#so when i get questions like this i don't think saying i agree makes it a more valid interpretation or me disagreeing makes it less valid

[dragonbabes]

*F*cking Yap Warning; expect run ons and awful grammar and cursewords*

This is a super interesting thought. Cause I sorta agree. This isn’t to say that I’m upset that they gave the companions main character energy — cause they are, in a sense — and I adore all of their quirks and whatnot’s. But they put too little effort into Rook. From the very beginning.

I remember thinking that Rook is such a disposable character. I played a Shadow Dragon on my first playthrough, and I remember straight up snorting at Rook's response on why they couldn't navigate to Dumat Plaza: "Not my part of town." Seriously? But worry not, we have Harding, who can figure out something that Rook, who's probably lived in Minrathous for years, couldn't! (Lame)

Crow Rook: is assassin... Like Lucanis. Love this man to death but, why can't Rook do the stabby stab at Ghilan'nain? Does it have to be the sexy, coffee-obsessed man? Is Rook de Riva not sexy enough to brandish a weapon at the nefarious Ghilan'nain or the not-too-intimidating Elgar'nan? It was never explained it was just *shrug* Two's better than one ah-hyuck... When Neve was like "We need an assassin" to my very crow Rook, I was literally there like

( L a m e )

In my Shadow Dragon playthrough, I sacrificed Minrathous and I loved that Neve and the others are so much more critical than they are with other Rook origins, but literally no one on the team was like: how are you? That Lucanis - the soft, yearning, feeling man that he is - did not approach Shadow Dragon Rook that sacrificed their home, their city, their people, to protect his is so fucking wack to me. And - hot take, I think there's a lack of this throughout all of the games - no one ever checks in on the leader, because why? They're this amazingly unbreakable person that can face anything? No! Any hero worth their salt breaks, but they get back up. That's what makes em the hero. Iron Bull literally says "leaders are made of the people that can make the hard decisions, and live with them" but we never get to live with it, do we? They don't give us the chance to see them process that, and learn to hold it, because none of the companions bother to ask, "Hey I know you literally just had to sacrifice an entire city, how are you?" (Lame) If you want a player to feel immersed in your game and take joy in it, you give them the ability to affect the world. You make them feel the story by asking them "How do you feel after making this awful, awful decision?" Then, you let them choose how to answer the question... This was a huge fumble.

And oh my gawd the whole reason that Varric ever recruited Rook is just... Puzzling to me. He was just like "a-ha, yah, i want that one" because Rook is unpredictable? That's it? No actual purpose to the plot, they're just here to be like "haha he won't expect us to drop a building on him c'est la vie..." (l a m e)

Can we please also talk about how Rook can't have any side conversations with their companion outside of the cutscenes? In Inquisition, you could walk up to Solas and be like "what the fuq is up big dawg" then dap him up but in DATV? You're a sad loner sitting at your own lunchtable because they unfortunately don't have enough chairs at theirs (you can see an empty chair, but they need it for Neve's bag). You have to stand there like a creep and just be like "definitely not eavesdropping, nope nope nope. uh-uh, I merely entered this room that I really have no business in to stare into the void don't mind me carry on... Pleeeease I'm desperate to explore your character but can't outside of seeing how you talk to the others and plot-related developments."

And let me reiterate that I do love this game. It's fun to play and there are a bajillion things I do like about it... But how they handled Rook is very disappointing. Creating a character blank enough for a roleplay game is tricky, I get it, and i'm certain there are things I don't understand about it, but it's also the most important character in the game. Period. Let your players play their characters, is what i'm sayin.

If you got this far, I admire you.

What’s really jumping out at me on my second playthrough is that the writers of the first three games understood that your character was the main character. The Veilguard writers clearly thought that the main characters were their characters, the companions.

Every scene is about setting the companions up as cool or competent or sympathetic. Often, this is done at Rook’s expense. The companions get all the witty one-liners; Rook’s attempts at humor not only frequently fall flat, but are frequently called out for falling flat (even when they’re completely automatic and the player has no say in them).

The companions have all the knowledge and skills; Rook just brought them all together and gives them all pep talks so they can focus. I’m trying to edit out all of the comments where Rook is like “Um… what????” from my videos, and let me tell you, it takes WORK. There are A LOT of them. I can count on one hand the number of times when the Inquisitor or Hawke comes across as dumb, but it seems to be a built-in, unavoidable part of Rook’s character. I have not selected a single “purple” option in all of Act 1, and Rook is still coming across as the kid who tries to be the class clown to cover for the fact that he’s always confused. Rook’s role in most scenes is to say “Uhhh… what?” so that the companions look smart.

Rook is always the one offering sympathy and never the one getting it. No one actually comes to comfort you after Varric’s death. No one asks you how you’re feeling about having to lead the team now that Varric is gone. No one tries to reassure you or give you advice for dealing with the trickster god haunting your dreams. We’re told that Neve could keep Solas out of your head, but she never actually offers to do this for you. No one comforts a Shadow Dragon Rook when Minrathous is destroyed or a Grey Warden Rook when Weisshaupt is destroyed. Rook’s problems don’t matter. Only the problems of main characters matter.

Rook is a secondary character in their own story.

[actualbird]

who do you think makes the most money amongst the NXX men. we have luke with three sources of income (NSB, antique shop & private detective gig), marius whose a literal CEO of the biggest corporation, vyn who has his own research centre + is a psychiatrist + nobility (not sure if that counts tbh given his complicated relationship with his haspran lineage) and artem whose a lawyer. i feel like marius makes the most, and then it’s kinda debatable between vyn and luke, but artem’s for sure last, and that’s wild because he makes BANK. he’s only in fourth place because someone has to be there 🧍‍♀️

anon, i need you to know this simple question sent me into a spiral. it had me googling things like "How much does James Bond make annually???? (adjusted to present day inflation)" and wondering things like "hold on, what currency do we use for this, because Stellis uses their currency of Stellins and the income will definitely depend as well on the strength Stellin as a currency and the cost of living within Stellis, but oh god we don't really have any good information on how much Stellin is in comparison to IRL currencies, but fuck, i do need to pick a currency to base this off of or else we're not getting ANYWHERE [PULLS AT MY FUCKING HAIR]---"

okay. all that said, this question sent me through so many tabs of googling, but after all that research and my own headcanons and views, here is my answer.

1ST PLACE = marius von hagen

obviously. he's the CEO of one of the most powerful and influential corporations in the country of Stellis. he makes like a gazillion bajillion fuckoff-illion Stellin annually, we dont even have to find a number for him because he's definitely at the top.

did you know canonically, marius never checks the price tag of any of the things he buys? yeah. i think that says enough

2ND PLACE = vyn richter

im not going to do any numbers or math for vyn either because i agree with you that vyn is at second place. vyn technically has the following sources of income

psychologist/psychiatrist

owner/co-founder of Giannovyn Mental Health Research Center

visiting professor at the School of Psychology of Stellis University

being Royalty (but this is...complicated)

being a visiting professor is basically negligible, income-wise. i come from a family of teachers so i know teachers, even at a university level, are paid horrendously. but his practice as a psychiatrist and the income he gets as the owner and co-founder of his research center must be Big Bucks

as for the being Royalty part.....i dont think thats Income, per se, but vyn definitely doesnt need to WORRY about money tbh. worst comes to worst, shitbag dad eirik haspran will throw svartish currency at vyn's face, which vyn will ABSOLUTELY HATE, but that doesnt get rid of the fact that it Is money that he's got access to.

in terms of attitudes and behaviors in regards to spending, his placement of 2nd place seems to align here: vyn lives with many fancy luxuries!! nowhere near as extravagant and out-of-this-world as marius, but it's There: the clear see-through grand piano in his pre-moving-in-together bedroom, the upper class hobbies and interests like wine tasting and horse riding, that kind of stuff. so i think he fits here in 2nd place.

INTERMISSION = i need to take you through my process, methodology, and struggle here (so you understand what i WENT THROUGH)

okay now it was artem and luke that tripped me up the most for this response. my gut instinct when you said artem was last place just made me go "that can't be right...."

i originally tried to solve this conundrum by doing actual math and conversion. my process was:

search the job's annual salary in China (because Stellis is based on Chinese cities in general. this would mean we would be working under Chinese living costs and the Chinese Yuan)

convert those values into Philippine Peso simply so that i can comprehend the numbers

compare who's higher!!

but then that made me realize a big issue with this process.....artem's job is easy, he's a Senior Attorney. but luke....what the FUCK is his actual job title for the NSB??????

in Main Story 05-01, he describes himself as part of the "Financial and Technological Crime Section" of the NSB, and he joins the NXX Investigation Team as a "special investigator" but like....WHATS HIS TITLE. WHATS HIS POSITION. WHATS HIS JOB DESCRIPTION AND WHAT ARE HIS RESPONSIBILITIES???

on NSB missions or during his NSB era, luke has been seen doing undercover work, hacking (idk a more formal term for this), combat training for new recruits, AND THE LIST GOES ON. essentially, searching for his "job" in the first place tripped me up

hence why i landed at this reddit page

it seemed like a lost fucking cause to use actual IRL sources for luke's job so i went into the realm of fictional secret agents, james bond being the most known and, well, luke pearce is basically james bond at this point, what with everything he's had to do already.

HOWEVER, i won't be using the exact numbers that the above reddit thread came up with, because those numbers are based on the living costs and culture of Europe. that fucked up all the numbers ONCE MORE

SO WHAT I INSTEAD DECIDED TO DO WAS extrapolate the answer based on Vibes and Living Conditions

"zak why did you tell us all of this if you were gonna disregard it anyway" because you all need to know how much i wENT THROUGH, FOR THIS ASK SKJFBDLSKFJSD.

3RD PLACE = artem wing

he may have a normal job but consider the fact that he bought a penthouse apartment straight out of college.

additionally, after consulting an Artem Knower, she mentioned and reminded me of the fact that Pax is Themis' client. so artem is getting them BIG PAX BUCKS.

his living conditions are sleek, elegant, and luxurious. not at the same level as vyn and marius, but it is very swanky. in his pre-moving-in-together apartment, he literally had his own private cinema room. his kitchen had two ovens. these are signs that he makes BANK.

4th PLACE = luke pearce

"but zak!! luke literally has THREE SOURCES OF INCOME!! AND ONE OF THOSE IS BEING A GOVERNMENT AGENT!!!" to that i say:

the income from Time's Antiquities is honestly negligible because 1) its main purpose, canonically, isn't actually to be an establishment but instead a front for his PI business. yes, he does do restorations and make sales, but that's not his priority. and 2) HE DOES SO MUCH SHIT FOR FREE. LUKE, THIS IS NO WAY TO RUN A BUSINESS!!! KBSLFBLDS

the income from his Pearce Private Investigations is also somewhat negligible because, again, HE ALSO DOES CASES FOR FREEEEEE or at the very least is very flexible about payment

as for being a government agent........the government does Not Pay Its Employees Well

"but unlike artem, who has an apartment, luke has an entire 3-floor building to himself!!" yes he does! but he did not buy that. it was canonically left to him by his deceased parents

with those matters out of the way, i wanna say that luke making the least among the boys (WHICH DOESNT MEAN HE MAKES LITTLE. he definitely still makes Money, just not as much as the other three) makes sense given his Vibes and Living Conditions

in terms of vibes, luke is a very simple boy. he tends for "low-brow" hobbies and indulgences and food. in terms of living conditions, his pre-moving-in-together living space, which was just one floor of his 3-floor building, was very simple as well, even cramped. his bed was on a palette on the FLOOR. LUKE, FOR GOD'S SAKE, SURELY YOU MAKE ENOUGH TO GET A PROPER BEDFRAME //SHAKES HIM

-

conclusion = never make me do this again

i went through a crisis trying to answer this ask. people are allowed to have different opinions of course, but this is My View. i hope this response was at the very least entertaining. KBKSJFSDF

[valentine-cafe]

˖⁺. “ r/am I the asshole !? ” : 

﹙ multi monsters x gn reader. ﹚.𖹭 ݁

. . . multi characters x gn reader ( fem on xiyang ) !! 🍓 : ﹙ pasquale: adrenaline addict ˖ racer ˖ inhuman character ˖ seong-jin: grim reaper ˖ detective character ˖ rishen: director ˖ spy ˖ assassin character ˖ xiyang: grim reaper ˖ mercenary leader character ﹚

your lover takes to reddit to ask if they've been an asshole in relation to you recently . . .

