#my friend was like maybe it’s more clear in the manga but the show didn’t do a good job

[boardwalk-absurdist]

Gonna rewatch Fruits Basket soon so I can finally write that “Shigure is Bastard Man” essay for my friend who, after we finished watching the entire show, said, “I just don’t see how he’s a manipulative bastard. I mean, he’s an asshole, but I didn’t really get manipulative.” May also write some meta along the way about how Momiji is possibly the most mature and emotionally intelligent character in the whole damn show (aside from maybe Hanajima and Hatsuharu) and yes that includes every fucking adult.

Also I will absolutely cry. A lot.

[khalixvitae]

★Stitched ★

Idia Shroud x Reader | ~5k words

Warnings: none really??? Idia is self deprecating as usual. Allusions to book 6 lore but no spoilers. I leaned into Idia’s weird hybrid inferiority/superiority complex (he’s frustrating and annoying but that’s my wife). I wrote way more than I intended lmao.

Info: GN Reader with no physical descriptions. slowish burn, potential to be friends to lovers? No resolution in the end, a smattering of angst bc Idia is… well he’s himself. Heavily based on his vignettes, Home Screen idles, etc etc (this is for the detail oriented baddies and by that I mean I have capital A Autism and I’ve been fixated on him for months). I have been very into the idea of Idia making cosplays and props since becoming obsessed w his Halloween card, so uh. Yeah! There’s no mention of what the reader’s costume is, so it can be whoever you want! Only mentions that it’s from a manga so go wild! <3

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When Ortho Shroud suggested that you commission his brother to build a prop for your Halloween costume, you’d agreed enthusiastically. You’d even said something about how sure you were that it would look great- a compliment he’d pass on to his reclusive sibling. After all, Ortho was living(?) proof of Idia’s handiwork, so making a prop would be playing on easy mode. Ortho did neglect to mention that his brother was not taking commissions (and frankly never would if Idia had it his way), but it wouldn’t be that big of an issue, right?

Wrong. The second Idia’s phone pinged with a message from an unknown number, from your unknown number, he was convinced he was going to die.

You were lucky you’d stated your case all in one message- if you’d started with just a greeting and expected small talk he would’ve just preemptively blocked you to avoid your little side quest. Besides, who messaged someone so early in the morning? Another look at his phone through bleary eyes would show that it was actually 6 pm, but nonetheless! He’d just woken up, so it was still far too early for that kind of shameless extrovert behavior. At least your message was pretty concise; Ortho had passed along his number because you wanted to commission him, and you’d offer payment in exchange. As clear as that was, there was still a lot to unpack. Ortho’s intentions to find friends for him were clearly at play here, which would’ve ground his gears more if it all wasn’t so well meaning. But giving someone his number for a cosplay commission? That felt a little excessive! What kind of meet-cute scenario was this? And how on earth did you plan to pay for a custom piece anyway? Not that he would actually make it, of course, but hypothetically. He’d heard through the grapevine (read: Azul’s chattering during board game club meetings) that you had a part time gig at Monstro Lounge, but surely you wouldn’t be spending your limited in-game currency on a cosplay prop. While he thought it would be a stupid decision, he had to respect your dedication.

Hypothetically, of course.

Despite any reluctant interest he had in knowing what costume you were putting together, there was no way he’d actually agree to a commission. Besides, it was probably a lame request anyway. And who cares if you’d probably (definitely) look great in your costume? Certainly not Idia, no sir. And he totally didn’t think about how happy you’d be if he were to accept your commission (which he’d never do, of course), or how you’d look holding a piece of his unquestionably perfect work. No, he wouldn’t lie awake thinking about any of that at all. Thus he decided to ignore your text indefinitely- it’s not like he had his read receipts on or anything. He’d just kick back, work on his own nearly finished costume, and maybe even send a halfhearted “soz, just saw this :/” a day or two before Halloween night. No unnecessary and draining social interactions, and you wouldn’t have to be inevitably disappointed by… well, by him. His craftsmanship was S tier without a doubt, but he had a charisma stat of 4 at most. So he’d just let the message sit there. That would be easier for everyone involved.

Well, that was the plan. But as it turned out, Ortho would have none of it. When he’d caught wind that Idia hadn’t bothered to answer your message a whole day later, he’d immediately bombarded his big brother with endless arguments for your case. It was the usual string of points- that Idia would be happier if he had irl friends (as if), that his general quality of life would improve if he had some positive social interaction (no way!), and so on. At least he was sure Ortho’s logic processors were working as irritatingly well as ever, though Idia found his points far too idealistic. But logos wasn’t the way to go when talking Idia into something he had no interest in doing- it would have to be pathos all the way baby, appealing to what really made him tick. Unfortunately for him, Ortho knew that too.

“I need you to make a friend before you graduate,” he said abruptly, arms crossed like he was prepared for a one shot k.o. “Just one. I’m sorry I gave them your number without permission, but I really think this could be fun. You make the coolest stuff ever, and it’s your favorite holiday, so I thought it was a good opportunity for you to talk to someone.” He was silent for only a moment, as if deciding whether or not to deliver the final blow. “I just need to know my big brother will be okay after graduation. And I’d like to see you have fun every once and a while, you know.”

There it was, the absolute punch in the gut Idia was dreading. “You see me having fun all the time, Ortho. We hang out every day.” It was a weak argument and he knew it.

“Yeah and I love hanging out with you, but that’s different! And I know other people would love hanging out with you, too! You’re the coolest person ever, big bro.”

And how could he ever say no to that?

“What’s the costume anyway?” Idia muttered, pulling his lower lip between sharp teeth.

“I’m not sure. They told me it was someone from a manga they really like! You should ask them about it!” Ortho was absolutely beaming. Something in Idia’s chest ached.

His response to your message was short and simple. He asked what your inspiration would be, and what prop you were looking for. Price could be negotiated, etcetera.

You responded with astounding speed; it made him nauseous. At least you were courteous, though. You gave him a lot of info to say the least- more than he needed considering he was a fan of the same series. Ortho had definitely known that, but that was a complaint for some other time. He had to admit it was a good choice- and the character you had in mind would suit you well (he’d never put that in writing so long as he lived). You sent him all of your inspo pictures- purely from the manga, you explained, as the anime adaptation had changed some of the details and you had a strong preference- as well as any measurements he might need. Idia couldn’t resist pointing out that the anime had made a number of phenomenal aesthetic choices, which did start somewhat of a tangent. Before he knew it, he was caught in a back and forth with you. It was… easy. Way easier than he had expected. When you stopped replying he was even a little disheartened; that is until he realized it was nearly 4 am. It had been that long of a conversation? Something about that made him warm all over. He’d ignore it for the moment.

When you messaged him back the following morning he felt the same rush of… something wash over him. And so a tentative back and forth between you two began. Draft sketches and material concepts on his end, and what felt like endless amounts of praise from you. That’s not to say you never brought any criticism to the table. You were just as fickle as he was, it seemed- and he liked arguing with you. Whether it was about the commission or over some unrelated tangent (which the two of you frequently succumbed to), there was something uniquely fun about debating your shared interests.

Over the week or so leading up to Halloween, your communication persisted outside of his prop updates. You even sent him photos of Grim! It was hard to stomach that he’d hit it off so well with some normie, but if you were sending him cat photos and had some (several) based media takes he’d tolerate that discomfort. Part of him kept waiting for the other shoe to drop, of course. The exchange was transactional- after Ortho delivered the prop to you, there would be no need to keep socializing with him. He couldn’t imagine why you’d want to anyway. Speaking of transactions, the two of you hadn’t decided on a price point. Or rather whenever you’d ask, he pushed the question aside by saying he ‘wasn’t sure yet’. He’d given you a relative range, but no exact number. He felt pathetic, but part of him didn’t even want to charge you for it. It wasn’t like he needed the money anyway, and Ortho had been right about the whole arrangement entertaining him. He couldn’t believe he was going so soft. But it wasn’t entirely his fault! Every time he’d start to work up the nerve to give a number, you’d do something so nice it made his head hurt. Sometimes it was asking questions about his games, or sending him voice messages so you could keep the conversation going when you couldn’t text. You’d even asked to vc once or twice! He’d denied that request, but nonetheless you asked! How was he supposed to follow that up? “Oh haha yeah, it’ll be like half your last paycheck sry lmao”? He’d rather die! He knew what his work was worth (and frankly so did you), but the idea of charging you that amount was a little nauseating. How fucking lame could he get?

And the other shoe did drop eventually, just not in the way he’d expected. It came as a lull in your late night banter, followed by ‘[name] is typing…’ for quite some time. That totally didn’t make him want to puke, no way. The message that followed was as short as it was sweet.

“Hey, so ik it’s not really your scene, but I’m having a Halloween thing at Ramshackle. Idk if I’d call it a party but yk it’s something. I was wondering if you’d want to stop by? If not that’s totally cool!”

Idia stared at that message for a while. Shit. Of course there was no way he’d go, not a chance, but he couldn’t just say that could he? He’d rather be dropped headlong into Tartarus than to go to some gathering of extroverts and npcs when he could be collecting his Halloween login rewards. At the same time, giving you a resounding ‘fuck no’ sounded just as unpleasant. So he just sat there and stared for a while before doing what he did best: he gave some vague, noncommittal answer.

“uhhh idk. I don’t wanna intrude haha. plus i have a raid planned so idk if i could make it sry”.

It seemed like you got what he was trying to say; Idia was beginning to resent just how well you listened to him.

“Totally get it! Just thought I’d ask :)! Send pics of ur costume tho! I wanna see it all put together :D!”

He tossed his phone aside, opting to throw himself face down in his pillow with a resounding groan. Why did you have to be so considerate? You had to have known he’d reject that request, so why even ask? And why did it mean so much to him that you had? His moping was interrupted by Ortho knocking at the door. Idia just grunted in response, turning his head to face him.

“What’s the matter bro?” Ortho hovered in the doorway, glowing eyes keenly focused on Idia’s sprawled figure. At times like this, only illuminated by blue screens and his own artificial fire, he had an uncanny effect that was hard to shake.

Idia peeked at him through his flickering bangs, huffing a little and sending the flames askew. He subsequently realized that they were streaked with a mortifying shade of pink, one that made him want to scream into the pillow all over again. “Nothing, I’m good. What’s up?” It was obviously a lie and he wasn’t helping his case by rolling over to face the wall.

“I wanted to see if you were up for a few pvp rounds before I set up to charge for the night. But what’s going on? My scanners detect no signs of physical injury, but your vitals indicate distress. Do you need medical attention?” Idia didn’t have to turn around to know his ‘brother’ had hovered closer.

“It’s nothing. It’s stupid-,” he planted his face back into the pillow defeatedly. “It’s- [name] invited me to some stupid Halloween thing.” It was muffled, but that didn’t matter. There was no way Ortho wouldn’t hear him, so there was no need to sit up.

“They invited you to a party? That’s awesome! We could go together! I know, you could even give them the prop in person and see their costume completed!”

“I’m not going.”

“What? Why not? You’ve had so much fun talking to them and working on this commission! You should go see them!” Ortho was gearing up for another uphill battle, one Idia was once again going to resist him on.

“Because I don’t want to. You can go, I guess. I mean I’m sure you’re invited. That’s probably why they asked me, right? Because we’re a package deal? You’ll have more fun without me there to weigh you down. And anyway, I don’t wanna be around that many people. It’ll probably be total npc shit anyway.” He fell silent for a moment, the quiet whir of machine fans filling the air in his stead. Ortho didn’t try to interject.

“It’s not like- it’s not like they wanna see me anyway. Maybe my costume, I mean its S tier, but not me. And I can’t even get on a vc with them- I’d be seriously delusional if I thought I could hang out with them irl.”

“Hey, they totally want to see you. I mean, I’m sure they want to see your costume too. But I know they want to see you. If you don’t feel like going that's okay, but I don’t want you to miss out because you think their invitation wasn’t genuine.”

“Why? Like I know we get along fine over chat, and they’ve interacted with my tablet, but what if they see me irl and get all weirded out? ‘Oh, why is he blue all over? What’s with his teeth? Ewww’. I think I’ll pass.” He chewed at his sleeve, nervous over the mere prospect of facing you like that. “Even if they’ve seen me in passing like once, being up close is a whole other level.”

There was another long pause before Ortho spoke again. “They like your hair.”

“What?”

“They told me they like your hair. Like you said, they’ve seen you irl once or twice in passing. Should I play the recording for you?”

Idia felt a little conflicted about that. It felt a little invasive somehow. But a far less conflicted part of him (his massive ego) needed to hear it, and ultimately triumphed. “Yeah, fine. Go ahead.” He curbed his anxious enthusiasm by biting his sleeve even harder.

“Sure thing! Commencing playback.” There was the sudden background noise of hallway chatter, followed by your voice. “I think I saw your brother in the library yesterday. Well, I’m assuming it was him, he looked a lot like you. He’s got great hair, I’ve never seen anything like it. It must’ve taken forever to grow it out that long.”

There was a measured click as the clip came to a stop. “Recording ends. See? They don’t think you look weird. And there’s nothing else in my data logs to indicate that they would.”

“That’s… not exactly reassuring,” Idia muttered, watching as the mess of curls surrounding him flickered to life with the same rosy hues as before. Of course you wouldn’t tell Ortho that you thought he looked weird, that was his brother. But nevertheless, that was technically a compliment. A win was a win right?

“We should go, I think they’d love to see you there in person. We could even go super early to drop off the prop and leave before everyone else gets there,” Ortho chimed in, clearly trying to find some loophole in his brother’s anxiety. “And we can show off our costumes again.” There was another long pause.

“Fine. But just to drop it off.”

The remaining few days passed without incident, aside from Idia’s mounting anxieties (which he was sure would culminate in sudden death). Half dressed for the function, he sat on the edge of his bed and sent you photos of the final product. At the very least he was sure you’d like it- how could you not? He was a master craftsman after all. Your response came back at the typical lightning speed. He doubted he’d ever get used to that.

“Holy shit, it’s perfect??? Thank you so so much, I love it!! <3 did u sign it?”

“no lmao?? y?”

“Bc it’s your work??? And u should be proud of it and put ur name on it ??? Duh??? And bc I want you to ofc.”

Well that was certainly unexpected. He sat there for a minute and mulled it over- what could you possibly gain from him signing it? Did you really just want that, plain and simple? God you were fucking weird. It did feel kind of nice though. Nice enough for a smile to fight its way onto his face as he meandered back to his workstation. What was the harm in indulging that request?

“can do ig. i charge extra for autographs tho, soz. so ik ortho was gonna drop this off, but is it cool if i come? want to make sure it doesn’t need any adjustments etc yk”

Even though it took him a few (fifteen) minutes to type, it came out smoother than he’d expected. He’d consider it a win. Of course the piece didn’t need any adjusting, it was perfect and he knew it, but he had to justify his sudden appearance (mostly to himself).

