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julietasgf · 8 months ago

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BOA TARDE/ NOITE / DIA 😈 Your approval of Ma Plinth and Mrs. Everdeen's analysis has given me the delulu power of Coriolanus

I'm no longer afraid to throw up my headcanons and I'm making my notes for an upcoming post about Sejanus and the academy kids I think he might have an interesting platonic relationship with (my victims are Lysistrata, Io Jasper, Persephone Price, and Plup Harrington hahaha don't freaked out about that last one. I swear I can explain; it's a complicated issue and I don't think they are friends but I can perfectly see their parents forcing them to talk and them having a terribly tense relationship😭 but well that's for another day). Before I ramble on let me just say that I love talking to you Juli 💖 How was your first day of school? -if you want to talk about it-. I hope everything went well and I want to reminder that you are amazing

Once we've cleared that up LET'S GET STARTED!!!

I think after many posts we've come to something of a coherent conclusion about the flaws and virtues affecting the film adaptation of TBOSAS (The Plinths, the academy students, the tributes and the games, etc). Conclusion that is good to remember is based solely on our opinions, conclusion born of our perspectives - in case anyone other than us reads this. I have seen the reblogs…

There are only a few loose ends left because your explanation of the importance of the space of enunciation from which Suzanne published TBOSAS and why she chose a character like Coriolanus to star in that book was chef kiss. You put very well in words how context cuts across media - and I think it's well intuited why it's not surprising then that TBOSAS movie in the current landscape is so apolitical.

I also agree that the stories Suzanne tells depend on small details that give the reader a broader perspective and nuance of the actions/emotions/circumstances of her characters and that when the film undoes or modifies these the story is severely affected and is one of the many factors that lead to the storytelling of Coriolanus and Sejanus for example being so different in intent and message than their book namesakes

The one thing I did want to say before I go talking about fics is that one advantage the movie had over the book when it came to humanizing the tributes is that it happens outside of Coriolanus' head. It makes a lot of sense that in the book excluding Lucy Gray -and that on occasion. Not to forget how LGB admits at one point that during the day even in front of Coryo she ACTS and at night she finds it almost impossible to hide her fear so we don't really see much of her real vulnerability-we know so little of the tributes on a personal level and they feel like flat characters since Coriolanus doesn't really see them as people.

Sometimes he sees flashes of their humanidad but stops himself from trying to humanize them -and when he has those flashes he himself says he's acting like Sejanus to stop himself, which I think has very strong implications, Snow actually killed his humanity when he killed Sejanus 😭-but the main point is that in the movie the tributes are freed from Snow's perspective and can be their own people.

And yes Coral I think was one of the best changes. And I'll continue the eternal campaign of please people. Read the book if you want to say something about LGB or Sejanus.

(Oh boi. Your comment about fandom proving THG-TBOSAS critics, I won't discuss it because its a lurid subject but I'll just say you are so right and sadly there are many examples cof cof rue cof cof cof).

About the fics:

Well. The BairdPlinth series was GREAT AND SO SAD, LGB and Sejanus are awesome but have the worst taste in men 🥺 although yay for fics centered around platonic relationships 🙏🙏🙏💖💖💖

With "And they called it puppy love" I discovered a couple of very curious things:

I had already read that fic but the curious thing is not that. But apparently THAT was the FIRST TBOSAS FIC I kept in my BOOKMARKS!!!!

Ma, it was a cruel recommendation /j not joke but im not complaining 🥺🥺🥺🥺 I enjoyed it but my heart is broke, I can't say anything else cry.

And we come to: Paralell lines.

I read the first chapter. I haven't read the second one yet. Partly due to lack of time, partly because I don't want to finish it. I've been rereading the first chapter every chance I get with absolute devotion.

My brain chemistry was also forever changed and when I finish it I know it will go on my list of tbosas fanfics that changed my LIFE

Speaking of that list… I've look for 3 fic of my list for you <3

I have to say that in TBOSAS I've read fics with very varied themes, more varied than I usually read -and when you see you end up writing an omegaverse because something in your head clicks with Dr. Gaul and ah- but I have a thing for stories that fill in gaps (pre canon, post canon and divergences from canon my beloved) so that's what you'll mostly find in the 3 chosen ones

Btw I hadn't thought about it before but I think I also have a love for fics where a character study is done over other things hahaha so you'll find that too.

1. out, damned spot

Summary:

You’re not real, he thought – thought it hard, and hoped that it would be enough to send Sejanus packing. You’re a morphling hallucination.

And Sejanus crossed his arms, one hip canted at an insolent angle, as if to say: afraid not, soldier. - Okey. Buddie you don't know how much this fic ALTERED THE CHEMISTRY OF MY BRAIN. 99% of my fanfics are inspired in one way or another by this one, and I consider it canon in my head.

2. odi et amo

Summary:

He knows Coryo would never admit to remembering the rose garden. - This one is narrated by Sejanus!!!! And it's pre canon TBOSAS, <3 it centers around a little school project that Coriolanus, Sejanus and Livia are assigned to do together and I won't say more because it would be spoiler only that it has a brilliant and shocking ending. I screamed when I read it

3. The Haunting of Coriolanus Snow

Summary:

He would act, as he always did, as if this were the only time he had ever dreamed of Lucy Gray Baird and Sejanus Plinth.

The flowers, though — those were new. And despite his best efforts to exorcise this night from his memory, he spent more nights afterward than he cared to admit thinking about what to make of them. -

SNOWBAIRDPLINTH FOR WIN!!! THE SYMBOLISM IN THIS ONE IS WONDERFUL, THERE ARE SO MANY DETAILS THAT ADD TO THE STORYTELLING and I love it.

But well there are the recommendations, hope you like them. Tell me what you think pls 👉👈

Now serious mode.

I have a little rant to do and I need to hear your thoughts but concerning that post about the department… let's please talk about how the Plinth's influence and power in the Capitol is overestimated. LOOK I'm not saying they don't have any but it's not as much as people think 😭.

I blame -as usual- Coriolanus' narrative for this confusion. I think it's obvious that Coriolanus grants an all powerful ability (they are able to buy their way out of any problem) to the Plinth for two issues: 1. At the end of the day he is also a dumb 18 year old teenager who was overprotected by Tigris, and doesn't have a very clear vision of the adult world and how it works (in fact that's a detail that I love and obsess about his conversation with Strabo; it makes very clear that Coriolanus despite all his manipulation shit, is still an inexperienced kid)

The boy is projecting very badly on the Plinth. What I'm getting at is that Coriolanus in the book firmly believes that the Plinths "stole" the life of the Snows, (specifically that Sejanus "stole" the life that should be his); his parents are alive and in the munitions business, they have a lot of money, they have luxuries and influence, but this obsession with what the Snows should be, along with his contempt for the people of the district is what prevents him from being really objective about the true influence the Plinth's have, he only sees what in his head should be the Snow's all powerful position, epically ignoring that the Plinth are district and realistically have very limited influence within the Capitol (Crassus Snow alive and with money, could do MORE than Strabo will ever do with all the money in the world).

Just the area they live in tells you a lot, the Plinth's didn't make it to the Capitol and immediately moved to the Corso. They couldn't, they didn't have the social prestige that was needed, they literally have to wait for PEOPLE to BE THROWN OUT, for taxes to try and see if they get a chance to live among THE ELITE OF THE ELITE, and it even shows a lot in Strabo's investments; the man is helping to rebuild the Capitol not for love of the Capitol perse, but to get a quarter of the prestige that someone like Coriolanus Snow, born in the Capitol from an old family possesses just by existing. Literally when Sejanus gets in trouble Strabo's response is disproportionate, not because he wants to brag that he has money, but because his family would lost everything if he dont compensates exceedingly well.

Which I think brings up the big question: Strabo could have really saved Sejanus if he had found out in time?, Coriolanus thinks yes, I have my doubts but well… let's talk about something cooler

LIKE LATAM AU 😈

OK. UNOFFICIAL LATAM AU PLOT ( unless…).

Coriolanus Snow, too Argentinian to exist. His mother is alive?, who knows but his father I'm sure is dead. The boy has been stuck all his life with his classist grandmother who has convinced him that his family is more European than Latino, and living in a small town in the USA, Coriolanus has made the decision to pretend to have a European heritage over a Latino one. The Snows continue to have financial problems

Her cousin Tigris (whose father is Uruguayan), wants to be a fashion designer, and has decided to move to New York, she ends up living in a Latino neighborhood (btw YOU MENTIONED IN THE HEIGHTS AND SCREAM, BECAUSE IT MAKES SO MUCH SENSE, I'm sorry, I have to tell you Juli; I'm kind of a theatre kid; I already knew the actor from Sejanus from being in Hamilton and from being with the LGB actress in west side story). OK THE THING IS THAT CORIOLANUS, HER COUSIN, WHO IS ALMOST LIKE HER LITTLE BROTHER, HAS MANAGED AFTER YEARS OF EFFORT TO GET INTO STANFORD on a scholarship, and he needs a place to stay… his family tells him he can move in with Tigris, and Coryo accepts because Tigris is his favorite cousin and because the rent was so cheap. He has no idea what Tigris's neighborhood looks like but it must be great because IT IS CHEAP, but the fool doesn't know what is coming MUAHAHAHA Because in that beautiful neighborhood live two very special people: LGB Colombian girl and romani <3, who wants to be a singer and has her own band formed by Covey. I can imagine covey in a situation of orphans who maybe were in many foster homes and orphanages and bonded in those traumatic experiences, until the older ones grew up and could get the guardianships of the others and are a big family that takes care of each other (What do you think of Billy Taupe because that's a character we can explore uh?), and LGB has several jobs and a lot of pressure on her shoulders -she is practically raising Maude Ivory- but she doesn't give up and is very proud of who she is. Then there is Sejanus, who is Strabo PLINTH's son. I suppose it is possible Strabo is still involved in the arms industry (which will one day cause his son to make a protest in front of the family business LMAO), Strabo I am sure wants to move to another more dignified neighborhood but Vesta has been preventing him from doing so for over 3 decades, lmao, her family lives there. They are NOT GOING ANYWHERE and since Strabo doesn't want Vesta to ask him for a divorce he has reluctantly given in but has done all the bragging things he can like having the biggest house the block, etc.

Sejanus may or may not also study at Stanford (? but the most important thing is that our boy is 1000% an anarchist left-wing hippie liberal activist with no respect for the government or the elders -as his father calls him-, the boy has been involved in debates since he was 8 years old and arrived in the USA without knowing how to speak english well and his father made the decision to put him in a school for rich kids :)))) WORST CHOICE EVER (actually baby sejanus tried to assimilate but in his teens he realized that no matter what he did people were going to hate him so he SAID FUCK ALL and rebelled and Strabo hasn't recovered from that, because at the same time his little boy stopped believing that he was a very wise man. STRABO MISSES BABY SEJANUS, HE WAS GOOD AND HE DIDN'T GET IN TROUBLE OR CONTRADICT HIM drunk strabo cries in Vesta's arms and yes, this assimilation story is what will keep Sejanus from cancelling Coriolanus when he finally talks to him and he denies being Argentinian AND TIGRIS COUSIN)

OK. So Coriolanus finally moves in and of course he's going to scream when he sees that they're in a Latino neighborhood, the guy wants to die but he doesn't have the money to move, and maybe he'll do a weird and elaborate tour so that no one in Stanford will find out where he lives. The people in the neighborhood meanwhile know he is Tigris's cousin but he acts so gringo they genuinely believe he is, and I can see how everyone keeps criticizing Coryo 24/7 for his weird attitudes and ass in Spanish thinking he doesn't understand them but he does because he knows Spanish but he has decided to keep hiding that so he has to get angry in silence AJHSJHSJHSJHS

BUT EVERYTHING CHANGES WHEN LGB AND SEJANUS DISCOVER HIM, I haven't thought about how that would happen yet but hehehehe

Marcus is canon cuban now (YOU AND I WE HAD A SAME BIG BRAIN MOMENT, I DON'T KNOW HOW TO EXPLAIN EITHER BUT HIM BEING CUBAN MAKES SO MUCH SENSE) and well I'm happy with Tigris x LGB, but as you like coralbaird, don't you think it would be cool Coral as a Chilean? PLS or she could be the only decent American WHO KNOWS

Music?