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﹙pasquale 781. ﹚. . . pretending I don't see the ghost !? 🍒 : "Let's start this off by saying I can see ghosts. Yeah. OoOoOoOoo. Always been able to. Anyway. So just my luck! I landed with a pookie who can do the same. Great right?

Yeah. If I wasn't shit scared of half the fuckers I see. Ghosts aren't little kids standing in nightgowns. FUCK NO. They're demons. Weird lil shits. And that's saying a lot, my brother's satan.

Not so bad you say?? Until pookie decides they wanna mention every time one's in the room! I don't mind them clinging. Course not. But the problem comes in when I pretend I can't see a damn thing. Lowkey gaslighting them that there's nothing there. Is that bad?

Well they got angry at me over it yesterday and for fucks sakes what am I supposed to do man? 'AH! A GHOST!' Do I look like fucking ghostbusters??? I'm italian. This ain't Luigi's Mansion! If I see it ( AND I REGRETABLY FUCKING DO ) - no i don't!

This came off a lot more frantic but how the hell do I tell pookie that their big, strong, kinetic user-punk-racer-boyfriend is afraid of ghosties?

Edit: to everyone calling me a pussy that's so funny cause your mom called me that too when I was ball's deep -"

 

﹙seong-jin 9948e. ﹚. . . being too honest !? 🍓 : "I'm a bit too honest with my partner. Before anyone writes about me being insensitive or being an asshole ( I know ). I would like to preface that my honesty is the reason we are even together. I flat out asked them if they wish to date. They agreed. Now we're two years into a relationship.

I've never hidden this part of me. If it comes to mind, it is out my mouth. That's how it's always been. If I don't like the way they're acting, I say it. If they ask me a question, I answer honestly. It's been this way for years. With everyone. Not only can I not stand bullshit, I simply do not have the energy to sugarcoat anything. They have been fine with this. While we do clash every now and then, I always make it known that I do not come from a place of malice. That is how we have made it work for two years.

How was I supposed to know answering, truthfully, that I did not like their outfit — was not appropriate?

I understand that there can be some sensitivity. I try to compensate for them like they do me. But they asked me a question, what was I supposed to do - lie?

Now I am at work. Feeling as though I really did it this time. I apologised before I left. Sent a text too. What the hell am I supposed to do? I even told them just because I don't like it does not mean they do not have to wear it.

How do I get around this?"

 

﹙rishen 1311. ﹚. . . not inviting them over !? 🍒 : "Get the gist of how this works. I'll be brief. I have been dating this person for about a year or so. 'One whole year' as they prefaced this morning in their frustrated slew.

I simply do not think it has been long enough. I feel as though we are moving too fast. Before anyone goes calling 'commitment issues' or 'what are you hiding?' : a gun. Under my pillow. Every night.

Yes, I denied them access when they showed up by surprise. I led them back to their home and spent the night with them. Yes, I didn't let them walk me home from the bar. Yes, I bled all over my floor from a stab wound and still told them to not show up while they panicked over the phone. Is it so wrong?

I assumed they would understand that it has nothing to do with them. I have my reasons. None of it involves them. But I suppose we simply can't have nice things. Fucking fantastic.

Is it to hard to understand that I'm just shit scared to wake up to someone every morning? Or have them in my kitchen cooking me food?

I'm fine. I don't need their help. I am fine. I just need to know that I'm not losing my mind over this. What do I do?"

 

﹙xiyang 9819. ﹚. . . not telling her I'm infertile !? 🍓 : "This feels a bit more bizarre than the other entries. But guess we're all dealt a different hand. My girlfriend and I have been in a happy relationship for five years now.

I love her to bits. Everything about her. Express that in whatever way I can. Just be honest with her, I'm sure you're typing. Yeah. Cept for one damn thing:

She's got a huge fucking breeding kink.

Don't laugh. I'm constantly fighting for my life. I'm off the hook for now. Told her I just can't commit to a baby with my job and hers. So she's on the contraceptives thinking they'll fucking matter. Bouncing on me like a pogo-stick telling me to breed her!

Hunny! If I could I would! I wouldn't hesitate to just give you every baby you want and more but unfortunately my lil swimmers are fucking defected.

Maybe I should mention that I indulge her. Can I be blamed? She gets so into it. I don't mind the fantasy one bit. I'm just a guy who loves his girl and wants to give her whatever her pretty little heart desires.

And if that means making her believe I can pop one in her whenever? So be it. We'll just get a puppy or something I don't fucking know. I'm typing this in panic."

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[koideres]

more pyre to make eveyones day (and writing blurb utc!)

{ cw: intended SA (nothing actually occurs but its implied), strangulation }

"Hey there, sweetheart. You look lonely sitting there all alone, mind if I keep you some company?"

Pyre can barely hear the man now sitting right next to her over the generic pop song blaring over the club speakers. Normally, this would be water right off her back, but after the shitshow of a week she's had, another random person talking themself in circle's while she nods along is the last thing she wants. Not even the buzz from nursing her now fifth gin and juice is enough to tackle this with a straight face.

By this point, she realizes that she hasn't said a word yet. The realization only hits her once the man is leaning in closer, his breath, hot and muggy with alcohol fans against the side of her face, awful smell wafting in her nose and making it crinkle in response. It takes everything in her not to recoil in blatant disgust.

"Why don't we get out of here together, hmm?"

Considering the last large 'meal' she had was just a matter of hours ago, this isn't necessary. Pyre could ignore him. She should.

Despite her better judgement however, she agrees. By the wide eyed look that flashes across his face is clear that he hadn't actually expected to get this far, but he doesn't push his luck by asking anymore questions. She prefers the ones that are like this.

"You came with any friends?" Pyre asks as they step into the mans far too crowded car. Where there isn't a plastic water bottle or empty can of some unknown energy drink, there's indistinguishable mounds of trash lost in the dark lighting. "No, its just me. I don't normally do stuff like this," he responds, nervously tapping his fingers aloud the steering wheel as he dances around that exactly this is with the presumably far-too-drunk woman sitting in his passenger seat. Typical. But that's alright, its easier that way.

"And my place is empty. If you were, uh, worried...about that." Even better.

-

His place is small, even messier than the car, too, somehow. He's frantically pushing the piles of trash under his twin bed while he throws his jacket off and over to the other end of the room. He wastes no time in getting closer to her, leaning in inch by inch and making that awful, revolting, 'before kissing' face. Annoyance flairs in her gut, scoffing sharply before pushing him backwards with enough force that he staggers over the bed and knocks the back of his head into the nearest wall.

"What the fuck?" He squawks, huffing erratically as he tries to make sense of it all. Well, at least the act is over now.

He puts his hand to the back of his head as his vision fuzzes around the edges, a concussion not mixing too nicely with the liquor running through his veins. By the time he's seeing straight again she's crouched directly in front of him. Her is as sharp as a dagger, wine red eyes so intense that the low light does nothing to ease the manner in which they burn into him, digusted. He trembles, feeling the sudden urge to explain himself, but nothing comes to shape besides sound of his own gasps.

Before he has the chance to provoke her with anymore bullshit, she lets out long groan. It sounds almost childish, as if she's a kid who's been told no more video games. Pyre runs a hand through her hair, briefly brushing the bangs that frame her face backwards in a lackluster attempt to soothe herself. "You," Pyre starts, licking her teeth as she searches her mind for the appropriate words to say. "You're such a fucking bore."

Suddenly, there's a hand around his neck, the unnatural vice grip forcing him to choke on air. "Every time, its the same thing with every one of you low lifes. You're so sure of yourself when you think you're the predator, only to piss yourselves like scared little dogs when you realize you're not the one in control." The sound of her voice is akin to venom, hissing as her fingers dig further into his flesh, jolting as if to emphasize her point.

He strains for air, making gargled noises as he claws at her hand, trashing pathetically—its all the same. Not even the unabashed look of pure terror in the man's eyes feels rewarding tonight, it all numb. Meaningless. She feels empty. She's starving all over again.

"At least now you can put your life to use."

[hesagoodone]

Hi, thank you for taking the time and trouble to whip up a proper reply, I really appreciate that. :) I also think we are on the same page about a lot of things, actually. Will come to that later.

First, I really, really want to believe that John doesn't care about Mary. Perhaps he doesn't. But then it is Mary whom he chooses above Sherlock, always. He marries her, first of all. Then he forgives her for almost killing Sherlock. Then he blames Sherlock for getting her killed despite knowing how hard Sherlock had tried to protect her. Then he cuts Sherlock off, cruelly, from his life when grieving for Mary. Finally, he literally beats Sherlock to a pulp, presumably out of his grief and anger over Mary's death. Even if the reason is not Mary, he knows Sherlock believes it's because of Mary's death, and John himself confirms it: "He's entitled. I killed his wife."//"Yes, you did."

So, if he does care more about Sherlock than Mary, he does a shit job of showing it. I mean, he really beats the former up for the latter, how on earth are we to infer that he cares more about Sherlock? Or, is it that he hurts those he really cares about? That is even worse, to be honest. I'd rather he not care about Sherlock, then.

You're right that these two NEVER communicate and that just messes things up, royally. However, Sherlock was willing to explain everything, it's John who shuts him up:

JOHN (tightly): I don’t care how you faked it, Sherlock. I wanna know why. SHERLOCK (bewildered): Why? Because Moriarty had to be stopped. (He looks at John’s expression.) SHERLOCK: Oh. ‘Why’ as in ... (He lifts a finger, pointing it in John’s direction. John nods.) SHERLOCK: I see. Yes. ‘Why?’ That’s a little more difficult to explain. JOHN (darkly): I’ve got all night. SHERLOCK (clearing his throat and looking down): Actually, um, that was mostly Mycroft’s idea.

So, John's more interested in knowing the reason behind his own exclusion in the plan, than in the actual reason for The Fall. (Which is understandable, but then he never gets back to that second question at all!) And from here on, John's only interested in who else knew, and before even that can conclude, he's headbutting Sherlock (again). The initial one was fine, really, but after that it's just him not willing to listen anything Sherlock has to say. No wonder Sherlock doesn't bring up the explanation ever again. After this reaction, why would he risk another such outburst?

Also, I don't agree that John has no reason to believe Sherlock suffered in the two years away. He knows it had something to do with Moriarty, an undercover mission, something that took *Sherlock* two whole years, how difficult a deduction is the rest? And if he does believe that Sherlock instead suffers from the loss of John, that's also true.. isn't it? If John can see that suffering, so very obvious throughout S3, and yet do nothing about it or even acknowledge it, then that makes it all even worse.

If John can't forgive Sherlock, and yet insists that he has, then it's a major disservice to both of them. And it's not Sherlock's fault. It leaves Sherlock in that tragic position of having no idea what to do: because how do you apologize to someone who keeps saying that they forgive you and it's all over and everything's back to normal? Like I said before, what is Sherlock even supposed to do? He literally kills a man and flies off to his death to give John the life he wants; if that can not make John trust him, or forgive him, I don't even know what will.

I don't think Sherlock does anything on the show that warrants anyone calling him a monster, least of all John. I don't think there's anything in the world that Sherlock won't do for John, and then to get called a monster by him? I'm just glad Sherlock wasn't around to hear that.

I can't imagine why John would feel as if Sherlock doesn't care about him. The first day they meet, Sherlock's running around London with him to "prove a point" regarding John's cane. Sherlock, who barely ever eats himself, is constantly taking John to restaurants and asking if he's alright, if it's better now, if he's okay. Sherlock calls him a "friend" right in the second episode, the same Sherlock who John knows is alarmed by the very concept of "friends". John himself takes note in his blog of the hurt in Sherlock's eyes for that one second when he thinks John might be Moriarty. The way he's maniacally taking the bomb vest off of John, scared out of his mind! And this is all only the first season. It only grows from here, with Sherlock dying and killing and living for John, and we still have John saying stuff like: "Who would he bother protecting?"

You say that the reason why John is so off-balance is because "Sherlock wasn't supposed to care". That's exactly the opposite of the impression that canon John gives. He's constantly berating Sherlock for not caring enough (I've already quoted lines above). And he's pissed off when Sherlock says that he doesn't have friends, never mind that it's John himself who had corrected friend to colleague. That rather makes one think he *expects* Sherlock to care about him, right?

"Sherlock caring is not a positive." - that's something Mycroft would say, not John. :D I mean, if what you say is true, that he'd rather have a sociopath who doesn't care, I think it makes John way worse (and selfish!) as a character. One, he doesn't even know Sherlock one bit, because he never was a sociopath, even on day one. Two, he'd rather have Sherlock live the anti-social, lonely life that comes along with being a "sociopath", instead of seeing him a well-loved human.

