#might make another posts just with the trios because this order sucks

[niidsch]

Pokémon Picross - All legendaries and mythicals (1/3)

[originalwinnercheesecake]

First Impressions and predictions based on the coven Leaders

After a full first season their fame adorning the banners and walls, who they are being hailed, yet they themselves being kept in the shadows we now get first looks (and throughout 2a will meet) the emperors top dogs: The coven leaders. I will not lie as a group... these guys dissappoint me. Making the majority of them very human in appearance for me is a big no. Compare this group to the many colorful and fantastical creatures that are shown teaching at hexside and the hexside teachers are far more creative, unique, and fun. Maybe the artists decided to make the coven leaders look more like normal people so the audience would have an easier time understanding their expressions and body language. Maybe the more humanoid whitches are a higher class and have a easier time climbing higher than the more beast and demon like residence.? We will have to wait and see. 

Seperate this group into individuals (like how we will hopefully meet them) and most of them become far more interesting, So below lets take a look at each coven leader individually, where the artists may have taken inspriation, and what  What kind of characters they could maybe turn out to be.

The Beast keeping coven Leader: One of the only two that are not humanoids. What type of animal is he? At first I was sure he was a hedgehog, but maybe he could also be like a chipmunk or a squirrel. I get the feeling he might be partially inspired by Sonic from Sega. I was really into Sonic back in middle school. I liked the cartoons and read through the archie’s old comic series. But I kinda out grew him since then. I know from helping to take care of kids though that he is still popular with the younger generation. That’s kinda how I thin the Beast Keeping Coven leader will be: less interesting for older viewers, but a real fun charcter for kids.

The Healing coven leader: Now this guy looks like fun villain all around. Is some kind of witch docotor? a Dark Priest? The size the purple Grin, he looks like the phantom boss from those horror films where you get trapped in nightmares. Tell me he has scary theme song music and talks in a very high pitched voice. I’ve heard some people wonder if he could be Selena (oracle girl from hexside)’s dad. I don’t thinks so, the macaroni crescent shape n his head looks more like a fancy cowl than part of his actual head. Also him having a daughter in Luz’s class could be used as a reason for him to change sides, I want this guy to stay as a villian/antagonist. We all know that with this size group some will stay with the emperor and some will defect to Luz’s side (possibility a couple will die, we haven’t seen yet just how dark Dana is willing to go). Personally my view with redemption arcs and if a character “deserves them” is it depends on what it will do for the story/character afterwards? IF redeeming them opens more doors for the characters and directions the story can take, do it. IF it closes doors leave them as they are. I absolutely hate when clever and well written bad guys get “redeemed” in to boring, plot useless, weebs. The only reason I could see having this guy change sides is for him to “cure” Eda and Lilith’s curse, and I would much rather see the two of them gain control over their forms than be “cured” of them.

The Illusion coven leader: Another fun looking antagonist. My third favorite of these nine. If the healer guy is horror movie based. This guy is Disney based all around. Looks like one of those Vegas suave showmen styled character. Love it. I guarantee you he does not actually look that young or slicked back, but is using illusion magic to make himself more pretty. Not sure if he will stay with the emperor or not. Illusion is Gus’s track and I could see Dana having the leaders of Luz’s friends tracks be the ones to stand by them. If so I am fine with that (in the case of the abomination leader I will beg for it). Gaining the respect of someone as high up as a coven leader could be really great for Gus’s character. Just as long as I get plenty of laughs from Gus and this guy both along the way.

The Potion coven leader: My second favorite and in my opinion the most creative idea of the whole bunch. A mosquito that works in potions! Does he suck them up with his nose and carry them in.. whatever it is mosquitos store blood in. Also he looks angry. Like everyone else is either amused or board. This guy is fed up and ready to do something about it. Not sure if it is the Emperor, the other leaders, or the owl gang he is mad at, but it should be a worthwhile show down.

The Abomination coven leader: Yes this is my favorite design. Yes it is because he is such a beautiful man. Would never have expected someone who creates mucks (the pokemon) with legs would be so fine. Its more than that though. He looks the most kind. Their is no malice or guise in his smile and his green eyes are bright and relaxed. I wondered what the purpose of the Abomination track was and why it had “more opportunity” all last season. Well slight spoilers if you haven’t seen episode 2x02 it is the industrialist field. When you learn about Industrialization usually the idea is that it is done to help the human race reach its full potential, and it is up to each individual to decide what to do with that potential. Whether you call that the passion of a creative mind or the carelessness of a fool would also be up to you. But I really don’t want this guy to be all bad. If for no other reason that more spoilers for episode 2 * with the interest/caution the emperor is showing the blights I expect this guy to show up to their house, probably meet Amity, and we really do not need another not so nice adult in her life. She has had enough.

The Oracle coven leader: What is this? He’s got nails/caws at the ends of dread thingys like Kikimore, so is this her father? Does he have anything to do with her being in the Emporor’s coven? But this is my least favorite. Like what was the inspiration behind this guy? With so many legendary oracles in mythology and we get this guy who mostly looks saggy, washed out, tierd, and just Blah. Hope thier is more to him, but here is one who I am not holding my breath for an episode on.

The Plant coven leader: based on her banner I was expecting something like the Swamp Giant from ALTA. Instead they went in the direction of a very traditional witch desgine: An old women with a wrinkled face and really messy hair, who probably lives alone in the woods, with maybe the exception of a cat, and dances around a fire at night. Okay. She is definitely going to become an ally of the owl gang. This is the only female of the group,and it is neither in Dana’s message nor would it be popular with her target audience to make a villain or even an antagonist out of a women who managed to climb the later into a male dominated success level. I am actually looking forward to seeing her, because it will probably be in a Willow based episode, and after 2x02 (which I personally feel should not have been a luminaty episode but rather a Willow and Amity one finishing up their reconciliation arc), Willow deserves an episode with potential centered around her. An episode where she goes against the Plant track Leader would be that. This witches Grin isn’t exactly friendly, but its more mischievous than wicked. She gives off vibes as one of those people who like to test the mains, and if you pass her tests than you earn her respect. I have no doubt Willow could win at her little games, and doing so would be a huge boost the confidence she has spent the show building.

The Construction coven leader: Oh joy here’s the other one I am unimpressed with. Unlike with the Oracle guy I know where they got his design. To everyone saying that we first saw him at the convention, your not backing far enough up. If you have ever seen any cartoon ever where the main character wanders past or onto a construction sight you have seen this man. Every trio of workers sitting on a iron frame eating from a lunchbox. Every pig that makes a catcall at a disgusted women. Every exhausted worker who watches as your slapstick mains chase each other past at quitting time... they all looked EXACTLY like this guy. This is really the character leading the track Dana herself has said she would pick to join? They could have done a Golem made of brick an stone that resembles a palace. They could have done some kind of humanoid ant with super strength. They could have done a wizard with shapes and mathematics on his robe who carried a scroll everywhere that he compulsively scribbled blueprints onto. But instead we get Mr. Generic here.

The Bard coven Leader: This is R, Eda’s old friend from her hexside days. Did I save R for last because of this connection? Partially. I am also unsure what R’s pronouns are. To me R looks physically male. I have seen other posters use “she” when posting about R. One person posted that Dana had confirmed R uses “they” and if so awesome, I would really like to see that tweet. What ever R’s pronouns though their appearance in the show will be tied with Eda, er past, and what she had to give up in order to live free. I look forward to this new insight onto her character

[canary3d-obsessed]

Restless Rewatch: The Untamed Episode 17 second part

(Masterpost) (Previous Post) (Pinboard)

Warning: Spoilers for All 50 Episodes!!

Breaking Good

Wen Qing comes to visit Wen Ning in their backyard meth lab, and tells him that he fucked up a recipe, merely by taking a whiff of the concoction. She uses the approved "wave fumes toward self" way of smelling that you learn in high school science if you live in a country that believes in teaching science, which OP does not.

Wen Ning wants to know if they are going to have a feud, and she tells him there already is one. She tells explains to him that they're good Wens, not evil Wens, and that Jiang Cheng is fucked, and they should send the Jiangs away in the morning before Wen Chao comes around. 

Wen Ning whines at her about all of this, shifting into little-brother persona and acting like he didn't just take down 40 of Wen Chao's soldiers in a single night. He does this same persona shifting in his later unlife, with Wei Wuxian. When there is trouble, he's extremely effective, and can even tail WWX and Lan Wangji without getting caught, but then he is hopeless when dealing with turnips or children. 

Here, it seems like a version of Wei Wuxian's own little-brother persona, in which he pretends to be helpless so that his sister can take care of him.

#studyblr

Wei Wuxian comes into Wen Qing's head shop to ask her for medical books. He loves his brother so much he's volunteering for a research project. We've seen him be clever before; we've seen circumstantial evidence that he's a good student, but now we're going to see him actually buckling down and doing intellectual work.

Wen Qing thinks its hopeless and wants Wei Wuxian to get some rest. But he gives her puppydog eyes, so she sets him up in her library.

Wei Wuxian reads a huge pile of medical books and learns interesting things about the human body.   

(more after the cut)

Hopefully he does not splotch ink all over them while he holds this wet brush directly over the page. Why does he even have a brush in his hand? Is he taking notes in the margin? 

Wen Qing eventually tells him to take a break and go see Jiang Yanli.

Segmentation fault (core dumped)

Jiang Yanli is tending to Jiang Cheng, gently telling him to suck it up by citing their father, which is probably not the greatest idea. 

Yanli's wearing dark blue with white and looks awesome.  It's not Gusu Lan blue, but the blue and white is an interesting choice for the excruciating heart to heart they're about to have.  

Wei Wuxian shows up looking terrible, or the Xiao Zhan version of terrible, i.e. handsome and a little scruffy. But also worn out, unhappy, and fragile.

Jiang Yanli wants him to rest, but he wants to find a way to repair Jiang Cheng's core, and his mind races, trying to think of where he can get books and who can help him. His thoughts instantly go to Cloud Recesses and Lan Wangji. His face lights up at the thought that Lan Wangji will help him, and he hops up, ready to dash off and find him.

The first time I watched this I was like, dude yes you’re in love, but you can’t just dash off to find Lan Wangji, not when there’s a war on.  This time I was like, actually wow things would turn out a whole lot better if you got Lan Wangji to help you, instead of coming up with your own plan.

Mother Mother Can You Tell Me

Jiang Yanli tells him to slow his roll.  He's pushing himself too hard and she's afraid he will collapse. Then Wei Wuxian comes out and says what's driving him: maybe all these disasters are his fault.

It's telling, I think, that he cites Madame Yu, not Jiang Cheng, in this moment, even though Jiang Cheng has blamed him much more thoroughly and consistently. He's talking about one mother figure, to another mother figure, and looking for absolution.

He super does not get what he's looking for.

Jiang Yanli slowly lets go of him and goes the fuck off. She asks, rhetorically, what he's to blame for, and then lists off all of the shit that's happened.  She finishes up by saying, look at our situation; blaming won't help anything. 

It's unclear, because language/translation, if her answer is "it doesn't matter who's to blame" I.E. "yes, it's your fault, but I'm letting it go" or if she is saying "how does blaming yourself help anything?" I.E. "it's not your fault, stop being a drama llama."

Her body language, though, seems pretty blameful - she lets go of him, yells at him, sits down and turns away from him.  And his reaction is not one of shared grief, or of someone who is trying to get over himself; he's totally crushed, and he literally never unburdens himself to her again.  Even when he asks her, much later, about love, he immediately backs out of the conversation. 

There is no violence in this moment and her reaction is understandable, but this is kind of similar to that one time when his brother choked him in a beautiful field of grass, in order to make himself feel better. 

Then she kind of relents and takes his hand, telling him that she needs him and reminding him that he promised that they will go back to Lotus Pier. I don't remember him promising this, but okay. 

He puts his head on her lap and he cries, she cries, comatose Jiang Cheng cries; FUCK this episode.  

Jiang Cheng manages to cry only one tear and does it on the side of his face that his siblings can't see because he's not going to give them the satisfaction of sharing this moment with him, I guess.

When Wei Wuxian puts his head on Jiang Yanli's lap, it's part of a ritual for them, that they both are comforted by; he does it again much later, after they return to Lotus Pier. But this ritual does not actually do anything to relieve his burdens. As a male adult, and the only Jiang Clan disciple with any abilities, it falls to him to save the clan, whatever it takes, and he is heavily aware of it.

Wen Qing comes along and sees the sweet part of this complicated Shijie-Shidi dynamic, and decides to help with Wei Wuxian's research project. When the trio had just lost their parents, gotten sick, been pursued by enemies, & had one of Yanli's little brothers horribly wounded, Wen Qing was like, eh, I'll do the doctor stuff but that's it. But lap-crying is another level. 

Wen Qing: Nooo don't put your head on her knees I failed my saving throw

Group Project

Wen Qing goes and cleans up the mess in the library, putting everything in order and settling in to read systematically. Wen Qing probably has the prettiest bullet journal. (OP looks proudly at the 100 loose slips of paper and piles of random stuff on her own desk)

Wei Wuxian has shaved and rested and comes in with a tray of food for Wen Qing, and then goes to his table in the back to start working. He claims he made "porridge" for her and that she has to eat to gain strength, and she gives him an intrigued expression.  This moment is just blatant het baiting.  

In fact the food he brings her is clearly not porridge, which might just be a translation error, but also he totally can't cook, so it's not clear if he's joking and Yanli or Wen Ning made the food, or if this is just inedible.

The Things We Do For Love

Yanli is working in the meth lab and coughing a lot. Yanli's chronic illness is a sign of what's to come for Wei Wuxian, because strong cultivators don't get sick. Yet Yanli, as a physically vulnerable person, who has either a weak golden core, or none, is still intrinsically valuable.  Her presence in this scene is a reminder that Jiang Cheng's life is not, actually, over; he just feels like it is.

While Yanli cooks the meth, Wei Wuxian and Wen Qing have a study montage that is the equivalent of a training montage, except without "Eye of the Tiger" on the soundtrack.

Jiang Cheng remains unconscious. Apparently if you stick nails in the top of someone's head, you make them sleep, and in the back of their head, you turn them into part of your zombie army. Fortunately Wen Qing's aim is good. Jiang Cheng is looking devastatingly handsome as usual the TV version of unwell, and has grown a perfect Dorito-chip of stubble on his chin to go with his new 'stache.

Eventually Wei Wuxian changes back into his non-vampire robe and he finds the answer in an old scroll book. The Ikea instruction picture shows arrows going from the guy on the left to the guy on the right.  Clearly it's not a great procedure for the guy on the left.

Wei Wuxian's face shows us exactly how not great. 

Like walking in the rain and the snow and there’s no place to go and you’re feeling like a part of you is dying

He goes outside and gazes up at the trees and the sky as he contemplates the sacrifice that circumstance is forcing on him. He's not even making a choice at this point; his choice was made the moment he found the procedure. But it's going to be a tremendous loss for him. He values sword cultivation at least as much as Jiang Cheng does; he even fell in love with a boy over crossed swords. So he sits and just kind of comes to terms with this new understanding of his future. (Big gifs here)

Wen Qing finds him sitting, stunned, on the porch. She doesn't know what's up so she just sits quietly with him until he's ready to tell her.

She doesn't love the plan.  

Thunder, Th-th-thunder

Wen Ning is bringing food up when he sees them arguing, and he is startled by situationally appropriate thunder and lightning. Having recently watched The Lost Tomb Reboot I've come to expect thunder and lighting to appear on cue in any possible situation, so the fact that this mini-storm clears right up again doesn't bother me.

What About You?

Wen Ning dashes inside to see what Mom and Dad are fighting about. They're having a polite shouting match because Wen Qing refuses to yank out Wei Wuxian's core. 

Wen Qing: I hate the idea of harming you Wei Wuxian: I don’t even understand that sentence

Wei Wuxian doesn’t, of course, feel that he is important in any way, and ignores her concerned and appalled expressions in favor of telling her to just do it anyway. Amazingly, this does not convince her. 

OP’s 177cm-tall son keeps telling her this

Then Wei Wuxian plays the "you know Jiang Cheng" card, which...I guess she does? Maybe he was chatting her up more than we saw in Cloud Recesses? He hasn't given her the comb or anything yet. Wei Wuxian explains that Jiang Cheng cares about gain and loss, and cultivation is his life. If he can only be ordinary the rest of his life will be ruined.

Wen Qing asks the question that nobody ever asks him: What about you? 

Wei Wuxian has literally nothing to say to that, possibly because the question is so new to him. 

Wen Ning doesn't know what's going on but comes squarely in on team Wei, of course, and begs his sister to Do The Thing.  How fucking horrified is Wen Ning going to be when he learns what The Thing is? What he is personally going to help do to his beloved friend? Yikes.   

Wen Qing caves, warning them that the chance of success is only 50 percent. Wei Wuxian is happy to take those odds.

Lan Wangji, projecting his voice from Episode 46: fifty percent, are you fucking kidding me?

Soundtrack: 1. Mother Mother by Tracy Bonham 2. The Things We Do For Love by 10cc 3. Thunder by Imagine Dragons

[asphyxiateher]

Only Monsters Come Out at Night

A/N: Debating on whether or not I should put this on AO3. Thoughts? Do I need to edit what I have before posting on my favorite website? Anyways, I’m really into horror and I’d like to try my hand at focusing on MC’s descent into madness while falling for her captors. Dimitrescu Sisters x OFC (Desdemona) Summary: Desdemona, her twin brother and best friend are on vacation in Romania when things go horribly wrong the moment they run out of gas. Desdemona has the misfortune of enchanting the monsters that decided to terrorize her group. 

        It was a cold, pitch black night in the northeastern mountainous region of Romania, a heavy fog enveloping the roads which made it nearly impossible for any source of light to pierce through the gloom. This did not bode well for Desdemona and her friends as they dared to venture through the treacherous weather in order to reach their destination. The humble village of Bran should have been a welcome sight by now although from where the unlucky travelers were currently stranded, Desdemona had her doubts. To make matters worse, her best friend, Veronica, shoved a crumpled map of Brasov, Romania into her boyfriend’s hands and demanded answers. Her hot-headed friend was teetering on the edge of a nervous breakdown.

“Desmond, are you sure we’re headed in the right direction? None of this seems to make sense!”, Veronica exclaimed as she nervously rummaged through her shoulder bag for yet another cigarette. She struggled to light her cigarette this time, the harsh winter’s wind blowing hard against her bare hands caused them to shake violently.

 Desmond sighed in exasperation and ran his fingers through his messy chestnut brown hair, pushing wild dark curls away from his eyes.

“You think the shopkeeper gave us the wrong directions to fuck with us because we’re tourists? I knew we were gonna get shit signal out here in the bum fuck middle of nowhere but come on, the old guy looked knowledgeable. Can’t blame me for trustin’ him.” Desmond casually replied with a shrug. He then took a moment to straighten the map again before folding it neatly and tucking it into his pocket.

Desdemona was of the same mind as her twin. It seemed likely that the locals would be completely burnt out from the flocks of American tourists invading their hometown just to squawk about the castle that inspired Bram Stoker’s Dracula. How exhausting it must be to constantly point out where to go to book a tour or who to call to arrange such things when the internet exists. In hindsight, Desdemona should have known better than to bug the polite yet obviously impatient shopkeeper about their vacation plans.

“Think about it, V, Desmond has a point. The guy probably gave us the run around for shits and giggles. You know, it would have been fine taking a wrong turn and then having to backtrack all the way back into town, but we should have just stayed the night at the Inn. Now we’re outta gas and it’s fucking freezing out here.” Desdemona added, now hugging herself tightly and occasionally rubbing her arms to keep warm for as much as possible.

Veronica growled but relented as she took a long drag of her cigarette, her foot resting against their rented vehicle. She took a deep breath and looked up at the sky. Snowflakes began to drift downwards, and it only fueled Veronica’s anxiety about being stranded in the middle of nowhere in the dark. “Alright, alright, we can either freeze to death in this piece of shit,” Veronica began as she kicks the van for good measure, “or we can freeze to death out there looking for shelter. I think I see a path over there that we can take to find what we need. It might lead us to people who can help us, or it might lead us to certain death. All I know is that we need to make a decision now, it’s starting to snow.” Desmond grins and wraps his arm around Veronica’s waist, pulling her close and pecking her on the cheek. “To certain death it is! Des, grab the essentials and let’s head out. According to the map, there are a few small villages in the surrounding area. Chances are we’ll stumble into one of them eventually and find shelter. We’ll get this mess sorted out.” Desmond eagerly stepped away from Veronica’s embrace and stepped towards the beaten van.

After a few moments of scrounging around for what they deemed important, Desdemona ended up with a backpack full of snacks, water, spare clothes, and the first aid kid. Veronica settled for an entire carton of cigarettes and a few spare lighters because you know, it was “absolutely essential” to her survival in a foreign land. Desmond found a flashlight and decided that going light would be preferable to him in case they ran into any trouble. They paved the way forward, following the path that strayed away from the lonely sliver of road. Turning back to get a final look at the abandoned van, Desdemona swallowed the surge of fear that was beginning to creep up on her. She had seen enough horror movies in her lifetime knowing that this probably wasn’t going to end up well for her little group. The logical side of her brain, what little rational thoughts she had left, gnawed their way through her brain begging to be voiced out and heard.

‘Turn back around, it’s safer to stay put and wait until morning! This is dangerous and you know it!’

Desdemona reluctantly glanced back at her brother walking ahead with Veronica hand in hand and the younger twin suddenly stopped in her tracks. Maybe she should stay behind just in case while her gregarious brother searched for help in these mountains; after all, he was far more easygoing and could easily charm the most stubborn of fools into helping him.

“Des, what’s wrong? I thought we all agreed that we should stick together.” Veronica called out to her, uncertainty lacing her tone as her eyes flicked back and forth between the van and a terrified looking Desdemona.

Nervously fidgeting in place, Desdemona struggles to settle the conflicted thoughts warring in her mind. She knows that staying behind and waiting for help would be the wisest course of action, but there was safety in numbers. There’s danger lurking beyond the vast expanse of mountains that surrounded them and she would be utterly defenseless if left alone. Desdemona’s instincts were begging her to go back to the van but the connection she shared with her twin demanded that she follow him through the sketchy path that would most likely lead to their demise. She couldn’t let anything happen to Desmond, she would never forgive herself if something happened to him out here.

With a shaky resolve, Desdemona straightened up and gazed back at Veronica with a small smile on her face. “I’m just nervous, you know. Desmond and I binge watched all the Wrong Turn movies last Saturday so being out here alone in the dark is uh, freaking me out a little. I’ll be fine, though, let’s just keep going.” Desdemona lied as she rushed over to her best friend who rolled her eyes at the revelation.

“No wonder you’re acting all sketch, Des. First of all, binge watching horror movies the weekend before your vacation was stupid as hell so now you’re all hyped up over nothing. Secondly, Wrong Turn sucks. Y’all should have binged Hatchet, Danielle Harris is so hot!” Veronica declared, eager to get conversation going as the three of them trekked through a rocky and narrow trail that led to who knows where.

Desmond was quick to reply in defense of his favorite horror movie franchise and Desdemona was thankful to hear them bicker back and forth. The conversation drowned out the sound of cold whispers tickling naked branches in the distance, the loud crunching of their footsteps on the snow-covered ground, and ravens crying out above them. It was so eerie and something about it all didn’t sit right with Desdemona. She hooked an arm around Veronica’s free arm and together they discussed their favorite horror movies. Veronica could tell her best friend was still a little spooked, so she pulled her closer until she was pressed against her side to provide as much comfort as she could give.

The trail continued to narrow the further they moved along but nothing they observed thus far gave the impression that that anything was out of the ordinary. When they reached a clearing, Desmond sighed with relief. His breath steaming the frigid air was nearly the only thing they could see ahead if it weren’t for the flashlight providing what little comforting light source they had. The snow fall began to pick up the pace but it wasn’t blinding, thankfully. Desmond brushed aside large shrubs and stepped further into the winding path, coming to a full stop when he realized what lay ahead of the weary travelers.

The trio stared in awe at the overpowering sight of a 15th century castle looming over a quiet village sheltering underneath a blanket of darkness, or what Desdemona assumed was its shadow. No amount of fog could hide the monstrosity that was the architectural brilliance of this castle that Desdemona saw before her very eyes.

“Desmond, honey, where the hell do you think you’re going? Don’t leave Dezzy and I behind!” Veronica suddenly shrieked as she sprinted after her overly excited boyfriend down the hill that led into the village. Desmond turned around and could only offer a sheepish smile with a shrug before eagerly running into the unknown. Desdemona tore her gaze away from the castle and spurred into action, jumping and running as fast as she could in order to catch up with her twin.

Desmond was energized by both the cool crisp air and the promising sight of civilization, but that energy was quickly drained out of him when he encountered something wholly unexpected. Veronica reached the eldest Hawthorne sibling and was about to admonish him for leaving the two frightened girls behind, but she was quickly shushed by Desmond. Desdemona quietly approached the scene, her eyes widening when she realized that this was not the village of Bran at all.

They had indeed reached a small village but it looked completely obliterated. The houses looked shattered and broken, as if something gigantic and menacing had come through and picked away at the people that once inhabited this community one by one. Desmond cautiously led the group forward, calling out for any signs of survivors. This wasn’t on the itinerary…

Veronica was on the verge of tears, her hands covering her mouth as she observed the tragic scene before her. Every now and then, she would step into a broken home and call out to somebody – anybody- only to step back out with a grim look on her face. She pulled out her cell phone and attempted to dial emergency services only to be met with disappointment.

“There’s blood.” Desmond says quietly. His eyes peer over the trail of fresh blood and fear grips him the moment the flashlight scans over the corpse of a rotting horse. “Fuck, that stench – we need to get the fuck out of here now!” Veronica cries, gagging and turning away from the horrific view.

Desdemona would have expressed an equally strong reaction had she not felt a sense of…wrongness abruptly assaulting the atmosphere. The moment they stepped foot into the village, the environment reacted to their presence and that did not sit right with Desdemona at all.

“Desmond, do you hear that?” Desdemona asked, her voice laced with terror. Desmond Hawthorne heard the fear in his sister’s quivering voice and it made him feel uneasy. “I don’t hear anything, Des.” He replies as he reaches for Veronica’s hand and squeezes it tight. The couple began to frantically look around them as they slowly backed into Desdemona. As soon as they grouped up again, both Veronica and Desmond wrapped themselves around the youngest sister. The oppressive silence sent a whole new wave of fear over the group before something insidious could be heard approaching them in the distance. Desdemona gasped when she heard maniacal giggling and it was getting louder. A fluttering of what sounds like wings -bats, ravens, perhaps- advancing towards the group sent chills down Desdemona’s spine. What the hell was coming after them?

Desmond flashed his light from side to side before it settled on the massive black ball of insects that instantly appeared before him. The insects dissipated and somehow revealed the shape of a human being wearing a dark robe and hood. The only thing he could truly make out was the color of a red pendant wrapped around dainty, pale skin and a blood smeared smirk. Desmond’s heart dropped in absolute horror and panic immediately set in.

“RUN!” He screamed, taking off with a terrified Veronica in tow. Neither of them looked back to make sure Desdemona was following. The flashlight dropped, and it briefly circled the ground. The flickering light revealed two other black masses of insects approaching the younger Hawthorne sibling who was paralyzed with fear. All she could hear in that moment was delirious laughter coming from the women that revealed themselves two seconds later, the insects dissolving into thin air right before her very eyes.

The crazed woman standing directly in front of Desdemona leaned forward and took her time sniffing her pretty prey who stared at her with petrified gray eyes. Desdemona found it alarming that despite the lunatic’s appearance, dried blood caked on her lips and unruly red hair and a wild, untamed look in her eyes, she found her quite…striking. Perhaps she was going mad. None of this made sense, how could this be happening right now?