I don't think I have recommended LA SNOWJANUS song so: Estrechez de corazón -los prisioneros

BOA TARDEEE (bc it's the moment I'm answering this ☝️

KSLSKLSKLS I'm actually so happy you're planning on posting more!!! 😭 I loved that post abt mrs everdeen and katniss so much, it made me think abt stuff I haven't noticed before, and I would LOVE to hear your thoughts abt sejanus and the academy kids (AND YESSSS PERSEPHONE PRINCE MENTIONED!!!! also, you got me hooked on pup harrington, I rlly want to know your thoughts abt them bc I never rlly thought abt it before)

and aaaaaaaaaaaaa I love talking to you so much, I genuinely get so happy seeing you in my inbox, get me kicking my feet and all 🥹 thank you for asking!!! it went okay, even tho I actually got lost lmao 😭 I got the wrong bus and stopped by the wrong campus (it's a big university, so there are plentyyy of campus on different neighbourhoods on the town and each one is for different courses, and I stopped at the med school, which is... very far away from my campus ☠️). but since I left home earlier, it was no problem and everything went alright (and on the second day I was able to find the right way, A WIN IS A WIN) !!! this first week is more to welcome the new students, so not a lot is going on and these first classes are more introductory + some events like games and stuff. also, thank you so much for your kind words, srsly, thank you so so so so much <3

BUT OKAY, LET'S GO

yesssss (it's always worth mentioning all of the stuff we talked abt is our opinion and only our opinion skslsklsk bc fandom spaces in general seem to have a problem with dealing with different opinions I guess)!! abt suzanne collins choosing coriolanus to being the main character of the book, it's worth saying that when the book was announced, I was so irked by the fact that coriolanus was going to be the main character. at first, I got 0 interest in reading the book because I thought it was going to be a cash grab. because why the hell would you choose CORIOLANUS SNOW, from all the characters???

but then I read the book and it just makes so much sense. SO much sense. it's kinda scary how suzanne made very clear what she wanted to pass with this story and still people are out there saying the stupidest things (such as reproducing some of coriolanus' discourses). really disappointing and sad the movie shies away from showing some of the strongest lines.

yesssss and I guess it's not only a problem regarding this specific adaptation, it serves as well for the other thg adaptations. don't get me wrong, these movies are genuinely some of the best book adaptation that exist (after all, it's an adaptation, it's not going to be just like the book... and that's okay!!), but for example, the fact that peeta doesn't lose his leg in the first movie (besides him being a disabled character in a big book franchise, which is something rlly important, in the book this was so important for the second book plot), or that they straight up made katniss white (I've talked before abt how you can read tbosas through racial and ethnic lens and this adds another impact to the story, but this applies to thg as well), or that they removed most of her important relationships and friendships with the girl characters (which led to some people who only watched the movie calling her a pick me, which makes me so mad). all of these small details impact how these characters are perceived and some of the most important messages the story wants to get through.

and about the tributes and the movie: YESSS!!! seeing them from outside of coriolanus' head really tells us a lot abt their personalities and gives them much more humanity!! the scene with pup harrington and lamina talking during the meeting is such a good example, it's heartbreaking seeing her crying like this. or then how we see the tributes interacting with each other on the arena. (coriolanus stopping himself from humanizing the tributes bc he would be thinking like sejanus was really something else 😭 but I absolutely agree!! tbosas has this twisted fairy-tale like sense to me, so some stuff I read more literally, and sejanus to me is like that angel on your shoulder trying to tell you to do the right thing; he's good, and that's the core of his character, being good, and when coriolanus kills him, he kills the only thing that kept him from being 100% evil; it's only after sejanus' death that he goes crazy and hunts lucy gray on the forest).

(the way the fandom treated rue back then (and still treats her nowadays, even though I see it much less) is CRAZY, and there are so many examples I could go on for days, starting by how some people literally REPRODUCE coriolanus' discourse and thoughts about some characters, like MY LORD-)

AAAAAA I'M SO GLAD YOU ENJOYED THE FICS (even tho most of them are more angst stuff, sorry for that 😭)!!!! and abt parallel lines, I remember that when it was being posted, I started reading from the first chapter, and until the second one was posted, I kept coming back and reading and reading over and over again because I needed MOREEEE bc of how good it was. AND TYSM FOR THE RECOMMENDATIONS!!! I've read all of three in the same day, and they are so. well. written. it's genuinely insane, like, people will really post some of the most amazing stuff I've read for FREE and it's SO GOOD, TYSM, SRSLY. now, abt each fanfic in particular:

out, damned spot: this one. jesus, this one is just- it really has this feeling of being so canon compliant, I can SEE it happening. it's just so so so good, so sinister, love the slight horror undertones. got me looking at the corner of my room afraid I would see a ghost 😭

odi et amo: THIS JUST MADE ME FEEL SO MANY THINGS, ALL AT ONCE. it was sweet, it was sad at times, it made me smile warmly at how sejanus talked about coriolanus so fondly... and then the ending, OH MY FUCKING GOD, I don't know exactly what I was expecting, but it was genuinely so shocking, the story had a rythm that just kep building and building and then it just explodes in your face, and just. I really have no words. I was speechless. got my hand to my mouth and everything bc of how shocked I was. I felt like playing one of these games who are all cute in the start, but... well. suddenly the mood shifts.

the haunting of coriolanus snow: THIS WAS SUCH A WILD RIDE. I love goold ol' snowbairdplinth, SPECIALLY when we're talking abt haunting coriolanus snow. this whole work is just so good aaaaaaa it's not as sinister as the first one, but it's just so well written (and tbh, I LOVE having coriolanus haunted, that's what he deserves, and actually he deserves much worse). and that last line???? SO COULD, COULD ACTUALLY BE THE ENDING OF A REAL BOOK, nah this will haunt me for a good time.

it's worth saying I bookmarked ALL of these because OH MY GOD, THEY'RE SO GOOD, again, tysm for the recs, they are all such good fanfics <33

look: I absolutely agree with you. I think it's worth saying that coriolanus is surrounded by rich and influent capitol kids (felix is literally the great-nephew of the president, ffs). why the hell coriolanus is so fixated on the fact that strabo plinth can buy sejanus' way out of things, when probably most of his academy colleagues can do so much more, actually? besides him being angry and jealous about the plinths having a life that should've been his in his head, it's exactly what you said: he's projecting so hard on the plinths.

(also, yes, coriolanus' is just a stupid kid who thinks of himself so above of his colleagues, when he's sometimes even dumber than them 😭 when we see him having actual conversations with actual adults, this is really noticeable)

okay, so, imo, coriolanus as a narrator tries to make us (as readers) to think that sejanus' position in relation to him is soooo unfair. look!!! this D I S T R I C T kid have money, and privilege, and a father who can buy him out of stuff and buy his way into MY prestigious school and so many more things!!! while I'm here struggling, this D I S T R I C T kid is so privileged!!! don't get me wrong, I'm not saying the plinths or sejanus don't have privilege in the capitol specially regarding money, because they do, but not any more than coriolanus' friends and colleagues. I just find interesting and a bit annoying how coriolanus decides to 100% ignore the fact that the plinths are district, but he only does that when it's regarding their financial privilege (because when it's to be a dick about ma plinth and sejanus, he perfectly remembers and recognizes that they are district, how funny is that? 🤠)

(ALSO, since you mentioned crassus snow, yeah, I think so many things would be different if that man was alive, and if anything, I think the plinths' lives would be so much harder if he was around, to be very, very honest)

coriolanus is so detached to this that when sejanus gets the D2 boy, coriolanus says he got the best one of the litter, and sejanus says he's one of the litter. coriolanus, in his words, let that sink in.

and talking abt the plinths and the corso, it's worth saying the plinths are living in the capitol for around 10 years. it's enough time for them to prove their finantial power, and still, they aren't living among the most inluential and powerful families in the capitol, because they simply aren't. it's worth saying coriolanus studies at the academy, one of the most prestigious schools in the capitol, simply because he is a snow, while strabo had to buy sejanus' way into it (and mind you, much more money than any other of his colleagues).

(now, this is my personal interpretation: when reading stuff, I usually think about how some things would work in our universe and in our rules. I don't know if that was suzanne collins' intentions, but while reading, I could only think abt how sejanus and coriolanus are pretty much a race/ethnicity x class conversation and how these two things intersect. coriolanus, to me, sounded like a white working class boy who can't stand the fact that a poc have more money and more privilege than him. he thinks it's so unfair he disregards absolutely any kind of bigotry that person faces (and, mind you, HE actually reproduces a lot of this bigotry), which leads him to thinking that people like sejanus have much more privilege than they actually have. it's not that coriolanus thinks that ppl shouldn't be rich or rich ppl shouldn't exist, it's that coriolanus thinks that PEOPLE LIKE SEJANUS shouldn't be rich, and that's another different convo)

and answering (imo) the big question: considering everything we talked about until now, I don't think sejanus could've been saved. he was doomed. and this proves a point: while sejanus is rich, he's still district, and in the end, being district is what weighs the most.

and also, this leads me to the discourse I see some people saying, that if sejanus was alive, he could've made a difference, like plutarch heavensbee. what they don't take into account is that plutarch heavensbee is capitol. do they really think that the capitol, that coriolanus, would let a district-born person get into politics? really? do they think they would let him make a change? that they wouldn't watch each step he takes, because he's district?

anyway. LATAM AU <3333

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAALSKSLSJLSLKSLKS I LOVE THIS SO MUCHHHHHHHHHH I'M SCREAMING BC I WANT SO BAD TO SEE THIS PLOT COMING TO LIFE 😭😭😭😭😭

your brain!!!!! YOUR BRAINNNN I LOVE THIS SO MUCH.

(I'm holding your hand and screaming right now because, I'M ALSO A THEATRE KID LMAOOOOOO I've spent my entire middle school listening to hamilton 😭 it was the first one I got contact with, but then I got into other musicals, like spring awakening and wicked. I love in the heights sooooooo much, I actually like it better than hamilton!!! and the movie adaptation is SO good, it's insane; also, after we talked abt the latam au on the last ask, I went almost immediately to youtube to listen to blackout bc I kept imagining the characters on this scenarioKSLSKSLS).

I love your ideas for the covey!!! maybe the one to get older first was barb azure; she left their foster home and find a small place for them to stay. it's nothing fancy, but it's still better than the foster care system. (and hMMMM billy taupe can be an interesting character here; maybe when coriolanus arrived, there was already gossip circling on the neighbourhood because just recently, lucy gray and billy taupe had a NASTY break up, and she threw his things out of the window. at the start of the story, she's already single, but he keeps bothering her each time she goes to a club to make a show with the covey). lucy gray works so hard, and at the same time, she has to raise maude ivory, and take care of the house, and seek her dreams... and all while being sort of an important figure around the neighbourhood. everyone knows lucy gray, so if there's something wrong going on, they seek her to talk to fix things (but who lucy gray seeks when she needs to talk? when she needs someone to help her and solve her problems?).

vesta threatning strabo with a divorce is just such a funny thought 😭 also, imagine that the plinths weren't rich when they arrived in the usa, and that neighbourhood was the first one they've lived. one of her sisters lived there and vesta was so happy when they got to the block and almost everyone knew how to speak spanish, because she was so homesick and scared, it was comforting. sejanus grew up there, they built a whole life there, she REFUSES to let strabo move their family. that's their home. period.

(I rlly like the thought of sejanus attending stanford, but I'll talk abt it a bit later) sejanus had this phase when he was a pre-teen where he started getting into politics and started to read revolutionary thinkers from cold war latam, started reading about imperialism and just reading a lot in general, and he got radicalized. it was strabo's biggest nightmare, that man was fighting for his life, because at dinner sejanus would start "ACTUALLY-" and strabo knew it was so over, he couldn't win sejanus on arguments and they just end screaming insults at each other. bby sejanus did well on their neighbourhood, he even made some friends, like marcus, and some kids helped him with english (and a lot of kids speak spanish like him, so he feels much safer). but when his father got rich, he pushed sejanus into a very prestigious school, and it was very traumatic. he wanted so bad to fit in, but these kids were mean as fuck. they mocked him whenever he made a mistake in english, and mocked when he forgot a word, and mocked his accent, and mocked the things his mom would send him for lunch. he came home crying after the first week begging his dad to please let him go to the neighbourhood's school with marcus and the other kids, but his dad was relentless. and he tried SO hard to assimilate, but his breaking point was when his ma went to pick him up at school, and her english is much more broken than his. when the kids started to make fun of his ma, and she wasn't even understand exactly what they were saying, sejanus broke. he can deal with people hating and hurting him, but NOT his ma. and that's pretty much a turning point for him.