What I do completely agree with, is that the story did indeed exist to make Sherlock suffer. And they made John an asshole to do that, because nothing except John could truly hurt Sherlock.

Sherlock, 4.02 The Lying Detective

[thevoicefromanotherworld]

"ANSWER THE FUCKING QUESTION, PRINCESS"

I WROTE ANOTHER FIC WITH TANGERINE

(With my idea of enemies to lovers with him lol)

I hope you like it!

WARNING: EXPLICIT SMUT UNDER THE CUT

You and Tangerine were coworkers.

Anonymous people paid you to take care of certain jobs that no one else wanted to do.

So there you were, on the bullet train on your way to Tokyo.

This time, you couldn't travel first class, since your contact didn't pay for those seats, but rather for a cabin you had to share. It's worth mentioning that you didn't get along well.

When they told you he would be your partner, you tried your best, but as the days went by, his dislike for you became increasingly evident, as did yours for him.

The two of you tried not to argue over stupid things for more than three fucking minutes, but it was impossible, since you had little patience and Tangerine kept saying stupid things to get you to argue with him.

When you saw the hovel you had to share, you decided to do what you always did: try not to talk too much to get through the trip as best you could without arguments.

As soon as you got in, you asked for the bed next to the door, complete with its nightstand, so he took the other one, which didn't even have room to charge his phone.

You smiled when you saw him sit up in bed, holding his head in his hands while cursing loudly. "I wish it had been faster," you thought, sitting up in bed.

You were dead tired, but you still wanted to do some writing before going to sleep. You turned on the nightlight and placed your computer on your knees so you could type. After exactly 45 minutes, he turned to you.

"Turn off the fucking light," he complained, frowning. "What the hell are you writing?"

"My will, in case you kill me during the night," you blurted out as you continued typing, partially ignoring him.

"I'm serious, whatever you're writing can wait until tomorrow," he growled, pulling the thin blanket up.

"You're an asshole," you blurted out, tired of his comments.

"Fuck! You're…" he gritted his teeth tightly to keep from saying what he was thinking before speaking again. "Look, we're still hours away from our destination, which means we're going to have to share this place for quite some time, which means you need to be fucking reasonable." he looked at his wristwatch. "It's 1 a.m. Now go to sleep already."

You didn't reply, so he opted to get up and pull the bottle of alcohol he'd taken from the dining car out from under the bed. You raised an eyebrow, making him shrug.

"Don't give me that look," he blurted out. "If you insist on keeping me awake at this hour, I'm going to drink to drown my sorrows." He offered you the bottle. "It's vodka, it's strong," he warned. You frowned even more. "Hey, the guy who hired us forced us to share this shitty booth," he said, pointing out the obvious. "The least we can do is lighten the situation by giving him a little joy." He gestured with the bottle again. "Take it."

That's what you did. You held it in your hands and took a long swig before giving it to him again. He drank too and set it aside, shaking his head as the alcohol ran down his throat with force and settled in his stomach.

"See?" "Nothing happened," he snorted. "I'm sure you feel a little lighter now."

"Maybe," you muttered, not entirely agreeing with him. "You did really well at work the other day," he blurted out, surprising you. "I didn't know you could handle katanas like that. It was impressive."

"Was that a compliment?" you questioned. "Wow, it really hit you fast," you said, nodding at the bottle of alcohol.

"I'm not drunk yet, honey," he whispered. "It takes a lot more than that to knock me out."

"Okay," you laughed, taking another sip, not enough to be drunk, but enough to make me feel pleasantly dizzy. "Why are you being such a jerk to me?" you asked. He knew there was no way he could get out of answering, so he did. "I realize I can be a little… critical at times, but I'm the number one jerk at this," he maintained. "No one can do this better than me."

"You didn't answer the question," you observed. "Why are you so irritable?"

"Maybe because someone didn't turn off the fucking light at a normal hour so I could go to sleep," he snarled, boring into you with his blue gaze. He shook his head, as if he'd realized his tone. "Sorry, I didn't mean to yell at you," he murmured, his head bowed for a moment before taking another sip of vodka. "The alcohol's helping a lot," he observed. "How are you feeling?"

"Fine," you blurted out simply, making him smile.

"I guess we both needed to take the edge off a bit," he murmured. "Especially you, you've been very tense since we got on the train," he chuckled at the look on your face. "Although I guess I can't blame you." You're trapped here with me

You felt an electricity, the overwhelming urge that was pulsing between you like a living organism.

You didn't know if it was because the alcohol had begun to take its toll on you, or because you were feeling brave at that moment, but you took a deep breath before speaking.

"Say what you have to say."

"I have nothing to say."

"You're lying," you smiled. "You're fucking asshole at it, I've told you countless times not to."

"You tilted your head at him. "Spit it out."

He thought about it for a few moments, during which he took another sip from the bottle, before resting his elbows on his knees, so that they brushed against yours.

"Okay," he agreed, his gaze fixed on you intensely. "I find you incredibly, ridiculously, distractingly attractive," he confessed.

Of all the things he could have said, that was the one you least expected. You stared at him as if his skin had suddenly turned green.

"And being locked up here with you alone…" he shook his head. "Well, like I said, the alcohol is helping."

You sat up straighter in bed, trying to find a steady position, but to no avail. You raised your arms to stretch, revealing the shape of your breasts beneath the thin pajama top you were wearing.

Tangerine's gaze couldn't help but drop there, before returning to yours.

"Are you trying to make fun of me?" she whispered. "I don't like jokes, baby," he warned. "We've known each other long enough for you not to know." His body betrayed him, and his gaze dropped again. "Look at you, without a bra…" He pressed his lips together tightly. "You have to stop, princess."

"Why?"

"Because I don't like being made fun of, and if you keep doing that, I'm going to have to do something about it," he decreed, his tone making something deep inside you twitch nervously.

"Oh yeah?" you asked playfully. "Tell me what you'd do," you murmured.

He swore softly, making you smile. His deep, intense blue eyes looked down at you before he nodded toward you.

"Take that off, baby. I want to see you," he growled, watching your every move closely.

He didn't have to ask you twice.

He stared at you when you obeyed, patting the edge of his bed with the palm of his hand.

"Come here," he commanded softly.

His hands rested on your hips, possessive yet gentle. You felt the cold of his rings against your skin as he leaned down to kiss you.

His lips covered yours with need and calm, as if he couldn't wait to devour you but at the same time wanted to do it slowly so you could enjoy every minute of it.

He kissed your collarbone and neck before teasing your breasts before pulling away to look at you.

"Did you like that?" he asked. You nodded, unable to answer, overwhelmed by all the sensations you were experiencing.

But that didn't help.

He placed his hand on your throat, not applying any pressure, simply so you could feel his fingers wrapping around the base of your neck.

"Answer the fucking question, princess," he demanded softly.

"Yes, I liked it," you moaned, causing him to remove his hand from your neck.

"Good girl," he smiled, causing you to sigh against his mouth. "Now stand up and take off your pants," he whispered. "I want to know how you taste."

When you got rid of them, he stepped back for a moment to admire the view, making you feel desired, which you enjoyed more than you were willing to admit.

"Shit," he blurted out. "Now how am I supposed to focus on the other jobs, knowing what you were hiding underneath all that?" “Baby, you’ve been wanting me as much as I’ve been wanting you,” he gave an amused smile. “Maybe you’ve been wanting me more, seeing how quickly you’ve taken off your clothes.”

“Even now, you can’t help being an asshole,” you blurted out, making his smile widen.

“Maybe so, but I’m the asshole who’s going to fuck you, gorgeous,” he growled, making you blush violently.

He pulled you onto his lap and kissed you again.

This time, the kiss was more needy as you felt his fingers wrap around your clit, causing you to gasp against his mouth.

“I’ve been wanting to do this for a long time,” he growled as he kissed you, sliding his fingers deeper and deeper inside you.

You bucked your hips against him, and within seconds, you felt your lower belly tense, warning you that your impending orgasm was about to arrive.

-Please Tangerine… - you gasped - please…

-Ask me nicely, baby - he whispered - ask, and I'll give it to you

-Please Tangerine, make me cum, please…

-It's hard to refuse if you ask so politely - he whispered, tugging at your clit between his fingers - but you're going to cum with my cock, like I know you want to - he said - sit down and spread your legs for me - he ordered, he shook his head - more - he said before nodding - that's it baby, such a good girl for me…

He sank into you gently at first, then began to move his hips against you with pure need.

“Do you know how many times I’ve wanted you like this, underneath me?” he growled in your ear. “Do you know?”

“I know,” you gasped, scratching his back with each thrust. “Please, Tangerine…”

“I have you, baby,” he said. “Cum for me.”

That’s what you did, unloading against him hard, just as he did moments later.

“Shit,” he took a deep breath, trying to catch his breath, just like you.

“That was very…” he whispered before giving a knowing smile. “Now I guess we can both sleep at a decent hour,” he said. “For once, don’t argue and come here, please.”

He opened his arms and you snuggled against his firm, solid chest.

-Let me hold you while you rest- he whispered in your ear- work doesn't matter now- he said- now I just want to rest with you, we'll deal with work tomorrow, together- he murmured- after all, we get along very well now

[foggynelsonarchive]

Still on the subject of Born Again and its divergences.

I know the new creative team had to fit finished episodes and scenes into a slightly different narrative. In the original script, Foggy was going to be killed off-screen by a police officer.

Temporary or not, Foggy's death is still a petty decision.

But, oh, Matt needed that little push to stop being Daredevil. And then we see Matt trying his best to uphold what he thinks are Foggy's ideals. When that doesn't work, he goes back to being Daredevil and… wrong.

There are a thousand ways to push Matt to his limit without getting rid of Foggy.

I repeat, it's cowardly of Marvel to kill off Foggy in the first few minutes of the series and use Elden in its cruel marketing.

Every episode gives you a sense of unease; there will be a sad and tearful mention of Foggy. Even his long-time buddy, The Punisher, will talk about Foggy as if he was somehow close to him and there's Matt crying and saying that Foggy was a pure and kind soul.

Okay. I agree.

But still, it feels like bait to me. It's as if the series wants to constantly remind us that there was a Foggy at some point, in the past, in that good Netflix series and that, hey, we have a Foggy in Born Again too. Even though Foggy has now become a ghost, hovering in the mouths of characters and on a card that Matt will run his fingers over and kiss. Yes, Matt kissed Foggy's forehead there.

But still, still. There's something that still makes me itch.

This series is like reading a fanfic written by a newcomer to the fandom who just thinks Matt is hot, depressed, and violent. It's like both the new and old teams have no idea who Matt Murdock is.

Matt won't be opening a new firm with a new legal partner in less than a year, for example. But what bothers me the most is how oblivious this Matt is to Foggy's death.

Matt, Matt Murdock would confront Bullseye in jail every day to find out who and why. There is no evidence (yet, and I don't believe there ever will be) that Matt even investigated Dex's motives. He just yelled "Why? " before throwing Dex off the roof and that's it. Matt is smarter than that. He didn't look for information about Benny. He just accepted his friend's death because Dex is a psychopath. But Matt always knew that even though Dex was crazy, he had reasons. Matt wouldn't accept that Dex was simply taking revenge after seven years.

But then Matt just accepts that Dex shot Foggy. He gave up being Daredevil because Foggy died.

Matt, from the comics (the run that the producers claim Born Again is referencing) when he found out that Foggy died, stepped up his work as a vigilante.

I know they are adapting a lot at the same time and it's only 9 episodes. Still, it seems to me like poor writing, lame, flawed.

The show is rushed, empty, sad. And not sad like Matt in that crypt in season 3. There is a mist of mourning hanging in the air in some scenes. We're supposed to feel Matt's sadness, but there's no sadness, just discomfort.

This sad aura is not only due to the absence of Foggy, in my opinion. There is a feeling of a bad dream when you sleep drunk. The series feels like, you know when a character is in a coma and dreams of events rushed from their distorted point of view? 

There are already many leaked and official images from the second season. Wow. When did Daredevil become so popular?  There's Matt in his black suit! He's got his double Ds now!

There was a law firm, there were Nelson and Murdock. Now there are Page and Murdock running away like Bonnie and Clyde. And no Foggy. But he'll be there, won't he? Won't he?