“You can make it ??? Nice !!! Yeah ofc! Come over whenever :D !!! <3”

Hearts. Were you trying to kill him? And why did your texts read like the logs of a dating sim? Maybe he should lay off the otome games.

Getting fully into costume was a little more complicated than he’d anticipated. Combined with putting the finishing touches on Ortho’s matching specs and engraving an insignia onto your prop, there was no way the Shroud duo would arrive early. In fact, they’d be perfectly punctual (which Idia loathed). Halfway up the driveway to Ramshackle he started digging his heels into the dirt. Even from a distance he could see light streaming through the dingy windows, along with far too many figures crowded on the porch. Part of him wondered how many students such a dilapidated structure could support- he decided to drop that train of thought before he collapsed in your front yard. “Hey- maybe this is a bad idea. Even if they wanna see me-“

But it was too late. Cater was the first to spot the two, and immediately came down the stairs to greet them. Oh great, a boss level extrovert right off the bat? He had to get out of here!

“Hey hey! I didn’t expect to see you two here! Ooh, whatcha got there? And nice costumes! Did you make them yourself?” The redhead had a cup in one hand and his cellphone in the other, his head cocked as he observed the brothers.

Idia’s mouth just sort of stopped working, and the more questions Cater asked the more he wanted to dip out. Luckily Ortho was way better at navigating normie conversations.

“Hi Cater Diamond! [Name] invited us! And yes my brother made our costumes, aren’t they so cool? We’re kind of in a hurry though, we have the last piece of [Name]’s costume! Once we get it to them, we’ll have more time to talk.” He started to move past Cater, who was now more than ready to usher them through the throng of people in the foyer. Idia followed behind in amazement. Having Ortho around was such an op move.

“Oh nice! They should still be upstairs. Once they’re all set the three of you should come back down so I can snap your pics, ‘kay? You guys really went all out!” Cater slipped away easily before either brother could refuse his invitation. Well, Idia would just have to make sure the coast was clear when he decided to make his escape. The two made their way up the rickety staircase (seriously, how was this place still standing?) and onto the landing above. Your bedroom door was open so at the very least you were easy to locate. Before Idia would go any further he slipped on the pumpkin helmet, properly obscuring his face. That felt a little better- maybe he’d actually be able to look at you.

He lingered behind Ortho as if it would block him from your view (despite being much taller than the android model), knocking at the door frame twice. “Uh… hey. Can we come in?”

You looked up from your phone with a start, eyes widening as you took them in. “Idia? Wait, holy shit, you guys look sick.” You were fully in costume- had you been waiting for them? The way you said his name nearly made him keel over right then and there. “Like I knew they would be cool, but this is insane.” Your gaze flickered to the prop in his hands. “And that’s for me? Dude, it’s perfect. Seriously, thank you so much. I’m so glad you came.”

Idia didn’t process half of it, including you taking the prop from his grasp. You looked so good he felt lightheaded. Forget talking to you, now he was worried about remaining upright. “You- uh- yeah. You too,” he stammered weakly. You too? That didn’t make any sense! “I mean- I mean you look cool. And yeah this is for you.” Breathing in the helmet was a bit of a challenge and he couldn’t recall a time his throat had ever been drier. Ortho made no effort to intervene either- he was just watching, practically on standby mode as his brother made a fool of himself. Great. So much for his op cheat code.

He decided that looking anywhere but at you was his best option, his eyes scanning along the walls of your bedroom. It did look liveable, he’d give you that much. You even had a small shelf with a decently sized manga collection- considering how long you’d been there and the wages Monstro paid, he was kind of impressed. It was cute (you were cute). Your voice snapped him back out of his meditative scanning.

“Sorry there are so many people. I would’ve given you a heads up, but I had no idea it would be this crazy. People just started posting about it and,” you sighed. “So now like half the school is in my condemned house. Happy Halloween I guess? Deuce and Jack got a few of the other first years to preemptively agree to help with post party cleanup, so that’s nice.” You were still looking at him intently; Idia had to remind himself that you were checking out his costume and not him, of course. Unfortunately that didn’t stop the ends of his hair from flickering a dull but obvious pink. He knew it caught your attention, but you didn’t mention it. Instead you opted to change the subject entirely. By the Seven, how were you so good at this? “Anyway, I wanna hear all about your costumes. I got bits and pieces over messages but give me the rundown!”

Now that he could do.

Infodumping was an art form, and boy had Idia Shroud mastered it. From the materials he used to the classic inspo, he was more than happy to tell you all about his creations. It took him a little warming up, but he was quickly in full swing. Down to the sound effect rigging, he gave you a thorough explanation of his work. You seemed particularly delighted in how he and Ortho’s costumes were a matching pair, and of course that opened the floor for him to explain the intricacies of making new specs for his brother. In his excited haste, he’d even taken off the helmet to show you its interior. He didn’t notice for quite a while, nor did you make any mention of it. You just watched him, smiling and nodding attentively. By the time he picked up on just how greatly his range of vision had improved, it was far too late. With his peripheral unblocked he also realized that Ortho was gone. A wave of panic washed over him as he reassessed his surroundings. It was just the two of you, standing beyond the threshold of your bedroom, alone. How long had he been talking? And why were you looking at him with those big, starry eyes? He tried to tell you to stop staring, but no sound came out. Once again, Idia was convinced he was going to die.

You definitely caught onto his nervous demeanor- he wished you’d stop doing that. “Hey, so how much do I owe you?” You asked, your voice gentler than he’d realistically want it to be. Why were you being so nice to him? You had the prop already, so just kick him out! There was a whole party going on downstairs, yet here you were spending god only knows how long alone with him! Wasn’t that depressing?

“Nothing. Don’t worry about it. It wasn’t a hard ask, and only noobs care about production costs,” he muttered, his tone not entirely unkind but thoroughly dismissive nonetheless.

“Oh- are you sure? Idia, it’s really beautifully done. Even if it wasn’t hard to do, you still took the time to do it. I owe you something.”

“I could make another one in my sleep. Just take it,” he was planning his escape, but could see no easy way out besides just turning tail and running. “Sorry for uh- well, for keeping you up here for so long. You’ve got a party to get to.”

“I’ll take it if you’re sure. Thank you, seriously. And don’t apologize, I like talking to you. I know this really isn’t your scene, so I really appreciate you coming out tonight.” The way you looked at him had him itching to put the helmet back on in record time. Your next words would foil even that half baked plan and freeze him in place. “If you wanted, maybe you could come over and hang out sometime? It’s not normally this crowded, it’s usually just Grim and I. You’re welcome here whenever, and so is Ortho.”

Every turn of phrase felt like you were whittling a hole in his brain, which made it increasingly difficult to think straight. What angle were you trying to work here? Was it just to embarrass him? He couldn’t think of a single thing you could gain from befriending him, which frankly made your kindness even more concerning. You had him one friendly gesture away from counting five things he could see, four things he could touch, and so on in the middle of the function. “I’m gonna go find Ortho,” he stated, abruptly turning on his heel. Now was not the time to go nonverbal, but that was steadily where he was headed. And he’d been doing so well! He’d talked to you irl, face to face! You hadn’t even seemed grossed out- if anything it felt like the opposite (which he would ignore). But of course his brain had to catch up and ruin everything. No, he had to ruin everything, just like always. This fucking sucked. The pumpkin helmet was back on, and he wasn’t showing his face until he was safely back at Ignihyde.

“Oh! Yeah, of course. I’ll walk down with you.” You wasted no time following after him, still holding your new prop. The trip down the main staircase was a silent one, but the raucous sounds of the party below more than made up for it. You didn’t push him to speak, which he was begrudgingly grateful for.

It was no surprise that your arrival from upstairs with Idia in tow drew a little attention. Cater even snapped a photo, saying something about how “cammable” you two looked (Idia didn’t have the strength to wonder where that photo would end up). You handled your entrance to the gathering like a pro, deflecting all the attention away from him with a small smile. He really couldn’t decide whether or not he hated how considerate you were, but that would be a viable train of thought once he was safely in his own bedroom. As he slipped away to find Ortho, he heard you discussing your costume with those gathered at the bottom of the stairs. Working up the nerve to risk a look back, he saw you proudly showing off the piece he’d made for you. The way you were so eager to credit him for it was debilitating.

Part of him wondered what would happen if he walked back over and joined the crowd. He knew he didn’t belong there, of course, but hypothetically. He couldn’t stop himself from imagining what it would be like to stand there by your side for just a little longer, to even let people photograph the two of you together. You hadn’t seemed to mind it a moment before. But maybe you were just being nice. You were always so nice. Regardless these were only hypotheticals, and he was bound to ruin your time if he stayed any longer. He’d be doing you a favor by leaving, right?

Right. With one last look at you, he resolved to find Ortho and get the hell out while he could, for your sake and his own.

Maybe next year, then.

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Tag list: @v-anrouge @vtoriacore @phoneymedic @gum-gum-time @heatofmyexoheart (dm to be removed or added! <3)

Soz for not posting for a while (and this late as hell Halloween fic eek!), I obliterated my ankle about a week ago and have just been taking time to recover (that is a lie I’ve had to go to work every day on it but I digress!!!)

[cheesecakethots]

Ok but that chrollo/ johan ask got me thinking.... If you had to be kidnapped and spend the rest of your life with them, who'd you choose? Whose more bearable? Johan or chrollo??

Also i love your johan works. Dont feel discouragement from writing more on him becuz smtimes feels hard to write.

ahhh thank you!! no legit he is so hard to write, but i might reread monster soon to get my mind flowing

gosh in a totally fictional scenario where i wasn’t a lesbian, i have no clue.

(read more because this got long lol)

chrollo has the positives of he’s rich as shit, and wherever you stay is going to be glamorous. problem is you’ll probably have to move around a bunch, so you might be sticking to hotels. that might be so much more stressful, being kidnapped by this jackass and not even being able to settle in or get over jet lag before he tells you to pack your stuff, because he’s got another job on the other side of the world.

johan drifted from house to house during the show/manga, and didn’t stay put for long. if you’re with him during that time, well it’s going to be nothing compared to the lavish lifestyle chrollo has. but, you’re definitely more likely to be able to escape from johan than chrollo. he’ll probably account for that, so let it be known he’ll have an eye on you 99% of the time.

chrollo & johan give off that similar, gentlemanly manipulative vibe.

chrollo is definitely more overt with it, though. you could maybe call that a positive, because you’re less likely to fall for it, but it’s definitely more aggravating. you could be playing up a little, pushing him away, shouting, trying to run, and he’ll just say something like “hm. you’re right, dear. maybe we should visit your parents. i would certainly love to introduce myself to them properly.” and boom you shut your mouth at the clear threat in his otherwise monotone voice. i’m not sure if he’d actually go through with it, but neither are you. maybe don’t try and find out.

johan, on the other hand, is generally less willing to be so manipulative with you. i feel if he had a connection with someone other than anna for the first time in his life, someone who made him feel less of a monster and more whole, he wouldn’t want to treat them as he treats everyone else. manipulating you so overtly would make him feel like a monster again and definitely would hurt his feelings quite a bit.

buuut, that doesn’t mean he doesn’t do it at all.

johan has been manipulating and moulding people since he was a very young boy. it might be something he just sometimes does without realising. maybe he’ll mention things he knows you like in an effort to strike up conversations with you, and to make you like him more. maybe he’ll mention sad things that happened in your life, before he took you away. stuff like that, so nothing really on chrollo’s level. but, i would still say it sucks, because you’re more likely to become accepting and even… loving to a degree. you can’t help but feel a little bad for the guy.

i don’t think chrollo would physically punish you for running, as he wants to keep up that gentlemanly facade. don’t push him too far, you don’t want to see what’ll happen if he decides to drop it. he’s faster and stronger than you will ever be, so one second you could be shouting, screaming and hitting at the blank expression on his face, and the next cradling a broken wrist while he tuts and coos at you. don’t test it.

johan would NEVERRR physically hurt his darling. worst would be using maybe a needle to knock them out, but he’d feel bad about it. i don’t think he could bring himself to hurt your family or friends, either. i’m not even sure he’d punish a darling at all. maybe more locks, but he’d feel like the monster he believes he is if he tied you down to a bed to keep you from leaving. he might forcibly hold you close for a bit, just to keep himself grounded.

overall, i actually don’t know. johan seems like the better answer, but the idea of actually feeling bad for him or eventually loving him makes me feel >:/. not sure if i would be able to refrain from screaming into a pillow or punching myself unconscious if i had to deal with chrollo, though. (he’s a bastard. i love him).

i guess at least when johan gets you flowers or something you like, it’s for your enjoyment alone. when chrollo does it, sure, it’s nice to see you happy… but it’s mainly to make you like him a little more or prove to you (and himself) that you can be happy with him.

both are definitely better choices than illumi, though. fuck that.

[natsuki208]

I LOVE Eremika! But it does have its flaws.

I may not be the only Eremika shipper who still sees the slight problems about either their relationship or story around them in general, but I’m going to talk about it anyway.

(Warning! Slight spoilers for my friend)

There are two main problems people have with this ship - Eren barely showing signs that he loves Mikasa romantically and Mikasa’s love for Eren coming off as obsessive.

Yes, Eren may have shown less interest in Mikasa in the beginning but hey, he was still only a teen focussing heavily on his goals. At least starting in season 2, he stopped yelling at her whenever she tried to care for him, that’s a start. I’ll agree there should’ve been more signals that he grew some feelings for her overtime; especially before all the season 4 crap or maybe not go down that ‘evil’ path at all if you ask me.

As for Mikasa, *sigh* she had so much more potential to be MORE than just her love for Eren. Like, she’s already shown to be strong next to Levi, and some extra interactions with the other characters would’ve been nice as well (a lot of them were cut from the manga for the anime). I’d tone her obsession down a bit and maybe give her an actual goal in her life other than protect Eren, but still have those moments where she chats to him about their said futures.

One more thing: I think the biggest flaw that sets a lot of people off was they were first introduced living in the same house. This gave off that they were siblings at first, and that leaves a weird taste in my mouth if that makes sense. Why didn’t they just gradually reveal in the first episode that she’s not related to the Jaeger’s, like saying her last name or bringing up what happened that night at the cabin. Anything to make it more clear for the audience.

After all that, why do I still ship them? That’s the keyword: potential. Plus the brief moments they did had together before S4 really tug at my heartstrings, if only we could’ve seen that more along with a more believable transition of their romantic feelings for one another (mainly on Eren’s part). I love them a lot, but it’s wrong to ignore the flaws with their story and I’ll never tire of saying they deserved soo much better than what their story gave. 🗝🧣

(hopefully we can agree that S4 ruined them)

[harmlesspotato20]

BLLK | Nagi Seishiro - My girl.

