#sorry if u liked that damn arc okay

[bones4thecats]

Hey there Bones! Is it okay to request Tokyo Revengers Draken, Taiju, Hakkai and Hanma with a short and shy Reader that worry about them whenever they get hurt and the Reader patches them up. At one point Reader ends up crying because they're worried their boyfriend might die.

If this is too much you don't have to do it.

Shy! S/O Crying In Fear Of Their Life

Type of Writing: Request Character: Draken Ryuguji, Taiju Shiba, Hakkai Shiba, and Shuji Hanma Name: Shy! S/O Crying In Fear of Their Life Requester: @koushiro23

A/N: This nearly made me tear up. This is why I don't have a boyfriend myself U-U

Spoilers for: Tenjiku Arc

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🐲 Draken knew how upset you would get whenever he would come over with injuries all bandaged up

🐲 He understood that you cared for his being like how one would care for their spouse, and he couldn't blame you, he couldn't fathom the thought of you being injured in a similar fashion

🐲 But, during a recent fight, he had quiet a few injuries and your home was nearby. So, he called you up and told you he was coming over and you might wanna ready some bandages

" Why? Oh god, did you get into another fight?! Are you alright, Draken?! " " Yeah, just bleedin' a little. I'll be by in a couple, okay? Don't worry. " " Yeah, okay... see you. "

🐲 Rushing around your home, you were glad your family wasn't home at the moment, since seeing their child's boyfriend come in with injuries would make them go on-edge

🐲 Once you heard your front door open and your boyfriend call out your name with obvious strain in his voice, you came out with a pillow and blanket

🐲 Draken sat down on your couch as you wrapped the blanket around his legs, making sure he was warm and you ran in and out of the room carrying bandages and whatnot

🐲 As you continued to cover his minor injuries, he noticed that you would stiffen and sniffle every time you saw a new cut

" You okay, love? " " Oh lord... Draken- why on Earth do you do this shit? You know how much I fear losing you! Why do you keep doing this?! I just- I can't even bear the thought of you getting hurt and then, you not... you not coming back to my embrace... "

🐲 Tears swelled up in your eyes as his widened in shock before looking down in shame. Why did he do this? For Mikey? He guesses, he also just wants to keep you safe, and establishing his dominance helped

🐲 He sighed and wrapped his arms around your midsection, pulling you onto his lap as he kissed your forehead, making a silent promise for only you to hear

" I'll try to be more careful, okay? " " Okay... " " I love you, Y/N L/N. " " And I you, Ken Ryuguji. "

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🔥 He was beyond upset right now, punching holes into the walls in rage as he heard his followers yelling in the other room

🔥 Why did that damn fight go so wrongly?!

" Taiju- " " WHAT?! "

🔥 He froze in place as he saw your smaller form flinch at his loudness, oh god, why did he just yell at you?! He guesses he was madder than he even realized

" I brought some stuff to fix you up... I figured you still had some sort of injury on yourself... " " Uh... yeah. Sorry for yelling at you, I just- " " I understand. You're under some stress. "

🔥 Taiju smiled lightly at your words as he chuckled, you always had the ability to calm him down from his highs of blood-lust and anger, haven't you?

🔥 Allowing him to find somewhere comfortable to sit so you could come up and bandage his hands up from the multiple holes in the walls, he gritted his teeth as you dragged a rag with alcohol on it across said injuries

🔥 Once you had begun to wrap the final bandages around his knuckles, he looked up at your face, noticing how your eyes were starting to fog over with tears

🔥 You were starting to cry? For what reason?

" Y/N? Are you okay? " " Hm? Oh- yeah. Perfectly splendid. " " Horse shit. I know when my dear S/O is feeling down better than anyone else. What's wrong? "

🔥 Sighing in sadness, you began to rant about how scared you were for him. Some of the hits that their rival gang was throwing at them were scaring you, he could've been killed when that guy pushed a knife through his hand!

🔥 Like, what if he hit an artery? What if that injury got infected and somehow killed him slowly?