The question is whether Foggy will continue to be just a memory, an emotional phrase in a character's mouth and...that's it?

[canmom]

Given the discourse of the day is apparently Hayao Miyazaki for weirdly convoluted reasons (ChatGPT provoked a meme and then things evolved really quickly into an internet point scoring match about anime directors), I figure I'll bring back this essay on The Wind Rises from a couple years back - at the time, How Do You Live had not yet dropped, but I think it supports this analysis by being an even more introspective movie about his legacy by the aging Miyazaki. The Wind Rises is certainly an irresponsible film, but I do feel pretty confident saying that it's not actually about Jiro Horikoshi and how he felt about his work making imperialist warplanes, it's about Hayao Miyazaki working through some of his own shit through the fictionalised character... and yes, I don't think a flagship film at Studio Ghibli was the right venue for that! It is a really bad idea! I sort of get what he's going for but it requires a stupid amount of context when most people haven't even heard of Horikoshi.

Still: broadly speaking I think 1. Miyazaki is a director worth engaging with in depth, 2. that hagiography is silly, and 3. that I'm frustrated by reductive readings that ignore everything else he ever did - there is a lot going on in all directions, plenty to criticise about the man but plenty that I think is worth respect as well. His career spans most of the history of anime and he changed a lot over the course of it. There are a lot of contradictions! But I also think his later, increasingly meandering movies kind of lost the spark that still draws me to the mid career Miyazaki who wrote manga like Nausicaa and Shuna's Journey and movies like Princess Mononoke, even as their animation pushed limits further and further - he has a pretty bad case of old man syndrome.

I feel like there was a retreat, or perhaps a gradual shift of interests, away from the subjects he was confronting at that stage. He has some very strong opinions on what animated films should be (ranging from technical subjects like preferring strict continuity editing over more Dezaki-esque use of montage, to an enduring orientation towards children's media) that worked very well for his projects, but I certainly don't agree with as absolutes. He is a truly terrible father and I feel a lot of sympathy for Goro Miyazaki. Basically he's a hot mess of a guy, but that - in combination with a genuinely striking visual imagination - is what makes him so interesting to me!

I don't think it's baseless to compare him to Walt Disney, there is a certain amount of pastoral romanticism that both share and both committed to a kind of technical maximalist approach to animation, but a comparison would hit on considerable differences too. Miyazaki began his career as a Toei union man and Marxist (albeit a rather shallow Marxism); he made a break from Marxism in the early 90s, but his ongoing fixations on the paradoxes industrialism and violence, and continued trouble reconciling his mechanical otakuism with his hatred of militarism, are nowhere to be found in Disney, who made war propaganda and held a cartoonish (ha ha) conviction in a bright technological future. Disney, meanwhile, was also an incredibly neurotic capitalist who ran away from his striking animators to tour Brazil in the 40s, and later, still bearing a grudge, reported some of those animators to the HUAC, a level of genuine reactionary that Miyazaki never came anywhere close to. Miyazaki is hardly a saint, he's frankly a complete freak (see also the Bai-Niang fixation), but he's a different guy with a different role in animation history, and generally very different things to say than Disney.

So that's my contribution to the important question of determining what anime is based or cringe. I will continue to write on here about Miyazaki, Anno, and the rest, as far as I find them interesting - and equally about donghua [chinese animation] and aeni [korean animation]. Including donghua and aeni that blatantly take after Miyazaki such as Big Fish and Begonia in China, or Yobi the Five-Tailed Fox in South Korea. (I also wish intense, imaginative Chinese directors like Busifan got a fraction of the attention that guys like Miyazaki do tbh. Give it some years though, at some point the world will catch on that Chinese animation got insanely good...)

(Also since I wrote this originally, SteveM on youtube put out some excellent production histories of Ghibli works which are worth watching. Def check out the Princess Mononoke one for a taste, it's quite the story.)

Animation Night 130: Hayao Miyazaki’s Aeroplane Movies

Oh that Hayao Miyazaki! We sure have a slightly complicated relationship to him here on Animation Night!

See for example…

Animation Night 70, where I talk about his early career and years as a Toei union man, up to the founding of Ghibli;

Animation Night 100 where I tell you about one of my favourite ever films Mononoke-Hime;

Animation Night 111 where we look at the fascinating My Neighbour Totoro-Grave of the Fireflies double bill of 1988.

Tonight, we’re going to look at two films, Porco Rosso and the controversial The Wind Rises, which indicate his particular arc through life in, honestly, a rather sad way. Putting them alongside each other to see what we learn…

If there’s one thing old Hayao loves, it is aeroplanes - particularly planes from the early-mid 20th century. No surprise, really: his dad Katsuji Miyazaki ran a company Miyazaki Airplane, which manufactured parts for world war II aeroplanes such as the infamous Zero fighter plane. (Put a pin in that one!) Despite working to arm the Imperial Japanese military, Katsuji was able to get out of actually serving in the war by telling his commanding officer that he didn’t want to fight when he had a wife and kid, which somehow got him discharged with just a lecture.

The young Hayao, born 1941, was therefore surrounded by planes, which were the source of his family’s comfort. He spent his earliest years fleeing from American air raids, suffering from digestive problems, and watching his stern, intellectual mother Yoshiko suffering from spinal tuberculosis (though she ultimately made it to 1983, at age 72). At school in the 50s, he took an interest in manga - which in those days naturally meant Osamu Tezuka; he also went to see drama films with Katsuji such as Meshi (1951).

In ‘58, he saw Toei’s Legend of the White Snake (白蛇伝 Hakujaden), notable as the first colour anime film, sneaking out from studying for his exams. The film had a profound effect on him. In Starting Point, he writes that he fell in love with the film’s heroine Bai-Niang, and yet gradually started to imagine how he might have done the film differently to better show the secondary characters.

Hayao went to university to study political economy with a focus on ‘Japanese Industrial Theory’, and at the same time, started drawing in earnest, cranking out thousands of pages of manga and spending a lot of time sketching and chatting politics with his middle school art teacher. The 60s and 70s were a high point of left-wing activity in Japan, the time of the Japanese New Left and the Anpo protests against the US-Japan security treaty (c.f. Toku Tuesday 33 on Nagisa Ōshima for a truly fascinating filmmaker who rose to prominence at this time!) So Miyazaki fairly naturally became a Marxist, and stayed such as he got his start working in animation, which I’ve covered in other posts.

So at this point perhaps we can see the curious contradiction that sits in so much of Miyazaki’s work: he genuinely loves aeroplanes and other kinds of military hardware on a kind of aesthetic level, and yet this sits pretty curiously against a worldview that went from Marxist to environmentalist and has no love of war or nationalism.

With all this in mind, let’s take a look at a few of Miyazaki’s early depictions of planes. First would be his work on episode 21 of Moomin (1969), by TMS entertainment. On this infamous episode, Miyazaki’s senpai Yasuo Otsuka called in his protégé to handle of all things a battle scene with planes and tanks - one which infuriated Tove Jansson, already dissatisfied with the tone of the adaptation, to the point that she pulled the show out of TMS Entertainment and A-Pro’s hands and gave it to Tezuka’s rival studio Mushi Pro instead.

(I can’t find any embeddable version, but I did get my hands on this episode eventually! Lain bless soulseek.)

This did not deter Miyazaki at all. In his work on ‘Green Jacket’ Lupin III Part I, which he co-directed with Takahata and Masaaki Ōsumi as well as animating several scenes, we start to see his love of mechanical detail shine through once more. Miyazaki’s plane obsession would shine through even more strongly with his direction of two episodes of ‘red jacket’ Lupin III Part II (1980), under the pen name “Tsutomu Teruki”, directing animators like the spectacular Kazuhide Tomonaga as @kbnet​ documents here. By that point his style had matured - the character designs and motion feel like something drawn in Ghibli’s early years, and the plane backgrounds are astonishingly dense with detail. The Castle of Cagliostro is by comparison relatively light on aeroplanes, but truly elevates Lupin’s car to a character - not to mention the film’s ridiculously elaborate finale where the characters battle through an enormous system of gears.

In between these two Lupin jackets came Future Boy Conan, where we start to see Miyazaki find more things to say about planes than “damn cool!”; a full of wonderful plane adventures, yet they also represent the sinister forces of industrialism which destroyed the world once and threaten to do it again.

In an essay from 1979 that opens the collection Starting Point, Miyazaki remarks on the qualities needed to animate a plane on Conan, giving a sense of his philosophy around animated machines - and his perfectionism:

Quite a few of toda’s younger animators plunged directly into this line of work because they were fans. But if I were to ask them to draw a picture of what they think a chaika (a flying boat in Future Boy Conan) would look like in flight, they would only be able to imagine what they had previously seen on past TV anime shows. And I wouldn’t be able to use their work as a result.

To draw a chaika flying in a truly original fashion, you would need to have read at least one book on the history of flying, and then be able to use your imagination to augment what you have read.

This is followed by an anecdote about Russian pilot, and builder of the first four-engine biplane, Igor Sikorsky - the man who for Miyazaki “symbolises the way men really fly”.

Miyazaki of 1979 seemed to have a lot on his mind about the relationship of humans to machines. He criticises the mecha shows of the time for a lack of focus on how the character creates and maintains the machine: “the protagonist should struggle to build his own machine, he should fix it when it breaks down, and he should have to operate it himself”. And true to form, when Miyazaki’s films portray machines, there is as much loving depiction of the maintenance as the actual machines in flight.

We’ll fast forward now, since I talked quite a bit about The Castle of Cagliostro, Nausicaa and Castle in the Sky back on AN 70, and Totoro back on AN 111. I haven’t covered Kiki’s Delivery Service yet, although you can trust we will before too long! No, the first film of interest to us tonight is a bit of an oddball in the Ghibli oeuvre; well known to fans of the studio but not quite as much of a household name. That’s Miyazaki’s flying pig movie, Porco Rosso (紅の豚 Kurei no Buta).

^ here’s your obligatory Yoshinori Kanada-animated background animation scene!

Porco Rosso is Miyazaki’s first movie to not just feature planes, but be truly overwhelmingly about planes. Set in a vaguely Mediterranean world, it expresses Miyazaki’s nostalgia for a lost era of flying before he was born, and yet it’s also tinged with the impending horror of the second world war and the recognition that the planes that Miyazaki loves so much are above all weapons.

Unlike many of Miyazaki’s movies, it centres on mostly adult characters and its narrative arc doesn’t really move to any sort of definite resolution; it’s more a portrait of the era, or rather, Miyazaki’s fantastical imagination of the era, in which there can be sky pirate families flying with dozens of children and, of course, a man can get transformed into a pig. The central character of the film, the eponymous Porco Rosso (so called because he’s a pig (porco) that flies a red (rosso) aeroplane), is an outcast due to his pig curse, but also perhaps because he insists on flying for himself rather than for the Italian military, a stance that is already becoming obsolete.

So Porco ends up adopting a young aircraft engineer - a bishōjo character in the spirit of The Castle of Cagliostro - who is eager to see the world. The largest conflict in the film is Porco butting heads with an arrogant American pilot over the affections of Gina, a woman who runs a bar for pilots - yet the two are clearly more similar than different.

By this point Studio Ghibli is well-established, and Miyazaki can take his pick from some of the best animators in the entire industry. So we see not just Yoshinori Kanada, but also sakuga aces Mitsuo Iso(!!!) and Shinya Ohira(!!!), and with Ghibli money they can truly go all-out. All that attention to mechanical detail, the buliding of machines, is there. Events like the testing of an aeroplane engine are accompanied by incredibly complex multi-layered shots that only a drawing demon like Ohira could accomplish. Only someone whose grasp of 3D form is as precise as Mitsuo Iso could animate some of these shots of subtle wobbles in the pre-CGI era. And on top of that, the colour design of Michyo Yasuda is there in all its beauty, Joe Hisaishi truly came into his own with a score as wistful and nostalgic as such a film demands; it’s an incredibly accomplished work of animation. 

But, planes though.

One of the film’s most memorable scenes - one which unites the two films we’re going to see tonight - sees Porco fly up high into the sky to a kind of flying graveyard of aeroplane pilots. It’s here we especially see the ambivalence that obsesses Miyazaki: he finds aeroplanes one of the most beautiful things in the world, idolises their pilots, and yet of course this period of aviation was an incredibly dangerous one, and moreover the aeroplane development was catalysed by war and soon would lead to a level of destruction never seen before in human history with the bombing campaigns of the second world war.