“Mmm, sisters, look at what I found. Such a pretty young thing all for me and she smells oh so delicious.” The woman with the green pendant spoke, giggling madly at the profound effect she had on Desdemona.

 “Daniela, you’re delusional, she’s mine; I’m the one who picked up on her tasty scent!” The one with the red pendant spoke after she turned her attention to the only human who didn’t run from them.

The brunette with the yellow pendant reached over and yanked on Desdemona’s hair so hard back, Desdemona thought her life was over. She bared her teeth as she skimmed her nose across the young woman’s neck. Her tongue darted out between blood smeared lips and left a wet trail, causing the smaller woman’s breath to hitch at the unwelcome contact.

“Mmm, she smells so utterly divine. Bela, by the way, it wasn’t you who found MY new pet, it was me! You ungrateful wretches always want to touch what’s mine!” The hooded figure’s grip on her hair tightened and Desdemona whined, causing all three women to delight in her torment.

What Desdemona couldn’t figure out was what they wanted to do with her exactly and why they were fighting over her like three starved wild dogs fighting over a piece of meat. She needed to get out of there fast. “LET GO OF MY SISTER, YOU UGLY CUNTS!” Desmond’s angry voice broke through in the distance and all three creatures turned their attention on the young man who dared interrupt dinner time.

Desdemona decided this was the time to take advantage of their distraction and she quickly slipped away, sprinting as fast as she could to the nearest unoccupied house. Desmond, relieved that his sister broke free from whatever those things were, spun on his heel and ran the opposite direction. He could only hope that all three of them would make it out of this godforsaken village alive.

All three women threw their heads back and laughed wildly into the air as they knew catching their prey would be much more satisfying when they caught them alone in isolated surroundings. It added to their fear and it made the blood taste that much sweeter.

“The hunt is on, sisters. Leave the pretty plaything alive, but the others, we will present to our dear mother as gifts. We’ll make the new pet watch mother undo their very lives; it’ll only make her that much more delicious when we have our fill.” The one with the yellow pendant stated as she sniffed at the air, shuddering when Desdemona’s irresistible scent filled her nostrils once more.

Desdemona found refuge in a large house a few yards away and slammed the front door shut when she ran inside. She quickly assessed what she assumed was the living room, she found a bookcase and summoned whatever strength she had and brought it down in front of the door. She heard something clawing at the door the instant she blocked the entrance, the door shaking violently and mad laughter filling her ears once more.

Desdemona shakily reached into her pocket and pulled out her phone, turning on the flashlight and began to look for another way out.

‘Jesus fucking Christ, Jesus Christ! What the fuck are those things!? Where’s Desmond? Is Veronica alright? How the hell do I get out of here? I just want to go home!’ Desdemona’s mind was running through a million thoughts per second but she couldn’t for the life of her settle on anything that would give her a moment’s peace. She was sobbing uncontrollably as she explored the dark home, her hands stretched out in front of her as she searched for anything that would provide answers to her problems. When she found a door near the kitchen, she cautiously opened it and cursed the eerie creaking sound that followed. It was discovered that the door led to a cellar of some kind and Desdemona rushed down the stairs without closing the door behind her. She slowly scanned the large open space and saw that this home had been recently ransacked or rummaged through. Clothes were scattered across the floor, furniture had been broken in half and tossed carelessly to the side but Desdemona found a hallway beyond the room she was in. ‘That must be the way out. Hurry up and grab something to protect yourself with!’

Desdemona carefully tip toed around the clutter, her phone flashing from side to side but to no avail, she couldn’t find anything that would prove harmful to whatever those monsters were outside. The woman nearly tripped over and fell when her foot stepped in something thick and wet, causing her foot to slip forward. Desdemona quickly steadied herself on a cabinet but it didn’t make her feel any better when she realized her fingers were covered in a thick, red substance.

Her breathing growing heavier, Desdemona flashed her phone light over to the cabinet only to find that it was covered in blood – a lot of it, to be exact and it was still dripping on the floor as though it were fresh.

All color drained from Desdemona’s face when she heard pained howling coming from the village; it was Desmond and he was screaming for help. Her twin was in danger and here she was selfishly trying to find a way to preserve her own life.

She quickly twisted around to run towards the howling but she stopped dead in her tracks when a black mass of insects appeared before her. The cloaked figure could only be identified by the color of her green pendant and a delirious smile plastered on her face. Fresh blood dripped down her chin and Desdemona’s eyes reluctantly followed the pool of blood forming at their feet. There was a sickle in her right hand and it was covered in blood, much to Desdemona’s dismay.

Desdemona began to tremble, overpowered by the frightening sight and the implications that followed a bloodied sickle carried by a madwoman. “The sound of your heart hammering against your chest is like music to my ears, pretty thing. Do not fret, my beauty, the moment we met I knew you were special. You’re meant to be mine, we’re meant to be!” She whispers madly, her tongue wetting her lips as her eyes rake over Desdemona’s body slowly and deliberately.

Desdemona doesn’t know what she’s talking about and she doesn’t want to know. Before she could form any kind of response, she’s pinned against the bloody cabinet behind her. She gasps in surprise and that seems to trigger the creature into action.

Desdemona screams as the hooded woman lunges at her collarbone and pierces through her skin with her razor sharp teeth. Desdemona weakly clutches at the woman’s shoulders, growing lightheaded from the sudden blood loss that was occurring. Feeling the woman about to collapse in her arms, Daniela pulls back and savors the taste of her blood. Her eyes rolled to the back of her head as she sloppily licks the blood off her mouth and regains what little self-control she had left to preserve her pretty plaything for a little while longer.

When dazed gray eyes meet hers, Daniela’s cold, black heart skips a beat. She had never seen anything more beautiful. So she raises her sickle, causing Desdemona’s eyes to widen in panic and Daniela can’t help but giggle a little.

“Don’t worry, my beauty, I’ll be gentle with you. The hideous man-thing and his bitch aren’t going to be as lucky as you, I hope. You deserve special treatment.” Daniela whispers, her fingers caressing her prey’s tear-stained cheek before swinging the sickle with full forced into the back of Desdemona’s thigh.

Desdemona remembers a high-pitched shriek escaping her but nothing else seems to come to mind after that. She remembers her vision blurring and a creeping darkness soothing her to sleep but what happened after, nothing. She enters the haunting abyss that welcomes her with black tendrils pulling her from reality, sleep coming to her easily. With better luck, she’ll never have to wake up again.

Only fools believe in luck as the nightmare has only just begun.

[fnibbet]

MY THOUGHTS ON THE NEW WANDAVISION EPISODE

Don’t click the cut if you don’t want spoilers, I won’t be shy with them, neither are they in chronological order. I’m not that good at theorizing but I’m just putting what I noticed out there.

PIETRO

Pietro is definitely not the Pietro we know. He is way too self aware, constantly refers to life outside of Westview, and as expected, has selective amnesia. Wanda directly asks about childhood memories of their own Halloweens, and he doesn’t answer correctly. Also, the line “you probably suppressed a lot of the trauma”. ohohoh. There is definitely something off, but he’s the couch surfer, good-with-kids, troublemaker uncle we expected, which I can excuse.

HOWEVER

“I’m just trying to do my part, okay? Come to town unexpectedly, create tension with the brother-in-law, stir up trouble with the rugrats, and ultimately give you grief. I mean, that’s what you wanted, isn’t it?” Also, “Next thing I know I heard you calling me” this is pretty disturbing. Who called him to Westview? Wanda says she did, but doesn’t know how she did it. Her reaction to him coming back just proves more she’s just a puppet to a higher power. Who? 

“Why do you look different?” Wanda is not the one who recast Pietro.

“If I see any funny business I’m going to magic you into a pickled herring” Is Wanda referring to the “red herring” writing tool? Is Pietro just a distraction? It would make sense given her color scheme is all about red... Let’s see if I’m right. Other than that it’s a funny gag.

LITERALLY EVERYTHING PIETRO SAYS IS DISTURBING AND/OR SHOWS HIS AWARENESS OF THE SITUATION.

OTHER WESTVIEW RESIDENTS

Several other Westview residents seemingly become aware of the situation; Wanda’s control is slipping. Herb asks, “Is there something I can do for you? Do you want something changed?” possibly referring to the whole simulation, not the neighborhood watch rounds on Halloween.

Agnes is scared. She is DEFINITELY NOT Mephisto or the one controlling the simulation. Vision snapped her from Wanda’s control, nothing fell apart, she was terrified. 

Speaking of Agnes: there is a parallel to 1x03 “Now In Colour” wherein Agnes hesitates before telling Vision he’s dead. “Because we’re all...” “Because we’re all what?” becomes a parallel to Vision saying “Because I’m what?”. All in all pretty disturbing, this could point to a theory in which all the Westview residents are either dead or blipped but didn’t come back. However I’m pointing for dead or just missing, because there was nothing mentioned about missing people after the blipped were brought back in other movies. Marvel is notoriously bad about handling the consequences of the blip though, so I’m not holding my breath.

“Huh... These people, near the edge of town...They're barely moving. Are they alive?” Jimmy inadvertently says the most horrifying things...

THE TWINS

One of the twins has super speed, the other, reality-bending powers and telepathy. “A chip off the old Maximoff block” indeed.

WANDA: And please just remember to-- BOTH: Don't go past Ellis Avenue. We know, Mom. We know. Ellis Avenue is the edge of town, and the theory that kids can’t be mind controlled is proven correct: Agnes’ comment about that is mirrored. Wanda has apparently told the twins repeatedly to not go past Ellis Avenue. She can’t mind control them so she does the next best thing, set believable, parental restrictions and boundaries, like any “normal” parent would do, but with a far different intent behind it. Yikes.

I read on another post that Westview is basically Wanda living out her parents’ perfect life: this seems really logical now that her twins display the exact same powers as her and Pietro.

S.W.O.R.D.

Hayward is a ✨d i c k✨

The stinky bastard is just as sus as we expected, he’s looking for the vibranium decay signature inside the anomaly to monitor Vision, assumingly to see how fast he’s dying. HE CAN SEE INSIDE WESTVIEW FOR GODSAKES.

Vision started decaying and being sucked back into Westview the instant he got out. He cannot exist outside the Maximoff anomaly.

Monica’s cells have been rewritten several times by the energy inside the anomaly: could this be a new super’s birth? A new Scarlet Witch?

That said, what kind of powers does she gain? The same kind used to keep the people in Westview “alive” (between quotes cause I’m not sure of my theory yet), so either the same powers as Wanda, or something involving immortality. Either way, holy shit I can’t wait.

Not only could Hayward see inside Westview, it was noted by SWORD people that a lot of people suddenly stopped moving. Wanda needs to focus on them moving to be able to control them: it gets a bit buggy and stops entirely later. Maybe it’s because she was focused on Pietro and the twins? The timeline between Wanda and Vision’s respective actions wouldn’t line up though.

S.W.O.R.D literally got ABSORBED by Wanda’s bubble expanding. What happens to Darcy?? She’s the only one of the trio who didn’t escape!!

THE AD

A recurring theme so far, this one is weirder than ever. No HYDRA or Stark symbolism this time, that’s probably been dropped with the advancing of the decades. The snack advertised is called “Yo-Magic: The snack for survivors.” Make of that what you will...

A TEMPORAL ANACHRONISM

This might be nothing, but I still find it interesting. The sign of the movie theater in one of the scenes lists two movies playing: The Incredibles and The Parent Trap. The first movie won’t come out until 2004, but The Parent Trap came out in 1998, which makes the timeline of the episode very fuzzy. Additionally, the twins didn’t age themselves up, they had no reason to, but it’s still suspicious. Does this happen in the 90s or the early 2000s?? The episode is in the style of a 90s sitcom (turned psych horror) and the show isn’t supposed to hit the early 2000s until episode 7, unless Wanda’s decided to speed things up. But why?

THE SITCOM THEME

Yes, I am making an entirely new bullet just for this. It is so disturbing.

🎶Wanda, Wanda Vision 🎶

Don't try to fight the chaos

Don't question what you've done

The game can try to play us

Don't let it stop the fun

Some days it's all confusion

Easy come and easy go

But if it's all illusion

Sit back, enjoy the show

Let's keep it going

Let's keep it going

Through each distorted day

Let's keep it going

Though there may be no way of knowing

Who's coming by to play

Holy fuck, okay. Shit’s been dialed up to 11. Buckle up.

[melon-wing]

Animosity [Pirate AU]

[Pirate AU Masterlist]

This story is set a few years after the events of ‘Trauma’.

~

“Cadet! You missed a spot over there!”

Loud clanging of metal rang under deck as the metal bucket was kicked over, spilling muddy water all over the floor. Grian balled his fists holding the dirty piece of fabric he had been cleaning with. He had been almost done with his duties for the day. He took a deep breath, trying to calm himself. If he spoke up now, he’d be reprimanded again. And if there was one person that seemed to hate him more than the First Mate it was his Captain.

“I’m sorry. I’ll get right back to it”, he said in a flat voice.

There was a grunt of annoyance – probably at his tone – and the bucket was kicked once again, flying into his direction and hitting him in the chest, splattering some left over muddy water all over him.

“Try again, cadet.”

Grian gritted his teeth, starring up at the First Mate, trying to keep his hate from showing. “I’m sorry, sir.”

The older man nodded and walked past him, right through the muddy puddle and Grian knew he’d be busy cleaning everywhere once more.

“Why were we the ones who needed to take a rebellious orphan runt like you… I hope some pirate gets rid of the burden for us soon”, the First Mate muttered under his breath, but Grian could still hear him. The moment the man walked around the corner, Grian held up his middle finger, mouthing a few choice words in the direction.

He remembered being so happy when he had finished his last classes at the navy’s academy. He had graduated with top grades and had been promised a good position… So they had put him onto a ship with some really prestigious overly-decorated people. Prestigious assholes was more like it. The last time those guys had done any amazing feat, TFC had probably still roamed the six seas.

Grian took another deep breath, looking at the mess he’d have to clean up and sighed. He wiped off his hand on his shirt and then took out his locket to look at the small picture. It always helped him calm down before.

“And this was your dream? Scrubbing floors in the darkness? Or would they have let you out there with your charming smile?”, he whispered, pausing for a second before shaking his head at his own antics. Taurtis wouldn’t have been back-mouthing higher ups landing him below deck. Taurtis would have been smiling through it all. If only Taurtis was here and they could go through this together.

Grian sighed in annoyance at himself. If Taurtis would be here, Grian would either be still rotting on that damn island or living the life of a pirate, killing and torturing innocent people. He would have become a dirty criminal. He couldn’t complain about being forced to clean a little. One day he’d have his own fleet below him and then nobody could order him around anymore.

And so he kept scrubbing the deck, praying that none of the other higher-ups would walk up and force him to start all over again. A few minutes later he could hear footsteps, clenching his hand around the rag, not daring to look up. If he didn’t make eye-contact they sometimes pretended he wasn’t there and went on.

“Grian?”

Grian’s head snapped up, his whole face lighting up. There was only one person on this ship that would pronounce his name in such a weird and endearing way.

“Sam!”

The moment he stood up, Sam took in his dirty appearance and his mood darkened. “Who did that? And don’t tell me again that you stumbled. We both know it’s never true.”

The brunette smiled at him, but soon his eyes travelled over the mess on the floor. “Did they put you on cleaning duty again? Man, those old men don’t deserve someone as good as you. They are wasting all your talent.”

Grian smiled at the compliment and slowly stood up. “It’s alright. I haven’t been on this ship that long yet. It’s normal for the new guy to do stuff like that.”

Grian just shrugged, looking down at his muddied uniform. What was he supposed to say? They both knew what was going on around here, but there was nothing they could do about it and Grian didn’t want to risk Sam getting into a fight with the first mate – again.

“Don’t worry, Sam. I’m used to cleaning. It’s not different from the work mama used to give us back in the orphanage.”

Sam’s face seemed to lighten and he chuckled a little. “Well as I remember you and Taurtis loved to ditch exactly those chores to go play pirate and navy, leaving me to clean up the mess.”

“Oh, please” Grian laughed as well “As if you ever did any work. You had all the younger kids wrapped around your finger, doing all the work for you. No wonder mama called us the troublemaker trio. We were really bad… the three of us.”

Grian sighed and let his hang a little, his hand automatically searching for the locket beneath his clothes. “Good times...”, he whispered quietly, only to be suddenly engulfed by arms, pulled into a tight hug.

“I’m so sorry I wasn’t there anymore to save him.”

Grian just shook hist head. “That’s not your fault. I’m glad you weren’t there to get hurt, so I have at least one of you still with me.” Sam gently caressed Grian’s back, helping him calm down from the memory of Taurtis’ death.

“Still… I should have just waited two more years until you guys were old enough to join the navy with me. Maybe things could have been different then.” Grian shrugged at that. Things might have been different if Sam had been there. Sam had always been the best fighter amongst the three of them. But against pirates? If Sam had been there Grian might now be mourning two friends instead of one.

With a sigh Sam finally let go of him, smiling at him with so much pity in his eyes. “Now who did that to you Grian?”

“Does it matter?”

“It matters to me.”

Grian didn’t answer at first. He didn’t want to get Sam into trouble, but he felt the need to share what was happening, if only to have a place to vent. “It was the First Mate...”, he finally admitted quietly. In an instant Sam’s face was furious again and Grian was sure that he’d do something stupid if he didn’t stop it. “You can’t fight with him about that. You’ll only make things worse. Especially not now, so close to your promotion! They might take it back.”

Sam seemed to calm down at his words, if only by a little. "This sucks! They shouldn't be allowed to do shit like that! It's not fair. Once I'm Captain I won't do something like that."

Grian smiled at his friend warmly. He knew Sam would be an amazing captain. He was just naturally good with people, all charming and charismatic. "You won't have to wait much longer."

"Listen Grian..." Sam looked at him out of serious eyes. "When I become Captain next week, I'm gonna try to get the higher ups to transfer you to my ship. I won't let you stay behind. I could imagine no better First Mate than you."

Grian blushed a little at the compliment. Sam had that way of always making him so cheerful with just a few words. "That would be really nice. I'd like to serve on your ship." He had looked up to Sam his whole life after all. Commandeering a ship alongside him would be like a dream come true.

"And now let me help you out a little, alright?"

"You shouldn't! If someone sees..."

"Nonsense. I might be an Officer, but I'm not above helping out a fellow crewmember."

Sam got onto his knees, picking up one of the cleaning rags and smiling up at Grian. "Now come on. If we do it together, we'll be done soon."

It took them both almost half an hour, but they were finally done. Grian wiped the sweat from his brow, looking to Sam with a satisfied smile. He opened his mouth to say something when he heard the sound of steps approaching. Sam jumped up hurriedly, hiding the cleaning rag behind his back just in time before the Captain walked around the corner.

"Officer Sam, Cadet Grian." The Captain looked from Grian on the floor to Sam and raised his eyebrows. "Officer Sam, I do hope for your own good that you didn't help with the chores.”

"No, sir! Of course not!"

"Because if you did I might need to write you up and that might delay your promotion so we can keep you here a little longer."

Grian could see the way Sam's hands tensed behind his back, clinging to the rag, which was hard prove of what he had just done. The Captain walked up to Sam and Grian acted on instinct. He hurried to his feet, pretending to knock the bucket over by accident, water hitting the Captain's shoes, who jumped back in surprise. Grian took the moment their Captain wasn't paying attention to rip the rag out of Sam's hand.

"So sorry, Captain! I didn't mean to do that! I am really sorry!"

The Captain looked at him furiously and then his eyes snapped back to Sam. "You two trying to hide something?", he spat and Sam took his hands out behind his back, raising him defensively in front of him. "I was just talking to Cadet Grian, I swear."

The Captain grumbled. Grian was pretty sure he knew that was a lie, but didn't care enough to call them out on it. "Leave now, Officer, before I change my mind!"

Sam looked at Grian, hesitating, but Grian shook his head a little. If Sam stayed back he'd only make it worse for both of them. With a last worried look, Sam saluted and walked away, probably back to his post.

"Cadet Grian! You will clean this mess at once."

"Yes, sir. Of course."

The Captain then eyed him from top to bottom, sneering at his dirty uniform.

"Cadet Grian... How many times do I need to tell you, that you have to keep yourself presentable. You are no longer a dirty orphan boy. The navy paid for your education, the least you could do is look nice and presentable to thank them."

"I'm sorry, sir, but it was..."

"Oh by the gods, I don't want to hear your whiny excuses again, Cadet! When you are done here, freshen up and then go to the kitchen. You are on potato peeling duty for tonight."

"But..."

"Also on pan cleaning duty after we are done. Don't make me take your food away as well."

Grian hesitated, but nodded. "Yes... sir."

"That'd be 'Thanks for letting me have dinner, sir.'" The Captain looked at him smugly, clearly enjoying the way he made Grian bow under him.

"Thanks for letting me have dinner... sir."

Grian didn’t dare to raise his head until the steps had retreated far enough. On days like these he wished he was still back at the navy academy. His teachers had always been nice to him, telling him he’d do great things in the future. He missed the days when Sam had come to his room to help him study. Here everybody seemed to think he’d gotten his good grades because of his looks after some nasty rumour about him being involved with his teachers had spread. But he’d pull through. Once Sam had his own ship he’d follow him. Everything would be better then.

~

Grian yawned, rubbing his eyes a little and then returned to scrubbing the pans. Everybody else on deck was laughing and having fun. His Lieutenant had decided that no help was needed for cleaning up, which meant Grian would spend half of the night in here to clean up everything. If he was lucky he’d get three hours of sleep before he needed to get up again. That was if the Captain or First Mate didn’t decide that he’d need more punishment.

He had hoped that maybe Sam would sneak in to help him out a little, but he probably hadn’t managed to find an excuse to get away. Grian hummed a little to himself, a tune that had been stuck in his mind since forever, that always raised his mood.

He just put in another pan, when a loud bang echoed over the ocean and their ship shook. The wooden basin Grian was using for cleaning tipped over, spilling some of the water over Grian. Damn he was going to be in trouble with his Captain again. What was going on up there? Did some idiot drink too much and fire one of the cannons again? Grumbling a little Grian put the cleaning rack into his back pocket and tried to heave the basin back up again.

There was another thundering sound and Grian could hear shouting and screaming. No. This wasn’t a drunken mistake. They were under attack. Grian ripped off his apron and ran up to the deck. The moment he opened the door, smoke entered his lungs and he began coughing. Parts of the deck were on fire, some of his crewmates already hurrying to put them out.

Another deafening boom of a cannon shook the deck. Grian turned his head into the direction it had come from. There was another ship, sailing parallel to them, all canons smoking. Grian’s gaze travelled up to the flag and his heart sank. A red flag pirate ship. This was going to be bad. Another cannon fired and hit their ship in the side, making it shake. Fuck. Grian needed to get ready and quick. He ran back under deck, cursing himself for not carrying his sword with him at all times. He had done it in the beginning, just as the rules stated, but everybody had kept teasing him about it.

Grian stepped out of the door and was already met with a sword. The pirates must have boarded the ship while he had been running for his weapon. Grian held his own weapon up in defence and began to engage in the battle. His eyes kept darting around, trying to find Sam in all of this chaos. They always fought best together and Sam was the only one Grian trusted 100 percent to have his back.

He skidded through the hallways, diving into his room and grabbing his trusted sword. It had helped him through many fights, it would do its job now once more.

“Protect me, Taurtis”, he whispered a little out of breath, touching the locket softly as he was running for the deck once more.

Grian managed to push his opponent back enough for him to hit the railing, and one shove with his elbow made him fly overboard. He suppressed the urge to shout for Sam, knowing that it might draw unwanted attention to himself. His eyes darted back and forth. There were multiple pirates on board now, fighting with his crew. He didn't dare to look too closely at the bodies on the floor. If they followed the principles of their red flag all of those men would be dead or dying. In the crowd his eyes were suddenly drawn to his Captain who was having a hard time fighting. Grian rushed over, but a guy stepped in his way, smiling brightly.

"I'd rather you look at me now, boy", his opponent said with an amused undertone, completely unbefitting of a battlefield. Grian’s head snapped back and he moved just in time to block one of the sword strikes. Unlike his first opponent, this guy was actually quite good at fighting and they were pretty evenly matched, especially with Grian's attention constantly being drawn to his Captain's battle. Why was nobody helping him? Where was the first mate? Where was Sam?

"I don't think so, boy. Give our Captains some private time", the pirate said in an amused tone, flipping his ponytail over his shoulder before pointing his weapon at Grian.

Grian looked past him and his heart fell. He recognised the opponent his Captain was facing. They all knew about him: Captain Doc. Grian had already heard about him when he'd still been in the academy. Raised by the frightening TFC, Doc had taken over his ship, swearing revenge on every human being for the death of his father.

"You are really starting to annoy me. You in love with my Captain or why do you keep looking over there?"

Grian felt fury rising inside him. He practically glowered at his opponent and with one elegant turn batted his sword away and rammed his elbow into the guy's face, making him stumble back a little.

There was a loud scream and suddenly Grian felt like everything was happening in slow motion. He turned his head to the side and saw the body of his Captain falling, blood spraying from his throat. Doc stood in front of him, bloody blade still raised. Everything seemed to stop for a moment as Doc looked emotionless at the fallen body. He then raised his head, looking around and for a second their eyes met. And then everything went back to normal speed as Grian's opponent came charging at him again and Grian had to defend himself.

"YOU BASTARD!"

A guttural scream echoed over the deck, and Grian would recognise that voice anywhere: Sam. Grian was being pushed back by his opponent, but he still couldn't focus his attention onto the battle. He kept looking sideways. Sam was running up to the fallen body of their Captain, murderous eyes on Doc. And then Sam raised his blade and charged Doc.

Grian's heart sank. Nobody had ever won a battle against Captain Doc. Nobody ever survived to tell about a battle fought against him. He froze, as images of Sam's bloody body flashed in front of his eyes, reminding him suddenly of Taurtis' death. A sudden pain in his right side brought him back to the present. He had been too slow and the blade of his opponent had scraped by his hip, leaving a bloody scratch. Grian cursed and hurriedly stepped back, blocking the next attack coming in. He needed to finish this. He needed to help Sam. He couldn't lose another friend. Sam was all he had left from his old life. The only good thing still here.

Grian felt determination rise inside him and he began relentlessly raining attacks upon his opponent, who looked at him in surprise, but then simply smiled enthusiastically, fighting just as fierce. Grian could hear Sam shouting insults at Doc, but the pirate stayed silent or just wasn't loud enough for Grian to hear. He kept listening to the insults but otherwise focused on his own fight. As long as Sam was shouting, he was alright. As long as he was shouting he was alive.

"You should just give up, boy. It is futile. Give up and I might let you live."

Grian huffed, looking with hatred at the pirate. "Sure thing, red flag", he spat out, watching the pirate pull a grimace at his words. Well look at that, a pirate not being happy with being called a murderer. Where was that dumb pirate pride of his?

A loud scream stopped his train of thoughts. Sam!

Grian's eyes drifted over and he saw Sam's blade sliding over the deck as he fell onto his back. Doc was slowly walking closer. Adrenalin rushed through Grian's body. When his opponent charged again Grian ducked under the blade and forgoing his own weapon, he used his free fist to punch the pirate square into the face. His opponent fell backwards and Grian ran off without one glance back.

Doc raised his blade. Sam was still on the floor.

A loud clang and Grian's whole arm was shaking as he blocked the attack by the Pirate Captain.

"Don't interrupt my duel." Doc's voice was a low threatening growl and it sent shivers down Grian's spine, but he stood his ground, glaring at the Captain.