(when sejanus talks to coryo and understands what coryo is doing, he's not really angry, he's sad, because he knows how that feels, except that he stopped doing it much earlier.)

((also, strabo missing bby sejanus is so goodKSJLSKLSK he'll turn to vesta and be like WHEN DID IT GO WROOOOONG it seems like yesterday that sejanus was a little boy who thought strabo was the smartest person in the world, but now he seems like he hates strabo so much, it's so frustrating; strabo kinda regrets getting sejanus into that school, bc if sejanus went to the local school, then he wouldn't be so radicalized (he would tho lmao just for different reasons)))

CORIOLANUS IS STRUGGLING, the moments he sets foot on the neighbourhood he gets his phone to try to call his mom to know if he can come back or try to find an apartment, but it's useless, and until he finds a job or something, he has to stay with tigris for now bc that's what his mom can afford 😭 coriolanus now is even called gringo by everyone around lmao every single time they refer to him, he wants to die but he CAN'T SAY ANYTHING. and sometimes, even lucy gray and sejanus are talking in front of him in spanish, because they don't think he understands, and coriolanus is there with a straight face because he can't let them know if he wants to keep up his lie

ALSO, WHAT I TALKED EARLIER ABT SEJANUS GOING TO STANFORD: alright, so, sejanus and coriolanus have a class together, and this is before coriolanus discovers sejanus lives in the same neighbourhood as tigris. and in that class, coriolanus says some stupid shit, and him and sejanus get in a debate about it. so, much later, coriolanus is coming back to where him and tigris live, and who he finds around? oh, yeah. the same guy from his class. GREAT. and now coriolanus is in such a complicated position because he's pretending to not be from around but sejanus, who's from his class, LITERALLY LIVES THERE (and to his nightmare, sejanus is besties with lucy gray, who's that person on the neighborhood who knows pretty much anyone and everyone goes after for help)

CUBAN MARCUS YESSSSSS ☝️ (also, marcus having a beef with coriolanus bc he knows coriolanus is from stanford, and he thinks coriolanus is too much like the kids from the prestigious school sejanus attended when he was a kid). and about coral: listen, what do you think abt coral being irish? she isn't from the neighbourhood, but she works around, and her little brother, mizzen, goes to the same school as maude ivory (it's worth saying that before coriolanus, she was the gringa of the neighbourhood, now that title passes to him and she's a honorary prima 😭)

(also, imagine lucy gray teaching her some spanish like nina does to benny in in the heights AAAA)

LOS PRISIONEROS AND SNOWJANUS YESSSSSSS YOU'RE SO RIGHT, IT'S THEMMMM LITERALLY THEM!!!! (estás llorando y no haces nada por perdonar a nadie, excepto a ti AAAAAAAAAAAAAA

(take care, buddie!!! hope you're doing well <3)

#tbosas #tbosas movie #coriolanus snow #president snow #sejanus plinth #ask #analysis #au

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sebscore · 2 years ago

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MY LOVE DID U WATCH QUALI IM SO HAPPY

LIKE MY ANON NAMESAKE IS FINALLY FINALLY UNLEASHING HIS POTENTIAL YAY

CHARLES ANON

I DID WTFFF 😭😭😭 he deserves it so much after that horrendous start to the season !! ❤️

but also- WTF IS MERC DOING 😭😭😭😭 THEY HAD 4 FUCKING WEEKS 😭 I was actually hyped that they were getting caught up with the red bulls and astons but oh well

#[ inbox ]#charles :: anon

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twilightmalachite · 1 year ago

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2×2 - Grown-Up Situation 5

Author: Akira

Characters: Yuuta, Hinata, Shinobu, Nagisa

Translator: Mika Enstars

"The complicated heart of a maiden (?), I guess…"

[Read on my blog for the best viewing experience with Oi~ssu ♪]

Season: Winter

Location: Inside Studio Bus

Reminiscence over, present time. Inside the location bus traveling for filming 2×2…

Shinobu: Hmmm.

A producer showdown, huuuh… This is somehow turning out to be more complicated than I’d thought, de goza—

Ah, um, thought.

Yuuta: …♪

Hinata: The pressure in that silence is crazy… I’m so sorry.

Actually, I’m surprised that you didn’t know anything at all about the situation, Shinobu-kun. You asked him to help out without explaining a thing, Yuuta-kun…?

Yuuta: Yup. ‘Cuz if I explained the situation, then he wouldn’t be helping out of “pure kindness”.

I needed Shinobu-kun’s help, but I didn’t want it out of pity.

Hinata: The complicated heart of a maiden (?), I guess… Even still, you should at least check the job description in the case of a strange incident, Shinobu-kun.

Nagisa: …You are being used to someone else’s convenience. Hiyori-kun used to scold me often for that.

…He’d say I listen too readily to whatever Ibara tells me to do.

…Although I also think that kind of unconditional love is what love is.

Yuuta: So you understand me?

Nagisa: …I do, but you must at least explain things properly.

…Not everyone cares about “those sorts of things” as much as I do.

…However, it sounds like this situation is rather troublesome.

…If you are facing serious trouble, perhaps I could make a proposal to the P-Association.

…I don’t want to involve children in meaningless conflicts, no, the meaningless conflicts of adults.

Yuuta: Hm~… The words of the oh-excellent “top idol” would certainly be hard to ignore, but…

Could you please refrain from doing anything unnecessary? While I think we’ve reaaally gotten caught up in something real troublesome—

It is true that this 2×2 is a massive opportunity we could have ever hoped for, and it was a good choice for us.

Hinata: That’s right. ‘Course it’s nothing compared to SS, but it’s the biggest project we’ve ever been the center of.

If we can ride this big wave, we might even be able to join the ranks of top idols this time around!

Nagisa: …You have a strong desire to rise as ever. It’s no wonder you and Ibara get along so well.

Shinobu: Hm. While I don’t like the idea of being dragged into a conflict between adults, it does appear they are competing fairly and with sportsmanship thus far.

It’s not like someone is going to die whether they win or lose…

If it’s done like a sport, then I (sessha) would also like to give my usual support and cooperation de gozasorry I used “sessha” again!

Yuuta: It’ll distract from the conversation, so don’t worry ‘bout it right now, okay~?

Shinobu: Huh, for real? Yay, I (sessha) have been forgiven…☆

Yuuta: … … *silently marking down tallies in a notebook*

Shinobu: Uu. A-Anyway, to summarize—

Each time, the different producer in charge of 2wink’s namesake program 2×2 changes.

Nagisa: …Anzu-san, and Yamada-san? So she’s taking turns being the producer in charge with this big-name producer?

Hinata: That’s right. And after all 12 episodes air, the winner will be determined by the number of viewership ratings each of the 12 episodes garnered.

Yuuta: The competition is based not on which has the highest rating, but the total of the ratings, so every episode counts!

Shinobu: Well, I don’t know much about this YamadaP person de gozaru, but each time, Anzu-dono gives it all her might, de gozaru!

Hinata: But that’s the problem with YamadaP~. We haven’t known him for too long or too deeply, so we don’t really know what kind of person he is.

Nagisa: …I know, to some extent.

…Actually, I was curious, so I had looked into him..

Yuuta: Ooh, so he’s such an amazing person that even caught the interest of Ran-senpai, huh?

Hinata: This YamadaP really is a big-shot, huh~?

Nagisa: …No, it was simply out of curiosity, not because I recognize his ability.

…This Yamada-san is someone whose vigorous activities has had him being praised as being an “active volcano”.

Being an active volcano, he is sometimes called “Your Excellency”.[1]

…Since Ibara also calls me Your Excellency, I got curious and looked into him.

Hinata: So it really was “just” curiosity…

Shinobu: I kinda understand… Having the same name makes me interested with a sense of familiarity de gozaru, like how I’m a big fan of the Sengoku period warlord Sengoku Gonbei![2]

Yuuta: Though I’m not interested in Aniki, even though we share the same last name “Aoi”.

Hinata: The older brother has been hurt by the younger brother’s heartless words!

[ ☆ ]

← prev | story directory | next →

“Active volcano” in japanese is 活火山 (kakkazan). Your Excellency is 閣下 (kakka). A fitting nickname!

The Sengoku in this warlord’s name uses the same characters as Shinobu’s last name “Sengoku”! On the other hand, the characters used for “Sengoku Period” are different.

#2×2 #2x2 #yuuta aoi #hinata aoi #shinobu sengoku #nagisa ran #translation #event

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squidkidnerd · 1 year ago

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Operation Atlantis Notes - "Heatstroke" (chapter 6)

Yay, it's finally... here. Yeah, sorry for the delay on this one guys. I told myself I would do this over the summer, but then I procrastinated on it, and before I knew it I was back on the grind doing college admissions!!! Yay!!! Anyways, those are (mostly) done, so I'm back now. Anyways, enough dilly-dallying, let's talk about chapter 6.

The most difficult part of this chapter is that it's a transition. Compared to the first half of part 1, we're moving from beyond the basic setup and more into the actual plot, with Three and Eight both making some headway during this chapter. For Three, that's the museum, and for Eight, that's clothing. Both pretty trivial things, but hey. They mean something.

Opening poem: I actually really like this one. It's easy, simple, and gets quick to the point, which is Eight contemplating her identity. This is, of course, something we'll see in this chapter as well as the rest of Operation Atlantis.

Three and the Museum: Given that Tartar was created to be an archive of human knowledge, I think it's reasonable to assume that it, and by extension Kamabo as a whole, has access to a bunch of old human media. Hence why Three sees so many old videos of them. It's also, if you think about it, really weird. It's like if we had videos of the dinosaurs or something. Also, we get some background on Kamabo itself. Hm, I wonder how reliable that information is...

Eight and Trying on Clothes: Unironically, this was one of my favorite parts of the chapter. Just—Eight trying on that new sweater and loving it is so wholesome, guys. I love the feeling of finding a piece of clothing you really like, and I tried to convey that here. The other element, though, is of course, the flashback. It was kinda just a cool idea and I went with it because why not. It also forces Eight to get more invested in figuring out her past...

Heatstroke and "How Do You Dance": Oh, would you look at that, it's this chapter's namesake! Yeah, I was pretty excited to introduce them. Their music can best be compared to the style of the band Paramore—kinda like this pop-rock kinda deal. Anyways, the lyrics of "How Do You Dance" were entirely written by me! Yeah, I dabble in songwriting from time to time, mostly for ones about my OCs lmao. The other song Three mentions, "Budding Lilies," is in fact the name of part 1! In conclusion: these guys are super cool and I'm excited to show off more of them. Guess which one's my favorite :P

The Ending 👀: Yeah, Things are going be to happening next chapter, as you could've guessed. Nothing quite crazy yet, but expect some more intrigue and even a tiny bit of action! Woo. Hopefully Three's investigating goes well.

Anyways, that's it! Shorter notes then last time, I don't have as much to say lol. As for chapter 7... I'm not making any promises, but hopefully I can get it out by the end of year. I really wish drafting chapters didn't take me this long, but they do and I'm trying my best to speed up the process :'). Also Operation Atlantis's first year anniversary is coming up soon on October 22nd... man I have to do something special for it.

#ari's updates #writing notes #operation atlantis writing notes #chapter 6

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saint-starflicker · 5 months ago

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This ol' thing? Peter's dad is dead TO ME. 🥺

Patty Simmonds: already written! Yay! My cringefail loser daughter of an OC, I love her so much. Claire Simmonds might have both a son and a daughter, but she's a tiktok boy!mom.