It would be natural to imagine that the workshop where Porco recruits Fio may in some way resemble the workshop run by Miyazaki’s parents - in spirit, as he imagines it, if not in detail. Like Miyazaki Airplane, this workshop in Italy cannot be doing anything but supplying aeroplanes to Mussolini, and indeed we see Porco utter one of the most quoted lines in the film when he tells his old air force buddy “I’d rather be a pig than a fascist.” even though this leaves him essentially a fugitive, on his own with a plane and a girl (like half his age I guess?).

^ This swarm of tadpole-like children was animated by Masashi Ando.

If you actually read Miyazaki’s comments about his dad, it seems a little different. Far from being lovingly crafted, Miyazaki writes, Katsuji would make defective parts and bribe officials to look the other way. He would go to nightclubs right into his 70s and ask Hayao if he’d started smoking yet.

At the time this film came out, Hayao Miyazaki’s father Katsuji would die only a couple of years later, in 1993. We can find a short piece that Hayao wrote about it in Starting Point (page 208-209, My Old Man’s Back):

…And after the war, he had no sense of guilt about having been involved in the military arms industry or having produced defective parts. In effect, for him war was something that only idiots engaged in. If we were going to war anyway, he was going to make money off of it. He had absolutely no interest in just causes or the fate of the state. For him the only concern was how his family would survive.

(…)

When he died two years ago, those of us who gathered together agreed that he had never once said anything particularly lofty or inspiring. If I have one regret, it is that I never discussed things seriously with my old man. From the time I was young, I always looked at him as a negative example. But it seems, after all, that I am like him. I have inherited my old man’s anarchistic feelings and his lack of concern about embracing contradictions.

So the actual reality of aeroplanes around Miyazaki had little to do with the romantic images we see in his films. But that ‘lack of concern about embracing contradictions’ seems important…

In 2013, 20 years after Katsuji’s death, Miyazaki would direct a new film, The Wind Rises (風立ちぬ Kaze Tachinu, lit. The Wind Has Written) - to date, his last film, although of course like clockwork he’s since come out of retirement to work on another one. Ostensibly, this film is a biopic of Jiro Horikoshi, the inventor of the Mitsubishi A6M Zero fighter plane so vital to the Imperial Japanese war machine.

However, if you look into the details, you soon realise that the story present in the film - particularly its central element of Jiro love interest and eventual wife Naoko Satomi - is a complete fiction. Jiro Horikoshi did marry and eventually had five children, but there is very little information about them, even in Horikoshi’s own autobiography. An article comparing the film against it remarks…

The Story of the Zero Fighter is 80% plane design ideas, measurements and stories surrounding Jiro’s career. There’s so much focus on the construction of the planes there’s a measly 20% left for autobiographical material.

According to that article, Horikoshi’s autobiography describes his initial thrill at reports of the Zero’s success in the invasion of China, then later, the psychological impact of a bomb striking nearby and his gradual realisation of what a war actually meant. It’s an arc towards increasing horror at the measures the Japanese Empire was taking to win the war with it, particularly the announcement of the Kamikaze suicide-bomber tactic:

Jiro was approached by the press to write a short essay on the Kamikaze, but he declined. He found it too emotionally difficult to think when he looked at photographs of smiling pilots boarding Zero’s, knowing they were doomed to death. Sobbing, the only sentiment that encouraged him to put pen to paper was dedicating his writings to the families who had lost their loved ones in the war. In the haunted depths of his mind he wondered why Japan had not just given up the war, and why they had gone to such measures with the Zero’s.

Very little of this arc makes it into The Wind Rises. Nationalism is glimpsed only at the margins. In one trip to Weimar Germany, Horikoshi witnesses a Jewish man being pursued; later, he meats a privately anti-Nazi German man at the hospital who talks briefly about how foolish nationalism will make a country ‘blow up’, and his final oblique conversation with the dream-ghost of his idol, Italian aircraft engineer Giovanni Cabroni, about what it means to build planes when they will be tragically be destroyed.

Instead, we find Miyazaki draw in a different source for the primary character arc of this movie: a novel by Tatsuo Hori that also has the title 風立ちぬ Kaze Tachinu. Set in a sanitarium much like the one in which Horikoshi spends the latter half of the film, it tells the story of the relationship between a nameless protagonist and a woman dying of tuberculosis.

It seems an odd connection at a glance: why would you take this seemingly entirely unrelated novel and apply it to an actual historical person? To me, the most plausible answer is that this isn’t really a film about Jiro Horikoshi. Because recall that, of Miyazaki’s parents, his mother also had spinal tuberculosis, and his dad also made planes for the war. Yet, the Horikoshi of this film hardly resembles Katsuji Miyazaki either, who we’ve seen was far from a workaholic like the film’s Jori Horikoshi. Instead, this would better resemble Hayao himself. So instead, it seems to be using this historical setting as a kind of place to explore Miyazaki’s feelings about his parents, his own craft in animation (wedded to the technical industrial world as it is)…

Inevitably that’s a pretty fraught thing to do! More so than any of Miyazaki’s other films, the film sparked a lot of controversy, mostly for how it handles the topic of the war. You could argue that like, OK, do you need a movie to moralistically lecture you on how invading most of Asia was bad? Must it rub our faces in the atrocities committed by the Imperial Japanese Army and Navy to be a worthwhile movie?

One answer is that with the amount of modern nationalism and historical revisionism out there, it might not go amiss for national hero Hayao Miyazaki to take a stand there! But honestly it’s more that, with such subject matter, seems to go out of its way to avoid showing what the Zero was actually used for. The main tragedy, as far as Horikoshi was concerned, seems to be that so many pilots of this beautiful aeroplane die; that his pursuit of engineering beauty was corrupted by worldly matters like a war.

Which isn’t necessarily a completely inaccurate portrait of the real Jori Horikoshi’s attitude to his creation. The quote that inspired the film was “All I wanted to do was to make something beautiful.” But then this film goes out of its way to emphasise Horikoshi as a caring family man, a wholly sympathetic character, when to much of the world, Jiro Hirokoshi is a symbol of….

That. (And that’s the low estimate. It could easily be four times higher.)

But let’s look at how it relates to old Hayao and the contradictions he talks about living. If not to the same degree as old Isao Takahata, Miyazaki is an infamously exacting and demanding boss, heavily correcting nearly every cut that passes his desk. He’s spent his life working at a frankly kind of insane pace and expects his employees to keep up. Studio Ghibli has at least one dead body on its hands. Yet if you look at his films, they’re all about freedom and romanticism and the importance of enjoying nature. In Totoro, the dad is pulled away from his desk to play outside by his children. Probably not a good idea at Ghibli.

Then there are all the family relationships, all the way from the panda in Panda Kopanda to the mother in Ponyo. But Hayao Miyazaki was a distant father (he writes in Starting Point that his children were basically raised by their mother), and infamously callous to his son Gorō when he attempted to direct a film that Hayao didn’t think he was ready to handle.

Can we analogise animation to an aeroplane? It is beautiful in much the same way as an aeroplane is: elegant shapes, the technical coordination of many disparate parts to achieve an effect that would perhaps otherwise sound far-fetched (a flying machine? a picture that moves?). What’s the cost of animation? Well, thankfully nothing comparable to killing millions of people. But it is not a light undertaking. It is something that does eat lives. Is that a comparison that Miyazaki would have had in mind? I doubt it, honestly, but it’s what occurs to me faced with this film.

Thus I read the film’s Jori Horikoshi is a strange emotional blend of Hayao Miyazaki himself, an idealisation of his father or perhaps the sort of man he wishes his father was, and the real man who invented an effective fighter plane which helped enable his country to pillage most of Asia. And the rest of us? Well, the person working through these contradictions is Hayao Miyazaki, at the head of one of the highest concentrations of skilled animators the world has ever seen, so it’s going to be shared with nearly everyone. Would it probably have made more sense to do this in something like a manga, instead of a high profile movie? …Well, I think so. But that’s not what happened, so we have this movie.

Inevitably for a late Ghibli movie, this film is crazy good looking. No Yoshinori Kanada anymore since he died in 2009, but Shinya Ohira is still alive, and he is absolutely capable of handling a Kanada-like background animation sequence. One of the most breathtaking sequences is the portrayal of the Great Kantō Earthquake by Atsuko Tanaka and Taichi Furumata, which combines both brilliant multiplane shots and unbelievably complex full background animation scenes of waves rippling through houses and streets. Tanaka also handled these mindblowing shots of cloth flowing in the wind as Naoko paints that form the film’s major recurring image.

The film uses slightly more digital compositing effects than the 90s pre-digital Ghibli films. For the most part the colours are just as lush as those older films, and there’s even very effective use of CG with handpainted textures now and then; Ghibli weathered the transition to digital a lot better than many studios.

And yet, despite all of this, it is a movie that leaves me feeling pretty unsatisfied, like a lot of late Ghibli movies. Hayao Miyazaki has said that he’s attempted to move away from familiar kishōtenketsu structures and try something novel, but when I watch films like Howl’s Moving Castle, I’m left wondering like… what did all of that amount to, in the end? For all its spectacle, what is this film even saying that Porco Rosso didn’t say… honestly, say better?

Maybe I’ll find an answer on a rewatch. It’s… far later than I planned to start, but if you’re willing to join me, please hop into twitch.tv/canmom and we’ll watch Hayao Miyazaki’s two big films about planes! And I’ll show you the Moomin thing too.

[leehama]

Hi! I’ve been thinking about Gourmet Hound and specifically Lucy and her tendency to like people who give her food. I was wondering, do you think she’d be on the aro/ace spectrum? Gray maybe?

The only GH character I wrote with the intention of being aspec is Chef Bartlett, but that doesn't exclude the possibility of other characters being aspec too! If you're specifically talking about Ep. 63 - Blueberry Pie, the joke there is supposed to be that all of Lucy's crushes kinda look like Graham, but Joanna, Walt, and Graham are getting distracted by the detail that they gave her food--but that doesn't mean there aren't other interpretations of the scene than what I intended!

[sskk-manifesto]

!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[mcalhenwrites]

Seriously, I wish I knew what I was doing wrong with my writing, tho, bc if I want to be a career author, why can't I get anyone to engage with what I share for free? Isn't that a sign of being EXTEMELY BAD AT THIS?! (And yeah, lots of my followers aren't active, some might be bots that slipped through, and people miss things on their dashes, but most of the time, I get notifs for reblogging other people's writing from the couple of hundred who must still be active out of nearly 1k. Whatever I post? Not wanted.) And please don't "write for yourself" at me if you see this, bc I've been writing for over 30 years and couldn't name anyone else I am doing it for. Even with gift fics, I don't write anything I don't want to. Edit: Also like... it's hard to express these feelings and not go, "ugh, shut up shut up" to myself, but... I can't really keep going on like this (with the nonstop only-ever-experience-failure* part), I just can't. *Some people never do anything but fail, we try and try and try and maybe maybe maybe it'd help to be believed that when we can't swim on our own, we drown Another edit: I just... I want to be good enough, and I want to be happy, and I want time and spoons to write, and I want to stop waking up scared bc things keep getting worse and I can't save myself.

[wingedshadowfan]

analyzing this interaction as a bystander is hilarious:

first of all, op sprinkled in a lot of qualitative and self-assured verbiage for a "genuine question" asked in good faith. i'm sorry but saying "why do some of you truly think that (...)" from the get go sounds a bit condescending so pretending you didn't have any intention behind the post is weird. also, the argumentation there is lacking. "learning vi had good reasons for it wouldn't make ekko look past it" uh, then what could exactly? last i checked that's the definition of having good reasons for something, and only getting new information can change your mind (unless you're hell bent on believing something regardless of the available information/development of it, which would be a disservice to ekko's intelligence). i don't even wanna get into the completely crazy "vi was an adult" comparison considering the fact that silco paid enforcers to kill firelights, and jinx herself also killed firelights. as an adult. that's quite literally how we meet jinx in s1. i've talked abt ekko and what i believe he thinks of his commune, of silco, of vi and of jinx based on his on screen characterization before but this is all secondary in this interaction.

the reblog/response was pretty standard, a bit passionate perhaps, and straight to the point. quite literally answered why and despite saying "fucking obsession" it didn't directly insult/"swear" at op or take offense lol??

op didn't want ppl "sharing their thoughts", not really (otherwise they wouldn't have responded in such a reactionary manner, and wouldn't have said "ignore the post if you don't like it"), they were just looking for someone to agree with them and join them in subtly judging ppl who think otherwise. the reblogger didn't do that, but nothing abt their response was inherently "toxic, rude or nasty" imo and it's not like the reblogger was necessarily defending ekko bcuz their points abt him, as brief as they were, were quite in line with how he's written; i think op kinda gaslights here by saying reblogger is biased, tried to shut them down (they just answered this "good natured" question), and took the post as offense when it wasn't meant to be (it was very obviously meant to provoke a reaction)

i can't say anything abt the use of tags but you definitely shouldn't be on the internet if someone answering your question (or rightfully disagreeing, as they are allowed to do) and swearing (not even at you) has got you writing think pieces and rewriting reality bcuz wtf do you mean "responded negatively to smth that could've been a mistake or misunderstanding is on you"? what the hell are we even on abt rn??

and lastly, ending a post with "i don't want anything to do with that side of the arcane fandom" (ppl disagreeing with you? ppl using swear words?) is such a temper tantrum kind of response; op can't convince me they wanted a "positive and genuine conversation"

as someone who's been part of a lot of bad faith discourse here and on arcane twt, i feel the need to defend rational thought and critical thinking bcuz i've been in reblogger's shoes before and it sucks to be made to feel like you're crazy

This is a legitimate question but why do some of you believe that Ekko would understand Vi's reasoning for becoming an enforcer? Why do some of you truly think that he would have been able to look past that and still have a good relationship with her?