Doc's gaze travelled to the side, furrowing his brows as his eyes landed on Grian's former opponent who leaned against the railing, holding his bloody nose.

"Ren, did you seriously let a little boy beat you? Tell me again why I made you my First Mate." The pirate – Ren – shrugged and gave his Captain a lop sided grin. Doc sighed and turned back to Grian, eyes searching him. "Interesting."

Grian knew he had to do something. He couldn’t let Doc end Sam’s life.

"I challenge you to a duel. If I win, you let the rest of the crew live", Grian said, trying to sound confident in the face of certain death. He couldn't care less for half of his crew, but he'd do anything to save Sam.

Doc smirked, sharp shark-like teeth showing, not a hint of joy in his face. "Oh, boy. No need to challenge me. I'll fight every single one of you if I have to. But do tell me what I'd gain from accepting that deal. What's in it for me?"

Grian faltered. He hadn't thought this far. In the navy, challenges like that would be accepted based on honour alone, but that seemingly mattered little to a pirate. What would he even have to offer?

"Scared to lose, pirate?"

"Never. I'm just curious what you think you have to offer to come in between me and my prey."

"If I lose I'll join you", Grian blurted out. Doc looked at him taken aback and then burst out laughing.

"And what makes you think, I'd want you?"

Grian shrugged. "Maybe the fact that I beat your First Mate without really paying attention to the fight." Okay maybe that was stretching it a little, but if it helped him get Doc to accept it didn't matter.

Doc's eyes travelled to Ren again, who was now fighting another one of Grian's crewmates, face still bloody.

"You got yourself a deal. When I win I'll take you and you get to watch me kill all of your little friends and if I get bored with you, I'll kill you off as well." Grian noticed the way Doc had talked about 'when' he would win, not 'if'. He swallowed. What made him think he could win against Doc, when nobody had ever managed that?

The fight started without any more warning. Doc was relentless, raining hit after hit upon him. Grian swore he could see sparks flying when their swords met. Unlike in the fight against Ren, he couldn't risk losing even a little part of his concentration. If he let his attention waver for even one second he'd lose in the blink of an eye.

Grian ground his teeth together and then started becoming more aggressive. If he just stayed defensive there was no way he'd be able to win. He needed to win. If he didn't then Sam would die. He couldn't bare watching another one of his friends die before his eyes.

Doc raised an eyebrow at him as Grian began hitting back, trying to find an opening for an attack. But Doc was always fast enough to block him, fluidly moving into a counter attack. Out of the corner of his eyes he noticed a few pirates watching them, no longer fighting. That meant nothing good for the rest of the crew. At least noone intervened, letting their Captain fight his battle on his own.

There was a whimper to the side, from one of the pirates and Grian noticed Doc's eyes filling with worry and darting to a white haired man for a second. Grian jumped at the opportunity immediately, blade flying forward. Doc's eyes snapped back to him at once and he hit the blade to the side, a grin on his face. And too late Grian realised that this had been a part of Doc’s strategy. Grian’s blade flew out of his hand, far off to the side. He hurriedly took a step back. Doc was grinning widely now, holding his blade up, pointing it straight at Grian's throat.

"Looks like I win. How naive of you to think a boy like you could win against me."

Grian's eyes were darting around hurriedly, looking for a way out, a way to win. He had no more weapons on him. The only thing he still had was...

Grian hurriedly moved, pulling the cleaning rag out of his back pocket. He wrapped the rag around his hand, movement hidden behind his back, heart beating like crazy. If this didn't work he was done for. And if it worked it might still hurt him beyond repair. All in all it was a stupid idea. Grian's eyes darted to Sam for a second. Sam who was being held to the floor by two pirates, probably so he couldn't intervene in their fight. With determination in his eyes, Grian turned back to Doc.

"Got a little knife hidden behind your back or something?", Doc taunted in amusement and then strode forward faster, raising his hand and bringing it down fast. Grian swallowed hard and sidestepped the attack. When the sword was right next to him, his arm shot out and he grabbed the blade with his wrapped hand, holding it in an iron grip. Doc had been so sure of his victory and just a second too slow to react. His grip wasn't as hard as Grian's and he couldn’t free his blade fast enough.

Instead of pulling as Doc most likely expected, Grian shoved hard, feeling the blade cutting into his skin, but he ignored the blinding pain. Doc seemed to stumble a little and Grian used the opportunity to kick at his legs, making the Captain fall backwards, pulling Grian with him. As they were falling he kept a tight grip on the blade and with one strong pull he managed to rip the blade out of Doc's grasp. In one fluid motion he turned the sword around, still holding onto the blade with his bleeding hand, the other hand grabbing onto the handle and when they landed he pressed the side of the blade under Doc's chin, sitting atop of the fallen Captain.

"One wrong move and I'll kill you, pirate."

Doc looked up at him out of breath, his eyes wide and full of surprise. For a moment they were just staring at each other as the deck fell into complete silence, the sounds of fighting and cheering coming to an abrupt end. A few seconds passed and then Grian heard hurried steps coming closer. His hands began shaking as he pressed the blade a bit harder against Doc's throat, drawing a bit of blood.

"Stop, Etho. Noone touch him."

The steps behind him stopped, but Grian was still on edge. Doc below him seemed to have recovered from his surprise and looked at him almost bored.

"What is your name, boy?"

"G... Grian."

Doc smirked at him, looking rather intrigued. "Grian, huh?" The way Doc rolled the name on his tongue, voice almost growling, made Grian falter, loosening the pressure of the blade a little. And suddenly a knee hit him in the stomach, as Doc threw him off, their positions switching, the blade back in Doc's hand. Doc was now the one leaning over him, looking down at him in deep thought. The sword was resting at Grian's throat, bound to kill him any moment.

~

"Should have killed me when you had the chance, Grian", Doc said with a smirk. Grian closed his eyes, expecting his life to end any second, but it didn't. When he was opening his eyes again, Doc was still looking at him as if he was thinking about something.

"Ren! Call our men back. We are leaving."

"You sure, Doc? You never…"

Doc still kept his eyes on Grian as he replied. "Grian and me had a deal after all. He won. We will leave." Doc leaned closer, his lips now right next to his ears as he lowered his voice to a whisper. "Mark my words, Grian. The next time we meet, I will kill you. Noone ever fights me and lives to tell the tale."

And as sudden as it came the pressure on Grian's neck was gone and Doc stood back up, leaving Grian lying on the floor. Grian stared after him as he went over to Ren and true to his words the pirates were leaving, one after the other jumping back onto their ship. Sam finally rushed over, helping him into a sitting position and firing a flurry of questions at him. But Grian couldn't hear anything, his whole attention still focused on the pirate Captain. Doc climbed the railing and turned around to look at him one more time, smirking devilishly and taking a bow, before taking a rope and swinging over to his own ship.

"Grian? Grian! Talk to me! Are you alright?"

With Doc gone Grian was slowly noticing everything else around him. The Deck was on fire, bodies lying everywhere. Sam was looking at him in worry and Grian nodded slightly. "You?"

Sam smiled and pulled him into a crushing hug.

"You are an idiot. You could have died!"

"Well, I'm glad I'm an idiot or I would have lost you."

The following days seemed to pass in a blur, so many things happening all at once, almost overwhelming Grian. It was a wonder they had managed to make their way back to the navy headquarters with the state their ship had been in after the battle, but they did. The casualties of the fight had been high. The ship's first mate had miraculously survived without even one drop of blood on him, taking over the Captain's position of their ship at once. Grian had been forced to go to the hospital as soon as they had returned. Luckily for him the doctor there had been able to fix his hand, but had told him that the wound would leave behind a scar he'd carry forever.

Grian's eyes searched the crowd of navy soldiers as he stepped into a huge room, slowly walking over the walkway left open in the middle. His eyes landed on Sam, smiling back at him, looking all dashing in his brand new Captain's uniform. Grian returned the smile and stepped up a few stairs towards an admiral, stopping in front of the old man and saluting.

The admiral pinned a medal to the lapel of Grian's brand new uniform and his stoic expression disappeared as he smiled at Grian proudly.

"Congratulations. You are the rising star of the navy... Lieutenant Grian."

[bokunoheroanalysisforthefuture]

And the last chapter of the first volume! Though technically there’s after-chapter content that will be in a separate post from this, but for now, what matters is finishing up the quirk assessment and getting into the battle trial!

Honestly, it’s a good thing that I just shoved all the opening arcs from before the USJ together into one tag, because this chapter literally goes from the quirk assessment into the beginning of the battle trial stuff, and trying to separate them out would have been a mess and a half. Better to just have it all in the ‘opening arcs’ tag.

...weird title for something that only comes at the end of the chapter, but whatever, it’s not like we don’t see that happen later on in the series as well.

[No. 7 - Costume Change?]

And we immediately come back to where we left off, with All Might realizing what just happened and what Izuku did and even why! One of those little peeks that remind us that All Might is very smart! Also god, him with a small fanboy moment over how proud he is of his kid and how cool that workaround was, mmm this is the Dad Might content I signed up for. 

Izuku is still standing firm, even with his finger swollen and damaged, biting back the pain. Ochako is cheering about that record, Tenya notices Izuku’s finger is damaged and thinks back to the entrance exam, calling it a ‘strange quirk’, Aoyama says it’s stylishly done, and Katsuki is brain broke.

I’m sorry that’s just so fucking funny. He is such a goddamn gremlin, but he’s also completely shook. He thinks about how quirks never manifest past age four, but somehow Izuku has a quirk. 

He then recalls Izuku saying ‘he earned this’ and gets pissed, blasting forward to demand an explanation while Izuku freaks out-

Only for Katsuki to have his quirk cancelled by Aizawa and also get caught up in the capture scarf. 

Beauty. Grace. He’ll bite off your face. 

Katsuki notes the cloth is stiff, while Aizawa tells him that it’s a capture weapon made of carbon fibers and a special alloy wire, then tells Katsuki to stop using his quirk already. Which is interesting; can Aizawa sense when people are trying to use their quirks while under the effects of his? If so, is he sensing the aborted movement of whatever quirk factors exist, or ??? 

(All I’m saying is that that is some possible fuel for a Dad For One connection but for Aizawa instead of Izuku… you know, just in case.)

As we sort of saw from the last chapter, Aizawa’s quirk has the side effect of giving him dry eyes (he was putting eyedrops in his eyes after using his quirk on Izuku). Izuku thinks that sucks since his quirk is so awesome. Aizawa lets his quirk and scarf drop, telling the class to prepare for the next event.

Katsuki is standing where he was stopped, glaring at Izuku who is holding his hand while Ochako worries over him and his finger. He’s caught up in a flashback (which again, reminder that this is chapter 7 and we already have flashbacks), thinking about how up to then, Izuku was just another pebble in his path. We get a brief cut to a memory flashback (not a chapter flashback) to when Izuku and Katsuki were still friends, and Izuku was waiting for his quirk to come in still, and then repeats that Izuku was only supposed to be a pebble. Single track mind, much?

Discord:

Ah, that good Bakugou discourse. This is why you do this stuff in a server with friends.

Izuku narrates a short passage of time - over the rest of the events - while handling the pain of his injured finger. Aizawa tells them it’s time for the results, with Izuku thinking about how he’s going to get expelled because the only record worth mentioning was the throw, and how the endurance running failed hard because of the pain. Aizawa says he won’t explain the process behind the scoring process, just that they reflect performance.

And then he reveals he was lying about expelling someone. 

The trio’s faces. Aizawa’s manic smile. The trio’s faces. And Momo there like ‘what did you expect?’ God, I can’t help but giggle.

Izuku just fucking ascending to a new plane of existance here.

Aizawa turns to leave, saying they’re done there and that the documents about the curriculum and whatnot are back in the classroom. He then calls out Izuku, who is shaking in panic (probably about Aizawa changing his mind again - I wonder if teachers before UA pulled that sort of ‘syke’ on Izuku… yikes.)

Instead, he just gets handed a pass to the nurse’s office (not even filled out fully, incredible) and then turns and walks off.

The class is left to stare after Aizawa in bafflement, with Izuku’s narration noting that he’s safe for the moment, but still has too much he can’t do, and that he’s literally starting from the bottom - but here’s there to learn so he can get closer to his dream!

Class rankings:

And- ah, he walked past All Might, who calls him out as a liar. Aizawa either didn’t notice him watching or didn’t know it was All Might specifically who was watching, but either way calls it ‘wasting time’ - which makes sense when all the teachers know about his time limit that he’s spending there watching Izuku the kids do their trials.

All Might notes that April Fool’s was over a week ago, and that the ‘rational deception’ thing falls flat when he expelled an entire class of first years the previous year. Aizawa discards those with zero potential, but he went back on his word here, and then asks if he sensed Midoriya’s potential as well. While giving Aizawa finger guns. Have I mentioned this man is a complete dork yet?

Aizawa catches onto the ‘as well’ bit, and determines that All Might’s supporting the kid - which isn’t his usual style. He then starts walking off again, saying Midoriya doesn’t have no chance, but that’s all he’ll say on the matter. He then says that if the kid had no prospects, he’d cut him loose, since it’s crueler to let someone chase half-baked dreams. 

All Might determines quietly that it’s Aizawa’s way of being kind, but out loud states that they can agree to disagree. Meanwhile, in the background, Sero and Sato notice All Might, which probably leads to class 1a going after him and him fleeing for safety. 

We transition to when Izuku is heading home, with him exhausted because of his trip to Recovery Girl. Tenya checks in on him, and Izuku says he’s fine, with us seeing a temporary flashback to the nurse’s office. Izuku notes his finger’s better, but he’s exhausted all of a sudden (he doesn’t remember last time since he was unconscious). 

A couple of things:

Kamui Woods pez dispenser 

Oh, so if he doesn’t have stamina he’ll die! Good to know! :)

Anyways, Izuku thinks about how he can’t keep going on like this and has to figure out how to regulate his power fast. Tenya goes on to talk about how Aizawa had fooled them, making them think that was how it was, only for it to be a deception. (The irony that the mercy was actually unplanned all along gets to me.) Izuku is more relaxed around him now that he realizes Tenya isn’t scary, just super serious.

Ochako rushes over to catch up, asking if they’re heading for the station. Tenya calls her ‘Infinity Girl’ and Izuku repeats it mentally in surprise. Ochako introduces herself, and then brings up their names - though she mistakes Izuku’s name for ‘Deku’, because of what Katsuki said during the test. Izuku corrects her with awkward hand gestures, saying his real name and that the ‘Deku’ is just Katsuki being a bully. 

Tenya and Ochako both acknowledge this, with Ochako apologizing, and then mentioning how ‘Deku’ sounds like ‘do your best’, and that she likes it. Izuku goes beet fucking red and immediately replies that Deku is fine, with Tenya chastising him for not showing backbone while Izuku calls it like the Copernican Revolution and Ochako questions who Copernicus is. 

The narration takes over, noting that even if there’s a lot he can’t do, he’ll do his best, but having All Might and even some friends behind him… it’s more than he could have asked for. 

Good children. Best friends. God, these were the good days… more OG Dekucrew content please and thanks.

We get one panel of Toshinori that Izuku’s got no time to rest, and that tomorrow the real test begins. Then we’re onto the next day, aka the first day of actual classes - and oh, right, UA has clubs, that’s something that’s easy to forget when we never see it with the hero classes. I mean, considering that the actual hero training classes probably overlap the usual club hours, not surprising, but still.

Present Mic is shown to be the English teacher, trying to get the kids in the spirit of class, but pretty much everyone is finding it boring - asides from Izuku, who is actually trying to answer the question mentally, even if not out loud. The narration notes that the mornings are for normal classes, and that lunch is top-notch food for dirt cheap in the cafeteria (as cooked by Lunch Rush), and then hero training is in the afternoon… possibly after lunch? Which isn’t great when people could end up throwing up. Ah well.

These fucking dorks. Two peas in a quirkless-to-superpowered pea pod.

And of course, more meta from the class on how All Might’s drawn differently.

Anyways, All Might gets into Hero Basic Training, how it’ll mold them into heroes, and that there’s no time to waste as he shows off a card reading ‘battle’ before stating that they have battle training. 

Have I mentioned he’s a dork? There’s more ham here than in Shatner’s performances in the original Star Trek series!

Katsuki is thrilled with battle training, of course. All Might notes that for battle training, the class will need - as the wall clicks and opens several drawers with numbered cases, each with contents in accordance with the quirk registry and the special request forms fill out before admission - costumes! Which the class is super hyped about. Izuku is holding his backpack in excitement, and All Might orders the students to come out to Ground Beta in ranking order once they’re changed, to which the class agrees. 

As he takes his leave, he notes that looking good is important, and to look alive, because from today on, they’re all heroes! We also get some nice transition moments showing pieces of people’s costumes, with Izuku being the last one out as the rest show theirs off.

So cool! And what a way to end a chapter and a book! And a nice nod to the prototype costume for Izuku. Time to say goodbye to it before the end of this arc. 

Next time, I’ll try to get through all the bonus stuff for the end of the volume, and then we can get into the battle trial proper! Looking forward to that.

[pan-of-light]

Crowded Break!

Octavinelle Trio on vacation. That’s it, that’s the fic.

Originally posted to AO3

 Spring break was a time for productivity. Being home and sequestered in his childhood room was one of the few places he felt comfortable enough to sprawl around in his true, octopus merman form, and he had to admit: no matter the aesthetic advantaged brought about by the human potion, it was so much easier to work with eight extra limbs. There was always a lingering fear in his mind he'd be unable to get used to working at such a slower capacity when he went back to school, but they rarely lasted. Like the Ramshackle Dorm's prefect had told him, he was a hard worker. Azul Ashengrotto would not lose to the weakness of a human form.

 But he was going to enjoy this time of working at a proper pace. Professors at Night Raven were hardly shy about burying their students in homework, since the school and their students has a reputation to uphold. They were the best of the best (besides the musclebrains of Royal Sword), and Azul was always one to outshine others. After a hectic fall term, this is what he needed. Peace, quiet, eight extra limbs--

 And the door to his room slamming open.

 Honestly, it was a feat to do so underwater, but after years of knowing the Leech siblings, it was just a thing Azul had come to accept. And thankfully, he'd gotten plenty of control of his ink glands and kept himself from making a mess of his room as Floyd and Jade barged in. Well, Floyd barged, Jade at least had the decency to shut the door behind him after slithering in.

 At times like these, Floyd reminded Azul of Professor Trein’s cat. Much like how Lucius could walk all around the bookshelves and displays of the professor’s office and not disturb a single award or decoration, so could Floyd effortlessly maneuver through Azul’s setup on the bed and make himself comfortable there without disturbing a single book, phone or computer. Azul would be impressed if he wasn’t already so used to it.

 “So why are you two here?”

 “Your parents let us in,” Jade answered, setting down a tray of snacks on a nearby desk.

 “Yeah, they complained we never visit anymore and said we were getting thin. You need to invite us over more, Azul~”

 “That’s not what I asked,” Azul sighed, but knew that was about as much of an answer as he was going to get. Honestly, his parents. It was a miracle Azul could go through doors as a kid. He hoped running the Lounge didn’t permanently rewire his brain to associate loving others with shoving them full of food, in the future.

 In the present, however, he had people who knew him far too well, so Jade had also bought a low-calorie all-natural wrap from a nearby health food shop, placing it on the desk along with the food Azul’s parents made in such a natural way it was like it had always been there. Efficiency born from practice.

 “You should at least take a break to eat with us. Wasn’t it you who said the secret to a fitter form was more small, spaced out meals than few big ones?” when they were home like this, Jade never bothered to hide his teeth while smiling, leaving his appearances and manipulations refreshingly honest. There was no point in hiding their true natures from people who knew them so well, which just made their dances around each other that much more fun.

 “I’m afraid I’m still too busy to take a break at the moment.”

 “Boooring! Come eat with us, Azul!” Floyd sprung from his position on the bed, expertly knocking away or slapping all of Azul’s things with his tail in a single move, again much like Lucius would do to Professor Trein’s shelves when the cat decided it was treat time and would not hear anything to the contrary. “Not like you can work on anything now, right?”

 Azul scoffed, pushing Floyd off his bed, a move that had no malice behind it and was almost incapable of causing any damage, since it was hardly like Floyd could hit the floor while underwater. Some might even describe it as playful.

 “Or maybe I can just make you both leave.”                  “You’d treat your guests in that manner?” Jade raised a hand to his chest in mock surprise, letting out a dramatic gasp, “I had no idea your parents had raised such an uncouth host.”

 “Yeah, your mom’d squee~ze you way worse than I could ever do if she hears you’re bad to guests, Azul.”

 Oh, such a low blow, going for his parents like that. Especially since they knew he’d have little success employing that strategy since the Leech parents had far too many sibling to properly manage them. If Floyd and Jade were any more chaotic, it could be troubling for all the seas! Then again, Azul pondered, thinking back to his Overblot incident, it wasn’t like he was that much better. They might be named Leech, but he was the one who sucked power from others.

 Not from them, though, no. He’d never seen what they had in him, but they willingly gave him their time and power in pursuit of amusement, that serendipitously aligned with his own goals. Their partnership was a thing of incredible power, and Azul made absolutely sure to never tell them that out loud, lest it go to their heads even more. (Plus, if they were even the tiniest bit close to him as he was to them, they already knew).

 “You’re both awful guests, and my mother would see nothing wrong in kicking troublemakers like you out.” Azul only earned laughter in response, mocking and derisive and, well, proving his point. He shooed Jade off his chair and took a seat at his desk, grabbing the snack they’d brought for him while Jade took a polite seat on his bed, grabbing some food for himself while Floyd took the rest of the tray and sprawled out on the floor, stretching himself from one end of the room to another.

 “I’m assuming you have actual plans for the day, then?”

 “The community center stage is open, you haven’t played piano for us in a while, Mona’s salon is having a discount on full hair treatment days-”

 “There are new documentaries being screened at the museum regarding advances in magic control study, I know you have some new board game prototypes to test for the club-”

 “Oh! There’s also going to be a fried food festival thing in a few days, so you need to plan your diet so you can go, and we can look up new things to try in the lounge there--”

 “And, of course, if all else fails, there’s always watching over our beloved schoolmates on MagiCam to make sure they’re spending their break properly, huhu…”

 “That’s enough activities for the rest of the break, not just a single day.”

 “Well, duh,” Floyd laughed, “did you seriously have any other plans? You’re a shut-in when you get left alone too long~”

 “As vice-leader of Octavinelle, it’s nothing more than my duty to keep you stimulated and enriched during periods of rest.”                  “What am I, some kind of pet?”

 “No, we’d have to feed you, then. You’re much less annoying when you can manage your own diet.” Jade was already looking all around the abandoned items on his bed, pulling out Azul’s schedule book and flipping through it until the current date, grabbing a pen and beginning to vandalize Azul’s well-made break plans.

 “You’re giving me as much choice as a pet would.”

 “But Azuuul, you totally have a choice! You can come with us, or we can start a throwback thursday on the Lounge’s MagiCam account! We have so many cute pictures of us as children, you know~” Floyd pulled out his phone to show his threat was far from empty, cloud storage noting a few dozen pictures of their childhood, Azul included.

 Azul threw himself across the room, grabbing at Floyd’s hands, despite knowing that the pictures existed beyond his phone because it was the principle of the thing, damn it! while Floyd did his best to ignore all ten limbs of fury aiming for his hands. Bastard didn’t even need to use his unique magic for it, and when finally cornered, threw the phone to Jade, who had moved across the room just for this.

 “Oh, and please do be careful, Azul,” he teased when it was his turn to end up with a facefull of angry octopus, “if you make too big a mess of you room, we won’t be able to go out today.”

 By the time he saw his phone sail past him back to Floyd’s hands, Azul threw his arms in the air in exasperation. “Fine, fine, I’m going! Give me a minute to get my things in order!”

 “Aww, isn’t this great, Jade? Azul finally decided the best way to spend his break is playing with us!”

 “I’m so very glad out dorm leader is a capable man who always sees reason.”

[dascarecrow]

Marinette’s Many Dates - Marinette and Her Allies

Thought I’d give you a look at what’s the deal with Marinette and her friends in this story of mine.  

Marinette is the star of the show of course. She’s dealing with a lot of problems that I’ve outlined already (Miraculous stuff, issues with classmates) and also has commissions she’s been working on. Her social life has been hectic to say the least. She’s been so stressed out that she starts subconsciously doing design work without even realizing it (of course the fact she’s brought along her materials for designing says quite a bit by itself) It gets so bad that she’s actually gotten through all of her commissions and is still looking for something to do. Her friends recognize how bad things have gotten and convince Marinette to try the dating service. You can guess where it goes from there. We have some tragic laughs with Mari here. 

Her circle of friends has been overhauled a bit. The usual trio of Adrien, Alya and Nino aren’t as close with her because of the problems Lila has been causing but I’ll get to that in another post. Needless to say her circle of peers is pretty different here. 

First there is Chloe. Yes I’m making her a better person here. That’s my choice. One of the deviations here is that she actually got over herself and managed to grow as a person. She’s an actual friend of Marinette’s here because that’s always fun. This is still the Queen Bee though. She still has a sharp tongue but uses it more for not so harmful snarking. Her efforts at being a better person involve channeling her pride and ferocity into helping people. Unfortunately this also means dealing with others on an equal level, which she’s not that great at. She’s trying but her social skills are a tad rusty.  I am bringing Zoe and all of the family drama that would entail into this as something interesting to do with Chloe. One of the things I am sticking to is that she still exposed herself as a hero (in order to impress her mother. I don’t know if that was the case in the show but I have little interest in digging around to see if I’m right or not.) and has to be retired as a hero. I’m debating if I should stick to that and have it that she never gets the Bee again or allow her to regain it. Either way while she’s not happy about the decision she does make peace with it as for the best. Also she wasn’t Miracle Queen, that was Mayura who was akumatized. I’ll explain what happened there in the actual story. 

Her friend orbit now includes Rose and Juleka a bit more prominently. The two found out about Lila’s lying (Rose is in contact with Ali and would obviously tell Juleka) and are firmly on Marinette’s side now. They aren’t too happy about how Lila’s influence is making everyone worse but also know trying to help them right now is an exercise in futility so they’re focusing on helping Marinette as much as possible. Pigella and Purple Tiger both start making more regular appearances. Pigella because her ability can outright snuff out the emotions that power Akumas and Sentimonsters with the strength of hope. Purple Tiger because due to shenanigans with Chat Noir she needs a more combat capable associate.  

Alix is also a more prominent friend to Marinette. No real reason why I just think it works. Not sure about Bunnyx yet. We’ll see what happens. 

Nathaniel is the last classmate who’s in Marinette’s friend orbit now. Unlike the others who get sucked into Lila’s corruptive game he identifies far more with Marinette as a fellow artist and also he remembers that Marinette is the reason he and Marc have a partnership now so he’s on her side. If the boy gets a Miraculous soon I’ll put it in. 

Now for outside of the class. 

Marc is in the same boat as Nathaniel and has the bonus of not being in the same class as Lila so good vibes there. 

I have seen stories where Aurore is a friend of Marinette’s and thought I would include it here. (Not sure if that has any basis in canon but this is fanfiction) Will definitely consider giving her a Miraculous. 

Luka is still enamored with Marinette but for one reason or another they didn’t start dating. It’s mostly on Marinette’s end because Luka is having his own problems (The Jagged Stone reveal still happened here) and she doesn’t want to burden him with more issues. Not that this stops certain people (Chloe and Juleka) from wondering, very loudly I might add, why Marinette won’t date Luka given that he’s available, in an emotionally turbulent time in his life that could be assuaged by the love of the right girl and most importantly into her. Luka wasn’t exposed in the Miracle Queen battle so Viperion is still active and in fact gets called on a bit more. He does take her use of the dating service in stride, even if he is a bit heartbroken that she seems to be avoiding him as a romantic partner, and shows a great deal of patience and maturity with her choices. He understands that things are going on in her life right now and maybe she just wants something that isn’t a big commitment. I do have Luka as the quote-unquote “True” pairing of the story for those who don’t appreciate crossover ships. 