Mary Simmonds: I think I textwalled an AU in which Jason did not die, but Peter marries Ivy because SOMEone had to man up and comp-het...until Ivy dies after childbirth (hospital aftercare is shitty, it allows Nestle to engage in predatory marketing practices that malnourished babies to death, which is not generally good for the physical and mental wellbeing of parents either, but that's not what happened here I'm only saying we should just hate on Nestle.) And then while Jason spends his 20s on the road like Jack Kerouac finding himself, Peter's raising the baby with the help of Cool Vodka Aunt—Mary Simmonds, after which the baby is named, because they all think Ivy had a daughter. Teenaged Mary Simmonds "Daughter of Ivy" attends Saint Cecilia's and figures out that he's trans—changes his name to Marius, after the guy in Peter's favorite Broadway musical. Marius Simmonds likes his chosen name of course, but it's partially a sort of "just in case" his dad is transphobic ("but it's your favorite name from your favorite musical, dad 🥺 how can you not accept it?") Because for all this kid knows, Peter is cis and hetero and Marius's biological father. And I think Peter is not transphobic, in the same way that Claire or Matt were not homophobic to Peter—but it's a big change in his world that he doesn't know what to do with, because Peter was very happy and comfortable raising a daughter. He doesn't think he was ever good enough at being A Boy, to raise a son. You know who might be? Jason. So now Jason's gotten tracked down and living with them while Marius is like "...who the hell is this new guy living in our house for no reason, and why does he and my dad have intense staring contests all the time while the new guy gives me life advice? whatever, this is weird I just want to graduate from Catholic school and be free to transition in college" meanwhile Cool Vodka Aunt Mary Simmonds is not offended at all that her namesake decided not to be a namesake, because she (Aunt Mary) knows everything about the situation and isn't saying anything because nobody is asking her. Ergo the vodka mixers.

Javelina Simmonds: W.I.P. right so imagine Jason McConnell is getting rushed to a hospital while falling comatose from two capfuls of GHB (Lucas thought one capful was for Peter. We know the rest.) SO THEN as he's having a near-death experience—we are getting to Javelina—a near death experience in which he makes a wish that Peter never went to St. Cecilia's. Reason being, they wouldn't have met, so then everybody would be happier except for Jason. They do still meet eventually, because Jason might be smart but he is not clever. After that version of Jason married Ivy in a shotgun wedding right out of high school, their baby suffered a cot death, they decided to divorce after that because there's no "for the children" to stay married for, Ivy goes on to have an amazing art gallery career because I said so...and Jason wanders some big city park at night looking for drugs and hookups to numb his self-loathing. Peter in that alternate history decides to do the same thing in that same big city in that same city park one night, and after that it's full of suspicious plot contrivances to get them bantering and meeting up again by accident and meeting up again on purpose and "wow I never told anyone that" at each other...as ye do, when you're M/M soulmates being written by a fujoshi. But this was supposed to be about Javelina. I'm getting to introducing Javelina.

So anyway eventually Peter goes "living in the big city actually sucks, so I want to go home and if you're not doing anything else with your life would you like to live in Scottsdale Arizona or Roswell New Mexico with me? Our fanfiction author hasn't decided where I'm from," and then Jason's like "I will follow you to the ends of the fuckign earth. because I'm not doing anything else with my life. not because I like you or anything..." But Jason's head over heels in love and also disowned and unemployed and unhoused so it's complicated because Peter has options, but so Jason thinks that Peter thinks that Jason is only hanging around with him for the options or that maybe Peter only does all this for attractive homeless disowned unemployed divorced guys. Jason's not clever. So they go to Sedona Arizona (I haven't decided yet) to meet Peter's family. It's somewhere in Arizona because I heard a migrating group of feral hogs called javelina were wrecking the golf courses of somewhere Arizona and so that's what I named Peter's little sister after. She's not little anymore, by this time they're all like...23. So Claire knows Jason's family name without Peter telling her because Jason grew up looking exactly like his father, and then Claire and Mrs. McConnell were in the same suburban book club 24 years ago when they went into labor. The McConnells moved to the East Coast when Jason and Nadia were 4, so Peter doesn't remember any of this—Until bringing the hot unemployed homeless guy he kept meeting by accident in the city park home to meet his mother, Peter did not know Jason had a sister, and did not know Jason had a wife and child (ok Ivy had the child, but by Vermont law Jason owned half of it) or even Jason's last name—uh Peter is not clever in this fanfiction either, so don't do this in real life. But anyway Claire has the photo album from before Javelina was born, that gives Jason a panic attack because there are all these toddler photos of the three of them and now Peter is like 🥺 "maybe this is a sign that we were meant to be together" while Jason is commitment-phobic and internalized homophobic so he jumps out the window to escape his soulmate destiny thing. He survives because he jumped out the ground floor window. Anyway! Javelina is a total hippie, so she gave Jason weed to calm him down and got him a job modeling for university art students and house-sitting for a friend-of-a-friend who's living abroad. Javelina is much more got-it-together than Patricia, but not as much as Cool Vodka Aunt Mary. Anyway, Peter's still like 🥺 "...soulmates?..." And Peter's right they are so soulmates—but Jason's in denial for reasons that he doesn't completely remember. (That he, Jason, made a very specific wish while he was dying of a drug overdose, and the wish doesn't even actually give him what he thought he wanted, which is: Peter being happy without him because what he meant by "I wish Peter never went to school here" was that he wishes he and Peter never met and never will meet in the future of that timeline in which they never met. Too bad, Jason, you should've worded your wish properly. But he didn't know it was being granted by a fanfiction writer.)

Fuuuck yes dude its reading too much into a side character time

#i should just write one of those two already #Bare: a Pop Opera

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dantelionwishes · 3 years ago

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Omg Bennu is so cute! Here I got her something!!!💖💖

*lifetime supply of free therapy sessions*

at least the two hikaris have each others backs!! its their family drama, after all--

feat. @you-may-call-me-meme's hikari!

#bnha oc comeback #hikari kamino #bnha oc #others ocs #lionhe(art)#little-leech-boy #i ansr #cloud my beloved I missed u #I swear ur asks are fun as hell which is why I take ages to answer them HJSDJHHJRJHDF #ANYWAY YAY EXTENDED HIKARI LORE #in terms of how complicated and written out my ocs are in terms of completion #its Sato > Hikari > Miss Me > Makoto #ANYWAY YEAH IF U FEEL LIKE COMPARING MEME'S HIKARI AND MY HIKARI BASED ON THEIR CHARACTER PROFILES YOULL SEE SMN SIMILAR!!#funnily enough this was a sudden thing just cos we both realised our ocs were the same naME JFHJHJR #in-character my hikari got her namesake from her aunt!!#shes a guidance counsellor too and u can bet my hikari has been her therapist even pre-ua #therapist? counsellor? idk the tERM ACTUALLY BUT UHM YEAH

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basket-of-radiants · 7 years ago

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Companion piece to this!

#it's like a prequel #if you will #dalinar #adolin #kaladin #shallan #lift #szeth #mine #stormlight archive #oathbringer spoilers #here it is: my blog's namesake #adolin's more the type to come shopping with dalinar anyway #this has actually been sitting as a wip for AGES bc i felt something needed to be on the bottom part of the cart and i couldn't think what #there is of course an obvious answer that i literally only realized this morning when that ask reminded me that this drawing existed #anyway yay for self-indulgence #my other squad! whichever the not-odium one was called!#i might make just the shopping cart part my new theme header #i like to let fine art like this speak for itself so i won't comment too much more #(but if you isolate them and remove the cart it looks like kallie shallan and szeth are all sitting huddled around a pack of juice boxes)

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beingvv · 3 years ago

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I originally posted this in response to Raffle's awesome post about Hakuba Saguru and literary references and since there are some renewed discussion (yay!) I thought I'd post it again under the main tags. It's very long so I've kept half of it under the cut:

I believe Hakuba is originally intended by Gosho to be the Sherlockian character, not least because of his way of dress but also his name: Saguru Hakuba (Sherlock Holmes). His British ancestry is clearly a nod to that, as is his family background (family member with high levels of power in government, just like Mycroft). Kudo Shinichi came later, and Gosho reused a lot of the elements in MK in DC too as he himself have said. But as Kudo says in the DC London chapter, he’s more of a Holmes apprentice than Holmes incarnate. His character setup doesn’t bear resemblance to Holmes in any way other than his obsession with Holmes and deduction skills. His personality, family background… even name, none of it fits the way Hakuba’s does. Hakuba is the only one without a childhood sweetheart among the Gosho Boys and generally being perceived as arrogant and smug, a maddening air of superiority, while in reality he is a gentleman and capable of great empathy (see MK’s nightmare chapter, and the difference in how Hakuba holds himself in DC’s Koshien). This is also more Sherlockian, whereas Kudo has loads of friends and his entire way of being outside of his deductions is just, not very Sherlockian at all (?)

It’s also worth keeping in mind that Hakuba was created opposite Kaito in MK, whereas KID was drafted into DC a nebulous while later when Gosho needed a rival for Kudo, and he legit said “hey don’t I have one already”. From namesake you can see that Shinichi’s original rival was supposed to be Heiji.

Having said all of this, I personally think Hakuba’s character is a combination of Sherlock Holmes with Isidore Beautrelet, from Lupins’s Hollow Needle. Because...

Isidore is the “young but gifted amateur detective, who is still in high school but who is poised to give Arsène Lupin a big headache” in that story, and in that story Lupin himself actually admits Isidore came the closest to defeating him – just as Hakuba came the closet to actually trapping KID (If not for Akako, Kaito would have been in a sticky spot). Here is the passage of quote by Lupin in Hollow Needle, addressing Isidore:

“It’s a question of a fact, a positive, indisputable fact; and that fact is this: in all the past ten years, I have not yet knocked up against an adversary of your capacity. With Ganimard and Holmlock Shears I played as if they were children. With you, I am obliged to defend myself, I will say more, to retreat. Yes, at this moment, you and I well know that I must look upon myself as worsted in the fight. Isidore Beautrelet has got the better of Arsène Lupin. My plans are upset. What I tried to leave in the dark you have brought into the full light of day. You annoy me, you stand in my way. ”

Holmlock Shears, obviously, is referring to Sherlock Holmes as the author could not use Holmes’ character without infringing upon copyright. And doesn’t the highlighted quote sound familiar? “Everything will come to light”, and in the Hakukai duet song Hakuba actually does say “One day I will bring you to the broad day light”. And Lupin admitting he has to retreat from Isidore whereas he plays with Holmes like children – Hakuba is the only detective whom Kaito does’t know what to do with – the famous Gosho “苦手” (not good at dealing with) comment.

And by the end of the Hollow Needle story (spoiler alert) Isidore was asked to shoot Lupin but he could not bring himself to do it. Lupin then snatches him and they run away together, calling him a friend, explaining excitedly about his future plans, etc… and Isidore thinks:

“By the way in which Lupin clutched his arm, Beautrelet felt that all resistance was useless. Besides, why resist? Had he not discovered and handed over the Hollow Needle? What did he care about the rest? Had he not the right to humor the irresistible sympathy with which, in spite of everything, this man inspired him? The feeling was so clear in him that he was half inclined to say to Lupin: “Look here, you’re running another, a more serious danger; Holmlock Shears is on your track.”

Doesn’t all of this sound familiar?

In this story, Holmes actually ends up being a villain (Lupin legit calls him that). Because of his impulsiveness and inability to accept defeat, Holmes exposed Lupin’s secret identity to his civilian girlfriend, and then proceeds to point a gun, and after scuffle where he is again losing, shoots at Lupin. Lupin’s girlfriend jumps in front of the bullet and sacrifices herself to save Lupin, and Lupin in his grief expresses intense hatred for Holmes and nearly strangles him (even though he doesn’t in the end).

Holmes really isn’t portrayed in a positive light in Lupin’s books, but I’ll have to say that Shinichi is the only teen detective who’s ever fired a gun at KID – youthful arrogance, no doubt, but still dangerous. Conan also is far more physical with KID, always with the football even after KID gets away, and with his tranquilliser darts, etc. Hakuba, despite his outward arrogance, is far more subdued when his actual dealings with KID – he is essentially on Kaito’s side and he went from wanting to catch KID to not wanting KID to lose to another phantom thief quite quickly, and Hakuba & Kaito are sort of friends even though they might not acknowledge it, the same way Lupin & Isidore are. Also in Koshien, even at the height of Hakuba’s arrogance and pissing off Heiji, after his mistake was pointed out to him, Hakuba smiles and accepts defeat quite graciously and immediately caught on to Heiji’s deductions joins the train of thought in the right direction.

