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fangsandfeels · 1 month ago

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The "they need to find someone Solas doesn't know" excuse is weak. Because:

Solas already knows who Rook is. He doesn't need much time to know who Rook is, it's not a problem for him. He has been studying and manipulating people for centuries - just because Rook is a wild card isn't going to work on him. At the same time, Rook doesn't know jack about Solas - they have never met him, they have never traveled with him. All they know about Solas, they have heard from Varric - and this is not enough, which allows Solas to manipulate them (yes, I know what happens to Varric). Also, yes, Solas knows how Leliana and Josephine operate, but that's not going to stop them - and it should not stop them when the fate of the world is at stake. Moreover, the original Inquisition group at least knows Solas - and they are more aware of how cunning he can be, and if they listened attentively to Cole, they know even a bit more about him. Rook does not have even these crumbs of knowledge, while Solas gets under their skin easily. So, to bet on a stranger just because it's someone Solas doesn't know is a terrible idea.

The Inquisitor and their circle are the only ones who know Solas' true nature because they witnessed it personally. This is why they take it seriously - because they got proof. However, it's going to be insanely had to prove the threat to anyone else and then tell them to go find Solas. At the same time, intentionally holding back information about what Solas really is means sending the "someone Solas doesn't know" to their death. They go after Solas, thinking it's just a really strong mage - and they don't know that it's actually an ancient god. That absolutely can't go wrong.

Now, to other matters:

Venatori should not even be a thing. Venatori rose to power only because of the Corypheus - and with Corypheus dead they should lose a lot of their influence because they no longer have the Elder God to rally around. Without a real ancient magister at their side, their ideas of restoring the Imperium to its former grandeur are merely delusions and they should be bleeding influence by the events of the Veilguard. Moreover, if the Inquisitor chooses to employ mages and destroys the Venatori plans, they are barely a presence in the entire game due to the harsh blow they received. Moreover, Calpernia, who leads Venatori, only joined Corypheus because she wanted to see Tevinter free of corruption. So, if she dies or leaves, the Venatori don't have their god and they don't have their leader - there is no way there is no infighting in such scenarios. So, at best there should be some Venatori cults present - but they won't be having that much power because they no longer have structure, they no longer have their god-magister, and they have nothing to sway magisters on their side - especially if they failed to provide any alternative to Corypheus in 10 years and went back to worshipping the Old Gods. It makes no sense for the Venatori to be the main bad guys because the entire Tevinter fucking sucks already. It's has a horrible, hedonistic and power-obsessed ruling class where dominating the weak is considered good manners. Dorian should be having his hands full by fighting the entire Senate on such concepts as "slavery is bad" and "we should treat non-mages as people" - because Tevinter abhors change and its power is full of assholes like Aurelian Titus. The Venatori are just one shade of ugly the Tevinter has - and not the most prominent one. To make them the main problem is lazy writing.

Sera also joins the Inquisition because she saw what happened after the Breach was opened - so it's logical for her to not want it to happen again. If the Inquisitor accepts Sera's invitation in the Trespasser DLC, they cooperate quite well with the Friends of the Red Jenny. Also, Friends of the Red Jenny are implied to operate throughout the entire Thedas and have quite a history (they've been mentioned since DA:O). So, for them not to be mentioned at all during the events makes no sense.

If Cassandra rebuilds the Seekers, she is able to deal with emerging cults and unrest quite swiftly (according to the endings). Also, she spent years chasing Hawke because she held them responsible for the Mage-Templar war, then she fully committed herself to cause of closing the Breach, to the point she stays by the Inquisitor's side even if she loathes them. And she is going to stop now, after it's revealed that the threat isn't gone? There is no way she won't be an active participant. Even the fact that Seekers aren't welcome isn't going to stop her.

The entire sentiment behind the Trepasser was: yes, Solas made fools of us all, but we can't let it hold us back because he will destroy the world if we don't do anything - and we must stop him at any cost.

Basically, it meant that the Inquisitor and their allies were going to try harder, learn what they can and find new resources, new information, any leverage possible. This is why the Inquisitor sets their course for Tevinter at the end of Trespasser: they were preparing to cooperate with a controversial state, pulling strings and calling favors, finding people with an ample knowledge of magic and ancient history that could assist them with finding any clues; they were prepared to work together with the people Solas didn't probably expect them to work with. They were thinking outside the box and not looking for traditional allies - this is what the end of the Trespasser implied, not the "let's find an absolute rando who may or may not confuse Solas with their wild antics."

Varric and Harding should have been among many people actively looking for Solas, but the idea that Varric volunteered because he was getting Anders flashbacks comes from nowhere. Varric spent years being Anders' friend, taking care of him, making sure gangs and bandits stay away from his clinic - he was there from the beginning to the end. However, Solas is nothing like Anders. He plays his role of a humble elven apostate perfectly. He shaped his plans and ideas long ago - and he didn't depend on Varric's support like Anders did.

At the same time, Varric doesn't influence Solas' opinions as much as the Inquisitor does - which is why the Inquisitor's relationship with Solas (whether romantical, platonic or antagonistic plays a major role in the game).

Yes, it makes sense for Varric and Harding to take part in the search for Solas - but I can't believe that Rook at least hadn't been approved by the Inquisitor (especially if Rook is an elf because Solas has elven spies and these spies would deceive for him, murder for him, and die for him, so every elven agent should be checked thoroughly or even monitored upon being accepted) and that Rook doesn't have means to contact the Inquisitor for further instructions in case something happens to Varric, or Harding or both of them. This is counter-productive.

Finally, for all that talk about Solas' agents, there are none in Veilguard. None to stand between Solas and Rook's group during the ritual, none to be contacted by Solas from the Fade to carry out his orders, none at all. Not just that, but Strife instantly calls Solas an asshole. The reason? Varric told them that Solas was Fen'Harel - and Strife just took Varric's word for it, not considering the greater implications (that if Fen'Harel is real, then elven gods are real).

So, where are all these agents, sabotaging the Inquisitor's work and their allies' efforts? Where?

This is my problem with Veilguard. Because I actually played the previous games. Because I knew what they were building up - and Veilguard forgot like 97% of the stuff built up in the previous games.

Also, Veilguard's codex entries means nothing to me ever since they destroyed all the previous regions HoF, Hawke, and the Inquisitor fought for in a single text (which even fails to be consistent with the plot because Harding and Emmrich go to a camping trip to Ferelden which is supposed to be viciously attacked by the darkspawn at that point). And don't even get me started at the secret ending.

The lack of participation from the Inquisition's cast wasn't intentional or part of the plot - Bioware just didn't give a fuck.

Bioware writing team has a comfy, sheltered life and it shows

I'm sorry, but how come that the only people Inquisitor sent to look for Solas were Varric and Harding? How come that the only people recruited in 10 years of pursuing Solas were Neve and Rook? Do the writers understand that this is NOT how a serious effort looks like?

What about Leliana? Divine or not, she is still Sister Nightingale with an immense spywork. You'd think she won't mobilize everything she has to track Solas and his followers?

What about Josephine? What, she decided "nah, I'm done" and didn't use any of her diplomatic talents and connections to let the Inquisitor's agents have access, permissions or information they need?

What about Dorian? As a political figure, you'd think he will be the first Minrathous contact for the Inquisitor allies, the one arranging things and providing insights?

What about Cassandra and her Seekers? Isn't she interested in stopping another world-ending threat?

What about Sera and her sabotaging potential? If she organized the group of people for performing vigilante acts, people who are her eyes and ears, how come nobody from her group is helping with the effort?

I get it why Varric takes part in it - he knew Solas, the Inquisitor trusts him and his judgement, but for the game to imply that all the responsibility was lumped on Varric's shoulders is fucking disgraceful. I get it writers, Varric is popular character, and you would use him as bait to your heart's content, but the context you've created implies that Varric might have been the only one to take the threat seriously, while the Inquisitor and the rest were doing God knows what.

Varric should have been handing the Rook information on all the contacts they can recruit, all the useful agents, all the people to work with, not tell them to ask Neve because she might know someone because detective (Neve is a good character, but the fact that people who were supposed to spend 10 years chasing Solas look up to her for finding them contacts is appalling).

"Oh, but all these people were in the previous parts and we don't want to mention previous parts because muh new players" - well, you shot yourselves in the foot. Maybe, just maybe, you should have AT LEAST cared more about the choices made in DAI.

Congrats.

#datv spoilers #dav spoilers #dragon age: the veilguard #bioware critical #veilguard critical

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kamzil118 · 2 years ago

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The Absurdity of Victoria: 4th Generational Warfare

There's this book called Victoria: 4th Generational Warfare and the initial name sounds really appealing at first glance. It's a glimpse into the madness of a man who didn't like to be proved wrong and hated how the world changed.

The "novel" - it really does not deserve to be called that - was written by William S. Lind. If you watched Lazerpig, you would completely understand. Now for the uninitiated, the author was part of a military movement known as the Reformists.

So to give a bit of background, when the Vietnam War had come to a close, the US military wanted to learn what it did wrong and what it could do to improve and develop its combat capabilities in the future. This is where the Reformists came into that picture and what they wanted was to sorta look to the past and try to emulate some of the tactics of the Vietcong or refuse to adopt more modern expensive technology for the "rugged" technology - this is a key detail that gets brought up throughout the novel. We do see their influence with stuff like the LAV for the US Marine Corps or their talking points surrounding the positives of the A-10 Warthog and the negatives of the F-35.

Everything would change when the 1st Gulf War happened. Main battle tanks wiping the floor with the Iraqis at 73 Easting or the Coalition Air Forces performing SEAD - Suppression of Enemy Air Defense. The Reformists didn't want these examples to be taken to heart but the proven effectiveness of the tactics and the successful application of modern technology had settled in the minds of contemporary generals. This meant that the entire philosophy of a low-tech approach to warfare proposed by the Reformists had been discredited and their reaction to this moment in history had made most of them go off the deep end.

Yeah, they went on a massive binge of coping with reality proving them wrong. This should really set the tone of what this book is about... among other issues that have not aged well.

So our first scene begins with the protagonist burning a woman at the stake. Her crime? There's no such thing as a female priest.

Welcome to Hell, ladies and gentlemen, where even the Devil would hold your hand to protect you from this nonsense.

Now I won't summarize the entire book in a single post because we could be here all day. If you want to take a look but also don't want to spend a penny on absolute trash, there are a couple of Let's Reads on the xenoforum of SpaceBattles. There, you can get some entertaining reactions from the posters there with a few gems of my own.

So, where would you like me to begin with the nonsense? Let's start with the author's hatred for modern technology and boy does it show up here. There's a concept in the book, "Retroculture" meaning that anything after the 1960s is invalid and not worthy of true civilization both technologically and socially. So picture that level in the original Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 where the Russians invaded the United States. If Lind was in charge of America's defense, he would try to issue out M1 Garands with iron sights and World War Two flak jackets to the infantry to face off against kevlar-wearing Russian paratroopers with assault rifles and modern optics. Then declare that the average American infantry would win because the Russians were a bunch of pussies for relying on modern technological advances.

This even applies to vehicle warfare on land, sea, and air.

Federal troops have Bradley IFVs? Deploy the T-34s with the shitty gun sights.

Pirates on fast-moving boats with machine guns and RPGs? Send in the torpedo boats of the 1870s.

Multirole fighters with anti-air heat-seeking missiles and autocannons? Bring out the airships of World War One.

Hell, the author has gotten to the point where he treats video games as morally horrible as drugs. The novel has a moment where you have hidden alleyways where shady-looking gentlemen in cloaks are trying to sell you hard copies of God of War 3 or Fallout New Vegas because the fun police think it's unChristian.

Do not get me started on the tactics and strategies.

youtube

It really comes down to Lind trying to peddle his Reformist nonsense. Even if you might find some form of meaning in supporting his points, he's incredibly selective about it. He will look at the Taliban's efforts in Afghanistan or the Toyota War and shake his head screaming, "They don't count!" because they're not white Anglo-Saxon protestant Americans.

The book has its moments where the characters emphasize light infantry to such a degree that they are practically the mainline fighting force because Lind doesn't want them to be bogged down by dragging helicopters and artillery. He forces the protagonist to relinquish the skies because he truly believes that air support is stupid. Yet, it has a funny opportunity that any air transports have to be escorted in friendly airspace because those "Muslim terrorists" have Ace Combat/Project Wingman pilots who can perform air operations deep in hostile territory. Shame that he doesn't realize the flaw in that part of the story. To go even further, the protagonist has to invade feminist California from New England and the most optimal choice is to go full Oregon Trail with authorial fiat despite the state's military having one of the best air forces in the region of Warlord America.

Then there are the action scenes. They're so god-fucking-awful to read through. I've put more effort into my fanfiction involving Frozen and Metro 2033. The reason he doesn't have good combat scenes is that he needs more room to make statements like how African-Americans have a natural affinity to agriculture thanks to their racial upbringing or women having a purpose in the kitchen unless they want to be shipped as an Arabian sex slave to break their independent thinking. It's also not helped when there's the inspiring "assistance" of the Russians and the Chinese because he would rather sell out parts of the United States to foreign authoritarianism than let it live with its "Marxist culture" within the borders.

I suppose I shouldn't be surprised by a man who slept through briefings and has a massive distrust of the officer corps of all the branches.

#book review #terrible #fiction #ranting #what the fuck #Youtube

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miekasa · 4 years ago

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random armin/mikasa/jean headcanons (college au)

↯ pairing: armin x (fem) reader, mikasa x (fem) reader, jean x (fem) reader

↯ genres and warnings: college au, fluff, lets see how many times i can mention eren in writing that has absolutely nothing to do with him

↯ notes: this.... probably won’t be a regular thing, i don’t know that i can consistently continue writing for them, but this sure was fun and reminded me that i actually have feelings for someone other than levi :// didn’t ask for that, but here we are

ARMIN ARLERT

Would most likely get pretty good grades, but he can definitely be lazy about it and hear me out.

If it’s a class that he likes and is genuinely interested in (which is the majority of them), he’s going to put in the work—sometimes too much work—to make sure he’s doing well. He usually studies very meticulously, and stays on top of his game throughout the semester.

But if it’s one of those bs classes the university makes you take, or some kind of stupid elective that was the only course that could fit into his schedule? Well, Armin is smart enough to bullshit his way through anything, so he’s not going to exert himself for a class he doesn’t even care about.

Oh, and he’s very vocal about complaining to you about said bullshit courses. (Completely justified, go off king).

“I swear sometimes the TA just lowers marks randomly to ‘keep the class average.’ Granted, I didn’t really study for the quiz, so I wasn’t expecting a stellar grade or anything, but I know they do that sometimes.” “Well, babe, why didn’t you study.” “Because I hate it, (Y/N).”

Like I said, takes school seriously and tries his best; but even he knows he doesn’t have to be at 100% all the time. It’s also kind of a flex how smart he is and how much he can get by on doing the absolute bare minimum.

Poor Connie is studying his ass off for their shared elective and Armin barely looked at the first page of the textbook, and he’ll probably get a 90 anyways.

Imagine he’s so caught up with his other classes, he actually forgets about a midterm for his stupid elective, and at first he’s freaking out, so you kind of have to remind him of who tf he is. You finally get him to relax and he blinks at you, “Oh right, I didn’t study because I didn’t have to haha nice.”

Helps you prepare for presentations by letting you practice them in front of him. Actually gives good feedback, but sometimes he’s just watching you and not really listening.

Sometimes, you have to be the one to remind him to take a step back and take care of himself, before his schoolwork. He doesn’t like to worry you, and likely feels guilty when he sees you walking up to him in the library at 2am; so he won’t fight you on it, and just lets you help him pack up all his stuff and head home for the day.

Likes head massages. Maybe sometimes has faked a little bit of a headache to get you to massage his head and play with his hair. He’ll never tell.

If you rub his cheek while he’s laying on top of you, he will knock out like a baby. Almost immediately. It’s a surefire way to get him to go to sleep.

Schedules dates with you, and plans them out meticulously. Sometimes gets playful and sends you a whole ass e-vite.

“Armin, why do I have an email invitation for our date to the library?” “So that you don’t forget, of course.” “How could I forget, it’s later today, and you’re literally helping me study for my midterm.” “With popcorn!”

Probably the type to get a job on campus. You and your friends come to visit him when he’s on shift and annoy him. He secretly likes it.

Oh, he’s kind of shady. Scratch that, can be very shady. He complains about school to you, but also just complains to you in general; he doesn’t outwardly do that a lot, but you’re his confidant.