❝┋volleyball player! kenma! fem! reader x football player! nagi seishiro

"See you later Chibi-chan!" Kuroo waved at you with a cat smile on his lips as you stared boredly at him and his rooster dark hair. You finished your volleyball practice from your high school club and was returning home when you met Kuroo.

Kuroo is your bother's bestfriend. He is the captain of his volleyball club. You were playing with your nintendo switch and had demon slayer manga pressed between your forearms. You unfortunately fell asleep on the bus back from the game.

Zelda series got you hooked on games. Your mates who see your everyday with switch and manga wonders how you have ridiculously clear skin being a gamer. Well Kenma genes run in you. You have social anxiety , never asked anyone for help.

Kuroo belived him being a kind angel , woke you up in the right stop and told you he will walk you home. But you walked towards a different street making him confused. He asked you how this is not Kenma's house once you both reached.

"It's my boyfriend's home.." you mumbled eyes on your game , your game character dodging all obstacles and moving forward. You and your boyfriend Nagi Seishiro , a football player just like you lazy and uninterested.

Maybe that's what pulled you both together. Your school Nekoma and their school's volleyball club had a match when Nekoma High went to their school. There , after you match , you had a manga on your lap while you played your game.

"Oh.. you remind me of my friend.." A manly voice said making you raise your head at the spoke voice meeting a purple haired male in his soccer fit. Your device beeped showing your character dead and points earner with a big written text that said GAME OVER and TRY AGAIN.

You just sighed and placed your headphone resting on your shoulder on your ears listening to songs to block out the voice. You had more time for break and didn't want to waste it now. "Oh come on.. don't do that." The purple haired guy pouted when someone called him out.

"Reo!" a noticeably tall teenager having have short white hair that leaves a V-shaped fringe in between his eyes called the guy who talked to you. "Nagi! look I found your soulmate!" the boy laughed calling his other friend.

The gray-colored eye boy looked at you who shrunk under your volleyball jersey , manga on your lap and switch in your hands. You both shared a solid 4 second eye contact which was broken by you. "y/n! let's go , break is over." your team called you out. 'y/n...' Nagi thought.

Nagi gulped , heart thumping. Not only he found someone who had same interests as him but also someone athletic. You muttered curses under your breath getting up and placing your things in your bag with a frown. "What's that look on your face? excited?" your friend teased.

"I don't know what you are talking about." you slumped and walked towards the court. "Say.. should we watch their game?" Reo suggested elbowing his friend with a smirk. Nagi said nothing just his eyes lingering on your for more than he intended to.

Those two watched as your team played against their school's team. The opposite team jumped and shot the ball at your team who's libero saved the ball in time. 'Why is gravity a thing in this world? gravity pisses me off' you made a annoyed face and jumped since you were a setter.

'If gravity didn't exist the ball wouldn't have fallen into out court' your grit your teeth touching the ball with your fingers and looked at the opposite team. "Man she sure seems happy to play.." Reo laughed sarcastically. Nagi's eye still at you as his mouth formed a :x shape looking at you. 

You saw the team's messed up defence and didn't set the ball to anyone but dumped into their court over the net. "A setter's dump!" player gasped seeing the ball hit the floor , your team gaining a point. Your team surprised by you , not being lazy thought you were sick.

Nagi''s and Reo's eyes widened at the stunt. "Man.. that was cool." Reo said seeing your team give you a banana which you had a grumpy face. "You must be low on carbs , eat a banana." your team captain smiled. You angrily munched on the fruit getting mad.

"Is it so weird that I worked hard for my friends!? is it that weird huh!?" you shouted , with banana still in your mouth stuffed in your cheeks looking like a cute hamster. Nagi looked away covering his face with his arms and ran away from the court.

Reo then discovered Nagi got shy and ran away flustered and teased him about that a lot. Blushing? Gross. Love? Yuck. Fortunately Reo playing a cupid , asked for your number. He discovered how you were socially anxious and didn't nag you more but said it was for his friend.

You looked at the white haired man with red face and :x expression and just gave him your number said your name. "Kenma y/n." you mumbled making him smile. "Man you have a great voice, you should talk more." he said.

And that's my friends the first meeting between two introverts. Birds of feather flock together right? Nagi took a good 2 months to gather courage and text you. Later you both became common friends by playing games.

Nagi confessed to you online when we you both were slaying ender dragon. "y/n if I kill this dragon without dying please date me!" he shouted , letting his tongue slip. He defeated the dragon but left the game too flustered and embarrassed to talk to you.

You then called him and told him you felt the same. You both went on a date in Minecraft , Nagi collected blocks for building home while you picked flowers to decorate flower. Nagi's minecraft character walked towards you and threw you a flower from his inventory. awww.

He would place his Minecraft bed next to yours. You both decided to meet offline and was too shy to talk to each other but soon got comfortable playing games , laughing and watching anime. You fell asleep on Nagi's lap that day making his heat almost burst out.

Now , presently your boyfriend and you were dating for 8 months , both in a happy healthy relationship. You walked in Nagi's house, since you had a spear key which he gave to you. His mom and dad were out for most of the time.

You looked at his pet cactus Choki and tapped on the pot twice like a greeting. Being tired and exhausted by the practice you looked at the house being lighted up meaning Nagi was home. You wanted nothing but to cuddle with him.

You removed your top left in sports bra feeling sweaty.  You placed your switch and bag on top of the table , walking towards Nagi's room holding your manga concentrated at the panels. You opened the door and looked up from the book as your eyes shot up wide and looked at your boyfriend who had shirt over his head.

"holy shit," you whispered dropping your manga and looked at Nagi's 8 packs. He's not huge, but symmetrical. Beautifully balanced. He was athletic and in proportion. Your drooled at him , Waist to hip ratio, waist to shoulder ratio, height and ring finger to index finger ratio everything.

As you look down he had boxers , above his V line flowing down. "Eh?" Nagi pulled the shirt over his head completely and looked over his shoulder too see his girlfriend standing near the door , nothing but with bra and shorts , manga on floor.

His eyes widened too, as blush forced from his neck to ears. But when he saw your red face , all his embarrassment went away as he felt more confident. "Oh hello , angel." he greeted walking towards you when you walked back. "Ack—" haired on your neck raised when he was near you.

Nagi raised his hand holding eye contact with you and pressed it against the hard door , locking it shut with you pressed against by your half naked boyfriend. "Hi Sei.." you mumbled only to be silenced by Nagi's lips pressed against yours.

He placed his hand under your head , holding you gently so you won't hit your head. Grasping your hips with his other hand, he sucked your bottom lip , you kissed him back with same pleasure. He sucked and occasionally pecked near you cupid's bow as his tubercles were on yours.  

You traced a random pattern on his chest using your finger tips. You both broke away for oxygen , both your faces red and gasping for air. He placed his head on your shoulder and mumbled in tired voice. "So.. sleepy, let's cuddle?" he asked pecking your nape.

"Yeah.." you shivered and closed your eyes , enjoying your boyfriend's warmth you both shared. Your fingers were intertwined into his long hair and clenching into a fist gently massing his scalp as he sighed in relaxation , feeling good when you did that.  

You kissed his forehead and he put you on the bed gently. You both laid on your sides. Seishiro wrapped his arm around you, providing a tight and secure embrace. He mumbled how he was exhausted practicing for nationals and both fell asleep in no time.

the end.  original source : my wattpad account. 

[caitchercatlady]

Ranking Asian Dramas of 2024: Winter

YouTube community posting is not going to be enough to share my opinions on dramas that I watched this year. Instead, I will share them here. Then, I realized that a Tumblr post won't be enough, but I still want to post here anyway. No matter, it's time for plan C: Posting in parts! What you will see first will be all of the dramas that aired in winter 2024 (some that aired in December of 2023 that finished in 2024, not to get confused). First, let me introduce you to my ranking system, which seems self explanatory.

Where’s the Replay Button?

They Got the Bag

Good For What it Was

Wanted to like but it has eh?

Why did I even Finish this?

With that noted, let's get started. (BTW, these will be in order of when they first aired.)

I Became the Lead in a BL Drama (Premiered Dec 24, end Jan 2nd; Where’s the replay button?)

If this wasn’t my favorite drama of the year, what was going to be? Episode one pulled me in for a loop by first making me think that this is going to be a shy child star and hot new celebrity trope when in reality the hot mysterious celebrity is actually a closeted fan of the child star whose dream just came true. Thankfully, he’s not saesang crazy because he remembers that he has a reputation to uphold, but that doesn’t make the romance any less cute whenever Yuichiro and Hajime are together. I honestly wished this series was longer, but I’ll rewatch it someday anyway.

Patisserie Mon (Premiered Jan 3; Wanted to like but it has eh?)

Truthfully, I found out Perth was in this, and I wanted to binge every moment that he was in it. To be fair, the side characters, minus FL’s friend, were the best part of the show. The love triangle ruined the main characters for me. Isamu for the win! That opening theme slaps hard AF though. I will play the whole thing from start to finish each episode. (I've been putting it on full blast since I found it on Spotify!) The ending was also very wholesome; Not gonna lie.

Intern in My Heart (Premiered Jan 10; They Got the Bag)

I was very worried that a show like this wouldn’t take a younger man/older woman romance seriously, but lo and behold, I was wrong! I was very happy that Ray and Rin (and the side characters as well) were treated like normal people in this drama. I mean, Ray is not normal because of his foresight powers, but when it comes to the romance, age didn’t play some comedic trope that made the two so awkward. It wasn’t awkward in the slightest as a matter of fact.

Blue Spring Ride Season 2 (Premiered Jan 19; Wanted to like but it has eh?)

I completely forgot that the first season aired in the last year, so that’s why I didn’t review the first season at that time. Admittedly, as a person who read both the manga and watched the anime, I was kinda thinking that events jumped around and about for this anime to have more drama in it. Maybe I’m misremembering and that the racing is just really fast. Honestly, maybe I preferred this because at least we get more story with Futaba and Kou. Now, onto Season 2. So we go from getting the boy to a stereotypical love triangle done always wrong all for the sake of “romantic trouble plot.” Also, minor student falls in love with adult teacher. Jesus, you would think that this drama would’ve cut that out, right? We’re in 2024 for god’s sake. Trying to finish this series for the sake of this post was absolutely painful to watch. It’s convincing me to not read the rest of the manga if it’s going to be like this, and that’s sad because the anime and manga had me in a heart grip.

Legend of Mermaid: Human Love (Premiered Jan 22; Wanted to like but it has eh?)

To be clear, I really didn’t want to watch this because the effects are pretty bad, especially the CGI fox demon and how goddamn slow the fight scenes are, but I was watching this as a part of my Mermaids in Asian dramas video, so I had to watch it from start to finish I absolutely regret it with how hokey it was. Oh well, at least I watched it on YouTube for free. Also, once you actually get into the movie, the plot intrigue really isn’t that bad. However, the mermaid concept as the title states, doesn’t exactly exist, so as a partial romance, the story falls flat, but as a mystery fantasy, it does better.

Happy Ending (Premiered Jan 25; They Got the Bag)

It was very cute for a short series. Very romantic at that. Kinda wished it was a full series for me to get into it more, but they got the bag for audiences to be attracted by it.

Anti-Reset (Premiered Feb 2; Good for What it Was)

Logically, this drama shouldn’t make sense, but I watched it because the premise reminded me of Absolute Boyfriend, the manga from the early 2000’s. The story was pretty predictable, which I expected from something like this, but Yi Ping and Ever 9 were just so cute together. If the show was just about the two of them and no side characters who try to break them apart, I would’ve had a more enjoyable experience than I already had. The ending broke my heart 100%. I thought I would be ready for what I was about to watch, but I was so wrong.

My Piggy Boss (Premiered Feb 2; Wanted to like but it has eh?)

This is Beauty and the Beast. Usually, you can’t make Beauty and the Beast boring, but somehow, they did. Xiao Zhu as Belle is like Emma Watson’s version of Belle, and I’m not happy to see it. I normally like stories where the jerk warms up to the female lead, but his change felt unwarranted because the FL was so unapologetically boring.

Kun in the Distant Ocean (Premiered Feb 11; Why Did I Even Finish This?)

Someone in the comments of MDL said that they believed the script to this movie was written by AI. After watching so many bad Chinese drama shows and movies this year, I wouldn’t be surprised anymore. Again, this was for the mermaid drama video, and movies like this make me regret the experiment in the first place. Everything about this movie felt wrong. Why was the character and plot all over the place?

[destinygoldenstar]

Which Love Triangle Is Worse? (Ninjago Vs Total Drama)

Hey, this is called a sponsor, right? For advertising something? Why don’t we try it? For a book?

Destiny’s Burden. An original story by yours truly.

The world of Destiny takes place a century into the future, where Earth and all its morally questionable implications were wiped out for the sake of a utopia.

The beloved savior, Mary Sue, rescued everyone from extinction by creating a world system that would change all of humanity.

Destiny, from all the Chosen One stories you’ve heard, is the dominant force of society. Those who’ve praised Mary Sue have been granted a loving world of kingdoms with the clearest right and wrong, and lives of great fortune. Those who’ve rejected her ideals were cursed to become the Dark Lords, the villains and the black of the stories that would come.

When certain children come of age, they are granted a destiny of their own, abilities of a Chosen One, and given clear stories for them to follow and train for. Stories that would bring peace to their wonderful world, against the Dark Lords who dare to try and change it.

A generation of Chosen Ones begins with Charlie Sue, the descendent of Mary Sue herself, being assigned the task of becoming the savior of the entire land after a group of Dark Lords steal power.

With the help of a few Chosen One friends, Charlie must train for the day he claims his place as Destiny’s savior.

And if Destiny really is that pleasing of a utopia.

An original fantasy action story by yours truly. Questions are free to be asked in messaging me, and followers of my blog will, in time, get a chance to beta read parts of the story and give much needed feedback to make this a great passion project. More info coming soon.

Now, onto the post.

You know, this was easier to decide than I thought.

I know, it didn’t sound like it would at first.

Okay, lets think of a better intro...

Both of these cartoons means quite a bit to me. 

I already talk about Total Drama on my blog quite a bit, to the point where I think some of my followers think I’m a TD blog. I’m not. There’s other stuff I talk about. In fact, there’s even more I could talk about with TD, and opinions I have yet to share. 

However, it is an absolute CRIME in my head that I have not talked about Ninjago as much as I do with TD. I mean, I made a Skybound review awhile back, which holds up on my opinions, but that’s about it.

Why do I say this? Well because, I have the LAMEST childhood over. I did not grow up with Total Drama. I watched it when covid hit and I had nothing better to do. I didn’t even watch Avatar The Last Airbender until last year, which is NUTS. 

I was more so into MLP as a kid, but I stopped watching it around Season 6, not through any puberty hit, but because my parents HATE me watching MLP. (For reasons I don’t get.) And I was also bullied heavily for liking MLP, so...

