not just “good by naruto standards.”  gorgeous animation/composition/editing...this show is in fact capable of magic, when it takes its time.

- grow up, you three.  the shadow of death hangs over us all.  some deaths may be harder to accept than others, but if you can’t get past that, there can be no future!  

^^ this is legitimately my favorite line of the series.  i can’t stop thinking about it.  i love how tsunade is speaking from her own experience, and how she’s not wrong - nobody in this confrontation is wrong, really; shikamaru has his stuff more together than tsunade realizes, and tsunade is just telling the truth, and i just love how this entire line relates so closely to the thematic heart of this arc, which is the sanctity of children and the future they represent.  like...so many characters in this show have seen so much death and tragedy, but we see children/the promise of the future pulling people out of that hole and back into a hopeful place.  it’s literally tsunade’s whole story with naruto.  she’s speaking from the heart, and it’s one of those lines that you can feel resonate across the whole story.

- kakashi, once again, coming to destroy me with his level of devotion to the kids.  not even his own kids, this time.  when he shows up at the end of “team 10″ and offers to take over for asuma and go with shikamaru’s group - i lost my mind.  he’s been keeping an eye on those kids the whole time.  nobody told him about what they were doing; he has no reason to be out at the gates at that time of night - he’s been keeping tabs on them.  he knows exactly what they’re going through.  he knows how they must feel.  he wants to make sure they’re okay.  and when he sees that they’re in an appropriate frame of mind for what they’re planning (aka, not unbalanced by rage or grief or the desire for revenge), he immediately offers himself up as an adult support figure.  he inserts himself into that situation and assumes responsibility for making sure nobody gets hurt.  he puts himself into a position where he can escort them through this experience safely (in more ways than one).  he lets shikamaru take the lead and achieve closure, all while simultaneously monitoring the situation to make sure every choice the group makes is the safest, smartest thing to do.  and then in the battle, he puts himself in between the kids and certain death over and over again - he saves their lives so many times. 

the kids are so grateful to him for doing that.  they respect him so much for it.  they feel supported.  they feel looked after.  they feel validated.  three kids who just lost their adult mentor in such a sudden, violent way - for them to have another grown-up step in and temporarily assume that role, for them to feel a pair of capable, steady hands propping them up before they fall down - that is so important!

kakashi is beautiful to me because he takes every horrible thing that ever happened to him and turns it into an unwavering commitment to help other people navigate the same rocky waters.  everything he does is designed to catch people when they fall, particularly when it comes to children.  he doesn’t have to take that kind of interest in asuma’s team.  none of the other adults are monitoring them like that.  but he understands what they’re dealing with and he knows they could hurt themselves if somebody doesn’t take care of them and so he steps in and assumes that responsibility himself.  and then he does the same thing with team 8′s kids, too, in the next arc, when kurenai is out of commission.  he takes all of his own painful experiences and turns them into ways he can protect other people from stumbling into the same pits he fell into, and i’ll tell you this for damn sure - he’d rather take a deadly hit himself than allow another cohort of children to be wiped off the face of the earth before their time. 

i love that about him.  i love that he turns all of the trouble he’s seen into ways he can be a source of strength for others.  i love that he is always thinking about the kids.  that’s the whole point of this arc: children are king.  kakashi knows that just as well as asuma did, and the way he consistently throws himself in front of the children to keep them safe is my favorite thing about him.

- fucking LOVE that shikamaru turns down the feudal lord’s offer because he wants to stay in the village in case his friends need him.  i feel like this kind of choice is never portrayed as a good thing in media - it’s always shown to be better to get yourself out there, try something new, leave old things behind, take a risk, make a change, as if staying home is somehow the same thing as settling or wasting your potential.  i love how asuma lifts up shikamaru’s decision to stay rooted in his home as a worthy and admirable thing.  the will of fire, indeed.

- the EMOTIONS i felt every time kakashi was helping naruto figure out how to complete the rasengan....when kakashi tells him “i truly believe you are the only shinobi who can surpass the fourth hokage” and then while walking away yamato’s all “you sweet-talked him” and kakashi immediately sets him straight like “no.  no.  i believe he can do it.”  SOBBING.  

- “good old asuma.  he must’ve known you inside and out, huh?”  i’ll be over here crying in the club, folks

- kakashi having conversations with sasuke in his head was Too Much for me ;__;

- we watched a bit past the asuma arc and are now into the part about the gemstone lady but the only thing i have to say about this new arc so far is about jiraiya and honestly i’m going to have to gif it to do it justice.  that scene with him and naruto where naruto falls asleep on him just...struck me down where i sat.  i was actually about ready to cry for real.  my feelings couldn’t take it.  i used to not really care too much about jiraiya in the shonen jump days (and yes, there’s some stupid stuff with him that you have to just look past if you’re going to enjoy things) but i love him so much now and i am finding myself so moved by the way he is rejoining the village and (re)building his connections with the people there, and how much meaning has been brought back into his life by the opportunity to work with naruto in particular, and how like...i mean, this is just my own impression, because i haven’t seen his full backstory yet, but he strikes me as someone who’s been running away for a long time, who had very little hope for the future, someone who experienced some terrible things and gave up, just like tsunade, until he runs into naruto.  and now things have changed for him, and it warms my heart to see it.  i love watching him take naruto on training field trips, and i love the depth of care we see from him towards naruto now - a far cry from the “i don’t like kids” of early shonen jump.  i love seeing him collaborate with kakashi - tag-teaming their teaching and climbing in through the window to check on him in the hospital and teasing him about how silly he looks with a sheet over his nose.  i’ve just become so touched by his progression and by the way the establishment of these relationships with “his” kids and the village as a whole (bonds, connections, all the things that this show can’t shut up about) has almost been a...healing sort of thing for him and has changed his entire outlook on life and given him a new sense of hope/meaning.  

like.  i can’t believe i am out here having jiraiya emotions after how little i cared about him when i first met him, but...here i am.  

[lo-55]

Shattered Chains of Fate Ch. 12

Exit the Execution

Ichigo has to take a break somewhere in the eighth hour of fighting with the two other parts of him. It was good exercise and it kept him on his toes, but in the end they were all him. Fighting himself would make him twice as tired. Fighting two of himselves? Three times as tired. Ichigo was a man known for unreasonable stamina and stubbornness, but even he had his limits.

Ichigo sits at the roof of one of the buildings with Zangetsu standing just behind him and Neive sprawled out across the windows to his left.

It feels natural now, with the two of them. Like the empty feeling in his left hand is gone, so long as the three of them are together. Ichigo doesn’t know what to think of all of this. There’s still a lot he doesn’t know, and the fact that Zangetsu has assured him that time passes different within and without this place is only a small comfort. He was in the middle of a difficult battle, one to save Rukia, and now where is he? Unconscious somewhere, that much he knew.

Ichigo let out a breath.

“I think,” he begins, “It’s about time for me to wake up now.”

“Leaving so soon?” Neive rolls onto his stomach to turn yellow eyes on Ichigo. He should be more unnerved than he is. He wants to be. But he trusts Neive. Inexplicably and truly.

“Sorry,” he says. He can feel Zangetsu frowning behind him. “This is my second time here though. So I can probably come back?”

“You may return whenever you wish, Ichigo,” Zangetsu intoned. His voice was low and flat. Ichigo couldn’t quite tell what he was thinking. What was going on behind those sunglasses?

“You better!” Neive pointed at Ichigo, scowling. Was that what Ichigo looked like whenever he was being petulant?

“I promise,” Ichigo rolled his eyes. “Hopefully next time it won’t be because I've been stabbed by a walking reality marble. I wonder…”

“You wonder?” Zangetsu sounded weary. So he did know Ichigo.  Neive, contrarily, grinned. They were both him. His reasoning and logic and his reckless willingness to take chances that might end in disaster.

“Do you think if I let out a strong enough burst of reiryoku I could break out of it? Like Excalibur or Clarant cutting out of one.”

“...I don’t think we have power enough for that. Not yet.”

“Not yet.” Ichigo repeats the words. Yet. These two… they believe in him. They believe he will one day be strong enough to shatter reality itself. Ichigo can’t help grinning.

“It’s time to wake up now.”

*  

Orihime narrowed her eyes at the horrible, awful man in front of her.

Uryu was shooting at him, over and over to try to keep him from getting to her. They all knew she was the real target, he’d said as much at the start of this fight. When he’d tried to lure her close, and then nearly killed his own men to do it.

Now they lay around her, tired but not dead and no longer bleeding. And Uryu. Urya was scraped up, and poisoned, but he was still moving himself through sheer will and some kind of puppet strings he made with his soul?

Orihime’s life had never really been normal (normal people were raised by parents, not by a brother and then by a distant aunt who she’d barely even spoken to. Normal people didn’t have bright orange hair. Normally people didn’t know when ghosts were around) but it kept getting weirder and weirder.

Orihime’s knees hurt from kneeling on the cement. Her hands ached from holding them in place for so long and her soul aches from using so much power consecutively. She had only just figured out how to hold up a shield and heal people at the same time.

All the same. She can’t be finished yet.

Uryu is fighting so hard for her. He’s putting everything he had into this, into defending her.

Orhihime can feel the phantom imprint of teeth in her shoulder. The hot, sticky blood sliding down her chest and back. The scars are still there. She can feel Sora in her arms, a monster of horror and grief. She can feel Tatsuki, limb and cold and not herself. Blood on her skin. Blood on her hands. She had sworn-

  “Can you actually hurt someone?”  

  She freezes. Her heart beats harder in her ribs and she looks at Kurosaki. The question stabs at her chest and threatens to burst the way the hollows attack had against Tatsuki’s skin. She had won that time, and blood had rained before it fluttered away in phantom light and sand. She opens her mouth.  

  “I-”  

“If it comes down to you or them. If it comes down to them or  me  . Orihime, could you hurt someone? Could you attack with the intent of making sure they don’t get back up?”  

  She clasps her hands in her lap. “I-I can-”  

  “If you can’t,” he cuts in swiftly. “Say it now. When we fight we need to know you have our backs. Do you understand, Orihime? “  

  “Y-yes,” she bows her head. She understands his words. Tatsuki had taught her for years how to throw a punch, grapple and pin and fight. But whenever it came down to actually hitting someone else she always flinched. It was no wonder Kurosaki thought she was incapable of fighting. Maybe she really was.

  But she came to save Rukia. If that means she needs to focus on healing and guarding she can do that. She can be content with that role.  

Only now that role was getting in the way.

How could she stand by and watch Uryu fight and bleed for her sake? How could she do nothing while that cruel man talked about the horrible things he’d done to Uryu’s grandfather? Or to his own daughter? The solemn girl that broke her very body on his command.

She doesn’t understand. Rukia was so kind. So sweet and nice. How could she and him belong to the same group of people?

It makes her sick. Her hands start shaking again.

Aramaki, a man who had tried to take her and run, takes a step away from the captain. The force of his spirit, the gravity of his power, is crushing them both.

It’s  nothing compared to Ichigo’s.

Orihime hadn’t been entirely sure when they first arrived, but now she’s certain of it. Ichigo is stronger than almost any of these shinigami. She hadn’t run into a single one who feels stronger than he did when he first made a miraculously bright canon ball that morning they went to Kukaku’s home.

A horrible creature crawls its way out of the captain's sword. Baby faced and cherubic, it frightens Orihime even more than the bone mask that had once hidden her brother's face from her.

Ishida glows like a one winged angel, to try to defend her.

Orihime closes her eyes.

No.

  “-can you actually hurt someone?”  

   No.    

  “If it comes down to you or them. If it comes down to them or me. Orihime, could you hurt someone? Could you attack with the intent of making sure they don’t get back up?”  

No.

  “When we fight we need to know you have our backs. Do you understand, Orihime?“

Yes.

She will not be defended anymore.

“Tsubaki,” his name comes from her lips. Acid that she will bear, he flutters in front of her. She will only have one strike. She can’t hesitate. Not again. She will not let someone else fight her battles for her.

“Koten Zanshun!”

Tsubaki flickered into the golden glow of her powers and shoots like a dart. Straight through the horrible monster and it’s master.

The hole she makes is nothing. Just a couple inches across on both, but the glow still connects her to Tsubaki through them. An acid wire of destruction.

“Was that supposed to hurt, little girl-”

“ I REJECT!”  

The wall erupts and matter splits. Two halves of a man fall in opposite directions. A grotesque caterpillar follows suit, spewing violet gasses as it goes. Orihime isn’t afraid. She calls on the others to undo the damage that the poisons cause.

When she reaches Uryu he’s leaning heavily against a wall with the girl that was once their enemy. Orihime would rather she be their friend, now that her father is gone.

She offers them both a hand in standing up.

* *

Ichigo opens his eyes to blood.

It’s not his, but a womans. She sits away from him, struggling to reach difficult gauges cut out of her back. Four scores that go from shoulder blade to the opposite ribs.

Ichigo sits with some difficulty. His whole body aches, and his chest throbs. It is familiar, but then again most pain is to him at this point in his life.