Ekko's character, whether it be in the show or in the game does not like enforcers. He would not be willing to look past Vi joining an oppressive group of people simply because she had her reasons for putting that uniform on and becoming one of them.

And one thing I've noticed is that whenever people mention that Ekko wouldn't be able to remain close to Vi because she became an enforcer, someone always says "he forgave Jinx for working with Silco so why wouldn't he be able to forgive Vi?" Vi as an adult made the decision to put on that uniform and work with the same group of people who play a part in oppressing and harming Zaunites for years.

And no this is not me criticizing Vi, she's one of my favorite characters in the show and I feel like she's very misunderstood. We know why she made the decision she made but you can't expect Ekko to understand why she made that choice especially since he and Vi were not as close as they once were before Vander, Clogged and Mylo died.

[girlwithrituals]

30 THOUGHT-PROVOKING QUESTIONS TO HELP YOU BECOME MORE SELF-AWARE

❦ how much self-control do i have with things that i know are bad for me, but tend to indulge in?

❦ how do i respond to someone who is different from me or whose ideals and beliefs i don't agree with or understand?

❦ how do i deal with being misperceived or misunderstood?

❦ how do i respond when someone judges me, makes fun of me, or calls me names?

❦ how do i deal with other people's mistakes and unpleasant behavior?

❦ how do i deal with people who have hurt me in the past?

❦ how do i spend my free time?

❦ how do i deal with negative people?

❦ how do i deal with stressful situations? do i tend to worry a lot? what else do i do?

❦ how do i deal with inconvenient life situations?

❦ how do i respond to situations that i have no control over?

❦ how do i deal with negativity in my environment?

❦ how do i deal with challenges in my life?

❦ how do i respond to situations that force me to get out of my comfort zone?

❦ how motivated am i to change my life for the better?

❦ how much do i follow through on what i preach and talk about?

❦ how do i deal with uncertainty, the unknown or a future event that i have no control over?

❦ how do i respond to obstacles, hardships, and "bad" things that happen in my life?

❦ how do i respond when i don't get what i want?

❦ how fulfilling is my everyday life?

❦ how do i respond to new ideas and new ways of thinking?

❦ how do i respond to bad or inconvenient news?

❦ how do i deal with the violence, hate, and suffering in the world?

❦ how do i recharge, rejuvenate, and replenish my energy?

❦ how much do i prioritize spending time and energy on myself and on my passions?

❦ how do i deal with change? new job, new house, new lifestyle, new people, new rules, new technology...do i tend to avoid it, welcome it, fear it, like it, complain about it, stress out about it, worry about it?

❦ how do i deal with emotional pain?

❦ how do i respond when plans change or plans get cancelled without my say so?

❦ how do i respond when i make a mistake or when i fail at something?

❦  how do i deal with rejection?

[corkinavoid]

DPxDC Summoning Failed Successfully

Imagine a warehouse. Imagine a bunch of cultists in dark robes with all the candles, daggers, ancient books, and chanting. Now add Danny.

Only not as the summoned being, no. As a sacrifice.

He is sitting down, tied to a chair, in the middle of the summoning circle, looking as bored and deadpan as he can possibly be. The cultists are chanting, and he frowns, listening to their chants for a moment.

"Hey, is that Latin?" He questions, but to no avail, "You know you're not actually using those words correctly, right?"

"Keep quiet, child!" One of the cultists snaps. Danny leans back in his chair and shrugs.

"I'm just saying, you ain't summoning shit with wrong grammar," he huffs, seemingly absolutely nonchalant about the whole thing. Oracle, who is watching the whole ordeal through the surveillance cameras, raises her eyebrows. Red Robin and Robin are already en route to the building the cultists chose for their extracurricular activities, but now she almost wants to watch this a bit longer.

Gothamites are pretty used to all kinds of shitshows, but this boy is from out of town. She checked him through facial recognition. Daniel Fenton, a transfer student from Amity Park, Illinois.

A few more cultists stop chanting and turn to Danny.

"Do you know Latin?" One of them asks, and the boy makes a half-nod, making a thoughtful face.

"Not fluently, but, like, it's a dead language, I felt kinda obligated to learn it. Just for the meme, you know?" He chuckles.

The cultists, judging by their confused silence, don't know. Barbara doesn't know what he's talking about, either. But she is almost curious now, so she taps Robin's and RR's comm lines:

"RR, Robin, when you arrive, don't jump into the scene," she asks.

"Understood," Tim answers immediately, but Damian, of course, demands explanations:

"Is there an obstacle?"

"Not really," Barbara humms, "The sacrifice is in the process of de-escalating the situation."

She can almost hear the questioning silence over the comm, but, thankfully, no one argues. Meanwhile, one of the cultists pipes up, voice full of doubt:

"So, you can... like, proofread our incantation?"

"Yeah, sure," Danny nods, apparently fine with being sacrificed, "Who you're trying to summon anyway?"

"Satan," that same cultist answers, and Danny laughs approvingly.

"Classic," he nods and smiles, "I'll give you this. The circle is mostly alright, so you don't need an incantation to summon the fucker, I have him on speed dial." And with that, he leans forward, screaming towards the floor: "Ey, Satan!"

Barbara must say the act was actually convincing, but he went a little overboard with it now. She reaches to tell both Robins to get in, but suddenly, a loud, booming voice reverberates through the building.

"The fuck do you want, kid?"

Cultists fall to their knees - it doesn't seem like an act of worship, more like their knees bucking. The whole circle dimly lights up in red, smoke raising from it.

"Do you see this shit, Oracle?" Red Robin questions, and she mhm's at him, not sure what else to say. If this is still an act or a trick, she must say it's a very good one. Although somehow she suspects it's not a trick. She's seen enough magic in her life to tell the difference.

"Do you want to come to Earth, be gay and do crimes?" Danny asks, almost mockingly.

"Fuck off."

The red light flickers and disappears, and Danny looks back up to cultists, grinning cheerfully.

"Welp, looks like he doesn't wanna," the kid concludes and stands up from his chair. Barbara hadn't seen when or how he got out of his bindings.

The cultists just watch him walk out of the circle in bewilderment.

"Pursue?" Robin's voice comes over the comms, and Barbara thinks for a moment.

"I get a feeling like that's a bad idea," Tim mutters over his line.

Barbara agrees.

[ghostedbunnie]

trouble comes in fours; simon's ver

you are trying to scare off your ex and who better to send him running than a masked burly guy you've met at a bar and who bulldozed his way into your bed.

simon riley x fem!reader nsfw, minors do not interact!! warnings: dub-con (drinking), fingering (fem!receiving), car sex, exhibitionism, oral (fem!receiving), doggy style, creampie, manhandling

prologue // other versions (TBA)

Everything that happened after Johnny invited you over (which really meant he pulled you by the hand before you could back out) was a blur. You found yourself sandwiched between the masked guy and the pretty boy who introduced himself as Johnny, speaking with a sexy, thick Scottish accent. You couldn't help but steal glances at the masked guy. He said nothing, merely dipped his chin in greeting and met your gaze with an unnerving stare.

From this close-up, you noticed parts of his blonde buzzcut where he had nicked himself with the razor. He had done it himself without a mirror, resulting in some slightly uneven spots. On someone else, this might make them appear unkempt, but for this giant of a man, it seemed just right—almost endearing.

Everything about him screams danger. His thigh is pressed against yours, and you're already sweating because he and Johnny feel like walking furnaces. When you try to pull off your hoodie, the alcohol courses through you, and your head spins. As you finally manage to take the garment off, you accidentally grab onto something solid and hard for support. Too late, you realize that your hand has latched onto the blond's muscular thigh. You immediately let go, as if you’ve been burned by the touch.

You almost swear you hear him snort under his mask. When he finally speaks, your thighs clench. “I think it’s time for you to head home, doll. Come.”

It sounds as if he is talking to a dog, and you feel a sense of indignation rising within you. "I'm not a dog to give orders to. Besides, I don't even know your name."

He rolls his eyes at you. "Simon. That better now?"

"Not really. How do I know you're not some serial killer?" That gets some laughs out of the rest of the table.

He leans down closer to your ear, and you can almost sense the smirk in his voice when he says, "You don't. It adds to the thrill." It could be the alcohol coursing through your veins or the way his voice, with its rough British accent, sends shivers down your spine, but you find yourself agreeing. In some twisted way, it does add to it.

You discover that Simon doesn’t actually drink; the beverage you saw in front of him was just plain water. When he drives you home, he looks absolutely ridiculous in your small car, taking up all the space. He grumbles about your seat being so close to the steering wheel. When you ask him how the other guys are getting home, he simply replies, “They’ll walk,” along with a shrug of his broad shoulders.

He doesn't touch the radio, and you're too nervous to reach for it. You soon realize that he's not much of a conversationalist. He only answers your questions but never offers any additional information that would prompt you to ask more. After you've exhausted all possible conversation starters, all you can do is sit and look out the window. You swear you see him chuckle at your fidgeting whenever the silence becomes oppressive. As you finally arrive home, you can hardly wait to bolt out of the car. The tension is so thick that you need some fresh air to breathe properly, trying to push away thoughts of the consequences of your actions.

Before you can act on those thoughts, a heavy hand grips the back of your neck. "You think too loud. Stop it." A retort dies in your throat as you're pulled into him so quickly that your head spins. You barely register him removing his mask; you can’t even enjoy the fact that his face is finally visible. He latches onto you with the hunger of a man starved, kissing you deeply and urging you to stick out your tongue more.

Just by kissing him, you can feel the scar running through his lips. There's another scar, one that you noticed before, that runs through his eyebrow. When he finally pulls away for a moment, you see that his nose was definitely broken at some point, and he never bothered to get it fixed. You can't help but wonder what it would feel like to sit on his face.

Unceremoniously, he pulls you over the center console and onto his lap, which causes you to squeal in surprise. He doesn’t even bat an eye as he manhandles you into position, making you think about how your ex couldn't even carry two bags of groceries without complaining about the weight.

Something must have revealed your train of thought, or perhaps it was simply the fact that you were still lost in your thoughts, because Simon growls in response. You can feel the sound reverberating through your hands, which rest on his impressive pecs.

"Stop. Thinking." Every word is punctuated by a grind of his hips. To his great amusement, your mind goes blank immediately.

He guides your hands to his zipper straining under his hard-on. "What if someone sees?"

He only replies with "They'll get a hell of a show then." before he drags the pads of his fingers over the wet patch on your panties underneath your skirt that has already ridden up to your hips. He pulls the crotch of your panties to the side and pushes up to a knuckle, wasting no time and making you cling to him for dear life. After he adds another and starts hitting all the spots that make you whimper into his thick neck, he chuckles. It sounds a little mean but it still shoots right to your pussy anyway. "Finally shut that brain of yours up, doll."

He pulls up your shirt with his free hand and drags the cups of your bra up as well before sucking a nipple into his mouth. In reaction you push further into him, making him hum. He ends up alternating between bites to the side of your tits and sucking angry red marks into your collarbones and neck. Every part of you will be sore tomorrow but that's something you'll deal with later.