Kagami fills an interesting role. She and Adrien do try dating but he decides it won’t work out and cuts things off . She’s not exactly happy about this but does find some solace in her friendship with Marinette, especially now that they don’t have to compete with each other over who gets to be with Adrien. And events transpire to show that Adrien may not have been the boy she thought. She supports Marinette in anyway that she can in her dating and along the way may discover that Marinette makes her feel the way she thought Adrien would. Depends on my mood. Like Luka she wasn’t exposed in Miracle Queen so Ryuko gets to stay active. And oh does she have some words for Chat Noir. 

The final important ally Marinette will have will be Su-Han. I’ll skim over the details of how that meeting wound up going in the actual story but he will be a helpful ally to Marinette. He essentially realizes that Mari is a girl thrown into a war with the barest minimum of warning and assistance and recognizes that regardless of rules and codes she is a Guardian and has done the best she can in the role. He helps out by teaching her the ways and knowledge of the Guardians, such as the Akuma resistance technique, and pretty much takes over where Fu left off. Basically where Fu was Obi-Wan, Su-Han is Yoda. He is a lot warmer than he was in his debut episode and does what he can to help Marinette, both in her life as a civilian and as a Guardian.   

[campcampfanfan]

Let me start off with saying, these two fanfics are my favorite of all time. They are incredibly well written, exciting, and overall amazing. I am writing this review because 1) I’m bored and 2) This fic deserves a proper review. And I admire Forestwater. That too. I will be reviewing both parts, The Adventures of Tigger and Eyeore and Tigger and Eyeore: Camp Campbell and beyond. I am also splitting this into two posts, so yeah. Also, Trigger warnings for Swearing, Smut Review, and All Caps. The other post will have trigger warnings on it as well. So, enjoy!

So, the first chapter. What happens? Gwen arrives, reading, and David scares her on accident. She thinks he’s a camper, which I started bursting out laughing. He does act and looks like a camper, which makes sense. Anyways, our amazing lead, Gwen, realizes he’s another counselor, and is shocked. She reflects on not being able to Campbell, and they begin to get to know each other. Honestly, this is such a nice scene. Don’t ask me why, it’s so nice. Like, just the way they interact is so soothing and nice. It’s a good first chapter! 

Second chapter! This was super cool to see what could have been. I really love this scene with Gwen and David, as it has them interacting about what they would do, what they are free and just… talk. It’s nice. Also, expanding on Gwen’s love of trash T.V is amazing. Thanks for that, Forest. Amazing Gwen introducing the amazing Bob Ross, and it’s perfect. Whatever, amazing chapter. 

Third chapter. The 4 S’s? Amazing. If y’all don’t know what that stand for here's the paragraph. It’s amazing, read it: 

“Oh, no. She really should've checked with David to make sure whatever he had planned didn't include the 4 S's: Stab, Smash, Shatter, or Seriously Fuck Shit Up. Glass bottles fell under at least 3 of those categories.”

Also, David said the tucked away line was gold. I think I physically squealed at that. Honestly, not too much happens other than the fire thing, but you know, good chapter! 

Fourth chapter. Wow, I’m getting through this faster than I thought I would. They are in forest?!?! At night?!?!? Alone?!??! … Nice. Capture the flag! Good idea!... Do I not have any more criticism for this chapter? It’s just amazing and well written? Also Gwen read Twilight? Oh who am I kidding, of course she did. WHEEZE… 

Chapter five. Amazing. Perfect. Fucking perfect. David being terrified of scary stories, the bastard trio being the bastard trio, and a behind the scenes look at what would have happened during the credits. The Gwen and David leaving for Spooky Island after dusk and being scarred for life is amazing.

Chapter 6 fuckers. Really good chapter! We gotta love David falling in love with Gwen. Love it. Also, jokes hit home. Good job! Also, um, I love Gwen’s self doubt issues? Not like, love it, I’m not glorifying it in any way, but I…. to do that. Let’s be frank, I think I suck ass, so I relate to Gwen. Me too, girl, me too.  Also, the magazine thing was so well done? I don’t know how to explain it, it was just a good scene of David looking over Gwen’s magazine’s and wondering if she thinks she needs it. And Gwen’s nicknames for the kids? Very nice. I know I’m not paying attention to the big plot points and shit, but the details and small things make me very happy! I like the small things, and I enjoy it. This is my review, ok? I get to pick what it’s about.

Already on Chapter 7! And OH MY GOD, BON BON MY BELOVED. Amazing! Lovely! I’m crying and I'm so happy! This might actually be my favorite chapter? Like, I love this one. And David plays Wheel of Fortune? Hello, that’s amazing. This is just fantastic? I don’t know specifically why, but Gwen and Bon Bon have the best damn dynamic. Gwen’s taste in men is trash, ok? Except David. That’s it. But anyways, Gwen discussing her exes with Bon Bon was a perfect scene. I kinda love Bon Bon acting as a more advice figure? Forest, if you are listening, please, if she ever comes back, more of that. Gwen patching David up is nice and sweet, and I just overall love Bon Bon??????

Chapter 8 is sad David. I just love David talks about how Gwen sees herself and tries to help?? Like, I don’t know if you guys read “Taking Charge” By Azeran on Ao3, but that’s a very good example of David recognizing Gwen’s unhealthy behavior and trying to help. Once again, Friend Forest (Can I call you my friend? Are we just mutuals? Idk?), I kinda love the idea of this fic, and would love to see a chapter about that, or maybe even…. A smut chapter????? Haha, just kidding, Unless? Wow, that was super long just ranting. Sorry, Sorry. Time to talk about the actual story. We love Gwen’s want to kiss David’s forehead. Amazing. They are practically dating. Alright, hurrying this up, I’m just going to make the next paragraph about the next few chapters. 

More Gwenvid stuff, and it’s amazing. Gwen has more self doubt, which I relate too, and David comforts her! Perfection. We also love Gwen slowly loving her job, it just feels so nice. Also, David being kind of unintentionally racist is really funny from Gwen’s point of view. Like, it wasn’t funny in the episode, but it’s so good in this fic???? Ok, two chapters down,sorta. Gwen being a mom to Harrison and Nerris, which is amazing, and David walking in at the worst time made me laugh. Good job once again! Rest of the chapter is them chatting, and I am a sucker for it. Then, the special scene. Order of the Sparrow, Max and David fighting, but in this point, it’s in GWEN’S point of view. I love this. Too much. I just-

Aanonfoofinfliwehfuehfifuheifuhriuheriufhew

Sorry, getting off topic (sorta). This chapter shows Max’s softer side and how Gwen cares for David. It’s just… incredible. And then…Chapter 12. OH MY GODS. What the hell. I was so excited, and I was right. When I read this the first time, I was not disappointed. Can I just… say how much I love this? It’s such a good fic, and the finale was as promised. Gwen expresses her self doubt, they chat, and then…

GWENVID.

Ok, I’ll make a whole separate post about why I like this version of Gwen so much, but Gwen’s so… real. I sympathize for her, feel for her, I just know what she’s going through. I just feel sorry for all she’s gone through. Then, they... ehm…. Do the horizontal tango. The dirty. The morning delight. Smut. Boom. Not going to lie, well written. You did good, Forest, you did good. Thanks you for.. That. It was good quality.

So Tl:DR, This fic is fucking amazing and possibly the best one in the fandom. Good job, @forestwater87 Yay!

[lost-in-yujikiri]

Alicization Rewatch ep 17-21 - Kirito’s Aincrad PTSD & Eugeo part 2: Restored Faith in Love and Heroism

1) Kirito’s Aincrad PTSD

I talk about this before that there is a crucial part of the novels that the anime didn’t adapt: when Kirito had a break while he was climbing the Cathedral with Alice S30, Kirito compared Eugeo to his friends and Asuna. He admitted that during and post-Aincrad, he had been playing hero to other people and realized he didn’t have to feel any burden and could finally be himself freely with Eugeo.

Until now, Kirito is still not over Aincrad, and it pained him. I already talked about how in LN he compared Aincrad and Underworld in my ep 15-16 Rewatch post, and how he loves Underworld way more than Aincrad and would do anything to protect it. Not only that, he also dislikes his Black Swordman persona, to him it’s a persona that killed many people, abandoned Klein on the first SAO day and its sole purpose is only for utmost survival. He dislikes it so much that there were several times he was very awkward to admit he has duel-wielding skill in ALO, and even though he taught Eugeo general Aincrad skills, he did not teach any of his old Black Swordman’s signature skills to Eugeo.

This scene is also another of that indication of his avoidance. Besides the reason that duel-wielding skill was still impossible for him in Underworld by this time, he still didn’t want to admit to anyone he used to have this skill since it’s associated with the Black Swordman persona (there are anime-onlies who found this scene funny, but us LN readers couldn’t laugh when we know the context).

And now here came the time when he had to step up his game, the first step for him to accept his old self when he had to start using Black Swordman’s secret skills that he hadn’t taught Eugeo to fight Eugeo Synthesis 32.

2) Eugeo’s Recovery and Restored Faith in Love & Heroism

What Eugeo wants? Besides Alice, he wants to feel being loved, he wants to feel recognized by his family, village and peers. I have already proved in my previous Rewatch post that Eugeo was brainwashed and synthesized quickly because he already had a hole in his memory and Quinella already inserted Piety Module to his head before he woke up in her room. But not only that, Eugeo’s problems also stem from how unfulfilled his upbringing back at Rulid Village and his life ending at Swordcraft Academy were and Quinella took advantage of this splendidly. You can find my previous post about this on my tag “Alicization Rewatch” at the end of this post.

Why is Eugeo S32 so strong? Besides the fact that Quinella has synthesized him with a newly improved Piety Module that makes him able to use Incarnation immediately, in the skipped LN materials Kirito himself cited that Eugeo has a lot of potential as a swordman that he might be able to catch up with Kirito in some years. Back at academy Eugeo was also a much better Sacred Art user than Kirito (especially with Cryogenic Element aka Freezing Sacred Arts) while Kirito sucked at it sometimes, thus why he was able to ranked 5th why Kirito ranked 6th at academy. It’s so ironic that to become the strong Knight Eugeo aspired to become, he had to give up all his negative and conflicting feelings associated with his memories as human. There are times the biggest enemy of you is yourself.

Thus Kirito tried his best to remind Eugeo what he had been fighting for all this time and the people who have tried to encourage him.

And thus Eugeo started to remember...

...not the memories of any people Kirito mentioned, but memories of him and Kirito fighting when they were kids.

And he then remembered Alice too.

But then just when Kirito was happy Eugeo remembered, this happened.

In the novel it’s made extremely clear that by this point, Eugeo already remembered everything, so to atone to his friends whom he accidentally fought while brainwashed, he wanted to go keep both Kirito and Alice trapped in ice for a while before he went to assassinate Quinella alone. But as always, anime doesn’t like having monologues, so they left this plot point in hints.

First, you can see the ice rose bud is melting here, indicating that Eugeo’s Enhance Armanent effect is very low.

Second, Administrator meant to tell Eugeo to kill off all rebels, but when Chudelkin asked him about it, he said he took Administrator’s orders technically so he only stopped them.

And so Eugeo managed to shoo Chudelkin away so he can continue his plan to stab Quinella.

Because his Synthesis was done in such a hurry, Quinella wanted to redo Eugeo’s Synthesis properly. And in a moment, he regained even more memories...

...with big focus on Kirito again.

In a previous reblog post, a viewer pointed out that for how much Eugeo’s goal was to save Alice, for how much Kirito pretty much tried to grill into Eugeo’s head “Do It For Alice!”, it was Kirito who Eugeo remembered first, it was Kirito who is the focal silhouette in Eugeo’s memories. Is that saying something about who the most important person to Eugeo really is?

So finally, he grabbed the chance to stab Quinella.

Sadly, the assassination was unsuccessful, but he managed to land a few blows on Administrator and got the knowledge that metal weapons couldn’t work on her at all. From the memories that he gained back, he finally learned back the lesson of what love really is, something he knew since he was a child but he had forgotten all because RATH blocked all his memories that have Kirito.

Then Chudelkin went up the floor to tell Quinella that Eugeo had deceived all of them for his assassination plan.

Then Kirito caught up with him him on the 100th floor, a heartfelt reunion between two boys occured. Please read the Adapted Out monologues of Eugeo here, you might be able to understand how much love he had for Kirito at this moment

And our Rulid Trio finally reunited, ready to take on the biggest enemy in Human Empire.

Next up: Kirito’s overcoming his personal hurdle, Administrator & Cardinal

[straight-outta-hobbiton]

Seven Harry Potter Fic Recs from a Quarantined Hobbit:

Since I’m stuck inside and desperately avoiding my own writing projects, I figured I would post a mini rec list of a few of my favorite fics and kill some time doing that. These fics are pretty much the bar I set for myself whenever I try to write anything, they’re that kind of good. They’re my go-to fics pretty much any time I want to get sucked in— even though I’ve read them a dozen times each, I still read to the end, every time. That’s how much I love them.

In alphabetical order, here’s my list of Harry Potter must-reads:

Again and Again, by Athey: Harry Potter has been living in a steady time loop starting from his birth and ending whenever he dies. In this particular life, he decides to try something new. It’s an older fic— I had it emailed to me by a friend in my junior year of high school from ff.net (though it’s also available on ao3 now), and it has a lot of little things that make me nostalgic for my early days of fandom, tropewise. Tag for Slytherin!Harry, Competence Porn, and Actual Porn, too.

C’est La Vie, by Cywscross: In a similar vein, this particular iteration of Harry Potter is tempted by Fate (lol) into something like a second chance, returning to the age of fourteen in a parallel universe where Harry Potter isn’t the Boy-Who-Lived. One of my favorite OCs of all time is in this fic— the amazing Orion Black, son of Wolfstar— and honestly, I’ve rarely seen such excellent depictions of burgeoning inter-House unity as it’s done here. Tag for Hufflepuff!Harry, Time Travel (sorta), and more Competence Porn.

D.S.S Requirement, by Esama: Let me just start by saying this is a Stargate Crossover, but it’s so good you literally don’t need to know anything about Stargate. The idea is simple: there is the Room of Requirement, some Muggleborns with an interest in sci-fi, and an accidental discovery that intrinsically changes the culture of the DA. It’s not so much about plot as it is a character study. You’re watching a group of children and teenagers— most of whom are generally uneducated in Muggle sciences and the concept of science fiction— as they adapt new and interesting ideas to their lives and futures. It’s technically a two-part series (so far, fingers crossed), with the second part focusing more on how the DA begins to affect the outside world, but the focus is mainly on this simple question: what would a bunch of clever, rebellious, magical children do if they found a spaceship? Tag for DA Shenanigans, Space Race, and Slice of Life Under Umbridge.

Harveste, by haru-chan: This is the first of a series based on a somewhat eldritch interpretation of the Addams Family. It’s a crossover, but the author basically takes all the best parts of the nineties movies and fleshes them out to a wonderfully campy, macabre degree, so feel free to have less than a surface level understanding of Addams Family lore, if that. Harry is discovered at the age of five by Mr. and Mrs. Addams, who promptly adopt him and take him away to their magical home in America, where he’s raised as the middle brother between Pugsley and Wednesday. It’s got a darker tone to its humor, but it’s as funny as it is ridiculous, and incredibly satisfying if you’re into just-desserts. Tag for Slytherin!Harry, Blood Magic, and Nineties Goth-Comedy.

Never Grow A Wishbone, by ShanaStoryteller: First things first: it’s still ongoing. Every update is like a present in my email inbox, because truly, it is the best post-Hogwarts fic I have ever fucking read. The world-building is like if George RR Martin took breaths between blurbs, just enough to get you fascinated without overshadowing the main plot. Draco is the main character, and your following him and all his knowledge of the Wizarding World (as opposed to Harry’s canonical, general obliviousness) as he takes on a new challenge in life— a teaching position at Hogwarts alongside Harry and Hermione in the post-Wizarding War World. You get a really interesting look into the complexities of magical politics and its purpose within their world, as well as a deeper look into contemporary Magical history and its affects on their modern world. All the questions that ruined so much of canon Harry Potter for me are answered in this fic, and on top of that, she’s doing what I’ve been struggling to do for like, five years, which is talk about where all the goddamn Muggles fit in. Also! It’s Drarry, but when they’re grownups and can work their shit out, so it’s extra good. Tag for Court Drama, McGonagall Knows Best, and Professor!AU.

One Hundred and Sixty Nine, by Soupy_George: This is a Hermione-centric time travel fic, and the pairing is Sirius/Hermione (a rarepair for many reasons, but beautifully done here). This is a universe where the war was Bad and Long, and the Golden Trio came out of it more battered than they should have. Hermione, in a desperate attempt to fix the lives of her best friends, does some hardcore illegal Time Turner magic and lands 169 days before Voldemort’s attack on the Potters in 1981. Her plan is pretty straightforward: get the Horcruxes and kill Voldemort before he makes inside the house on Godric’s Hollow. After making contact with the Order, she sets her plan into motion with the help of Sirius, Remus, a young Moody, and a consistently secretive but overall well-meaning Dumbledore. Tag for Time Travel, Subtle Punk Rock, and Slow Burn.

Secrets, by Vorabiza: I have loved this fic since my sophomore year of high school. I found it in the time of fandom-specific fic sites, that’s how long it’s been, and honestly it’s one of the best re-writes (or maybe book seven predictions) I’ve ever read. It’s another Drarry, and it’s a kid!fic, which is a particular weak spot of mine, focusing on the summer before Harry’s seventh year and the aftermath of Dumbledore’s death. It really digs into the what it means to be Sorted into the House you’re Sorted into, and the psychological and cultural implications that Magical society has put on that Sorting. There are spy games, secret-keeping, and a really well-done crowning of Harry as the young man who’s going to lead the war effort in the wake of Dumbledore. Tag for Babies, Not As Big A Dick As Canon Severus Snape, and Family Feels.

Most of these are longish reads, but I figure so many of us have time on our hands right now that might otherwise be spent worrying, so fuck it! Indulge the Harry Potter fan you have living inside of you. Read some good fic.

[impalementation]

I think your take on Doublemeat Palace is interesting because to me it's emblematic of all the things that make Season 6 (particularly the back half after "Tabula Rasa") not work for me. It's relentlessly grim and unpleasant and I can feel the writers twisting the plot to make sure every character is as miserable as possible. I'm not opposed to seeing protagonists in a low point or even outright failing. Season 3 of Game of Thrones is some of my favorite TV ever. (1/2)

(2/2) But at a certain point the grim and gritty, if it's not well written, and broken up with some moments of lightness (like Buffy was previously known for) the audience gets numb. It also doesn't help that no one has any agency. (Magicrack, the not!wedding, Dawn doing zip) Again, I'm not opposed to dark plotlines. I'm opposed to incompetent writing.I don't think you can call an episode or an arc "objectively" good if it doesn't work for the majority of the audience it's been written for. 

 you know, i’m going to disagree about the “grim and gritty” thing. doublemeat palace actually stands out to me as being really funny. and for having a lowkey positive ending. true, the episode is about the soul-sucking prospect of having to do the same dreary work every day. it’s about how much it sometimes sucks to work, which is why you have willow dealing with the fact that recovery is a difficult thing that you have to decide to commit to every day, xander and anya facing the fact that marriage is also a lifelong daily commitment, and buffy taking an unpleasant and mechanical job in order to put food on the table (and the episode plays up that the managers have been doing it for five or ten years). but like, names like “manny the manager”? the weirdo robotic people? the exaggerated camera angles? the swirling cow and chicken? buffy’s constant attempts at jokes? “hot delicious human flesh”? a little old lady with penis monster on her head? this stuff is totally absurdist. i think of doublemeat palace as almost the opposite of episodes like once more with feeling and tabula rasa, where things superficially seem fun but are actually quite dark. doublemeat palace seems superficially unpleasant but actually has a wicked sense of humor. and i say that the ending is positive because it involves both willow and buffy committing to doing work. they’re faced with the opportunity to “cheat” at life like the trio, who steal money instead of having jobs, but ultimately decide to do the right thing. willow doesn’t accept amy’s magic and buffy doesn’t blackmail the company. 

that goes for a lot of season six, in my opinion. even late season six. people say there was less humor, and i think that’s true to an extent, but honestly i think it’s more that the tone of the humor changed. it got more sardonic and absurd, but was definitely still there. eg people think of seeing red as the episode where the two Very Bad Things happened, but outside of those scenes a lot of the episode is like, fascinatingly (to me) slapstick (the whole jetpack bonanza? “say goodnight bitch” “goodnight, bitch”). and has that really lovely conversation between buffy and xander at the end. in general, i think a lot more season six episodes have positive endings than it gets a reputation for. i already mentioned the ending of doublemeat palace. but the end of gone has buffy saying she doesn’t want to die, the end of older and far away has buffy deciding to stay home with dawn, the end of as you were has buffy deciding to break up with spike, and the end of grave has buffy, willow, and spike all making important changes for the better. as in, season six can be very dark, yes. but i would not call it a hopeless or cynical kind of dark. it’s about the characters clawing their way out of that dark place. not just a statement that “adulthood sucks.” you can argue that the season didn’t pull off its attempts at lightness, but i very much think they’re there. 

at any rate, i agree to an extent that if a work of art isn’t working on most people, that’s probably a sign it’s doing something wrong. but i’d offer the counterpoint that you might also say that if a work of art really works on some people, even if not everyone, it’s probably doing something right. as far as the season as a whole goes, i’d actually take issue, on a basic factual level, with the claim that it didn’t work on the majority of people. not to validate IMDB’s ratings for buffy’s episodes, but it does have an n=~2000 sample size and if you average out the ratings by season, season six doesn’t rank starkly lower than any other season. it’s on the less popular side, but it still hovers around an 8.0 average like most of the other seasons. moreover if you go by the big r/buffy polls (n=~120-310), season six ranks in the top three favorite seasons every year they did one (2011: 3 > 6 > 2, 2012: 6 = 3 > 5, 2013: 6 > 3 > 5, 2014: 3 > 6 > 5, 2017: 5 > 3 > 6). you can see the data for yourself if you scroll down to where it says “surveys”. perfectly possible that there’s data that paints a totally different picture. this is just what i had on hand. that ranking also doesn’t mean the majority of people liked the season, but it does act as evidence that there are a lot of people whom it really worked on. basically, i wouldn’t say that season six is disliked so much as it’s divisive. people seem to either love it or hate it. with a smaller percentage that likes it, but for whom it isn’t a favorite. or who appreciate what it was trying to do but don’t think that it succeeded. 

as far as doublemeat palace goes i notice a similar phenomenon. people either really hate it or they really relate to it. either they think the style is bizarre and annoying or they think it’s delightfully surreal. so it really seems like it’s up to the individual whether they want to lend more credence to one audience reaction or another in order to assess quality. 

which is why i tend to use my own rubric. when i ask myself whether something is good or bad, i pay a lot of attention to (1) is the work trying to do or say something specific? (2) how unusual or challenging or astute is the thing the work is saying? (3) how coherently is it doing that, and on how many different levels? (4) on a formal level—dialogue, cinematography, costuming, acting, pacing—how fluently was it executed, and how well did the formal choices contribute to the ideas in (1)? 

for the record, i don’t think that doublemeat palace is the best episode ever. i just think it’s solid, and fits nicely into what i think the season as a whole was doing. but the reason i say that it’s “objectively” solid according to my personal rubric—which granted, you’re more than welcome to not share—is that (1) it has a pretty clear idea that it’s exploring. the drudgery of work stuff that i mentioned in the first paragraph. moreover i think that idea is really relevant to the season-long topic of “what makes it feel like adulthood sucks”. buffy having to take a menial food job fits into the season’s food motif that i talked about once, which in turn fits character-wise with buffy’s ambivalence about being alive. a somewhat grotesque/humiliating job fits with the mood of material existence being unpleasant. (also, xander impulsively chowing down on food speaks to him probably not being ready for commitment) (2) i think this whole subject was just hella daring for the show to do. having been a poor and suicidally depressed 22 year old in a fucked up sexual relationship while working a menial job, season six and episodes like doublemeat palace just ring true to me as something for a show about growing up to depict. sometimes real life really is a grind, and sometimes it really does feel profane, absurd, surreal, etc. (3) i really like the way that buffy, willow, and xander and anya’s stories all fit the theme of episode but in different ways. i wouldn’t say the episode is a super nuanced take on drudgery, but it does have layers thanks to the three different storylines, and it comes off as clearly conscious and oriented around its theme. there are other parallels like amy, spike, and halfrek each being influences, too. (4) there’s some cool formal execution. not all of it. willow’s story, like a lot of her mid-season-six arc, is kind of tediously on-the-nose. but i enjoy pretty much every second of buffy’s part of the episode, because the direction is so in control of it. and i like the absurdist and genre-conscious playfulness. the soylent green riff, etc. 

i also disagree on your assessment of agency in the season but this post is long enough as it is. regardless, i certainly don’t begrudge you your opinion. it’s an often clumsy season. it also sounds like we enjoy things in different ways--i genuinely don’t care too much about writers contorting things in the interest of theme. i’m mainly trying to push against the implications (1) that the season was obviously just trying to be dark and grim, and just for it’s own sake or something. instead of for deliberate and interconnected artistic reasons that one could analyze and talk about, and (2) that there is some monolithic opinion on and response to it.

[deejadabbles]

Spells of Defiance (Atem x Reader x Yugi) Chapter 4

Four: Lead

One //// Two //// Three //// Four //// Five //// Six //// Seven //// [Eight coming soon] 

Summary: The Circle of Magicians protects the world from rogue, murderous fey. The police who keep bloodsuckers and flesh-eaters in check. You’ve hunted vampires for years, earning a reputation as one of the best magicians in that field; but what happens when an encounter with a particular vampire makes your already fragile loyalties split?

Supernatural/Demon Hunter AU. Vampire!Atem x Reader x Incubus!Yugi (yes, a polyamorous relationship). Warnings for cursing, vulgar language, violence, and some sexual themes.

This is a fic I’ve already posted this on my AO3 but I wanted to spread the Yu-gi-oh x Reader love here on tumblr.

The apartment was small, graying walls and a tattered curtain separating the living room and kitchenette from the dinky bedroom. It had been vacant when you kicked in the already busted door, but that was alright. You didn’t even have to wait long before you heard that same door’s handle rattle as someone else entered. The ghoul was muttering to himself, carrying a nondescript paper bag that reeked of raw meat. He didn’t even notice you.

You waited until he shut the door behind him and was just about to reach for the light switch before you spoke. “Hello, Bonz.”

He gasped and spun on his heels, peering into the dark at the chair you were seated on. He froze like a possum in the road when he realized it was you. One heartbeat. Two. Then-

“Oh fuck this!”

He dropped the bag and bolted towards the heavy curtains of his window. You sighed, “Told you he’d go for the window.”

Before Bonz could reach them the curtains flew open and Yugi spread his wings wide, making quite the picture as he perched on the windowsill and blocked the exit. The ghoul screeched as he tumbled to the ground in shock at the sight, but quickly scrambled to his feet and started towards the front door. He let out another frightened scream when Atem stepped out from the shadows and leaned against the door with his arms crossed.

“No fair!” the ghoul cried, “since when do you run with demons?! Why do ya have to scare the piss outta me like that?”

You got up from the seat and made your way over to his cowering form, Yugi and Atem closing in as well. “Relax, Bonz, I just want to talk.”