So yeah, I think Gosho’s literary imagery is a mix of all of the above, which is also prone to change as the series progresses – and since DC is a very long series, the characters have changed a lot and with new elements from different media inspirations added in, but I guess that's a post for another day.

... I also wrote a bloody long part about Hakuba vs Shinichi's attitude towards KID and DC's KID vs MK's KID, but tumblr bugged out on me and nothing's saved so I gotta start from scratch again 😫 It's kind of off topic to this one though so I'll just leave this one here as is I guess 🤦‍♀️

#hakuba saguru #dcmk #magic kaito

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meandmyechoes · 3 years ago

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Star Wars Visions review Part 1

binged them all in subs! will revisit the dub. first pass viewing order is 548621793.

[Part 2] [Part 3]

The Ninth Jedi: Yay, Kara my girl! Look, I know it wasn’t the smartest decision to stan her out of all the girls even before we’ve seen the full series, but I’d like to be somebody different! I have, what you could call the highest expectation of this story. I heard it is actually two standalone concepts merged into one, that it has the grandest of a worldbuilding mechanism. Incidentally, that feels like it turns on itself - that the deviation from “canon” makes it almost its own fantasy story. And I say that going in knowing the rule book.

The aftertaste is: I watched a trailer. which is true, because that’s where the concepts started out. It feels like they set up a world, a quest, the main character and threw in the coolest fight scene to hook you on, and it frustrates me because Ninth has the longest runtime of them all. The lightsaber-smith is such a Japanese/traditional concept that I can understand the inspiration, just that I prefer building your own saber and a Jedi being more than a weapon. However that theme wasn’t lost in seeing Kara has to strengthen herself to earn her namesake. Kara turns out to be a bit ‘main-chara’ (in a perfectly fine but underexplored way) but I do like the confirmation of what I first saw in her: the optimism and fearlessness. Kind of reminds me of Ahsoka bouncing around with that green saber of hers! The character I’m more interested in learning though, ended up being the old pilot droid(s). My verdict for The Ninth Jedi is, I like its details and clues, but I’d like it better if it was its own story.

8:2 / 7 (Japanese : Star Wars ratio + score out of 10)

The Village Bride: This one, expectation and reality matches up! This with T0-B1 are my favourites, but I think this is a close second because I’d have liked it to be a feature-length film! There are enough materials covering the village’s past and invasion, building up the characters like how Haru and Saku came to differ, Asu’s role, and how Van and F met! It doesn’t feel like a trailer like Ninth because instead of asking you to look forward to the next chapter, Bride feels like an extract with its dialogue delivering just the crucial story, and giving us a concluding climax. I super-love the costumes and visuals. The unconventional lineart and colour choices leave a refreshing impression. Music is killer. Chills every time the vocal hits. I think this hits that perfect mark of melding Japanese (mountain) culture (animism) and Jedi heroism.

5:5 / 10

Lop and Ocho: Lop puts a Japanese story inside the Star Wars framework more than the other way round. The industrialization and family feud works in Star Wars, while rooted in Japanese stories. Lop has the most palatable art style so it is very easy for a layman like me to go 'wow this has money' staring at the rich backgrounds and frame rate. The zinc rooftops, rundown alleys, shitamachi neighbourhood shops are very close to heart. I’m seeing old Kowloon while seeing old Shinjuku haha. The retrofuturism is an essential element of Star Wars that often gets overlooked (at least to me) and I’m glad it is the foundation for the aesthetic and conflict of this short.

And then I feel so dumb not realizing the time-skip haha! I was the one who sieved the trailer and I couldn’t make the connection! I was initially imagining more of a cheerful quest not unlike Ninth. Well wouldn’t you like to be wrong! I do like this more than I expected.

Felt just the slightest bit rushed. Ocho’s transformation and fight sequence are amazing. The final frame with the sakuras at the background just took my breath away. The inscribed lightsaber is a novel idea, but right where my mind swam towards the ‘Japanese’ side than the ‘Star Wars’ side. There were so many details in a frame I would go back to see the Easter eggs. This story is so pretty and when you peel all that away, at its core is a drama that is… an age-old tale. And I’m not complaining, because that's what Star Wars is, a ‘cliche’ that works. It brings novelty to Star Wars, but those are elements I’ve seen in classic stories I grew up with. In the end, Lop works, it is definitely a very high-quality work, but I don’t think it can quite secure a most special place in my heart.

6:4 / 9

#star wars visions #sw visions #my sw meta #The Ninth Jedi #The Village Bride #Lop and Ocho #guess I have to watch I.G.'s fall anime about a princess joining an eight-member all-female pirate gang now #oh there's already seven dubbed episodes out there #I sew half a Kara costume and for WHAT #heading my downtown to make Haru and F's #what would i GIVE to have F's look to go to school #(look I know that's not a very ambitious place to be but)#it is a dream to go to school in hakama pants ok #since that's what they started out for girls anyway #but honestly ain't hopeful hk's winter is getting any winter-er #Haru and F are like my projection oc's because i'm 14 and emo and gets Nana even though i've never watched/read it #adjusted score considering the rest

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cherrynojutsu · 3 years ago

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Title: Like Silver

Summary: A companion series for Like Gold.

Sakura misses him so much. She misses the faint smell of woodsmoke and sage, and mismatched eyes captivating in their intensity and unfathomable depths. The Rinnegan is beautiful, soft lavender ringed by hypnotizing layers of circle and tomoe, but flecks of silver dance in his right, tiny asterisms bewitching in nature, if one gets close enough; she’d first noticed it when they were children at the Academy. She knows they're Itachi's now, a slightly different scattering of luminaries aglow in the deep pitch of obsidian, but they're still as enthralling to her as they had been back then. She dreams of that silver sometimes, recalls it any time she sees something similar in color or reflet.

Blank period, canon-compliant, Sakura-centric, some expanded plot points from Like Gold, fluff and pining, eventually becomes a smut fest with feelings.

Disclaimer: I did not write Naruto. This is a fan-made piece solely created for entertainment purposes.

Rating: M (eventual nsfw-ness)

AO3 Link - FF.net Link - includes beginning/ending author's notes

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Chapter 1/?: An Introduction to Electrocardiography

Sakura gazes out the window of her office, a pile of paperwork set aside for a poetic sort of procrastination, trying to indulge for once in a Konoha spring, though she's finding it arduous.

As pretty as it is this time of year, all she can manage to feel is wistful.

Hanami has come and gone already for the most part, though there are a few stubborn cherry blossom trees lingering at the tail end of their blooming. She can see one here from her window, up on the hillside that slopes towards Hokage Rock, clinging to the uneven land. She’s sure its roots have to be all twisted, a labyrinth of gnarled wood clinging to any scrap of land it can wind itself around as its branches and petals try against all odds to reach upwards into the open sky that she can’t take her eyes off of.

There’s a metaphor in there somewhere, but it’s one she doesn’t care to unpack.

This year was her twentieth viewing of her namesake, though Sakura obviously doesn't remember the first few. Her parents take great pride in the retelling of tales from those first few years of her life, the ones she was too little to remember. The highlights come up annually on her birthday without fail, how she grasped at the petals like they were something precious, clutched in her sticky little hands the entire day.

A framed photograph is perched on one of the built-in shelves of her parents' living room, of her and her father on her first birthday. He was holding her up on unsteady legs, ridiculously proud and pointing towards the camera where her mother had been trying to get her to look. Her short pink hair was flying absolutely everywhere, matching the fluttering petals and in-bloom cherry blossom tree in the background, chubby hands grasping upwards. Strawberry cake and frosting were smeared all over her cheeks. They’d had a picnic for her, at the park nearest to their house.

“We came home and cleaned you up, and then your father helped you water your tree for the first time, in the little pink watering pail you unwrapped earlier. You were so cute.” That’s what her mom says every year. Sakura has the sentence memorized at this point, could recite it on cue, if she needed to.

Her parents had planted a cherry blossom sapling in their backyard a few days after they brought her home from the hospital as a newborn, so the tree is around the same age she is. She used to spend time under it often, as a kid, and some of her earliest memories involve sprawling beneath it to study the heavens while her mother gardened. She would also sneak berries from the patch when her back was turned. Sometimes her dad would join in her pilferage, and they would sit beneath the tree like a couple of bandits with stained lips, though those first few years she can remember he barely fit underneath it, as tall as he is. Many a tickle fight had been had, shaded by those branches. She would read books there on nice afternoons, when she was a little older.

The tree is fully grown now, also on the final cusp of its blooming for the year, floriferous wood expanded outwards to drape her childhood stomping grounds in a sea of soft pink. They have a picnic under it every year, in her family’s backyard, when they celebrate her birthday together. Her actual birthday has come and gone, but her birthday dinner is two days from now. Her parents swung by her apartment on Sunday afternoon for a bit with outlandishly large cupcakes, but her mom had mentioned they’d do dinner and a gift on their usual night, Thursday, since it works so well with their schedules every other week.

“We have to have your picnic, under your tree, like always. It’s a tradition! My beautiful girl. I can’t believe you’re twenty. It seems like just yesterday you were only yay high,” her dad had told her, gesturing below his knees before hugging her too tightly, ruffling the hair she'd inherited from him before they left. The cupcakes were strawberry with cream cheese frosting, one of her favorite treats. They’d left her with four extra to enjoy between then and Thursday, one for each day if she wanted it, turning her birthday into more of a week-long affair than a one-day celebration.

She and Ino had demolished two of them while watching some of the terrible movies they love to hate together, later that evening. It had been a smorgasbord of strawberries, really, because they'd washed them down with strawberry daiquiris, sugary sweetness topped with ridiculous amounts of whipped cream. They'd sat on her balcony, after, sipping a little tipsily and just looking.

"You should try to enjoy your namesake more this year, Forehead. You're so busy that I'm not sure you've realized, but you've really grown into it," Ino had said, beckoning vaguely towards a Konoha beginning to bloom, renewed with a warm breeze, spring ushered in by a fluttering of pink petals. Ino likes to give compliments in roundabout ways, she’s learned over the course of their friendship; crass as the blonde can be, she does have her moments. Her words meant a lot to Sakura, so she’s trying to take them to heart, to stop and smell the cherry blossoms, so to speak. It won’t be long before Konoha crescendos into the sweltering heat of the summer.

She loves her parents and her friends. She really does.

But birthdays are weird, Sakura thinks.

Last year, Sasuke had sent her a letter on her birthday. She’s reread it so many times that she has it more than memorized; it’s stitched into the muscle tissue of her heart at this point, or maybe scarred into the lining of her aortic valve, sempiternal markings adorning the tunnels that sustain her, causing her breath to catch every time.

Sakura,

Hanami has come to the wilderness in the Land of Honey. Bees are awakening and foraging for the first pollen of the season, with which to begin again. Cherry blossom petals are everywhere, lining the pathways and floating on the water.

Happy birthday.

-Sasuke

It had been short, simple, and even a little poetic; she had cherished it, as she does all of his other letters. She’d cherished the pressed flower with it just as much; a cherry blossom, neatly flattened with a precision that screamed Sasuke, near exactly the same shade of pink as her hair.

Sakura had started crying when she unfolded the paper to reveal it sitting atop his words. His hawk had waited patiently at her office window for a response to be written and tied to its leg, perched atop the windowsill and watching the goings-on of the village below, absolutely no concept in its predator brain of how much she delights in seeing it fly, a graceful tether to the boy - now man - she has been in love with for ages.

Cherry blossom petals are everywhere. Is there a hidden meaning there, or is she making a mountain out of a molehill?

She’s tried not to read too much into the letters. She's not sure if he sends any to Naruto or not; she's too afraid to ask, because she'll either get a heart-pounding hope if he doesn't get them, or a soul-crushing disappointment if he does. She can't imagine him sending a yellow flower to Naruto, but he may very well have sent him a different gift for his birthday.

Maybe he just thought she would like a flower, which she did - it’s pressed for safekeeping, along with all of his other correspondence to her, sporadically and chronologically throughout a book she keeps on her nightstand, An Introduction to Electrocardiography. It is her take on an album of small things she holds close to her own heart, things she wishes she could read in his. Sakura didn’t want to buy an actual album for such a thing; that felt too formal, for something as ambiguous as her ties to Sasuke, overflowing on her end as they may be. So she’d settled on a book about deciphering the heart’s tells based on science only, electrical impulses and repolarization, the sizes and positions of the chambers, how to diagnose conditions utilizing one’s findings. It’s one she doesn’t need access to anymore, extremely familiar with EKGs after years of study. She’d wanted it to be something no-nonsense, all hard facts and data on how to read activity plotted over time.