🔥 He just sat there holding you in his lap, allowing you to cry into his chest, his Black Dragon's uniform pushed away to the side as he pet your head

🔥 You really were a worry-wart for him, huh?

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☄️ You're boyfriend was not answering any of your calls, and that was starting to scare you deeply. Hakkai always answered you

" C'mon hon, answer me... "

☄️ Nothing.

☄️ It was at that moment where you heard your front door being knocked on. And, grabbing your bat for protection just in case, you looked through the peephole, only to be met with the sight of your boyfriend's short blue hairdo

☄️ Laying the weapon aside, you unlocked the door, opening it so you could take in his beautiful form

" Hey there... " " Oh my god! Hakkai, what happened to you?! " " Just a little scuffle a few blocks down, that's all. "

☄️ Grabbing his arm, you pulled him inside, throwing him onto the couch, you ran into the bathroom. grabbing everything you knew would help him out with his injuries

☄️ Hakkai watched as you sat down on the table in front of him, coating his cuts with alcohol and other stuff to help it get clean and heal before wrapping decently sized bandages around said cuts

☄️ You eventually stopped moving and stared at one cut that was still bleeding, it was a very light amount, but it still scared you

" Hakkai... why do you do this? " " Do what? " " Fight so much? Do you know what could've happened to you?! You could've been killed! I know that may be an over-exaggeration, but, come on! I just- I can't bear the fact that just because of some over-grown bastard I may not see you again... "

☄️ He stared at you and looked into your eyes, now allowing tears to cascade down your cheeks, you were in so much pain

☄️ Hakkai, much like the previous two, grabbed you and pulled you into his lap. And he just brushed his fingers through your hair, shushing you and reassuring you that he was safe

☄️ He wasn't planning on leaving you alone in this world any time soon

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☠️ You and him have had this talk multiple times

☠️ You understood that fighting was a major part of Hanma's life, but why was it nearly every single night now he was coming home with injuries all over himself?!

☠️ Hanma had walked through your door while holding his arm, trying to keep something from you, no doubt

☠️ That was when you pulled him onto the couch and ordered him to stay put

" Ooh~ the midget is getting bossy. I like it~ "

☠️ You glared at your boyfriend over your shoulder and you walked into the bathroom and carried a box of medical supplies outside, making Hanma freeze and sigh

" Baby, I'm perfectly fine. " " I can see the cuts and blood on your head, Hanma. I'm not stupid. "

☠️ Turning on the TV, you turned around and began to make good work of his cuts and bruises, covering those you deemed most possible for infections

☠️ He sighed as s familiar name came on, Kisaki Tetta. He had been hit by a truck and killed while fleeing away from Takemichi and Draken apparently

☠️ This did not shock you, the guy was a lunatic. But then again, you were dating a just-as-bad lunatic

☠️ Like, Hanma nearly killed someone because they tried laying a hand on you while he was standing right there

☠️ But, listening to him rant about his fight with Draken and how Kisaki shot two members of Tenjiku made you grit your teeth and start tearing up

" Woah- uh- babe? You're kinda tearin' up there. " " I know... " " Why are ya' tearing up, if I can ask. " " Why? Because Shuji, what if you had gotten killed like Kisaki?! I don't know what I would be able to do without you here to make me feel safe, to protect me from all those nasty people out there! It's like- if you guys had switched places... I don't know what I'd end up doing... "

☠️ Hanma looked at his covered hand and sighed before standing up and picking you up, causing you to wrap your legs around his waist

" I do not plan on going anywhere like that soon. And while I may not have the plan fully worked out, believe me babe, I'll always come back to ya'. "

☠️ You smiled and hugged him tightly, making your boyfriend laugh and kiss your neck before blowing raspberries into the flesh

" Now... how about we have some fun, bossy pants? "

[psychicwavementality]

🚨 🚨 ‼️ 🇨🇳🇭🇰 HK/CHINESE SUOPOST V2 PART 1 HAS LANDED!!