The man scoffed, running his fingers raggedly through his scraggly blue hair, “Yeah right! I’ve still got a scar on my ass from the last time you wanted to ‘talk’!”

When you noticed Yugi and Atem giving you very interested looks at the statement, you threw your hands up, exasperated, “I was aiming for his leg and the little roach squirmed at the last second.”

“Because you were trying to stab me!”

He jumped when your hard gaze snapped back to him with a growl. “And do I need to remind you why I was trying to stab you?” When the ghoul only gulped audibly you continued, “Now, we won’t have to have a repeat of my last visit if you play nice and give me the info I want.”

Bonz tried to sit up straighter, as if to look more dignified or important. “Sure sure, you know you can always count on me! What do you need to know?”

“Have you heard anything about the vampire Marik? He’s been getting quite the following recently.”

You hadn’t thought it possible, what with the paperwhite skin ghouls had, but Bonz seemed to go paler at the name. “Aw geez, why’d you have to ask about him? He’s one scary bloodsucker and his followers are crazy! They busted up one of Pegasus’ clubs for kicks about a month back, then Marik killed em to make an example since he didn’t order them to do it.”

“Alright, nice to know, but can you tell me where any of his followers are, or maybe even Marik himself? You still do odd jobs for fey who pay the right price, any chance Marik hired you to do something for him?”

Bonz had learned long ago that you could tell when he lied, not to mention how...annoyed you got when he wasted your time. So there was no surprise when he started sweating bullets under your stern gaze.

“If you’re worried about Marik coming after you for talking, I can promise we’ll protect you from his wrath,” Atem assured, apparently taking the role of good cop to your bad cop.

The ghoul spared the vampire a glance, then looked back at you as he said, “L-Listen, I heard that he likes picking up random humans off the streets and playing with them before he sucks them dry. That and the bit about his cronies going after Pegasus is all I’ve heard about. I swear- I swear I haven’t seen or heard anything else about him, I’ve been staying clear of that psycho!”

“Where does he pick up these humans?” Yugi cut in.

“All over, mostly slummy areas like this, but all over the city from what I hear. I promise that’s everything I know!”

After a second, Yugi and Atem exchanged a look with you, silently asking if you believed him. You leaned down more to the short ghoul’s level as he remained cowering on the floor. To his credit, he kept his eyes on yours as you stared daggers into his soul, though he was still sweating buckets and barely containing his shaking.

A few heartbeats passed, then you closed your eyes, sighed, and leaned back again. “He’s telling the truth, he doesn’t know anything else.”

“Oh thank god,” Bonz breathed, visibly relaxing.

“So, is there anything else he can help us with?” Atem asked.

“Not much, but...” Your eyes darted back down to the ghoul, “Bonz!”

“Yes, ma'am?!”

“If you hear anything about Marik, anything at all, contact me. I’ll make it worth your while.”

He nodded his head, “Sure thing! But, uh, don’t expect much from me, ya know. Like I said, I want to stay clear of the nut job.”

You made sure to give him another hard glare before starting towards the door. Yugi and Atem followed close behind and Yugi set the busted door back in place as you three stepped out into the dingy hallway.

Once you were back outside (and Yugi had concealed his demonic features again) you let out an irritated sigh.

“That was little help. Marik is smart, he picks his victims up all over town so we can’t pinpoint his hideout.”

“What about that other thing he said?” Yugi asked, “He said something about him going after some clubs owned by another fey?”

You scratched the back of your neck, already feeling uneasy about that particular lead. “Yeah, Pegasus. I have an in with him, but...let’s just say I want to make sure I can’t get a lead from someone else first. He isn’t a man we want to owe favors to.”

“So, what now?” Atem asked

Your eyes drifted towards the sky as you thought if only to avoid the unseemly sight of the dirty street before you. “There’s someone I can talk to who might know about the disappearances. We can go to her bar if you two don’t mind the walk.”

When both men agreed without hesitation you started walking in that direction, though you had only managed a block before Atem was suddenly gripping your arm tight. You turned and looked in the direction he was staring and saw a posh, dark blue limousine coming down the street. A car like that was so obviously out of place in these slums that it was almost comical. The thing that got Atem worried though, was that you three were the only ones on the dark street and its headlights were trained right on your trio.

Atem took his grips on both you and Yugi and started sprinting down the street but the tailgater was too fast. The limo swerved into the street before you could cross with speed and ease that should be impossible for such a long vehicle. It screeched to a halt so that the back window was almost directly in front of the three of you. It rolled down to reveal a young man with brown hair and eyes the color and temperature of ice. You recognized him from his picture on the ‘persons of interest’ board at the Sanctuary.

“Get in,” Seto Kaiba snapped.

Atem let out a growl and moved to pull both you and Yugi to the other side of the limo, but you stopped him. “Wait! He’s not one of Marik’s. I think we should go with him.”

Both of your companions looked at you with concern for a moment, “Are you sure?” Atem asked.

“He’s Seto Kaiba and if what I’ve heard about him is true, he doesn’t work with or for anyone, especially not vampires.”

“Get in now or I’m taking my back the generous offer I’m about to give you,” the dragon all but snarled.

You opened the door and climbed inside, figuring the boys could leave this to you if they really didn’t want to come. They did, apparently, or at least didn’t want to leave you alone with the dragon, because they climbed in right after you (Atem looking quite annoyed, you may add).

The limo pulled back out into the road the moment Yugi shut the door, jostling all three of you about until the ride smoothed out. When you got your bearings and looked up, you saw that the famed fey was not alone. Mokuba had a very mischievous grin on his face, looking quite relaxed in the fine leather seats. The youngling leaned forward a bit and sniffed the air in front of you.

“Yup! This is her, alright. She’s the one that helped me escape!”

You quirked a brow at him, “You knew my scent?”

“I have a way better nose than most dragons,” he declared with a prideful smirk, “That was a nice glamour charm you put on when you broke me out, but it didn’t cover your scent and I remembered it from all the times you passed my cell.”

Yugi crossed his arms, pursing his lips a bit as he muttered, “In other words, he thought you were cute and memorized your scent every time you walked by.”

“Hey, watch it, sex demon!” Mokuba hissed, his cheeks turning a tab pink. “It’s not like that, we’re here on business, that’s all!”

Beside him, his older brother nodded. “Exactly, and we don’t have time for squabbling so listen and listen carefully.” His cold eyes locked on you and you heard no warmth or genuine gratitude in his tone as he said, “Even though we didn’t need your help and I’m sure you did it for your own benefit, the simple fact is that you helped my brother escape from the Circle. Some might perceive that as me being in your debt, and I don’t like open debts.”

He picked up the thick blue folder from his lap and tossed it to the floorboard between you. Really, he couldn’t just hand it to one of you? Jerk. Atem kept his eyes on Kaiba and he leaned forward and plucked the folder from the ground. As he started looking through it, Seto continued his mini-speech.

“The three of you are looking for the blood-sucker Marik. I make it my business to know what’s going on in this city, especially regarding other fey. That’s a list of all the places I know Marik has used as a hideout in the last five months.”

“But not his current whereabouts?” Atem accused.

The dragon bared his teeth, “That list is better than anything the Circle- or anyone for that matter, has on Marik. And from what I can tell it’s the best lead you have, so be thankful I’m giving you that.”

“How did you know we were looking for him?” you asked.

Kaiba closed his eyes, somehow making the look seem smug, “Like I said I make it my business to know fey business. That includes the goings-on in the Circle.” He eyed your right hand for a second. “Also count yourself lucky that I have no interest in telling the council where they can find their latest traitor.”

With that, he tapped his fist against the side of the limo and it came to another screeching halt, almost sending you to the ground if it weren’t for Yugi’s tail wrapping around you quickly.

The door beside Atem opened as Seto said, “That’s all you’ll be getting in return for helping my brother. Now get out.”

The dragon’s limo drove off the moment you three were on the sidewalk and it almost gave you whiplash to think of how quick the exchange had been. Atem was flipping through the files again, the lines on his face growing deeper the longer he looked.

“He acted as though this was some great charity, but it’s almost useless to us. Marik is not foolish, he won’t have left much behind at any hideout.”

“Maybe not, but it might help us establish a pattern on where he tends to go, and where he might go next,” you put forth, taking the folder from his hand and flicking through it yourself. “This is better than nothing, at least...” You snapped the folder shut and looked up at your companions. “Change of plans. We’ll visit my other acquaintance another night. We should probably get back home, I’ll study the file tonight and see if I can establish a pattern.”

You turned to head in the direction of the house but happened to catch Yugi’s small smile and faltered. Only after quirking a questioning brow at him did you realize you had used words that inferred their house was yours too. Yugi said nothing, simply continued to smile as he and Atem started walking towards home. You had to shake your head before falling in step with them. Not for the first time, such easy acceptance into their lives caught you off guard. Not just your acceptance, but theirs as well.

You could most definitely get used to Yugi’s home cooking. Hamburgers where his specialty, apparently (and his personal favorite) but he made quite a nice fish and rice dish that night that made you want to hum in delight at the first bite. The Circle had by no means fed you slop, in fact, their focus on giving their members good meals was one of the few things you gave them credit for. But something about seeing Yugi hum to himself in delight as he cooked, the smile on his face when he asked how it was, and even the cute apron he wore made it all seem more… Well, you didn’t know what, but it was pleasant.

A slight bit of dread crept up your back when you went to bed that night, worried that the side effects of Yugi’s magic hadn’t worn off yet and you’d once again find yourself in their bed. Thankfully, when you woke the next morning, you were still tucked under the covers of the guest room, Kaiba’s file papers and a map of domino scattered about since you had fallen asleep at your work last night.

After consulting your notes, putting away the files, and getting through your morning routine, you wandered into the kitchen to find Yugi and Atem starting their morning like the had the previous day: Yugi making breakfast and Atem reading the paper.

“Good morning!” Yugi greeted with a smile, “Are eggs and toast okay for breakfast?”

“Of course,” you smiled back at him, it’s not like you were going to say no when he was already making said eggs. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

“You can make the toast if you want.”

After you moved to do just that, you heard Atem rise from his seat and make his way to the other side of the kitchen island and the other side of you.

He leaned against the counter as he said, “Did you make much headway with Kaiba’s notes last night?”

You nodded, “I did, actually. Apparently Marik likes to make vacant houses into his hideouts. All of the places he’s stayed at were either up for sale, or the owner was on vacation while he stayed there. Marik also seems to stick to higher ends of town for his hideouts and if Kaiba’s intel is accurate, he changes every week or so. He’s run out of new neighborhoods to hit and seems to be hitting the same neighborhoods again, just in a different order. With the way he’s changed up the order he’s hitting them this time, I think I narrowed his next base down to three neighborhoods. I want to investigate my possibilities today. I might just find his current hidey-hole.”

Atem did not smile at the news, though his eyes seemed more alight as he said, “We should wait until nightfall, that way we can come with you.”

“No need, I can investigate this part on my own,” you assured as you dropped the second set of bread in the toaster.

His eyes actually narrowed a bit. “It isn’t safe, you shouldn’t go alone.”

Despite yourself, a pang of annoyance started to crawl up your chest, “Don’t worry about me, I can handle it-”

“Marik is dangerous, you’re putting yourself in danger by going by yourself.”

Atem was almost shouting now and your annoyance rose as you turned to face his glare with one of your own.

“What makes you think I don’t know that? I’ve been tracking him for a long time, trust me, I’m not ignorant of how dangerous he is!”

“Then why won’t you let us come with you?” he growled.

Behind you, you heard Yugi try to cut in with some placating remark, but you were beyond annoyance now and growled right back at the vampire. “Look, I’ve been tracking bloodthirsty fey for years, by myself, long before you came into the picture! I can do this on my own, I don’t need your help!”

Something made a snapping noise and you barely took note that Atem was gripping the frame of the door hard enough to crack. “Pride and stubbornness won’t lead to anything but you’re death! I won’t let you get yourself killed!”

“Let me- Let me!?” Again Yugi tried to step in, physically that time, but you were already turning your back on both of them. “I’ll let you know when you have any damn right to tell me what I can and can’t do!”

The moment you made to storm out of the kitchen you felt Yugi reach out to you, barely missing your arm with his fingertips. Both of them called out your name but anger kept your feet moving all the way until you were slamming the front door behind you, running down the stairs and stepping out into the backyard. You heard footsteps giving chance and Yugi’s voice calling out but the haze of anger blocked it out. Desperate not to have to face either of them, you cast a teleportation spell and zapped yourself out of there in an instant.

Your heart was still beating erratically when you reappeared in the posher part of town and you couldn’t make sense of the odd cocktail of emotions surging through you as you paced the well-kempt alleyway. Who did Atem think he was treating you like that? Like a child?! Didn’t he understand that you had been shoved into danger like this by yourself since you were a goddamned teenager? He didn’t know half the things you’d seen and done, he had no right to-

You cursed under your breath when you realized you were setting the cuff of your jacket on fire in your anger. With the seal gone you had to more actively control the waves of magic flowing to your palm, lest it answer to your emotions like that.

After patting the sizzle out, you made yourself release a long sigh, trying to calm the surge of emotions.

As you calmed, your mind replayed the way both of them had called to you as you stormed out, your name acting a one-word plea asking you to stay. Yugi had tried to play peacemaker, but you ignored him. Footsteps had followed you down the stairs but you hadn’t wanted to hear them.

Then a thought came unbidden to your mind; they had simply been worried about you.

The feeling was almost alien. Throughout your whole life, the only companions who had ever shown any kind of concern for your life were Mana and Mahad. The Circle in general only cared to the extent of keeping their investment well enough to work. You were a soldier, and soldiers died all the time.

You slumped against a brick wall and buried your face in your hands as another uncomfortable mix of emotions crept in.

Those thoughts and more swam in your mind for what felt like forever, all the way until you felt the need to punch something even if it was the brick wall! You couldn’t think about all this right now. You had your mission and you needed to stay focused. So, you took a deep breath and packed the feelings away, before stepping out of the alley.

Despite your best efforts those and other uneasy thoughts kept sneaking in as you made your way down the nice streets. Not just that, but soon a growl from your stomach reminded you that you hadn’t gotten to taste Yugi’s breakfast before storming out. Guilt, irritation, and hunger all proved hard to keep at bay as you kept ears and eyes out for anything that might be of interest to your mission.

The first neighborhood on your list was an area full of nice, high-end houses and not much else. With them being so close to each other you wondered why Marik would risk hiding out here when neighbors had a high chance of hearing or seeing his goings-on. Maybe the bastard liked the challenge and risk of being discovered, yet another thing he could feel pride over as the Circle continued to fail in capturing him.

Based on the dragon’s intel, you of course looked for any houses that were vacant. Ones up for sale were easy enough to note, what with the signs in the front yards (Marik must take those down while he was hiding out to avoid any interested buyers peeking around). However, if Marik was smart, which he was, he would stick to houses that were only vacant for the week or two he stayed there, and those were harder to spot. Mail piled up in a letterbox was a sure sign of someone being on vacation, but unless you watched the houses all day or more, there weren’t many other signs.

Time to get creative.

The white fence and front door flanked by petunia beds looked almost too stereotypical but it seemed like a good place to start. Another advantage you had over other magicians was that people hardly assumed a young cute woman like you would be up to no good. A middle-aged housewife in a pink blouse answered your knock with an all too-bright smile. Perfect, she looked just like the type who would know the boring business of all her neighbors.

You got straight to the point in a voice so cheerful that it almost strained your vocal cords. “Hi there! I was wondering if you could help me with something.”

The frantic expression you put on must have been convincing, because she looked as worried as a mother finding her kid crying as she said, “Oh of course, honey! What’s wrong?”

“Well you see, I work for a house sitting company and someone in this neighborhood hired us to look after their house while they’re on vacation- but the residential information they gave seems to be wrong! My boss doesn’t know what happened, maybe just a typo or something? Anyway I don’t want to disappoint the family who hired us so I’m trying to find the right house. All I know is the house is in this neighborhood and I have the key here,” you flashed the spare key Yugi had given you yesterday, “do you know what house I might be looking for?”

The woman’s eyes brightened in an instant, pleased that she could help. “Oh! Well, you must be looking for Doctor Kris’ house! He went on vacation earlier this week,” she stepped out into her front porch beside you and pointed down the road, “his house is the blue one there on the right, with the blossom tree in the front yard.”

You gave a dramatic sigh of relief, “Oh thank you so so much! You’re a real lifesaver!”

The woman actually flushed just a bit and smiled pleasantly, “It’s no trouble at all, dear, happy to help!”

After another thank you and wave goodbye you walked back down the stone steps with your first possible vampire hideout marked. It was almost scarily easy to fool people when you looked as unassuming as you did. Use the right words, ones that made you seem like a victim or simple helpful bystander, and others would open their mouths without a second thought. It didn’t matter that the key you flashed wouldn’t open any of the houses here, showing it still looked like evidence that you were who you said you were. Of course, there were other ways to get the info you needed out of the neighbors, but you were running low on daze powder and preferred to use it only as a last resort.

You continued that little scam act not only in the other neighborhoods you investigated, but also on others in the same neighborhoods, just in case there were more vacant houses to discover. Only one person you approached was at all suspicious -an old man who looked like he’d glare down a butterfly fluttering in his garden- but everyone else was all too happy to help you.

In the end, you had five possible places Marik might be hiding. As you discovered each location, you made sure to do a quick investigation of the perimeter, looking for any surefire signs of vampiric residence, but nothing stuck out at any of the houses. You told yourself that it was just Marik being smart, but you still worried that all these leads were a bust.

After taking note of the final house on your list, you started making up your formal report to the Council in your head as-

You shook your head almost violently when you realized what you were doing. You didn’t answer to the Circle anymore, there wasn’t a report to make or council to answer to now. Now all you had in the way of backup were Yugi and Atem.

Another sigh left you at the sudden wave of guilt coming back in at the thought of them. You weren’t sure what to do about how you had left things with the boys that morning.

Well, regardless, you told yourself that you had done enough on your own and the next step called for more help; you weren’t about to storm the potential hideout of the Circle’s most wanted vampire alone. Besides, Atem deserved to be there when you caught him. You and the boys needed to do the next step together.

By the time you had made it back to the Mystic Box’s front door your nerves had worked up quite a frenzy in your chest and stomach. You had to tell yourself thrice over that avoiding Atem and Yugi would accomplish nothing as you approached the shop.

Then, a distraction from the knots forming inside you came in the form of two women. Through the large display window of the shop, you saw two of the girls from the salon next door (two of the ones who had been ogling Yugi the day before) standing at the counter talking to Yugi. Just like the day prior, you could already tell the incubus seemed uncomfortable with their attention; shifting his feet and eyes darting about as he tried his best not to fidget with his hands.

You opened the door and had to actively tell yourself not to slam it open as you stepped in. The women didn’t notice or care but Yugi’s eyes flickered to the door, then they widened at the sight of you. He threw you that easy, gentle smile of his as he turned his back on the girls and started putting items on the shelf, obviously having been in the middle of that task already.

“Come on, Yugi!” one of the girls cooed, the dark-haired one with the large breasts, which she was doing her best to display as she leaned over the counter towards Yugi. “You’ve never come to any of my parties, surely you and that cute roommate of yours could come just this once!”

“You two hardly ever get out,” The short blonde purred, actually sitting on the counter and reaching out to brush her hand down Yugi’s arm. “It’s time for you to have some fun. I promise we’ll show you a good time.”

If you hadn’t had enough of them before, that suggestive tone certainly put you over the edge. You closed the rest of the space between the door and the counter as you said, very firm and clear, “Sorry, girls, but it’s my fault they can’t come this time. They already promised to help me with a project.”

The blonde shot you a glare that could rival your sharpest dagger, “Who’re you again?”

“A friend,” Yugi cut in, a little more sharply than you were expecting. He turned back to the girls with an apology in his eyes, “I really am sorry, but like she said, we already promised to help her. Maybe next time.”

The brunette scoffed and leaned back, “Alright, alright. But next time you’re coming to the party even if I have to drag you there, cutie.” She ended with a wink towards Yugi, then her friend hopped off the counter and with a flirty “Bye Yugi!” they said in unison, they were walking out of the store without sparing you another glance.

When the door shut Yugi slumped against the counter with a sigh. “Thanks for that, I thought they’d never leave.” He then looked up and that smile was back in place, only wider and somehow even warmer. “I’m glad you’re back. Did you- uh, find anything while you were out?”

The knots returned tenfold at Yugi’s very suddenly bashful demeanor. Maybe he wasn’t certain how upset you were. Or ...maybe Atem was still angry at you and Yugi hoped to avoid another fight.

Not wanting bitter feelings to bubble back up, you coughed and ran a hand through your hair as you said, “Yeah, I did, actually. I wanted to talk to you and Atem about what I found and our next move.”

“Great- I mean, that’s great!” Yugi said a little too enthusiastic as he walked out from behind the counter. He grabbed a 'back in 10 minutes' sign from behind the counter and quickly went to the front door. After locking it and putting up the sign, he said, "We can talk about it now,  sooner the better, right?" before ushering you up the stairs.

There you found Atem in a rather domestic scene, folding laundry in the living room of all things. His attention snapped to the door the moment Yugi opened it and when he saw you he seemed to stiffen by the smallest bit.

He stood, abandoning the dark tank top he had been folding, and walked towards you two, “You’re back, is everything alright?”

You nodded, noting the tense way Yugi positioned himself between you two, though off to the side. “I did. I think I narrowed the possible places Marik might be hiding down to five houses.”

“You didn’t charge into any of these places by yourself, did you?”

“Atem,” Yugi’s one-word scolding was firm as he looked at the vampire with a warning in his usually soft eyes.

You ignored the slight twinge of annoyance in the back of your mind and said, “No, I didn’t. I knew we not only needed a plan but that all three of us should investigate them together.”

The tension in Atem’s body eased as he uncrossed his arms and looked at you with a softer expression. “Alright, so we start checking these places one by one tonight?”

“Actually, I was thinking about going tomorrow, during the day. It’s the best time to hit a vampire, after all.” When Atem quirked a brow that said ‘what about the vampire on your side’ you continued. “I noticed that Yugi has the ingredients I need to make another daylight ring for you in the shop. It’ll take me tonight and tomorrow morning to make, and it’ll be a lower grade one that only lasts a couple of hours, but I figured we could catch Marik unawares and hit the spots before the sun sets.”

Yugi and Atem exchanged a look for a moment, then Yugi said, “Sounds like a good plan to me.”

Atem nodded and opened his mouth to say something- that is, until your stomach decided to make itself known with a hungry growl. Oh, right, it was well after noon and you still hadn’t eaten. Heat shot up into your face as both boys looked at you with wide eyes.

“You didn’t get anything to eat while you were out, did you?” The light, but somehow still firm scolding in Yugi’s tone made you shift your gaze to the ground.

“...No…”

Yugi sighed as he walked toward the door, “Atem, make sure she eats something before she comes back down to the shop, she isn’t allowed to starve herself!”

When the door closed behind Yugi, you looked up and found Atem smirking at you. With an annoyed huff, you turned on your heel and started towards the door as well, but Atem stepped into your path with crossed arms.

“I guess I was right to assume you were the type who skips meals in favor of their work. Now, I may not be as good a cook as Yugi, but I’m sure I can make you something easily enough.”

“The two of you don’t have to take care of me,” your tone wasn’t nearly as biting as you worried it would be, in fact, it sounded rather weak and halfhearted, more bashful than anything.

When a hand reached out and gently touched your shoulder you looked up and met Atem’s eyes. “We’re allowed to worry about our friends. We simply want to make sure you’re taking care of yourself.”

Though he didn’t say it outright, you knew the statement wasn’t just about the skipped meal. You didn’t want to just come out and say an ‘I’m sorry’ and maybe he didn’t either. Or rather, maybe neither of you needed to. The guilt that had been gnawing at you all day seemed to dissipate as Atem gave you a small, but still warm smile.

“Come, let’s get you something to eat.”

.

The sandwich and chips you ended up having wasn’t a perfect meal, but it was enough to fill you up until dinner. As soon as you were done with it, you went back downstairs, assured Yugi that you had eaten, and were now camped out in the backroom of the magic shop with your tools ready.

You had asked Atem for the daylight ring you already gave him, since re-enchanting the item would be easier than doing it from scratch, and were surprised when he simply pulled it off of his ring finger. He had been wearing it amongst his other adornments since you have it to him. Maybe he simply liked the rune-like design on it.

About an hour had passed since you set up your little workshop when Yugi popped his head into the room.

“Is there anything you need?” he asked, scanning over the herbs and chalked symbols circling the ring on the floor. “More juniper or anise? Maybe something to drink while you work?”

You smiled up at him, “No, I’m okay. This part of the enchantment just takes some waiting.”

“Well, I’ll wait with you then!” Yugi left the door open just enough to hear the front door’s bell should a customer come in, before settling on the ground beside you. Then, the moment he had settled, Yugi’s eyes suddenly went wide, “I won’t disturb anything being here, will I?”

You actually chuckled at him, “No, not at all. I’m just waiting for the symbols to infuse its magic with the herbs.”

“Okay, good.” Yugi flashed that bashful smile at you and a few moments of silence passed before his grin fell and he scratched the back of his neck. “Hey, I wanted to talk to you about something. About this morning, Atem wasn’t trying to order you around or anything. Sure he can be a bit bossy sometimes, but really he was just worried about your safety. He’s known Marik for a long time and...well, let's just say he knows first hand how brutal he can be.”

Your eyes stayed focused on the ring before you as you took in Yugi’s words for a moment. “I’ve been wondering what connection Atem has to Marik since I met him, but I didn’t think it was my place to ask.”

“He’s pretty mysterious when he wants to be, isn’t he? It took him a while to open up about all of that to me too. Still, you should know at least the basics about it since we might actually be catching up to Marik...” Yugi took in a deep breath, and when he let it out he said, “Marik was the one who turned Atem into a vampire.”

Your eyes widened a bit at the words, though truly it wasn’t that shocking. Vampires often had deep connections to the ones who sired them, good or bad. Though you had yet to meet Marik face to face, you were sure he was an old vampire, just like Atem.

“I see,” you said eventually, “Marik may try to use that connection to get under Atem’s skin when we confront him. Though something tells me Atem will be ready for that.” You finally looked back over at Yugi and gave him the smallest of smiles, “Thank you for telling me, Yugi. Maybe he’ll feel comfortable talking to me about it more someday.”

Yugi returned the smile in an instant, only his was notably more bright. Maybe he liked that your words hinted at the fact that you were planning on hanging around for a long time. You hadn’t actively decided that, it just seemed...natural at this point. Even though your mission to catch Marik might be drawing to a close soon.

Unfortunately, Yugi did not get the chance to talk to you much more after that since a few customers came in soon after the reveal of Atem’s past. It took a couple of hours, but you managed to infuse the protection and sun magic of the herds and magician’s circle into the ring. Now all that was left to do was hang it in a window where it would absorb the rays of the sun when it rose and hung in the sky for several hours the next day.

You finished just in time to help Yugi close the shop and make dinner. You hadn’t realized how much you were looking forward to Yugi’s cooking until you smiled at the way he hummed to himself, stirring the pan of steaming potatoes, adorned in his apron patterned in light pink stars.

Over dinner, you told the boys a little more about the houses you thought might be harboring Marik, as well as some tips on how to break in without being detected (though you were somehow sure Atem knew a tick or two in that already). Yugi also mentioned that he had contacted a friend of there’s, a werewolf with a nose that would come in handy when checking the spots out. That was a good idea, not only to give you a clue on if a vampire was actually inside but if anyone else was with him and how many enemies to expect.