I also was obsessed with Minecraft Story Mode. (And I did make a few posts about it. They’re old, though.) It’s sad to me what happened to that series...

I also binge read the Sailor Moon manga, and I have all the books still. I watched the 90s show too, but... I honestly did not like it.

I would say, ‘what a surprise, the book is better’, but you’d be shocked to hear the Sailor Moon fandom say that the 90s anime is superior. For me... no.

Then I had one brief RWBY phase. And I mean BRIEF. In actuality, I don’t hardcore hate the show, but the one aspect of the show that prevents me from getting into it is it’s awful protagonists. I dunno, maybe I’ll make a post about that topic, because it’s astounding to me how bad their protagonists are.

And if you know me, I more so tend to have more to talk about when it comes to the flawed shows rather than shows with perfect writing. I said it over and over again, YES, I’ve watched ATLA, and Arcane. Those shows are amazing. Do you want me to praise those shows like the 7 billion other people on planet earth have?

Okay, I’m getting off track.

But there’s one show in my childhood that I distinctly remember being a part of my childhood more than any of these: That’s Ninjago.

I remember when I was around eight years old, and my sibling and I would tune in every week to watch an episode on Netflix. And I don’t even like the shows my sibling watch. But we both bonded with this show specifically. I think it has to do with this being the first show I’ve watched that wasn’t just one episode adventures. This was a show with substance, with story arcs that branch for multiple episodes, with characters to follow. Something I was not familiar with at the time.

Also Zane. Best boy. No I’m not taking criticism.

Before I even made my Tumblr account, I would write private essays talking about Ninjago. They’re terrible. 

I have huge memories of this show. I WANTED to talk about this show for awhile, but couldn’t figure out what to talk about.

And then in my creative writing class, we were talking about tropes we hated. 

My teacher said ‘the love triangle’. (I didn’t have that on my list, surprisingly)

It seemed like everyone, besides myself, hated the love triangle trope. And it seems very valid.

Like, just pick one love interest, darn it!

So that got me to make this post. Why a contest between these two shows?

Well they both have a love triangle that the majority of the fandom hates, they’re both known for destroying a relationship people liked, and they both take place in their Season Three.

And also, everyone hates these plotlines, so I wanted to ask myself, are they really that bad? More importantly, which is worse?

That’s what we’re here for.

Keep in mind, this is my POV on these plotlines. There’s obviously gonna be disagreement and I would love to hear your opinions when reblogging.

Also SPOILER WARNING FROM HERE ON OUT. IF YOU HAVE NOT WATCHED EITHER OF THESE SHOWS AND DON’T WANT TO BE SPOILED, DON’T CLICK ‘KEEP READING’. Watch the shows, and then come back.

But there’s one key factor that I think makes people lean to one argument:

Bias

My first claim is that it has to do with nostalgia of the show that springs our reactions.

When I watched the Ninjago love triangle as a kid, I was confused, cringing, and angry.

When I watched the Total Drama love triangle when I’m older, I was just like ‘okay, so we’re doing this.’

So obviously, there’s a great line of bias. As a kid, your brain hasn’t fully developed, so when bringing up a concept that isn’t black and white, and emotionally damaging, you’re gonna get heavy results. 

It was the same for when Zane died in Season Three. I was a kid. I was TICKED.

Looking back now, that was an expertly built up scene and one of the best payoffs to a character arc in the show. 

‘Animation is for babies’

And yet you have this:

“Are you working for Silco?”

“Fuck you”

-Arcane. (And that’s the LEAST adult thing in the show)

It’s the same thing with shipping.

Kids media are given the simplistic idea that romance is absolute. That you have one person destined for you and it will all work out.

A love triangle is... complicated, for kids heads.

So when another guy a character is in love with enters the picture, kids are gonna be confused and relatively act negative towards it. Despite the fact that love triangles... do actually exist in the real world?

Anyone remember Hamilton? Of course you do.

This is why we tend to hate Love Tringles in my eyes.

But I want to be as objective as possible with this, and discuss each storyline and their problems. So lets coin toss and decide which show we start with.

*Flips coin*

*Gets Heads*

Ninjago, it’s your lucky day.

I guess it’s fitting since I watched this show first.

Ninjago (Jay, Cole, and Nya Love Triangle)

Ninjago is a show produced by LEGO, which tells the story about a group of ninjas being assigned to face against the evils of the titular world. It’s also LEGOs biggest TV show to date.

This is more of an action superhero show than anything, and I think that’s gonna be the biggest difference here. Both shows I’m talking about have different priorities.

But I’m just focusing on the love triangle.

This plotline springs in its third season, Rebooted. It’s an eight episode long season, and the plotline gets introduced in the premiere briefly, and stays relevant all season between the three characters involved. It gets carried over to season four in that third episode, and it’s mentioned briefly in the premiere of season six. Then it ends.

People tend to hate this love triangle for a certain reason:

Why?

WHY was this love triangle needed?

I tried researching what was going on behind the scenes when the decision was made, but I could not find anything. I may be bad at research though.

My best guess is this:

Ninjago was originally supposed to end after Season Two: Legacy Of The Green Ninja. However, from the success of the show and insane toy sales, they made the decision to continue the story and make a third season. The task of continuing a story you designed to end is... daunting. For any writer.

So my biggest assumption on why they decided to do a love triangle was because they were still struggling to figure out what to do with the story of Ninjago from where they intended to end it.

I don’t hate Rebooted. Rebooted has its moments. But the season also carries a lot of lows, and this is one of them. It’s why I think most of the fandom sees this as a mid tier season overall, and pretty mixed.

So lets give context to the love before the season:

Right from the pilot episodes, one of the missions of the newly formed ninja team was to rescue the fire ninja Kai’s sister, Nya. 

And the lightning ninja, Jay, says this:

“We’re saving a girl? Is she hot?”

Right off the bat, and before they even met, the writers implied that Jay was gonna have a thing for Nya, the most major girl character in the entire show.

Jay and Nya properly meet in the second pilot episode after Kai rescues her, and they exchange their favorite colors. It so happens to be blue. Flirting.

Right off the bat, there is no hate each other until they love each other bull, there is no will they or will they won’t, from the moment they met, these two have had a thing for each other.

In fact, we don’t even really do a ‘will they or will they won’t’ with them, because the flirting carries over in the proper first season of the show.

So much so that their big milestone in their relationship is in Episode 8.

Yeah. That’s quick. It’s almost impressive.

Basically, that episode has Jay trying to impress Nya, Kai tricking him into giving his sister an allergy (like the great brother he is), and despite this, Nya accepting his proposal to go on a date. Unfortunately, Jay gets his finger pricked on a snake fang, and it’s worse sounding than it sounds when you know the context of the show. Wacky hijinks ensue when their secrets of their identities clash, with Jay being a nobody from a junkyard, and Nya being a Samurai ally to the ninja and wanting to keep that a secret because of some sexist bull. 

But by the end of the episode, they make up, confess their feelings, and become an official couple.

From there, there’s minimal drama between their relationship for the rest of Season One, and all of Season Two. It’s just been them flirting and praising each other, and being supportive. 

There was also an episode where an evil clone of Jay kisses Nya, and tells the real Jay about it, which makes Jay so mad that he essentially MURDERS him. 

Compared to Total Drama, and due to different show circumstances, this is actually a very tame thing to do.

So, Jay and Nya as a couple, pre-Rebooted, has had next to NO issues.

Now you might be wondering, if that’s the case, WHY IN THE NAME OF HECK did they decide to throw Cole into this? Where did he fit in all of this?

Well, I just rewatched all of Season One and Two for this post, and in terms of Cole and Nya interactions... there was nothing.

I’m not kidding. These two have not had ONE interaction with each other pre-Rebooted. The most is when Nya is talking to all the ninja, not Cole specifically.

So why would Nya suddenly have a thing for a guy she never talks to, when she has a good relationship with Jay?

And whatever you Total Drama people who haven’t watched Ninjago are thinking, it’s even dumber than that.

So in the premiere of Rebooted, they go to this sci-fi tour at the new Ninjago central tower... thing. The ninja are left doing plot stuff with Cyrus, and Nya is left to take care of kids and be a chaperon to a field trip. Little girls find this ‘perfect match’ machine, which is SUCH a real thing in the real world (sarcasm), and they make Nya try the machine.

And her perfect match is said to be Cole.

THAT is how Nya gets feelings for Cole.

Told you it was dumber than you think.

She did not gain feelings for Cole through any interaction with him, or other people pressuring the concept, or even her current boyfriend being any wrong to her. 

No.

It’s a freaking. MACHINE.

So right at the next time Nya is focused on, she is flirting with Cole. She mistakes him referring to the students with their kids, she gives him the looks, and she’s also holding hands with him.

Yeah. Nya is essentially CHEATING ON HER BOYFRIEND.

And again, she’s only doing this because a MACHINE SAID SO.

It’s not like she’s even trying to hide it, as Jay catches them. 

This makes Nya look horrendously unlikeable in the season, as you’d expect.

Why is this so OOC for her? Because there was ZERO prompting for this to happen. None. 

At most, you could say that Jay’s ego made her feel lesser of relevance, but to Ninjago’s credit, they do address that... IN SEASON SIX. 

So that’s not an excuse here. We’re talking about BEFORE Skybound.

Until Skybound, and I guess Tournament of Elements, Nya hasn’t had an issue with Jay’s ego. Again, in the episode where they hook up, she tells him that he doesn’t need to impress her. And they both agreed on such. 

In the third episode of Rebooted, it’s revealed that PIXAL is the AI of the machine that did all of this. Not only does she not apologize or tell Nya that she should let her heart decide, but she encourages the cheating and to dump Jay.

To be fair, I don’t really hold PIXAL accountable for the love triangle. At this point in the story, she’s just a robot doing her job, and knows little about showing humanity. And she just woke up from a near death experience, so yeah, I think it’s safe to say that she was numb when she told Nya this. PIXAL is really not trying to harm anybody, or say anything personal, she’s just saying what the program of the machine told her to say.

However, Jay hears PIXAL claim that Cole is Nya’s perfect match, explaining that Nya was indeed cheating on her, and it absolutely ENRAGES Jay.

So much so that when an unexpected Cole walks into the room, Jay physically tries to beat him up. 

They were friends before, and had some playful teasing in the first two seasons, but now it’s gone.

This is, deemed by many fans, one of the WORST scenes of the entire show.

I don’t blame them. I hate this scene too.

Even if you take the so called build up out, the scene is accompanied by awful dialogue and puns, so... there is NO ironically enjoying this either.

So from then on, Cole and Jay hate each other and spend the rest of the season fighting over Nya. To be fair, past this episode, it just turns into spiteful comments, and doesn’t escalate to any physical fighting until Season Four. 

And it’s not like they’re trying to kill each other. Quite the opposite in fact. (Jay does oblige in saving Cole from getting lost in space, no hesitation)

So yeah, this season, because of the love triangle, assassinated all three characters involved. And mind you, I LOVE Ninjago’s protagonists. I LOVE these characters. So when I say they’re OOC here, I mean it.

I already talked about Nya and how this was out of character for her. Because the sexist BS is the biggest pet peeve I have with Nya. Otherwise, she’s very compassionate, assertive, and a girlboss with a very strong character arc throughout the entire show.

Jay does have a right to be angry. After all, he was cheated on. But I think he’s mad at the wrong person. He never blames Nya for this at all, and only pins it on Cole as a heartless monster. That’s odd to me, because Nya cheated, and he SAW THAT. I thought he would yell at her at least once, but no, instead he demands she picks him like an egotist. That’s what someone possessive would do, and Jay has NEVER done this before.

Besides, if you think about it, he’s only mad because PIXAL, an AI, said he was no good for Nya. In that case, he should be mad at PIXAL too. Sure, I said that PIXAL couldn’t help it, but if I were Jay, yelling at her would be warranted. 

But nope. It’s all Cole’s fault, even though Cole was kind of a victim of circumstances.

Speaking of, why is Cole even into Nya?

Like I said, they haven’t talked before this. Cole has shown no signs of liking Nya, in fact, he seemed to support Jay and Nya as a couple. This is especially strange because Cole is the kind of character who knows exactly what he wants. If he was into Nya, he would’ve said so right away, especially before Jay even got with her.

The worst part is, the rest of the season only consists of Nya trying to decide who she likes, and the other two trying to fight for her affection. I don’t think they even mention the cheating after this. And again, it goes absolutely nowhere until Season Four, Episode Three.

In that episode, Jay and Cole are forced to fight each other by Clouse rigging the titular tournament. They’re actually not okay with this until Neuro, a guy who can read minds, escalates their rage. Then they’re okay with beating each other up with a ton of rage and grief towards each other. 

Before the match, Lloyd tells them to remember who the real enemy is. He is referring to Chen. This is the driving force to the rest of the fight.

In a fight scene that is actually visually pleasing, ngl, Cole and Jay go all out until a random point in the middle where Cole decides, ‘hey, you’re not my enemy, and I never even liked Nya, so yeah, I’ll just sacrifice myself so you can stay in the game, symbolizing how you won this love triangle.’

And they make up.

Despite the little effort and prompting beforehand. Like I said, they only did this because Lloyd said so. So why are they making up now if they hate each other so much?

And then any love life plotline with Cole completely drops, and Cole is left with no love interest until Master of the Mountain. Cole and Nya have some scenes together after this, but it’s clear that they’re just friends and it never goes anywhere. And in Skybound, the love triangle is just treated as the plot device that broke up Jay and Nya, as they get back together.

So did the love triangle really amount to anything besides that?

No.

You can wipe out this plotline entirely, and not much changes. The villains don’t take advantage of that specifically, and they forget about it afterwards, with no build up beforehand. 

Yeah you could argue Chen and Clouse took advantage of it, but they were after the ninja because they were spoiled the behind the scenes drama of their little game. They were threats, and an alliance, which their games try to discourage. So they would’ve set Cole and Jay up against each other anyway.

I fully understand why people hate this plotline, as it’s used for unnecessary drama. Unlike Total Drama, which uses titular DRAMA as a part of the plot’s torture, Ninjago has no reason for their drama to be unnecessary. This is not a torturous scenario Ninjago is living in, this is an action show!

I guess I can appreciate that Jay and Nya were able to recover from this and get back together. They even get married. My heart sings.

And at least in Ninjago, this plotline drama doesn’t seem to escalate, and people are able to forget about it.

Total Drama is a completely different story.

So lets talk about that.

Total Drama (Courtney, Gwen, and Duncan Love Triangle)

 I talked about Total Drama quite a bit on my blog already, so I’ll be brief.

Total Drama is about a group of teenagers being scammed onto a game show to try and become celebrities. Torture ensues. 

It’s far more treated like a reality show in cartoon form, I guess that’s the best way I can explain it.