EDIT NOV 11 2024: So with recent Niisato interview news that Suo was designed to be a cool Chinese character, I have officially lost all words. Take my post as my "I called it so hard because it was obvious from the start, but I sure do appreciate the extra confirmation" cheer.

I never thought it would see the light of day because this draft got deleted like, 2 times and running. But it's here. It's finally here.

Below the cut is another long and lengthy Suopost V2 about his inherent Chineseness and, may I now congratulate, even further Hong Kongness! Not only that, but now we have Endo Yamato also starting to show signs of diagnosable Chineseness, and because my CN friend and I are ridiculously tweaky when it comes to overanalyzing characters who show even a smidge of Chinese in their eyes—this post was born! Sadly, because I am slow as hell when it comes to writing, this post only contains 11,000 words discussing Suo Hayato. You'll need to wait for Part 2 if you want to see me Hallelujahpost and Chinkpost Endo Yamato... blame my stupid baka life.

Now feast your eyes upon me having to correct my own errors in analysis that turns out to reveal even more Chinese connotations 😭😭😭💪!! This is VERY VERY long and has genuine deep analysis regarding a lot of China/HK culture/like 8 seconds of politics and 15 minutes of history + the weight behind some symbolism in Suo's name + theories regarding Suo's arc + Suo's absolutely yappable connection to 儒家思想/Confucianism.

Later in Part 2, we'll talk about Endo Yamato's biblical symbolism + alchemical influence + his connections to Suo, and how I can jokingly chinkpost him lol. I'll also be uploading a Reddit version of this post onto r/WindBreakerManga either tomorrow or the day after because I have to re-format a lot of things.

So strap in for a long and potentially mind-exploding ride because this is what happened to me while researching/writing all this. BTW, feel free to spam live commentary at me using Tumblr's comment function or something because I'd love to hear your thoughts while reading this whole gigantanorstus assfuck of a post... I'm not okay. I think I went insane. Niisato needs to pay me USD 1,664,800 for a new heart because I think mine stopped beating multiple times during research.

Before we begin, I'd like to tell everyone who has read my previous Suo chinkpost (v1) to DISREGARD EVERYTHING I SAID ABOUT SUO'S FLOWER BEING PLUM BLOSSOMS. You'd think I'd be devastated to find out I have to retcon an entire analysis because I picked out the wrong flower. You'd be expecting Suo to lose Chinese aurapoints. I shit you not: he auramaxxed HARDER. It's like opening a Pandora's Box; you learn about the real flower and then 5 trillion more connotations are thrown at you at Mach 20. It is more over than I thought possible when I wrote the traditionally symbolic Chinese boypreggers marriage room part. And one connection caused me to spiral into another, thus stretching this post's wordcount into unholy numbers 😭

Anyway.

In Suopost v1, I thought these fuckass flowers [IMG 1] next to Suo were plum blossoms [IMG 2] and, ngl! They look plenty like them. But after I read this mind-blowing char analysis + theory document made by u/Snowy-kitten, my jaw fell as:

Oops, Suo's name means Chinese redbud [IMG 3], and if Sakura's flowers are sakura, then Suo's flowers should be redbuds. Damn, I got it wrong, time to rewrite my Suopost. Sorry for spreading misinformation gu—

...What are these flowers called in Chinese anyway?

why do i hear boss musicHOLY SHIT OH MY GOD THEY'RE CALLED 紫荊花. OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH M

Taken directly from the wonderful and super informative document which I highly advise you to read to fully understand this post, especially if you have time:

Su (蘇) – sappanwood, a wood that can be made into medicine used to improve blood circulation, treat wounds, and alleviate pain. It also symbolizes revival, resurrection

O (枋) – sappanwood or a tough wooden plank that can be used for crafting, maybe symbolizing the bridge of communication between other characters?