Ichigo reaches out with his senses. She feels familiar. Liquid shadow and silk fur, night-dark humor and wicked steel.

“Yoruichi.”

She doesn’t startle. He’d never had the silence of a Hassan at his side. Speaking of...

She looks a bit like Personas in her preferred form. Violet hair, dark skin, and built to fight and  win . Neither one of them has the delicate build of Serenity, the poison mistress, but that didn’t stop Personas and it doesn’t stop Yoruichi from being lovely as sin.

“You’re awake. Good, I was starting to get worried,” she tossed him a smile over her shoulder.

“You’re the one bleeding,” Ichigo retorts. He rolls onto his knees and stretches his arms above and back until there’s about a hundred pops of his bones. His back feels warm, then cold before he straightens out to face her. “Let me help.”

“Do you know healing magic, oh magician?” Yoruichi’s smile was more fit for a cat than a human. Ichigo rolled his eyes.

“None that I can use right now. But I know how to use a needle and thread. Do you have my bag? What happened?”

Yoruichi frowns at him, but motions to his bag in the corner nonetheless. Ichigo rises on legs that feel like they’re more smoke than bone. Weak and hollow. His ribs aren’t much better and the dark mark of Scathach feels fresh again.

Ichigo does his best not to rub at it when he brings the bag back over and pulled his first aid kit out of it. Yoruichi stays still while he carefully disinfects the injury. The bleeding is sluggish and its covered in a thick paste that keeps it at bay until Ichigo carefully draws it away and starts to stitch the skin closed.

He knows these gauges. Sharp sword strikes, and less deep ones litter his own body, save his shoulder. He can see it in the clean split of skin.

“If I wasn’t a mage, I’d try to figure out how to use that healing crap Tessai has,” he said idly while he pulled out his silk threads and curved needles.

“If you’re a shinigami, you can use kido,” Yoruichi said with certainty. Ichigo frowns.

“Mages aren’t supposed to be able to use spiritual energy. They use life energy. Almost no one born after the separations of the worlds can do both.”

“You already do.”

Ichigo didn’t respond. He carefully closed her cuts and spread a cream across it to make sure it didn’t get infected later on.

“How’s that?”

“I had no idea your father taught you so much,” Yoruichi looked over her shoulder at his work as best as she could. She wouldn’t be as flexible as she was before for a week or so. Ichigo rumaged through his bag.

“He didn’t teach me a damn thing. There’s burns on your arm, let me see those two. Yoruichi, what happened?”

Yoruichi gave him her arm without a fight. She was smarter than a lot of warriors he knew. She didn’t fight a medic, even one as half trained as Ichigo was. He spread burn cream across it and wrapped it with firm, but gentle hands. Maybe when they got back he would ask Tessai about the healing, but considering how shit he was at regular spellwork he didn’t have high hopes for that. When he was done he sat back on his heels.

“Better?”

“Mhmm, much,” Yoruichi looked her arm over. She grinned mischievously at Ichigo and yanked him into a sudden hug, smashing his face into her bare chest.

“How good of you to take care of a poor stray cat, Ichigo!”

Ichigo’s face heated and he shoved her, but she was stronger than she looked.

“Don’t pull your damn stitches! I’m not redoing them got it?!”

“Aaaw, don’t be so grumpy,” she huffed at him, but he could still hear the near sadistic smirk on her face.

“Shut up. Put some clothes on before you freeze to death already.”

“Oh? Don’t tell me you’re a blushing virgin. Ichigo!” she sang.

Ichigo finally pried himself away from her with a grunt. “Shut up,” he said again. “That’s none of your business.”

Honestly.

Ichigo  wasn’t a ‘blushing virgin’ or whatever the fuck. He was used to women who barely wore any damn thing. That didn’t make it any less weird when he was nearly suffocated in someone's tits!

Yoruichi laughed at him and finally fetched a shirt. Ichigo rubbed his shoulder, his fingers brushing against the new scar tissue. It was edged ever so lightly in white.

He wondered at it, but figured it was Zangetsu’s work.

“I’m surprised,” Yoruichi said when she returned in an orange shirt and black body suit. “I would have thought you would be hopping mad when you woke up. I did leave Rukia behind.”

“That wouldn’t be fair to you,” Ichigo shook his head at her. “Those two, Ukitake and Kyoraku, are way too strong for one person to take on alone. And don’t think I’ve forgotten that you didn’t tell me what happened.  Yoruichi .”

She had the decency to look contrite.

“I’m out of practice,” she said at long last. “When I grabbed you and ran I didn’t realize that a trap had been laid by the omniskido, the stealth force. On top of that, there was lieutenant out for vengeance. She was convinced that one of us had killed her captain, and came after us for revenge. She was the one who managed to burn my arm. She wasn’t even that strong.”

Ichigo winced. That would have stung Yoruichi’s pride as much as singed her flesh.

“Fury makes for powerful adversaries, but anger runs cold eventually…”

“When did you get so wise?” Yoruichi teased, poking his cheek.

  Sometime between Fuyuki and Babylonia?  

“Don’t make me sound like I’m taking a journey to the west or something,” he brushed her hand aside. “We still have to get Rukia. I’m not sure how now. I couldn’t beat Kyoraku as I am, and you’re all banged up. Maybe…” If he tied a ribbon around Yoruichi’s wrist, could he push his power into her? How strong was she, anyhow? And the others, where were they? No one had died, he hadn’t felt anyone disappear. Were their disguises working?

“I should have brought walkies,” Ichigo cursed his own lack of forethought.

“Calm down, Ichigo. The way we rescue Rukia is simple.”

Ichigo glanced at her. “Oh?”

Her grin belonged on a cheshire cat, even if she wasn’t wearing purple stripes. “We make you stronger.”

“... oh. Is that all?”

* * *

Ukitake would admit it.

He had no idea what to think of these intruders.

Even though normally they would be confined to squad 6’s prisons he had managed to arrange for the ryoka to be brought to his own, under the grounds that since Rukia was his underling and they were here for her, they were his responsibility.

Yamamoto was more concerned with the return of the flash queen, Yoruichi, than a few humans she had managed to wrangle together and approved it with only a stern warning to keep an eye on them.

He had asked each and every one, from the ones he and Shunsui apprehended at the tower, to the pair that had nearly killed Mayuri, why they were there for a girl they barely knew.

The answer was the same.

Because Ichigo wanted to save her.

Ichigo. The one on the bridge that had looked so much like Kien. From the furrow in his brow to the proud tilt of his chin. Even his sword play was similar. Fast and powerful, he adapted to Shunsui’s games the way very few ever had.

And what he did to Rukia…

Ukitake had never seen anything like it before. In that form, he was sure Rukia could have frozen his own shikai if she’d had the mind to. It was terrifying.

Or it would have been.

If it weren’t for the fact that there was no malice in the boys eyes.

Anger, yes, but they didn’t bubble with hatred. He had no will to cut down any of them. And he hadn’t, no the lieutenants or the captains that stood in his way. He left them all living even it would have been safer and probably smarter to make sure they couldn’t come after him again.

Just what was he thinking? Was he really here just to save Rukia? And why was Yoruichi with him? Had one of the Ryoka really killed Aizen?

All of this circled back to the peculiar circumstances behind Rukia’s sentencing.

Execution was harsh. Moving the date up even harsher. And, why wasn’t he allowed to petition for a retrial? He was a captain, and a noble, as was Shunsui. They had both been barred at the gate despite these privileges.

It was about time that he got some answers to these questions. Ukitake was a patient man.

He was still no more a saint than Shunsui, who was equally eager to find something solid to sink his teeth into.

They would go to the Central 46 chambers and find answers, if it wasn’t so late that Rukia might truly die without someone to defend her.

The boy, Ichigo, was strong certainly, but not stronger than the terrible spear levelled at his young protege.

So, quietly, and under the cover of darkness, Ukitake went to Toshiro and spun a thread of suspicion for him. He agreed, as well as his lieutenant, to investigate the Central 46 chamber while he and Shunsui did something more reckless than they had in centuries. Yamamoto would rage at them when he found out what they were doing, but in his mind and in Shunsui’s it was necessary.

He never could have predicted what would actually happen.

* * * *

Ichigo had had some close calls before, but this was seriously cutting it down to the wire.

Fire licks along his wrists but doesn’t make its way past him. He holds the great firebird back with the edge of Zangetsu’s sword.

The spear screams at him, howling defiance. It is a tool of justice and death, the ultimate punishment, to burn away the sins of those who stand before it.

Ichigo cocks his head.

It’s more than that. He knows the heat, though this is lesser considerably, only yellow not blue. He knows the crushing force of duty and responsibility behind it, and the spear that birthed this one. The beak is only a shard of a lance he is very familiar with.

“Well,” he says slowly, blinking at the fiery eyes that hold on him. “Hello there.”

Rukia is a light weight under his arm, and he barely feels it when she elbows him in the ribs.

“I told you-”

“I know. I won’t ask you to forgive me, and I don’t expect you to thank me. I just expect you to survive, Rukia.”

The bird flaps back, and circles them slowly. If the lance he knew could destroy 1000 souls, this one can only destroy one. What’s more, it seems to recognize Ichigo.

“Ichi-!”

“It’s fine.”

The bird presses its burning beak into Ichigo’s knuckles and dips an avian bow low before it leaves them be. It lands again on the ground and with a scream to the heavens claps its wings above its head.

The flames disperse and a spear stands in its place.

Ichigo drops to the ground as well. People are looking at him again. That same look that says he’d just done the impossible. He was getting used to it.

“That works,” he says with a nod to himself.

“That doesn’t- how did- Ichigo what the  fuck ?!”

“Dunno. Guess he just likes me,” Ichigo shrugs casually and hoists Rukia over his shoulder. “Ready?”

“Ready for wha- AAAAH!” Rukia screams bloody murder when Ichigo yeets he towards the ground as hard as he can, where Renji of all people is waiting. He’d shown up yesterday to tell them that execution had been rescheduled for a day closer, and that Kenpachi Zaraki had apparently gone AWOL and stolen a couple of Ichigo’s friends and was busting down Seireitei looking for a rematch.

He still wasn’t sure how much he believed when Renji told him that Orihime cut a captain in half.

Ichigo waves cheerfully from his perch atop the execution platform.

“Take care of Rukia, alright?”

He still doesn’t have a plan for when they’ve finally gotten away. Hide in the living world, he supposes. Take them to the clock tower maybe. Waver would be helpful, and he still has his gift from Marie.

Whatever.

He’ll take it one step at a time. No use fussing about the far future when he still has the present to fixate on. On top of that, something is happening below him. A separation in the ranks of the shinigami. Kyoraku and Ukitake seem to be standing off from the others, between the retreating Renji and Rukia. Ukitake has a shield of some kind, and Kyoraku has drawn his blade.

Ichigo jumps forwards, sailing downwards. Where is Kyo in all this mess? And that strange man, Gin? There’s barely a handful of heavy hitters down here.

Ichigo lands a few feet away from Ukitake. Zangetsu hangs in one hand, his bandages wrapped around Ichigo’s wrist. He keeps himself sideways, to defend from either side if he must, but he has a good feeling about this.

“Sorry to interrupt whatever’s happening down here,” he says casually, “But does this mean you’re helping to rescue Rukia?”

Ukitake’s smile is a phantom thing, equal parts guilt and honesty. “We’ve been trying since she was first brought back, in less… flashy, ways than you’ve chosen. She is, after all, one of my subordinates.”

“Honestly?” Ichigo tosses a grin at Kyoraku. “I’m glad I’m not playing with you this time, old man.”

“Old man! How cruel,” Kyoraku actually pouts at him. It’s a little disturbing. “Ah~ I prefer drinking to fighting anyhow.”

“Sucks that I’m underage then,” says the boy who spent years in time periods where wine was a safer alternative to contaminated water.

Ichigo has only a second to brace himself when a wave of heat slams into him from his right.

All around him, people drop like flies.

Ichigo scowls over his shoulder at the old man. Heat rises off of him like cement on a summer day, casting a shimmering crown above his bald head.

“Well that’s pretty damn rude,” Ichigo snaps at him. “You’re hurting your own subordinates more your enemies. What the fuck is wrong with you?!”

“You dare speak in such a manner? After the mockery you’ve made of our justice?”

“What justice?” Ichigo bristles, danger flaring through him. He presses his free hand onto the shoulders of the two people who had flanked Ukitake, and now fallen on their knees. His strength flows into them until their breathing eases. “You’ll execute someone who was only doing her best to help me? To protect my sisters?! Where is the justice in that?! No harm was actually done, until you decided she needed to die!”

He repeats his gifts with the girl with the glasses. All eyes are on him again. The pressure and the heat increases.

“It is the will of the Central 46. We will follow their orders, and you shall not interfere! That girl asked that you be spared your death, it was her dying will, but you have thrown that request into her face.”

Ichigo narrows his eyes at this man.

“You know something? Some of the worst things in history are done by people who follow their orders blindly.”