Despite the fact that the love triangle here is HIGHLY loathed, even more so than Ninjago, and that I did headcanon posts of all three characters, I’ve avoided talking about the love triangle before this.

That fandom is THAT violent when it comes to this topic.

You will NEVER get the same POV about it.

So what I’m gonna say is guaranteed to tick off at least half of the people who read this.

PLEASE, just hear me out.

I don’t really ship either.

I haven’t been a hardcore Jaya fan either, but it’s the same mindset I gave to Duncney and Gwuncan. In the latter two’s case, it’s because they’re trapped under such awful circumstances, that being the show’s setting used to stress them out, screw up their heads, and torture them. And also the executives who forced this on the writers.

In the context of Total Drama’s writing staff, they didn’t want to do this either. They were forced to by the executives, who wanted to teach kids that breakups happen and you could end up with someone else.

That sounds like it has good intentions...

Until you find that the actual moral they delivered with the first breakup was that ‘If you break up with someone, the entire world will hate you. And you deserve it.’

I don’t think I need to tell you that’s a bad message.

To be fair, I’ve never been against either ship involved, so I don’t hate either.

But the canon circumstances?

OOF.

Let’s get this started:

So the first season of Total Drama is kind of a different story than with Ninjago.

Unlike Ninjago, which just had Jay and Nya as a couple and Cole was someone I assumed was ace (welcome to the club), all three people involved in the later love triangle had an established love interest and relationship.

Gwen, the third wheel and the Cole in this case, had a relationship with Trent, your typical guitar playing love interest and as generic of a love interest as you can get. But they get in a few shenanigans with Gwen being a stubborn loner, and Heather being Heather and doing one of my most hated story tropes, so they don’t get together until the end of the season. 

And then in season two, Trent gets his character assassinated and becomes possessive over Gwen, OVERLY so, and it causes Gwen to break up with him because as I said in previous posts, Gwen doesn’t know how to deal with relationships. 

And then the entire world treats Trent like a victim, that Gwen was the abusive one, and everyone hates Gwen.

And this is just the START of the Gwen social punching bag.

Then in season one, there was another relationship relevant to this topic: Duncan and Courtney.

They’re presented as your typical bad boy/good girl dynamic.

And they actually had fun chemistry. Ngl.

Duncan flirts with her, and Courtney tries to deny her feelings for him and masks it through lectures, claiming she hates his rude and rebellious behavior. Despite this, they keep having sexual tension, and they have a kiss in Episode 12.

You could say Ninjago has an advantage then, but keep in mind that Ninjago has 13 episodes in its season one, and Total Drama has 26 episodes. So I’d say they’re both impressive.

I would say that on an enjoyment standpoint, Duncan and Courtney, and Jay and Nya are very fun couples with fun chemistry. That’s why people liked them.

Jay and Nya however, barely had any drama going on in their relationship before Season Three.

Duncan and Courtney are a different story.

Like I said before, Courtney tried to deny her feelings for Duncan and masked it through lecturing her own love. It’s not until she finds out about Duncan’s more positive traits that she realizes she wants to be around him. Or rather, she can FIX him.

Yeah. Courtney is a fixer upper.

This is a trope in romance, and not a very good one if you ask me. Usually, I use the fixer upper to claim why a relationship would NOT work.

SHUT UP FROZEN.

And I don’t want to take this all out on Courtney and say she’s the problem. Duncan is a jerk as well. He’s a bully, he cares more about his image than being himself, and he also does stuff we’ll talk about in a minute. But in terms of the couple aspect, Courtney is the one raising the red flags in the beginning.

Now, I do think Courtney cares about Duncan and thinks she’s helping, but that is not the point. You can love your partner, and still abuse them.

Instead of these two working through their differences, Courtney just hands Duncan a list of things she wants to change about him, and is VERY strict about him following that. Prior to this, Duncan has annoyed her by trying to flirt with her, and she responds through lethal hits to the nuts, or physical punches, or mentally guilt tripping him. Prior to even that, she DITCHED him in his hour of her need for a million bucks.

Yeah, Total Drama LOVES romanticizing abusive relationships. That is a PROBLEM.

So Duncan, in his stress of the relationship, decides he doesn’t want anything to do with her anymore, and he votes her off the show, breaking them up.

And then he wins a million dollars, and they get back together.

“Now you’re saying that I’m a gold digger, but check my gleam up, hey go figure.” -Six

And then in Celebrity Manhunt, they publicly humiliate each other yet again, sue each other, and break up. So what was the point of them getting back together?

I heard people claim that in this same special, they have a kiss on the bus while bickering, so that means they’re back together.

If you want to see it that way?

Courtney did.

But let me ask you this: Where in this episode was that confirmed? Where did they agree to get back together?

Exactly.

Duncan never made it clear to Courtney that they weren’t back together in his mind. They had what you called a fling. Duncan does this. He is a horndog.

This is Duncan emotionally using Courtney for his own image. See, I told you Duncan wasn’t innocent in this.

Then there’s Gwen.

Unlike Cole and Nya, Duncan and Gwen actually DID have interactions pre-season three.

In season one, their dynamic started around the slasher episode, as they bonded over their shared enthusiasm for blood and gore in movies. They orchestrate the survival plan for the challenge, and betray each other, but I don’t think either of them took it that personally. They also helped each other/bickered in the castaway episode.

Their friendship properly starts in season two, where they have friendly interactions and help each other out in challenges. Gwen even picks Duncan first to be her teammate. 

It gets to a point where Trent, Gwen’s girlfriend at the time, gets jealous and thinks Gwen is hitting on Duncan. Gwen denies it and claims they’re friends, but no one believes her. In fact, when Gwen is sent to the Aftermath show and broken up with Trent, everyone accuses Gwen of dumping Trent for Duncan. Another reason why the show wants you to hate Gwen and absolutely no one else.

That is frustrating.

In the Celebrity Manhunt special, it’s revealed that Gwen DOES indeed have a crush on Duncan and just doesn’t want it to surface because he’s with Courtney. When she hears they broke up, she becomes interested again.

This is a year after season two, so we don’t know what happened that made Gwen change her mind.

Did Gwen and Duncan bond off screen?

That’s an even bigger possibility in this show than in Ninjago given the circumstances, but they never establish that they did.

Duncan quits Season Three at the start, but the producers track him down anyway. Before he returns, Courtney talks about how she misses him, and wants him back.

GWEN IS IN THESE SCENES BTW.

There’s also this exchange between Alejandro and Courtney in episode two that I noticed upon rewatch that I find interesting:

“Such witty remarks from such fiercely intelligent women. I’m both humbled and intrigued.”

“Nice try. But I’m with Duncan.”

“And what pity it is that you should give yourself to a quitter, who doesn’t deserve you.”

“That’s not-Duncan is-totally-you’re just- will someone hurry this camel up?!”

Obviously, Alejandro is playing her. He is the season’s bad guy after all. He’s taking advantage of the relationship strain. 

But consider how Courtney stutters when trying to defend Duncan? She’s trying to dodge any notion that Duncan would leave her. She thinks she’s doing the right thing, and can’t fathom the idea that she’s done something wrong. She doesn’t WANT to believe they’re broken up.

I’m shocked no one brings up this scene, actually.

During this, Gwen and Courtney, being on the same team, become friends from their shared hatred of Heather. Really, I think they just became friends because they’re the only non-simps, non-insane, non-horrible people on their team.

Friendships come from very unlikely places sometimes.

They didn’t really have any interactions before this. Cole and Jay had two whole seasons being on a team.

And then we get THE SCENE.

Duncan comes back, and immediately, Courtney lectures him for leaving her, then embraces him. He says that every time he ran from the cops, he thought of HER.

He’s staring at GWEN.

GWEN REALIZES THIS.

It brings her in a spiral of question late at night, and she’s clearly not thinking clearly. Are Duncan and Courtney a thing? Are they not? Does Courtney deserve him? Is Courtney a bad influence? Does Duncan like Gwen? Is Duncan interested in her?

Duncan shuts out any questions by coming into the bathroom to kiss her.

Thus, he cheats on Courtney with Gwen.

This can be interpreted in a lot of ways, but I think there’s two we can bring up.

One is the nature of Duncan’s character.

He is a horndog who cares about his image. He wants to be seen as a bad boy and not his true self. He wants is bad boy persona to be his true self. He wants validation from the people around him, so anyone who finds interest in that persona, he will bang. 

He’s not sweet good intended Nya. He’s quite the opposite.

But I don’t think it’s clear what his intention was. Was he trying to escape his situation with someone he trusts? Was he trying to spite Courtney? (I mean, All Stars implies that) Was he trying to start over with a new girl? Is he using Gwen? Does he actually love Gwen?

None of these questions get answered. We are given NO clear idea why Duncan did this. That’s why there’s such a division in perspective.

They could’ve at least had a confessional where Duncan explained his intent, whatever it was, but nope.

The other factor is the influence of the show.

This is the machine from Ninjago.

This is the PIXAL, if PIXAL was a sociopath.

The show fans assumed there was something going on with Duncan and Gwen, and they pressure them into trying to admit that being the truth. EVERYONE, throughout the year, pressure this. Geoff, Heather, fans, Chris, even Courtney herself. 

I talked about this in other posts, so I’ll be brief. The show screws up the morality of SEVERAL characters, to the point where they will do nasty stuff you wouldn't see them do in season one, where they were pure.

It’s very easy to assume that Gwen would only have feelings for Duncan because the show is pulling her strings.

But they don’t establish that either. That’s just my interpretation of it to try and make sense of this writing.

So take all of this with a grain of salt.

Gwen regrets the kiss afterwards, somewhat, well, only because afterwards Courtney goes on and on about how Duncan’s her boyfriend. I think Courtney’s just rubbing this in because she knew Gwen was crushing, and wanted to keep her away from him.

I guess you could say Courtney is Total Drama’s Tsundre.

That makes a lot more sense in a minute.

Gwen and Duncan discuss the matter of Gwen kissing Courtney’s boyfriend in a song. Duncan sings he has no regrets, and Gwen reminds him of Courtney. They both agree that they should stop with the secrets and come clean. They know what will happen, so it’s better to just tell the truth.

Then Duncan gets mauled by a bear, so they have to wait until after the challenge.

But then Alejandro figured it out and outs it to Courtney, ruining it.

Courtney IMMEDIATELY becomes bloodthirsty on Gwen, and next to EVERYONE joins Courtney in berating Gwen. (Except Cody)

This scene, alongside the Jay and Cole scuffle, hurts to watch.

But I will confess, I prefer to watch the Total Drama fallout scene, because I think the voice acting in the scene is better. You can feel Courtney’s heartbreak as she screams at her nonstop, and the sinister craziness awakening in her. And Gwen CRYING?! REGRETTING what she did?!

Come on, there’s at least SOME value here besides Cody getting a dub.

Even if it is little value besides Cody getting a dub.

From here on out, EVERYONE on the plane (Again, except Cody) HATE Gwen’s guts. They will not let her forget what she did. They will never give her a single iota of grey area besides ‘You suck Gwen, we hate you, the entire world hates you, and you deserve to be hated. Go jump off a plane and die so we can have a party about it.’

Gwen and Duncan even try to apologize, but no one takes it.

This is like Cole and Jay, only it’s not just Jay berating Cole, it’s EVERYONE.

I think I would’ve stopped watching Ninjago for years if that was the case, because that would’ve been PAINFUL to watch.

Courtney is the key factor of this hate club, and rallies everyone up to hate on Gwen and Duncan and try to remove them. Sierra, Heather, Tyler, Alejandro, who the last one WANTED to happen as he’s now in control of her. 

And unlike Jay, Courtney actually DOES berate the cheater for what they did. Deserved.

But then again, at least Jay doesn’t sing a song about trying to kill the other point of the triangle.

50/50.

To Courtney, this is all a serious betrayal. Gwen and Duncan were the only people Courtney allowed herself to open up to, and then they betray her. She has a right to be mad, but not a right to her actions driven by the madness.

For Gwen, Duncan is now the only person she can feel safe with. People tend to cling to the kindness in their life that’s the closest to them. This is why Gwen chooses to stay with Duncan and ignore all the hate she’s getting. She needs love in this moment. 

And then Duncan tries to play Alejandro by pretending to still be into Courtney. It’s an act, but still.

We never see on screen if Duncan explained himself and apologized to Gwen.

Ninjago had a whole season and three episodes worth of love triangle drama.

Total Drama only has three episodes.

And then it abruptly ends unconcluded. 

Courtney wanted to get revenge on Gwen by dumping her off the plane and making Duncan jealous of her.

Technically, she WON.

She gets Gwen out, and she, not intentionally, uses Scott to make Duncan jealous, which causes Gwen to leave him.

Sorry, getting ahead of myself.

Now lets address All Stars.

You could argue this focuses on the love triangle as well, and... kinda? But, All Stars seems to bail on EVERY plotline World Tour had. I have NO IDEA why this is, as unlike Rebooted, World Tour is a FAN FAVORITE SEASON. But they bailed on everything.

And it’s clear that the writers had no objective with giving the love triangle an ending. 

The season is more so focused on Courtney finding a new boyfriend in Scott, that she plans to use, Duncan being thrusted into a heroes position and wanting to be a bad guy again, and Gwen, once again, being hated by everybody around her.

Duncan and Gwen have NO romantic scenes together, and Gwen constantly shuts him out in favor of trying to make things right with Courtney. The girl she BETRAYED.

She also claims that Duncan was not Courtney’s boyfriend at the time, thus she didn’t do anything wrong...

I’m ASSUMING Duncan told Gwen that story to get her on his side. THAT would make sense of this phrase. BUT the writers never establish that.

And again, Duncan only gets jealous because Gwen’s ignoring him when he’s trying to help, and Courtney’s finding a new slave to give her the win. My assumption is that he’s trying to strike up a conversation with Gwen, considering Gwen wanted to make things right with Courtney, but again, no establishment that this is Duncan’s motive.

So Gwen gets fed up with that, and dumps Duncan, shutting him out of her life.

This scene is SO QUICK, that it feels like an afterthought. There’s no blowout, there’s no prompting, there’s no remorse for the action later besides one Duncan confessional, it’s just ‘okay, they’re broken up now, Gwuncan haters can chill the F out.’

Is that the motive? What about the people who liked Gwuncan as a concept and wanted to see more of them? 

Here’s a writing tip: If your fans don’t like an aspect of your story, DON’T bail out of it. WORK on it. MAKE IT BETTER.

In my series that I’m doing, Destiny’s Burden, a lot of my beta readers didn’t like one of my characters at first. They considered her insufferable, annoying, selfish, and stereotypical. But instead of writing that character out of the plot, I took the time to give that character development, and have them develop less of a spoiled personality. Now that character is a fan favorite among my beta readers.

THIS IS WHERE YOU DO THAT, BUT WITH THE LOVE TRIANGLE.