Evidence-based. Are letters evidence, though? She’s not sure that would hold up as empirical proof in any of the scholarly journals she’s studied or submitted work to since beginning her research. She thinks wryly, though, based on what she has witnessed get published, that scientific verification doesn’t always matter if you know the right people.

She’s thought many times sifting through it that perhaps it is too optimistic, too hopeful of a book subject for such a thing. Sakura has agonized over it, frankly, wondering whether it was an inappropriate choice.

...But now that they’re in there, it might ache worse to move them somewhere else.

It’s the last day of March now, and she didn’t get a letter this month, which is unusual, because she’s gotten one near each month in the time that he’s been away. She’s paged through the book a few times over the past several days, rereading and admiring the preserved sakura blossom, frozen in suspended animation indefinitely on a page about precordial leads.

Sakura hadn’t really expected anything from him for her birthday, other than a monthly letter like he usually sends... but this year she didn’t even get that. She’s trying really hard to not be disappointed. She has so much to be thankful for, in the grand scheme of things...

...But the petals of the cherry blossom from last year have faded over time, she’d evaluated yesterday, sitting in her bedroom. It might be like her, always pressed in a book, fading whilst stuck indefinitely between the boundless teeth of academia. There is always more data to record, more evidence, with which one can prove or disprove their findings.

No letter this month, though. Nothing to record, no new evidence.

It might be time to move the letters somewhere else, she thinks pensively. Maybe a place where she’s not tempted to look at them all the time; their placement in the book, small scraps of paper that stick out in only a couple of places, makes it easy to go back and reread them. She’s pretty sure she has an empty shoebox in her closet that she could move them to, in a pile rather than catalogued between pages rife with information and a fragile sort of hope. Maybe she’ll do it tonight, put it up in the far right corner of the upper shelf, shoved towards the back so she can’t reach it without the stool, so she’s not tempted whenever the next bout of heartsickness slams into her like one of Tsunade-shishou’s fists used to. She needs to go by the library after work first, to return some things, but maybe when she gets home, she’ll do it. She could eat a cupcake, too; that might make it a little easier.

She dreams of that silver sometimes, recalls it any time she sees something similar in color or reflet. There’s an extremely unique necklace in an antique shop she visits with Ino and Sai from time to time, and occasionally on her own, over on the northeast side of town. It’s a salt-and-pepper diamond, dark grey with inclusions, dainty and set in what must be a hand-fabricated setting. It hangs from a silver chain, towards the back of a display case filled with other vintage and distinctive pieces, but it’s the only one she ever finds herself drawn to. It is so similar to his right eye, dark smoke near black, speckled with beguiling silver startling in its clarity. The bevel cut reveals new flecks dependent on the angle at which you view it.

Sakura studies it closely on each visit, because it is so hauntingly breathtaking and it reminds her of him.

Ino has said it’s not her color, and that she should stick to warm tones and gold, for which she is better suited; Sakura has not confessed to her why it catches her eye so much. Sai has agreed with his girlfriend on the coloring note, sensitive as he is to such things, but the way he studies her every time she tears herself away from it makes her suspect he knows exactly why it captivates her so. It’s been sitting there for years at this point; she has to mentally talk herself out of buying it on each visit. It’s beautiful, but she would spend far too much time gawking at it, and it might hurt more with extended study than the gentle tugging at her heart she experiences when she’s in that old building throughout tiny fragments of lackadaisical afternoons.

Sasuke has been gone for a long time. She hopes he's finding the peace he's been seeking, that he's seeing the world with new eyes just as he'd imagined. She thinks of him every day, sends out little orisons like petals in the breeze in the hopes that they’ll find him, wherever he is.

I wonder where he is now.

Try as she does to enjoy the breath of spring Konoha is right now, and her namesake as Ino said, all she can seem to do is shift her vision to the sky, hoping against hope for a glimpse of a familiar bird-of-prey that will stay an ample amount of time for her to craft a response, before it abvolates away for another month.

Sakura smiles, then, close to laughing at the absurdity of it all, because she is so predictable. She loves this village despite its many flaws and challenges, despite the things about it she and Naruto and Kakashi-sensei and Ino and even Tsunade-shishou, off in the Land of Wind, are trying to change, but even after so many years, she’s still pining for something beyond it, something in the wilds of the sky just beyond her reach.

There’s always next year, she supposes, pupils drawn again towards the outstretched branches of the cherry blossom tree on the hill, before trailing her eyes along further. She can grow a little more to try to reach him. When she was little, she had wanted to grow tall so she could try to touch a star, like the branches of the tree in her backyard did when she and her father laid beneath them on balmy summer nights. He would tell her ridiculous stories about all of the constellations, things she knew had to be untrue, even at the ripe age of five. Precocious, he’d always called her, but in the loving, joking manner he had.

Her gaze follows the horizon, leisurely taking in the rest of her home. It really is a lovely day, despite her yearning. Spring is here again, and today's is a gentle sunset, one last little bit of sunlight with which to conclude March. The temperature is already spiking, unusually warm for early spring, but summers in the Land of Fire are always hot. She really should finish her paperwork, but it’s hard to find the motivation just yet.

Something possesses her, then, to turn her neck more, take in more of the skyline's continuation. She wants to see all of it.

And then Sakura’s eyes fall on an achingly familiar figure cloaked all in black, perched only a roof away and observing her, and she thinks she must have nodded off, because she has to be dreaming.

She subtly pinches herself in the millisecond of time that follows, but she is very much awake.

The words are blooming out of her throat before she can even process what’s happening, exultation sinking into her every vein. “Sasuke-kun!” She moves to crank her window open the rest of the way, and he hops from the neighboring roof down into her office, all nimble legerity that she still thinks has to be a mere mirage conjured from her memories. When he straightens to his full height, she muses that he has to have grown taller. The mere sound of his footsteps on the tile flooring, as familiar a refrain to her as if he’d just walked out of the village yesterday, are a treasure beyond price.

“Sakura.” His voice is a rich timbre that she has desperately felt the absence of; hearing him say her name almost makes her want to cry. She smiles wider instead, to the extent that it almost hurts, and her gaze latches hungrily onto the very eye she was just daydreaming about. A storm of soot and silver, beveled into countless fragments like some kind of dark, rustic diamond, and so staggeringly beautiful that she’s pretty sure she’s blushing just from beholding it. Gods, it's not fair for someone to be so handsome.

“When did you get back?” She asks, utterly overcome with joy. This is better than a letter or any birthday gift she could have received, brighter than any star she’s beheld.

“Just now.” He’s smiling, a small and subtle upturn of lips that is so characteristic of him. Then his words hit her, and her face must be getting redder.

Just now? As in…

“I’m sorry I missed your birthday,” he adds before she can simmer on that for too long, and she has to blink in bewilderment, because that is the absolute last thing she expected him to say. Sakura wonders how much heat can creep into one’s face before they spontaneously combust.

Then she realizes she should probably respond, as humans tend to do in conversations. “Oh! Um… it’s okay.” She folds her hands in front of her shyly, grinning like an idiot. “Thank you for remembering.”

There is a lengthy moment in which she just soaks him in, hoping he can read in her eyes how much she’s missed him. He is still so beautiful, prized eyes and aristocratic angles that have solidified a bit more into the face of a man in the time that’s passed. His hair is different now, covering his Rinnegan eye. His cloak is a little more threadbare, too. He’s tall.

His expression, normally unreadable, is calm. Content, even.

There’s a question nagging at her that she knows she needs to ask. She tries not to bite her lip as she asks it, braces herself for the possibility of not liking the answer.

“Are you… just back for a little while?”

Did you find what you were searching for?

He gazes at her for so long that she thinks he may be glimpsing her soul, peeking into her ventricles to see his own words immortalized there, seared into her core to be felt each time her blood pumps.

“...For more than a while.” And she smiles the biggest she ever has. Oh, this is so much better than a letter or a gift.

“Well, welcome back, Sasuke-kun. It’s… very good to see you again.” It feels as if a piece of her heart has been returned to her, something of the divine stitched back into her chest and full to bursting in omneity.

There is a pause, and then he’s reaching his hand out towards hers, initiating physical contact with a touch that is feather light, so gentle she thinks she is going to start sobbing.

She can’t help it; she pulls him into a hug, tinged with elation. She hopes he doesn’t mind too much; he stiffens for a brief moment, but then settles, wrapping his arm around her and settling his head atop of hers, and she could die happy right there, embracing him with feelings momentarily set free from where they’ve been whelved into her chest.

He smells faintly like sage and smoked cedar, just as she remembered. She can hear his heart thumping, a strong cadence, and it grounds her. Oh, she’s missed him.

“...I’m home, Sakura.” Soft words float above her head, and she can feel the vibration of them through his chest, right by her ear.

Oh, she’s crying.

Sasuke lets her embrace him for a long time, for which she is so grateful. She knows he’s not one for physical contact; it’s a privilege to be allowed into his space even for a single second, let alone for an extended period.

She draws back eventually, glancing up at him again through the tears still collecting in her eyes. Her face blazes when he reaches to wipe them away tenderly with a calloused hand, careful and with a lenity that she’s always known was there, hidden under the surface.

She could just stare at him for hours, she thinks as he lowers his hand. He’s still looking down at her with one of the softest expressions she has ever seen him wear. She really hopes she’s not dreaming.

It’s tremendously hard to get it together, but she tries, because she doesn’t want to spend the entire time crying, not when he's finally back. There are so many questions she’d like to ask him that she’s finding it a challenge to pick one with which to lead.

He surprises her by speaking first, quietly. “I… had something made for you.”

It takes a moment for the words to compute.

Made for me?

Her processing speed must be exceptionally slow, stuck in the utter mush her insides have become, because he adds, “...For your birthday.”

Sakura blinks, and furrows her brows in confusion. “Made… for me?”

He nods. “...I’m sorry it’s late.” The way he speaks it is cryptic, like the apology weighs more than one needed for a tardy gift. Doesn’t he know she doesn’t care? He could have showed up in July with something for her, and it still would have made her knees weak and her heart thump furiously in her chest.

Made for me? She’s still stuck on that sentiment as he breaks eye contact and turns to rummage through his satchel, beneath his cloak.

Sasuke pulls out a medium-sized flat box, a simple white, and she doesn’t know what she expected, but it wasn’t that. Something that comes in a box is a lot more formal than a pressed cherry blossom, something more… permanent.

She reaches out to take it on autopilot, and is stupidly distracted by the way his hand brushes against hers, a small spark that makes something in her quake. She wonders if he felt it, too.

Sakura clutches the box with both hands like her life depends on it, murmuring softly, “Thank you, Sasuke-kun.” She’ll wait until later to open it, after he’s left; whatever it is, she doesn’t want to embarrass him, and she also isn’t sure she can tear her eyes away from him just yet, anyways.

Is it just the lighting in her office, or are his ears a little flushed? She didn’t notice that before; maybe he’s had a drawn-out journey back. She wonders how much ground he covered today, if he’s still winded. He might need to rest.

But then he mumbles, voice husky with what she assumes is disuse, “...You should open it.”

His words echo in her head again. I… had something made for you.

“Okay,” she answers in a hushed voice, so she doesn’t scare him away, shifting slightly to set the box on her desk carefully. Suddenly she is very nervous, anticipation settling into her gut.

When she lifts the lid, she swears her heart ceases beating.

The most exquisitely intricate uchiwa fan she has ever laid eyes upon is placed in the box before her.

It’s carved into a likeness of a cherry blossom tree, branches twisting lissomely into bamboo framework, impossibly fine. A different set of words is reverberating in her head now.

You should try to enjoy your namesake more this year, Forehead. You're so busy that I'm not sure you've realized, but you've really grown into it.

Made for me?