The Argonauts. The men who kept Astrious in prisoned in the labyrinth. Medb’s soldiers. The Knights of the Round Table. How many horrible things had been done to him and his friends by people who refused to think for themselves? Who saw what was being asked of them and never once said ‘no’?

“Do not presume to lecture me, boy!” The pressure bears down on him, a mountain of heat and anger. Ichigo doesn’t falter. “I have lived a thousand of your human lives. The impertinence of youth is-”

“You’re about two thousand years old, right?” Ichigo cuts in. “Or, more like twenty two hundred, give or take fifty years.”

“I am-”

“So you were alive before the end of the Age of Gods, right?”

He knows he’s stalling. He knows he should get out of here. Or get this fight underway. Or something. He can’t take this man in a fight, even if he can stand his power. He is, after all, just a man. He isn’t Ishtar, or Gilgamesh, or Orion. He isn’t a god or half divine. His heat is nothing compared to Karna’s. A convection over instead of a volcano.

Nevertheless, he has to ask this question.

The old man’s eyes crease open. There’s anger in them, and curiosity too. “I was.”

“Great. Then where the  fuck is Ereshkigal?”

Silence descends. The old man is so surprised the pressure actually lets up a moment before doubling.

“There is a name I haven’t heard in millenia. The queen of Kur, the goddess of the dead. I didn’t think humans still knew of her,” he regards Ichigo with a new kind of wariness. Warranted, for certain. “All that is left of her is the Sogyoku, a creation from her own lance, holding the flames of the soul of a sungod.”

Ichigo doesn’t tell him that that’s not quite right.

“The heat of that spear should have incinerated you. I can’t say what magic you used to put a stop to it, but I intend to end this altercation before you do something like that again.”

The old man lifted his cane.

Ukitake and Kyoraku  moved . Faster than Ichigo can keep up, they launch themselves at him. There’s a glance of steel and the sound of metal on metal. Someone shouts, a light flashes, and the three disappear.

Ichigo barely side steps a tiny flicker of energy.

A girl, no taller than Rukia with a captains coat, does her very best to cut his head off before Ichigo slams Zangetsu into her chest and unleashes a harsh Getsuga Tenshou. The problem with assassins, most of them are bad at taking hard hits.

He tears through the rest of the assembled crowd like they’re made of paper, before he stops at the woman with the braid. She reminds of him Nightengale, in the most frightening of ways. Her head tilts minutely at him. Something in her eyes sends a shiver down his spine.  

“Aren’t you going to fight me, ryoka?”

“Ichigo,” he corrects mildly. His brows furrow. “Don’t take this the wrong way, miss, but I do my best to avoid fighting healers. If it’s not too much trouble, would you let me go on my way?”

She looks down at the people on the ground. Lieutenants, captains, and special guards all fallen at his blade. None of them have stopped breathing.

“I suppose I can honor that request. There is something else I must do regardless. Please stand back then, Ichigo.”

He takes a few steps back, until he standing next the three subordinates Ukitake and Kyoraku had left behind. She draws her sword and with a soft murmur it warps, twists, and expands like putty until a giant manta ray is standing on clawed feet.

Ichigo watches in horrified fascination as it eats the injured and flies off.

“...You all saw that too, right?” He asks the other three. He’s the only one who’s even remotely surprised.

Because that’s normal here, of course.

“Okay,” Ichigo dusts himself off. “I need to go find my friends. Are you guys coming with?”

“Captain left us here with you for a reason,” the eldest girl, the one with the glasses says primly. “So we will follow you for now, and make sure you don’t run into any more trouble.”

“Hey, what did you do when the Head Captain was crushing us?” The blonde girl asks, falling into place at Ichigo’s side. The man flanks her, looking just as intently at Ichigo. It feels natural to lead them down the hill, never mind that they’ve only known each other for a total of twenty minutes max.

“That? I just pushed enough of my reiryoku into you that you wouldn’t get squashed or burnt up. It’s not big deal,” he shrugged one shoulder.

“No- No big deal!? You can’t just transfer spirit energy like that!” The man argued, stumbling over his own shoes. “No one can do that! Even the fourth division has to use special kido for that kind of thing!”

Ichigo eyes him sideways. “I do impossible things all the time. You’ll get used to it.”

They made it all the way to the bottom of the hill, where his friends were waiting with Yachiru of all people, before something new slammed into his senses from the way they had come.

Kyo.

* * * * *  

Gin pities Hinamori.

He really, really does. She’s been jerked around on a string so many times in the last few days as a part of Aizen’s mechanisms. First she had to deal with her grief. He was sure it was Hitsugaya that planted the idea that Gin was the killer in her head.

Sweet Kira had kept her from so much as singeing his shihakusho.

After Gin someone in the Onmitsukido had gotten her on the trial of the ryoka, who were really the perfect distractions in this case. She had attacked the ginger boy and Shihoin without hesitation and with enough vicious animosity and single minded determination that she actually got a few shots in. If she was more blood thirsty maybe she could have a decent subordinate to Aizen truly, instead of this puppet he was leading around.

A single letter from him and she turned on her childhood best friend.

A single word and her faith was restored before it was shattered completely with a hand through the chest.

Yes, Gin pitied the poor, foolish little girl for trusting Aizen so readily.

It’s okay,  he wanted to tell he,  I’ll make sure he pays for everything. One way or another.  

He couldn’t, of course. He wouldn’t risk the position he’d spent well over a century cultivating. He would get his vengeance soon, and take back what was stolen from Rangiku. He just had to keep biding his time, like every other snake in the grass.

Unbidden, his mind turned to Ichigo Kurosaki again. Just how would the boy fair against Aizen? How much of a struggle could a single not-quite-a-human put up?

* * * * * *

[maddrmatt]

Kairi’s Epic Journey: The Quest for Sora

New to this fanfic? Click here to properly begin!

Chapter 18: A Rift Between Sisters

Arendelle

“You can wait here with the boys for now, Kairi. I’ll be back soon with Elsa after I tell her about you and why you’re here,” said Anna as she led Kairi into a small sitting room in the castle followed by Pluto, Kristoff, Sven and Olaf.

“Okay, Anna,” said Kairi.

“Hopefully she’s finally done with him.  Honestly, tomorrow can’t come soon enough,” said Anna bitterly as she exited the room.

Kairi made her way over to a nearby couch and sat down.  Pluto leapt on the left side of her and laid his head in her lap as she stroked him gently. Olaf plopped himself on Kairi’s right and smiled at her.

Kristoff sat down in a chair across from them and let out a deep sigh.  “Tomorrow can’t come soon enough for me either.  I’m just glad this will all be over soon,” he said as Sven sat down on the floor beside him.

“Me too,” Kristoff said in his Sven voice.

“Kristoff?  If you don’t mind me asking, who is this Duke of Weselton you’ve all been talking about?” asked Kairi.

“I can answer that question, Kairi.  He’s a duke and he comes from a place called Weselton. It’s not too hard to understand, is it?” asked Olaf causing Kairi to smile a little.

“I think she needs a little more information than that, Olaf,” said Kristoff as Sven nodded in agreement.  “Well, Kairi, he’s a dignitary from what used to be Arendelle’s closest partner in trade,”

“Used to be?  You mean, they’re not anymore?” asked Kairi.

“No.  And the reason why is during the time when Elsa accidentally started an eternal winter, he ordered his bodyguards to kill her in an attempt to end it.”

Kairi gasped.  “That’s horrible!”

“Yes.  So, when Elsa brought back summer, she had the Duke and his men returned to their homeland and cut off the trade agreement between Arendelle and Weselton.”

Kairi looked confused.  “But if he tried to have her killed, then why has he been allowed to return here?”

“Apparently, he wants to apologize for what he did, and he believed the only way to show that he meant it was to do it in person,” said Kristoff.

“And do you all believe he’s sincere?”

“Elsa seems to think so.  But Anna believes he’s still up to no good.  Me?  Well, I don’t think he’d try anything especially now that Elsa’s got her powers under control. But I think this whole apology thing is just him trying to get the trade agreement reinstated.  All I’m really hoping is that once he’s gone, things will get back to normal between Anna and Elsa,” said Kristoff.

“What do you mean?  Have they been fighting?” asked Kairi.

“Not exactly.  I mean, they haven’t stopped speaking to each other.  But due to their disagreement on the Duke’s visit, things have been pretty frosty between the two of them.  Everyone in the castle can all see it,” said Kristoff.

“I still don’t understand it.  They’re not just sisters but best friends too.  Why would things get bad between them like this?” asked Olaf.

“I can answer that for you, Olaf and the sad fact is, sisters and best friends don’t always agree on everything.  And that can sometimes lead to things being strained between them for some time,” said Kairi.  ‘I certainly know what that’s like.’

“I wouldn’t worry too much about it, Olaf. If I know Anna and Elsa, they’ll patch things up in time.  They’ve been through too much to let something like this split them up again,” said Kristoff.

Olaf smiled.  “You’re right!  Once the Weasel goes home, they’ll go right back to being best friends again,” said the snowman as Sven nodded.

“I’m sorry that I came at such a bad time. Maybe it’s too much to ask all of you for your help in finding Sora now,” said Kairi.

“Don’t say that, Kairi.  You couldn’t have known how things were when you arrived.  And if there’s one thing that may ease the tension around here after all this, it’ll be helping you find your friend,” said Kristoff.

________________________________________________________________

Elsewhere in the castle, Anna approached the door to the audience chamber.  Pressing her ear to the door, she listened to what was going on within.

“Thank you again, Your Majesty, for allowing me to come to your kingdom as well as accepting my apology.  I only wish I could apologize to your sister personally,” said a male voice.

“My sister has made it clear she does not wish to see you presently so I will accept your apology to both of us on her behalf.  And I thank you, Duke, for abiding by our conditions as well as not bringing up the subject of trade between our homelands because my decision still stands,” stated a female voice.

In spite of herself, Anna smiled.  ‘That’s telling him, Elsa.  If that was what he was after all along, then way to beat him to the punch.’

“I assure you, Your Majesty, the thought of that never even crossed my mind.  All I wish is for relations to improve between our homelands and hopefully, someday you can both fully forgive my atrocious behavior,” said the voice of the Duke.

‘No chance of that!’ thought Anna.

“We shall see.  But for the time being, shall we consider our business concluded?” asked Elsa’s voice.

“Of course, Your Majesty. I shall depart for Weselton tomorrow morning.  Once again, thank you for everything,” said the Duke as the sound of his footsteps approached the door causing Anna to move away and flatten herself against the wall.

The door opened and out strolled, with an air of quiet dignity, a short man dressed in a fancy uniform.  He wore glasses perched on his pointed nose and he had a gray-haired moustache and matching hair although Anna knew his hair to be a toupee.

Neither he nor the Arendelle guard who was escorting him took notice of Anna.  They just continued to walk away until they turned a corner and were out of her sight.  She stared in the direction they had gone with disgust as she recalled the moment where the subject of his return had first come up and caused the current rift to form between her and her sister.

________________________________________________________________

Arendelle, A Few Months Earlier

Seated behind her desk in the royal study, the Queen of Arendelle looked over a certain letter for nearly the fiftieth time.  Suddenly, a familiar knock on the door was heard.

“Come in!” she called.

The door opened up and in stepped her sister.  She wore a look of bewilderment to Elsa’s confusion.

“What is it?” inquired Elsa.

“Sorry.  It still feels a little strange to actually be let in,” said Anna with a little chuckle.

Elsa chuckled herself. “Well, if it makes you feel any better, it’s just as strange for me actually doing the letting in.”

Anna laughed and then said, “Anyway, Gerda said you needed to talk to me about something so what is it?”

“Well, Anna, we just received a letter from the Duke of Weselton,” said Elsa indicating the letter in question in her hand.

Anna groaned in frustration.  “What does he want?  Is he begging you to reinstate trade between Arendelle and Weselton which I hope the answer is no?”

“It’s actually not about that at all, Anna.  Why don’t read it yourself and see?  It’s actually addressed to you as well,” asked Elsa holding out the letter.

With a look of confusion, Anna walked over to her sister and took the letter from her.  She then began to read it over.

________________________________________________________________

To Queen Elsa and Princess Anna of Arendelle,

I do not know if this letter will be read by either of you on account that I have no right to expect such a thing.  But if you are reading this, then I thank you in advance for I have something that needs to be said.

I wish to offer my sincerest apologies for my conduct during my last visit to your kingdom.  Having had much time to reflect, I am deeply ashamed of the way I spoke and acted when things took an unusual turn at the coronation.

Please understand that the shocking revelation of the queen’s abilities as well as the possibility of perishing overcame me with fear.  And because of that, I acted in a very inexcusable manner and for that, I am truly sorry.

I know my words in this letter will not be enough to convey my regrets. Therefore, if you will allow me to, I wish to travel to your kingdom and offer a more formal apology in person. Only then can I believe my conscience will be truly clear.

Once again, I apologize, and I do hope you will consider my request.  I do not wish for there to be any hard feelings between us or our homelands.