During said meal and talks, you noticed the heavy set to Atem’s shoulders and the stony seriousness to his face that never wavered during the discussion. You were growing worried about him and what was weighing on his mind, especially when he excused himself to the balcony as you and Yugi washed the dishes.

Through the glass doors to the balcony, you saw the way Atem looked out at the stars with that heavy expression still on his face. You must have been glancing that direction more than you thought because eventually, Yugi gave you a gentle nudge with his elbow and when you turned to look at him, his expression was a gentle, understanding one.

“Go on, he could use someone to talk to. I can finish up here.”

You shook your head at the offer, “You’re the one who should go talk to him, Yugi. Anything I can say will mean more coming from someone he loves.”

“But there’s something on your mind too, I can tell there’s something you want to tell him,” Yugi amended with a look that said he could see through you and Atem easily. He gave you another nudge, this time with his hip, tail flicking across your legs as he did, “Go tell him what you think he needs to hear, then we can all do something fun together after.”

He wasn’t wrong, there was something that had been on your mind since Yugi talked to you about Atem. It was a hard subject to breach, but the more you thought about it, the more you knew it had to be said. With a defeated sigh you handed Yugi the pot you had been scrubbing, dried your hands, and walked towards the balcony.

When you stepped out Atem looked over his shoulder at you.

“Um, hi,” you wanted to cringe at how awkward you sounded and looked as you gave him a little wave. “I wanted to ask how you’re doing. You must have a lot on your mind right now.”

Lids closed over those deep scarlet eyes before he turned away again, “I do. But you needn't worry.”

“I thought we were allowed to care and worry about our friends.”

You tried not to sound too smug at using his own words against him, though you also hoped to ease the tension a bit. When he didn’t say anything about your remark, you let out another sigh. If he wasn’t going to talk about his feelings, you might as well get to the topic you wanted to bring up with him.

“Listen, there’s something else I wanted to talk to you about.”

He didn’t answer you, though you somehow knew he was listening. This was going to be a hard topic to bring up. Might as well rip the bandaid off in one blunt go.

“Killing Marik won’t make you human again.”

Silence.

“I know that it’s a popular belief, that killing a sire will cure all the vampires they turned, but it’s a myth, it doesn’t work like that.”

Again, silence.

“I- I’m not trying to be cruel or make you upset, but I knew I needed to tell you-”

“I know.”

Atem drew in a deep breath after the gentle words and finally, he turned to face you. Your heart ached a bit when you saw the emotion in his eyes.

“This isn’t about becoming human again. I’ve known for a long time that I will never get my humanity back. This is about justice. Not just for myself, but all the people he’s hurt in his life.” Another stretch of silence passed but you knew he had more to say and waited with patience. “For centuries I’ve not been able to escape Marik. I was his first, the first one he turned into a monster. I knew him before he was a vampire, he and his family worked for my father. I didn’t know it at the time, but Marik hated my family, and me specifically. I don’t know the details of how he became what he is, but he used his new powers to get what he considered revenge on my family.” He swallowed something in his throat and you worried he was holding back tears. “He slaughtered everyone in our household. But he left me and my father for last. He made my father watch as he turned me, then, when he was done, Marik killed him too.” Atem closed his eyes against the memory, “My father lived just long enough to watch his only son become a monster.”

“You aren’t a monster,” the slight choke in your own voice surprised you but you didn’t care. You took a step closer and stopped just short of grabbing him by the arms. “Trust me, Atem, I know what a monster is, I’ve hunted them all my life.” Indeed, memories of bloodstained rooms, screams of the deepest agony, and bodies too young and too small filled your head. “Marik wanted to make you into one, but you’re not. You’re stronger than him, you’re better than him, and-” you took in a sharp breath, and found the strength in your words as Atem met your eyes. “And we’re going to stop him together.”

For a few heartbeats, he stared back at you. You thought you saw surprise and...something else in the depths of his eyes, but what really surprised you was when he reached up and brushed his fingers along your cheek.

“Thank you. I’m proud to have you and Yugi at my side,” he whispered. “I feel as though I can do anything, so long as the two of you are with me.”

You smiled up at him, though the intensity of his gaze and the feel of his hand was making your chest hurt somehow. After another moment, he dropped his hand and looked up at the door leading inside over your shoulder. You turned to look at them too and a second later Yugi popped his head out to smile at you both.

“If you guys are up for it, I thought we could all go see a movie together. Sound fun?” he asked with hope in his light tone.

Atem chuckled at his boyfriend, “That sounds wonderful, aibou.”

When they both turned to you expectantly, you had to clear your throat before you could answer. “Y-yeah. That could be fun. I’ve never really had much time for movies before.”

“Great!” Yugi clapped his hands together and turned towards the front door.

Again Atem chuckled as the two of you followed and Yugi went on about the movies currently playing. It almost felt odd how the idea of spending this time with them made you so happy. Especially after the variety of emotions you had gone through that day, but you didn't want to linger on the thought. Like everything with the two of them, taking this time to spend together just seemed...natural.

[soren-bleu-kun]

BnHA Fics I’ve Read This Week 3

I was really in an EraserMight/EraserMic mood this week, but then Shirakumo’s birthday rolled around and I ended up reading some fics for him too, ha. Anyways, here’s my list for this week. Oh, I don’t think that I’ve ever mentioned, but the order I put them in is just the order that I read them in over the week. Manga spoilers ahead, if you haven’t guessed. 

Keep Me Post-It - This is a cute EraserMic fic, where Hizashi and Shouta’s different schedules haven’t aligned much in weeks. In order to make up for the lack of time spent together, Hizashi starts leaving Shouta little notes around the apartment. 

A Thousand Words To Say -  Okay, this is actually an AllEraserMic fic, which I’ve never actually read before this. This story was so good. Five chapters, where Yagi is the odd one out after his partners forget him after a villain attack. Very good, very emotional. This is the author’s Twitter. 

The Bottom Line - I am in love with this fic. In this story Shouta Aizawa, who is only dating Toshinori Yagi - All Might’s secretary - to get into Might Tower. He didn’t expect it to actually hurt when he left. 

In Common Tongue - EraserMight, but pre-relationship. Yagi and Aizawa end up locked in a very small closet together with no way out. Kinda awkward standing for a bit but ends nicely. 

Toast To Me - This is a ShinKami fic, Quirkless College AU. After getting way too drunk at Shinsou’s party, Kaminari wakes up with a hangover and the toaster he stole as an excuse to go back to Shinsou’s apartment. 

Pick a Card - Another Quirkless College AU, this one is TodoDoriya. Midoriya does magic tricks in his free time to relieve stress, and one day while practicing around a small group at a park - he catches Todoroki’s attention. Based off of this Tumblr post. 

Hitobashira - Honestly, I almost never read Zombie AU, end-of-the-world stories, but this was really good. This is a nice EraserMic fic, and I like the little background that’s reveled throughout the story. 

Screaming Mad - This story is actually Hizashi Yamada Centric! I haven’t found a lot of these and I like this idea a lot. This does talk about things that have only been shown in the manga towards the end, and guesses a lot of his backstory. 

A Single Untouched Band - Oh, how many different ways can my heart be broken? This story follows Shouta Aizawa and his relationship with Oboro Shirakumo, before and after he dies. A great song for this fic is The Front Bottoms “Swimming Pool.” Also, the author? The sweetest human, replies to every comment and is just so, so nice. 

Media Darling - Written by the same person who wrote A Thousand Words To Say, this is an EraserMight fic where the two have been outed by the media, which sucks for an underground hero like Aizawa. They try to move passed it, together. 

Hero Dreams - God, I can’t tell what I love more about @jemsauce‘s work, their art or their writing. This is a great story featuring Shouta Aizawa waking up after a nightmare and going to check on his class in their dorms in the middle of the night just to make sure they’re all alright. I honestly didn’t know where to put this in my files, because there is Dadzawa, and towards the end it focuses on EraserMight. I ended up just putting it in Aizawa General, ha! 

The River Runs On - Another EraserMight story, I loved this so much. It’s a bit of future fic, when Yagi’s health is deteriorating. He’s so sure that Aizawa is only taking care of him, waiting for him to die as he slowly gets more distant. This is, it’s such a good fic. Also, bonus, Sad Shinsou in chapter two. 

Colleague Conundrum - Another wonderful EraserMight fic by @jemsauce. In this one, Yagi asks an advice blog for help about Aizawa. And Aizawa? Maybe he should have answered the ask a little differently. 

Sleepy Cloud - Written for Oboro’s birthday, this is a CloudMic fic by the amazing @non-human-whumper! In this fic where the cloud boy lives, he comes home late and tries not to wake a sleeping Hizashi.

Incredible Marks - I don’t know how I found another fic revolving around post-it notes but this one is EraserMight. Soft fic, with Toshinori writing the notes this time.

Never Shut - This is a one-shot of an AU where Shirakumo lived and Aizawa died. From Oboro’s POV we see him as the homeroom teacher of Class 1A. During the USJ attack, Oboro actually recognizes Shouta.

Downpour - Another Hizashi Yamada Centric fic, where he tries to find his friends after the battle in Tasomiya. Painful, but very good.

Hero Jackets - Another OT3, this is a cute little CloudEraserMic fic where each boy steals the others jacket and just hasn’t given it back yet [they each totally mean to though, 100%, totally...]

Like the Candle Singes the Moth - A @tivruskis fic, I actually really liked this! I didn’t expect to, because I accidentally broke my own Nothing Explicit rule by getting too excited to read another EraserMight fic, and was planning on backing out when I saw it. I’m glad I didn’t, because other than that, this fic was really good and talks about Yagi losing his All Might form and what Aizawa thinks of his true - and permanent - form.

White Mist, Black Clouds - This is a platonic soulmate AU between Oboro Shirakumo, Shouta Aizawa, and Hizashi Yamada. It’s not exactly angsty, but it does hurt to read. @salviaofficinalis-writes is actually still writing a whole bunch, and I just- they’re great.

The Sun Came Out Today - Wanna have emotions? Read this fic, where Shouta Aizawa visits Oboro Shirakumo’s grave on Sundays. Even though my brain keeps screaming that most people in Japan are actually cremated, because my brain wants me to have no friends, love this all so much. A fantastic @deafmic fic.

Freedom of Expression - An unlikely friendship between Shouto Todoroki and Eijiro Kirishima occurs at three in the morning in the dorms after Todoroki finds Kirishima dyeing his hair. He asks if Kirishima can help him dye his own hair.

Don’t Wish and Tell - A teenage EraserCloud story, taking place during a study session for all of the Rooftop Trio. Very cute, wish there were a million more chapters.

Weaknesses - This says ShinKami, but it’s really platonic Shinsou and Kaminari from purple boy’s POV. With a big storm coming up, Kaminari’s been acting all out of order, something Shinsou learns in a conversation that maybe he shouldn’t have been eavesdropping on.

Caught in My Own Web - In this story, there is some actual ShinKami. After Aizawa abandons a tied up Shinsou, Kaminari comes over to try and help him. It doesn’t go too well.

Aizawa’s Declassified School Survival Guide : Class 1A - Honestly, this has big MHA School Brief vibes. It’s just a collection of stories about Yagi learning about his new class from all of Aizawa’s notes because he’s bad at everything that has to do with the kids. Wish there were more chapters, and each can be read on their own.

The Midnight Coffeehouse - Another Quirkless college AU, this time for ShinDoriya! Midoriya works at a coffee shop on campus and Shinsou needs a lot of caffeine. Written by @fullmetalhearts. Very cute ending, and a hint of Iida + Todoroki.

Her Defender - This is a Fuyumi Todoroki story! I love her, and think she is extremely underrated. In this story she tries to save some civilians from a fire when the heroes aren’t around and just about gets burned for it.

[x0401x]

Okay already.

Y’all are really damn eager for it, so here you have it: the infamous List of Erased Gay, AKA a glimpse of how we could be having it all if KyoAni weren’t doing us so dirty this year, Tsurune edition. The Violet Evergarden edition seems to have left a big impression, so maybe this listing will become a thing.

Then again, along with the canon gay that we lost, we gained a lot of anime-only shippy service that is not only weirdly fixated on Minato alone but also ruins the nature of many characters. KyoAni has been outright baffling this year in how little it understands the novels that it has been adapting, and even more in how proficient it has become in destroying the main relationships of each title. All in all, the personalities and purposes of the main characters have been severely altered, and there has been a disturbing trend (not only in Tsurune, but also in Violet Evergarden and Liz to Aoi Tori) of making the protagonists obsess with someone who apparently does only the minimum for them and being lukewarm with the people that seemingly care more for their wellbeing.

That’s not what any of these novels are about.

But since this post is centered on Tsurune, I’ll only talk about how the aforementioned major flaws apply to it. That boils down to KyoAni erasing most of what Masaki did for Minato and about 85% of the scenes they had together, replacing it with additional scenes without much purpose involving other characters. For whatever incomprehensible reason, KyoAni is hellbent on enhancing Minato’s relationship with everyone except the person he has the strongest bond with in the books, and a lot of you guys seemed to notice this. So, in order to address the cringeworthy disaster that the Tsurune anime has become, I’m naming this one as the List of Erased and Misplaced Gay.

Had to put it under a cut because of how long it got. While we’re at it, please consider reading the novel translations.

I gotta apologize to the Anons for stalling so much with this post. It took me a while to write it down since I had to skim the novel to take notes. By the way, to the people who haven’t finished the anime or don’t plan to read the novel: none of what’s cited here are things that will happen; they’re things that already happened in the canon timeline and didn’t make it into the screen. I’ve put them under a cut because it’s too much stuff. It feels like I just wrote a fanfiction but this is actually how canon goes.

I’m going to sort out the list by character relationship, from the mildest to the most blatant (y’all know which one it is).

Noa and Rika

Noa’s anime counterpart seems pretty meager, but her canon self is far more active, and if her saying “there’s no one in this world greater than Seo” isn’t an indication that she ain’t as straight as her arrows, then maybe her shouting at Nanao to “shut up and go burn in the fires of hell” after his advances might be an indication of it. Telling him that he “should be quiet because Seo’s feelings matter” when he flirts with her might also be one. Or not. Sadly, there’s not enough material in this aspect for the girls in the first volume.

Ryouhei and Nanao

These two are the straightest characters out of the group, but their interactions are always full of implications regarding the other club members. The two of them are often used as a means to translate the exchanges between the boys in a way that sounds suggestive as hell, and Nanao is oddly smug about it, which really doesn’t help.

Here’s a compilation of these dialogues, for convenience’s sake:

Nanao: Seiya doesn’t seem like himself today. Ryouhei: Minato probably turned him down. I already got rejected too. Nanao: I understand he wants everyone to join the the tournament, but aren’t those two too stubborn? That Minato guy is such a calamity, being popular with both boys and girls. I’m only popular with girls on that point.

(Try to convince me that Minato isn’t bi after this one. You shall not succeed.)

Kaito: You guys, don’t just stand there and chat; practice! Nanao: Geez, Kacchan, don’t take your anger out on us just because Seiya left. Kaito: Hah? What’re you saying? Nanao: Don’t you watch Seiya a lot? Kaito: Of course. Archery is about practicing while watching each other’s shooting forms.

Nanao: Kacchan, you really suck at endgames. Kaito: Shut up. I got what I needed, so it’s fine.

Kaito: I don’t wanna do team competitions with half-hearted feelings. Didn’t it seem like that guy had been practicing secretly? And I can’t understand the fact that he knows Masa-san. Since when have they known each other? Nanao: Aren’t you Masa-san’s favorite among his acquaintances? Minato’s a genuine bow geek, so I think he’ll unexpectedly be on the same wavelength as you, Kacchan. Kaito: We’re definitely not the same! And anyways, I don’t like that guy. There’s nothing decent about guys with nice faces, including you.

Seiya and Masaki

This one is in the misplaced gay list. In this case, implying Seiya’s non-existent co-dependency towards Minato. In the novel, Seiya isn’t jealous of Masaki and Minato’s relationship. He’s polite with Masaki all the way and starts calling him “Masa-san” from day one. Seiya also never says that he hates Masaki. Because he doesn’t.

Kaito and Masaki

Another example of misplaced gay. Kaito is very obedient around Masaki and obviously stans him as a good example of successful archer, but not in the exaggerated way that the anime tries to sell. In fact, it feels like the anime tries to get him to Minato’s level of fanboying, but although the two of them are equal when it comes to fawning over archery, they have a different vibe when it comes to Masaki. That’s probably because Minato is much closer to Masaki than Kaito is, and Kaito canonically sees Masaki as the brother he never had, while it’s unclear what exactly Minato sees Masaki as in his life.

For starters, Kaito never tried to keep Masaki for himself. He is jealous of Minato for also knowing Masaki and apparently monopolizing him, and he’s mad as hell that Masaki decided to start teaching archery because of Minato, but he never tried to keep Masaki’s existence itself a secret. The only one who did that was Minato. Kaito never refrained from talking to Nanao about Masaki at all. He also talked to Masaki about Nanao, enough for Masaki to be able to recognize Nanao at first sight.

Masaki jokes around Kaito like he does with everyone else, but Kaito responds to it right away with threats that he doesn’t really mean. Whenever Masaki dares him to actually do it, he meekly recoils. They’re found family through and through.

Daigo and Hiroki

The anime has been doing a piss-poor job at showcasing this ridiculously married duo. There isn’t much about them in the first volume, to be fair, but the little we had was enough to deliver that they’re old friends who complete each other. Hiroki is also the only person who listens to Daigo nerding out embarrassedly about idols without judging him, and the two of them are considered “special goods” of Kirisaki for being so inseparable and well-balanced.

Shuu, Sen and Man

These three aren’t nearly as close in the anime as in the original work. The twins absolutely love Shuu and admit to worshipping him. They’re clearly very jealous of Minato for holding Shuu’s attention, and physically attempt to drag Shuu away from him when they’re talking to each other. They’re also openly aggressive with Minato more than to any other team member of Kazemai.

In Kirisaki, their interactions are also different. The twins normally follow Shuu around and monopolize him, which he doesn’t seem to mind. The author describes Shuu sandwiched on both sides by the twins as “charming in some aspects”.

Shuu gives advice to them when asked, which the twins do often, not only because his shooting is their ideal, but also because they find his explanations easier than the teacher’s. He also defends the twins from the more hot-headed senpais when they’re called out for their rudeness.

Also, the twins’ admiration for Shuu isn’t equal. Senichi is way more serious about it than Manji is. The way this trio is depicted, it feels like Senichi is Shuu’s arranged fiancé who happens to be madly in love with him and has to deal with Shuu being in love with someone else.

Delicious.

Kaito and Minato

The anime keeps trying hella hard to maintain that Kaito and Minato have some sort of hero crush on Masaki and that this is the main connection between the two of them, but the novel begs to differ. It also keeps trying to pretend that Minato is the kind of spineless idiot who would act like Kaito is right in trying not to let him into the club because of his target panic, and who would attempt to gain Kaito’s friendship by catering to his unfair treatment. The novel also begs to differ.

Minato is a serious and assertive character. He acknowledges that he’s in bad condition and tries his best to prove his resolve, but only within realistic standards. He tells Kaito right to his face that entering the club is his own decision and warns that Kaito should back off from speaking on Seiya’s behalf, arguing that Seiya would be displeased with it. He also lectures Kaito on being a little shit to everyone, especially to Nanao, simply because he’s insecure.

After Minato joins, Kaito immediately bares his fangs at him. Albeit not putting up with his shit, Minato asks what he could do to be acknowledged as a comrade because you sort of need camaraderie in a team, and Kaito spits out that such a day would never come.

Kaito is outright displeased having to work together with Minato as kaizoe. Minato also isn’t in high spirits. The two of them comically have the same reaction when finding out they’d have to do it.

Minato decides to strike a conversation after the yawatashi, when he and Kaito are getting changed, mainly because he had noticed that Seiya and Kaito’s relationship wasn’t going well because of him. Kaito barks at Minato that there’s no honor in working with him, and Minato reasons that they should reach a mutual understanding, since they’d be in a team competition. Kaito retorts that he didn’t even want to be in them, but he had to after Minato joined. It only becomes clearer that Minato is ruining Kaito’s prospects one by one.

Despite all the clashing, Minato notices that Kaito’s passion for archery is genuine. Still, there’s a lot of misplaced gay in the anime during the training camp. Minato doesn’t desperately try to win Kaito’s favor, isn’t saved by Kaito from falling into the river, and doesn’t ogle at Kaito’s back when he shoots as the oomae for the first time.

Kaito finally shows a slight sign of warming up to Minato by thanking him for saving Nanao’s hat, which had been a present from him and his sisters. This is destroyed by him finding out that Minato and Seiya had attended Kirisaki for middle school.

After the whole accident with Masaki, Kaito assures Minato that it wasn’t his fault, and then he emphasizes it the next day, saying that Minato wasn’t worth being saved by Masaki if he was still twitching with guilt.

When Minato gets a ganglion on his hand, he tries to hide it from everyone, but Kaito notices something wrong. He forces Minato to have it examined by Tomio. And after Seiya performs first-aid on Minato, the following dialogue goes on:

“Shit, you’re seriously so…” “Sorry that this happened right before an important competition… It was because I was careless that I got hurt.” “Aah, you’re so freaking annoying. It doesn’t look like you get why I’m pissed off.” “You’re angry because I messed up?” “Wrong! This is why I said I wanted to focus on only the individual competitions. You tried to hide that injury from us earlier. You think you can compete in a team like that? In the end, you just don’t acknowledge us. All you do is keep secrets!” “I just didn’t want to worry everyone! What, don’t you have a secret too, Onogi!? You said you want to focus on the individual competitions, even though you actually couldn’t help but want to be in team competitions!” “Wha--no way that’d be true!” “I heard it from Nanao!”

Kaito almost gets back at Nanao for opening his mouth, but Minato put himself nose-to-nose in front of Kaito. This is one more example of closure that the anime doesn’t show.

“Onogi, didn’t you say that I was using target panic as an excuse to run away from archery? But aren’t you running away too? You run, run, and you’re still running away even now.” “What do you say that I’m running away from?” “From your ‘comrades’.” “What the hell are you talking about…” “You’re scared of making comrades. You’re scared that your thoughts and desires won’t be followed by other people. Even though you really longed for it, you didn’t want to disappoint others or yourself, so you decided to seal away that wish and not look at it. You’re the weakest kind of archer with that cowardice of yours.” “What did you saaaaaaaay——?!!”

This is how we get to the fight right before their face-off against Kirisaki, which was showed in the anime, but in a wholly different way. The fight itself is different as well. Kaito grabs Minato by the lapels of his gi, but Minato steps forward without any hesitation, unlike in the anime, where he seemed pretty terrified and just stood in place like a rock.

“Kaito.” “Don’t call me Kaito!” “Then, Kacchan.” “That’s even worse!” “Kaito, call me by my name. Call me Minato. Then we’ll be comrades.” “Haaa!?” “Besides, in the Kazemai High School Archery Club’s male division, everyone is calling each other by their first names, but we’re the only ones calling each other by our last names. It’s embarrassing to feel special, right?” “There’s no special feeling——! It’s normal, average. You’re such an airhead.” “When I learned that you wanted to be in a team competition, Kaito, I was really happy. I felt the same way.” “So what?” “Tommy-sensei didn’t make me the ochi for the evetuality of my target panic starting up. It was to make me feel like I had four comrades in front of my eyes. So, Kaito, you must feel the four of us at your back, right? You aren’t alone. I’ll protect the end of the line so that everyone can follow behind you. I’ll go with you to the very top.” “You were just babbling on. I’m gonna trample you.” “Why would you trample me? We’re going together.”

Yes, they didn’t get to this point by Kaito being hysterical about following Masaki’s teachings or by Minato telling everyone to forget them, because that’s just fucking dumb. If teachings weren’t necessary, there would be no need for taking classes in the first place.

It’s only here that Tomio hands them the headbands. They all put them on and Minato doesn’t need a pep talk from Seiya in order to tie his own. Kaito then finally calls Minato (and only Minato, as he’d already been on a first-name basis with Seiya since the beginning) by his first name for the first time.

Kaito and Seiya

To quote myself from an earlier post:

One of the things I noticed is that not just their relationship but their personalities are different in the anime, and this in turn affects the rest. What I find so good about them is the irony that Seiya is a dog person who acts cat-like and Kaito is a cat person who acts dog-like and you can feel this shit in their exchanges.

There are many details to this relationship that could be considered gems. When Kaito meets Seiya and Minato at Kazemai, he recognizes Seiya right away from their tournament in middle school, but not Minato. As I said before, the two of them refer to themselves by their first names off the bat and Kaito is quick to try to get Seiya into individual competitions with him. He insists that the two of them can “aim for the top together”, and gets extremely frustrated when Seiya refuses. He’s also pretty offended when Seiya claims that Minato is above him when it comes to natural ability.

The day after Seiya and Minato fight in the rain, Seiya catches a cold and is overall very distracted, enough to mistake Kaito’s bow for his own and use it instead. Kaito asks him how he managed the feat because one would normally be able to tell the difference, to which Seiya responds that he “did think it felt sort of tougher”.

I will not turn this into innuendo. I shan’t.

Kaito then notices Seiya looks red and places a hand on his forehead, confirming that he has a fever, like any good shoujo protagonist would do with the heroine. And this is where the author begins to hint that Kaito treats Seiya differently from the other club members. Kaito is overall gentler with him for no given motive. Even though he’s the type to care for everyone, he normally scolds those he looks after and makes clear that they should be able to look after themselves, but he doesn’t do this with Seiya at all. And the best of it is that Seiya responds to his awkward kindness.

When he realizes that Seiya is sick, the first thing he does is tell him that he should take a break because he’s busy with other matters aside from club activities and Seiya brushes him off, but then closes his eyes and says that Kaito’s cold hand feels good against his hot face and goddamn. What a low sweep. Goddamn.

Basically, all Kaito can do is frown and he doesn’t manage to come up with much of a response. By the time Seiya leaves, Kaito is still staring at him, and he gets visibly annoyed when Seiya isn’t there anymore. Again, for no given reason.

Kaito confronts Minato two days later about joining the club, acting as Seiya’s spokesperson on his own accord and telling Minato that he shouldn’t upset Seiya or raise his hopes fruitlessly. He gets angry when Minato argues that Seiya wouldn’t forgive him for butting into their affairs, and maintains that Seiya would be going to the individual competitions with him, not to the team competitions.

Right before the training camp, when Kaito and Seiya are cleaning up the targets together, Kaito finally confronts Seiya about his stance regarding Minato. He calls Seiya out for being like an overprotective father around Minato, and makes observations that even Seiya himself admits to be right:

“About your good point of nicely taking care of everyone, it seems that it’s because you’re following the rules. Like, you go forward at the green light and stop at the red light ‘cause you were taught to do so. Still, you’re different around Narumiya. You do with him what you really wanna do. But I’m not saying that you’re black-hearted. Your good quality is fairness ‘cause you have enough brains and ability to take action to properly make use of what you’ve learned. Many people are relying on you. Your guiding principles were misled ‘cause you, the club president, got too engrossed with one person. I mean, you shouldn’t have forced everyone to go for team competitions this time.”

Seiya is predictably displeased that Kaito hit bull’s-eye, and tells him that he should be focusing more into practice if he has time to be observing him. And sure, I get that he would want to tell Kaito to hop off his shit because this little fucker has a lot of secrets............ but he certainly didn’t have to hold Kaito’s hand while doing it. And he most certainly didn’t have to hold it so tight that the arrow on Kaito’s hand creaked a little.

Kaito says to Seiya’s face that a lot of what he spouts sounds fishy, and Seiya changes the subject by claiming that all he wants is for Minato to draw the bow like he used to once again. Kaito can tell that there’s more to his motives than this, but as Seiya leaves as fast as he can, he’s unable to ask. The arrow that remained on his hand was Seiya’s, and the emphasis on the fact that it was a wornout one probably stems from the long-standing burdens that Seiya has been carrying.