THIS IS WHERE YOU WRITE IT BETTER.

And then there’s the last part of this. Gwen and Courtney making up.

Unlike Tournament of Elements, which threw in the forgiveness at the last minute, Gwen actually puts in the effort beforehand to be friends with Courtney again. She tries REALLY hard actually.

Gosh, I CANNOT believe I’m saying ALL STARS did something better than THE TOURNMENT OF ELEMENTS. WHAT AM I ON?!

And, looking at the Cole and Jay tournament fight, and the Gwen and Courtney boxing match... this is the same scene.

This is literally the same scene, minus the sacrifice Ninjago had.

They duke it out, they beat each other, and they apologize in the middle, explaining that they never missed the girl/guy, they just missed each other, and they make up and become friends again.

I prefer the Ninjago scene though, because it’s way more visually pleasing, and the dialogue seems more sincere to me. Courtney and Gwen’s ‘apology’ is so corny I can’t-

So what is the ending of Total Drama’s love triangle? Courtney and Gwen become best friends in la la land, they trash over Duncan, and cheer when he’s thrown in jail.

And then Courtney betrays Gwen, making all the love and support Gwen got back meaningless. But hey, that’s not relevant to this topic.

Most people in the fandom claim that this was character assassination on all three characters. Just like I said with Ninjago. 

Here’s the thing: Total Drama has more episodes around this time. Ninjago didn’t. I know NOW it’s not a contest on which show had more episodes, but looking at it, Ninjago, in four seasons, had 44 episodes, and Total Drama, in four seasons, had 91.

This is a double edge sword, as on one hand Total Drama has more to work with. On the other, Total Drama has more to work with.

After all, like I said, we are given no clear motive for why Duncan even cheated, or didn’t tell Courtney that they weren’t together anymore. Gwen was cheated on technically in season one, and here she is doing that same emotional betrayal in season three to Courtney. And again, the whole ‘he wasn’t your boyfriend’.

There’s multiple instances where literally ONE MORE SCENE of ANY part of this plotline could’ve helped it make more sense. But no. The writers just really did not want to write this. Again, they were forced to. It shows.

But I will say this, unlike with Ninjago’s love triangle, the Total Drama love triangle is SEVERELY plot relevant. You CAN’T write it out.

Everyone says they should’ve just written it out... how? 

Every fanfic I’ve seen that’s written the love triangle out actively made the story less interesting, and gave the three characters involved nothing to do. 

The villains, again, take advantage of the situation to give themselves plot armor. This is how Alejandro uses Courtney. She would’ve never helped him otherwise. This is what makes Heather jealous, prompting the last quarter of World Tour. This is what season two’s Gwen bashing has built up to. This is what makes Gwen the biggest social punching bag of the entire show. This is what spawns Gwen to become a villainous vulture. This is the start of Duncan’s downfall, and his mental distress getting him behind bars later.

You NEED the love triangle to be a thing for the story to make any sense.

I’m sorry, but that’s what I see.

Which is Worse?

Now to answer the money question.

Which plotline is worse?

This is REALLY subjective. So take it with a grain of salt.

Both of these plotlines have huge issues. They are both dampers to their season three. 

Ninjago had a worse motive, a more pathetic fight, dragged on, and had no plot relevance whatsoever.

Total Drama had a more unlikeable cast participating, poor establishment of motive, ended way too quickly, and suffered from no ending.

I think we can both agree on the quality on both of these plotlines.

It really depends on which plotline I would prefer to watch a compilation of over and over again.

And in that sense...

I think I’d pick Total Drama as the better one.

This is for a few reasons: 

One is that Total Drama is a far more morally grey show, so its characters are far more morally grey than with Ninjago. It’s more believable that the TD characters would do stuff so spiteful towards each other, than the Ninjago characters. This makes it so that you can see everyone’s point of view, and the plotline becomes welcome for multiple interpretations. 

Two is that there was SOME build up to the cheating. You could say that it was bad build up, but at least it WAS build up. What build up was there in Ninjago? Oh yeah, none.

Three is that Total Drama’s plotline is actually plot relevant. If I have to watch the love triangle to watch World Tour, I’ll watch it. I won’t skip it. If I skip it, I know I’ll miss vital information for the rest of the story.

That said, though I say Ninjago is the worse plotline, it does have an advantage of having a better makeup scene, and an actual ending. And the characters were able to recover because of that.

Because, with all six of these characters, I DO like them all. I want the best for them (even if Duncan arguably doesn’t deserve it)

But let me know your thoughts. Would you agree? Disagree? Is there something I missed? Let me know.

[griffmstr]

There’s a lot of things I don’t really care for or maybe straight up dislike. As I get older I’ve tried to adopt the mindset that if you dislike something that’s fine, but you don’t have to preach about it because at the end of the day, who the fuck are you and why does anyone even care what you think?

However a very close friend of mine suggested I should watch a show coming up recently called Oshi no ko. A show about an idol who gets pregnant and the reincarnation of a huge fan of hers somehow becomes her child. The premise of this show has several things I dislike or at the very least I have several reservations on. The only things it had going for it was the writer previously did Kaguya sama which is one of my favorite comedies and the studio was doga kobo one of my favorite slice of live studios.

Everyone I asked about the show continued to say how great the manga was but nothing was very clear as to what made it so good. I came to the conclusion it’s gotta be one of those “you just gotta see it to understand” type of shows. The ones that are like an experience more so than just a good story or whatever. I wont give any examples as this is extremely subjective but I’m pretty sure most people have a show like this.

Needless to say everyone was right. Oshi no ko manages to be one of the best anime I’ve seen in a long time. It didn’t really subvert my expectations as the show is very much still about what the premise sets out but the show doesn’t sugar coat it’s themes but it also doesn’t bog you down with it. You’re not constantly having the themes I’d rather not see much of shoved down your throat. Instead it manages to be a show that pulls back the curtain so to speak on the entertainment industry. Despite the ludicrous plot it manages to be very grounded in reality.

Don’t listen to the troll reviews on MAL. If you like a well written drama ignore the premise. Just try the first episode. Take it at face value. It’s not for everyone, but it also shouldn’t be completely ignored just because of it’s synopsis.

Also I apologize again @megaboy335 promised neverland wasn’t for me but I really do enjoy this one.

[opuestocomplementario]

I find it so interesting how many of the issues with the things MAME write comes from a western perspective and how it is interpreted in their context. Let me explain. 

I think their biggest issue is not with the things she writes. Is with translation. I have thought about this before when I first got into BL and manga and anime and anything that comes from a different culture than mine. Most things I finded weird were actually explained and made sense in their designated context. One friend (and I also saw this) once said that when she watched anime back when she was younger there’s used to be subtitles with notes explaining some jokes the characters were saying or some food/name/anything that was from that culture that we would not be able to understand otherwise. And when I saw that I almost went crazy. Because I loved it. I loved having something on the screen that would explain things in that context. It made the whole thing more enjoyable and clear. 

I feel like that’s what is missing nowadays with a lot of media coming to us in those contexts. Like, I also wished American and British shows had it but that’s an impossible discussion. Non-English media has to be contextualized much more than English. And sometimes, it is not even possible to try to equalize them. So many things in non anglo languages don’t have correlatives or similarities in anglo languages. They can only have meaning in that context. So, what happens when a popular author in that context gets into an English context? You guessed. It would be a mess. Because most translations are not legal and most translators also don’t even care about making a good translation of said work. Or they can’t because of external reasons. 

This is not only about her work specifically. So many other shows come the wrong way to the international audience because of translation. And let’s be honest, most non english speakers also watch non english things with english-subtitles. So there are a lot of operations for a thing to come the exact way it was produced in the first place. And MAME is definitely one of them. Take the novel for example or the amount of issues with the subtitles in IQIYI. There were many things missing and things didn’t make sense, and others times the “actual” and original meaning was more powerful than the translated one. 

I don’t think English speakers or people that consume English translations actually understand the amount of simplicity said language has. Is actually insane. So yeah, maybe some of the things she write is wrong and fucked up and also many others shows and books are like that (English ones are not that healthy and happy and good, yk). But I believe that until I can get into the original stuff, all of my critics are “empty”. And I think of it with what others say. Because I didn't see how it was in the context and probably neither them. Sometimes I need knowledge in how some of those things work. Like seriously, so many, and I say so fucking many things in BL shows, coming from Asia have a lot of puns and word games that only a native would understand. International fans would definitely need a comment or two in that sense. 

Also, has anyone considered how the discourse in some of the usual topics are in Thailand? What do they think about it? Why only see the English interpretation and not others? People from other countries need to learn English to explain their non-English things. And try to make them understand why what the English ones thought was wrong, is not actually that bad in their country. This is seriously an issue.

Trying to push values and meanings to other cultures just because you have it is a problem. A historical one. So, this has no end. But we can still talk about it, right?

[skye-huntress]

Today, I wanted to write about something different. I got into Bocchi the Rock! a few weeks ago, mainly because I find the protagonist, Hitori AKA Bocchi, to be super relatable. Like her, I am also a dork with severe social anxiety who finds otherwise mundane activities for the average person to be extremely difficult. Where we differ is that she is apparently a guitar god, while I’m maybe somewhat decent at non-competitive video games (I suck at PvP). Music based stories aren’t something that particularly interest me but I think the main attraction of the show is watching Bocchi being thrown into all sorts of anxiety triggering situations, freaking out and then barely overcoming them.

It was one of the few shows I’ve watched recently where I had my queer shipper brain switched off. There was some queer rep with fellow band member Kita being completely infatuated with another band member, Ryo, but from the start I thought it unlikely to go anywhere. When the point of the show is a protagonist with zero social skills joining a band in a desperate attempt to gain popularity and fame, there’s little room for romance. That said, the last two or three episodes (9 to 11) have awakened my dormant shipper brain from its slumber, and I’m seeing signs pointing to something definitely going on between Bocchi and Kita. It’s been a few days since Episode 11, and my brain is not shutting up about it, so I feel a need to get the thoughts out there.

Just a disclaimer, I have not read any of the manga and will only be commenting on the show as I have interpreted it. I’m sure it goes without saying but I am obligated to warn you there are spoilers below the cut.

Kita and Ryo

I want to get this point out of the way first since I’ve seen one or two people comment on this. As I’ve already mentioned, Kita is explicitly attracted to Ryo, there is no room for ambiguity there. Would that make it less likely that Kita could develop feelings for someone else? I would say, not at all. It is entirely possible to develop feelings for more than one person at a time.

That said, looking at Kita’s behaviour towards Ryo, at no point did I ever see it going anywhere. Where Ryo is concerned, Kita acts more like a fanatical fangirl than a girl with a crush. I hesitate to even call them friends at this point since we have not seen any meaningful interaction between the two. Ryo has never even acknowledged or shown any interest in the other girl’s adoration as far as I can tell, and Kita hasn’t shown any effort to actually get to know Ryo beyond the idealised version she has in her head.

Kita and Bocchi

Where things are different with Bocchi is that Kita actually has shown a clear, unbiased interest in her, compared to how she is with Ryo. Rather than being blinded by first impressions, Bocchi is a mystery to those unfamiliar with her and it takes time and patience to really learn to understand her. Since Kita has been taking guitar lessons from her, she probably has had more one-on-one time with Bocchi than perhaps anyone else. Plus since they attend the same school, Kita gets to see Bocchi in a setting Nijika and Ryo can’t.

In the past few episodes, there’s evidence that Kita has gone through the effort to mostly understand Bocchi with some success. In episode 9, she was the only band member to sense Bocchi was being more melancholic than usual, while other two dismissed it as typical Bocchi behaviour. She was also the only band member who had actually thought of inviting Bocchi to do something over the summer holidays but didn’t think she would be comfortable around Kita’s other friends. When Bocchi ran away from her class’ cafe, Kita knew the places they needed to search for her. I’m just going to assume Kita’s own class didn’t need her present for their own festival project, but the possibility exists she excused herself to check on Bocchi, either out of concern or to see her in the maid outfit. She also saw right through Bocchi’s attempts to stall the band’s return to her class’ maid cafe.

The part that sticks with me the most is the application form for the Culture Festival that Bocchi filled in. It’s unlikely that Kita hadn’t already considered signing the band up for the festival herself, or at least asking the band if they want to do it. The only plausible explanation for why she would choose not to bring it up herself would be that she didn’t want to pressure Bocchi into doing something she might not want to do (the Kit-Aura is a mysterious and dangerous power not to be underestimated). Since Bocchi had filled out the application herself, that would have told Kita that Bocchi is in fact interested in playing at the festival for her own reasons and it was only her own anxieties and fears holding her back. It’s possible Kita also figured out that Bocchi was trying to get rid of her so she wouldn’t have to talk about the application, and I doubt it was just luck Kita found it in the trash after Bocchi had left for work.

It’s interesting to me that Kita initially tries to lie about why she turned in the application. Perhaps she thought it would soften the blow or that if Bocchi thought it was just an innocent mistake she wouldn’t judge Kita too harshly for it. Either way, it seems turning the application in on Bocchi’s behalf was the right call. And through her thoughts we hear the real reason why Kita really wanted the band to play at the festival. Sure, the exposure is good for the band, but what she really wants is for their peers at school to see how amazing and talented Bocchi is. It means so much to Kita that she actually went to Ryo for extra guitar lessons instead of taking up more of Bocchi’s time.

Words Unspoken

Those who’ve seen episode 11 know what this is about. Actually, it started in episode 10, when Kita had an unfinished thought about Bocchi before we cut to the scene where she asks Ryo for those extra lessons.

Then the next episode, during their last practice, Bocchi has her own unfinished thought about Kita and is almost about to say something before changing the topic. It’s possible she’s noticed some change in the way Kita played during practice, likely the result of Ryo’s lessons and maybe even Kita’s newfound determination. Even if we saw the actual practice, I probably wouldn’t be able to guess what Bocchi noticed so that is pure speculation.

Immediately following, Kita is about to say something to Bocchi, but stops herself before we find out what it is, and she definitely started blushing when it happened. It’s all just speculation on what she wanted to say, but I have no heterosexual explanation for this scene, and Kita is definitely not a heterosexual. If she was concerned that she might expose any deeper feelings for Bocchi, I could see a few reasons why she’d stop herself now. While Ryo hasn’t once responded to Kita fawning over her, if you were to confess similar feelings for Bocchi, you’ll definitely get one of her unique reactions, maybe even add to the Bocchi death counter. It wouldn’t be a good idea to spring something like that on her the day before their biggest performance yet. Besides, whatever Kita wanted to say, perhaps she is saving it for a better time and place, because whatever it is definitely seems very significant if we’re being teased with it two episodes in a row in the lead up to the finale.

Also, there’s this from the Opening:

That’s a smile and a blush on Kita’s face while she’s staring at Bocchi when she looks away. Once I saw it, I couldn’t unsee it.