Sometimes you get surprised and call him out on it and you’re like “Oh my god, Armin, the poor girl didn’t mean to mess up the project,” and he’s like “Well. Sometimes people are idiots and it has to be said.”

Has a bad habit of rolling his eyes and he doesn’t even realize he’s doing it. “Did you just roll your eyes at me.” “I don’t know, did I?” Bye.

His hands are always covered in some kind of ink/markings. Accidental brushes of his pens, streaks from his highlighters or markers, a little bit of lead from his pencil along the side of his palm.

Speaking of which, he strikes me as the kind of guy to keep a bullet journal. Not necessarily decked out and fancy with Polaroids and extravagant fonts; but definitely neat, and decorated to some extent, depending on how he’s feeling. It makes him feel organized.

He would pencil in important dates and markers of your relationship into said journal. “Friday night: museum date—remember to buy the tickets in advance.”

If anyone is going to buy, wash, peel, and cut up fruit for you, it’s going to be Armin.

Lowkey tutoring all of his friends, and might be the sole reason that Connie hasn’t dropped out yet. He likes tutoring you the most, though.

Get this, sometimes he asks you to tutor him, even if he knows damn well he doesn’t need it. Maybe he’ll even sign up for a stupid elective if it’s a class you’ve taken before, just to have an excuse to get you to teach him something.

Likes trying new things with you. He might not always like the new things that you try, but he’s open to trying them at least once. Well… most things anyways. Just don’t ask him to get up at dawn and go jogging with you.

I genuinely cannot tell if he would be a morning person or not. Maybe mid-morning. Probably not a rise-and-shine at 6am kind of guy, but is up by at least 10:00am every day. Very cute when he’s groggy though, and stumbles around a bit like a baby deer when he first gets up, especially if he’s hungry.

He likes to bike. And really likes when you go on bike rides with him. As long as you both are on your own bikes, you learned the hard way that tandem biking isn’t cut out for you.

Knows that all-nighters aren’t good for you, but sometimes you have to pull them anyways. If you both have a lot to get done, he’ll stay up with you and make sure you both take breaks and drink water.

Can twirl his pens in that really fast and fancy way, and can do the thing where he rolls it between all his fingers too. I’ll let you think bout the implications of that for yourself.

He likes watching cartoons, and reels you into all his favorites. Definitely likes to stay in on weekends watching cartoons with you and just chilling.

Will go to a party with you if you ask, or if his friends are hosting, but nothing beyond that. You didn’t hear this from me, but he’d probably like to smoke more than drink.

Sometimes you think he needs a break and you commission Eren to take him out for the night, but Armin still comes back looking more composed than him. A little sleepy and maybe a bit out of it, but not sloshed, much to your disappointment. “Eren, you really couldn’t have tried to be more a bad influence?? I was counting on you!!”

Eren’s confused, like, “Did you want me to get him white boy wasted??” “Yeah, kinda!! It’s what he deserves every once in a while. Ugh, next time I’m calling in Sasha, she knows how to drink.”

By the way, if you’re dating Armin, you’re kind of dating (or at least babysitting) Eren too. Or vice versa. Either way, they will also go on dates without you. (“Hanging out. We’re hanging out, and I’m tutoring him so he doesn’t fail Biology, (Y/N).” “Likely story, ocean eyes.”)

Can be touchy in a very absentminded way. He’ll reach out to play with your ears/earrings, habitually rub at your shoulders if you’re standing in front of him, mindlessly toy with the ends of your clothing. Half the time he doesn’t even realize he’s doing it, he’s so cute.

Plays one sport—is on the soccer team. It keeps him busy, and forces him to focus on something that isn’t academics once in a while. He’s pretty good at it, too; he and Eren make a good team when they play together.

You and Eren tried to get him to join the baseball team too. Eren, because he likes playing with Armin. You, because, well… the uniforms. He would look so good in the uniform.

MIKASA ACKERMAN

Makes her classes look like a breeze, even though it’s at least 300 pages of reading and writing per week.

Kind of gives me Elle Woods “What, like it’s hard?” kind of vibes when it comes to schoolwork. You’re in awe of how she just did 75 pages of reading with a tiny ass font in one sitting, and she just blinks at you like “Was it supposed to be difficult?”

Speaking of which, she likes to read in general; for leisure, outside of her school work. She’ll recommend you books, too. If you don’t like to read, she’ll still try and rope you in with shorter stories, or just read them aloud to you herself.

Sits at a table across from you while you both do your schoolwork independently. It doesn’t sound like much, but it’s a quiet, almost implicit sense of intimacy that she really likes.

Bundles you up when it’s cold, and won’t take no for an answer. You will wear a hat, whether you like it or not.

Always prepared—and by that I mean, she carries things on her that she realizes you might need. Tissues, extra pens, an extra pair of mittens. She strikes me as the kind of person to pay attention to details like those.

Likes to walk you to class, even if her class is very far away from your building. She doesn’t mind.

On that note, she knows your schedule pretty well, where it pertains to classes and personal interests.

If you’re the type of person who can slack off or even just get caught up in other things when it comes to school work, she’ll be there to keep you on track and hold you accountable. Usually through setting aside times to study with you, but can even be through small things like asking you how your assignment is going.

(Nevermind that you completely forgot about the assignment, and hadn’t even started it—but that’s the point; she knew that).

Hear me out: holding pinkies. Maybe not when you’re walking, but when you’re seated next to each other. The longer you’re together, the more likely she is to initiate it, too.

Would rather study at home/in her apartment than in the library, but if you like to study there, she can compromise a few days out of the week.

Makes you playlists, and they’re usually really good, because she knows you so well. Sometimes she gets cute and customizes the cover art to a picture of the both of you.

She’s your ride or die, so if you complain to her about a prof you don’t like or a TA you don’t think is fair she’s 100% on your side. She might not always be able to do anything about it, but she’ll definitely let you complain to her.

Texts you throughout the day to check up on you, but usually disguised through other questions. Asks what you want/had for lunch when she’s really checking to make sure you ate. Asks you what time your lectures end, just to make sure you didn’t skip it (again). Asks you what time you’re going to be done studying to make sure you don’t stay up all night cramming again.

Takes a genuine interest in your courses, and absolutely loves to listen to you talk about them.

If your classes are vastly different, she’ll still try and help you however she can, even if it’s only in small ways, like proofreading something for you.

Doesn’t use emojis alot, so your contact doesn’t have a bunch of hearts next your name on anything. But she does put your last name in as Ackerman.

Has social media, but mostly uses it to keep up with her friends, and you. You’re in most of the few pictures that she does post, and she might not say it, but she really likes it when you post photos of/with her.

Not sure why, but I think she’d be a pretty decent artist if she tried. That trend of doing glass paintings on TikTok? I think she’d be into that, and would plan out the whole thing as a date with you.

Keeps up with all your favorite shows to talk about or watch them with you. Sometimes she’ll purposely miss a few episodes so that she can spend the night and marathon them with you.

Likes to stay in and drink cheap wine and just watch or talk about whatever with you. You could watch a terrible show just to laugh and comment on it the entire time and she would be so happy.

Doesn’t like to sit down on public transportation, and honestly would rather you didn’t either, but she’s not going to stop you from taking a seat. If you’re sitting, she’ll stand in front of/over you, and always keeps wire headphones long enough for you to share music that way.

The most insufferable human when she’s sick and she knows it. She hates being sick. And she knows you shouldn’t be around her or else you might get sick but she also just wants you to hold her. (You do).

Likes to sleepover at your place. Talks with you about your day while you lay down. Always smells good. Very cuddly when sleepy. 10/10.

Hates the act of doing her laundry, but likes doing it with you. Lowkey starts buying and using the same detergent and fabric softener as you because it makes her smell like you.

Gets very embarrassed if you kiss her in public. Very red in the cheeks, it’s kind of cute, so I wouldn’t blame you if you did it on purpose.

JEAN KIRSTEIN

Jean is… quite smart, if you ask me. Or, at the very least, analytical, which can be applied to a variety of academic settings.

The only thing is, he’s incredibly lazy about it. He wants to do well in school, and can definitely pull himself together for a midterm or an exam; but is horrible at keeping pace with all his other work and assignments on a regular basis.

He also can’t sit still, which is why even though he is very kind and chivalrous and brings many snacks to your study sessions, he is also competing for number one worst study partner. Right next to Eren and Sasha.

Gets pouty when you tell him you don’t want to study with him. “But… but… but I brought snacks! And bubble tea!” “Yes, but you also have the attention span of a rabbit, Jean.”

At the end of the day he understands… that doesn’t mean he’s not going to be bitter about it LOLOL. It’s fine, you can make it up to him by hanging out with him afterwards.

Is, like, classically trained in at least two instruments because his mom put him in lessons as a child. He used to hate it growing up, and he doesn’t practice much now, so he never talks about it.

One day you happen to mention something about comparing two songs, telling him they remind you of each other but you don’t know exactly why or why, and very nonchalantly he’s like, “They sound similar because they share the same major chord in the chorus, and they’re in the same key.”

And you just kind of blink at him like, “Okay, Beethoven. How. How did you know that.”

Once you realize he can, like, actually play the piano and violin really well you’re always begging him to play for you. It doesn’t happen often—it’s not like he owns a violin anymore and he certainly doesn’t have a grand piano in his shitty college apartment—but sometimes you sneak into the music room when it’s empty and he’ll play something for you.

He’s a romantic at heart, so he doesn’t mind, and if anything kind of enjoys you watching him play. It’s much better than playing for random parents in a recital. You’re dead if you ever mention it to any of his friends though.

Also not a frat boy, but definitely likes to party. Everything with reason. If he crushed a midterm on Thursday, he deserves to throw back a few beers on Friday night, you know?

Touchy when he’s drunk. Well, touchier than normal; he’d be the most affectionate out of every one on a regular basis. But he’s touchy and messy when he’s drunk, so he’s all over you.

Messy, but happy. All smiles and giggles and red cheeks, with his arm around your shoulder, boasting you anybody who will listen about his super hot girlfriend.

He and Eren throw the best parties when they team up together. (Only slightly related, but those two, when drunk together, could probably pass as a couple; they’re so uncharacteristically happy, and affectionate. You may or may not be keeping some photo and video evidence of Eren and Jean drunk cuddling).

Sends you videos when you’re in the middle of class. And only then. He plans it to be annoying. Because he is annoying.

Also always sending you those in-messsage games while you’re in the middle of lecture or studying. “PLEASE play virtual pool with me!! I’ll even let you win one round!!” “I AM TRYING TO LEARN!!” “LEARN LATER 😡😡😡”

A fucking fiend in your Instagram comments. It’s a miracle none of them have been removed or reported for inappropriate content. Replies to OTHER people’s comments complimenting YOU!! He’s so much

@sashabraus: aww you look so cute @youruser!! that color looks so good on you 💕 @jeannotjean: omg omg tysm @sashabraus 😊 i picked it myself @youruser: SHE WAS TALKING TO ME @jeannotjean!!! ME!!! @jeannotjean: @youruser you have no proof 🙄 @youruser: SHE USED MY @!!!! GET OUT OF MY COMMENTS!!! @jeannotjean: you’re so hot when you yell at me via insta comments 🥵🥵🥵 would it be better if i slid into your dm’s instead 😫😫😉 @youruser: @jeannotjean BLOCKED!! EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY!!

You try explaining your coursework to him and he’s just looking at you with puppy dog eyes like, “I haven’t a clue what you’re talking about, babe, but you look hot while doing it, so, please, continue.”

He’s another cocky annoying bastard (endearing). Always tilting you head up to look at him and smirk at you. Pisses you off just to put his arm around your shoulder and be like, “It’s okay, I know you love me anyways.” Winks at you in public just to embarrass you. He’s the worst. The worst.

King of picking you up and throwing you over his shoulder for absolutely no reason at all.

He lowkey wants to get an ear piercing and uses you to talk him into it. “Don’t you think I’d look hot with a piercing? I think I would.” “You would look good regardless, Jean. So, do it if you want to.” “Right. But, like.... do you think I would look hot.”

For as annoying and cocky as he can be, the second you actually genuinely tell him you think he’s attractive or talented or whatever, he gets kind of shy. It’s very cute.

Likes trying new restaurants with you, even though he really should stop spending all his money on food. Sometimes trying new restaurants means ordering from a new place, but it’s whatever, you know.

Honestly… the two of you would probably have a ridiculously high Uber Eats bill. You really should go outside and, like, be people every once in a while LOLOL

Okay, but it’s mostly Jean’s fault. For as much as he likes to party, and doesn’t mind hosting a party, he doesn’t do much beyond that. He hangs out with his/your friends, and with you, obviously, but he’s not the kind of guy to have his weekend booked up all the time.

He would much rather stay in with you, and talk trash about his stupid group project partners, and lay on your stomach and try to teach you how to play his favorite video games.

Spoiler: he fucking lies and/or leaves out key parts of the gameplay!! Just so he can crush you and laugh about it!! Annoying, but you’re the one keeping him around, so, who can you really blame but yourself.

#aot x reader #snk x reader #armin x reader #jean x reader #mikasa x reader #aot imagines #snk imagines #armin smut #armin fluff #aot jean #eren x reader

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pen-observing · 4 years ago

Text

I recently finished my fic in which Diavolo cheats on MC so it got me thinking; and someone was speculating which bro MC should move on with. So that is where this came from. You can tell how I started with big brain time but then my one brain cell remained at the end.

How the brothers react/pursue you after Diavolo cheats on you while married:

Lucifer:

He has had internal questions about what his own loyalty meant and represented. After all, he values it the most. He begins to question what it means to have sworn loyalty to the man who could not even be loyal to his spouse- to you.

As a friend he; does not let Diavolo rest and he judges him outwardly, but as a right-hand man; he knows that Diavolo’s ability to rule is unquestionable

Lucifer will not ask for understanding from you but he hopes you have it

He hopes you know that he can simultaneously judge the man while helping him care for the Devildom

In fact, you both have to be mature about this

Lucifer lets you go through all the emotions in front of him, in the privacy of the house. It is his way of showing you what true pride means. Why should Diavolo or other citizens see you suffering over an unfaithful man?

He tries to make your life as easy as possible. Your room is clean, everything is in order even If in a fit of anger, you leave it differently. You do not have to cook; you don’t really have to do anything besides get better. He would take on your work despite the obligations he has.

If Diavolo comes for business to the House, Lucifer will make sure you are far away and protected

He treats you oh so gently, as gently as he can

And through that gentleness and care- emotions rise and turn into something more

At first, your relationship is built in privacy.

The love, however, cannot be hidden from his brothers so they are the only ones who know

The Devildom is a cruel place; what would they say about Lucifer and you? Diavolo’s right hand man with Diavolo’s ex-spouse? Must have been an affair. They would claim you were the one who cheated

From that worry it remains private for quite some time.

However, there comes a point where privacy and secrecy become blurred.

Knowing that neither of you wanted secrecy just privacy, makes you both realize that there is no reason to hide something which developed so naturally.

So, when the next ball comes, you don’t shy away from dancing together even as Diavolo and the entire Devildom watches.

Mammon:

In my humble opinion, the best one for this situation, listen listen- I will explain

Why?

Mammon does not shy away from expressing distaste and hate towards Diavolo for you. He has no obligations, he hasn’t sworn loyalty to him, he hasn’t really gotten on his nerves before so he is completely free

As the second brother he can openly tell Diavolo what he thinks (Lucifer makes sure it doesn’t get out of hand) and Diavolo can’t really claim that he hasn’t cheated on you so Mammon has the upper hand in a weird way.

But here is the biggest reason

Mammon’s loyalty and his feelings for you are something you will never have a chance to doubt

He was your first, he loved you first and he continues to do so

His love washes over you, it never drowns you

He does not leave your side as emotions come washing over you.

He has enough sense to match them as well

Boy practically moves into your room and if sometimes you kick him out so what?

Belphie definitely did not find him guarding your door nor sleeping next to it to make sure you were okay on a particularly bad day

After you heal it only makes sense to love Mammon; the most loyal by choice. The one who helped you heal and made sure you were whole again

He doesn’t even ask for your love- he earns it.

In fact, you don’t even need to have the ‘Oh Great Mammon, what are we?’ convo anyone dreads because it is as obvious as his love from day one

Leviathan:

His mood oh my God okay listen carefully here

Does he feel disgust towards Diavolo? Does he feel anger towards the man? Yes. A lot of it.

Does he still know Diavolo is stronger? Does he think Diavolo is still the most desirable man considering his position, his power and influence? Also yes

He is envious of Diavolo but at the same time he knows that his faithfulness is 100/10

At least that is where Levi finds comfort, a sense of pride and confidence

But what overrides all of those emotions is when he sees how broken and sad you are over the whole thing

He even forgets about Diavolo and tries to do everything he can

Sure, his methods are unorthodox. Bringing you Beel’s big bowl of ice-cream at 3am because he saw it in in anime? This is what humans do right?