Yours sincerely,

The Duke of Weselton

________________________________________________________________

Anna reread the letter making sure she didn’t miss a single word.  Finally, she lowered the letter and burst out laughing.

“He has got to be kidding.  He must really be desperate for that trade agreement if he’s pretending to beg for forgiveness now.  Good thing we’re too smart to fall for it, right Elsa?” asked Anna looking to her sister who, much to her surprise, wasn’t instantly agreeing with her.

“Elsa?”

“Anna, please don’t overreact to this.  But after reading the letter several times, I have been considering granting the Duke’s request.”

Anna let out a gasp of horror.  “You can’t be serious, Elsa!”

“Anna, please calm down,” said Elsa rising from her chair and approaching her now seething sister.

“The Duke isn’t one of my favorite people either.  But part of ruling a kingdom is maintaining civil relations with our neighbors even those we aren’t particularly fond of.  And judging from his letter, it seems that he is sincere in wanting to apologize for his actions and I think it would be unwise to just ignore that,” said the queen of Arendelle.

“So, send him a letter telling him his apology is accepted and there’s no need for him to come in person.  Then that’ll be the end of it,” said Anna.

“Anna, it’s not that simple.”

“I don’t want him coming within a hundred miles of us after what he tried to do.”

“No one can defend what he did.  But unlike… you-know-who, he didn’t come to the coronation to cause trouble right from the start.  When my powers were revealed and I plunged the land into a dangerous winter, he got scared.  And having spent a large part of my life afraid of what my powers could do uncontrolled, I can’t really blame him for it,” said Elsa.

“He called you a monster, Elsa!  He tried to have you killed!”

“Anna, for the longest time, I myself believed that I was a monster.  Hearing it from him was no different.  And you can’t deny that my powers are capable of great harm when uncontrolled.  You should know that better than anyone.  Even if the Duke hadn’t tried to kill me to stop the winter, someone else with better intentions might’ve done the same,” said Elsa.

Anna folded her arms and considered her sister’s words.  She could understand why some people like the Duke of Weselton would be scared of Elsa’s powers and make bad choices because of that fear.  She had, after all, witnessed the destruction caused by Elsa’s uncontrolled powers and had a close call with death because of it. Still, despite Elsa’s logic, she still felt that allowing the Duke to return to Arendelle was a mistake.

Elsa took her sister’s hands into her own.  “I know you just want to protect me from him, Anna, and I appreciate that.  But trust me.  I’m not going to allow back into Arendelle unless he’s willing to follow certain conditions.”

Anna let out a sigh of resignation.  “Okay. If you think this is necessary to maintain good relations, then I guess we don’t have a choice.  But I want to help set the conditions, one being that I don’t to have to interact with him anymore than necessary and another being that he is not to bother Kristoff, Sven, Olaf or anyone else while he’s here among other things.”

“You’ll have your say in that, Anna, as long as you remember to be reasonable.  But before we start on that, maybe you should calm down a little,” said Elsa.

Anna huffed. “Fine.  I guess I’ll go tell the boys what’s going to happen and to prepare themselves for a visit from Weasel Town.  I’ll see you later,” she said frostily as she exited the study.

Elsa sighed as she went back to her desk.  Before beginning to look over more paperwork, she glanced at a picture on the wall of Anna and herself with their deceased parents, King Agnarr and Queen Iduna.

‘Mama, Papa, I knew when I became queen, there would have to be some tough decisions especially ones that Anna and I wouldn’t completely agree on.  I can only hope I’m doing what’s best for us and for Arendelle.’

________________________________________________________________

Arendelle, Present Time

‘He’d better behave himself for this night or so help me, he’s going to have to answer to me,’ thought Anna before taking a deep breath to calm herself.  ‘All right, Anna.   I know things haven’t been good between you and Elsa lately.  But right now, you need to put that aside if you want to help Kairi.’

Anna immediately entered through the opened doors and into the audience chamber.  Sitting on a throne directly in front of her was her sister. Elsa had her eyes closed and looked like she was relieved that the meeting was over.

A feeling of sympathy for her sister came over Anna.  ‘I guess the meeting wasn’t easy on her.  Then again, being in the same room with someone who tried to have you killed wouldn’t be easy on anyone.’

A few moments passed before Elsa opened her eyes and beheld her sister standing in front of her. “Oh, Anna!” she exclaimed.

“Hi, Elsa.  So, is that it?  Are we finally done with him?” asked Anna.

“Yes.  For now, at least.  There may come a time when we have to deal with him again in the future. But it is all in the name of diplomacy,” said Elsa.

“I know.  Even if we may not ever be friends, we have to keep things civil between us as you’ve told me repeatedly.  Personally, I hope the next time we see him won’t happen for a good long while.  But anyway, Elsa, our next order of business has come up,” said Anna.

Elsa snapped to attention with a confused look.  “Next order of business?  What are you talking about?”

“We have an unexpected guest.  And right now, she needs our help,” said Anna

Elsa’s confusion increased.  But she paid close attention as Anna related what had happened while she was meeting with the Duke.

________________________________________________________________

Meanwhile, back in the sitting room, Kairi was getting to know her new friends a little better. Currently, Kristoff was telling stories of his life before he lived in the palace.

“So, these trolls took you in and made you a part of their family?” asked Kairi.

“Yep.  They may be a little overbearing and embarrassing at times. But I wouldn’t trade them for anything in the world.  The day they took Sven and me in was one of the best days of my life.  And looking back on that day right now, it seems even better,” said the ice harvester.

“Why is that?” asked Kairi.

Kristoff blushed for a second before blurting out in his Sven voice, “It was the day he first saw Anna!”

“Sven!” exclaimed Kristoff pretending as if the reindeer had exposed something he didn’t want to be heard.  The reindeer just made a laughing sound.

“Aww!” exclaimed Kairi.

“It’s true.  That was the first day I saw Anna.  Who would’ve thought that years later, she, a princess and me, an ice harvester, would be a couple?” asked Kristoff.

“I bet the trolls always knew.  They are love experts, after all!” exclaimed Olaf.

Kairi giggled.  “I guess we have something in common, Kristoff. After I lost my old home, I was taken in by a pretty loving couple who have been nothing but the most wonderful parents I could ask for.”

A twinge of sadness came over her.  ‘I can only hope they’ll forgive me for just running away again.’

Pluto sensed Kairi’s sadness and nuzzled further into her lap.  Kairi smiled and stroked his head.

“That same day was also when I met Sora.  He was the one who found me, and I will never forget how he smiled and held out his hand for me to take,” said Kairi as a little blush appeared on her cheeks.

Olaf giggled. “Sounds like he’s a pretty special friend to you.”

“Yes.  Yes, he is,” said Kairi almost dreamingly.

Suddenly, the door opened and in strolled Anna and Elsa.  Kairi immediately leapt to her feet as Elsa approached her.  The Princess of Heart bowed before the queen.

Elsa smiled.  “You must be Kairi.  As queen of Arendelle, I welcome you to our kingdom and our castle.”

Kairi rose up and returned Elsa’s smile with one of her own.  “Thank you, Your Majesty.  This is my dog, Pluto,” she said indicating her companion next to her who barked happily at the queen.  

Elsa chuckled.  “It’s a pleasure to meet both of you.  But it’s not necessary to be so formal, Kairi.  You may just call me Elsa.”

“I did say you could call her by name, Kairi,” reminded Anna.

“Did you forget that already?” asked Olaf.

“No, I didn’t.  It’s just that my father always taught me to be formal until you got permission to be casual.  I just needed to hear it from Elsa herself first,” said Kairi.

“Your father should be proud that he raised such a polite young lady.  Now, Kairi, Anna tells me that there is a very important reason you’ve come to Arendelle,” said Elsa.

Before Kairi could say anything, Olaf chimed in, “Yes, Elsa!  Sora’s missing and we’ve got to help Kairi find him!”

“What Olaf said, Elsa. I hope that there’s something in your kingdom that can possibly lead me to him.  If you could help me find some sort of clue to where he is, I’ll be forever grateful,” said Kairi.

Elsa placed a hand on Kairi’s shoulder.  “If there is, we’ll help you find it.  You have my word that we’ll spare no effort.  But we can start our search tomorrow.  Right now, it’s late and Anna’s told me you’re in need of a good meal and a good rest.  So, would you and your dog care to join us for dinner?”

“We’d love to.  But you really don’t mind having a dog dining with you?” asked Kairi.

“We already have a reindeer usually joining us for meals nowadays so a dog isn’t a too unusual addition,” said Anna gesturing to Sven who gave a big smile.

Kairi laughed before she realized something.  “Will the other guest be joining us?”

“No,” said Anna and Elsa simultaneously although Elsa used a calm tone while Anna’s tone sounded as if she had just heard Kairi say something rude.

Elsa gave her sister a small glare of annoyance before turning back to Kairi and saying, “As one of the conditions of his visit here, the Duke is not allowed to dine with us. He must take his meals in his room.”

“Trust me, Kairi. You’ll be better off if you never have to meet him.  In fact, we’d all be better off if we’d never saw him again!” exclaimed Anna as she turned around and left the room.

“Anna!” exclaimed Elsa as she turned to watch her sister stomp off.  She let out a deep sigh.

Kristoff rose from his chair and walked over to Elsa.  “Don’t worry, Elsa.  I’m sure she’ll be okay once the Duke leaves.”

“I hope you’re right, Kristoff.  I hate that it’s been like this for these past weeks,” said Elsa.

“We’d better go calm her down.  We’ll see you later in the dining hall.  Olaf, Sven, let’s go,” said Kristoff as he left with the snowman and reindeer following him.

Elsa turned back to Kairi.  “I’m sorry you had to see that.”

“Oh no.  I’m sorry I said the wrong thing.  It’s just after what Kristoff told me about the Duke of Weselton, I’m not too sure that I want to meet him myself.”

“I’ve had Gerda make up a room for you in a different part of the castle from where he is and since he is leaving tomorrow, I doubt you’ll cross paths with him.  But in the meantime, let me show you to the dining hall,” said Elsa as she turned around and left with Kairi and Pluto walking alongside her.

As they travelled through the halls, Kairi mused on the things she had learned.  ‘I’d better watch myself around here while this Duke’s here.  After what he tried to do when he found out about Elsa’s powers, I’d hate to see how he’d react if he saw a Keyblade Wielder in action.  He sounds like the kind of person who would command the Heartless or worse, become one.’

Kairi then regarded the queen and saw the sad look on her face.  ‘It’s so awful that his presence here is making things hard between Anna and Elsa.  Seems I’m not the only Princess of Heart having trouble with loved ones.’

Between the search for Sora, the rift between Anna and Elsa and the presence of this Duke, Kairi never imagined a visit to another world would be filled with so much drama. She could only hope that things would improve soon enough.

________________________________________________________________

Onto the next chapter!

[danwhobrowses]

Ghost of Tsushima: Thoughts, Ideas and Hopes for DLC and Sequels

So I recently Platinum’d Ghost of Tsushima, I finished the story last week after 30 entries of livestreams which saw a whopping viewership of at most 2 people including one asshole that decided to spoil the end of Act II before I got there because I was playing stealthy and the way I wanted to play. But then wrapped up the Achievements on my own time. After a bit of stewing I’m ready to talk gush about it, including what I liked, a small bit of stuff I disliked and stuff I would suggest for future DLC and Sequel(s)

Spoilers for the Game, unlike that Commenter on my Stream I will not Spoil you on this, it is truly something you should experience for yourself

Because Good Lord, What A Game. Easily my Game of the Year, which compared to all the big hitter titles released is amazing, I mean Crash Bandicoot could still blow me away and Cyberpunk, Watch Dogs, Godfall, AC Valhalla and Miles Morales in waiting but probably not in this way. It is a magnificent game, one made with fantastic care and beauty, but before I go all out, let’s get the negatives out of the way 出る杭は打たれる。: A Flawed Masterpiece Ghost of Tsushima is brilliant but not without its faults. Most of these faults are admittedly minuscule and fixable, but until they are fixed they remain flaws. The biggest disappointment for me with the game was the lack of Japanese lip syncing. I loved the Japanese track, it also highly appealed to me to hear One Piece’s Roronoa Zoro voice Jin, but you have to kinda avoid looking at the mouths because it doesn’t match up, the models still speak in English and it’s a heavy shame that can kill some immersion. I guess they didn’t have the finances for it, because they could’ve done the lip syncs at the same time as they did the English ones if they had the Japanese track too. Combat for the most part was great, aiming could be wonky at times and Jin’s attacks didn’t carry on to a 1 foot ledge, but my main gripe with combat was the Camera getting in the way. It was adjustable most times, but other times it was not. Doing standoffs in the tall grass was night impossible at the later stages without the knees giving us a tell, one standoff I had was completely obstructed by a tree - I’m not making it up, a tree was literally all I saw for the Standoff. You lose so much health for failing a standoff too, bit harmful in later levels. The remaining issues are probably more personal, I didn’t quite like some of the sword kit designs - the ones with fluffy sleeves and I didn’t really like the armor dye you get for 100%ing the achievements, some weapons seemed to lose their luster in later parts of the game (particularly the half bow and Explosive Arrow, the former was only good for killing the angry doggos and the latter only killed Mongols if near another explosive to stack), that one Masako quest mission where you have to follow and pick off Straw Hats one by one without being seen, but will fail if you pull a triple assassination before the outpost where Masako’s lesbian lover was leading them all to so there’s more Straw Hats to blow my cover! (it wasn’t difficult it just annoyed me that it failed me for killing them all early) and the completionist in me hates that there are empty slots in the arrow and blowgun sections, but they can be worked in what I’ll talk about a bit later down the line, alongside some minor loose threads. Also you killed my horse man!