Suo (蘇枋) – Sappanwood, a deciduous shrub of the legume family (ie a small shrub that loses all its leaves in winter), or Chinese redbud, symbolizing family harmony, can be used as treatment for fever (No wonder why Sakura recovered after Suo visited him)

Haya (隼) – Falcon, a symbol of nobility (high status + wealth) in Japan, also symbolizes bravery, power and vision, is an icon of pursuit and movement, heading toward success (Falcon in other cultures also symbolizes freedom, which might have something to do with Suo’s dream – the liberation of slaves)

To (飛) – Fly or Flight

Hayato (隼飛) – Flying Falcon

Analysis: Most likely the key to the success of Sakura or Bofurin’s rebirth, if Sakura became the leader of Bofurin, Suo would most likely be his right-hand, just like Hiiragi and Umemiya

- Although Chinese redbud symbolizes family harmony in Chinese culture, it also symbolizes betrayal/death due to betrayal in the Bible

- Unlike other characters, Suo’s name contains more than one species of tree, would this be a hint of him having more than one identity, hence the traitor theory?*

*I'll elaborate with my own understanding on the traitor theory expanded from the information I've gotten from u/Snowy-kitten's document. Please please pleaser read their theories and their analyses!! It's super super good and deserves so much credit and a lot of this post is built from it.

-

1. Suo and the 'Chinese Redbud'

Suo's name is extremely fucking insane if viewed from a cultural lens — specifically the symbolism of the 'Chinese redbud' as well as some themes of the 'sappanwood'.

If you're from HK you might already be freaking out with me when you saw those three Chinese characters: 紫荊花, AKA the Chinese name of Suo's second plant after the sappanwood. You might be thinking, User Psychiwavementality, is it truly joever as it is? Is there no coming barack from the HK suoposting? Have we found salvation? Is Suo from Hong Kong, better yet, the Wind Breaker version of Sun Yee On or 14K???

Unfortunately, I have to inform you: no. 🥲 Suo's flower is NOT the bauhinia, known as the '洋紫荊' yang zijing/bauhinia x blakeana/羊蹄甲屬 (yang ti jia shu) which happens to be the official flower of Hong Kong.

Suo's flower is the '紫荊花', or the zijing hua/cercis chinensis, which, in China, can be found in southwest Guangdong, southern Guangxi, and southeastern Yunnan the most. <- These could be places Suo hails from!

However, the Chinese redbud/ZJH and the Bauhinia/YZJ are often used interchangeably (and also incorrectly), causing confusion and mix-ups between both flowers, as HK's 'yang zijing' is sometimes shortened directly to 'zijing'.

Outside of WBK, this shortening is a topic of political discussion. For reference, there is debate around the could-be or could-not-be intentional omission of the 洋 (yang) character in Mainland China when referring to the yang zijing (making it simply zijing (hua) and not the YZJ) as well as how it affects HK.

There was discussion when the HK's Gov. omitted the 'yang' and referred to the YZJ as the 'zijing hua' in our Basic Law. If you want to get a gist of the discussion it feel free to Google Translate this image because mobile Tumblr only lets me embed 10 images and I need to use it sparingly lol.

From Wikipedia:

洋紫荊作為香港法定代表花卉，在《香港特別行政區基本法》第一章第十條提述香港區旗及區徽時被稱作「紫荊花」，英文版則使用泛指羊蹄甲屬的「bauhinia」。然而「紫荊花」一名除在中國南方多泛指羊蹄甲屬外，也可以泛指紫荊亞科的其他花卉，甚至特指紫荊屬物種紫荊（Cercis chinensis）的花。紫荊與洋紫荊兩個物種的花朵外觀有顯著分別，但因中國大陸媒體多依照「紫荊花」一名來宣傳香港市花[註 3]，引致部分中國大陸民眾誤以為香港市花為紫荊的花。

(Edited MTL):

As the legal representative flower of Hong Kong, Bauhinia is called "紫荊花 (ZJH)" when referring to the Hong Kong regional flag and regional emblem in Article 10 of Chapter 1 of the Basic Law of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.