Who cares? he risked his life and Beel eating his Ruri-chan figurines for you

He goes on a spree to investigate how to help you and surprisingly, his emotions match yours quite well

You need to rant? Come, he will make up insults with you as well! Henry hears them all! The best place to rant is in front of his tank- It is big, bright, reminds you there is still light but the echo?? The acoustics of the place? Amazing for dramatic displays

You want to cry? Levi is awkward with reacting to such a display but he doesn’t run away from it

He never confronts Diavolo head on but a permanent glare is etched onto his face. Everyone knows what Levi is thinking

He subtweets like crazy

He heard you once say that hitting Diavolo’s face without repercussions would bring immense joy so what does he do? Ta-dah a game where Diavolo is the target and you shoot! Go go!! aim at the fool!

Honestly, Levi does not even think about pursuing you. He does whatever he can to be the Henry, to be the best friend to you.

Your trope is friends to lovers! And the best part is that Levi doesn’t even notice it!

You, absolutely have to be bold and confess to him first

And when you do---good luck trying to keep him from passing out

Satan:

It is a dark and dreadful day when this man finds out what happened.

Why is everything quiet? Why is everyone avoiding him? Did Devildom suddenly become devoid of life? Undead life, sure, but still life?

Satan is wrath but he is also the most composed of his brothers. It is tricky even to tell him because what if he reacts impulsively? Who would save everything in his path?

The way he finds out is what matters here

He is a gentleman, an analytical being who does not miss your body language but he lets you speak anyway

Approach him carefully but do not be afraid of him, please

Be as composed as you can when you tell him that Diavolo cheated on you

Immediately he will go into his Demon for but his eyes are on you

On you, human so much weaker than him who Is holding their own

So as angry as he is; livid. Furious. Seething. He knows that destruction is not the best option. His eyes hold care and worry directed towards you.

Satan realizes he has to meet your maturity if he wishes to help you.

And he does but,,,, he remains petty omg

Satan knows he is slick and sly enough to insult Diavolo any chance he gets without fear of repercussions because ‘he just go big brain time and you can’t punish his petty ways.’

Listen carefully, he has never won in chess against Diavolo but now,, he has the biggest desire to for your sake

On a spur takes you to the human world one day to remind you how resilient humans can be. In a library he starts showing you examples of love stories and how they are relevant to you

‘Satan I really do not think that Cleopatra has anything to do wi-’ ‘Trust me, I will explain it right now.’

In a way, anytime he mentions a human getting over heartbreak he admires you

Does not shy away from expressing it as you gradually move on from Diavolo either

Sometimes, he doesn’t even know how flirty he can be

What? Top 10 love stories in which the main character falls for a charismatic, charming guy after being cheated on? That is pure coincidence

In actuality, Satan makes you blush and feel a connection while you are in the process of moving on

As you heal from Diavolo Satan’s advances get bolder. He is still careful; he wants you to see him as an option but not mix up all of your emotions

Once you are fully over Diavolo, it is impossible not to almost momentarily recognize the feelings Satan has; not to recognize the feelings you have

He will approach you about it first and even if you are cute in denying them, he really doesn’t give any space for lying about them

Asmodeus:

Let us get something straight,,, Asmodeus is the best at picking up on body language

He has incredible empathy and sympathy for you

He notices all the small details and changes and knows how to help you

He can think of so many ways to get your mind off Diavolo it is impressive

But,,,but!

Asmodeus is not stupid.

Asmodeus is careful and calculating

At first, he lets his other brothers console you.

He gives them tips about it too! If they can’t come up with anything Asmo is a fountain of new ideas

It seems like he is there as a plus one to his brothers, it seems like he is avoiding you while still helping you from the shadows

Why?

Asmo is not dumb, Asmo knows what his sin is and what it represents

He is confident but he questions how you would react and treat him after what happened

If he spent more time and payed attention to Diavolo he could have reacted?

What if you blame him for what happened? What if you blame his sin? It is easy to say you blame the sin not Asmo himself but he can never be separated from it

Asmodeus worries about it- to everyone's surprise

So, seek him out. Seek out this hero who doesn’t want any credit for his ideas and comfort. It is his strange way of ‘making up to you’

As soon as Asmo sees you coming to him, and worrying about him despite what you are going through- he knows. He knows you do not separate him from his sin. He knows you don’t blame him in the slightest

So, prepare for the best recovery of your life

It is amazing how Asmo does it. His brothers are envious and amazed at his ability to comfort you and bring a smile to your face.

His ideas now have him involved as well! He is the biggest bonus!

Asmodeus in reality, through everything he does- puts self-love first.

He teaches you, outwardly and inwardly, how to have confidence and how to love yourself. He demands that you never doubt your self-worth.

In a way, while Asmo is openly flirtatious and comfortable, you have to bring it up first in a serious manner if you have fallen in love.

Beelzebub:

Excuse me?

You said what? Diavolo did what?

What happened?

Beelzebub asks a few times because he honestly finds it so hard to believe that Diavolo is not strong when it comes to self-control

He finds it incredibly hard to believe that Diavolo would be stupid to cheat on you?

He is not sly like Satan, he is not aggressive as Mammon, he is not quiet as Levi but he nonchalantly makes it obvious how he feels about what happened. A disinterested Beel at student council meetings, a sharp glare; some unkind words which just slip out.

Belphie is thrilled to see his brother like this but Beel has enough control to realize what truly matters is bringing you peace. How could he do that If he pays attention to Diavolo? Well.

His very presence brings you peace and comfort

Beelzebub knows how to enjoy life in simple aspects.

He doesn’t even try to be flashy to make you feel better

His natural charm, gentleness and warmth is all around you

Just staying next to him, in silence, is enough to make you feel better

Pursing you and pursing a relationship with one another, like all things, is very simple with this boy

Just like everything else

He would never hurt you and he became the best security you could ask for

He almost yeeted a piano at Diavolo when he came to visit Lucifer on business but alas, that is a different story

Belphegor:

He knows what happened. As soon as you walk through the door, he manifests there

Arms crossed; an eyebrow raised

‘I told you so.’

It becomes his favourite sentence

Definitely the tough love kind of friend (Same Belphie I felt that)

Because of this he never lets you forget how much Diavolo sucks

‘How could you trust a man who is afraid of pickles?’ ‘I-I don’t think that has anything to do wi-’ ‘It obviously does.’

He already threatened Diavolo before, he made Diavolo go emo. His sarcasm and snide remarks do not rest

Everything is intensified with this boy

You want to rant about Diavolo? The best. He will rant more than you and even tell you embarrassing stories you didn’t know about the guy

‘One time, he heard about weed and made Barbatos bring it to him. Do you know how embarrassing a gold joint it? Anyway- he thought the Devildom turned into a game and followed Lucifer around for 5 days thinking he was a secret spy.’

Belphegor would make sure you sleep and get enough rest because, according to him, that is where healing starts. He will get your consent to use his powers on you first tho.

In reality, Belphegor is not shy with his advances but they would fly over your head most of the time

After a while he will absolutely confess when he is secure enough that you feel the same

Why? If you like the ‘I have fallen in love and didn’t even realize it until his great romantic gesture’ trope- Belphie is your man.

#obey me #obey me shall we date #obey me headcanons #obey me imagines #obey me hc #obey me lucifer #obey me mammon #obey me leviathan #obey me satan #obey me asmodeus #obey me beelzebub #obey me belphegor #diavolo #cheating #reactions #x reader

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6blackfilin9 · 3 years ago

Note

I love your Anko fanart! Tell me, what are your views/headcannons on Anko X Kazuku?

hThank you so much for the ask, finally I can answer it

here is my big thank you for the waitng

In a nutshell, the shipp was created by accident while me and my buddy were working on our first Naruto AU in 2019, where Kakuzu and Deidara survived their shitty plotholes end eventually ended up in Konoha

Yeah

so, the shipp’s birth date is july the 1, 2019

anything like classy, aristocracy kind of tension-filled passionate gothic romance with playful, psychological games & hurt/comfort vibes with slight scent of rivalry is KakuAnko

Basically, they are: a very, very old man with absolutely horrendous background who’s trying to finally have his mother*cking 10 or 30 years of peace, and a rather young lady with a rocky youth who’s being good & noble yet has very strong antihero tendencies

You know, I think they do have potential, since, in fact, they seem to be very similar, at the core

They are both very pragmatic realists, the people of logic and reason, yet if Kakuzu’s irritability doesn’t affect him a tiny bit due to his ideal self-control, Anko’s can lead her to quite bad places, sometimes. They put their interests in the first place, and even though she tries to attach them to Konoha’s, she still has ‘personal’ things (I’ll write ‘bout it lower*). Their mindsets are so complicatedly organized that, at some point & way, it prevents them from having many close people, and makes them very hard to see through and predict

Both of them are very flexible & adaptive, independent individuals with similar outlooks on plenty of things and high intellectual level. They clearly can find plenty of traits that they would highly respect and adore in each other

Here I will speak mostly for “why and how” kind of things, bc both of them are terribly tricky to accurately figure out. But there will be some headcanons too

So, there are still some odds about them, due to the strong difference in their occupation, like, in plenty of cases they are really tricky to be brought together, because:

- Of the job

In original, Anko is a Konoha’s special jounin, and she is very dedicated to serving the country. Independently of whether she likes her job or not (depends on the plot), she orienteers at the people, at society’s gain from her work. So, accordingly, in any other AU her job is somehow connected to civil service, whether it’s something police-like, connected to science, or something like CCG in Tokyo Ghoul

Kakuzu, on the other hand, is a hitman and a persona non grata in literally all the five big countries, Konoha too (which makes it barely possible to bring them together in the original universe without hard complications or heavy drama. But still possible). He orienteers on his own gain alone, but, depending on the job, it can include others’ gain, too.

This detail makes him a saint once he holds supervising position in some company or any high position in the government (the better the working conditions of the staff now- the more money in the prospective), and the sheer nightmare once he has it on the opposite side of the law. Him as a mob boss is a complete different topic for discussion, but to get the point, in this case, the trouble isn’t him increasing the level of criminality (its rather vice-versa), but taking hold of too much control in the high and underground structures. Even as an ordinary hitman he’s rather tricky, since everything depends on the case

In most of the stories, they come to some sort of compromise, and how hard it is to reach it depends on how shitty his job is and how attached they are to each other at the moment

Like, in the above mentioned Shippuden AU and Harry Potter AU (which I also wrote with my buddy) everything went like clockwork, because there they are both more or less on this side of the law, in Tokyo Ghoul AU (which I also wrote with my buddy) it is a bit more complicated, with her being in-law and him being very much outlaw, in the Avatar AU (which I also figured out with my buddy, but we never happened to write it) it is also pretty smooth, with both of them being outlaws and then jumping out to the glory after all the shit is done, but in another Shippuden AU of mine, this all would be just a motherfucking bloody disaster

- Kakuzu is actually a hard nut to get attached to anyone

He lived too long to be truly afraid of anything, though. Its mostly because he doesn’t really need to get attached to or become close with someone to satisfy his need for communication. The man can get along with anyone once he wishes to, he can have countless acquaintances and plenty of buddies, but he doesn’t have many comrades and barely can call anyone a friend. Because he is used to lose everything and everyone he ever had or happened to have, because of his inhumanly lengthened lifespan.

It requires time for him to get used to the person, and then, eventually, in some cases, spend plenty of it to get attached

Plus, for him, due to his profession, each close connection is a really great responsibility for him. In most cases, he’d think twice of weather he is ready to take it or not

Though it of course has the personal factor, too

In Anko’s case, she has a grand privilege by being a very intelligent and keen woman, not just in cognitive plane, but in emotional, too. High emotional intellect is actually a rare trait, so she automatically stands out of the crowd for him. Even though it won’t guarantee his alliance, it will grant her his high respect and some sort of sympathy

- Kakuzu is, technically, an asshole

He does have his moral compass, which includes a great amount of common social morality, but he also has that “I am working” state

Even though Kakusu has a set of professional principles, and he still acts accordingly to what he thinks is right, one and the very same situation can be solved diametrically different once the context changes from working to casual and vice versa

This, and him being very independent and quite antisocial, makes the degree of assholeness depend on various factors

This can lead to major conflicts of interests, and if they are possible to have any compromise or not is strongly attached to the circumstances. After all, both are very, very prideful and dignified people

- In other words, the only major issue for them would be morality questions. It’s possible to make the case acceptable for Anko, since both of them ain’t truly squeaky clean, along with Kakuzu being willing enough to watch his borders

- She is provident and doesn’t really need a lot of money on a daily basis, which is much of a joy to him lol

- *they both seek for the stable ground, first of all

Taking in consideration the life conditions Kakuzu had in his youth (despite war state, he still stably had family, friends, grand respect from everyone, home, warmth and food) and how terribly he was torn out of his secured social environment, I believe what he seeks through all his bounty hunt and other money-connected manipulations is stability. Sustainability he had back then. The only way to have it in the conditions of our existent world order is to have money (and a very good mind and luck)

Anko has indeed much more altruistic motives, yet it’s still not that simple. It seems to be, on the first sight, yet considering the “Orochimaru related cases” and her very wayward behavior toward them, it’s clear she keeps her own motives and needs in mind oh so well. The service she has is very well payed, it allows her to do what she likes or believes is right, and to have the living conditions she finds comfortable. And only here, relying on the made sustainable basis, she does what she does

- Thus, they both illustrate the principle “first help yourself, next help the other” just right

- She knows she can keep an eye on him, yet it’s clear for her that her influence isn’t borderless, as well as telling him off some stuff is kind of a not wise thing to do. So in the majority of cases, she never interferes

- This is not common, yet he can actually change some plans if the situation is serious and the compromise can’t be found. He is that kind of person who works on a further prospective, and in this context, this would be the relationship with his loved one

- While Kakuzu is quite conflicted and has very reserved controversial persona, Anko is both controversial, conflicted, and sort of two-faced, on top of that

She is a very sincere, cheerful and humbly honest human being, yet she has some darker natural traits of her character that became rather strong with age and traumatic experience. Cunningness, guile, ways-depend-on-the-case and a bit of ruthlessness, that is. Moreover, she has some unsolved personal issues, which makes her even more twisted.

Like, remember the time when she confronted Orochimaru during the exam? And Kabuto, on the war? Getting rid of them is indeed beneficial for Konoha, but it’s clear that for her it is personal vendetta in the first place. She wouldn’t have tried to do this alone, otherwise, because these two are rather dangerous ones, to say the least.

She uses greater good to cover her real motives (even though it is not truly complete bullshit), and seems to have a terrible habit to keep silence about really important things, which makes her quite prone to lying, in some cases

And sometimes it very badly pisses Kakuzu off, since it makes her prone to doing useless but dangerous shit too

Yet this not any kind of separate hidden side, it is integrated into her personality, and coexists with her bright one. That’s where her violent humour comes from, for example.

But Kakuzu, on the other side, is completely monolith individual, yet sometimes his mindset can create contradictions when it comes to something important to him. but it's another topic

And seeing these layered constructions, and motives, they can pretty finely predict each other’s behavior. Not super-neatly, but they for sure see the basis. This is what helps Kakuzu to prevent Anko from doing some stupid shit, sometimes

- Anko has a role of an indicator for the people who don’t understand and see the changes in Kakuzu’s mood sometimes, since she usually reacts quite openly. Yet, when she has the same unreadable mask of cold, or one of guile, it’s a nightmare for them

- They prefer the non-verbal way to show their feelings, even though Anko is obviously the more chatty one

- They don’t say things such as “I love you”, or other sensual stuff like that really often, believing it to be some sort of cherished words that shall not be spelled mindlessly

- Anko isn’t majorly into PDA, but she fancies it much more than Kakuzu does. She has her whole moments of studying something with her hands, whether it’s a hand, scar or face. He’s more into passive display of affection, like wrapping an arm over her waist or leaning to her or something of this kind; they can allow themselves to (not sexually) kiss in public though

- She knows he doesn’t like to walk hand in hand due to considering it a youthful thing, so there are times when she intentionally walks holding on to his sleeve; generally they walk separately in order not to bother each other, but sometimes they walk arm in arm (like an old Victorian couple lol)

- Being older and wiser, Kakuzu eventually upholds some kind of mentoring position, yet he never considers himself any kind of a teacher or master to Anko, believing her to have a good head of her own. He is just insightful enough to break something through to her or give a word of advise

- This, combined with his highly powerful demeanor, also makes him have the leading position in their relationship

- Anko respects him much enough to fortify this, entrusting with plenty of life questions (like organizing the family budget), even though they make the majority of decisions together. Mostly because he is truly wise and highly experienced individual.