Your horse will accompany you on your entire journey - Ghost of Tsushima UI Message

Don’t you dare lie to me like that again Sucker Punch! Just because you’re named that doesn’t mean you can live up to it, we already lost one horse at the beach! Had to spend the final act with Not-Sora and Kaze with a hole in my heart never to be filled. But with that dealt with, let’s talk about some things I loved about the game

花は桜木人は武士 :  Living into a Legend With these games it is very easy to fall into the Elder Scrolls prototype of an array fun side quests and exploration and a so-so main story. Ghost of Tsushima though decided to have both the array of side quests and exploration and a great, complex and partly tragic story. There were many times I wanted to get back to the main story but held off because I wanted to be prepared. Long distances didn’t feel too bad to travel when the roads were uncharted either thanks to radiant battles, new settlements, vanity gear and side missions to ease you on the way. Additionally, the characters are for the most part fantastic, I cared for the safety of most of my allies and Jin himself, I wanted the Khan dead in a cerebral villain (albeit one whose final battle fell into cowardice) and I was open to the complexities of Ishikawa and Tomoe. I did feel that Shimura was being a tad ungrateful but I think it was intended for us to be frustrated to the edicts of the Samurai code - my frustration led me so much to deep dive to prove myself justified since the code was subjective and many agreed to aspects of ‘win no matter what’ and ‘do what protects the people the most’. Along with the main quest was paired with the character journeys of our allies as well as the Mythic tales which granted some extra strength and challenges to overcome in order to expand Jin’s arsenal. I particularly liked the observation and killing of leaders to learn new stances, as well as the widely acclaimed Stand-Off and the duels. The Arkhamverse fan in me did appreciate the focused hearing for stealth and that assassination speed could be upgraded. The idea of collecting vanity gear, armour dyes and equipment that are remains of the conflict showed that SP had completely immersed their plot into the world of Tsushima, with a great amount of exploration and nuances nodding to Japanese folklore And Tsushima is certainly stunning, it’s amazing that the PS4 can hold this much when we know how the PS5 is meant to be with ray tracing. The landscapes are beauteous which makes exploration and travel much more fulfilling, as well as the photo mode and the scenic builds to some of the major battles. What’s also wonderful is the calligraphy cutscenes for Mythic Tales and the loading screens, some wonderful artistry. Artistry which is added to by the brilliant uses of Haiku spots, Bamboo Strikes, Lighthouses, Shrines, Altars which you bow to, Fox dens where you can pet the Foxxos and even the Hot Springs for some ‘Man-Butt Action’, each positions that fit to Japanese media in soaking in a moment without killing any pace, especially added to the fact that each one contributes to a purpose. I will admit, I chose wrong at the end, I was thinking more of Shimura (said ungrateful uncle)’s honour rather than what Jin would what, feeling that Shimura would’ve done it himself had Jin not. But seeing the spare ending made me wish I chose that one and it’s something I’ll touch on later. But both endings are fitting and tragic for Jin’s journey from Samurai to the Ghost, being inspired by his allies and his connection to Yuna, there has been conflict throughout regarding the line of protection, honour and vengeance explored through other people’s tales that blend together perfectly with the main plot.  It is pretty political as well with the argument presented by Jin and Shimura’s conflict. Samurai while still romanticised were still shown to be bound to the blind loyalty towards the Shogun and Jito, you did not defy because it inspired others to think freely. Jin became a champion of a people by defending the people rather than listening to the jito - represented by the shogunate - and their stringent ideas that the Samurai who failed on the beach would be able to out-muster the force and brutality of the Mongol invasion regardless of the collateral and yet still call that honour. In the current climate in 2020, that hits a chord a little closer than expected. And the main story certainly has their stellar moments, the ups and downs really hit you - like killing my freaking horse! I had to lose Yuriko, Taka and Sora in a single playthrough. Losing Taka was inevitable, but still heartbreaking because of how much we struggled to save him and how much we want to still be Yuna’s friend, but then the highs just blow you away from the opening act, Ghost Stance, raiding Castle Kaneda and Shimura and the final raid at Port Izumi. Also did I mention that you can pet the Foxxos? Because that’s very important, also NPCs walk at your pace most of the time, which is a fantastic addition. I could probably go deeper but there’s other stuff I want to cover, but understand that the world and the story is wonderful and if you’re a fan of Assassin’s Creed, Arkhamverse and just Japanese culture in general this should tick your boxes. And hopefully there’s more to come.

石の上にも三年 : Strait to DLC The sad thing that happens when a good game is over is the void. Even if its days, having nothing left of the game to play is still a shame, and I know that Legends DLC is announced, but multiplayer involving fighting Oni as mythic legends isn’t my pace, I’m still not done with Jin and I feel like there are things we could still do. There are still 3 conflicts Jin’s story never resolved that could still be resolved now, each as multi-layered quests. The first is this ‘Ghost Army’ mentioned by the wagon guy in Omi, we are not leading this so who is? We may not be able to stop them but we could reduce the amount of people thinking we’re leading them to fight. The second is Daizo, if you don’t know that name it’s because the guy is never seen in the game, you only read about him in the Records of ‘Conversations with the Khan’. This Japanese Monk clearly has a thing for the late Khotun and he feels that the Ghost is being a dishonorable monster, this Khan lover is still at large and a confidant of Khotun, we could link with Norio in a quest to ensure he doesn’t rally or try to spread his appreciation of the Khan to others to try and complete Khotun’s work. The final conflict is one that eats me up: How did the Mongols Know About the Poison? Yuriko died showing me how to make the poisons, made more potent from her own herbal poisons which were crushed down, if she didn’t tell and I didn’t tell, who told? Because the Mongols drank the evidence and we could make a story of an Omi village traitor or even someone from Shimura’s camp leaking the info to the Khan to try and preserve ‘honour’. On top of these loose ends I’d very much like to see our allies again, even if they’re just at their home doing their own thing, as well as some other minor side characters like the Tadayori descendant Kaede, Flame Swordsman Bettomaru (who would’ve both been mighty useful with this Mongol affair beyond their sole missions) and the Yarikawa Archer Daikoku, I also would like to see confirmation on Jin and Yuna - there is clearly something there but that could be just me. What is also just me would be the suggestion of a shrine that can let you redo the Shimura decision, it’s not a too ‘out-there’ thing to do either considering we fought a Tengu. The shrine could be for Omoikane, Kami of wisdom and intelligence or Ame-no-Koyane, the ‘First in Charge of Divine Affairs’ which’d subject the player to a gauntlet of bosses past; Ryuzo, Kotun and Shimura, if the player goes against their initial decision, they will trade their ghost armour dye for the other and get a Charm of Pondering, if they stick to their guns they get both ghost armour dyes and a Charm of Strengthened Stance. In similar vein we could have a master Mythic Tale that stacks the duels of those tales into one for another special attack, weapon or armour. It’s also possible that we could add more duels, some remnants trying to avenge Khotun or even some Samurai sent by the Shogun in promise of becoming Jito. Likewise we can use this to complete the weapons set; for the Half Bow, take the Mongols’ poison arrows (which can be a reward for finding who leaked the poison to them) which can just eat at lesser enemies’ health and take a chunk of stronger enemies’ health before resolving out of it, as well as a sticky arrow that could slow enemies or weaken their armour, or a perfume arrow that can mess with the falcons and angry doggo’s senses. For the Long Bow we could have...okay I’m drawing a blank here but I’m not meant to do all the work XD For the Blowgun at least you could have a Blinding Dart to aid in stealth and a Panic Dart to increase chances of Terrify. We could even have a few more upgrades to our ghost weapons and stance combats, even increase the amount of kills Ghost Stance can yield. In addition to more Fox Dens, Shrines, maybe new resources to bolster upgrades, Sword Kits, Haikus, Banners, Flute Songs, dyes and so on. But I know what you’re thinking, we can’t put that all in Tsushima? We’ve covered the entire island and it’s unlikely that SP would make a fictitious island. And to that I say, I have that covered. In the Tsushima Strait between the island and the mainland there is Iki Island, part of the same prefecture and equally ravaged by the Mongols during the invasion, it’s also the base of pirates which can offer a stop point for a Tomoe reunion or simply travel via Umugi Cove. A small bit of expansion wouldn’t hurt, as long as Iki isn’t planned for something else that is.

能ある鷹は爪を隠す : Hopes for a Sequel Now part of me would be content if this was a one and done, the game shines perfectly on its own. But I would not turn one down. Though many would feel that Jin’s journey is done (I even heard a suggestion of Tomoe, I could see that but not right now, maybe for a third) but not me, there’s still a few glaring issues at hand. For one, the Shogun now wants you dead, new clans are moving in on you and there will probably be a new Jito regardless of the ending choice because of Shimura’s failure, Adachi will also need to look at another clan taking its land. There’s also the vacuum left behind by the clans’ subsidiaries; Nagao particularly but also Adachi’s rival clan Kikuchi, there’s easily possibilities to use canon Sō, Abiru, Shōni and Imagawa, there’s also room for Kikuchi Takefusa, who survived both Mongol invasions  . A sequel could offer some clan territorial tensions in that regard as the people of Tsushima side with the Ghost over the mainland. That conflict is one we have touched on in the end of the first, Jin has fought for his country’s safety so how will he act when his country wants him dead? The first was a story of sacrifice perhaps the next can be a story of maintaining his legend, inspiring the mainland Samurai and even redeeming himself in the eyes of the non-Tsushima natives. It’s also worth remembering that Komoda was the beginning of the invasion, and there was a second invasion 6 years later where Tsushima was attacked once more, the death of non-canon Khotun could spark other higher ups of Kublai’s ranks to avenge or clean up for Khotun, Kublai also had counsel from different nations to understand his enemy so we could have an even more vicious and cerebral enemy be made, or even a group of enemies led by advisors like Liu Kan or Yao Shu, maybe even Marco Polo if we move the time after the first invasion. In terms of gameplay we could also see Jin expand from Tsushima to Iki and maybe some more naval warfare, growing in his equipment (like Caltrops, Kusari-Fundo and Suntetsu) and maybe even his weapon, an Ono, Jitte or a Naginata to rotate with his not-yet-made Katana to combat with Samurai or the army of a Mongol threat, maybe even use the Bo-Hiya for ranged fire archery learned from the Hwacha. And like the Mass Effect games (or Dragon Ball Xenoverse if you wanna pick a franchise that didn’t end in a bitter aftertaste) you could have the option to transfer over some data from the PS4 save to the next one, which’d inevitably be on PS5 at the least - also don’t be surprised if this gets a PS5 remaster too, especially if it does win Game of the Year. What I suggested for DLC could be used here too, if there is a sequel with Jin I really, really hope that SP don’t opt for the route of killing Jin (or Yuna) off for effect, I was nervous about the current game ending with Hara Kiri and I’d rather not have that or a downer of a death for the legendary Ghost (I am a happy endings guy after all). An alternative route to go (other than following Tomoe to the mainland to rip off the Ghost) is to work backwards, call it ‘Ghosts of Tsushima’ working towards a story of a more ancient time, where a thief could become a samurai clan. A clan Sakai or Shimura origin would sell in that way too and avoid the idea that we have to start again from zero but still have the more ‘dishonorable’ stealth tactics.

義は険しい山よりも重く、死は大鳥の羽よりも軽い : Conclusion In the end, this game was worth the wait, worth the delays and worth the price tag. I feel like this will be one of the games I’ll fondly remember when thinking of the PS4, which has truly had a stellar library of awesome games like Spider-Man, God of War, the Crash, Ratchet & Clank and Spyro Remasters, DMCV, Jedi: Fallen Order and more. This truly ticked the boxes for the anime nerd within me and the history buff, even the Haikus spurred the poet in me a little too. If anyone hasn’t played this game, they should, and I hope that Sucker Punch realises that people like me want to see more. If it stands alone so be it, but I’m not ready to leave Jin or Tsushima just yet. いってらっしゃい

[atomic-taco-muffin]

May I ask for Sora x princess reader x Roxas? Where their love is forbidden. Because she has to be with Roxas it’s what her mom and dad want. So she feels bad when she’s around Sora. Because she spends all her time with Roxas. One night some people in black coats appear in her room and immediately Sora saved her and hides her in his small house. She gets really scared to fall asleep. But,Sora then helps her. The next morning he realized that he couldn’t have her. Because he wasn’t royalty just her knight. But, no matter what happens he promised that he’ll be by her side.