He lets you ride his fingers, scratching at his back and shoulders, fisting his hoodie and when you finally let go and the orgasm makes your eyes roll back into your head, he pulls you back into him for a kiss. It's messy, all teeth and tongue. When he pulls back there is a string of saliva connecting you two and if your mind wasn't currently wiped by the mind-blowing orgasm you would be embarrassed by the pornographic imagery. Simon forces you to look at him, his big, rough fingers holding up your chin to make you meet his gaze. You finally see the color of his eyes: brown, with pupils dilated wide. "We're nowhere near done," he says.

Simon is a whirlwind; he makes decisions, and you find yourself following them as if they were orders. He doesn’t wait for an invitation; instead, he stands behind you, his chest against your back, providing support as your legs feel like jelly. The drinks you had are wearing off now.

When you take too long to get out of your shoes, Simon tosses you over his shoulder. "You're taking too damn long," he says. You give him directions to your bedroom, and before long, you're dropped onto the sheets. You’re about to call him a caveman for his methods, but the sight of him pulling off his hoodie, revealing he’s not wearing anything underneath, leaves you speechless.

His skin is pale, but you can still see angry-looking scars on his torso and arms. Some of them resemble cigarette burns, while others look like bullet wounds that didn't heal properly. All of that should make you reconsider the kind of danger you’ve just invited into your bed, but as your gaze wanders lower, following his blond happy trail, you find yourself unable to think about the consequences.One of his hands is tattooed up to his elbow, and you can't really tell the design in the low light but it only adds to his appeal. Something possesses you to act, you end up reaching for his zipper before he can and he only gives you a wolfish grin before you pull him out.

He's not wearing any underwear. Your mouth dries up at the sight of him. That's never going to fit. Only after hearing him laugh did you realize that you had said that out loud. He was already hovering above you, caging you in against the sheets. "We'll make it fit."

Your skirt and shirt with your bra soon follow his pants and are lost to the shadows of your bedroom floor. Your eyes are drawn to his dick, you can't help it. He's big and thick you can already imagine the stretch, there's a vein on the underside that makes you wanna follow it with your tongue all the way to the top to catch the pre-cum already gathered there but he doesn't let you. Instead, he drags you to the edge of the bed and throws your legs over his shoulders. You almost want to argue that you hadn't showered, it's been a long day, and he doesn't have to do this but one look at the intense stare makes you swallow all of that down. You don't want to mention that you've never had anyone go down on you before. Your ex-boyfriend wasn't one to reciprocate.

There is no time to think about how miserable your sex life might have been. A bite to the inside of your thigh serves as a warning, both to stop thinking and not close your legs. In your defense, you didn't even realize you were doing it. His eyes are almost unnervingly focused on you before he dives in. He's always been a bit of a messy eater; the sounds he makes in the back of his throat are nothing short of animalistic. If you weren't shaking from his ministrations, you might think he's enjoying himself even more than you are.

He only moves a bit to lock eyes with you and tell you how sweet you are, juices dripping down his stubbled jaw. "Come on now, gotta make sure you're ready f'r me, doll." He alternates fucking you on his tongue and sucking on your clit, fingers digging into the fat of your thighs to keep them open for him. He's only barely controlling his strength so you know there will be bruises on your hips and thighs tomorrow but you can't bring yourself to care especially not this close to another orgasm. He can feel you twitching, getting closer and closer. There's a second of fear that he'll stop but he doesn't. Instead, he adds a finger and pushes on that one spot that made you see stars. That was all it took to wring the second orgasm of the night out of you.

Boneless, you let go of the sheets you were gripping. You only get a second of rest before he's repositioning you on the bed again; it would be infuriating if you could actually move properly.

He presses you into the mattress with his body, his scarred lips brushing next to your ear. "This will be a rough ride for you, don't say I didn't warn you." that's all you get before he bullies the ruddy head of his cock inside of you. You have half a mind to pull away but his weight keeps you in place, when he finally bottoms out there are tears in the corner of your eyes from the stretch, he only drops a few open-mouthed kisses to your shoulders before he rises to his knees and pulls your ass to him.

Everything after that is a blur, you're going crazy from the echo of the slapping of skin against skin, and your arms gave out on you midway so all you can do is scrunch the sheets in your hands and moan out his name like a prayer, to slow down? To go faster? You don't know. If he set out to make sure you can't think he achieved it. Your brain is fuzzy, your legs are shaking and a knot is unwinding in your lower stomach again. It's all too much and not enough at the same time. One of his hands finds your clit and it's over for you. "Come f'r me, doll. That's it." You can hear him hiss from the way you tighten around him as you come. He doubles down chasing his own orgasm now, balls slapping against your pussy even harder. There is a split second of clarity that he didn't use a condom (even though you are on a pill) but as soon as the thought registers he's filling you up with a groan before again squishing you underneath him, cock still lodged deep inside you, keeping his spend from leaking out. When you try to move from underneath him, he only chuckles before his hands find your tits and knead them, making you moan. It will be a long night for you. You've invited a ghost into your bed, and now you must deal with the consequences.

The picture you took with a large black shadow looming over you in the mirror, with a tattooed hand resting on your neck, might help you get rid of your ex who keeps creeping on your social media posts.

[chuluoyi]

LOVER'S QUARREL

- fushiguro megumi x reader

“i can't do this anymore.” you and megumi are just too different; he's stoic, you're bubbly, he prefers solitude, you love being social. it starts with fights, words you don't mean, and ends with an event that would haunt him for a long time to come.

genre/warnings: angst, breaking up, post-breakup feelings, mentions and description of injury and blood, hurt/comfort, fluff in the end (you make up!)

note: dear god i’m finally getting this out of my drafts. loosely inspired by real life events i’ve seen around my friend’s relationship sooo it might hurt a bit 🤏🏻 but who can say no to angst to eventual fluff? tagging @lees-chaotic-brain and @kasumitenbaz (as per request in the ask!), you two are always here for my megumi works, thank you!! :3 and thank you for dropping by for the event!

a part of 1K MILESTONE EVENT

general masterlist

Everyone pointed it out as a joke, that you liked him way more than he did you.

And you used to never let it ruffle you. To you, Megumi’s sternness and silence meant that he was comfortable with you. You never wanted him to change his ways just because now you were seeing each other.

But when you thought it over now, as you stood before him with an aghast expression and knives stabbing your kind, soft heart, you couldn’t help but do a double-take.

You were the one who confessed first. Most of the time, you were the one who initiated dates. You always texted him first, asking about his day, and even when he brushed you off, you would keep being this ball of sunshine and wished him a good day.

You never realized it before… that through everything, it has always been you. Unfailingly.

So how dare he spout this now?

“I can't do this anymore.”

"You... can't?" you spat out, feeling the first tendrils of anger course through you. "What exactly it is that you can't do? What do you even mean?"

"Look," Megumi stared at you squarely, and you thought now, that it was the coldest of eyes, straight and true. "It's always been like this between us lately. It's only right that we end this."

This, he said. He didn't even want to define your relationship anymore.

You scoffed. "And why do you think we always end up this way? Have you ever considered, even once, that it's because you make no effort at all?"

"I'm trying," Megumi quickly replied, almost in a hiss, and you almost recoiled. "But I just see that we'll end up nowhere, that's why I'm bringing this up now."

Oh, that freaking hurts. You boyfriend had just told you that this relationship would go nowhere. Right in your face.

Your eyes stung with tears, yet you fought to hold them back, fixing your gaze on the lamp overhead and inhaling deeply.

"You're... selfish," you stated, filled with ire. "You're always walking around eggshells around me, never telling me what is it that you really want—"

Megumi's unclouded eyes fixed on your trembling form. "We just disagree on a lot of things. You know it and it bothers you. It bothers me too. Rather than forcing our relationship, I think it's better—"

"It's always me!" you yelled then, lips quivering and eyes watering, unable to hold your emotions back any longer. "All dates, lunches—everything!" you locked your eyes with him, in mocking disbelief. "How can you say you're trying when, in truth, I'm the one putting in so much for us?!"

In that very second, Megumi thought that he hated seeing you like this. You were supposed to be the cheerful one in this relationship, and when he agreed to go out with you, he made an unspoken commitment to himself that he would at least not make you miserable.

And yet...

"...I'm sorry."

Came his reply, and you were sure that this was it.

And to rub the salt in your wound, he added, "I can't lie to you and say I haven't thought this for a while too."

As tears welled within you, you wondered and questioned what you lacked that led to this. However, the overwhelming sense of betrayal consuming your thoughts ultimately prevailed over any other emotions.

Now he could've appeared before you as a stranger and you wouldn't bat an eye, as the cold steel in his tone said, "And if blaming me is what it takes to make you feel better, then so be it."

You couldn't pinpoint the source of your sudden boldness, but in the next hot minute, you marched past him, your shoulder harshly colliding with his in a deliberate, almost spiteful manner—which, indeed, was your intention—and then you ran.

Which led to the next scene: you found yourself bawling your eyes out in the girls' lavatory.

Yuji and Nobara saw everything unfolding right before their eyes. They hadn't meant to eavesdrop, but you and Megumi were literally breaking up right the middle of their shared classroom, and it was hard not to follow the discourse until the end.

"Are you okay?" Nobara had come to your side, ensuring privacy by locking the restroom door out of your consideration. You were a sobbing mess, attempting to wipe the overflowing tears away while letting out all your emotions.

"He's..." Your voice faltered amid sobs as you gazed at your steadfast friend, your throat clogging up. "He said... he's been wanting t-to... break up with m-me..."

"That's okay, that's okay..." Nobara brought you to her arms, patting your back in reassurance. "Fushiguro is insensitive like that... don't cry over him now. He's just a wimp, okay?"

"Why is it me?" you asked her, voice brittle, still shaking with tears. "I t-tried everything! Being the supportive girlfriend..."

"If he can't appreciate what you did, then the problem lies with him," your friend stated, traces of irritation brewing in her resolute gaze. And as she firmly grasped your wrist, her next words resonated. "Not you."

. . .

"Do you really have to break her heart like that?" Yuji fidgeted with his hoodie, staring at his best friend with a blend of confusion and sympathy.

Megumi sighed, finally ruffling his hair into a mess, as if expressing his own state of mind. “This is for the best.”

Yuji’s eyebrows visibly creased. “How is this ‘for the best’? She’s miserable, and you…” he assessed him, scanning him from head to toe, “it doesn’t seem you’re faring any better too.”

“The longer she is with me, the unhappier she will be.” Megumi glanced at the bathroom’s direction. “She can deserve better.”

He was always too quiet, too boring, not able to match your energy too. He couldn’t fault you for expecting more, whereas he was just not exactly built for your expectations.

Megumi really thought he wanted it to end. At one point, it even felt like a chore, but…

How strange. Why did it feel like something was clawing at his chest?

Time heals. Megumi knew that by theory, but he really did see it firsthand when he saw you all giggling and happy again three weeks after he initiated the breakup.

With Hakari.

“Yo, what are you glaring at?” Panda asked, but Megumi didn’t pay him any mind.

An upperclassman, Hakari Kinji, was naturally cool and talented. He was laid back, knew how to have fun—all in all, a total opposite of Fushiguro Megumi altogether.

Three weeks. It’s only been three weeks since then.

“Megumi?”

Wait… Aren’t three weeks too fast to get over your ex?

“Megumi!”

“Huh?” he turned to the sentient panda with a jerk. “Oh, what is it?”

He looked at him with a concerned gaze. "Why do you look so scary? It's almost as if you're about to punch someone..."

But who was he to argue? He had no right to be upset now.

"Is it Kinji?" Panda gasped, finally putting two and two together when he followed his line of sight. "Oh Megumi... but you—"

"Just shut up, please," he blurted then, a hint of annoyance in his tone. With that, Panda didn't pursue it further, leaving him with his thoughts.

From where he was at the field, he could clearly see your radiant smile for Hakari. It was clear that the two of you shared a degree of friendship, but Megumi never knew that you two were that close.

...huh?

Why did the sight irritate him so suddenly? Why did his chest twinge again?

What a fool. You're the one driving her away, you idiot.

Suddenly these memories popped up one by one—

Of you suddenly hugging him from behind in an attempt to surprise him.

How he pressed his lips on the crown of your head when you fall asleep on his shoulder.

How you would give him that dopey smile when he pulled you close.

But on harder days after missions gone wrong, he’d ignore you altogether— the slight disappointment in your smile then. How your expression fell when he told you to go. How you slumped and looked back in hopes of him changing his mind.