“O-oh.” Sakura is not sure what she expected, but it wasn’t this. She fights back the tears, biting her lip and wide eyes soaking it all in, enjoying her namesake in a way that is entirely unprecedented in its sheer severity. The amount of time it would have taken for someone to sculpt and bind and sew is unimaginable; every detail is finely wrought, flawless down to the silk and stitching, lacquered and carved pale wood shifting effortlessly into eighty slivers of bamboo, intricately webbing silk together with the lithe grace of gossamer. It’s a cherry blossom tree, petals and all, pearlescent thread shifting slightly, gorgeously in the light, unimaginable detail. She has stitched people back together countless times over the course of years, but even her expert dexterity would look like a child’s first embroidery stitching in comparison. The stamen within the petals are nearly more detailed and finely milled than an actual, real life cherry blossom, plexure sutured in a fashion so baronial that it’s impossible to believe human hands were even responsible for it.

The silk. Oh, the silk. The color shift bears a striking resemblance to the Uchiha insignia. This is not a gift one gives to a teammate.

Oh, she's crying.

This has to be a dream, some kind of paracosm her heart thought up to give her brain the high of a lifetime. Hope burgeons and unfolds in her chest cavity, bleeding into her extremities like the pale pink shifting into red before her eyes. She’s never, ever going to forget this, not even if she lives to be one hundred years old.

Made for me?

She picks it up with disbelieving hands, grasping it more carefully than she’s ever held anything in her entire life, as if she’s going to wake up at any moment and it will dissolve into synapse, lost in the hazy juncture of morning the way one tends to lose awareness of the contents of a dream upon coming to lucidity. To her absolute bewilderment, it stays solid in her hands, a finery made even more unbelievable by touch. The grooves of the carving are as gentle as his hand had been on hers earlier. She thinks it would have had to be commissioned at least a few months in advance, outlandishly expensive. She’s never seen silk like this. She doesn't know; she's smart, but she's no artisan. Maybe she should ask Sai. She's crying.

She adores it.

Tears won’t stop welling in her eyes; she thinks they may be escaping from a tender spot inside her chest that’s been reserved for him since she was a child, a leak in a metaphorical dam. She takes a steadying breath, blinks, almost has them conquered. Get a grip, Sakura.

Then Sasuke’s hand is on hers, gently turning the handle over.

Her name is carved into the pale wood, on the back in formal calligraphy, Sakura daintier and more perfect than she could ever write it, as if it had just been uncovered in one of the inner layers rather than whittled there manually. Sasuke presses her fingers to it before loosening his grip, and in that second it feels as though his lost hand is in the wood, caressing her from split atoms in the grooves from the other side.

The tears spill over her cheeks - she admits defeat - intricacy of the entire thing blurring out of focus but still somehow burned into her retinas for all eternity.

Made for me, made for me, made for me-

Her voice finds her after a few more tears fall. “It’s beautiful.” Her voice is barely above a whisper, overwhelmed with complete and utter awe, trying desperately to choke down a sob. “Thank you, Sasuke-kun. I… I’ll treasure it. Always.” She cradles the fan closer to her chest, her heart - maybe An Introduction to Electrocardiography wasn’t a poorly-chosen book, after all; there is much to be read from something this precious - and regards him with watery eyes. She wishes she wasn’t crying; the distortion of the tears is making it hard to see the silver she’s loved and missed so much.

His hand lifts to her face after a moment, and to her surprise, he wipes away her tears again. She barely catches the something-more in his eyes, then, through the waterworks, precious metal flashing and pouring into the words scarred into her ventricles to live there forever, fortified in silver, but he is looking at her so -

“...Always,” he agrees, voice a little breathless, sparking scintilla near hypnotizing her in their luster, and he seems so happy -

Then he leans down to press his lips gently to hers, and this is better than her heart stopping, like when she opened the box. This time, her heart soars, and she touches a star she’s been dreaming of for eons.

#naruto #sasusaku #ssfanfiction #cherry writes #like silver #fanfiction #i'm really out here with just hundreds of pages of fanfiction in my google doc drafts huh

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spado-the-pomeranian · 4 years ago

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Well, g ű l p, I made myself a jjba OC, for Vento Aureo, of course. S o o o this is quite a longread with some stupid jokes and deep symbolism (no) (btw english is my second language so... there may be mistakes and weird phrases in some places, sorry)

Name: Antonina "Nina" Kormyltseva

Namesake:

Antonina is a slavic name with a greek origin, meaning "resisting" and "joining the battle".

Short form, Nina, referring to german punk singer Nina Hagen ( I took some bits and pieces from her 80s looks and her appearance in general).

Kormyltseva is referring to Ilya Kormyltsev, russian poet and lyricist of a famous soviet/russian band "Nautilus Pompilius" (they had quite a rebellious songs, ya know; thus both name and surname gives her a Rebel Rebel vibe).

Age: 23

Birth date: 10.27.1977

Zodiac sign: Scorpio

MBTI: ENTP (Says a lot about her (and our society))

Height: 183cm (6' in feet, if I'm not mistaken)

Hair colour: Her natural hair colour is something like light chestnut, but she bleached her hair and then dyed them blue (dye your hair blue only if you have clear base, kids, otherwise you gonna get a weird dirty pond colour)

Eye colour: Hazel

Occupation: Police Officer (formerly) (in Russia), Private Investigator (in Russia, later in Italy)

Home country: Soviet Union/Russia (because USSR collapsed in the 1991 when Nina was like 14 or something I am bad at math)

Stand: 「 PEEK-A-BOO」 (after Siouxsie And The Banshees song, a theme of "somebody's watching you from the dark", desire to remain invisible, voyeuristic tones etc). Stand gives Nina an ability to travel through shadows (much like Black Sabbath, yup, but in that case it is a power type stand). Stand has a secondary ability named 「 KILLING JAR 」 (still Siouxsie And The Banshees reference, a kind of Nina's "private prison"; killing jar actually is a devise used by entomologists to kill a specimen, a metaphor for a controlled violence): it allows Nina to turn people into a shadows. People in a shadow state can't interact with outside world, but they still can see and talk to Nina (if she tortures someone with her ability, she simply ignores them, using physical violence in rare occasions only (when she feels like it)). To keep a living being in a shadow state Nina needs a concentration. The amount of it varies from person to person; non-standusers, for example, are much easier to keep, though strong-willed people (ya know, like Bruno, for another example) are able to escape.

Also, she uses a shadow space in her jacket to store some things (like camera, voice recorder, phone, electro shoker, checks from stores etc.)

Music theme (of sorts): The Quaterdrawing of a Dog — Siouxsie And The Banshees

I've specifically listened to some of the DP adaptation (and ASB) canon characters themes and decided that Nina need one too. This track perfectly describes her with it's tense (waterphone intro, yay), yet somehow chill and melodical synth and guitar sound. And this sweet whistle sound... chef's kiss.

So um... About her origin. (there are a lil bit of violence, just a warning)

She was born in Moscow, in middle class family. Her father was a programmer and her mother worked as a seamstress. Also, she has an younger sister, who at some point in the future became a fashion model (because for some reason I thought that a contrast between two sisters would be quite funny).

Her father was kinda absent during Nina's childhood because of work. At home though, he unconsciously over-controlled her and other family members, sometimes being verbally abusive and manipulative. At some point in 90s, he started to drink alcohol to cope with stress of economic crisis, which was caused by collapse of Soviet economy and a fast pace of "shock therapy". Nina hated him because all of that (though, she constantly feels guilty about it).

On the other hand, she loved her mother and sister grately. They were her role models, even though she'd grown up nothing like either of them.

Since childhood, she was fascinated with crime cases and mysteries, and that's why she went to study for a police officer. But she didn't stay as one for long: sexism, "glass ceiling" and overall corrupted system forced her to become a private investigator.

One day she was hired to investigate a domestic violence case: powerful rich man crippled his wife out of jealousy and tried to get away with it. Nina helped in building a strong case, but the man escaped punishment by bribing (and threatening) the jury.

Nina, being a hypocrite and a desperate human being a big friend of justice and a vigilant, decides to avenge the crippled clientess by maiming her abuser. However, the man dies during the torture, and Nina, in a state of shock, tried to get rid of the body, unsuccessfully. She was caught and sent to prison, where she lived through some shit and nearly got killed.

But she also gained a stand, that's pretty cool.

With a help of her newfound ability she escapes, collects her belongings and flies to Naples (the only foreign city she was in once, because of her sisters work). She works as a PI, although most of her cases are "my spouse is acting strangely, he/she is probably cheating on me, check it out".

Aaaaand actually... I was planning to write a huuuuge funny angsty cool bizarre and d e e p detective story of how she worked with bucci gang (with little funny encounters with other canon characters) (and with more badass OCs of mine😎). Someday I will.......

A bit more about her as a person I guess?(+ random facts)

Her exterior might look cold, but in all actuality she is very sociable and fun to hang out with.

She is extremely sarcastic and loves to make fun of people (lovingly, of course).

She is caring and clingy towards people she trusts (and it's pretty hard for her to trust, she's a scorpio) . If she trusts you, she'll show you a lot of attention, both physical and verbal.

She is a kind of chameleon: she tries to behave in such a way as to win people over (although sometimes she misreads them).

Awfully, awfully petty. Won't try to harm you if you wronged her, though she'll be very mean towards you and probably will spit in your coffee.

Has a tendency to be biased towards some people (*cough cough* mafia dudes for example *cough cough*).

Paranoid and suspicious because of her job and past experiences.

E x t r e m e l y c u r i o u s. She longs to know everything about everyone, so she uses her stand to spy on people she finds interesting... she is creepy lady, uh-huh.,.,.,.,

Keeps her vulnerable side to herself. Probably won't openly speak about her feelings. Rare occasions only. Very rare.

Peek-A-Boo, unlike her user, is adorkable little baby :). She is much more open and friendly, expressing Nina's caring cute side. I keep imagining how Peek-A-Boo climbs everywhere, looking-touching-shifting different things out of curiosity. (Probably she is ENFP, lol)

Nina has a collection of photos of weird people on her laptop.

She's a pretty good singer. Also, she can play synth (one hand only... but she tries!).

Her favorite musician is Nick Cave, she resonates with his goth sad bastrad music... She likes Siouxsie And The Banshees as well, BUT that's obvious, yeah... She likes music in general, can tell you thousand cool facts, can name you thousand obscure bands.

Feminist queen

Uses lots of metaphors in her speech. She says that it's her "russian" habit since she grew in Soviet Union where it was hard to freely express your opinion directly... or maybe she's just pretentious, who knows.

She has a lot of plants in her flat, though she doesn't really know how to take care of them. That's why they die so often. (Symbolism? Yep.) But she has a cactus named Budgie. Peek-A-Boo likes it vvv much. She tried to take it outside with her few times. Nina said no. ( "Let me see what you have?" "A cactus!" " N O.")

Associates herself with a dog. It's her favorite animal. ( I even named her playlist as a "woof woof bork bork")

Her favorite film is "Beware of the Car"(1966). Fav book is "Les Misérables".

The most important fact. She likes pineapple pizza. She fights Italians because of the pineapple pizza. "It's tasty, you guys aRE JUST MEAN."

That's it folks. Thank you very much for reading, you are cool. You can ask me something about OC in comments,.,.,.(about her design👀).,.,.,.,. Or you can just ask anything.

#jjba #jjba oc #jjba original character #vento aureo #jojo no kimyou na bouken #jojos bizarre adventure #art #digital art #oc art #jojo oc #my ocs

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swatheford · 4 years ago

Text

golden anniversary

(swatheford short #1) gary and miss wilkins are some blog favorites (some might say a few might love them too much) and i actually had a backstory for them! i promised that i'd release it when i reached 400 followers and i did yesterday so thank you! a little 1k short awaits below the cut! :)

"Savannah! Reese! It's time to frost the cupcakes!" A frail voice calls out as feet frantically pad across the wooden floor. Two children around five and nine, peek over the tall table. Miss Wilkins wore a gentle smile on her face; one that held a warmth which never seemed to weather as she grew old.

24 cupcakes were placed on a platter and the children started to grab at them. "Remember not to add too much, okay?"

"Yes, Gran!" Multiple bowls filled the table, each packed with colorful frostings. All three of them sat around the table and the boy wasted no time decorating. With an eager grip, he took a spoon and heaved a rather generous scoop of frosting on his chocolate cupcake.

"Gran?" a quiet voice piped up. Savannah looked up at her grandmother in awe, dark locks held into two sprouting pigtails.