- This makes him one of the very few people Anko would actually listen to and take their opinion in consideration

- So basically they have equal relationship with some tendency to patriarchal order

- And it is, really, mostly economically-based disbalance, with him earning much more than she does

- Yet they never have any financial-based issues, since both of them keep in mind and respect the contributions of each

- There is major power play here, too. He has the absolute might, she has seduction. Anko loves how he makes her want to submit to him, let him have all the power, so she likes provoking him. And she knows he adores it, loves the subtle control she has over him

- They don’t have conflicts in their everyday life. Each knows how to avoid pissing one another off

- He cherishes her playful demeanor, her intellect. Combined with her cunningness, it allows her to rival him, in social sphere. The way she constructs her phrases, the way she speaks, mimics, moves, how bewitchingly it suits her feminine snaky features makes his blood boil and heart melt

- Both of them, actually, have rather specific kind of dry, dark humour. Kakuzu’s is very cynical, satirical, quite often menacing and subtly demeaning; Anko’s is very sarcastic and quite dirty, even gruesome and rather violent

- Sometimes they “fight” verbally as a form of a play. In some circumstances they may sound pretty vile, so some unobservant people mistake this for display of hate

- In general, Anko is the one to heat things up with her playful demeanor, which can include provocation and rivalry, and Kakuzu is the one to keep this energy in borders, accumulating it up to much more intense states

- They both put the comfort in the first place when it comes to household. Everything must be cozy, useful, silent and super clean

- Yet they are both very unpretentious and modest, really

- She absolutely adores when he is showing his serious, severe side, or powerful demeanor. She finds it incredibly suitable for him. She also likes how his real age is sliding out in this or that way. Like, even though he has rather young face (that of 37-40 y.o.), his eyes give away that he’ve seen oh so much more than it seems; the grumpy noises and grunts he makes, the lazy attitude in movements and the way how rapidly he finds a comfy pose once he has a chance to take a seat

- They are both rather patriotic, yet while in the most stories Anko’s feelings mostly lay towards the country she lives in, Kakuzu’s more often lay towards some places, so called small motherland.

- Kakuzu actually could be a source of deep, strong admiration and delight for her, despite all of his bullshit. The unbreakable will he has, mighty burning heart, all the wisdom, talents and mind. Being sent to fight god damn Hashirama, clearly a genius of his times, financial & management genius at the least. And, still, after all the hard times he’ve been through, he maintained the very strong sense of dignity and nobility, even though slightly twisted due to the profession and abnormal lifespan

- And the very same things can serve as the source for her chagrin: with all those traits, he could have been so much more rather than a criminal. With all the gifts he’ve got, he could have been of great use to society. He’s much easier about this, since his prospective is much wider and embraces decades (and in some universes even centuries) instead of months & years, and he knows that he’d be switching sides throughout his life, being on this and that side of the law, yet he still is a bit uncomfortable once it’s brought up

- They are deeply into science, which makes them atheists. He’s into medicine and human biology, she’s into chemistry and reptilian biology; both of them are nuts for physics, history and psychology

- They solve complicated physical and mathematical problems together time to time. She is the first one to have tea-breaks due to losing her temper over it, he tries to figure things out right until you can sense the smoke coming off his head

- Actually, they do have a stumbling stone aside from job & morality complications. And this is Anko’s attitude towards Orochimaru

What she does is basically ruins her life very-very slowly, maintaining the issues she has and planning to make him pay for all he’s done

Kakuzu knows exactly what is really going on with this attitude and why, but he can’t really do anything about it. Like, he knows he can’t make her change her mind or put something into her head

All he can do is really nothing but try to explain how those things are working, and even this option is basically a landmine field for him. At some level she does understand that he could probably be right, yet she just refuses to go back on her mind. And this is actually really dangerous, so at some moments they can fight quite badly about it

- He’s scared shitless to lose her, though; especially like that, even though he knows clearly that he will, anyway, sooner or later

- he knows that losing loved ones ends up with sheer disaster for him, yet he isn’t afraid to pay such a high price for those six, five or four decades of being with her. Because these decades are that of a paradise ones for him. Wife and family, as well as stable job, incomes and life conditions, are some sort of physical definitions of sustainability he craves. Especially family, yet it’s far ahead to plan

- The fact that he will have to bury her one day makes her rather depressed, as well as the knowledge that the only thing she can really do about it is to try to bring him as much happiness and comfort as possible before she dies

thank you, i'd say more, but it's too much already

#my art #naruto #naruto shipuden #akatsuki #naruto akatsuki #akatsuki kakuzu #kakuzu #naruto anko #mitarashi anko #kakuanko #they are very entertaining disaster

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hopeymchope · 3 years ago

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An overview of the “Danganronpa S: Ultimate Summer Camp” AU

There are some interesting divergences from the other timelines within the reality of Danganronpa S — and I don’t just mean the obvious main plot in which the characters are about to graduate when they attend a VR summer camp. Some of this stuff is backstory that is only explained via specific character scenes you can get on Friendship squares. Some of it is just some throwaway dialogue casually referenced between unrelated characters. Some of it is blatantly stated during story cut scenes. And some of it is changes to the characters which... I can’t help but wonder if it’s caused by this writing team not “getting” the characters right, or if these are intentional deviations.

So - without any significant spoilers - I’m going to run down 10 most noteworthy aspects of this new Danganronpa universe as revealed through “Development” mode and the progressively unlocked story chapters.

1) The casts of DR1, DR2, and DRV3 are graduating from Hope’s Peak concurrently in this reality. Ultimate Talent Development Plan portrayed them as classes 78, 77-B, and 79 respectively, but in DRS, they are all the same age and are simply in separate classrooms within the same year. (Which number class of Hope’s Peak are they in this reality? That’s... not specified as far as I’ve seen.)

2) Monokuma is a robot created by Junko, of course. He is not controlled directly by her as he was in DR1, however; he operates independently here, just as he did in UTDP and V3. And we learn that Hope’s Peak has let the little bastard run amok on campus for three straight years because they consider his presence/influence to be part of how Junko is developing her talents. *facepalm*

3) Usami is a robot (implied to have been created by Gekkogahara, althought she’s never named) to serve Hope’s Peak’s students... who the Monokuma robot forcibly converted into “Monomi” immediately on her first goddamn day of service. Because of COURSE he did.

Not even Kazuichi and Miu’s combined power can restore her Usami-ness.

4) Maki Harukawa is legitimately dual-talented here! Her “cover story” talent from the main V3 canon and from UTDP is now a legit, confirmed talent she has in addition to her secret one. She doesn’t fully understand why she has it or necessarily want to have it, but she still demonstrates that talent whether she intends to or not.

5) Some of the playthroughs you have to do on the “Development” board game are absolutely non-canon, even within this AU. Specfiically: Izuru Kamakura, Usami, and Junko Enoshima. Do you have to complete playthroughs with them in order to reach the end of the canon story? Yes. Does anything you see in their cut scenes or Friendship Square scenes actually count as canon within that story? Absolutely not. These characters are definitively established in the main storyline to NOT be present within the Neo World Program. Funnily enough, however, some of these characters do share events with each other that can be encountered in either characters’ playthroughs... so I guess they share a bubble sub-universe?

*WAVES HANDS FRANTICALLY* THIS IS NOT REALLY HAPPENING. IGNOOOOOOORE THIIIIIIIIIIIS!

6) As was the case with Ultimate Talent Development Plan, there are some story threads that run across multiple character playthroughs in the “Development” board game, so you can gradually build a more complete picture of what goes down during everybody’s time in the Neo World PRogram. I always liked that aspect of UTDP, and it’s cool to see it here once more. You can gradually piece together the story of various characters putting on a play, the mystery of the photos Mahiru doesn’t remember, These include the the characters putting on a play of “Momotaro,” the mystery of the photos that Mahiru doesn’t remember taking, the odd rivalry between Masaru and Gundham, and more.

7) Much weirder, there are some cut scenes/dialogue that are DIRECT FOLLOW-UPS to scenes from Ultimate Talent Development Plan! Even though this clearly isn’t the same AU as UTDP! For example: Hagakure has a scene where he’s talking about “Atua” and recommending that a character go to Angie to sacrifice some blood for Atua. Given that he shares no scenes with Angie in the entire game, this makes no sense unless you take into account the scenes from UTDP where Angie convinced him to believe in Atua. Furthermore, Tenko actually references this dialogue exchange from UTDP at one point. And Kaede seems to be doing her best to befriend Izuru Kamukura in a way that harkens back to their interactions in UTDP. As I said, it’s all kind of weird.

Tsumiki has sacrificed enough already, but thanks.

8) If you’re wondering “Does character x still have that one part of their backstory/personality that some fans didn’t like/wanted them to get over in the DRS universe?” Sorry, but the answer is almost universally YES. All the kids from Ultra Despair Girls still have the same experiences, they all still despise adults, and they remain determined to never grow up, and they remain completely worshipful of Monaca. The culprit of V3′s third chapter is exactly the same as they ever were, so if you didn’t like the reveals about that person’s nature? Sorry; it’s exactly the same here.

There is ONE exception to this: The mastermind to DRV3, who has a secret side that is kept merely ambiguous throughout any given run on the “Development” board. This might be a world where they aren’t psychotic.

9) If you’re wondering “Is there a Despair plot in this universe?” the answer is “Yes.” The Despair plot isn’t unveiled until the final chapter that you can only unlock after completing Development mode with all 62 characters, though, so I’m not going to really get into it here. Suffice to say that it’s not the same one seen in UTDP, further cementing that this is a separate universe in spite of the references I mentioned under point #7 above. (And as I already stated elsewhere: Don’t start the last chapter without building up a strong team of characters in the Despair Tower. You’ll regret it if you don’t.)

10) Sadly, some characters seem to be more squarely fixated on one specific aspect of their character than ever before. A big example here is Toko Fukawa/Genocide(r). Toko and her alter ego are more obsessed with Togami than ever before (which is really saying something). The characters are very near to graduation in this game, and yet Toko is still silently following Togami around like it’s Chapter 2 of DR1, constantly stalking him from the sidelines. The fixation is even more noticeable in Genocide Jack’s scenes, though, because almost ALL of them are centered around her non-stop obsession with her “White Knight.” She had a much broader range of behaviors within DR1, UDG, or UTDP, but the DRS universe pretty much narrows her down to being a Togami simp and little else.

(...................... And this is just my two cents, but I legitimately suspect this is the current writing team desperately trying to insist that Toko and Jack/Syo are absolutely, completely straight. :-/)

She’s only got one thing on her mind now, and it’s not even murder.

Questions Without Answers:

- It is completely unclear what the Monokubs’ role within Hope’s Peak is. Who constructed them? Why? It is often referenced that they are supposedly “Monokuma’s children” (...so did Monokuma build them?), and for that reason, many of the students inherently distrust them. But they also are directly working in the interest of Hope’s Peak to serve the intention of this incarnation of the Neo World Program (...did Hope’s Peak staff build them?), so for that reason, many students have befriended them. Ultimately, the latter group is correct; they are genuinely trying to be helpful through most of the story But we still never learn where they came from or why they behave how they do.

- Shirokuma and Kurokuma are here because...... why, exactly? Who built them (...Junko, I presume? Unless it was Monaca doing it for “Big Sis”?) and for what purpose? I mean, Monokuma is already here. And Junkuro, too. Is there anything that Shirokuma and Kurokuma need to contribute?

#dr1 spoilers #danganronpa s #danganronpa s: ultimate summer camp #danganronpa au #danganronpa #drs #danganronpa s au

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shihalyfie · 4 years ago

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Shiramine Nokia, and her role in Cyber Sleuth’s narrative

This one’s on request! Cyber Sleuth is quite the interesting game and a rather landmark entry in the franchise, mainly for being a love letter to the franchise and its long history itself, and for being the franchise’s very first work exclusively aimed at adults, meaning that it can explore different topics that wouldn’t normally be Sunday morning timeslot material, while also being a little more willing to assume that the people playing this are familiar with a lot of older parts of the franchise (not that it’s advisable to have complete lockout, but the game benefits greatly by not needing to assume lockout by default).

One of the ways Cyber Sleuth exhibits its “franchise love letter” status is by starting off the game all the way back at the franchise’s roots, before Digimon Adventure changed the game and everyone’s perception of Digimon and Digimon partnership, when the V-Pet lore was intertwined with Digimon as elements of hard sci-fi. As the game proceeds, the atmosphere slowly starts to resemble the more fantasy-like version of the franchise established by Digimon Adventure and its follower entries -- and that change is represented in none other than Nokia herself.

Before we begin: As anyone who follows my meta work has probably noticed, I generally prefer to have my analyses use tons of references and screenshots so that it’s easy to follow and the evidence is concrete, but Cyber Sleuth is a game, and it’s much harder to get those things without replaying the entire game, so I hope this won’t be too hard to follow despite being mostly text.

Nokia’s background and personality

If we want to apply the producer’s statements on Twitter, Nokia is 17 years old at the time of Cyber Sleuth, and has a backstory of having originally been a shy, bullied child who broke out of her shell thanks to the influence of her cousin (who, of all people, happens to be none other than Date Makiko). The flashback we get with Nokia in chapter 18, however, portrays her as just a fairly cheerful, go-getter child, but (although we only get to see her hair) she’s not quite as “flashy” or in-your-face as the description entails.

A possible hypothesis for rationalizing this all together comes from a what we learn about the process of memory wiping in Cyber Sleuth chapter 14: even if memories are extracted from the person, there’s some kind of residual memory left behind (the producer’s above statement also states that the same thing had even happened to Suedou). In Hacker’s Memory chapter 16, Arata confesses to Ryuji that the first Under Zero incident and Jude's loss to the Knightmon had re-triggered his trauma from having lost Yuugo years prior -- “not the memory, but the feeling.” So in other words, there was some feeling of loss that came after the loss of Yuugo that impacted those involved -- and it’s very possible that this deeply impacted and traumatized Nokia as well.

Assuming we’re still following this line of thought (since, again, this background point wasn’t actually in the game proper), Nokia eventually decided to break out of her shell thanks to Makiko’s influence, and become eccentric and assertive, and thus, the game begins.

While we’re here, I also want to point out that Nokia is also voiced by Han Megumi, possibly the Digimon franchise’s most notorious “promoted fangirl” who freaked out after getting to meet her childhood characters’ voice actors while cast as Airu in the Xros Wars crossover and ended up casted in a handful of major Digimon roles thereafter as a result. Which is not to say that her voice performance wasn’t also absolutely perfect for the bright and aggressive Nokia, but, you know...considering the below analysis, food for thought.

Nokia as a representative of “the conventional franchise”

Cyber Sleuth opens on a world where Digimon are largely seen as hacker programs, and even the hackers themselves only see them as non-sentient programs; there are ones like Chitose who treat them with empathy, but his attitude seems to be kindness towards them in a way not entirely unlike a family would treat a Roomba. Although he doesn’t admit to it at first, Arata himself also comes from this “world” of hackers, and we later learn that Yuuko herself is as well (via her “Yuugo” persona), meaning that, other than the playable protagonist, Nokia is the only “outside-context” person -- a completely ordinary civilian who’s gotten dragged into all of this.

Much like, say, the protagonists of Digimon Adventure.

With this background behind her, once she’s thrown into the world of hackers, she immediately has a “fateful encounter” with Agumon and Gabumon, instantly recognizable as two of the franchise’s most prominent Digimon (and complete with their Adventure voice actors, too). And I do especially bring up Adventure specifically, because while Nokia’s position in the game does end up taking in certain elements that roughly came around that era and possibly slightly predated it (mostly Digimon World and V-Tamer), Agumon and Gabumon weren’t particular mascots of the franchise until Adventure basically blew everything to pieces.

Right off the bat, Nokia does not have a single shred of doubt that Agumon and Gabumon are living beings and should be treated as such (again, much like the protagonists of Digimon Adventure; even Taichi in his “is this a game?” mode never doubted this). And they open up their meeting with this conversation:

Agumon: Umm, who are you? Nokia: It... It can talk?! It's so... so... so adoooooorable! M-M-M-M-My name's Nokia. What're your names? Agumon: Me? My name is Agumon! Gabumon: I... I'm Gabumon. Nokia: Agumon and Gabumon? Hee hee! What weird names! Gabumon: Hey, they're not weird! Agumon: You're the one with the weird name! Nokia: As if! My name's not weird! Hee hee!