Yeah, this debunkes the anime’s stupid excuse that Seiya is in the archery club because of Minato. He’s depicted in the novel as being his own person and having his own will, so he does have a mind outside of Minato. Even if Minato had never joined the club, Seiya would have stayed in it.

Anyway, fast forward to the day before the training camp, Kaito confronts Seiya about not signing up for the individuals. Seiya ignores him, which pisses him off.

Once Kaito finds out that Seiya and Minato went to Kirisaki in middle school, he bitches to Seiya about keeping it a secret. Seiya argues that he hadn’t told anyone because he didn’t want everybody digging up on them and retorts that Kaito could have simply looked them up if he’d really wanted to know, but after Kaio leaves, Seiya admits that he should have properly talked about it when Kaito had asked. He resigns to the fact that finding out about it way after people of other clubs probably made Kaito feel awful and says he has no right to be the club president. Yet he’s cheered up by Ryouhei and decides to discuss the subject properly with Kaito when he gets a chance.

Kaito is so thrown-off by the fresh frustrations that he loses the improvement he had acquired during the training camp on the spot (no, he didn’t fail because of a stupid obsession with making his bow turn, KyoAni). He actually made it through the first round, but fell short in the second, together with Nanao (yes, he participated), Yuuna and Noa (yes, the girls didn’t fuck up right from the get-go and none of them had zero hits).

Kaito continues acting off during club activities and gets into an argument with the girls and Minato, but he’s immediately shut down by Seiya because this bitch weak.

Later on, in order to help the boys enhance their teamwork and to distract them from the stress of having to face Kirisaki, Tomio bought them sports fishing passes and sent them to a fishing spot. Since fishing alone was forbidden, the five boys split into two groups. Ryouhei and Nanao went with Minato, leaving Kaito to work together with Seiya, who had brought Kuma along. The two of them caught river bugs to serve as bait together and sat at opposite sides of the shore.

I think it’s worth mentioning that Kaito was being his usual sharp self with the others, but with Seiya, he acted completely tame. There wasn’t any trace of his frustration in his attitude.

Seiya went back to Kaito after having caught one salmon, and found that Kaito’s fishing line had become entangled on a tree. After Seiya sent a picture of what he had gotten to Minato and the others, he and Kaito sat down...... really close together under a shaded area. Seiya took a tomato curry bread out of his backpack and shared half of it with Kaito, and after they were done, they chatted idly, with Seiya commenting that Kuma seemed to be showing respect for Kaito. Kaito then stroked him and Kuma sat down next to Kaito as if to nestle close to him.

Once Kaito gets the Kuma Seal of Approval, he and Seiya have the following conversation:

“About the whole deal with Kirisaki’s Shuu, it was wrong of me to keep it all a secret; I’m sorry. I’ll discuss things properly from now on.” “Ah, no, you don’t have to talk about it. There’s nothing you have to apologize for. You had something you didn’t want anyone else to know about, and it was wrong of me to get curious over it. Even if I knew, it doesn’t really mean I could be of help to you guys, either.” “That’s not true. I’m counting on you, Kacchan.” “You…even though I was talking seriously… Can I punch you?” “Well, the competition is over, after all. I think Tommy-sensei gave us this mission not to acquire stamina and patience through fishing, but to make us step away from the bow once in a while and relax. Minato seems to be conscious of Shuu and getting flustered by him too.” “Rather than him, I’m a little worried about you.” “Me? Why?” “Aren’t you fretting over Narumiya’s target panic more than he is? Other than that, how can I put it? Uh… Anyways, you’re also a disappointment.” “I don’t quite get it, but well, I’m thankful that you’re worried about me.” “You’re nice to everyone, and yet you act sassy with me.”

Kaito had actually wanted to ask Seiya if he felt some sort of guilt regarding Minato, but the question was too insensitive even for him. He also acknowledged that he might not be able to find the right words to reply with if Seiya said yes, and didn’t want to seem like he was criticizing Seiya for it. So, instead, he goes with this:

“Seiya, when I first saw you at the information session, I thought that you were a guy who was well-composed and really good at archery. I’d been watching you for a while, and I thought maybe you were similar to me in some way. You have passion, some kind of conviction, don’t you? I want to respect it. I respect you for working hard to earn a calm and collected self.” “You praising me feels unpleasant. Should I say that you should go practice if you have the time to observe me?” “I want to win the prefectural tournament - with all five of us.” “Yeah… that’s right.”

The author then describes the maple trees overhead, and just to put it out there, maple stands for reserve, which might be an allusion to Kaito holding back from digging further into the matter (even though he was right, like he always is about Seiya). They also mean strength and endurance, and that matches Kaito’s comments on Seiya.

A few days later, during a softball tournament of their school, Minato and Seiya’s class was playing against Kaito’s. Seiya teases Kaito when they spot each other about how the soccer field is somewhere else, since Kaito was being recurrently summoned to be part of the soccer team by the school’s soccer club at the beginning of the semester, to which Kaito responds with, “Seiyaaa, not you too”.

When the game begins, Kaito is the first batter and Seiya is the baseman. Kaito gets a hit in the second try, and gives Seiya a “how’s that” look when passing him by.

On the first day of club activities after Masaki was hospitalized, Kaito was the one to announce that everyone should continue practice like normal in order not to waste what they’d been taught. Before doing so, he gazes at Seiya for a brief moment as if to ask for permission to speak on his behalf.

After Kazemai’s tiebreaking match with Kubo high school, while everyone was having lunch, Seiya and Kaito were checking the competition’s program and discussing the formalities for the exiting of the next round, which would be slightly different from the others.

At the tournament, when Seiya diagnoses and treats Minato’s ganglion, Kaito is visibly impressed by the fact he carries first-aid items around with him, and Seiya merely responds that he shouldn’t underestimate a son of orthopedic surgeons who used to play with medical tape instead of building blocks.

Keep on roasting him with care, you four-eyed witch.

In other words, Seiya and Kaito interact a lot. Onogi “hands off my man” Kaito is often on the role of looking out for Seiya, who in turn looks out for everyone. Just like Masaki with Minato, Kaito is always spot-on about Seiya and gets really damn close to finding out his heaviest secret, and prods into Seiya’s business enough to shake even a careful planner like him. Meanwhile, Seiya is sharp as a knife with him, but recognizes he shouldn’t be, and resorts to sassing Kaito when he gets too sappy. He also acts somewhat tsun when Kaito is too gentle, and not-so-subtly starts hanging around Kaito most of the time after he starts acting like a normal best friend to Minato once again.

Seiya and Minato

It all obviously starts right on the first part of the first chapter, because Ayano Kotoko wastes no time. When Minato and Seiya meet during the morning of their high school entrance ceremony, Minato hinted that he might have been getting sick, and Seiya teases him about it. Then he says that if this did end up happening, he would offer to “faithfully nurse” Minato in the special hospital room of his parents’ clinic, to which Minato retorts that he would turn Seiya down because “who knows what you’d do”. Seiya claims he wouldn’t do anything, but the feigned innocence is so evident here that you don’t even have to guess what kind of face he’s making.

When Minato, Seiya and Ryouhei are approached by Tomio, Seiya bluffs that he knows Minato is “carrying his treasure around” and smirks when he falls for it. After Minato fails magnificently at the demonstration shooting and scurries to leave, Seiya says he’d be waiting for him to join the club, holding Minato’s place in the boys’ team for as long as it was necessary.

When Minato comes back home late in his third night visiting Yata no Mori, he finds Seiya waiting for him in front of his house. Seiya already knew that Minato had sneaked out somewhere the previous night, and as he questions Minato about it, he finds one of Fuu’s feathers on his hair. Minato does nothing but give roundabout answers, and then straight-up lies that he was just wandering around on his bike, which Seiya is far from believing but lets slide. This whole moment sort of feels like a father questioning his teenage daughter about sneaking out of home to see her boyfriend.

Seiya then confronts Minato about joining the club, competitions and target panic. He reveals that he doesn’t feel their loss in middle school was only Minato’s fault, since he got caught up with the whole situation and lost control of himself as well. Minato happens to hate this whole talk, and ends up saying he doesn’t want to do archery with Seiya, which isn’t true. He simply doesn’t want to keep causing trouble, but doesn’t know how to convey it. Although Seiya does understand what Minato means, he’s still hurt by his words because Minato being able to rely on him is his anchor. He then responds in the way he always does when he’s upset.

By being a stone-cold bitch.

The anime is trying to paint Seiya as meek and passive, but he’s an icy little fucker when his mood swings for the worse. He stares at Minato as if looking down on him, and this is when he throws the “Actually, would you be able to endure it if I did blame you? Or not? It’s easy to make you cry.” bomb on Minato’s lap. And instead of leaving it as that like he did in the anime, Minato grabs Seiya by the collar and pushes him to the ground, then Seiya pushes him onto a tree.

The following day at school, Minato found himself looking for Seiya during his absence, even though he had been avoiding him before they fought. A day later, Minato leaves a box of Pucky in Seiya’s mailbox as a sign of apology. No, he doesn’t write that he would be waiting for Seiya. He didn’t have to, since novel!Seiya never once doubted his love for archery. What he did was draw a dog on the box, which is something that Seiya used to do to display an intent of reconciliation. Seiya also leaves a box of (premium) Pucky for him as reply.

The next morning, Minato contacts Seiya, who welcomes him to the archery club, and he almost tears up at it.

Misplaced gay ensues in a non-canon scene of the five boys bathing together at the training camp. Nanao’s comment about Seiya’s “love” for Minato never happened in the novel. Seiya also wasn’t around when Minato retrieved Nanao’s hat from the river, so he wasn’t even there to help, although he was worried when he saw Minato coming back all soaked.

During the softball game, Seiya yet again shows exaggerated worry as the pitcher aims at Minato’s left flank. He attempts to get someone else to be the batter even though Minato had dodged the ball and was unharmed.

Even as the game ends, Seiya asks if Minato hadn’t been grazed even a little, and despite being reassured that he hadn’t, Seiya asks if Minato had been going to his yearly check-ups. When Minato answers that he hadn’t, as already four years had passed since the accident, Seiya yells that he shouldn’t neglet his check-ups because his wound still throbs from time to time, loud enough for Minato to flinch. Seiya then comes up with suggestions to motivate Minato to go, like asking his parents to drive Minato there (no, he doesn’t do check-ups with Seiya’s father) or offering to tag along in case Minato feels bored while waiting. Minato feels extremely uncomfortable and declines it all, asking Seiya why he worries so much. Seiya responds that he has the “responsibility to worry for Minato’s health”, and Minato jokes that he sounds like he feels guilty for something. Seiya says nothing back, and when Minato prods for an answer, he replies that it’s part of his responsibility as club president. That isn’t the whole truth and Minato can tell as much. In fact, he had only joked because he had been hoping to hear Seiya ask back “what are you even talking about”.

Minato had felt for a while that Seiya seemed to wish for his improvement at archery even more than his own, as if he were trying to compensate for something. He recognizes that some aspects of Seiya’s worry are unnatural and can’t be explained with the word “meddling”. As Seiya’s sense of guilt became gradually clearer, Minato grew scared.

At this point, in the anime, all of this was replaced with flashbacks from Minato and Seiya’s childhood that never happened in the novel, like the day Minato’s family went to greet Seiya’s, their multiple discussions about entering the archery club when they become middle scholars, Minato saying that he asked Saionji to include Seiya in their class but was denied (yes, he kept it a secret even from Seiya in canon), Minato introducing Seiya to Shuu, Minato saying he didn’t want to do archery anymore after he got hit, and Seiya convincing him to do it.

The next day, when Minato and Seiya come home from school, Minato asks to talk and the two of them go under a nearby tree. He starts off reporting that he booked a check-up, and announces that what he has to discuss is serious talk and that he was bracing himself for it and that he wanted Seiya to answer without teasing him. Seiya asks if he has to talk about it right away, and Minato says that things might end up just like the last tournament of middle school if he doesn’t. Basically, his built-up anxiety over their unresolved matter might cause his target panic to act up again. It’s finally then that Minato asks Seiya why he didn’t go to Kirisaki even though his parents could pay for it and why he kept trying so hard to get Minato back into archery.

This entire conversation was replaced in the anime with the scene of them on the street, and although some things are similar, most of it is wholly different:

“I swore that I would protect you on behalf of your mother. Creating an environment where you can draw a bow is my duty.” “Could it be that you spoke with Mom at the hospital she was transported to? Did you make that promise there?” “No. It was my fault that your mother died. That you suffered a wound that won’t disappear for the rest of your life.” “What are you talking about? That was an accident. An accident where a runaway vehicle ran over people walking on the sidewalk. The police took this conclusion too, and there were lots of witnesses so there was no doubt about it. Why are you saying something like that? Didn’t you just happen to be at the scene by chance?” “Don’t you remember? On that day, you were walking with your mother. I stopped you two to talk on that road. I said goodbye and left, heading in the opposite direction. And then, an awfully fast car passed by me… If I had turned around, if I had turned around… ‘If’…It’s all suppositions now. If, at that time, I hadn’t stopped you, the two of you would have passed that place sooner, and then you wouldn’t have been involved in the accident. I was the one who injured you and snatched your mother away from you. So I swore that I’d fully atone for the sin of hurting you. I will protect you…”

It’s kind of impossible to tell that Seiya sounds exactly like a mom at this point, just like in everything he does for Minato. Minato resents not realizing that Seiya had burdened himself with something so heavy and had been in pain ever since the accident which I think says a lot about the fact that Kaito noticed something was wrong with Seiya in the way he acted around Minato and in the things he would say from the very beginning. Minato feels like the problems resolving around his target panic are dust next to what Seiya was dealing with and that he wants to accept Seiya’s troubles. Seiya had always been protecting him, and now he thinks he wants to protect Seiya in return.

Yeah, he never really said that he had managed to get back into archery because Seiya waited for him, or that it was his turn to wait for Seiya. That’s misplaced gay, and unsurprisingly, it’s watered-down. Their exchange in the novel is actually pretty calm in spite of all the tension that had built up until then:

“I’ve always thought that you were smart, Seiya, but you’re actually surprisingly dumb.” “Huh?” “Am I wrong? It was you who kept me on the earth. Because you stopped us at that time, I only got injured. I’m here thanks to you. Thank you, Seiya. I think I really am a lucky guy.” “Minato… I’m a sneaky person. Maybe I said all that because I knew that you would forgive me, y’know?” “Uh-huh, that’s fine. Even if you become a vicious criminal who shakes up the world, or even if you get a contagious disease without cure that leads to death, I don’t plan on ever stopping to be your friend. Even if it’s at a prison at the farthest ends of the north, even if it’s at an isolation ward, I’ll go see you.” “What’s with all that…? Were you planning on putting up a cool façade by saying all that?” “Of course.”

Seiya then smiles and places his head on Minato’s shoulder without any lame excuses, while Minato thinks about how Seiya can lean on him sometimes, for he won’t collapse. About how he wanted to stand firm on the ground, not too stiffly or too limply, but flexibly. And then Seiya throws in the golden line that the anime shouldn’t have cut out, because doing so ruined his character and painted his obsession as something positive and justified:

“Minato, I just want you to believe this. I love archery too. I’m not drawing the bow for someone else’s sake, but because I love it.”

Catch me stanning this eternal friendship until I die. Yeah, that’s as far as the “gay” goes for them. Of course, they’re still shown together in as many scenes as possible, but the ambiguousness is no longer present as soon as Seiya stops treating Minato like his own child and actually gives him the space any normal friend would. Literally everything that happened in the anime between them beyond this point (and I do mean everything, even just their conversations) is KyoAni’s original content.

Long live these unapologetically healthy best friends. Fuck KyoAni’s fanservicey ass.

Shuu and Minato

The way Shuu is being depicted in the anime is underwhelming at best. He might be quiet and calm on the outside, but on the inside, he’s extremely passionate about archery and about Minato, though not in this clichéd and overused way that the anime is portraying.

Even though Seiya also used to be on their team, Shuu considers Minato his only rival and bow friend. The two of them know each other well and are actually pretty close, since they literally attended the same middle school.

None of this actually shows in the anime at all. One may argue that it’s easy to notice he’s interested in Minato more than anyone else, and it really is, but their rivalry isn’t nearly as fiery and there seems to be no trace of their friendship. Shuu simply keeps spouting been-there-done-that catchphrases that any rival of any sports animanga has said to the protagonist, and that’s it.

In the novel, Shuu is rather obsessed with Minato in different ways. He doesn’t only crave for Minato in competitions, he also craves for him outside of the dojo. He misses him since they’re attending different schools, but ever since they were little, he had always wanted to spend way more time with Minato than he actually had in his hands. He hates having to part ways with Minato when business is over and is unforgiving of anyone who might “steal” Minato from him. KyoAni for some reason has made Seiya hostile towards Masaki, but Shuu is the one who resents Masaki for becoming Minato’s goal rather than himself.

The flashbacks also aren’t helping. When they were kids, they acted... well, like kids, and not like mini versions of how they are now. They were loud, openly competitive, and would fight for Saionji’s side because he had bad hearing, so they had to talk close to his ears. They were also like older brothers to Saionji’s grandson, which the anime didn’t show.

Their first meeting was different. Minato usually came around the dojo to peek at practice, and Saionji took him as pupil along with Shuu because he believed that teaching the two of them was his fate.

Minato had always annoyed Shuu and was always the only one capable of instigating fiery emotions in him, starting with the fact that he made Shuu realize that someone else his age was as talented as himself. Shuu was extremely irritated when Minato suddenly stopped coming to their practice, having no idea that the motive had been the car accident. He was irritated yet again when they met by chance in middle school, and all the while, he keeps thinking, “who do you think you are to irritate me”.

When Hiroki comments that Shuu must be so elegant and skilled with his shooting because he was taught by a former imperial guard, Shuu responds that he’s actually like that because there’s someone whose heart he wants to shoot through. He credits Minato for his own prowess because his desire to be better than Minato is what got him so far. The twins ask if there was someone who managed to charm him that much and if the saying “the greatest hate springs from the greatest love” has anything to do with it. Shuu responds with nothing but a daring smile and an “I wonder”.

Other interactions between them that the anime watered down are their greetings during the beginning of the tournament and Shuu’s words before he left. In the novel, Minato froze at the sight of him and held his breath when he got close. Shuu reminisces to memories of when they were kids, which is why he goes to Minato’s side and whispers into his ear. Then he puts a hand over Minato’s scar and asks if it still hurts, and Minato answers that it doesn’t.

Just a heads-up: everyone is watching this unfold. Kazemai and the twins are staring at this bullshit but everyone feels they can’t get close because the gay atmosphere around them is too intense.

Minato says that he knows Shuu turned his back on him for getting target panic while he got a full score during the individual competitions at the middle school championship (because of the “cold look” that Shuu had given him in after their loss), and claims that he can’t face Shuu at all. Shuu responds that he hadn’t turned his back on Minato even once, and that he had only not comforted or admonished Minato at that time because he didn’t think there were words for Minato’s situation.

He reveals that he had no idea Minato had suddenly stopped coming to their secret practice because of a serious injury, and that he had realized just how eagerly he had been waiting for Minato when they met again in middle school. He had believed that Minato would definitely come back in high school as well, and asked Minato to “show his archery again”. Minato seems a little touched by it, and Shuu comments that Saionji actually never taught anyone personally, and that Saionji apparently believed Shuu and Minato to be the last duty entrusted to him. Shuu believes that their meeting was a “gift from the God of the bow”, and after saying so, he leaves.

Many things didn’t happen, though. Like the two of them meeting after the tournament and at the shrine. Shuu never asks Minato to take responsibility for changing his life, never acts like a total dick with Seiya and never tells Minato that one can’t do archery for someone else’s sake.

The day before the first team competitions, Minato had barely slept because of his meeting with Shuu. He was glad that Shuu hadn’t given up on him and felt strongly that he didn’t want to lose face in front of him. He was extremely impatient after seeing Shuu’s shooting, and their difference in skill was ever so present even in the next days, as he wanted to become the kind of archer who could be a match for Shuu as fast as possible.

During the second phase of the tournament, Minato and Shuu meet again, and the dialogue they have is way different from the anime:

“Minato, it’s been a while. How are you feeling today?” “Not bad at all, Shuu. A lot of cheering squads came for us today, so I’m fired-up.” “I’m surprised to hear you say such a thing. You said before that you weren’t drawing for the sake of other people watching you. You thought spectators were annoying.” “I’m honestly happy to be supported now. Besides, I’ve just always loved doing archery, be it before or now. So why is someone like you drawing a bow, Shuu? Aren’t you doing it for the same reasons as me?”

Instead of replying, Shuu just smiled brightly, and this ticked off the twins, who started attacking Minato and had to be stopped by Shuu. He apologized on their behalf, which yet again spiked jealousy, and left with them.

Right before the tiebreaking match, Minato wondered if Shuu was watching from somewhere. Minato had never participated in one of them before, and it was all thanks to Shuu. Having someone as skilled as him to be the ochi was reassuring, and Minato entrusted him and Seiya with his back in their middle school days. However, unlike how the anime goes, the novel explicitly states that Minato’s state of mind being at ease during competitions was Shuu’s merit, specifically. He knew that Shuu would always hit, and so he could remain calm, knowing that someone could cover up for him if he made any mistakes.

Similar to this scene, right before the final match between Kazemai and Kirisaki, Shuu yet again comes to talk to Minato as he was being bothered by the twins:

“I’m deeply moved to face you in competition again, Minato. Did you hurt your wrist?” “No, it’s already fine. I can’t help but feel happy to take on the strongest member.” “I’m looking forward to it.”

During the duo’s last shot, the clouds opened up, and the grains of dust illuminated by the sunlight formed the shape of wings on their backs. As Shuu misses his last shot, he mouths the word, “congratulations” to Minato while the Kazemai boys are hugging him.

In short, Shuu and Minato’s relationship is originally complex and tridimensional, and the anime is reducing it to something dry, commonplace and boring.

Masaki and Minato

Here comes the bible that you asked for, you heathens.

First off, this duo is ridiculous. Their relationship literally has absolutely no business being as good as it is. You just know that it’s the most important one of the story from the fact that it begins when chapter one ends and appears on the very first illustration (other than the one in the cover).

I’m gonna start from the start: the character relationship chart from the official site. It says that what Minato borders for Masaki is “reverence”. That’s pretty heavy for a high school student.

A number of things ensue right before Masaki and Minato’s first meeting, which the anime didn’t show:

When Minato hears Masaki’s tsurune for the first time, his heart starts racing.

While he’s approaching the dojo, he’s praying in his head for Masaki not to disappear until he gets there. He was already thinking that maybe Masaki might be a ghost that haunted the shrine, but he didn’t care if this was the case.

Minato watched Masaki’s shooting for waaay longer in the novel. He stood hidden behind a fence as Masaki fired six shots and then did the finishing formalities.

While Masaki was collecting the arrows, Minato was sighing heavily, rubbing his sweaty palms against his uniform and wondering if he should go talk to him. But it’s totally not a crush. Totally not.

I hate these two so much.

Just to put it out there, it feels like Yamamura Takuya (the anime’s director) is fanboying over Masaki. Or more like over an ideal version of him. In canon, Masaki is an absolute dork and not nearly as composed and mature as the anime tries to sell him. He’s usually clumsy and vulgar, and jokes around a lot.

That being said, he gets friendly with Minato overly quickly. Although he’s confused as to why a random kid would be in the woods watching him, their first conversation is about anything but that, and suddenly Fuu is the topic. It escalates from Masaki offering to nurse the scratch on Minato’s hand to Minato volunteering to replace the lamps of the shrine’s waiting room, and then to the two of them drinking canned coffee together at the shajo. In-between this, we have Masaki joking about Minato being suspicious of him and that he wouldn’t charge for the medicine, knocking over a drawer and sending the contents flying, throwing unnoticed sarcasm at Minato while he changes the lamps and Minato mistaking the can of coffee for alcohol. Masaki then resumes shooting the rest of the arrows after that and Minato stays as audience. Once he’s done, Minato questions him about his shooting routine, and Masaki answers every question even though they literally just met.

All of this in just one night.

To add up, the novel has a veil of supernatural in it, and Minato and Masaki’s encounters in the shrine are portrayed with an atmosphere of mystery. They feel somewhat fantasious since there’s a lot of symbolism and ellusive language involved, like the shrine is a separate world that belongs just to the two of them, where both Minato and Masaki find not only each other but also themselves, renewing their love for the bow. And this is where I myself started becoming inspired while reading this novel. I, too, felt like praticing archery for once, so that I could point the bow at my head and shoot an arrow right into my face because I can’t take this bullshit.

But I digress.

Minato goes home without asking Masaki’s name, then proceeds to search for information regarding him on the internet like some stalkerish middle school girl. He finds nothing and berates himself for not asking, but also wouldn’t know what to do if he had really asked. 100% not a high school chick flick.

The next evening, Minato visits the shrine again. It’s raining, and when he finds Masaki shooting just like in the previous night, he notices that it feels like Masaki is performing a prayer when he does so. Minato watches hidden behind the fence yet again and wonders what Masaki could be wishing for in a night where the stars aren’t visible, because apparently Masaki’s presence increases Minato’s poetic tendencies by a hundred.

When Masaki spots him, he gives a peace sign and beckons him, but Minato’s brain has bluescreened at that point, so being the little shit he is, Masaki crouches and gestures to Minato as if he’s calling over a dog or a cat. This predictably has Minato flustered, and Masaki jokes that seeing him under the rain in a dark spot is scary. Minato comes to the shajo dripping wet and Masaki lends him a beginner’s uniform, telling him that he doesn’t have to be so formal.

By the time Minato returns, the floor that he had dirtied is completely clean, even though Masaki had asked Minato to mop it once he finished changing. The two of them have canned coffee together again, this time with oyaki. Fuu hadn’t showed up because of the rain, and that’s when Masaki jokes that Minato’s shoulder is the perfect perch for him. While arguing that he isn’t an ornament, Minato asks about the hours of activity in the dojo, and finds out that it was supposed to be used until 9pm but is currently only used during daytime, so the only one who is there at night is Masaki, except for couples that sneak inside occasionally. Minato is taken aback at the fact that couple come to a sacred place to make out and whatnot, and for some godforsaken reason, the author seemed to think it was a good idea for Masaki to retort with, “You don’t seem to have much experience in that area. Shall I teach you the basics?”

*high-pitched screaming*

One might argue that this isn’t as suggestive as it seems, but Minato responds with, “You perverted old man” and Masaki just... freaking grins. And then this bitch hits jackpot when he tries to get Minato to fire an arrow because he can tell that Minato has experience with archery and that he wants to shoot. Minato is exasperated and wants to run away from it, but Masaki coaxes him into opening up, assuring him that not even telephone lines pass through the dojo, so whatever Minato would say would be heard by no one but him. This is when he throws the infamous “I’m not someone who exists in your reality” line, and Minato ends up squeezing out everything that had been burdening him. It’s then that they finally introduce themselves to each other and Minato finds out that Masaki used to have target panic.

The next day, Minato doesn’t attend club activities despite Seiya and Ryouhei’s insistence to get him to join, and goes to visit the shrine again. He finds Masaki dressed in formal hakama instead of kyuudougi for the first time and stops on his tracks unintentionally at the sight of Masaki’s muscles glowing in the evening lights.