SoRoku x Princess!Reader: Our Forbidden Love. 

Warnings: fluff/angst (mainly angst) 

You were the princess of a really big kingdom and the only child. Your mother nearly died while giving birth to you. You were very curious. Especially when it came to love. You fell in love the guard of your kingdom and the prince your parents wanted you to marry. One day, you were walking along the garden with Sora and Roxas. The people of the castle thought that Sora was there to protect you from threats, but they were so wrong.

“How long do you plan to keep this secret? Your parents are gonna know.” Sora said. 

“I have no idea. But I don’t care what they say. I love my two boys very much.” You said, smiling. The two of them smiled and kept walking. You couldn’t show any PDA to them, specifically Sora. You didn’t want to risk you’re secret getting out. You heard the bell ring, signalling that it was close to supper. 

“We should head to supper. We’ll see you later, Sora.” Roxas said. 

“Bye.” Sora said. He really wished that your parents allowed you three to be together, but they were super strict with you. You and roxas had entered the dining room and took you seats. You and Roxas ate your dinner in silence while your parents chatted with Roxas’ parents. Everything was fine until your mom mentioned Sora. 

“So I saw you two with that guard today. What was he doing with you?” you mother questioned. 

“Um, he was making sure that no one tried to attack us. You know how suspicious we can be.” you said. Thankfully, she bought it. 

“Alright then. If you say so.” 

“Aww, come on (M/N). Leave those two alone. They can take care of themselves.” your father said. 

“I don’t want some nobody interfering with our arranged marriage.” your mother said. Roxas had enough and snapped. 

“Why can’t you just leave us alone! It’s not your marriage! It’s our marriage! And we should be able to decide what we want to do without you interfering!” he yelled.  

“Roxas! That is no way to speak to the queen!” his father scolded.

“Does it look like I care?! This whole time, we’ve been doing what her mother says and never having a say in the matter!” 

“Roxas, that’s enough!” his mother said. 

“I’m not hungry anymore. Go ahead and continue controlling us. See if I care.” Roxas stormed out of the dining room and went to your bedroom. 

“I’m not hungry either. And he’s right, mother. You can’t keep controlling us. We’re not kids anymore. Isn’t the whole point of this is to make decisions for ourselves?”  

“I’m not having this discussion anymore. Go ahead and take care of this yourself. See what happens then.” your mother said. You left the dining room and went to go find Roxas. you entered your room and saw Sora trying to comfort Roxas. 

“Roxas told me what happened.” Sora said. 

“I wish she was more understanding.” you sighed. 

“Me too. But we’ll figure something out. I’m sure of it.” Sora said. He brought you and Roxas into a group hug and the three of you cuddled until he had to go on patrol around the castle. Later that night, when everyone was sleeping, a group of black cloaks had snuck into the castle. The leader of the group said that he was heading to your room. He entered your room and saw you and Roxas cuddling each other. The man unsheathed his sword and was about to kill you but Sora was able to stop him. You and Roxas scooted up the bed to get away from the fight. Eventually, Sora had won the fight. The man retreated along with his comrades.

“Are you guys okay?” Sora asked.

“Yeah. Thanks, Sora.”

“It’s not safe here. I recognize the man in the cloak. They’re from a cult called Organization XIII. Come with me to my house and I’ll keep you guys safe.” You and Roxas didn’t argue with him. He helped you guys into his horse and rode out to his house.

“I know it’s not much but home sweet home.” Sora said.

“It’s perfect, Sora. Thank you.” You said. You three got settled but you couldn’t sleep.

“Baby, what’s wrong?” Roxas asked.

“I can’t stop thinking about that man from earlier. He looked like he was trying to kill me.” You said.

“Well fear not. For you knight in shining armor is here to protect you!” Sora said. You giggled and kissed his cheek.

“Thanks guys. Is it okay if you guys cuddle me?” You asked. Sora and Roxas smiled and cuddled you to sleep. Sora stayed up to make sure that you and Roxas were asleep. He looked at you sleeping faces. He knew that he would probably never be able to be with you both. But he made a silent promise to keep you safe till the day he dies.

“I love you guys.” He whispered. He snuggled close to you and fell asleep, dreaming of a happy life with you and Roxas.

[jcmorrigan]

im curious (again XD); do you have any favorite mozenrath headcanons/or headcanons in general ? :D

I mean, I see him as a very anti-social person most of the time - his ideal fun day is just reading in his library all day - but I do think if you met him up with people who shared his lack of moral compass and ambitious fervor, his walls would come down a bit. (I mean, I have a whole crossover fic about this, and then I got into a Disney villain RP where I wrote as him and the exact same thing ended up happening with a different group of characters entirely)

I think it’s pretty canon at this point that his favorite color is blue, but in case it isn’t - he loves blue. Everything must be blue. It’s an AESTHETIC.

I’ve modified my backstory for him a few times, but it usually boils down to: he was one of Cassim’s children (I used to have him as Aladdin’s twin but now he’s a half-brother who peaced out of that house when Aladdin was a babey), he felt his father was an absolute jerk who didn’t understand his intellectual pursuits (and really, his instincts were kinda right, since Cassim ran off), he set out to find the most feared man in the Seven Deserts on purpose, Destane was impressed that a kiddo had managed to make it all the way to the Black Sands without dying, too bad Destane was more in the mood for a personal servant and test subject than an actual apprentice, but don’t get me wrong, as horrible as he was to Mozenrath, Mozenrath had actually fantasized about world domination BEFORE turning up on his door - and then, finally, Mozenrath got a lucky shot and managed to suck the life out of Destane.

Also, Destane at least kept the people of the Black Sands human while he subjected them to his iron-fisted rule. Mozenrath was the one who decided they should all be shambling undead

He doesn’t want to talk about the actual two weeks he spent inside Dagger Rock. I’m thinking Mirage let him out for a lark because she knew the playing field was just that more evil with him on it

Mozenrath can literally necromance - the Mamluks aren’t just drained of life force; they were killed and brought back intentionally half-souled. He’s a one-in-a-million case for having this ability; however, necromancy =/= healing and therefore he cannot extend his own life force with his own magic, nor can he resurrect himself once his own soul hits the afterlife

He isn’t a Muslim but actually closer to a Zoroastrian/Mithraist. This ties in to how I am pretty sure the Black Sands is Persia/Iran (but this is a more common larger headcanon). He may have been born into a Muslim family, but the moment he turned his back on Destane, he decided to adopt a practice that made more sense to him. However, in Mithraism, the belief is that Mithras, the good god, will defeat Ahriman, lord of evil. Mozenrath wants this to be the other way around. I actually like subbing in “Ahriman” for him for expressions where we might casually use “God” - “Oh, goddammit” for us = “Oh, Ahriman curse it” for him.

He also has a thorough knowledge of the other gods of the world. Just in case.

It’s canon that he knows about at least one other world, as he pulled the Thirdac from it. If you like thinking about Mozenrath in the Kingdom Heartsverse, nobody needs to explain to him what a Keyblade is; if Sora drew one in front of him, he’d just be “Oh. One of THOSE. All right, you’re a world-hopper.” He might’ve even toured a few.

This is more of a general Agrabah headcanon - ever notice how in the series, there ALWAYS seems to be a new sorcerer whose time has passed but left a MacGuffin lying around? Wizard Khufu, the Witches of the Sand, Khartoum, Shamash, Destane...I have it that before the generation Aladdin is set in fully took hold, there was an “Age of Sorcery” where these sorcerers controlled all. Jafar was basically the end of it; Mozenrath is a one-man revival who takes his cues from the sorcerers from old and studies their legacies. (Well, okay, Ayam Aghoul is another example in his own way)

Mozenrath and Ayam Aghoul are the two most compatible Agrabah rogues; we were robbed when they never had a team-up episode. Most of the folks at the Guild of Thieves, such as Amin Damoola, Abis Mal, or Mechanicles, Mozenrath could not STAND. Aghoul GETS him, though. They both have morbid fascinations with death and ample collections of magic. Total bros.

Mozenrath isn’t afraid of death. Well, mostly not. What happens is that when the gauntlet starts to burn him too fast, he panics and realizes this might not be exactly what he wanted. But usually, he doesn’t mind spending a lot of his life force at a time because he feels it’s worth it, and sometimes, when faced with a near-death experience, he’s just...ready, only to be glad when he finds himself alive. His actual greatest fear is of dying sick/old/weak in bed. He wants to die going out with a bang: using up his last life force on some amazing spell that lets him get the last word.

The gauntlet has his affected body in constant pain - wherever the edge of his flesh is. (I used to think that around the time of the series, it was only his arm; then I saw an AMAZING fanart of him with his skin stripped from half his upper body so you could see through to his beating heart and I LOVE THAT so that’s where I place him.) However, it’s comparatively mild; just incessant. His pain tolerance is slightly better than most, but not completely (the Mukhtar’s ropes backfiring on him were significantly a different beast than the eating away of the gauntlet).

Gay, but during the time of the series, has never really cared enough about finding a partner to even wonder what his sexuality is. When your company is countless rotting undead, you don’t really have much room to find your type (though Ayam Aghoul would disagree and say that’s the BEST place to find your type - incidentally, to follow up, I don’t ship Mozenrath and Aghoul. They’re just bros. Aghoul is pretty straight and also incredibly not Mozenrath’s romantic type - though I did once read an amusing AU fanfiction that suggested Mozenrath was the person who Aghoul tried to “marry” with the enchanted pendant and also the one who turned it to backfire on him).

Don’t give him coffee. Just...don’t. He doesn’t handle coffee well. He gets incredibly hyperactive (read: destructive) and then just crashes unconscious.

I think that’s all I can think of for now. As soon as I hit “Post” I’m going to realize something super important I forgot, I KNOW it

Well, okay, this one is not really relevant to canon-compliant works but his drag name would be Brandisia Black it’s a long story

[aion-rsa]

How to Watch Anime Online: The Best Legal Anime Streaming Options

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

It’s been amazing to witness the growth of the anime industry in America. It used to be extremely difficult to find anime in the country and even then, it was a very select handful of programs that were only available with questionable dubs. Over the course of a few decades this niche genre of animation hasn’t just become a mainstream obsession, but it’s now actively sought by streaming services. Anime’s popularity in America has reached a point where there are now multiple streaming services that offer ways to consume this content. There’s no need to get unnecessarily overwhelmed with all of these options for where to get anime. Here’s a helpful breakdown of not just the anime-exclusive streamers, but also the services that you may already have that are full of satisfying anime content.

Anime-Exclusive Streaming Services

Funimation

Price: Free (with ads); $5.99 per month; $7.99 per month; $99.99 a year ($8.30 per month) Advantages: Huge library of titles, largest library of dubbed content

Funimation is an essential name in the anime industry and they’ve been able to grow from a plucky dubbing studio to one of the biggest providers of anime to the country. Funimation is a great place for beginners to check out what anime they’re interested in and it also offers a two-week trial to explore their content. 

Funimation’s large library features a good deal of crossover with Crunchyroll, but their library skews more towards dubbed content. Funimation’s ability to maintain a speedy simuldub schedule, even during a pandemic, is very impressive. The free tier option faces certain restrictions like being locked to a lower video resolution and needing to wait for new content, but there’s still a ton to enjoy, including exclusive titles. Funimation’s only growing bigger and they’re routinely behind some of the dubs for the most popular anime series.

Notable Series: Attack on Titan, My Hero Academia, Mob Psycho 100, Dragon Ball, The Promised Neverland

Crunchyroll

Price: Free; $7.99 per month; $9.99 per month; $14.99 per month Advantages: Massive library of titles, now producing original anime

Crunchyroll is a fundamental service when it comes to anime streaming services, especially since it offers a free tier to enjoy its content. There are nearly 1000 available titles to explore, which includes both older titles as well as a tight simulcast schedule with the latest series. This also applies to both subtitled and dubbed content. Crunchyroll’s prominence in the industry has even grown to the point that they’ve started to produce and co-produce original anime series like Tower of God and The God of High School, which have turned into massive hits. Crunchyroll’s interface isn’t the easiest to navigate and there are certain frustrating restrictions placed on the free tier, like the resolution at which content can be watched. 

Funimation recently acquired Crunchyroll, so it’s likely that a lot of changes will take place between these two services, whether that means a union in the coming years, or that they’ll both focus on slightly different demographics, albeit under the same parent company. It does indicate how the anime streaming industry has become increasingly consolidated and that the value of these services is finally getting recognized in a significant way.

Notable Series: Jujutsu Kaisen, Demon Slayer: Kimetsu No Kaiba, My Hero Academia, JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, Digimon Adventure

VRV

Price: Free (with ads); $9.99 per month (no ads)  Advantages: Includes Crunchyroll and HIDIVE’s libraries

VRV hasn’t gained the same level of acclaim as Crunchyroll and Funimation, but it’s created a strong streaming package by building its library off of other streamers’ content. VRV is basically a combined version of Crunchyroll and HIDIVE, which isn’t exactly original, but it’s still a decent strategy to acquire content.