And on top of that, Agumon refers to Nokia as having a “familiar” scent. Remember this for later.

Nokia’s second encounter with Agumon and Gabumon in Cyber Sleuth chapter 3 involves her properly partnering herself with Agumon and Gabumon, and learning about the existence of the “Digital World”. Note that, for all intents and purposes, EDEN had been treated like the functional equivalent of the Digital World in this narrative up until this point -- cyberspace with hackers, coming from the network, it’s basically a “digital world” from top to bottom, and yet here Agumon and Gabumon are introducing the concept of a more fantasy-esque incarnation of a digital world. (And, in fact, despite EDEN being right there, many long-time Digimon fans playing this game often complained about how little you get to see the “Digital World” in this game, because of how associated that term is with something more fantasy-like.) So, again: here we have Nokia, who’s forming a partnership with Agumon and Gabumon as equals instead of recruiting them as hacker tools (even the protagonist wasn’t immune to this method), and being indirectly responsible for introducing the more fantasy-like concept of the Digital World that the modern franchise is currently associated with.

Nokia embarks on the conventional shounen anime character arc of starting off cowardly, but eventually learning to have her own inner strength, with her Digimon evolving in accordance to her emotions. And, eventually, in Cyber Sleuth chapter 8, she decides to form her own hacker team, called the “Rebels”. She ostensibly bases it off the old creed of Jude, having heard that they were a team that never caused trouble for others, but we later learn via Arata turning out to have been its former leader, and the even later portrayal in Hacker’s Memory of its spiritual successor Hudie, that this is an extremely rose-colored image of them -- Jude (and Hudie) was not a well-intentioned team by any means, but rather a sort of mercenary group meant to enforce the “freedom” of EDEN, often taking on shady jobs and “punishing” entities they considered to be causing chaos. But in this case, Nokia forms her team under the idea of legitimately fighting for justice and good will -- again, much like a Digimon Adventure protagonist.

In case the metaphor weren’t clear enough, Nokia decides that the members of her group will not be called “hackers”, but “Tamers” -- the same lingo used by the franchise to refer to a human who partners alongside a Digimon to help them get stronger -- and that she wants to promote the idea of humans and Digimon working in tandem (complete with emotional bonding exercises). For this, everyone looks at her weird, and yet her methodology, initially naive as it seems, keeps working, because Nokia’s natural charisma starts bringing people from different places together and making quite the formidable team. Everyone is perplexed by this, but perhaps it’s only natural, because Nokia has just independently invented the modern concept of Digimon partnership in a world where it did not exist. And this is eventually solidified by the Under Zero invasion in Cyber Sleuth chapter 10, in which Omegamon is finally formed (from sheer guts on her part).

Omegamon is yet another symbol of the modern franchise, but it’s important to remember that he hasn’t always been so; even his appearance in V-Tamer was as more of a tactical piece than any kind of game-breaker, but the impact of Our War Game! has led him to constantly make a resurgence in major franchise roles (maybe a little too much these days). However, on top of Nokia basically embodying the modern franchise itself by doing this, Nokia and Arata’s positions are an obvious reference to Our War Game! in particular, being Omegamon and Diablomon Tamers -- but they’re not seen directly fighting each other. In fact, Arata’s partner only ever reaches Diablomon when he’s at the highest point of his morality, so the reference is more ideological; Nokia represents the more idealistic and heroic side of Digimon, whereas Arata represents the more dirty-playing and cynical hard sci-fi side of it (remember that Diablomon himself was rather detached from the fantasy conflict of Adventure, being a mysterious entity that sprouted out of nowhere on the Internet and wreaked havoc). Moreover, Nokia’s usage of Omegamon embodies a theme that’s central to both Our War Game! and Cyber Sleuth itself as a whole -- while most people associate Omegamon with Taichi and Yamato these days, the original method of formation back in Our War Game! came from “bringing people from different places together”. Nokia managed to bring together a formidable army in a place where everyone else in the hacker world was trying to promote a dog-eat-dog philosophy, and the sense of cooperation is arguably making her stronger than anyone else.

(I should also point out that Nokia’s name is, obviously, a reference to the Finnish telephone communications company, and this has a lot of relevance to the game’s theme of connection, along with her phone Digivice...and, also, the method used to bring everyone’s powers together in Our War Game!’s spiritual successor, Diablomon Strikes Back. Feels a bit too on-the-nose here.)

In the second half of the game, when the world starts falling apart due to the Digital World portal opening, Nokia becomes one of most important people holding everything together as Arata goes off the deep end and Yuuko starts fixating on her own personal problems and revenge -- because she’s the one most in tune with treating Digimon as the living beings they are, she’s most active in advocating for them and helping them bond with humans, and and she’s the one making the chaos be a little less chaotic. The second half is basically the more fantasy-esque version of Digimon leaking into the sci-fi, with the sidequests progressively resembling your average Digimon anime monster-of-the-week episode, and holding that all together is Nokia, who becomes a vital figure in maintaining that fellowship by being in tune with the modern franchise’s philosophy.

Through all of this, Nokia ends up taking a role rather similar to a Digimon protagonist, which is highlighted very strongly in Cyber Sleuth chapter 18 when she ends up literally becoming the player character while the main protagonist is out of commission. During that time, Yuuko and Nokia learn the truth of what happened during the EDEN incident eight years prior -- and we also learn that the five children involved had an extremely conventional “first meeting in the Digital World” experience that could have been pulled right out of the first episode of a Digimon anime, with them having a lovely adventure meeting new creatures. And at the center of that “first contact” was none other than Nokia, Agumon, and Gabumon themselves:

Agumon: Um... who are you? Nokia: Ahem! I am Nokia! And just who are you? Agumon: Me? My name is Agumon! Gabumon: I... I'm Gabumon. Nokia: Agumon and Gabumon? Hee hee! What weird names! Gabumon: Hey, they're not weird! Agumon: You're the one with the weird name! Nokia: As if! My name's not weird! Hee hee!

Nokia, Agumon, and Gabumon’s meeting at the beginning of the game had been an (accidental) reenactment of their first meeting in the Digital World eight years prior -- and, in the flashback, Nokia invites them to go on an “adventure” with them. So in other words, Nokia getting involved in the hacker conflict at the beginning of the game was, unknown to all of them, her attempting to restore that beauty and idealism of the Digimon Adventure-esque philosophy and fun in a world where the Eaters had torn it away and EDEN had turned into a haven of cynicism and hacker battle royale.

In the end, the game’s conflict is only resolved by bringing everyone together; Arata has to be retrieved from the deep end, and Yuuko has to settle her deep-seated personal grievances. Everyone makes a promise to return together, in the sense of making things right and repairing the connections between them that had been cut in that incident. The final battle (momentarily) causes the playable protagonist to literally fall apart, and the one reaching out to them and sending her message to them at the end of the game is none other than Nokia herself -- again, in the absence of the game’s protagonist, Nokia is the one with the closest role, because in the face of the new world going forward, she was the one who contributed most to restoring its idealism.

Ultimately, all of this is especially because Cyber Sleuth works under one of the most terrifying imaginable premises for a fan of a kids’ franchise: “we made an entry for this, but for adults.” Many of us can testify that this kind of premise can go very well, or very badly -- the latter especially in the case of things that decide “taking the opportunity to do things that you can’t do on a Sunday morning kids’ timeslot” means “going out of your way to put edgy violence and sexy things and cynicism just because you can”, or, in other words, looking down condescendingly on its kids’ franchise roots with malice and deciding that something for adults means “more suffering” and not “issues that require more life experience to understand”. The reason the game ended up getting as much acclaim among longtime Digimon fans as it did was that despite being the franchise’s first venture into this territory, it did end up setting itself up as something that took that opportunity to do something new and unique that would have never made it into any of the prior entries (holy hell the doll quest) and yet never gave up on the idealism and themes of connection that make up the franchise at its core, and paid respect to everything that had contributed to all of that while it was at it.

And at the center of that is Shiramine Nokia, who is effectively the spirit of Digimon Adventure, condensed into a single character.

#digimon #digimon story cyber sleuth #shiramine nokia #nokia shiramine #shihameta

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steve0discusses · 4 years ago

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Yugioh Season Zero: The Yo-Yo Crimes of Jounouchi Pt 1

It’s been a while since I visited the many times Yugi should have gone to jail, AKA season Zero, and I’m excited to visit it again.

If you just got here, this is Season Zero, which is very different vibe and a different direction plotwise than the other seasons and you can read the season zero recaps from the start in chrono order here: https://steve0discusses.tumblr.com/tagged/yuugi%20muto/chrono

So be warned, this is a 90′s anime, and it will do 90′s anime things, and I expect y’all reading this aren’t like 12.

Like I said in an earlier post, I wrote this out fully when I was going through the symptoms from my second dose--which PS, is worth it--but those symptoms knocked me out for 10 days. I was kind of a space cadet, and yo, I made some mistakes. Including writing this post out in full and then not clicking “save” on this post and then not realizing I had done that until several days later.

So long story short, I don’t remember what I originally wrote here, but lets all assume it was weird, and didn’t make sense and wasn’t funny. We’ll just assume this was for the best that it was deleted forever.

So this episode is about 2 things: Yo-yos and Jounouchi. Both get used as a tool for violence, and both need to get just a little bit cursed by Yugi to scale it the hell back. So, understandably, we start off this episode with Jounouchi, who has eagerly identified with this off brand yo-yo he apparently got out of a dumpster for being just a huge ass defect.

(more Yo-Yo crimes under the cut)

I see you dodging copyright infringement, Yugioh. Eireboy.

Also whenever I read “Eireboy” I do it in my mind in the same pacing and vocal tones that Pegasus uses to say “Kaiba boy.” Something about it’s conjunction to Yugioh, I see anything with “boy” at the end of it, and it’s voiced by a weird guy with one eye.

So I wrote these caps under the influence of my second dose, just assuming y’all understand the life I lived, but I realized writing this episode...traveling bands of yo-yo performers that go to your school and shill yo-yos with yo-yo shows in the hopes that it will get you so obsessed with yo-yos that you will not join a gang and do drugs and have sex may be just an American thing.

So when I saw a yo-yo episode I was like “Tight! Clearly, the yo-yo clowns have come to town!” and I assumed everyone in this class would be draped in yo-yos, because I just assumed that at some point at School you will get MAD OBSESSED with yo-yos for about 2 weeks.

But in this episode, everyone was like “Jounouchi, why are you playing with a random yo-yo?” and it didn’t occur to me until typing this out just now: only Jounouchi is doing this. He did this unprompted, without the encouragement of a bunch of middle aged performers doing tricks to techno music.

So instead, I have to think of Jounouchi as Ralphie in this scenario, and he just got a official Red Ryder, carbine action, 200-shot, range model air rifle, with a compass in the stock and this thing that tells time for Christmas, but he’s gonna shoot his eye out.

Because yo-yos in this episode are basically guns.

...Kind of like a duel deck was also just a gun...

...or the wands in Harry Potter...

...which honestly...I’ve probably said this before but where I’m from, we just use straight up guns in these elaborate analogies because we freakin have to make the point crystal clear. The moment Ralphie finally got his hands on a bb-gun, he very nearly shot his eye out and broke his glasses. And that scene will haunt me until my dying day...

...but fine, we can use yo-yos, I guess it works, although to me, yo-yo’s are just teachers hoping you’ll become such a dork that no gang will accept you (and then in this universe, it does the opposite? So freakin weird).

The beginning of this episode is Jounouchi trying do his best to impress with his skills, but in actuality, getting very close to clubbing Anzu with a yo-yo. And, while Anzu is the strongest person in Yugioh in the later seasons, I feel like Season Zero Anzu is another level. It’s a serious tempt of fate that Jounouchi is doing, so Honda wisely cuts him off from doing any more of that so she won’t end up strangling yet another person in broad daylight in the middle of school.

Remember your yo-yo safety, children.

Straight up, Honda’s version of yo-yo safety is to just Never Use a Yo-Yo and that’s the most gun safety thing ever that they’ve slipped into this Yugioh Episode. I almost expected Yuugi to pull a “well, actually, I use a hunting yo-yo to get enough venison to feed my family.” But youknow, he lives in a city, so while Yugioh is pretty weird and Yuugi has to worry about a lot of things--he doesn’t have to worry about that.

This is actually foreshadowing, which I only realized in hind sight, mostly because I just can’t associate a Yo-yo with crime. Joey knowing how to use a yo-yo was foreshadowing that he was absolutely part of this gang in a past life.

Yeah that one went completely over my head the first time and the second time and it really wasn’t until just now that I finally caught it. Hoo boy, sometimes I wonder why y’all let me analyze this show.

Jounouchi decides to confront the yo-yo bandits and everyone else is like “Silly Jounouchi, he’s not gonna do that. That would be stupid.” And...in S0, they don’t know him well enough yet to know that he really is that much of a well meaning dumbass.

I think a S1-5 Yugi would have been sprinting out the door to keep Joey from killing himself (again), but Season Zero Yuugi had hope that Jounouchi would just naturally tucker out and fall asleep or something.

And he was so wrong.

Anzu’s “New Tricks” line was from the dub itself and man that’s a good line. I love Anzu’s sass in Zero.

So, Honda decides to help them find Jounouchi so all of them together could give Jounouchi an intervention for skipping school. This is the same Honda that once skipped school to babysit a tomagachi and said it was because of “Maternity leave,” but don’t worry about the hypocrisy, because from this episode we learned that Jounouchi needs a very short leash.

So this episode is a great Jounouchi episode to explain stuff that still hasn’t been explained in 5 seasons of Yugioh. In S1-5, we don’t get much about his home life other than his Mom left and his Sister lives far away and is like sickly as hell. We know nothing else. But this is the episode where we finally get to find out why Yuugi and his Grandfather decided to basically adopt him from S1 onward.

Yugioh is tackling some pretty heavy territory, but I respect the show for not trying to magically change Jounouchi’s parents like they did to Dartz. Instead, the crew decide to reach out and try to find their friend who clearly didn’t go home last night (and won’t be going back for a while), by checking every alleyway in Domino.

Fun fact Yuugi drops this episode, Domino is one of the biggest cities on Earth. This makes the Battle City Tournament even more crazy when you realize Kaiba shut down several blocks but, it also makes a tiny bit more sense how we have so many Millennium items in one place. (Yet...it still doesn’t explain Bakura and Joey’s accent.) And, I guess if your city is just extra large, you get an extra large warehouse district, too.

Speaking of, they eventually find Jounouchi at his new (but also old) crime antics mugging some random stranger next to this Game store that I just realized was cropped so it looks like it says “GANG.”

Say hello to our crime clown. He’s sort of like a discount joker, and that beanie is...man it is green.

I forget this green exists sometimes, but Season Zero has it as one of their prime colors. Good ol’ Retro Kaiba green.

I’m a little tempted to swatch Season Zero a bit and figure out their full color scheme--it’s really saturated, which is interesting when you compare it to the later seasons which are a lot more muted since...the 00′s were like that, they greyed a lot of colors out. But I’ll do it later if I do, maybe another post for another day.

Jounouchi and Honda, before they moved to the school with Yuugi in it, used to go to the same school and up until now I just assumed they were close friends. But apparently they were a lot more distant than that. I’m sure they met up several times as Jounouchi destroyed stuff and Honda came along in his volunteer janitor outfit to put the stuff the hell back, and maybe that’s how they got to know eachother better?

But basically, Jounouchi was the freakin worst, and Jounouchi’s best friend was Hirotani--this 45 year old 15 year old with the blue pony and turquoise fade--and Honda has SO MUCH hot goss to say about it.

I really get the gist that Honda may not have liked anyone else at his old school, like at all. Like maybe Honda likes cleaning up trash so much because his school was just trash top to bottom.

As is tradition, Yuugi got his tar beat in by Hirotani. Another concussion to add to his list of issues to tell his future therapist that lives in that puzzle he wears around his neck.

I still expect him to do a double cross, but it seems they wanted to keep it a relatable and more realistic fall-out, where Jounouchi has just bounced on them without even a goodbye. He and his Dad had a bad fight, and Jounouchi was like “well so long to all of this and everyone that has anything to do with it.”

In later seasons, Joey is the one trying to save other people. He’s saving his Sister, he’s saving Mai, he’s saving Yugi, but in this season Jounouchi’s friends had to save Jounouchi from himself a few times now.

I like this depth to his character, I’ll be honest. I can understand why S1-5 don’t touch on it, and I don’t think it’s because they didn’t want to have an abusive Dad storyline, because they did that several times over with Seto Kaiba (man the Dad situation in Yugioh is DIRE.) Instead they probably just felt like Season Zero already did it, so why do it again?