This is not homoerotic fanfiction. This is not homoerotic fanfiction. This is n

You kind of can’t ignore at this point that Masaki grins every time he sees Minato. Meanwhile, Minato shudders at the sound of Masaki’s arrows piercing the air, which is unlike any he had heard before, and thinks about how he never gets tired of seeing Masaki shoot. There is joy in the fact that such ideal shots are being executed right in front of him, and cheesy as it may be, this makes him happy to have been born. And since Minato already knows about Masaki’s goal of scoring ten thousand shots, this thirsty motherfucker is already wondering if he’ll ever see him shooting again after he accomplishes it.

Minato is, in fact, just as much of a sports nerd as any sports animanga protagonist. It just so happens that he’s less showy about it, and basically the only one who gets it out of him is Masaki.

Masaki carried out proper practice with Minato, unlike in the anime, where Minato only shoots once. They start with practice at close range, and it’s then that Masaki starts using his ridiculously improper tips, like “push your hips forwards more, like you’re peeing standing up” and “look at my armpit hair”. For better or worse, his advice is easy to grasp and Minato makes the most out of it.

By that point, he’s also already grasped Masaki’s personality. When they’re done, Masaki calls Fuu over while they’re having coffee. He also shares with Minato all the material he had about archery, which ranged from students’ books to exclusive publications to old magazines, and the two of them have a priceless dialogue that the anime cut out:

“It’s amazing that you collected all of these books so thoroughly.” “I didn’t; they were a gift.” “I knew it.” “What do you mean by ‘I knew it’?” “It’s because that kind of detailed work doesn’t suit you, Masa-san.” “Don’t you feel like treating your seniors with even a bit of respect?” “Not at all.” “Good grief, does that mean I have to teach you by praising you?”

Masaki then hands him a rubber mascot and recommends him the muscle training that he learned from his grandfather. The two of them speculate on the reasons why Minato might have gotten target panic and discuss methods to cure it. Then Minato finds out about Masaki’s powder container and the bikini pattern on it, and they have yet another beautiful exchange that KyoAni has ruined:

“What kind of drawing is that?” “Oh, Minato is a healthy young man too, eh?” “No way, this is…” “Yep, it’s a bikini.” “You have some rare items here, old man.” “I’m honored to receive a compliment from you.” “It wasn’t a compliment—!”

Harold, they’re bi.

The following evening, Minato goes to the shrine not realizing that his back had been injured when he and Seiya fought, but Masaki notices it and insists on treating it. This results in Minato taking off his shirt so that Masaki could stick a bandage to it, and honestly, Minato could have been thinking about anything at that moment and I would have been okay with it. He could have thought about Seiya, about the club, about what to have for dinner that night even. Any crap would have sufficed. But nah.

Nah.

He’s thinking about the cold touch of Masaki’s hands on his skin and shivering at it. Because. You know. That’s what straight boys do.

Minato’s shooting is horrible that night and he’s sullen because of the lack of the smell of coffee, since Masaki had brought tea instead. He asks to see Fuu, but Masaki reveals that Fuu had only been with him because he was feeding it and healing its wound, and after it got better, it left his hands. This leads to an exchange that somewhat feels like foreshadowing:

“So it dumped you after you healed it?” “Any problem with that?” “Noooope.”

And it causes Masaki to notice that Minato is feeling anxious, so he tries to confort him, and Minato confides to him about the whole issue with the club and Seiya. Masaki tells him that he’s probably conveying to Seiya he has lingering attachments, and suggests that he takes upon Seiya’s offer. Minato counter-argues that he has no confidence for it, and Masaki asks if he’d be just drawing a bow all alone from that point onward. Minato questions what he means by “all alone”, and it’s only then that Masaki says, “Don’t think that I’ll be here forever. You shouldn’t keep coming to this place.” Minato is confused by his words but doesn’t ask for clarification because they sound like Masaki had grown tired of him. He compares it to something like what a child would say to a stray animal that they’d picked out of pity but then grew bored of.

Masaki is completely unaware of the effect this had on Minato and casually asks him to put away his powder container, tossing it to him. And my God, my sweet lordly goodness gracious, there’s a really odd emphasis on the bikini pattern when Minato catches it. THE DOUBLE ENTENDREE IS TOO STRONG, KIDS. Minato is clearly scared of being dumped by him like he was dumped by Fuu, but it's almost like the author tries to hint that Masaki being into women has something to do with Minato’s insecurity. Y’all may think Minato was actually not that affected by it, but after he left the dojo, he did everything robotically and had a restless night, with the mascot that Masaki gave him appearing in his dreams all the while.

The next afternoon, Minato goes to the shrine to return Masaki’s powder container, which he had accidentally brought home with him, and then the whole misunderstanding about Masaki being dead happens. When Minato returns in the evening, Masaki’s tsurune sounds like a funeral march to him. He finds Masaki in nousha clothing and two shots short of achieving ten thousand, and thinks that the scene as a whole looks just like a skillful stage production. He’s also oddly fixated on Masaki’s “exposed skin” and “fascinating profile”.

It’s here that Minato shows the first signs of selfishness towards Masaki. One would think that being excessively cared for by Seiya would mean that he’d be more of a free-spirited person, and his discomfort at Seiya’s meddling might seem like a sign of that. And indeed, Minato is like that with everyone else, except Masaki.

With Masaki, he’s the greediest little bitch.

He starts begging that the night would never end. He literally wishes that time would stop so that he could be there with Masaki forever. Like, screw his dad, screw Seiya, screw the entire rest of his life; he just wants Masaki to remain there.

Masaki was, of course, oblivious to this. He decides to recreate a scene from Zen in the Art of Archery that he had once mentioned to Minato with his last two shots. He lights up sage and positions it at the target bank, and after he shoots, he thanks Minato and says he has no more regrets. This makes Minato feel like he might disappear at any moment, and that’s when we get the iconic “don’t pass on” scene.

I must point out that one of the things I find really interesting in character dynamics is when a character has set rules of conduct and ideals for themselves but they break all of them willingly for the sake of only one other character, and that’s exactly what happens between these two. This trope is used by the author in a very obviously intentional way, which is even better.

Before Minato runs to Masaki and begs him not to leave, there’s a series of ironies to consider:

Minato dislikes being clingy with people on default.

He doesn’t do things like wishing upon stars, but if he were to, he’d wish for Masaki to stay with him.

The night before, Masaki had told him: “In the future, if you find someone that you like very much and you have to part ways with that person, will you give up without doing anything when that time comes just because you have no confidence? There are things people can’t beat no matter how much they wish to be strong. But if you do meet something that you truly don’t want to lose, it should be able to make you cling to it and shout.” Of course, Masaki had absolutely no idea that this “person” could be himself. Since he was talking about the future, he probably meant a lover.

Minato’s response is that he’d never so something so embarrassing in his life.

Yeah, boi played himself.

When Minato holds onto Masaki and shouts at him not to go anywhere, a lot is different from the anime version. For starters, since Masaki had his sleeve down, Minato basically shoved himself onto his bare chest. He also grabbed Masaki roughly with both hands, only, it’s not said where he grabbed. I............ kinda hope he didn’t grab the same spot as he did in the anime. ‘Cause. Well. Titty out.

Anyway. Minato was half-crying back there, and his words to Masaki during this moment are an absolute treasure and I have no idea why KyoAni would cut so much of it out, so here go his original lines:

“Are you a ghost? No, wait, a zombie? You’re so cold… But I’m never letting you go! You’re still my master, after all. Until the master passes on all his skills to the disciple, he has the responsibility to watch over him. No, wait, you don’t have to be my master. I just want you to stay here, Masa-san. If you’re a ghost, you can possess me; if you’re a vampire, I’ll give you my blood; and if you’re a zombie, huum, well… I’ll try to not mind even if you stink a little!”

Read this again. Digest it. Or at least try, because there’s just too much going on. Sure it’s all really damn funny, but Minato’s possessiveness is peaking here. He’s basically declaring that, supposing Masaki were actually a ghost, Minato wouldn’t let him rest and wouldn’t hand him over to even death itself. At first, Minato tries to argue that there should be still something chaining Masaki to the world of the living, since he hasn’t fulfilled his role as mentor yet. But then he thinks it over and decides that he wouldn’t want Masaki to leave him even after having taught him everything he knows. And the solutions that he comes up with are not only over-the-top but also risky.

“If you’re a ghost, you can possess me.” What the fuck, kid? “If you’re a vampire, I’ll give you my blood.” What the actual everloving fuck, kid?

So, yeah, he’s known Masaki for less than a week and is already willing to give his flesh and blood and overall control of his life for the sake of keeping him at a reachable distance. Bonus for actually picturing Masaki taking possession of his physical form and biting his neck to suck the life out of him.

How very straight.

The fact that Masaki’s jaw drops and he lets his bow fall to the floor is an icing on the cake. After he laughs his ass off once the misunderstanding is solved, he comments how “it’s really true that the sillier the kid is, the cuter” and then teases by asking if Minato was relieved that he wasn’t a ghost. This chapter section is just glorious.

Masaki then asks if Minato hadn’t been showing up because he thought he was a ghost, and Minato answers that he was merely doing as told after Masaki said that he shouldn’t come to the place. As if him being a ghost would stop this relentless little fucker. Masaki reveals that since Fuu had returned to the forest, he believed Minato should return to where he belonged as well. However, Minato had immediately come back to him, and he couldn’t do anything about that.

The two of them then went to collect the arrows and sat next to each other for their usual coffee time. Masaki explains that the powder container was a present from his grandfather, who was also his former master, and tells him the meaning behind his ten thousand shots. Yes, the one he opens up to about his grandfather being a good archer but a shitty teacher is Minato, not Tommy-sensei.

The thing is: his grandfather never asked if he liked archery. He simply thought that Masaki was fooling around because his form was messed up, so Masaki was cast away by him as someone who should be ignored due to apparently not taking archery seriously enough. The truth was that Masaki was actually trying his best, which is why he was so deeply hurt by his grandfather’s attitude that he quit archery and didn’t join the archery club in college. However, he undoubtedly loved it, and had always been thinking of ways of reconciling with his grandfather, but to no avail.

His grandfather was still estranged from him when he passed away, so Masaki came up with the idea of shooting ten thousand arrows in order to communicate with him from the other side. After he overcame target panic and fixed his form, he was able to become the exemplary archer that his grandfather wished he would be, so he set the task upon himself to get rid of his burdens and send his grandfather’s soul to rest.

No, KyoAni, it wasn’t for petty revenge against a dead person, omg.

It’s also clear by this point that Masaki and Minato are parallels of each other. Masaki, too, ended up returning to the forest, to his family’s shrine and to its dojo, and troublesome as it could be, he found himself unable to stop drawing the bow. While he talks about this to Minato, there’s a quick emphasis on the azaleas blooming nearby, and their flower language surely has something to do with the scene. Amongst other things, they mean “remembering your home with fondness or wishing to return to it”, “caring for yourself and your family”, “temperance and emotional evenness”, and “delicate passion”. All of this emphasizes how awesome a character Masaki is, and the way the anime ignores every single one of his best points is just appalling.

When Masaki finishes speaking, Minato decides to shoot at the targets instead of the close-range practice he had been doing until that point. Masaki lets him, and he goes as far as getting dressed up in the uniform in order to do it. He hits for the first time ever since his target panic started acting up, at the edge of the target. Overcome with nostalgia and feeling so happy that he could die, Minato shoots again and manages to hit the center. Minato then realizes how hungry he had been for the bow and realizes that there’s actually still hope for him as an archer. Masaki asks if he had also recovered, and he declares he’ll join the archery club.

After he joins and Masaki comes in as the coach, Seiya sees his reaction and asks Masaki if he owned a pet bird. Masaki is confused and answers no, because he really doesn’t. Minato, on the other hand, wants to run the fuck away because shit, Dad found out who he’d been with all those nights.

Training camp starts shortly after this, and it’s wildly different from the anime. Starting from the fact that the whole servant thing never happened. Masaki never made the boys serve the girls, never tried to coax them into doing his priest work, never wakes them up at 4am, never barges in on them taking a bath and never keeps them from practicing. I’m trying to figure out why KyoAni made him do all of this, not just because it wasn’t in the books, but also because literally none of that made any sense and served no purpose other than for painting Masaki as an irresponsible asshole.

In the novel’s training camp, the boys and the girls share the load. They all do the chores and are made to help around the shrine alongside practicing because they were staying there. They would cook their own meals, and Masaki and Tommy-sensei did them the favor of taking them to hot springs at some point. There was training aside from practice, and the kids would gather in the boys’ room right before sleep time simply to hang out.

Masaki had also done thorough research on the tournament results and tried to get the kids to reach them with a cautious and slow start. All the way up to this point, through the training camp and until the tournament, Masaki coaches the kids properly, giving really helpful tips, fixing their quirks and being overall a good observation example, never casting pressure on them and never poking his nose where he shouldn’t.

This is all very important to everyone, but above them, it is to Minato. He’s by far the one who benefits the most off the training, and Masaki’s careful supervision is everything he needs while his target panic isn’t cured.

There is some misplaced gay in the anime for the two of them in the training camp, though, as the scene of Masaki helping Minato get dressed doesn’t happen. But in the novel, the clothes Minato wore were Masaki’s, not his grandfather’s. And after the yawatashi, Minato comments on how it was an honor to serve as Masaki’s kaizoe.

Ren was introduced differently in the novel as well. In it, he went straight for Minato at first sight, played a prank on him, and then asked if he was “Minato-kun”. Meaning that Masaki gushed so much about Minato to his brother that he already knew exactly who Minato was and what he looked like. Minato almost doesn’t believe that Ren and Masaki are related because Ren seemed like he was mischievous in his younger years.

After Minato falls in the river getting back Nanao’s hat, Masaki lends him his jacket and takes him back to the shrine for a bath. Not because he was “stinking of river”, but because he wanted Minato to warm himself up as fast as possible. Minato argues that Seiya might worry if he doesn’t return soon, and Masaki tells him not to fret about it as he should prioritize his own health.

Once Minato is done, he meets with Masaki in the dining room and Masaki pours him hot coffee. Since he usually only ever saw Masaki in a hakama, Minato thinks it’s refreshing to have a glimpse on his everyday life.

Not just the warm drink but being there with Masaki makes Minato feel relieved and relaxed, and he opens up about maybe being a bother to everyone. Masaki brushes it off, and so, he ends up also venting about Seiya and how he acts like a meddlesome family member. He reveals that Seiya unintentionally pressures him into meeting his expectations, but what Minato thinks wouldn’t worry him often has the opposite effect. Masaki asks when he’d started acting that way, and Minato tells him about his car accident and that Seiya had witnessed it. Masaki suggests that Seiya might have earned his protectiveness from the event, but Minato feels like Seiya harbors some sort of guilt towards him. When he says he feels like repenting for it, and this leads to the two of them being little shits like they usually are around each other:

“‘Repenting’? I’m a Shinto priest, not Christian. I can perform exorcism rites and blessings, though.” “Eeeh, you don’t seem very holy, Masa-san.” “What did you say? Well, then do you want to ask Ren? Unlike me, he has some kind of ability to sense the supernatural, and he has a priest certificate anyway. But there may be surprises, so people with weak hearts should take caution.”

And then these two bastards just look at each other and start laughing.

Minato takes the opportunity to ask about what Masaki had been teaching Kaito and Masaki explains it.......... sort of differently than how he had done with Kaito:

Masa-san held Minato’s arm so lightly that he almost wasn’t touching him at all. His faintly transmitted body temperature was warm. And then, he let go of his arm just as gently as when he touched it. Minato desperately chased after the feeling left on his skin so he wouldn’t forget it.

The last sentence fucks me up immensely, fam. The rest goes on unlike in the anime too:

“Why do you think you’re the ochi for this time’s shooting order?” “To watch over my teammates’ backs?” “You’re on the right track; that’s half-correct. You have to protect Seiya’s back in particular.” “Me, protect Seiya?” “It’s a role that only you can take. I’m also happy to pass on the teachings that my master left to me. I can’t express the feeling of his palm with things like words and pictures. Thank you, Minato.”

This renders Minato speechless, and makes him think that he also can’t help but long for the day to come when he would pass the warmth of Masaki’s hand on to people who will share their wishes and ambitions with him.

After the sports tournament in which Seiya’s protective dad vibes started getting more serious, Minato went to the shrine to pray, wishing to be able to laugh the whole thing off but having no idea who to talk to about the topic. Masaki shows up as if on cue, just in time to also warn him not to lean too much to look into the shrine’s pond, or else he might fall down.

Turns out that Masaki had been taking lessons to improve his knowledge so that he’d be able to coach the kids better, and as he came back from it, he decided to review what he had learned in order not to forget it, and allowed Minato to stay and watch. Some of the material had to do with target panic, and he let Minato in on it as he shot.

Once he’s done, they have their usual canned coffee, since Masaki always has enough for himself and Minato for some reason. While drinking, Minato stares at Masaki’s hand because he’s just as straight as his arrows. He analyzes Masaki’s shooting as something like a forest in a tree, combining strength and generosity, and becomes disheartened at his own lack of skill.

Masaki offers to call Fuu upon hearing Minato sigh, and Minato dismisses it since he had been able to hear Fuu’s cry, and then comments to Masaki that he had seen a karp with an injured eye at the pond. Before Masaki had arrived, Minato had met Ren there and Ren had told him about a creepy legend involving the fish. Minato had heard from Masaki that Ren had more disposition than him to feel the supernatural, so he’s successfully freaked out, but Masaki reveals that the legend is Ren’s own invention as Ren is a writer of children’s literature in addition to being a photographer and illustrator.

Masaki laughs his ass off at the fact Minato actually believed in a scary story made up for little kids, and although Minato is utterly embarrassed, he’s also happy, since it feels like Masaki is laughing his worries away. After Masaki unknowingly serves as emotional support for Minato as always, Minato earns some determination and decides to properly question Seiya on the matter.

Even when he’s facing Seiya and his issues finally come to light, Minato is thinking about Masaki. When Minato opened up to Masaki for the first time, Masaki had commented on how painful it must have been for him. They weren’t words of pity or consolation, but they resonated with Minato because they were truthful which means Shuu has to step up his game and get on that level. To Minato, truthful things were good, and good things were beautiful, just like the tsurune that had captivated him in the forest. Therefore, Minato wanted to convey honest feelings with his own words to Seiya as well.

So, yeah, Masaki grows to be an ideal for Minato even outside of archery.

Along the course of all this, there’s a fair amount of hints of latent bisexuality other things about Minato that the anime hasn’t displayed, which come mostly in the form of narration, thoughts and silent actions. And unsurprisingly, they’re always related to Masaki:

Minato thinks Masaki’s eyes are bewitching.

He’s weak to Masaki’s smile.

He has mixed feelings when Masaki treats him like a child and when he sees Kaito acting familiar with Masaki.

He hates not being able to see Masaki. Above that, he really hates not having alone time with Masaki, specifically.

He often stares at Masaki and observes details in him, like how long his fingers are and how well-built his body is. The moment he started thinking that “those fingers had the ability to produce a beautiful tsurune”, I cry-laughed because this is just too much bullshit.

He actually, non-ironically sees sensuality in older men when they look suspicious of something, and he notices this in Ren. But the first thing he does is compare him to Masaki in that aspect and conclude that Masaki still has some childishness in him and that he’s gentler than Ren.

God help this boy. Ayano Kotoko is merciless.

I don’t even care if he’s never confirmed as bi, but I refuse to believe that Minato is heterosexual. But of course KyoAni isn’t making any of this clear. Of course.

Anyway, moving on. Episode 11 was a disgrace. Literally none of it happens in the novel.

What goes on after Minato settles things up with Seiya is that Masaki takes the boys to an equipment store to buy stuff for the club. There, Masaki and Minato have a talk about Masaki’s grandfather, and Minato finds out that he was actually a famous archer. Minato then becomes convinced of why Masaki was so into archery, as anyone would want to draw a bow having a master that great so near them, but Masaki retorts that he’d been holding a bow before even knowing anything very well (which brings us back to the fact he started archery when he was a toddler). As a matter of course, Masaki asks why Minato started archery, and Minato answers it was because he once watched a competition ten years before with his mother and never forgot it. He also comments that the tsurune of the archer that won and Masaki’s were exactly alike. And that’s where we get the second obvious hint that fate is one of this duo’s main elements.

After they’re done, Seiya and Masaki stay behind at a café to do accounting work and the other four left first. Minato remained outside while the others decided to go into a bookstore, and after a creepy encounter with an injured cat that reminded him of the injured fish, Minato was almost killed in a truck accident. A truck driver lost control of the wheel and the timbers that the truck was carrying flew out. Minato was almost fatally hit but Masaki saved him at the cost of a head injury that sent him straight to the hospital.

Minato and Seiya went with Masaki in the ambulance and waited outside the surgery room for him. Seiya was used to it after having gone through the same thing during Minato’s accident, so he remained calm, but Minato was a ball of nerves. His sense of reality was impaired, and he was asking himself what would happen if Masaki never woke up.

When Ren arrives, Minato apologizes for being the reason why Masaki was in such condition, but Ren dismisses him and tells the boys that they’re free to go home. Minato insists he'd stay, and the boys end up staying as well. Masaki regains consciousness not much after that, and asks about Minato immediately after finding out where he is.

Ren leaves to call a nurse, Seiya leaves to contact Tomio and Minato stays by Masaki’s bedside. Minato doesn’t know what to say; neither how to apologize nor how to thank Masaki. He had gotten nine stitches and seeing the bandage on his head caused Minato to feel pained.

Read this one more time, and then read the in-betweens. Masaki has earned himself a scar. Minato wasn’t taken away by the gods, but now the two of them are “separated from everyone else”.

While Minato is hanging his head in guilt and gripping the bedsheets, this dialogue ensues:

“What’s wrong, Minato? You’re making such an ugly face. I’m perfectly alive.” “Masa-san, if you had died, I’d have followed after you.” “Hey, hey, don’t say such disturbing things.” “I really mean it.” “Good grief.”

And what I love about this is that Minato says the literal most drastic shit that he’s thinking, out of fucking nowhere, for no goddamn reason. Neither thanking nor apologizing was quite right; he just had to declare that not even death can do them part, again.

Because fuck you, that’s why.

Masaki then stretched out his hand (which had an IV in it because why not add more pain to this clusterfuck) and ruffled Minato’s hair. Minato started crying, unable to stop even if he willed it, thinking to himself that he knew the weight of Masaki’s hand, and that it was still warm. He wanted to thank everyone who had helped Masaki survive, but could only keep crying until Ren and Seiya came back.

Next day at school, Minato was approached by a classmate who had heard rumors about the accident. When the boy mentions that Masaki would be publicly acknowledged for his deed and that he became a local hero, Minato glares daggers at him because he hates the idea of Masaki being treated as a martyr at the cost of almost throwing his life away to protect him.

Minato and Seiya were consoled by Tomio when he saw them, and Minato once again felt like crying his eyes out. He knew that Masaki would have laughed at him if he were there, but the tears were welling up in his eyes all the same.

When they all go visit Masaki after school, Masaki wastes no time to give the boys advice. He finishes by giving Minato a pep talk: “Enjoy the state of the draw. If you keep stretching to open left and right from the center line of your body, your arrow will naturally be let go of along with the triggering of your spirit. That’s what the ‘release’ is about. Drive target panic and delayed hold away.”

After that, Masaki told them that they didn’t have to visit him anymore, but Minato refused it and went to visit him every single day.

The day before the tournament, Minato went to the shrine. He saw the surrounding cherry trees without any flowers and thought about how different they were in comparison to when he and Masaki had first met. He then prayed for everyone in the club to to their best at the tournament and for Masaki to get better as fast as possible.

After lunch, Minato went to the lobby of the building by himself, still plagued by his anxiety over not knowing when his target panic could start up again. He then sees coffee in a vending machine and walks towards it “as if drawn to it”. He buys a can, drinks the contents, and when he’s throwng it away, he notices someone standing under the shadow of the pillar behind the vending machine. The person was drinking the same brand of coffee as Minato had drunk, and he got a deja-vu from the sight, so he peeked into the man’s face.

Really feeling the Red String of Fate vibes in this Chili’s once more, and it was, of course, all on purpose. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg in this chapter. As Minato’s eyes met with Masaki’s, they have their usual comedy routine:

“Masa-san!?” “S’up, Minato.” “Don’t you ‘s’up’ me!? Why are you here? Today’s not the day you’ll be discharged from the hospital, right?” “I escaped from the hospital. It’d be a bother if Tommy-sensei and the others hear about this, so keep quiet.” “‘Keep quiet’, you say…” “Yeah, yeah, you hide too, Minato.”

Masaki pulls Minato into the shadow of the pillar and explains that Ren helped him flee from the hospital by pretending to be him. On top of that, he was wearing a cap to hide the bandage around his head.

When Masaki expresses his wish to watch his students, Minato argues that they were recording the matches for him, but Masaki shoots back that he can’t see the details on camera and comments that Minato had forgotten to tighten his left pinky during the draw. He clarifies that the rubber dormouse was meant to train his muscles of the hand and help him control them, and asks if Minato had been worrying over something. As always, he hits jackpot, and also as always, Minato doesn’t hide it from him. Masaki then assures him that he’d shot well either way, that it was fine to be nervous and that it was okay not to hit. His attitude is too easygoing for Minato, who asks himself how Masaki can afford to be drinking coffee so carefreely at such a timing. It all makes his worries seem foolish, and he soon starts feeling better. Masaki informs him that he’d leave as soon as the last round ended and leaves Minato to fight back a smile before he goes back to the venue.

This scene is probably the one that makes most obvious how Masaki is always there for Minato, almost like it’s a rule. He’s conveniently placed at a distance where Minato can find him, is able to realize that Minato is distressed, and easily makes him feel better. It’s undebatably intentional from the author’s part.

Fast forward to right before the final round, Tomio gives the boys their headbands. They’re yellowish green, which is Minato’s assigned color, and that’s obviously intentional as well. Tomio calls them “treasure items” and reveals that they’d been “blessed by a certain priest”.

While the boys take on Kirisaki, Masaki is in the audience, wondering if Minato realizes how much he attracts those around him. He reminisces to his 10,000 shots, and how he had decided on that absurd number because he intended to let go of the bow permanently after he was done with them. He found extreme joy in archery, but he was tired of pursuing abstract goals with it, so he had decided to give it up. But on the night he completed the 10,000 shots, Minato had extended his hands to him, and his eyes had told Masaki that he could still draw his bow. Minato is described as the one who sent his smouldering soul into the wind, his “fire-starter”.

This is also valid for Minato, who is, at the very same moment, reflecting on how he wouldn’t have arrived at that place if he hadn’t heard Masaki’s tsurune on that night. He then has a long monologue about life and meetings, both between people and between humans and gods, all related to archery one way or another.

Right upon finishing the formalities, Minato looked at the audience, and found Masaki standing in the wind. As always, his eyes are drawn to him, and also as always, Masaki grins at him when spotted.

Later on, while Kazemai prepared for the regional tournament, Masaki was discharged from the hospital, and the first thing he and Minato do after meeting again is check on each other’s codition. Then, Minato reveals to Masaki that he and the boys had contacted an acquaintace of his grandfather’s and learned the words he had expressed about Masaki before dying. Masaki is confused, and Minato says that his grandfather had regretted becoming estranged from him. When Masaki argues that his grandfather would never say something so admirable, Minato tells him the words directly: “I look forward to Masaki becoming a fine archer”. Masaki almost cried right then, and so, the boys’ practice started. Masaki joined them, and I think it’s very obvious that he was going to shoot the target next to Minato’s.

There were also these sentences in the narration as Masaki holds back tears: “‘Fortune’ might have been a word that referred to all meetings. A gift named coincidence, as though someone had devised it.”

Of course someone fucking deviced it, Ayano. It was fucking fate. We fucking get it, Ayano. Fucking thank you. Unironically.