VRV may seem a little sketchier or more unstable than other anime streamers, but it offers a deal that’s hard to ignore. The HIDIVE anime streaming service is typically $4.99 per month or $47.88 a year on its own, so VRV is quite the steal in comparison. 

Notable Series: Higurashi: When They Cry, Is It Wrong To Try To Pick Up Girls In A Dungeon?, Made in Abyss, Ahiru no Sora, The Promised Neverland

Retrocrush, Viz Media, Tubi TV

Price: Free Advantages: Uniquely curated libraries and niche titles

In addition to these subscription services, Retrocrush, Viz Media, and Tubi TV are all free streamers that narrow in on more specific areas and have some excellent anime titles in their libraries that can’t be found anywhere else. These services lack some of the flair and support of the larger competitors, but they’re still a great place to binge on classic anime titles. Retrocrush is an especially useful streaming service that features not just some of the biggest titles from the ‘70s to the ‘90s, but also a handful of modern series with classic sensibilities. 

Retrocrush Notable Series: Flame of Recca, Cromartie High School, Samurai Pizza Cats, Pop Team Epic, Lupin The Third Part II

Tubi TV Notable Series: Mr. Osomatsu, JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, Kaiba, Lupin the Third Part I, Redline

Viz Media Notable Series: One-Punch Man, Death Note, JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, Yashahime: Princess Half-Demon, Ranma ½

Popular Streaming Services With Anime Libraries

Netflix

Price: $8.99 per month; $13.99 per month; $17.99 per month Advantages: Original anime series, Neon Genesis Evangelion

Netflix has turned into an unexpected power player in terms of their anime content. More and more series are getting acquired by Netflix in a way where it’s clear that they see where the future is headed with the industry. The “original” series that Netflix has acquired like Devilman Crybaby, Great Pretender, and Japan Sinks: 2020 all exhibit fantastic taste. 

However, the older anime series that Netflix has are often incomplete and there are many great titles included that just have their first seasons available. This can be seriously frustrating in some cases, but for beginners it’s sometimes enough of a taste. Netflix is also the only place in America where Neon Genesis Evangelion can be streamed, which is honestly a detail that trumps everything else for some people.

Notable Series: Great Pretender, Kakegurui, Neon Genesis Evangelion, Devilman Crybaby, Gurren Lagann

Hulu

Price: $5.99 per month (with ads) or $59.99 per year; $11.99 per month (no ads) Advantages: More classical anime series and a lot of Funimation and Adult Swim’s content

Hulu is another streaming service that’s not designed around anime, but still has a decent library of titles to enjoy. Hulu currently benefits from a partnership that they signed with Funimation back in 2018 that allows them to stream much of their library. Hulu also has similarly benefitted from access to a lot of Adult Swim’s library, too. 

This, as well as the healthy amount of classical titles from older generations, gives Hulu audiences a lot to enjoy. However, as the anime streaming industry continues to fracture, pieces of Hulu’s library have disappeared. They still have many titles, but a lot of them are incomplete or are sporadic when it comes to whether subs or dubs are available.

Notable Series: Space Dandy, Gintama, Psycho-Pass, My Hero Academia, Kill La Kill 

Amazon Prime

Price: $119 per year (or $12.99 per month) Advantages: Impressive library of anime films

Amazon Prime used to be a much more prominent player in terms of places to stream anime content due to their Anime Strike service. In the coming years, their focus has shifted elsewhere and a lot of their anime has hit the chopping block. 

This means that there’s a lot more of a random selection on Amazon Prime, but there are still some exceptional titles available, including some fantastic anime movies. Amazon Prime’s sporadic anime line-up isn’t enough to warrant a subscription, but if you’re someone that’s already a member then it’s worth checking out the titles that they do have.

Notable Series: Dr. Stone, Fire Force, Mob Psycho 100, JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, FLCL 

HBO Max

Price: $14.99 per month Advantages: Studio Ghibli library and a lot of Adult Swim’s content

HBO Max is one of the newer streaming services to come forward and even though anime is not their priority, they’ve still already made a strong impression in the area. HBO Max has become the exclusive streaming home for Studio Ghibli content in America and they’ve also singled out the filmographies of other anime visionaries like Masaaki Yuasa. 

This behavior and how new dubs have already premiered on HBO Max shows that the service understands that anime is an important area of focus. HBO Max continues to acquire a lot of Adult Swim’s content, which includes some of their more notable anime titles, too.

Notable Series: Mob Psycho 100, Berserk, The Promised Neverland, Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken!, and the Studio Ghibli library

Adult Swim

Price: Free with a Cable Subscription (with ads) Advantages: Exclusive dubbed series

Adult Swim isn’t on the same level of any of these other services, but the channel’s commitment to their Toonami programming block of anime has made them an important player through all of this. Toonami is still the place to see many of the dubs for the most recent anime hits and titles like Dragon Ball Super, My Hero Academia, and now Attack on Titan have all been vital programs for Adult Swim.

Adult Swim has even gone into the co-production of original anime series, which will bring even more exciting titles forward. However, much of Adult Swim’s streaming content has been poached by HBO Max and it’s unclear how much of their influence will determine their future.

Notable Series: Assassination Classroom, Attack on Titan, Cowboy Bebop, Demon Slayer: Kimetsu No Yaiba, JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure

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Additionally, there are also YouTube Channels for studios and series with lots of free content, like Bandai America, Discotek Media, Gundam.Info, and Toei Animation.

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[fizzingwizard]

Another Sunday, another episode of Digimon Adventure: (how tf do I do punctuate??). It is a good time to be a fan of Yagami Taichi.

I remember being 11 years old, the last episode of Digimon Adventure made be bawl my eyes out, and although I was excited for 02, really I just wanted more of Adventure. I guess I’m just slow to like new things (well, I am), but I would have super happy if the producers had been like, “02 will be a reboot for Adventure with the same characters and similar storyline.” And then do the same thing for every new Digimon season xD I’m sure I’m pretty damn alone in that opinion and don’t get me wrong, I love 02, and I think Tamers was good. And yet xD

^The screenshot that sums up the episode: Greymon gets his butt kicked while Taichi hangs on for dear life

I know the bond between children and Digimon is what powers them, and I’m kind of wondering if having a physical connection improves that in this show, because these kids are always riding around on their partners. (Not able exception - Togemon, because ouch. But I expect to see Mimi on her boxing glove at least lol) I have to rationalize it that way because otherwise it’s like why would having an elementary school kid on your head while you rush into the line of fire count as a battle strategy

This ep picks up pretty much where we left off, which means it’s probably only been hours since Yamato joined the group at the fortress. Already the atmosphere is completely changed.

I can see them, but they can’t see me... Ishida Yamato’s modus operandi

more below

Here is a very Digimon-esque tableau: everyone gathered around Koushirou and his computer. Yamato still being standoffish. I imagine he jumped at the chance to stand guard at the entrance so he doesn’t have to get too close to anyone.

Agumon’s fight with MetalTyrannomon went... not so great. Yamato coolly tries to explain to Taichi that evacuating was the only way, otherwise they’d risk all being destroyed, and that would be the end of everything.

Taichi’s fist tightens and begins to shake...

... he doesn’t look like he totally agrees with Yamato’s reasoning, but he doesn’t have a better idea. But, being Taichi, he can’t just let it rest.

Yamato talking to Taichi’s back while Taichi frantically starts to sort out his Feelings is just how they communicate. This is a common shonen anime trope for the hero and his foil. Yamato’s pushing, Taichi’s not exactly hiding, but he doesn’t want to face him until he can face him with resolve.

Yamato: Look at me. Look at me!

Taichi: *sweating* It feels like a hole’s burning in the back of my neck, so... I’ll pass

Taichi finally explains out what’s got him so knotted up: he regrets Ogremon’s death. Like we saw last episode, the battle that began as revenge turned into a battle of samurai pride. And Taichi is evidently a samurai. He wanted to see that battle to the finish, out of mutual respect for the opponent (who he’d never met before and who had been trying to kill him previously... but y’know when you’re kindred spirits that’s all water under the bridge)

Yamato doesn’t really get it. This is where these two are fundamentally different. Taichi attac, Yamato protec, then everybody gets a FIGHT!

I mean, not 100% of the time, but the bottom line is Yamato’s not so big on this pride thing, although he does have pride of his own. But he’s definitely not into taking unnecessary risks, especially if it puts his friends in danger. The trouble is, Taichi doesn’t think he takes unneccessary risks either... just necessary ones ;)

The other kids can already feel the tension increasing and Taichi and Yamato haven’t even raised their voices at each other yet. Lol buckle up kiddos

Jou wonders if he should make them stop, and Mimi instantly turns around and begs him to try. My Joumi heart LEAPT.

TBH I was surprised she did anything at all, I was expecting Jou’s “Should I break them up?” to just end there with nothing happening. Instead we got an adorable Joumi moment where Mimi shows that as much as she teases him, she already somewhat relies on Jou (to be fair, I do think Mimi’s the type to rely on anyone who offers when she’s not sure what to do herself). Jou, being Jou, is unprepared aaaaand wigs out.

Jou: Oh no oh no oh no she actually expects me to get between them?!?! But but I flunked Tough Guy school! That’s literally why I’m a nerd! This girl’s trying to throw me to the wolves!

Fortunately for Jou, he has a redheaded savior.

Sora: Stop it. He’ll wet his pants again and I don’t have any more extras.

Sora shows her insight into people’s hearts and understands that Taichi and Yamato need to hash things out. It’s not dangerous... yet. But the way she’s more or less frozen in place along with the others says she’s... maybe a bit on her guard, at least, lol.

Koushirou, being Kousihrou, is completely oblivious to all of this and focused on his computer.

Oh yeah... the real reason Taichi turned his back to Yamato earlier - whenever they look directly at each other, they suck each others souls out. I CALL BODY SWITCH

I mean jogress

I mean marriage

They spend like the entire first half of the episode arguing omg get a room.

Then... Agumon wakes up!

And even though it’s a cartoon, it’s clear to see the way Taichi’s body fills with relief. I wonder if Yamato didn’t realize or didn’t think Taichi was that worried about Agumon. 99 Yamato tended to feel that Taichi was insensitive to others. But while he can be, Taichi also doesn’t express his emotions in the same way as Yamato. They’re both wont to hide how they feel, but while Yamato goes quiet and aloof, Taichi just acts like everything’s normal. So maybe here, Yamato really thought Ogremon and MetalTyrannomon were the only things on Taichi’s mind. Just a guess.

Awwww montage of cute...

a boy and his dinosaur!!

Maybe to Yamato’s surprise, Agumon totally echoes Taichi’s feelings about Ogremon. “I wanted to settle the score with him.” Weird as it sounds, they made a manly bond with Ogremon and running away just doesn’t sit right. Agumon’s raring to go...

... but his stomach isn’t quite ready yet hahaha.

Yamato’s probably used to Gabumon’s appetie but I suspect Agumon’s tummy growl has errr exceptional resonance

Glad to see the return of the Digimon’s bottomless pit aka stomach. I think it was just last week I complained about that not really being a thing so far. This time it was the other Digimon who went gathering, but I hope to see the human kids rushing around in a frenzy to care for their partners’ appetites soon lol

While the others eat, Taichi and Yamato decide they haven’t finished vampiring each other’s souls and sneak out to the mouth of the cave. Sora follows them to see if she can watch any hot yaoi action.

Lol but I do really like the framing heart. All we can see of the boys is their shadows. Sora keeps her distance but she’s watching them intently from a distance. I assumed she was just gathering more data on how short a leash she needs to keep them on.

Turned out that was not quite correct... reluctant to interrupt though she’d been before, once they start talking about what to do next she adds her input. We’ve got Yamato on Taichi’s one side and Sora on his other side. It’s the beginnings of TAIORATOOOOO *more airhorns*

^I can’t see anything but Goku and Vegeta bahahaha. Also why is eleven-year-old Yamato SO broad-shouldered, between that, his deeper voice, and his perfeclty coifed hair Taichi must seem like a toddling infant to him bahahaha. Like come on Yamato is not a child you must be kidding

Already Yamato is getting into the habit of Looking At Taichi while Taichi Looks At Literally Anything Else.

These two don’t need words. They talk with their vampiric eyes.

Koushirou’s hyper focus on his computer finally pays off and they all gather back around. Everyone starts cheering when the hologram appears even though they don’t know what the heck it is. This is Koushirou, so it must be awesome!

It turns out to be a map of much usefulness.

And it turns out Ogremon was telling the truth about the path to the holy Digimon being straight ahead, while fires Taichi up even more.

^Obligatory ‘Gomamon is cutest Digimon’ cap

Koushirou also gives Taichi special data on MetalTyrannomon, including his weak point. Taichi is THRILLED. He’s happier about this than he is about finding the route to the holy Digimon. This is the difference between Taishiro and Taito guys. When Taichi gets a reckless idea, Yamato tries to talk him down, or at least be sensible about it. Koushirou? Koushirou is a FREAKING ENABLER.