It’s just a shame that it wasn’t talked about in the other seasons. Joey makes a lot more sense to me now because we get to see why Jounouchi is so hard set on saving people. S4 Mai Valentine, who ditched everyone and joined a gang? That’s basically a Joey move, and that was why Joey Wheeler was all over that.

Really would have added a lot to that particular arc if the show...actually talked about Joey’s history at all rather than assume I would have watched something that was never released in the States. Instead...it just looked a lot like he had only romantic motivations, which may not have been what they were going for.

Speaking of romantic, check out this sunset. Like the sun is exploding for some reason--just a wild sunset you only see for a still frame before a commercial break.

As Joey, youknow, takes on an entire rival gang single-handedly.

Hey guys, I lived near a pretty big city most of my life and I have been on a roof...once. Just the one time when I was doing an internship in SF with a painter and we needed to take a reference photo of his painting for a gallery (and it was hella sketch, and we weren’t exactly allowed up there). Who are all these people giving teens Roof Access? It’s so hard to get! Even if you live in an apartment of a tall building, I can count on zero of my fingers the amount of times I was allowed on that roof. But TV shows and movies--they freakin love roof gardens and roof hangouts and roof fights.

Am I missing out?? How did y’all get on the ROOF? I know I’m on S5 of Yugioh now and I have seen a lot of roof stuff, but like...is this normal for everyone else? I know there’s schools that have roof sport--that’s common in the city everywhere--but that’s like...specialized roofs with 30 ft chainlink fencing and really good supports to your body doesn’t fall straight through it when you jump too much. The hell is using their normal ass roof?

This gang should have their legs swinging halfway into the floor below them, is all I’m saying, if my roof couldn’t handle our solar heating, then a normal ass roof cannot support a gang fight.

But it does look really, really cool.

Anyway, Anzu does some offscreen snooping and finds out where the crime hangs out, and suggests that we step right into crime zone and just yank Jounouchi out of there. Which is something you would only do and say if you were Anzu and cannot fear death.

If it were Jay’s it would be with an ‘s. That’s how you do a plural Jay. But it’s the 90′s, so we put a “z” on the end of everything that should have been an “s” and that’s how you get the...

I mean, thank you, dubbers, for not saying “Jizz” but for reals...that be Jizz.

Please don’t flag me, Tumblr. (which, PS, I think they turned off the flagbot, Tumblr hasn’t flagged me in forever and I’m so thankful. Mods are asleep, we can talk about anime again)

So even though Honda decided that he was fed up with Jounouchi and didn’t want to save his ass, he decided to give it another go but complete with some new sash. He also did this without telling any of the others, who just kinda spectated him for a little while.

Honestly, if they weren’t laughing at him, I wouldn’t have known that this sash was any weirder than any of his other sashes. I don’t know really know what a school uniform should look like. It’s a shame, I feel like this series has a lot of jokes and puns probably soaring right over my head.

A little bit embarrased he was caught being vulnerable, Honda decides to give us a little more context to why he ever decided to give Jounouchi the time of day in the first place.

They had PE class once, and Honda apparently loves the hell out of PE. Jounouchi ran really fast in a straight line that one time, and that is why he’s trustworthy friend material. He just needs to stop joining gangs, and he’ll be solid.

I have no idea if the fandub put that in there or if that was native to the show, but Miho legit stans Honda/Jounouchi and acts as if she’s off to write some fanfiction about it. Honestly if she did, it would make her so much more interesting of a character.

And so, until next time, we shall have to wait and see exactly what Yami Yuugi is going to do with a freakin Yo-yo and I’m sure it’s all sorts of real effed up. Excited to get there, honestly. A shame it had to happen on the part that isn’t dubbed yet, but I’ve done these subbed before, it’ll be fine!

#Season Zero #Yuugi Muto #Jounouchi #Honda #Anzu #yo-yo #Jounouchi joins a gang #Gotta go save Jounouchi's ass I guess #Miho #she was here too I guess #Just a great Jounouchi episode for the Jounouchi stans out there

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pip-n-flinx · 3 years ago

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On Creativity

So I’ll probably be updating this a couple of times, but I spent nearly 2 hours with a friend debating the nature or definition of creativity. It’ll be difficult to get all this in text, but I’m going to do my best because I think thinking is so important my lord. I promise, if you follow along you’ll find that some beans, and some beans, is four.

Old Blackadder jokes aside, I recently participated in a survey on creativity. I was so angry about the methods and assumptions that after spending maybe 2-3 minutes on this online survey I ranted at length to one of my best friends.

The Impetus:

The TL;DR for the survey was input 10 nouns, and get a score. The score measures how ‘creative’ you were in thinking of your nouns. It’s a word association game, where the fewer associations the study could draw between the nouns, the higher your score and the more ‘creative’ a participant was judged as being. But see, here’s where I think that breaks down - ignoring the hidden algorithm and apparent data-set of connections the survey claimed when calculating this inverse relationship - I don’t think creativity has anything to do with originality.

What do you think of when you think about creativity? What is creative? What does a creative person do? According to Merriam Webster: the ability to create. Most people might lean more towards the Oxford definition which reads as : the use of the imagination or original ideas, especially in the production of an artistic work. Or perhaps you prefer the dictionary.com version: the ability to transcend traditional ideas, rules, patterns, relationships, or the like, and to create meaningful new ideas, forms, methods, interpretations, etc.; originality, progressiveness, or imagination. Truth be told, I think MW is the closest. And I vehemently disagree with the following two.

Allow me to explain - creativity and productivity are two sides of the same coin. You don’t have to be original or unique to be creative, and anything you do that is purposed or fashioned to aid in your survival - here extended to include any activity that you get paid for - is productive. An artist who carves out time to write a novel they’ll never publish, a musician who wants nothing more than to jam in the basement with a friend, these people are being creative whether or not their work is original. Artists who sell their art or their time or their expertise are not inherently less original, or less artistic. Indeed, they aren’t even necessarily less creative than an artist whose art never earns a penny. They do however, spend time and energy making their art specifically for a market. They have to take time to carve out space in whatever market they inhabit. So they are spending more of their art-time being productive.

Let me be clear here: this isn’t a call against productivity, or art as a means to support oneself, or a condemnation of ‘selling out.’ If you enjoy doing something, I can scarcely fault you for seeking out ways to spend more time doing it. That can be hard when you also have to secure the basic necessities of life. Furthermore, I don’t want to lionize either productivity or creativity. I think wanting to better yourself, or secure food or safety for yourself or a loved one, is a laudable goal. I think this very human urge is the seat of productivity. On the other hand, to do things for no other goal than the pleasure of doing them, the hedonism and joy of simply being, should not be demonized. Surely if were to be purely ascetic we would never know soul food, or barbeque, or sushi, or coffee or tea, beer or wine, cake or pie.... Rarely do we do anything for purely creative or purely productive ends. For as sure as bread brings nourishment it warms the heart.

So when a hipster tells you their favorite artist sold out to the record label, or a critique calls a piece gauche and derivative, they are commenting on a real change in behaviour. Usually, the reasons they give are rationalizations or worse baseless attacks on a stranger’s character. Rarely are we actually upset that our favourite band is releasing music with more time and effort and polish in it’s production or recording, for instance. It’s impossible to pin down, but if you go from being a creative artist to trying to make a career of your art, or even just trying to earn some money freelancing, you are allocating time and energy to the productive part of the process - talking to patrons and commissioners, managing social media, networking, etc. - and that time and energy both must come from somewhere. This doesn’t necessarily mean you spend less time on creative endeavours, but if you aren’t then you must be pulling the time/energy for productivity from other productive behaviours.

This is the shift that I think young artists/musicians/actors struggle most with. ‘Get a job doing what you love and you’ll never work a day in your life.’ What a load of BS. You will absolutely be working. And some of the freedom of the creative process will have to be turned over. Transitioning from loving music to studying music in college was one of the most heart-breaking things I ever had to do. The harder my professors pushed me to be better, the more time I spent practicing things I myself didn’t discover, the less I enjoyed my music.

I chose to study Jazz, out of all the fields of music, because I had this sense that jazz improvisation was more creative than playing in an orchestra. That the originality of inventing a melody on the fly was somehow more creative than playing a written part in an orchestra. This is simply not true. They are both acts of creation, of creativity. One takes marginally more originality, and one takes marginally more cooperation and teamwork.

Originality still relies on the constraints of the environment. You can’t break the mold if you can’t recognize it. You can’t bend the rules if you don’t understand the rules. As per the infamous Shakespeare quote “nothing new under the sun.” In any act of originality we still stand on the shoulders of those before us. When I was younger, it was always tempting to conflate originality or inspiration with creativity. I think it’s important now to move beyond that. They are different words, they mean different things, they might even influence one another, but they are not the same.

Take, for example, one of my college roommates. They worked all through highschool and college, trying to help support their family after an ugly divorce and then trying to move out and make their own way in the world. The weight of being constantly productive wore on them, and while they had been an honor student in a college prep program they simply dropped out of college before two years were up. For those formative years between the ages of about 14 and 20, Jess did not have time to be creative. All their energy was spent trying to ensure they had enough money for food or rent or utilities or whatever other mundane cost can be associated with living. I was by all measures a more creative person for 6+ years. Then Jess made time to do things for themself. Cosplay, the convention circuit, nights out at the bar or club. Jess was never less original than I was. Only ever less creative, and only then by force of habit. This does mean that people in marginalized groups are going to - on average - look less creative than those of us with privilege and the advantage of even minor inherited wealth.

Remember that, the next time someone tries to tell you you’re creativity is average.

Oh and fuck that survey it was garbage and what little they disclosed of their methods made fuck-all sense I sincerely hope that was a student project and the creator(s) have a chance to learn to do better later.

#long post #rant #creativity #linguisitics #I'm being pedantic but I swear the way we use and understand language is important

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dutchforstrangers · 4 years ago

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Digimon Astrology Journey - Independent women: Sora & Mimi

For references, more understanding and background, make sure to read my posts about basic Astrology 101! Part 1 | Part 2.

A fire Sun/Moon placement combined with a strong Taurus placement... Look out for Femme Fatales! They have a natural beauty, are bold, sensual, strong and creative. Sora and Mimi both have all of that, even though they have very different personalities. Most likely because Sora’s Rising placement balances out her Sun and Moon with compassion and caring protectiveness while Mimi’s big three is here to be a princess and to live for the applause whenever she feels like.

See it like this: Sora takes care with passion, Mimi wants to be passionately taken care for every once in a while.

The important stuff

Sora Takenouchi, March 21st 1988 (around 11AM)

Sun: Aries (fire-cardinal)

Moon: Taurus (earth-fixed)

Rising: Cancer (water-cardinal)

Mimi Tachikawa, July 24th 1989 (around 11.30PM)

Sun: Leo (fire-fixed)

Moon: Aries (fire-cardinal)

Rising: Taurus (earth-fixed)

Charts and analyses under read more!

Beware!: I calculated their birthdays by assigning them a Sun and Moon placement. All of this is NOT CANON! It’s inspired by/based on the canon. I use these analyses and their headcanon birth charts as a reference/character sheet for -as an example- my own fanfiction. Of course be my guest to use these for your own, but remember it’s just someone else’s (in this case it being my) headcanon ;) Some credit, a reblog or a like when used is appreciated.

Sora Takenouchi - March 21st 1988

We do know in Our War Game, Taichi gave her that hairpin for her birthday in the Spring break between 5th and 6th grade (for her 12th birthday). Conclusion: she probably has her birthday somewhere between March 20th and April 6th (even when it’s not canon? I once read that her birthday is not canon even though the movie implies her birthday is around that time…). Meaning two things: she is either an Aries Sun or a Pisces Sun. I went for the Aries Sun, because I feel like the Pisces is too ‘dreamy’ for her. Her Sun however is on the thin line between Pisces and Aries (even better: if she was born around midnight on the same day, she would have been a Pisces!). So she is an Aries, but her Aries Sun will probably be highly influenced by Pisces.

An Aries Sun is independent, determined and has a strong physical appearance. These Suns NEED sport or some kind of physical and practical activity to feel good, which in Adventure turns into Sora’s absolute and passionate love for soccer. The determination and independency can be seen in DA episode 26 when she stands up against her mother because of soccer even though her knee is hurt. However, that independency and determination is more often towards or for the sake of others, for example when Sora takes off on her own to secretely help her friends. This probably comes from her Sun placement close to Pisces, making her more compassionate and sensitive than any other Aries Suns. And it’s due to her Rising placement.

Intermezzo: Reboot 2020 Sora is more of an Aries than her original counterpart. I know the character building in the Reboot isn’t that good -or even not existing at all-, but looking through the Astro-glasses, I do see some character. Reboot Sora fits perfectly in this chart!

Sora is a Cancer Rising. Cancer Risings are, even more than the Cancer Suns, protective of others. Cancer Risings tend to see everything or otherwise WANT to see everything. They’re not nosy, they just want to check on you and make sure you’re safe, healthy and happy. This is in fact Sora in a nutshell.

Taking care of others is their priority number one and that’s exactly what Sora does all the time. Cancer is often called the mother of the Zodiac, a title she is given every once in a while. In Tri episode 10 (Confession pt 1) Meiko says “You’re just like a mom”, and Meiko is someone who doesn’t know Sora for that long. Even she sees, feels and experiences it, making Sora a natural mom-like protector.

And even though that motherly role is not something what she wants to achieve, it comes natural to Sora. There are more DigiDestined with Cancer placements, but somehow it’s Sora who they call a mom all the time. Her Aries Sun makes her passionate and determined, while her Cancer Rising makes her care and protect. This Aries-Cancer dynamic gives her a mom-like character you can’t get around.

Sora’s first reaction after Meiko calls her a mom is annoyance and a way of denying and is most likely her Aries-Cancer dynamic. Cancers have a hard shell and they like to keep it that way. Aries can say and feel things before thinking it through. Her face and reaction is a mix of that Cancer’s shell, not wanting to admit she is a mom, and Aries’ impulsiveness, an immediate and bold reaction. (However, it could also be her Moon speaking.)

Cancer Rising makes her sensitive, protective and caring. Place it next to her Aries Sun and she is a bold and independent person with a strong emotional touch. Put her Moon in Taurus next to all of that and she becomes a perceptive human being.

Taurus Moons are highly disciplined, can be somewhat stubborn and crave stability. They like to show others they have everything under control, all the while their bodies extremely react to stress, making Taurus Moons very emotional and (inwardly) reactive people. This could be the explanation why Sora is having such a hard time putting her feelings into words or even doesn’t want to talk about her emotions at all, even when she has these very strong, physical and intuitive feelings and emotions from time to time. So whenever she does have her words ready, she won’t say it, because she thinks about the other first. It’s likely for Sora to bottle everything up and when she can’t hold it any much longer, it will all come out at once.

With her Mars placement in Capricorn -making her ambitious, feel responsible and act thoughtful- on top of it all, she might has the tendency to overwork herself and go into these downward spirals. Especially when she feels -in both her work and private live- like she can not mean anything to others. This is likely due to her MC = Midheaven (career and calling) in Pisces which makes Sora humble and very ambitious in helping others. And here it comes: preferably through sports or art! Maybe that’s why she is suddenly drawn into Ikebana. And I feel like she isn’t an ordinary fashion designer, but someone who wants to help others feel good through her designs.

Also a Taurus Moon can make one very traditional, which is the case with Sora. In Adventure she caves more into standing up against her mother, which is more of the Aries-Taurus dynamic: stubborn and determined. Later on, especially in Kizuna, it turns into working with her mother which could be the Cancer-Taurus dynamic. And When she chooses for herself in Kizuna, she’s fully into her big three, using them all three equally. Well, if that isn’t growing up… No shit she was the first one to lose her partner (which I still think is so sad…).

Mimi Tachikawa - July 24th 1989

To me, Mimi is WITHOUT A DOUBT a Leo Sun. And also without a doubt a Taurus Rising! Making her a very very very fierce lady. With an extra emphasize on lady. Her Aries Moon makes her even more bold.

As you can see, her Leo Sun placement is on the thin line with Cancer, which means Cancer influences her Leo Sun and makes her more caring towards others whenever it’s needed. But: the Leo Sun is charismatic and can have a big ego. This is pointed out by Koushiro in Tri episode 6 (Determination pt 2). That ego could make Mimi chose for herself and the people that affect her directly in a certain situation first. Her Taurus Rising and Aries Moon will probably emphasize that even more. Let me be clear: that’s not a bad thing! It’s a good thing knowing what you want and need. And Mimi is a good at that! In comparison to Sora, Mimi is way better in letting others know what she really thinks and feels. In that same episode, just a view seconds before Koushiro puts her in her place, she says she is “sick of Palmon and the others being critisized”. Mimi is honest and sincere, of course she has the Crest of Sincerity/Purity!