"Yes, dear?"

"Can you tell us more stories about Grandpa?" At that, Miss Wilkins' smile wavered as she took a deep breath.

"Of course I can. But first," a shaky hand reaches out to wipe a swipe of pink frosting from her granddaughter's cheek. "Remember the aquarium we go to in Castellan with all the jellyfish and sharks?"

"Ooh, yeah! Those were so cool!" The boy chimed in before messily drizzling his cupcake in frosting.

"Well that was where your Grandfather proposed," her heart swells fondly at the memory. She remembered the confident grin on his face as the light ripples of water danced across his features. His eyes glimmered like opalesent pearls. She couldn't forget him if she tried.

"What was he like?"

"You know your Grandad,” she chuckled. "Even then he was funny and confident." Her husband had always been smooth, anything he did wasn’t complete without a golden grin. It wasn't long until she fell for him. "We were looking at the otters and two of them linked arms with each other. He tapped my shoulder and said ‘apparently otters link arms with the one they love so even when they sleep, they won't drift away from each other. Just like us," her voice grew shaky and a breeze whipped past her thin arm, as if his ghost softly linked arms.

Reese tilted his head, "What about the fish? Didn't Grandpa love fish?"

"He loved all kinds, especially the koi fish in the garden area. We'd go there so often that it became our second home. By the end, he gave every single one of them a name."

"Did he name one of them Reese?"

Miss Wilkins chuckles, "He sure did."

Savannah raised a hand covered in coloring, "What about Savannah?"

"Of course, my love." The siblings shared a smile.

"So what happened next?"

"Well we were at the koi pond and he searched his pockets, fishing for something-"

Another set of footsteps interrupted Miss Wilkins' train of thought. Her son, Ethan, emerged from the backyard, pants stained with dirt. He wipes his brow and smiles at the sight. "You telling them about how Dad popped the question?" She nods as he silently asks to finish the story. He takes a seat at the table, unwrapping a cupcake. "Let me tell you, Gramps was really something. He was actually a magician,” Ethan flourished as his children looked at him, fascinated.

“Why didn’t he teach me?”

“A magician never tells his secret,” he winks and sits back. “Anyways, he was searching for the ring and found it behind Gran’s ear! Just like that, he proposed.”

“What did the ring look like?” Savannah asked, practically jumping out of her chair in anticipation. Miss Wilkins slid her hand across the table, revealing a golden band with two small diamonds in the center.

“Wow,” she gasped. Ethan stood up, stretching before ruffling Reese’s red locks.

“That’s Gramps for you,” he chuckled before clapping his hands together. “Start to finish up your cupcakes, kiddos. We’re gonna leave soon.”

“But I wanna stay with Gran!” Reese pouted and pushed himself off the chair before tottering to embrace Miss Wilkins.

“You’re coming over next week, dear. Don’t worry,” she rubbed his back soothingly. At the mention of visiting again, Reese completely forgot about his sadness and replaced it with excitement. He resumed to cover the cake with sprinkles as if nothing happened.

Ethan clicks the seatbelts in place before closing the backdoors of the car. He turns to face his mother who presses a kiss to his cheek. The look in his eyes was all too similar to her husband's. "Thanks for watching them, Mom."

“Castellan’s got you all formal, dear. You don’t have to thank me,” she chuckled. “How’s the backyard looking?”

“Spotless if I do say so myself,” he grins. “The pond is ready by the way. I’m guessing that it’ll be home to a few koi?” Ethan already knew the answer and the look on his mother’s face confirmed it. He nods, brushing away dark locks from his face before reaching into the car. “I was cleaning up the house the other day and I found this old thing collecting dust.” He places a box in her hand. "Happy Anniversary, Mom.”

From the red cardboard, she knew what was inside. With gratitude, she wrapped her son into a warm hug. “Thank you, dear.”

Ethan shoved his hands into his pockets sheepishly before looking back to the car where Reese giggles. "The more he grows up, the more he’s acting like Dad.”

“You know, you were like that too. I guess it runs in the family," she chuckles. “I’ll see you next week, okay? You have a long drive ahead of you.”

With one last hug, Ethan waved goodbye. “Love you, Mom.”

“Love you too.”

Miss Wilkins gently opens the box to reveal a photo album. It was like opening a time capsule as her mind drifted to the same mentality as her wedding day. She remembered how youthful and free she felt that summer afternoon. The tattered page flipped to reveal a photo of the radiant couple at the altar and her heart soars, soaking in the happiness and longing. A thumb caresses over the closeup of her husband, clad in a crisp suit.

"Oh Gary," she whispers. "Happy Anniversary, dear."

It would've been their 50th anniversary if he wasn't taken away too soon. As the days passed by, he grew weaker and weaker; barely hanging on. Through his final moments Gary still wore the same charming smile on his face as if nothing ever happened.

Her moment of sadness faded away as she reached for a container in the cupboard. The lid clicks open as she pours out a scoop of fish flakes before standing in front of the tank. A small goldfish swam around aimlessly as she softly poured the flakes into the water. Miss Wilkins takes a seat in the weathered armchair by the fish tank, fiddling with the golden band on her left hand.

Apparently otters link arms with the one they love so even when they sleep, they won't drift away from each other. Just like us. She smiled knowing that Gary kept his promise through fifty years and fifty more.

yay! now y'all know about gary's namesake! hopefully this made someone emotional because i was tearing up while typing this up. granted it might've been because of my depressing cello playlist or the fact that it was 1 am, but hopefully it made y'all feel something! thank you again for 400, i'm constantly blown away by y'alls support and i'm truly grateful for y'all! i can't wait to share more with each and every one of you. :)

#swatheford shorts #miss wilkins #gary the goldfish #secrets of swatheford #stf

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daesungindistress · 4 years ago

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Oh wow chickbang have gotten so big! Is anyone a troublemaker? What are their personalities like?

No one is really what I would call a troublemaker. Barring some minor squabbles here and there, just pecking order stuff, nothing serious, nothing dangerous, everyone is getting along nicely. Yay! I suppose the only one I would have considered a troublemaker at any point was GD, who I... um... don’t have anymore.

I’ll put this one behind a cut.

This was my last photo of him. GD went to a new home back in July. New home, new harem. Months of trying to manage the feather picking by the other chickens that contributed to his baldness was just not working out, plus it eventually reached a point where I could not handle the constant crowing. He crowed all day long, every hour of the day from sunup to sundown. Hearing voices would set him off -- my voice, neighbors’ voices, visitors’ voices, whatever. And in the final few weeks I had him, as he reached sexual maturity and was becoming protective of “his” flock, he took to crowing nonstop any time I was around, only settling down when I would leave them and go back inside the house.

Roosters crow to announce their presence and establish dominance. He probably saw me as competition. Maybe even a mild threat? He never attacked me, in fact he always seemed to fear me (lol), but he was really ruining my enjoyment of my own chickens. He was beautiful and interesting but the little dude had to go. And while it was hard to go through with it, to finally do it after months of thinking about it, once he was gone, to be honest, I found I didn’t really miss him 🤷‍♀️

...because the very next day after I rehomed him I got my first egg! And that began a whole new “chapter” of Chickbang’s story. Within the next week several more hens had begun laying, and by the end of the month, all seven. I suspect GD was causing them stress and slowing down their development because he matured earlier than they did and was mounting and trying to mate with them before they were ready. All in all, they seem happier and more at ease as an all-female flock, and they’re friendlier and more attentive toward me now than they were before, probably because I’ve replaced the rooster as head of the flock. I’m happy with my decision. I’m also happy I kept and raised him for as long as I did because I feel I learned a lot about the physical and behavioral characteristics of cockerels/young roosters and will be better able to identify them at an early age in the future.

As for everyone’s personalities... gonna turn to bullet points for this one.

Dae

Is now something of a lap chicken despite wanting nothing to do with me when young. All on her terms, of course.

Quacks like a duck.

Very noisy, has a big voice just like her namesake.

Her breed (Buff Orpington) tends to “go broody” (mothering instinct kicks in and she’ll want to sit on a clutch of eggs and hatch them), and in August she actually went what I call “half broody”, meaning she would spend hours on the nest and would puff up and screech at other hens when they came near, guarding “her” eggs, even though the eggs she was sitting on weren’t actually hers. She didn’t spend all day there, however, which meant she wasn’t fully broody. I got into the habit of retrieving eggs from underneath her, gently. Thankfully, she never pecked me, just made unhappy clucking noises at me for the egg thievery.

Doesn’t bully Gwisun anymore, or anyone for that matter, so that’s good!

Bae

Gets a little nutty when she needs to lay.

Runs back and forth between the nests (I now have two separate structures inside the run that contain nests for the chickens, just giving them options and trying to cut down on the crowding), is extremely indecisive and kicks up such a fuss until she finally, finally settles on a nest she deems suitable.

Wrecks the nest before laying an egg in it.

Talkative, but that’s nothing new.

The only hen who I’ve never actually seen lay an egg... what’s up with that?

Is still curious about everything but doesn’t peck me anymore so that’s good (she tore my eyelid once, thanks Bae).

Is regularly dominated by Gwisun, which is a fairly recent development. Gwisun was always bottom of the pecking order but one day decided to have it out for Bae. They started out leaping in the air and bumping chests, but it wasn’t long before Bae was submitting, squatting when Gwisun stood over her, and just plain running away when she pursued her. Gwisun still takes it upon herself to reminds Bae who’s boss from time to time, chasing her and occasionally even mounting her!

VIP

Big Momma (not actually a momma, just big... biggest of them all)

Doesn’t handle the heat well and was the first to learn that standing in pans of water helped cool her off! Smart girl.

Lays large eggs.

Is pretty chill overall, takes most things in stride, not easily bothered.

Doesn’t sit back down on her egg after laying it or otherwise hang out in the nests any longer than she needs to. Does her thing and leaves pretty quickly afterward, which is great! It means I can collect and go if I happen to be out there with them when she does the deed.

Tabi (on the left)

Head hen (I think)

Seems perpetually ill-tempered, the sounds she makes are IMO a little grumpy. Kinda whiny? IDK. I get the impression that half the time I'm with them she's giving me the stink eye.

Pecks at my hand when I try to pick up feed off the ground to give to her. As a warning? It's not especially painful.

Is very businesslike about her egg laying. Gets in, lays her egg quickly, gets out.

Rarely sings the “egg song” after laying. Is she not proud of her accomplishment?

Is extremely punctual and reliable when it comes to eggs. Lays at almost the same time every day, usually early. First in the nest, first out.

Lay pretty blue-green eggs!

SHOUTS her egg song.

Is super sweet toward me. Funny, considering she was terrified of me when she was just a chick. She’ll hover nearby and stare at me quietly, and when I raise my hand, without fail, she squats submissively. Heck, all I have to do is look at her and she drops. So I pet her a lot. Why not? And she picks at my clothes gently, something hens are known to do to the feathers of roosters they like. I think she’s smitten with me lol

Is occasionally challenged by Gwisun but stands her ground.

Also lays pretty blue-green eggs, but not as regularly as BB. I never really know when to expect eggs from her.

Tends to produce weak eggshells, might have a defective shell gland.

Sings the egg song often and quite loudly when other hens are laying, along with BB. Both my Easter Eggers like to flex their singing voices...

Aside from that, very aloof overall. Was friendlier as a baby but has become distant as an adult.

Not sure what else to say about her. She’s kind of... off in her own little world most of the time. She doesn’t interact much with me or the other hens.

Gwisun

Has changed the most!

Not the best picture, I know.

Egg song could be mistaken for a barking puppy, it's hilarious.

Is the best flyer in the flock. Has sailed clear over the fence a few times, meaning I had to chase her down and catch her. Since she started laying, however, has not attempted to escape again.

Surprisingly noisy... starts screeching 30 minutes to an hour before it’s time to let the chickens out in the yard each evening.

So much for Polish being a docile breed. Despite being a total pushover when she was younger, Gwisun is feisty these days. She still gets bossed around by some hens who are highest in the pecking order, such as Tabi and VIP, but she’s had enough of being bottom rung and seems to be working her way up.

Is my only white egg layer at the moment. Consistently lays 3 days on, 1 day off. We’ll see how long that lasts as the days shorten with winter’s approach.

#ask #anon #chickbang

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