“Haaaah.” Megumi turned away, unwilling to keep watching you any longer. Why? Why hadn’t it occurred to him before now?

Why did he long for you now? Why not before, when you were still his?

They were right. It seems people tend to desire what isn't meant for them.

What could have been more painfully awkward than being sent into a mission with your ex-boyfriend?

You would kill Gojo for this. Or at least give him the lowest possible score in his teaching evaluation for the year. How could he? Your breakup was an infamous public spectacle, so this setup was undoubtedly intentional!

You were losing your head over this, and yet your ex-boyfriend...

"Keep your guard up," Megumi reminded curtly, in a warning tone. He looked as vigilant and straight as always, as if he wasn't even bothered.

You threw him a dirty look, offended. "You don't have to tell me twice."

This just cranked up the discomfort to an excruciating level. The mix of unresolved tension and memories—okay, you might be an emo, but how were you supposed to be cool with all of these hanging in the air?

Your site of exorcism was an abandoned warehouse, and the cursed spirit in question was supposed to be a grade 3. You two were grade 2 sorcerers now, so you were a perfect fit to exorcise it. But there was indeed this unease in the air that you couldn't put your finger to.

"Isn't it awfully too quiet?" you unwittingly muttered, staring at the darkness of the wall. You couldn't feel any cursed energy belonging to any possible malevolent entity, and that was what unsettled you the most.

Megumi frowned at your line of sight. "It is. Stay close."

You blinked at what he said, and before you knew it, the familiar scent of him being near to you made your entire body burst with this equally familiar warmth. When you looked up to him, seeing the solid sharpness in that dark eyes of his and his jaw set, dead butterflies in your chest rose back to life again, against your heartbreak and better judgement.

Stay close, he said... So he is worried...

And in an attempt to hide how flustered you were, you looked down.

You walked a few good steps, when suddenly he asked, "So, are you with Hakari-senpai now?"

"Huh?" You spun around, your expression a mix of surprise and confusion.

"You two seem close."

Seem close? Seem close... wait, so Megumi had noticed...?

Suddenly, you felt incited and it made you angry. "That's none of your business," your voice carried a sharp edge, hissing. And you knew you were being a bit mean by adding, "You broke up with me, so why do you even care?"

In that moment, Megumi could've sworn his chest throbbed. Your cutting tone pierced directly into his heart, lodging itself there.

You had all rights to be annoyed, and he knew that. Why did that question even slip out of him?

"Nah, nevermind," he mumbled in response, looking away.

Awkwardness lingered afterwards. You hated this, but no, you weren't above being petty. He had broken your heart and it still stung even now. If your intentionally biting words did to him even a fraction of what he made you feel, then you would find a small sense of satisfaction in it.

But you weren't able to ponder about your mess of feelings further when Megumi abruptly yanked your arm, his voice soaking with urgency, "It's here!"

Sure enough, the grotesque cursed spirit with the shape of a giant bee broke through the walls with a bang. The two of you immediately readied your fighting stance. Megumi was ready with his divine dogs, while you with your cursed weapon.

For a while, you engaged the cursed spirit with all you had. You were trying to focus on the enemy, but you couldn't help but notice the way Megumi always looked at you every few seconds, checking for any signs of injury or harm.

Frankly speaking, he trusted your strength and knew that you were a capable sorcerer. You had been paired in a mission before and he knew both your potential and shortcomings. It was just there was something about this place that had his senses on high alert.

And his fears were proven true when you yelped and were flung onto the grimy floor. "Y/N!"

"I'm fine!" you shouted in a rush, scrambling to your feet. However, as you spun towards him, your scream tore through the hall as you caught sight of the bee lurking behind him. "Megumi!"

He got distracted. The bee quickly latched onto him and almost stung him, until he wrestled it off and summoned Nue and exorcised it.

You went to his side that instant. "Are you okay?!"

"I am." But then he winced and almost fell on his knees if you didn't have a secure grip on him. He savored your touch and breathed a sigh of relief, thinking that now you two were safe.

"Megumi! Oh god!" Panic surged through you as you pulled him close. His side was bleeding, and you widened your eyes at the sight.

"I'm okay, I promise," he rasped, looking you in the eyes. "What abo—"

Then you saw it, the flicker from deep from that corner of platform, and suddenly, you grasped the source of the unease that had been lingering within you all this time. It wasn't the bee Megumi had just exorcised—

At that moment, there was no room for thought, one thing was certain: you didn't want him to get hurt more.

He didn't manage to finish his sentence when suddenly you pushed him away with so much force he never thought you had. Everything crashed so suddenly, he didn't have the time to brace himself or grab you with him, as another cursed bee appeared out of nowhere and—

Reality flashed before his eyes as he stared at you in sheer horror. At how the cursed spirit tore your body, sinking its hollow stinger in you.

You didn't really know what happened next. Everything was muffled—the frantic movements around you turned into a blur, along with Megumi's yells. Otherworldly pain coursed through your entire being and your ears rang, then everything in your line of sight became distorted and faded, along with your consciousness. Next and the last thing you knew was Megumi's battered face, a final imprint before you succumbed to the void.

Megumi had exorcised the remaining cursed spirit and staggered to his feet—falling a few times, but he made his way towards you through gritted teeth. You are hurt. He forced himself to get to you and pull you into his arms.

And suddenly, suddenly, nothing mattered anymore as overwhelming terror consumed him upon seeing you. Blood streamed from your abdomen so much that it made a continuous pool.

"You stupid—!" He choked out, voice hitching. You were no longer conscious and it devastated him even more. "Hey, hey? Wake up—hells—"

You, who did everything you could to save your relationship. You, who cried tears for him when he blatantly broke your heart. And you, who put himself first—and now facing the consequences.

It crashed upon him in that very second, the clarity. What was he thinking back then? He still loves you.

"If you die on me, I won't forgive you."

Megumi scooped you in his arms, pressing you close to his chest, the blood seeping from his wound be damned as he looked at your serene face. His heart shattered in the worst way possible and he almost wheezed at the sticky sensation of your blood—and how lifeless you felt in his grasp—but he willed it away.

"Don't," his broken rasp echoed the walls as he took each step to get both of you out of this hellhole. He winced and hissed at his own injury, chewing his lip in frustration, at how helpless he was.

"Don't leave me."

It was like a distant, hazy memory.

Was it a memory though? No. It seemed far too real for that.

The throbbing headache pounding through your skull and shivers that wracked your body pulled you back to reality. There was a heavy pressure on your abdomen and any movement sent sharp pain shooting through you.

You gradually opened your eyes, squinting against the brightness. You were in a hospital gown, an IV was injected on your arm, and the sterile scent made your stomach twist, as nausea creeping through your guts. Your vision was still blurry as you tried to look around to find someone who waited for you. As you slowly turned your head to the side, you saw him, sitting in the chair right next your bed.

Megumi was sleeping in such uncomfortable position, his head resting on the edge of your bed. He appeared peaceful, almost childlike, devoid of his usual stoic demeanor.

Your heartstrings were tugged at this rare sight. He also sustained injuries and yet... he was waiting for you to wake up, here.

Your chest swelled with warmth, which was quickly followed by a sting of heartbreak. Still, you two broke up...

You jolted, and the inadvertent movement sent a wave of pain that seemed to paralyze your nerves, causing you to whimper. The noise woke Megumi from his slumber, as he shot his eyes open in alarm, catching your hand in his.

"Hey... Are you okay?" Megumi worriedly looked down at you with a visible frown, and the grimace of pain on your face, accompanied by trembling lips, was enough of an answer. He hastily scrambled out in slight panic, "I'll get Ieiri-san."

When Shoko came and got you the painkillers, your pain receded somewhat. Through it all, Megumi stood there, casting concerned glances in your way.

"Bedrest for the week," Shoko stated firmly, assessing your wound with a no-nonsense expression. "Your injury isn't minor—it's serious enough that you're strongly advised against excessive movement."

You could only nod in response. Megumi bowed. "Thank you, Ieiri-san." Once the doctor departed, silence settled over the room once more.

“Why did you do that?” he quietly asked then, referring to what you did for him. And when you turned to him, you saw it clearly.

He looked pale, and there was this haunted look in his eyes. It broke your heart a little.

"You were hurt." Your voice came out dry, and you realized firsthand just how parched you were. Seeing Megumi looking down never quite sat right with you. He was meant to be an unwavering presence, someone strong enough to sway your convictions.

However, a pang struck when he countered with stern eyes, "You didn't have to do that."

...he was right. You didn't have to. What he didn't know was that you were still holding on these stupid feelings, which drove you to shield him. It made you ponder: if your roles were reversed, would he not step in to protect you at all?

"Why are you here?" You weren't sure if the bitterness in your tone was evident, but you continued anyway. "You don't have to be here either."

"Don't have to?" His gaze bore disbelief, as if not believing your words. "I'm—"

"If it's because I saved you, Megumi—"

“Do not even think, even for a moment, that I won’t be concerned over you.” His voice, deep and hoarse, struck you to the core, silencing your words. “Never. I always, always want you to be safe.”

Your mind became a blank slate. Suddenly, all that mattered was his voice.

"Don't you realize how terrifying it was? Seeing you like that?" Megumi spat, his green eyes shining with intensity, teeth gritted and fists clenched. "How could you even think that I wouldn't be here—" his breath hitched, and then his lips trembled slightly, "—for you?"

You blinked quickly, a feeling stirred within you—stemming from that cursed, fragile heart of yours to be exact, evident from the rapid thumping in your chest.

You dumbly uttered, "But we are—"

"Oh, Goddamnit." Megumi cursed, and honestly you were taken aback. It wasn't really in him to swear, so this really bugged him. He ran a hand through his hair in frustration, and despite the situation, your heart skipped a beat at the sight. Even a mess in a hospital gown, your ex-boyfriend was still undeniably attractive.

He stared at you squarely in the eye, unflinching, steadfast and true, the very image of Fushiguro Megumi you admired from afar and fell in love with in the first place half a year ago. "You don't have to... say anything, if you don't want to. Right now... just hear me out."

And the things he said next... all of them, you could say, caught you entirely off guard.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry for not trying hard enough, and—damn it, for making you sad. I never, ever wanted to see you that upset."

Megumi drew in a sharp breath, averting his gaze. "And for days, I've wondered if you and Hakari-senpai are now a thing... and you know what? I hate it so much. I know I have no grounds to feel this way, after what I did, but..."

And like a train wreck, his final words hit you hard. Tears welled up in your eyes in immediate response.

“I'm a loser, and a coward too, maybe,” he shrugged, a tinge of self-deprecation in his tone. “And I suck at telling people my feelings, but I love you. I still do.”

A sob slipped out of your throat and you hastily pulled the blanket over your face, much to his surprise. He thought he had worsened things, with the way you were turning away from him.

But then, from beneath the blanket, in a croaky voice, you proclaimed, "Fushiguro Megumi, you're a complete and utter idiot."

And Megumi didn't know that he had been holding back his breath as he chuckled heartily, relieved that you would still take his ass back after this prolonged mess. He knew he still had a lot to make up for and was determined to show it through his actions.

"Maybe I am, yeah."

"That's possibly the longest shit you have ever spouted in one breath."

"Yeah..."

But he got his chance back, and he knew that you would be alright. Both of you are.

On one sunny day...

"Hey, are you alone?"

Megumi glanced up from his phone, only to be met with a random girl standing in front of him, batting her eyelashes with an ambiguous intent. He blinked at her curiously.

"No. Can I help you?"

The girl twirled her hair suggestively. "Ah, you see... I see you all in your lonesome and I think you're quite cute—"

The hell? Megumi frowned, and he was really about to give this bimbo a piece of his mind when—

Oh, oh. Forget that. Megumi's attention snapped to you on the opposite side of the crossroad. All pretty and dolled up with that crop tee and miniskirt he once mentioned would look great on you by a slip of tongue—that accidental comment earned him your teasing quips for weeks already.

"Sorry, I'm here for my girlfriend. Bye."

Abruptly dismissing the girl, he didn't catch how comically offended she was for being turned down in a span of 20 seconds. He took big strides towards you, as you crossed the street, and you immediately beamed when you caught the sight of his face.

"Megumi!"

Ah, this is going to be a good day, he thought. As he gazed at your pretty face, and caught your hand in his, clasping it tightly, reveling in your scent and the warmth of your presence beside him—

He was content, and once again it dawned on him, that he likes you so, so damn much.

"Let's get started on our date, shall we?"