Leo Suns tend to be bossy, they like to boss around and delegate, something we see Mimi is very good at in the series. When she acts and dresses like a princess in Adventure episode 25, in the second arc of Tri (Determination) with her ‘Daters café’, even in the DA: 2020 reboot twice (episodes 6 and 37). She is a princess and a queen, but let’s not forget she can be an awefully good leader and Mimi is an amazing entrepreneur foremost!

Whatever you think of Leo Suns, they are organized, can be very inspirational, work hard and are very creative. As an entrepreneur myself I can tell that those are the traits you have to possess if you want to make it into the business world. Mimi with her Leo Sun is all up for that! Seeing her starting up her own business in Kizuna is so suiting for her and with this amazing birth chart, it MUST be her calling. Even her Midheaven is in Capricorn, which makes her ambitious, hard working and possibly a tough business woman! She is very practical and needs to immediately act, do stuff.

As for her Taurus Rising, funny thing with this placement is they can have these explosive tantrums, something we could see with Sora too. However, Sora gets angry and passionate after she bottled things up for too long. Mimi on the other hand just passionately rants when she thinks and feels is the right thing to do. Again I refere to the specific moment in Tri, but there are probably a lot more of these moments. Mimi is such a sweet girl, but in the end, she wants it her way and she will get it. She is stubborn, not to listen to any bullshit you have to say. She can be easily bored due to the Leo-Aries dynamic. Though to be clear, she isn’t shallow. Mimi just has a filter for bullshit and won’t budge easily, due to her Mercury in Leo too. However, when you do say something that moves her in whatever kind of way, she will act on that and makes sure it will work for her. This could partially be her Venus in Virgo, making her have the ability to be more critical to and reflective on her own values.

Back to Mimi’s Taurus Rising which wants security just like Sora’s Moon placement, but in case of the Rising placements Mimi finds that security more in materialistic comfort. Mimi likes to possess stuff and things. Clothes, accessories, plants, designer furniture, cute home decoration and more. Flying business class? Definitely her Taurus Rising in combination with her Leo Sun. Her Aries Moon makes her impulsive and that Moon in combination with all of the above makes her buy new things and stuff on impulse. Good thing the girl is rich!

Mimi’s Aries Moon was a placement I had to put some thought in, but I knew she had a fire Moon. In the end, Aries fits the bill. Aries Moons make act quick and impulsive which lead them straight into action. They have a need for independency, which makes Mimi’s Leo Sun more bold and independent. The Leo-Aries dynamic makes Mimi a natural leader, her Taurus-Leo dynamic makes her a sensual leader and her Aries-Taurus dynamic a inspirational leader. She is a leader, she just needs to make sure she doesn’t become too bossy. And she has to pay attention to not let her emotions rule her actions, which is very common with Aries Moons.

Mimi is a badass woman, but let’s not forget she has a soft side too. Again, Mimi’s Leo Sun will likely be influenced by Cancer, making her Leo Sun more protective towards others. Her Moon in her 12th House could imply she needs more alone time than others -and herself included- think. Her Venus in Virgo in her 5th House makes her more devoted and dedicated towards relationships, making her a caring and devoted friend (and lover). We see her devotion towards her own value and others in the Dark Masters arc in Adventure, when she makes a decision based on her own values and what she thinks is important to do. Mimi is not afraid to act and therefore she is beautiful and very strong!

Her Venus in Virgo love-wise could also mean she is held back when it comes to love and relationships. Not because she’s insecure, but because she is picky and very critical when it comes to her partners! Hahaha, can you imagine Mimi breaking things of with someone, because he or she or they doesn’t meet up to her standards? Because I definitely can.

For an end note on both girls: People with a Taurus placement (mainly a Taurus Sun, but I’m using the freedom of intepretation rn) in the Big three are often called ‘natural beauties’. I think that’s very accurate with these two gorgeous anime ladies, don’t you agree??

Also bonus: strong, very caring and loving friendship between these two that can go the distance <3

#DFS Digimon Astrology Journey #Fiery bull girls #Sora Takenouchi #Mimi Tachikawa #Sora #Mimi #Astrology #Digimon #Reference post #Digimon Adventure #Digimon Tri #Digimon Kizuna #Digimon Adventure: 2020 #LONG POST.#Digimon headcanons

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janeofcakes · 4 years ago

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Soulmates: How John Met Sherlock...Again Chapter 6

Sorry I'm late this time, my friends. I had a busy weekend and have now fallen victim to the blasted cold that's been making its way through my family. I don't seem to have it as badly as my husband did, thank goodness. I'm going to post and answer some comments, so if you get one from me that sounds a little bizarre, it's the cold medicine. Lol.

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Monday morning is a busy one at 221B. Greg calls with a case in the middle of breakfast that has Sherlock scrambling to conscript Mrs. Hudson into taking Olive to school. He places his daughter’s lunch on the kitchen table next to her backpack and throws on his coat. Tipping down to kiss Olive on the cheek, he whispers I love you and have a good day. With that, Sherlock grabs a piece of toast and rushes from the room.

Olive sits at attention, the adrenaline of watching her father hurry around the room still in her veins, but it wanes as soon as she hears the click of the flat door. She lets out a long sigh and slouches a little into her chair. After the bits and pieces she had observed at Mycroft’s birthday party, she was even more curious about Gracie’s dad than when they left the park on Saturday. Something was off. John had absolutely no problem with her or her father until he met him, but had he only just met Sherlock two days ago? Olive isn’t so sure, especially after the way her uncles acted yesterday when she brought up the playdate refusal.

Olive raises her fork and chews on the eggs thoughtfully. Her father had been extremely irritated yesterday, in spite of trying to hide it, and Uncle Myc was definitely the cause. She has seen them argue before, of course. Perhaps heard is the better word. They avoid it when she is in the room and Uncle Greg usually distracts her somehow. Every so often, curiosity gets the better of her and she sneaks away from Greg to listen. Her father doesn’t seem to have ever gotten on well with his brother. Olive used to wonder if that is why she has no brothers or sisters, but dismissed the idea when she was five. She likes that it’s just her and her dad. The two of them against the world. Olive smiles to herself. Now she has Gracie too.

With that thought, Olive’s mind turns back to John. She had planned on cleverly asking Sherlock questions about him over breakfast and had even started working their conversation in that direction, but then Uncle Greg had phoned. To make matters worse, Mrs. Hudson will get her to school later than usual, effectively robbing her of all the time she has to talk to Gracie before classes start.

Olive grumbles around another bite, cursing the fact that she has to wait until lunch and that’s when inspiration strikes. Their class has library time at 10:30. She and Gracie can go to the computers, but search up John instead of books. Maybe if they know more about his past they can figure out how their fathers know each other because Olive is convinced they do.

Olive is just beginning to determine how best to communicate this to Gracie before library time when the door to the flat opens.

“Yoohoo,” calls Mrs. Hudson pleasantly, “Are you ready, dear? We really must be on our way.”

Olive glances at the clock to see how much time got away from her. Too much. She hops up and places her empty dishes in the sink. Pulling on her coat, she grabs her bag and lunch. Mrs. Hudson is smiling brightly as Olive runs down the hall.

“Good morning, Mrs. H,” Olive breathes as they hug one another tightly.

“Good morning, my darling,” Mrs. Hudson laughs warmly. “I take it Uncle Mycroft’s birthday was a success?”

“Yep,” Olive pops the P as she pulls away to look at her with twinkling eyes. “The cake was delicious. Thanks for the recipe.”

“My pleasure, dear,” Mrs. Hudson waves a hand as they pass through the door. She pulls it closed as Olive starts down the stairs. “And his presents?”

“He loved them,” Olive grins back at the older woman. “We pinned the donkey eight times and I won the most times.”

“Did you? That’s wonderful,” Mrs. Hudson chuckles to herself as she catches up with Olive in the foyer. “I’d give my good hip to see your uncle playing a party game. Must be Gregory’s influence.”

The mention of her other uncle jogs Olive’s memory and she turns, her face filling with glee, as she swings open the door to the building. Mrs. Hudson pauses in front of her, excitement already growing at just the look on Olive’s face.

“Uncle Greg asked Uncle Myc to marry him!” the girl all but shouts, throwing her arms in the air.

“Oh my goodness, that’s wonderful,” Mrs. Hudson clasps her hands together at her chin. “I always knew we’d find one for your uncle. Now we just need to find someone for your father.”

“Yeah!” Olive exclaims before she really considers Mrs. Hudson’s words. She frowns as they walk outside and down the steps to the pavement. They cross to the sleek black car waiting for them. The driver greets them as he opens the back door and they are soon on their way. All the while, one question rattles around in Olive’s mind.

“Do we?” she asks after the car has started moving. She slides her eyes to Mrs. Hudson, who looks at her inquisitively. “Do we want to find someone for Dad?”

Olive swallows loudly in the silence that follows. Mrs. Hudson’s face does not change, she merely tilts her head to the right as she considers. It doesn’t make Olive feel like she has asked something bad, but it was definitely unexpected.

“I mean, it’s always been the two of us,” Olive ventures with some uncertainty, “and things are good. Why add someone else?”

“Don’t you want your father to be happy?” Mrs. Hudson asks and Olive frowns mightily, clutching her bag to her chest tightly.

“He is happy,” the girl mutters defiantly.

“Oh, of course he is. That’s not what I meant, sweetie,” Mrs. Hudson reaches for her arm and touches it gently. Still glowering, Olive raises her grey eyes to meet the older woman’s soft brown gaze. “Your father loves you dearly and he is certainly very happy. It’s just that his heart has so much love to give and it’s a different kind of love. Like the kind Mycroft shares with Greg. I call it romantic love.”

“Romantic love?” Olive raises a skeptical brow, tiny wrinkles forming on the bridge of her nose.

“Yes,” Mrs. Hudson continues in a solemn tone. “You will feel it too one day when you meet a boy or girl you want to spend your whole life with, to kiss and hug.”

“Like on the mouth?” Olive asks, straightening her spine a bit and pulling her head back. Mrs. Hudson nods with a little smile. “Like Anna and Kristoff?”

“Yes,” Mrs. Hudson laughs. “Just like that. Like Mycroft and Greg.”

Olive’s expression becomes very serious. She shakes her head and releases the vice grip hold on her bag.

“Uncle Myc and Uncle Greg are nothing like Anna and Kristoff,” she says flatly. “They’re more like that older one. Beauty and the Beast.”

“Ha!” Mrs. Hudson crows, throwing up her hands. “I won’t even ask which one’s the beast.”

Olive grins mischievously and ducks her head, laughing with the older woman. The car stops outside the school as their merriment dies down. Mrs. Hudson puts her hand on Olive’s before she moves to leave the car.

“Know that having someone in your father’s life will never make him love you less,” she tells the girl tenderly. “There’s nothing on earth that could ever do that.”

“I know,” Olive says with a grin. She dives for her godmother and gives her a big hug as the first bell rings.

“Oh no. Hurry, dear, get to class,” Mrs. Hudson shoos her toward the door. “Sherlock will never forgive me if you’re late.”

“Thanks, Mrs. H,” Olive says, popping open the door. She runs for the three-story school building and is inside in minutes.

***

“So we are up to the number five in our multiplication table,” Mrs. Jennings finishes writing a large five next to a line of smaller numbers running from one to nine. She turns to face the class as she explains. Gracie is watching intently like most of the other kids, but Olive’s head is down while she scribbles on a scrap of paper. “As you know, these numbers are basically how many times five is added to itself, but there’s a secret to the number five that makes it one of the easiest to multiply. Start moving along the number line, writing your answers on paper and raise your hand when you know what the secret is.”

Heads go down as everyone begins working through the equations. Just as Gracie jots down twenty-five, she notices a folded scrap of paper on the desk between she and Olive, who is watching out of the corner of her eye. Gracie glances to the side and up to the whiteboard where Mrs. Jennings is slowly walking from side to side to make sure everyone is on task. Gracie licks her lips, leaving just the tip of her tongue poking out as she casually covers the scrap with her palm and slides it close. With the paper on her notebook where it can blend in with her work, she unfolds it and peers at Olive’s writing.

Your dad doesn’t like my dad.

Gracie blinks and furrows one brow while simultaneously cocking the other one. She nearly turns to look at Olive to ask an incredulous ‘What’ with her face, but resists the urge and scratches out a quick response instead. Folding the paper in half and sliding it back to the middle of the desk, Gracie raises her eyes to the front of the room again.

“All right. Who knows the secret?” Mrs. Jennings breaks the silence. “Teri?”

“You start with five and basically count by fives all the way up the line,” the girl answers from her seat in the second row. The pencil in her right hand is poised to write while the index finger of her left hand winds her long red hair around itself. Gracie watches knowingly at the nervous tell. It is just one of the many keys to observation Olive has taught her.

“Perfect. So why don’t we do that together, and remember to write it down as we go,” Mrs. Jennings moves to the whiteboard to write as well.

“Five, ten,” Teri begins and the rest of the class starts in with her until they reach forty-five.

“And there is our multiplication table for the number five,” Mrs. Jennings remarks and turns back to the class. “Does everyone see how we got that?”

Heads are bobbing up and down when Gracie notices the scrap of paper again. She slips her hand over it and moves it close.

“Good,” Mrs. Jennings is saying. “Let’s move on to number six. Write out the number line with six as your common denominator.”

Gracie quickly does this, if a little messily, and opens the note. Olive’s words are clearly printed under Gracie’s own message.

(Gracie) He just met him.

(Olive) But he doesn’t like him.

Gracie frowns and glances at Olive, who is staring straight ahead at Mrs. Jennings so as not to give them away. Gracie underlines her previous statement and slides the paper back toward Olive. It is back on her side of the desk in no time.

There’s something going on though. He kept looking at Dad like he’d seen him before and he freaked out about a playdate at mine.

Gracie glances in Olive’s direction, wondering how she wrote all of that so quickly. Getting a little irritated by the accusation, she writes hastily in a jerky script.

He didn’t freak out.

She passes it back.

“Good job, Michael,” Mrs. Jennings interrupts Gracie’s train of thought. “Now, what is six times four?”

Gracie quickly scrawls twenty-four in her notebook and looks up to see the note again. She huffs quietly at Olive’s words.

I don’t think he wants to come to my flat.

Gracie is about to pen a disgruntled response when Mrs. Jennings calls on her. Apparently, her frustration is more evident than she realized.

“Doing okay, Grace?” the teacher asks. “Are you having any trouble?”

“No, Mrs. Jennings,” Gracie answers respectfully. Mrs. Jennings nods and then asks Gracie for the answer, which she gives succinctly.

“Yes, Grace. Excellent work,” Mrs. Jennings commends her. “Six times four is the same as adding six to itself four times.Does that make sense to everyone?”

Gracie scribbles ‘That’s ridiculous,’ beneath all the other messages. The scrap is getting full now, but her two-word response fits in the space perfectly. She pushes the paper away and starts writing the table for seven. Olive’s reply awaits her when she is finished.

No, it’s not. They obviously have a history.

Gracie grumbles deep in her throat and pointedly underlines ‘He just met him.’ again as Olive watches. The little blonde adds an exclamation point and looks at her friend smugly. Olive purses her lips, turns the scrap over and begins writing feverishly. ‘They KNOW each other.’

Gracie rolls her eyes and tears her own corner from her notebook. She writes quickly and shoves it at Olive, who reads it immediately.

Wait til library time.

Olive looks to her friend and gives a shallow nod right as Mrs. Jennings calls on her.

“Do you have an answer, Olivia?”

“Thirty-two,” Olive says smoothly, directing her eyes to their teacher.

Gracie’s eyes go wide and she looks at her friend’s notebook as their teacher compliments her work. Olive has already written the number line for eight. Gracie is a line behind, in spite of being sure that she was paying attention while reading and writing the last few notes. Thank god Mrs. Jennings had not called on her.

Gracie looks at Olive’s now smug face and blows out a breath that ruffles her bangs. How does Olive do it? It’s like she has two separate brains sometimes. The girls exchange a smile and return their attention to the white board, each one anxiously anticipating the day’s special.