They wait with baited breath for Yamato’s reaction. Though he seems underwhelmed, Yamato admits Koushirou’s information “does seem reliable.” That’s all the permission Taichi needs to go back to freaking out over how awesome Koushirou is.

They come up with a plan to lure MetalTyrannomon away so Taichi can fight him while the others take the chance to escape and head towards the path to the holy Digimon.

^Obligatory ‘Sora is best girl’ cap

Yamato waits for the others to get away before following after... he stalls for a minute as if unsure whether it’s really alright to leave Taichi on his own. In the end he joins the group... All things considered, I think he’s pretty thrown off by Taichi, tbh.

Yamato’s group doesn’t make it far before they encounter a very suspicious looking lake.

^More evidence that Yamato is not really an elementar school kids. He’s clearly at least 15. He’s been routinely failing every year in order to get held back until he can be in the same class as Takeru. That’s the extent of his overprotectiveness

It sure is fortunate that Koushirou’s genius extends to fluency in English or they’d have no idea this lake of dark mist is bad friggin news.

Or... maybe they would have:

Mimi sneaks behind Jou and pulls his middle school exam workbook out of his bag.

And immediately chucks it into the lake.

Where it disintegrates.

This is how Mimi’s mind works. She’s smart! They need to know what would happen if they went into the lake without actually going in it. So they need to put something else in first. So far so good. What should she throw? A stick? A rock? One of Sora’s endless towels?

No, Jou’s workbook. Duhhh.

She probably felt she was killing two birds with one stone here x’D Experiment complete, and Jou prevented from anymore whining about not having time to study. Mimi is chaotic good.

gosh I love Joumi

Jou is lawful neurotic

Greymon shielding Taichi is just soooo cute even if it still feels weird that he has to be up there in the first place

The battle rages between MetalTyrannomon and Greymon, who just won’t quit even though he’s losing... pretty bad... I mean...

He just grabbed a missile with his bare hand...

Taichi: Now I know what it’s like to be a firework

Loop-de-loop! Taichi’s suction cup shoes strike again.

Courage going UP!! Reaching a fever pitch! The evolution that’s been looming for two episodes finally happens!

MetalTyrannomon: Eat my dust!

Woooooooo, MetalGreymon is just as freaky as ever. Always my least favorite evolution in Agumon’s line, but the glowy purple wings are cool.

Also, nipple missiles.

MetalTyrannomon: I can’t believe I was beaten by some meddling kids!

So yeah, we are back to killing Digimon willy-nilly. None of this “but what about their hearts?” shitck. Always found it amazing in 02, a children’s cartoon, that said “Yeah the characters you loved last season were totes murderers but it was justified and sometimes you just have to kill.” And fourteen-year-old Taichi is just like, “Yeah, I’m a murderer, and you should be too.” XD And Miyako hits LadyDevimon with a skateboard. Priceless

This scene is adorable but Taichi’s butt looks so saggy.

I’m kind of wondering how evolution works in this show. They jumped right to jogress in like episode two or something, but we haven’t seen it since (I would sort of expected Taichi to think of it when it was clear MetalTyrannomon was too strong, though I would also expect Yamato to nix that idea both because he doesn’t want to and because to him it’s a pointless fight and not the priority). Since then, the Champion level evolutions went similar to 99 Adventure, with everyone getting their special episode, and I’m sure that’s how it’ll go down with the next level too, but there was no gap at all between going from one level to the next. I’m trying to say, they seem able to reach the next level awfully fast. They didn’t need to meet Gennai and collect the tags and Crests, the Crests appear already uploaded in their Digivices. I’m not complaining, as always I’m glad this show is not just a carbon copy of the old one, but I am curious if evolutions are easier to attain in this series, or if there are going to be more of them and that’s why they come so quick, or if the series just won’t run long enough for there to be significant gaps of time between evolutions.

Episode ends with the group deciding, like I predicted last week, to split up and try the Left and Right routes, since the Straight one is blocked. Gays go right and lesbians go left, of course. :P

This episode was pretty fantabulous, I loved it, Digimon is awesome.

Next week it’s no surprise what we’re gonna get.

WeeeeereGarurumon! Also my least favorite evolution of Gabumon’s line but still cooler than MetalGreymon hahahaha.

I’m also totally stoked for the grouping of Yamato, Jou, and Sora. There’s tons of potential for Yamato and Sora to bond, although my prediction is that while he’ll pretty much like her (even if he won’t admit it to himself), she’s going to find him a little difficult. But she’ll have an easier time talking to him than the others do. I also fully expect Jou to drive Yamato out of his mind lol.

This also means the other group is Taichi, Koushirou, and Mimi. I assume we won’t see too much of them next week, but I hope that means they’ll get their episode the week after, because I am dying for some Taishiro moments. Practically salivating. Also, Koumi fans can probably look forward to Mimi and Koushirou Not Getting each other too, lol

[a-merman-not-a-guppy]

CHINESE HOROSCOPES 2020! Fruits Basket Style

The Rat - “You're done. Put that down and get out.” - Yuki Sohma

Other Rats: Lymantria Khan, Mateo De Alva

Congrats. It is the year of the rat. The Rat horoscope 2020 predicts that you may be filled with a vague feeling of dissatisfaction even though things will go quite well.He is loyal and devoted to his friends and rather protective of them. He is not really romantic and often is really good friends with his lover. At times he can be mean, stubborn, and narrow-minded in his view but it is merely his way of being a perfectionist and his need to live by his own rules.

Don’t listen, then, to the insidious little voice that will incite you to see things in black. Look at your life with serenity: You’ll realize that, in fact, you’ve absolutely no serious reason to complain or even to worry. Celebrate the many good things you’ve been given.

The Ox - “A mystery...” - Hatsuharu Sohma

Other Oxen: Perry Flynn, Merida Dunbroch, Berlioz Bonfamille, Mabel Pines, Dipper Pines, Charlie Little, Alana Triton, Keaton “Buster” Palmerteri 

2020 will certainly be a lucky year for those born in the Year of the Ox. You’ll be relaxed and feel good about yourself, The Ox chinese horoscope 2020 predicts that in order to amplify the good celestial influences of the year and lessen the negative impacts, it will be in your best interests to take stock of your life and to hatch out new projects. and this beautiful balance will have happy repercussions on your love life.

Some of you might accidentally encounter some supernatural events that are beyond one’s imagination. Whether such meeting is a good omen or not is to be established in the near future. But certainly it brings a new chapter into one’s life. As long as one has an open mind and does not keep thinking of negative consequences, then the situation should be under control. If still in doubt, then one can choose to totally ignore it.

The Tiger - “When I’m...with Onee-chan...I feel warm inside...” - Kisa Sohma

Other Tigers: Kanga DeRosa, Thomas O’Malley, Calliope Harper, Olafur Önnuson, Gregory Eeyore, Marian May, Sindri Dyrsson

Tigers are set to reap the benefits of the Year of the Rat; career and education, in particular, will be the areas to focus on for the next few months. Be confident in your abilities. Use your talents for good; loyalty and intelligence will get you far. On the other hand, health and relationships will not have such a positive outlook. You will need to be sensitive to your well-being and others’ if you want to have a good year.

The Rabbit - “But...I think...I want to live with all my memories. Even if they're sad memories.” - Momiji Sohma

Other Rabbits: Kiara Lyons, Shannon “Shock” Adamson, Bambi Basurto, Sora Hamasaki/Roxas, Reed Fisch, Elyon Brown

The Rabbit horoscope 2020 predicts that in general, the outlook is positive. However, the year will be marked with some tense configurations. In order to preserve your serenity, it would be in your best interest to adopt a well-balanced lifestyle at the very start of the year.Be careful about your diet, and think of getting more fresh air; indeed, you’ll tend to live too much indoors, forgetting to walk or to maintain contact with nature. There’s a whole world out there for you to explore.

The Dragon -  “No I was simply too amazed by your stupidity to say anything.” - Hatori Sohma

Other Dragons: Imelda Rivera, Sun Park, Roscoe Sykes, Jake Long, Marie Bonfamille, Deb DamselBu, Oliver Twistes, Fflewddur Fflam

The Dragon horoscope 2020 predicts that this year, you will become more sure of yourself and assert your originality, especially in your career, where your qualities will be acknowledged by your superiors and colleagues. But you’ll also have the tendency to adopt overly radical positions at times; try to be more moderate.Beware: By refusing to make concessions, you’ll antagonize even those who only want to help you! Expect luck to smile upon you.

The Snake - “So send me your desire. In the service of my fellow students, I am prepared to receive!” - Ayame Sohma

Other Snakes: Kristoff Bjorgman, Violet Parr, Isabel Flores 

The Snake horoscope 2020 predicts that your personal evolution will be highlighted by the Stars this year. You’ll discover new things that interest you and you’ll better understand the direction of your destiny. Many of you will be attracted by all that is related to spirituality. Your natural generosity will express itself usefully in the service of others. Think about this if ever you have an important career choice to make.

The Horse - “And if when everything ends, nothing is left in my hands...that's alright.” - Rin Sohma

Other Horses: Willis Tibbs, Marzel of Coronado, Marisa of Coronado, Gaston Lacarriere, Ralph O’Reilly, Lucius “Lock” Adamson, Ashley Spinelli, Mei Qin, Dash Parr, Haley Long, Urchin Owens, Ashle Boulet, Ashleigh Quinlan, Ariel Triton

The horse horoscope 2020 predicts that the year may be marked with important surprises. Now, as a native of this Sign, you abhor the unforeseen. Nevertheless, it will be in your best interest to act quickly if changes come to disrupt your career schedule. Given the favorable astral configurations of the year, such modifications will play in your favor, on the condition that you take up the challenge. Don’t be doubtful of your abilities; you’ll find the necessary resources within yourself to make the most of changing conditions.

The Goat - "STUPID WOMAN! Always stealing our alone time." - Hiro Sohma

Other Goats: Terra, Nala, Terence, Attina, Ella, Simba, Meg, Finn, Roo, Huey, Dewey, Louie, Ashlee T, Nemo, Wilbur

The year of the Rat will be full of highs and lows for Goats. Having enjoyed a relatively stable previous year, they should expect 2020 to be more dramatic.Goats will have to work harder than usual to capitalize on great financial opportunities during the first half of the year. These resources should then be saved to prepare for the difficult years of the Ox, Tiger, and Rabbit.

In the second half, Goats may face some serious problems that can last a while. These obstacles will require strong persistence and commitment from them. However, they should see this as an opportunity to grow and bring out the best in them. As long as Goats remain optimistic throughout the year, everything should turn out fine.

The Monkey -  "I'm a complete failure. At everything I do, I'm absolutely worthless. I know this, and yet I continue to burden the human race with my presence. “ - Ritsu Sohma

Other Monkeys: Celia, Henry, Jake Rogers

The Monkey horoscope 2020 predicts that this year, you’ll have to make concerted efforts in order to get what you want. Important changes can take place at home or at work, so you need to be prepared. It would be ideal if you could remain confident when you actually feel like sweating. If you act rather than panic, you’ll find brilliant solutions and you’ll triumph over difficulties. Be convinced that life is made of renewals and that upheavals are useful because they allow you to make progress.

The Rooster - “I alone am free. I could go anywhere I please. I could love whomever I wish.” - Kureno Sohma

Other Roosters:  Marlin, Iseul, Adella, Belle, Artemis, Apollo, Jim, Sally, Georgette, Chase

The Rooster chinese horoscope 2020 predicts that this year, your focus will be on the sectors related to relations with others. Thus, it will be in your best interest to think of other people more. Whether in your work, love affairs or family life, don’t make any decisions without foreseeing its consequences on those around you. Good fortune will smile upon you if you put your family and friends first.

The Dog -  “Sometimes I think the whole world is conspiring to destroy my house.” - Shigure Sohma

Other Dogs: Reza, Hera, Minnie, Sarina, Melody, John, Elena

People born in the year of the Dog won’t have to complain about the stars in the year of the Rat 2020, for they will have good luck in most areas of their life. You will need to be patient and tenacious at work. If you’re wise enough to adapt yourself to new challenges that arise, you’ll strengthen your character and develop two key qualities — the art of negotiating and the ability to make sensible choices.

The Pig - “I will forgive him right after I kill him!” - Kagura Sohma

Other Pigs: Hercules, Dodger, Mitte, Jane, Wendy

2020 will be an extremely lucky year for all the people born in the year of the Pig.The pig has the last position among the twelve animals of the Chinese Zodiac. The Pig horoscope 2020 predicts that the astral climate will lighten. After a rather chaotic year, you’ll begin to feel better about yourself. However, there are still lessons to learn. First of all, show yourself to be extremely reasonable in all domains of your life. Next, vow to be more selfless. Finally, the more willing you are to modify your plans at the last minute, the better you’ll fare in all aspects of your life.