There is definitely something going on between these two, and we’re definitely getting a heart-to-heart between them in the finale. I have more thoughts, too many thoughts, but I’ll leave it here and probably do a follow-up after the next episode.

[retrodaft]

What’s been happening and going to happen for the future

So first off just to clear the blog isn’t ending. I wanted to explain why things have been slow on the blog, lack of uploads, and posts.

Ever since September things started getting busy, I finally saved enough money to buy a iPad Air for drawing. And was excited to start to relearn to use a tablet( I used to do some digital art back in high school)

At the same time while I also had been going back to school ( adult education) to finish my certification cuz things were getting back to normal hahaha na this world still mess up but at least school was open. But then I had another problem, work.

I had been in retail for years, I like my job and my coworkers but it was becoming more stressful and demanding, with a pay rate that was low for this economy. I think we all know especially if you live in American how bad things have been getting with the growing inflation.

What also didn’t help you never leave on time ever. You’re shift done at 9:30 nope you are here intell 10 or even 11 pass. Being understaff and etc made me worried and so stressed. So I got a new job and finish school, cuz I had people on me about “it’s been years why aren’t you done yet?!” The pandemic HELLO.

By January I finished school which yayyyyyyy! And got a another job opportunity. There’s other things that had happened, trying to eat healthy, home issues, car problems, etc. I had TV to keep distracted but then I was changing my mind on what I wanted to watch.

This now goes into what will posting on the blog and thoughts on starwars.

I still like starwars love ya, but I don’t feel the same inspiration and excitement for the newest shows to come. Actually I was barely enjoying anything new from Starwars.

And please this is just my opinion, if you enjoy the sw shows that’s great. But for me everything that came out after mando season two was mediocre, ok or trash. It just wasn’t good, the story , the writing, animation or live action, the freaking editing jeez.

Maybe some of you already know but I don’t care for the bad batch, didn’t care for their introduction or much less for the show. Just didn’t like concept but still gave the first season a shot watch a couple times. Then sw fandom ..

The discourse in the fandom, some of y’all are wonderful in your art and I hope you keep pursuing it. And some of you are cursed, there were more clonest art and debating about sw shows in general, sometimes I wonder if some fans are even real or just bots. The changes to the canon or what even is the canon anymore? Jeez the arguments on canon. Or people putting all the trust into one person thinking they saved the franchise, yeah don’t count on that. Not to mention the weird raise of sexualizing of characters and real people (if you know,you know)

Over the year my attention went to other stuff, my friends got me into model kits it started first with transformers some years back but there weren’t many. But there’s plenty of gundams plus a new show with their first female lead, awesome soundtrack, and girlfriends ooh yes please.

Plus with Crunchyroll I’m able to finally watch some of the old anime’s I saw bits of as a kid. But now able watch the whole thing. Plus coming on the horizon a reimagining of a anime I haven’t seen sense freshmen year huh?!

SO there was a reimagining of Trigun if you haven’t heard please please go watch, I really want a part two please! It’s doing ok in the numbers, you can watch both the new one and the 1998 oh version on both Crunchyroll and Hulu. Watch both, there’s also a the original manga but unfortunately the publisher hasn’t reprint the manga so yeah it’s expensive to buy. BUT THERES HOPE right here on Tumblr you can read for free. But please to donate too cuz these fans are doing the work to translate.

Also NEW TRANSFORMERS MOVIE LETS GOOO, so yeah get ready cuz my art is changing again, I still would like to work on my starwars ocs still.

But there will be more Trigun fanart for sure, along with pics of my growing plant and model kit collection. Photography too, you can look at my toy photography I have done on instagram under the same name. There is gonna be cosplay work too, THANK YOU all for still being here,reading, thank you to all my followers!

It’s been a crazy last year let’s hope for a better one.

[ladytsunadehime]

What is your opinion on Tsunade's feeling for Jiraiya when they were young ? If it does not bother you, could you elaborate on how her feeling developped through times from the moment they met to his death against Pain.

How young are we talking Anon? (Again so late to the party 😭 lmao hopefully you are around. I horde asks and then never got to them when I disappeared into thin air.)

As children? Friends! With maybe some developing feelings~ but they we kids. 🤷‍♀️ they trust each other and loved each other and knew that they had each others backs!

Teens? Was their relationship COMPLICATED. Jealousy, favoritism, being mean to each other on purpose, etc, etc. but still the same faith and trust in each other.

I think that’s important to note. They (JiraTsu) had a whole lifetime together but always held onto the same faith and trust they have in each other. Always knew the other would be there for them until one of them died.

My favorite version of the Sannin is probably when they’re young adults, it’s the second war, and all that jazz. (Aka read I’m lazy to keep going haha) but this where I think personalities, life, love, and everything in between really starts to shine through. Tsunade and Jiraiya have been together on a team for AGES. There is something that just makes me go 🥹🥹🥹 thinking about them like this. They’re so young and “free” full of love and hope and all the dreams they want to complete and see one day.

The shit hits the fan- and I’m lazy so I’ll skip until we get got the Jiraiya and Tsunade we see in the manga/show.

They’re broken but the sharp edges arent so sharp with each other but they can make each other bleed a lot easier then they realize. At this point for them they have a very clear idea of the rules and games they play with each other. But still it’s filled with so much love. Everything they do is about that.

Like Jiraiya seeking out Tsunade to be the Hokage. He knew. That old frog man knew that she needed home. That Tsunade would be amazing as Hokage and that Konoha needed her. She didn’t just return because of Naruto but because of Jiraiya too.

Same with how Tsunade let Jiraiya leave for Ame. There was no stopping him and she couldn’t leave behind the village to fend for itself. It was a death sentence so she sent Jiraiya off in the only way she could because a love confession would of been to heavy knowing that he wouldn’t be returning.

Then for when Tsunade gets news of Jiraiya’s death- it confirmed what she already knew but hoped again all the gods it wouldn’t happen. He would of never left her unless it was death that took him. Tsunade in my opinion never got to properly grieve and that still tears me up today. She lost one of the people who knew her since childhood. Who loved her no matter what and stuck around/near/knew what she was doing no matter what.

And when their paths were finally settling, finally merging into something MORE life was cruel and took one of them away from the other. Because no matter what they would always be tied together in a way.

I will never shut up about JiraTsu I am sorry sksksksk.

[autumn-foxfire]

YELLING SCREAMING WAILING- ohhhhmygod, this!! Episode!! Chills! I came here for the Hawks stuff, stayed for the whole rest of the episode. I liked the additional segment with Toko at the start, I think they might’ve done some swapping and elaboration to make it clear “this is where he saw Hawks’s fire trail” since it might’ve been afterwards or a surprise in the manga? Or maybe I just feel that way because Toko didn’t verbally react in the manga. Also!! Baby Hawks acquired!!

(2) Rip to the “can I be a shining light?” line tho, they made it “can I cheer people up” making it VERY much sound like Endy gave him words of encouragement but evil grin they’re in for a surprise. I was expecting to see Hawks absolutely yeeted like a softball from Dabi’s flames but Hori’s manga’s always been dynamic, they have him stumbling around here, but OUCH THEY DID SO GOOD ON THAT SCENE THE LITTLE NOISES HE’S LETTING OUT THE FRANTIC REACHING BEHIND HIM TO GET RID OF THE FLAMES- (3) ITS SO GOOD I’M 😫😫😫🥺🥺🥺 oh yeah, that’s the whump we’ve been waiting for and it was delivered! And as expected, the redacted scene I totally forgot about was done through silent lip movement. Kinda winced from the hardcore pain in Dabi’s voice because I recalled the ahem, gaslighting Dabi loved him sequel war, but it’s fine, it’s all fine. We’re not going back there I THINK. Excited for more whump and bird bros next episode! He gets head bonked whooo!! 🙌 and princess carried

While I agreed with the last anon on the subject it was a shame they got rid of Hawks seemingly not make any sounds when he was on fire because of the implications it had for Hawks character (combine that with the flashback to Hawks childhood being picked up by the HPSC and it makes a helluva sad realisation), I also did feel my heart tug watching him desperately try to put out the flames on his back T-T

I'm disappointed they took away the "can I be a shining light" part as that has a much different implication than "can I make people happy" as it plays off the actions Hawks just committed to save the people and how that wouldn't be seen as "shining" in their eyes.

Personally, I didn't really hear "pain" in Dabi's voice. I think the anime did very well in painting him to be the asshole who never cared, that grin on his face while maiming Hawks was terrifying (and great). I'm glad that the anime didn't cut out any parts of the fight that showed Dabi didn't care as much as he acted like he did.

Hawks pointing out how he could have killed his friend, how he never corrected Twice on the fact he was at fault for trusting Hawks, all of it showing us the asshole Dabi is in manga.

[m1ckeyb3rry]

Honestly I always thought the LN character choices were really random LMAO except for maybe the first two but I mean those just have all the main characters in there so…I could definitely see them sneaking kurona in there too because of all the promo they’ve kinda been doing for him?? Apparently they also choose based off popularity/who people vote for via like a hashtag on twitter/X too (apparently Barou’s addition was advocated for by the novelist/the person who writes out the LN story via main authors instruction or something)

But FR!! Even hair up Barou generally looks pretty good soooo

Hehe chatters unite!! o7

Omg horse show!!! How’d it go? And honestly for the sake of yourself and your writing I think that method is honestly sm more productive!! Like if you force yourself to write when you aren’t feeling it, it might come out worse because you’re writing in a kinda meh mindset as opposed to when you’re actually invested/interested!! So take it easy the real ones know you’re cooking up something good!! I’m also gonna take a wild guess and say you were being rushed on w***p*d LMAOO

Oooh very true…humidity makes it sm worse….manifesting South France dries up a bit ig?? LOL not sure how humid it is over there but I’d like to assume it’s not….awful….

LMAOOOO I’m excited honestly as long as he doesn’t end up 6 feet under anything’s fair game HAHA masterpieces take time don’t push yourself too hard!!

I literally lost it like WDYM??? Tbf it was one of my close friends who I was essentially “outed to” in terms of like like anime and games and manga and whatnot so I didn’t die BUT what gets me is that they themselves like using discord to communicate and organize sometimes and they touch less grass than me so I was like you did not just say that to me LMAOOO but BFB OTOYA KINNIE LMAOOOO so real I also generally keep it under covers like um I will not be exposing myself to the entire world!!!

HSHSHSSH OK IM GLAD HAHA I think for the sake of my own sanity I have the need to make sure I’m not writing down random shit too so that helps keep me in check LMAO

Also unrelated slightly but have you seen any of the latest chapter for the main manga?? I assume maybe not since you were touching grass LOL unfortunately our man is MIA but it was interesting

Longest Karasu work in existence…music to my ears LMAO balancing the scales and making up for like the billions of fics overcrowding the it*shi tags HAHAHA

Anyways going back to continue Barou’s LN!! Ok I’m glad I translated because I remember seeing those screenshots or clips floating around where it talked about Barou’s dad not being home because he was working and from that perspective I was a bit more sympathetic to his father but after reading I’m like hm he doesn’t really have any interest in being a dad at all…so I’m glad that was cleared up because I originally thought that to be the case then saw a snippet and I was like oh maybe his dad is a really good dad but just has to be really busy to help provide but now I’m like oh er nvm I was right ig….but Barou liking dinosaurs and predators is so on brand HAHAHAAH I almost lost it after reading how he fell with his teacher off the playset and bro really said “you asked for it” and walked away while his teacher broke like five bones

-Karasu anon

they definitely are so random HAHAH but if it’s based on popularity then tabieita + kurona would def make sense!! although i’m surprised that aryu made it before karasu if it really is based on that…like i didn’t even know aryu had fans LMAO 😭 the more you know ig

BONA FIDE CHATTERS UNION OVER HERE 😏🔥 the show went rlly well!! we got two firsts and we were the highest scoring pair in the entire show…we also finally got scores above 70 which was super exciting as that’s pretty hard to do especially given that the pony i’ve been riding as of late is on the older side and used to be wild so he’s not quite as fancy (although he is SOOO cute)!! overall v productive day i was very happy with how it went

i agree i think if my heart isn’t in a story it’s just not going to go well because i won’t be connected to the characters and to be honest if i’m not connected w the characters i can’t tell how they’d react in any given situation which is so integral to how i write that i literally can’t do it if i’m not into what i’m writing for 😭 surprisingly the one i’ve been most bothered abt is one that i only posted on here and ao3!! it was insane though because like i had a lot of free time so sometimes i’d update every day or every other day but then people got SO demanding?? like after three or four days i’d get asks like “when are you going to update??” HELLO IT’S NOT EVEN BEEN A WEEK YET i truly think that part of the reason why i lost motivation for that story is just how annoyed i got by that kinda thing…i feel bad sometimes because i got to be very short in my responses but i like to think i’m pretty nice for the most part and atp i was so over it 😫 at one point someone sent me an ask abt that story LITERALLY the day after someone else asked about it and i told them idk when i’ll update and please stop asking me abt it so i just said “do you want me to kill myself be honest” which looking back was a little unnecessary but i was so pressed 😔 at least people got the hint after that though HAHAHA the amt of asks i get abt it is much less now thankfully

PLSSS i decided not to make him drown after all but there is a swimming scene so you have that to look forward to 🤩 also as promised the update is here: we are officially over 12k words and karasu just graduated elementary school so he’s roughly 12 years old based on the japanese system LMAOO…truly this one will be a bit of a doozy but you’re so right it’s what the world needs to cancel out the sheer amount of works certain other characters the itoshi brothers get…we’re finally getting past the childhood part a bit which i’m excited abt because there’s only so much you can write abt kids being dumb before it begins to feel repetitive 😭 they truly don’t have much going on in their lives atp but now that karasu is entering middle school there will finally be a bit more drama

bfb otoya is me i am him 😰 i don’t even mind when people find out i don’t touch grass as much as they think i do but for sure i tend to not tell them right off the bat…and the fact that i write fanfiction is reserved for the elite circle ONLY and even then i just don’t mention it because like that’s just not smth the world needs to know abt me

i think i have!! it’s just more baby rin and then it cuts to him entering destroyer mode in the game right or is there more because that’s all i’ve seen…heartbroken that there were no karasu crumbs but the next epinagi chapter will be out soon i think so we will see him (and otoya) in full glory there at least 🤭 ironically rin’s backstory made me feel more empathetic for sae than it did elicit any emotions in me for rin…like bro was the father that stepped up at age 10 or smth tf 😭 also the way their dad led him away when he said he broke the toys was lowkey mad ominous…also the way rin has just been like this from the start 😰 before you could be like “okay he’s traumatized from sae that’s why he goes crazy on the field/during u20” but NO he genuinely was born that way LMAOAOA omg (jokes aside i’m sure there’s analysis to be made abt rin’s character w these few chapters but i don’t care enough abt him to be the one analyzing him like that…i’m sure there’s plenty of other accounts who’ll do it for me HAHA i have random side characters to obsess over in the meantime)

BAROU LN IS SO FUNNY BUT ALSO SO SAD pls the thing abt the teacher killed me he was such a sassy kid and for WHAT 😭 no i agree i saw snippets that said his dad had just had a heart attack and that was why he was so absent?? but no he actually just had no interest in being a parent 😓 BAROU WOULD NEVER THOUGH i just know he would be the number one dad in bllk especially because he knows exactly what not to do thanks to his own father

[stepswowdsen]

AyaTaka/AyaEne and KuroEne AU: Rambles 🖤💙❤️

Intro

AyaTaka/AyaEne AU ❤️💙

KuroEne and AyaEne AU 🖤💙

The idea just came to me this morning but I think Ayano pining over Takane/Ene could be really interesting to think about... It's been simmering in my brain.