***

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Gracie whispers from her seat across the table, leaning forward for emphasis. After what seemed like days, but was only an hour, their class had lined up and walked to the library. Gracie and Olive immediately went to their usual table where Olive presented all of her evidence, as she called it, that proved their fathers had known each other before meeting in the park. She pointed out everything from eyes widening slightly to changes in tone and bloody shuffling of feet. She noticed Gracie’s dad curling his left hand into a fist, which Gracie has never once seen him do. How did that mean he actually knew Sherlock already and how on earth did Olive notice all these things?

“It makes perfect sense,” Olive insists, her neck craned toward Gracie. She had hunched over, pressing her chest and arms to the table side as soon as she began laying out her analysis. It is her position of choice for intense conversation and plotting. “Just look at all the clues. There’s no other explanation.”

“There are plenty of explanations,” Gracie counters. “Maybe your dad reminds mine of someone.”

“And yours reminds mine too?” Olive barely contains a bark. “Nonsense. No such thing as coincidence.”

“If they know each other, why wouldn’t they just say so?” Gracie throws her hands up as far as she dares in this setting.

“Adults have secrets, Gracie,” Olive mutters in a low voice. “Just like we do. There’s something they don’t want us to know.”

“Like what? They robbed a bank together?” Gracie snorts quietly. “No. I’m sorry, Olive. I can’t believe it. My dad never met Sherlock Holmes before we met you in the park.”

Gracie’s words slow as she reaches the end of the sentence. Olive starts in on trying to convince her, but her voice fades into the background. Things click inside Gracie’s head and for the first time since the conversation began, it all makes sense. Or doesn’t, as the case may be. If her father knew Sherlock, why wouldn’t he just tell her? Why keep it to himself? Gracie presses her lips together in thought. ‘You can have a playdate eventually. Just give me some time,’ he had said. Sherlock is obviously someone he had not expected to run into, but he must have been special to John at some point. Why else would he…

“Are you even listening?” Olive’s irritated tone suddenly breaks through Gracie’s thoughts. She blinks and looks at her friend with wide eyes. Olive huffs. “I’m not going to tell you all over again.”

Olive sits back in her chair, arms across her chest and a petulant look on her face. It only takes a second though before she reads Gracie’s expression and leans in again. Her grey-blue eyes shift rapidly between Gracie’s and she cocks her head slightly in consideration.

“What is it?” her voice is low and brimming with excitement.

“They do know each other,” Gracie breathes, “and they must have liked each other a lot.”

“Why? Why?” Olive can barely stay in her seat and she struggles to keep her voice down. “What is it?!”

Gracie wets her lips, her eyes darting to the right and left, as she leans close.

“My middle name is Holmes,” she tells her friend quietly.

“What?” Olive gasps in a hushed voice. Then her face swiftly morphs into irritation. “And you’re only just NOW mentioning this?”

The librarian shushes her from across the room instantly and Olive looks at her apologetically. When her focus is back on Gracie again, her expression is less disgruntled and more eager. Still, Gracie starts in right away, wanting to beat her to the punch.

“It was that first day with Jones and everything in the lunchroom,” she says in a rush. “She kept calling you Holmes and I thought she meant me at first. It was so weird, but I got distracted with hitting her and just sort of forgot about it.”

Gracie stops and watches Olive for a moment. The pieces are clearly falling into place for her too as she stares back with wide, luminous eyes. Her lips are shaped into a perfect O, but she hasn’t made a sound yet. Gracie hops a little in her chair, skooching forward to its edge and placing her hands flat on the table.

“Why would Dad name me Grace Holmes Watson if your dad wasn’t important to him?” Gracie takes in a quick breath when Olive gasps loudly, her hands flying to cover her mouth.

The librarian shushes them again and Gracie smiles a timid apology this time. She nods at the librarian’s silent warning, promising they will do better and then turns back to Olive. Her friend’s face is absolutely astonished, her eyes filled with shock and wonder. Olive knows something. Gracie’s words have pulled some key observation to the front of Olive’s mind and Gracie must know what it is. Now.

Gracie opens her mouth to speak, but Olive’s lips part first. Her voice comes out shaky with emotion.

“Olivia Watson Holmes,” is all she says.

Gracie’s eyes double in size and her face goes slack. They sit for a moment in utter silence, unmoving while the world slows to a stop around them. Gracie’s body is tingling and feels like it’s floating. It is almost too much to believe, like it can’t be real. Surely their fathers must have been best friends for them to name their daughters after each other. But then what happened? How did Gracie’s dad end up in Bath and why did he never mention Sherlock?

“Gracie?” Olive’s eyes are on Gracie when her own come back into focus. Their gazes meet and both brows crease with determination. They are of one mind. There is only one way to find the answers they want.

“Google,” they say together and rise from their chairs decisively, hands planted on the table to push them up.

Minutes later they are each seated in front of a desktop computer in the library lab. As luck would have it, they even got two next to each other and in a corner where their whispers are unlikely to bother anyone. Olive is scrolling through links to article after article from ten to twelve years earlier, all of them solved by Sherlock Holmes and John Watson. Meanwhile, Gracie does much the same, though she has just stumbled across a goldmine.

“I can’t believe this,” Olive murmurs in a breathy tone. “Look at all these cases. Your dad is the partner in his stories. Dad’s man, Friday. His conductor of light.”

“Oh my god,” Gracie mumbles in disbelief.

“What?” Olive crowds in next to her and reads the title of the blog on Gracie’s screen. “The Personal Blog of Dr. John H. Watson.”

“They’re all here,” Gracie’s voice sounds far away. She just can’t believe this is all real. “All of Dad’s bedtime stories. The Mayfly Man, The Hounds of Baskerville, The Deadly Tealights, A Study in Pink. Every last one, and more.”

“What do you mean?” Olive asks in a confused tone. “These are all Dad’s cases.”

“Our dads are Sam and Dean,” Gracie stares at the screen, selecting one of the links and scanning the page rapidly.

“Sam and Dean?” Olive furrows her brow. “What are you on about?”

“Remember I told you my dad has these mystery stories that he tells me at bedtime?” Gracie turns to look at her friend urgently. “Two guys named Sam and Dean solve them all. I always thought Dean sounded kind of like Dad, but…” Her voice fades away and she looks back at the screen. “He actually is.”

“Go back to the home page,” Olive says. Gracie complies and Olive points. “Look at this one. ‘My new flatmate.’.”

They both read quickly and then eyes meet, wide with shock.

“They were flatmates,” Gracie breathes, astonished.

“No way,” Olive mutters. “No wonder your dad doesn’t want to come to my flat.”

“Wait, wait,” Gracie clicks back and scrolls, not finding what she wants. “But what happened? Why did he move away?”

She clicks on different links and they both read as their library time ticks away. With only minutes to spare, both girls sit back in their chairs, completely overwhelmed with the knowledge they now possess.

“Dad faked his own death?” Olive is dumbfounded, her face slack with shock. “He never told me that story.”

“Dad got married and just stopped,” Gracie shakes her head in disappointment. “Your dad even wrote the blog about the wedding. I just… I don’t understand. Dad obviously loved what he was doing and with his best friend too. Why would he stop?”

“All right, everyone,” Mrs. Jennings calls from the stacks. “Line up and back to class.”

The girls close their searches after clearing the histories. Olive is always on about covering their tracks. They walk to the end of the line in defeat. Their investigation turned up more questions and confusion than answers. Standing in silent thought as they wait for the line to move, Gracie makes a decision. She has to have answers.

“I can’t not know,” she says sternly, determination bright in her blue eyes. “I’m going to ask Dad about it tonight.”

“What? No!” Olive grabs her arm and Gracie turns to glare. “We can’t just ask them about it. They won’t tell us anything.”

“Then how are we supposed to find out what happened?” Gracie growls with frustration. The line begins to move and she has to turn her back on Olive to walk.

“We’ll carry out our own investigation,” Olive says in her ear. “This is our case. Our first case.”

“I don’t know how to do that,” Gracie grumbles without so much as a glance backwards.

“I do,” Olive’s voice has some of its usual tenacity again. “I’ll teach you at lunch and we can talk to them tonight.”

“I don’t know,” Gracie replies hesitantly. “I’ve never done anything like this before. What if I’m no good at it?”

“Ha,” Olive huffs. “You’ll be a natural. Trust me.”

***

Gracie raises her eyes from the book propped on her chest where she lies on the couch. Lifting her chin just a bit gives her the perfect view of her father sitting in his chair with the day’s newspaper in his hands. At this point in the evening, he has it folded in half so she can easily see his face. Olive said that was of the utmost importance because Gracie will see what John doesn’t say.

Still not sure if she is ready for this, Gracie runs through the list of features to watch for. There are obvious ones like eyes and eyebrows, knee-jerk expressions that are schooled away, mouth movements. Olive went on for some time about how different ways of wetting one’s lips mean different things. Gracie had never realized there were distinctions. Then Olive went on about twitches and other such things that were lost on Gracie. Given the time, she is sure she could learn and understand quite a bit about it all, but certainly not from what little she gleaned at lunch.

Gracie looks at her father again where he sits completely unawares, his eyes moving from left to right across the words on the page before him. With a fortifying breath, she clears her throat and starts with a question she hopes to build on without giving anything away.

“Dad, how long did you have a best friend?” Gracie asks as casually as she can manage, but it comes out sounding more like she placed air quotes around the words best friend. She closes her eyes immediately, supremely disappointed with herself and then pops them open quickly to check on her father. Allowing a tiny sigh of relief upon seeing that John has not even lifted his gaze from the paper, Gracie’s confidence level bounces back up.

John is frowning in thought at the page, so he has definitely heard her. His mouth opens and he looks about to give some cursory answer, but cocks a brow and shifts his gaze to hers instead.

“What?” John replies with a tone of confusion.

“Your best friend,” Gracie continues, lowering her book to lay flat on her chest. “I know you had one.”

“Oh. Right,” John pauses, glancing back at the paper and then looking at her over the top of his reading glasses. “I feel like we talked about this already.”

“We did,” Gracie answers somewhat abruptly, not wanting to give him much time to think on that, “but you didn’t say anything. Just that you solved cases together.”

“Medical cases,” John corrects and Gracie wants to smirk as she thinks ‘Medical cases, my foot’.

“What was he like? What did he do? What’s his name?” Gracie rattles off, even as she hears Olive’s voice in her head reminding her that they can’t just walk in and demand names. Gracie nearly shudders, but hides it with the movement of pulling herself up to sit.

“Whoa, whoa,” John lowers his newspaper to let it rest in his lap. “Where is all this coming from?”

“Well,” Gracie pauses a moment to try and get her thoughts together. She has to salvage this. “Now that I have a best friend, I want to know more about yours. Did you really like him? The way I like Olive?”

“I loved him,” John answers without hesitation and he looks like the candid response surprises even himself. Gracie’s eyes widen tenfold as John clears his throat and shifts the newspaper pages noisily. “We were quite close.”

“Wow,” Gracie breathes. Now she is getting somewhere. She wonders if Olive is having this much luck with her dad. “You must’ve done everything together.”

“We spent a lot of time together, yes,” John says somewhat absently. Gracie tilts her head in amazement. He is trying to affect indifference, like the whole friendship was perfectly normal and not at all a special part of his life, and Gracie can tell. Empowered, she continues.

“Solving cases,” she nudges in a light tone.

“Working on cases,” John corrects for the umpteenth time. “Medical cases.”

“Hmm,” Gracie hums in thought. When John cocks a brow as if wondering what she is up to, Gracie moves for distraction with another question. “Did you have lots of sleepovers?”

Unabashed laughter bursts from John’s lips and the clever girl smiles to herself. Distraction successful.

“No, sweet pea,” John chuckles and then back tracks. “Well, maybe in a manner of speaking. We shared a flat, so I suppose you could say every night was a sleepover.”

“Wow. That would be so awesome,” Gracie repeats, truly in awe for a moment as she thinks of it. Living in the same flat as Olive so they could play all the time and do schoolwork together and she could help with Olive and her dad’s experiments. The thought of Sherlock brings her back around to the task at hand. She aims for idle curiosity when asking the next question. “So what happened to him?”

“Erm,” John’s body visibly gives a slight shudder and a feeling of concern begins to rise up in Gracie’s throat. She bites her lip and considers brushing the inquiry aside when John straightens in his chair. “Sometimes…things happen. Sometimes friends can hurt you. And then Mary wanted to move and we just...left.”

“So Mary wanted to go to Bath,” Gracie has never once called Mary Morstan her mother. John has always just called her Mary, so Gracie does too. It is hard for her to think of Mary as anything since she has no part in Gracie’s life. She found an old wedding photo once, but has never met the woman. “And you just went with her?”

“She was my wife, sweet pea,” John answers simply.

“Well, why didn’t you call him?” Gracie frowns. “Or text?”

“It’s hard to explain,” John sighs. “Sometimes the things adults do are hard to understand.”

“Dad,” Gracie says in a dull voice and blinks her eyes into a roll like she is already a teenager, “I’m eight and a half years old. I can totally understand complicated things and I want to know. I don’t want that to happen with me and Olive.”

“It won’t. Of that I have no doubt,” John assures her with a quiet huff of a chuckle.

Gracie shifts on the couch to face him fully and sets her book aside. Fixing him with a serious expression, she goes in for the kill, a move Olive had explained very carefully.

“You said friends can hurt you sometimes,” she begins, already seeing that her words have the desired effect. “I’m sure they don’t mean to. Can you honestly say that will never happen to me and Olive?”

John lets out a weary sigh, sets aside his newspaper and rises to join her on the couch. He looks at her with soft eyes for a long moment and smoothes back her hair. Gracie licks her lips, looking at him expectantly.

“He hurt me very badly,” John’s voice is little more than a whisper. Gracie can hear the pain and regret in it. “I tried to pretend it wasn’t there, but...it was hard. Very hard. Mary saw it. SHe didn’t like him much in the end, so she did a little looking and found us a place in Bath. We broke off everything, all communication with all of our friends in London. We started over.”

“Damn,” Gracie murmurs before she can think better of it.

“Language, Gracie,” John scolds with a fond frown.

“Sorry,” she says quickly and then pauses a moment before asking tentatively: “Mary’s gone now. She has been for a long time. Would you ever want to be friends with him again?”

John takes a deep breath and stares over her shoulder for a moment. His eyes are far away and almost wistful. She can already see his answer in his expression, but waits to see if he will put it into words.

“Yeah,” he says finally. “I think I would.”

Victory.

John blinks and returns his gaze to his daughter, who is trying not to look too satisfied with her success. He smiles and pulls her into a hug, kissing the top of her head.

“It’s getting late, my Gracie girl,” John says affectionately. “We need to get you to bed.”

“Okay,” they both stand and head for the loo. “Are you going to call your best friend while I’m sleeping?”

“Ah, no,” John answers as if the proposal is absurd.

“What?” Gracie stops cold and stares up at him, looking for clues. She was sure she had solved it. Why wouldn’t he want to call Sherlock? “Why not? You said you want to.”

“It’s been too long, sweet pea,” John says almost sadly. “It’s all in the past and can’t be salvaged. It just happens that way sometimes.”

“But Dad,” Gracie starts, determined to make him see why that is stupid. John’s hands are on her shoulders now and he is gently guiding her to the loo.

“That’s enough for tonight,” he says good-naturedly. “You’ll be grumpy tomorrow if you don’t get enough sleep.”

“Dad!” Gracie lets out a loud declaration, looking back at him as she walks. “I will not be grumpy.”

“Still bedtime,” John reminds with an amused smirk. Gracie turns to face him and crosses her arms over her chest. She narrows her eyes and gives him a stern look, the bridge of her nose wrinkling.

“Fine,” Gracie mutters and quietly stomps to the sink to show her displeasure without enough defiance to get in trouble. John walks away with a half chuckle.

Gracie considers their conversation as she readies her toothbrush and brushes. Her dad would clearly like to be friends with Sherlock again. Gracie thinks he still likes him very much and Sherlock didn’t seem mean or anything when they were at the park. Plus, she has Olive’s word for it too. Why couldn’t they be best friends again?

Olive will have a plan, Gracie resolves as she spits in the sink. Once she tells her friend all about this at lunch, Olive will have a plan and they can put it into action. Satisfied, Gracie rinses her toothbrush, puts it away and heads to her room for a bedtime story.

---

No mortal danger in this story, but still so many compelling questions! What will happen?? Only The Shadow (ME) knows. Mwahahahaha! Maniacal laughter. Next couple weeks are going to be busy, but I intend to keep on my posting schedule. See you all soon! Love, Jane

@johnlock-rocks

#Sherlock Holmes #Sherlock #sherlockholmes #sherlock loves john #john watson #johnwatson #johnlock #Johnlock fanfic #sherlock fanfic #John loves Sherlock #Mystrade

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