I love yuri with my girls!!! 🥰✨

The idea of an AU where Ayano loves Takane/Ene and Kuroha is interested in Takane/Ene... Ooogh spicy

Hama's KagePro Fanarts

Hama (@/trashout) on Tumblr was a big fan-artist in KagePro's EN fandom back during 2013 - 2015 (KagePro's prime) who was a HUGE HaruTaka, KonoEne, and KuroEne fan that was obsessed with them.

They also had secondary multi-ships on the side! I was 12 in 2013, when I found their works and looked up to their arts sm.

Hama's KuroEne fanarts was one of the main reasons why I started shipping them in the first place... I'll show them sometime since they have them all still on their Tumblr

Hama's Ayano and Ene Fanart

AyaTaka/AyaEne AU: Ideas

My AyaTaka/AyaEne AU ideas are inspired by Hama's Ayano and Ene fanart... I love them both as platonic and ship 🥰❤️💙

HAMA'S AYATAKA/AYAENE... RAHHHHHHHHH

AyaTaka/AyaEne yuri where in the present day, Ene sees a picture frame of Ayano decorated with flowers, and goes like, “A... ya... no...” with a distraught wide eyed expression

The memories of a beloved friend start flooding back to her. I need Ayano and Takane/Ene to kiss

God cuz I wanted to come up with AyaTaka/AyaEne ideas on the side too, but Ayano being alive in the present day plot in canon-verse actually messes with sm of the canon

Shhhh let's just think about a Route where Ayano is alive

Cuz if Ayano is still alive, Shintaro has nothing to grieve over. Actually, Ig he still would. Cuz Haruka and Takane's deaths would still deeply affect him

But if Ayano is still alive, then the Original Trio (Ayano's foster siblings) has nothing to grieve over. Maybe things DO get tense between them (Ayano and her foster siblings) similar to Manga Route 2

Ig it could be a Route where Ayano dies and comes back with Favouring Eyes, similar to Manga Route 2, but she still gets the chance to know the rest of the Yuukei Quartet beforehand

Cuz wouldn't it be interesting if it was the opposite way around too and Shintaro and Ayano end up grieving Haruka and Takane's deaths. The sheer devastation… So ShinAya are still alive in the present day plot, but HaruTaka's deaths lead to the creation of Konoha, and Takane becoming Ene

Considering that Ene is just Takane with blue hair, I definitely feel like Ayano would recognize her lol

Kano would use his Eye Ability, Deceiving Eyes, to disguise himself as Ayano since they worked together. Ayano would skip school days to investigate the Snake of Clearing Eyes (Saeru) and Kano would take Ayano’s place so Kano (disguised as Ayano) would interact with the rest of the Yuukei Quartet (who didn’t know)

Like even Kano recognizes her (Ene) as Takane. It's not hard to put 2 and 2 together and realize that Ene is Takane lmfao

In a conversation with Takane, Ayano mentions how she feels that she isn't good enough for Shintaro.

Ayano... 😭

"No, I'm no good for him. He needs someone that's even more selfish than him, someone energetic to pull him along… All I do is just follow behind him all the time. I can't do anything…" - Ayano about Kisaragi Shintaro

Cuz it's so interesting to think about Ayano reacting to Ene, and Takane’s upbeat exterior as Ene being the complete opposite of what she was like 2 years ago. How Takane/Ene seemed to take her (Ayano)’s advice to heart, that Shintaro needs “a person who’s even more selfish than him, someone more energetic to pull him along…” So Ene acts cheerful and upbeat on purpose to cheer him up and string him along in the hopes that he opens up more and stops isolating himself in his loneliness

Just imagine the surprise Ayano gets at seeing Ene... “Is that you, Takane-chan...!?”

In Manga Route 2, Ayano never ends up meeting the rest of the Yuukei Quartet, so ShinAya don't know each other until they meet on the faithful day of August 15th

KuroEne and AyaEne AU: Ideas

Like RAHHHH you know what could also be spicy? KuroEne and AyaEne AU. The flavour…

Kuroha → Ene 🖤💛💙🐍📱

Ayano → Ene ❤️💙🧣📱

Ayano my poor 2nd wife 😭 Ayano saying “I’m not good enough for him (Shintaro)”

AyaTaka/AyaEne with Ayano's insecurity that “she is not good enough for Takane/Ene unlike Haruka,” believing that she just can't seem to match how HaruTaka bonded with each other so well, and the way Ene feels drawn to Konoha.

Ayano notices how easily flustered and embarrassed Ene gets around Konoha just like how Takane did with Haruka. Whenever she sees KonoEne together, her mind flashes back to memories of their school days together (the Yuukei Quartet), and HaruTaka, and she feels an ache in her chest. They're all things she notices right away. She wants their happy days together back…

Kuroha gets amused by Ayano’s determination and resolve to protect the Mekakushi Dan, including Ene, from him. Kuroha mocks her for her failures from 2 years ago, in failing to put a stop to him orchestrating Haruka and Takane’s deaths in the first place.

Kuroha: Despite your vow to put an end to the cycle of Tragedy... The truth is, “Favouring,” that you failed to protect anything at all.

Kuroha: You couldn't protect your friends, nor your family, nor the person you loved... (*)

Kuroha: To come back after your failure, is such a pathetic sight.

Kuroha: What do you even hope to achieve this time around? Do you really think that anything will change?

Kuroha: You couldn’t even stop me 2 years ago. You couldn’t even save them— Your friends— Haruka and Takane— No— Your precious Takane, 2 years ago. (*)

Notes:

Ayano's Eye Ability is Favouring Eyes (目をかける, Me wo Kakeru)

Kuroha's comment about "the person you loved" could be about Shintaro if you want to interpret it in a ShinAya shippy lenses, or Takane/Ene if you want to interpret it in an AyaTaka/AyaEne AU

Kuroha/Saeru refers to the Mekakushi Dan members by their Eye Abilities, with the exception of Marry, whom he calls “Queen” and “Master.” Since Marry is Azami's (his original Master's) granddaughter, and also because she is his new Master, as the current holder of the Queen Snake

KagePro Wiki:

"Ayano's eye ability allows her to project her and possibly others' thoughts and memories to other people, which she refers to as 'the power of caring'"

It's just that, in a Kuroha ship AU, he would refer to his S/O by name. In a KuroEne AU, Kuroha/Saeru calls her Ene, or in certain moments, by her real name, Takane

Like imagine Kuroha dropping the name “Takane” for the first time during their (KuroEne’s) intimate moments together… Omfg…

It’s funny cuz out of the Mekakushi Dan members, Kuroha/Saeru probably has the most tense and hostile relationship with Ayano due to him threatening/planning to kill her family and siblings.

AKDSKLSDKLDSKLL could you just imagine if KuroEne are still intimate together in this AU...

Ayano asks Ene what she feels about the Snake of Clearing Eyes, and Ene gets all fired up and determined like, “Yeah!!! I hate him!!! I hate his guts!!!” All pouty and huffy in tsundere fashion.

But then the visions start coming back to her and start flooding her memories and Ene blushes and looks away cuz she seriously can’t bring herself to tell her friend about the sex their intimate moments together. And Ayano just goes like (?) OvO all confused, thankfully blissfully unaware.

KuroEne and AyaEne AU: Kuroha being evil (as always)

In the context of a KuroEne and AyaEne AU, I think one of the most fucking evil things that Kuroha can do is to drop the mention of him knowing Ene better than anyone else, right to Ayano’s face

Kuroha/Saeru has a tense relationship with Ayano due to her actions setting back his plans in previous Routes (past timelines), so I wouldn’t put it past him. It seems like something he’d do.

Kuroha flaunts how he knows Ene, or really, Takane, and her desires intimately. “You could say I know her quite well… In more ways than one.”

And Ayano just gets mad at him like, “Not true…!” And Kuroha just smugly says, “Oh, but I do know.” And starts listing off his memories with Ene, and she realizes that he’s not bluffing cuz of how specific these recollections are

The idea of Kuroha/Saeru knowing her loved ones better than she does, due to the knowledge he carries, just hurts her heart

I'll put KagePro lore context (summarized from the KagePro wiki) under the cut if it helps

KagePro Lore: Context

I'll just put this if it's needed

Ayano's main songs:

Ayano's Theory of Happiness (Song #11)

Additional Memory (Song #16)

Ayano is Mekakushi Dan (Blindfold Gang) member no. 0, the one who founded the Mekakushi Dan in the first place.

Ayano wanted to be a good big sister to her foster siblings, Kido, Kano, and Seto, who were previously staying at an orphanage (due to being ostracized for being "strange," so because of their Eye Abilities) and taken into her family as her adoptive siblings.

She made the Mekakushi Dan so that they could play together as "heroes"

Ayano's Theory of Happiness:

Fan-translation by vgperson: (X)

Additional Memory:

Fan-translation by bluepenguin/EJ Translations: (X)

I'll link the songs with EN fan-translations (captions or subtitles) above!

Ayano falls in love with Shintaro, her classmate who was a burnt out gifted kid who was tired of life and didn't see the point of living. Ayano befriends him and tries to cheer him up by constantly making him origami paper cranes, even taping back his old ripped up test papers and making them into origami paper cranes for him.

Ayano and Shintaro eventually meet Haruka and Takane, their upper classmates by 1 year. This quartet (Haruka, Takane, Ayano, and Shintaro) is a friend/classmate group nicknamed the Yuukei (Evening/Sunset) Quartet.

Additional Memory (Summary)

I summarized the KagePro wiki lore to fact check my memory

Eventually, she finds out about Saeru (the Snake of Clearing Eyes) and his plan to create a new Medusa in the world, by planning to kill Haruka and Takane (her upper classmates and friends), and orchestrate their deaths, and killing all the current Eye Ability holders (which would also include killing her younger siblings)

In Ayano's Theory of Happiness, and Additional Memory, Ayano finds out about the Snake of Clearing Eyes’ plan to sacrifice her friends (ie. Haruka, Takane), and family, her foster siblings (ie. Kido, Seto, Kano).

(TW/CW: Mentions of suicide)

In most Routes, Ayano plans to commit suicide on the school rooftop on August 15th and enter the Kagerou Daze and gain the Eye Ability, Favouring Eyes, in order to prevent all the Eye Ability snakes from gathering in the real world.

She recognizes the futility of her plan in trying to stop Saeru, but decides to go through with it in the hopes of protecting everyone, even if she knows that her plan will only bring her misery, and how much it pains her to deny her love for Shintaro.

Because as Ayano understood it, Kuroha/Saeru’s plan was to create a new Medusa in the world (making Marry its new master) by killing all the current Eye Ability holders, so Ayano hoped to ruin his plans by dying on August 15th, entering the Kagerou Daze, getting an Eye Ability herself, and staying in there.

But then, she discovered her actions were for naught cuz he planned to force Marry to reset the world anyways, thus allowing him to “live forever” through the time loops.

After being trapped in the Kagerou Daze, Ayano comes to terms with having failed her original mission, and vows to be a spectator in the hopes of recording the events of the tragedy with her ability of showing memories to others, in the hopes that if she ever escapes, she can help her friends break out of the time loop.

Manga Route 2

Manga Route 2 has events that transpire differently from most Routes. In Manga Route 2, Seto brings Marry to Ayano's household, Ayano never meets the rest of the Yuukei Quartet (ie. Shintaro, Haruka, Takane) and becomes estranged from her foster siblings (ie. Kido, Kano, Seto) after she gets desperate and offers up killing Marry as a solution to stop Saeru's plans.

Unlike most Routes, Ayano isn't dead in the present day plot because she doesn't go through with her plan (Events of 2 years before the present)

[mookybear12404]

Something that I think that’s very interesting about Yor and Loid’s relationship is the fact that Yor didn’t NEED Loid the way he needed her. She CHOSE him. 

Like, Loid had twenty-four hours to get legally married to someone in order to prevent operation strix from going down the drain. Yor on the other hand? Yeah maybe being married brings a whole lot of extra security with it but like, it isn’t totally necessary. Based on what Loid wasn’t able to scrounge up on her, it looks like she has a pretty clean record and doesn’t have much heat on her. The only real reason she wanted a partner was so she could have someone to bring to the party so she could avoid an awkward situation and avoid having to tell her brother the truth. Even after Loid slipped up and called himself her husband instead of her boyfriend, she didn’t NEED to keep up with the ruse. She didn’t NEED to agree to legally marry this dude and live in his house and help raise his kid just for some extra insurance. 

She also 1) Doesn’t have a set deadline like Loid does for his mission. This marriage is pretty much permanent, (so long as she keeps working as an assassin), and also 2) She Isn’t a spy, and thus, isn’t trained in how to form and maintain fake relationships the way Loid is. She’s deadly in a fight but outside of that? It doesn’t seem like she has much in the way of training in that sort of stuff. 

I think in all honesty, her asking him to marry her came less from wanting a good cover, but more from just the fact she genuinely likes Loid and is able to see herself with him, even if just for a fake, totally platonic marriage

I think this specific line from Yor is pretty telling on how she feels: 

“He’s probably the only person who could accept me for who I am right now”

We see her having turmoil earlier in the show about the fact she never sees herself being able to get married, (though mostly for the fact she’s worried about her cover) 

She’s WEIRD, as the show has made very clear so far (and even more so in the manga). She’s socially awkward and obsessed with death. She’s strangely buff and good at self defense and has a really shady history, (Assassin work aside). She’s also considered to be “too old for marriage” and “not dressing up enough” by her coworkers.  The entire second episode however, we see Loid do nothing BUT accept her for who she is. 

Firstly, he stands up for her at the party, even when she’s certain that he’ll leave her when her friend brings up how suspicious her previous work was

And her fighting skills? Not only does he not judge her for that, but he makes a point of telling her how amazing she is for it

Anyways I think this whole post is just my way of saying that I think it’s really cool how much more agency Yor has in this relationship and how I think she chose Yor less because of a need for a cover (likes the way Loid does), but more because she genuinely cares for Loid and feels like he accepts her for who she is.