The English version uses "bauhinia" which generally refers to the genus Bauhinia. However, the name "紫荊花 (ZJH)", in addition to generally referring to the genus Cercis chinensis in southern China, can also generally refer to other flowers of the subfamily Bauhinia, and even specifically refers to the flowers of the genus Cercis chinensis.

There are significant differences in the appearance of the flowers of the two species, Cercis chinensis and Bauhinia x blakeana. However, because the mainland Chinese media mostly uses the name "紫荊花 (ZJH)" to promote the municipal flower of Hong Kong, some people in mainland China mistakenly believe that the municipal flower of Hong Kong is the 紫荊花 (ZJH).

(I'm not shitting you when I tell you even Google Translate didn't pick up on the nuances between yang zijing and zijing hua 😭😭 also the scientific names have me tripping so the MTL might be wrong yet I'm too blurry to correct it properly... if any native Chinese speaker wants to write a proper TL in the comments I allow you to help me!!)

2. What does this mean for Suo?

The Lack of '洋 (yang)':

(This part touches a little on HK/China/UK history and politics.)

Now that you know the difference between the 'yang zijing' and the 'zijing hua', let me explain some possible symbolism that Suo might carry by having the ZJH as his other plant and not the YZJ.

In Chinese, '洋' means 'foreign'. And yes, Suo likes foreign tea and cakes. Anyway, some people think that the omission of '洋’ is a way to be politically accurate as it may carry connotations of HK being colonized by the UK, and the Mainland Gov. is known to be against the colonization of Hong Kong, often being reluctant to admit that HK belonged to the UK in a brief period of history after signing an unequal treaty. The Mainland Gov. commonly asserts that HK has always been a part of China even during the colonial period, claiming that HK was rightfully returned to its roots on the 1st of July, 1997.

Hence, there is the omittance of 'yang/foreign' from 'yang zijing', whether unintentional or not, when referring to HK's flower, resulting in many current-gen Mainlanders referring to it as the ZJH, which if intentional, could be used as a way to linguistically minimize the alienation between HK and China.

Theories/Speculation as to why it was omitted:

There are multitudes of reasons why Nii Satoru could have chosen to use the ZJH instead of the YZJ in Suo's name.

On a practical level, one reason may be because Suo's name is intended to have double meanings—sappanwood and the Chinese redbud—to show that he has two sides to him, most likely being connections to Chinese culture. Nii Satoru might have been unable to use this two-sided symbolism if he used the YZJ instead, hence why he used the ZJH instead of the YZJ; furthermore, there is a cultural story that comes with the ZJH that could very well coincide and foreshadow Suo's arc which I will explain soon. I personally think this is the most likely reason.

Another practical reason is that Nii Satoru genuinely had no idea there was a difference between the YZJ and the ZJH and, if he ends up revealing that Suo is a born-and-raised in HK lad, he made an honest mistake while trying to hint at Suo being from Hong Kong.

Nii Satoru could also not want to be too 'on-the-nose' when hinting at Suo having correlations to HK, OR he wanted to imply that Suo was originally from China and immigrated to HK at a young age — or it could be hinting at his ancestors moving from China to HK, which was common back in the 'golden era of HK' spurred forward by its advancement in the film industry as well as budding business opportunities for being an international trading hub. Either way, it could have meant to be a nod towards Suo being from China and not Japan/HK etc.

On a theory/canon level, Suo could have intentionally chose this Japanese name for himself and intentionally omitted the '洋 (yang)'/'foreign' character. He could've done it because he dislikes its implications, that he's a stranger in a foreign land (Japan). Or he could be touchy about his identity as a 'foreigner' — what differentiates him from the Japanese? Hence why he dresses and expresses himself so Chinese-ly — or he could've done it to show that he's freeing himself of his roots — people who leave their OG culture behind often become walking time capsules of That Particular Period, and the loss of '洋 (yang)' could also imply he's losing his connections to Hong Kong/the triad. The latter ties in with my tiny theory that Suo's hair is short because he cut it as a way to symbolize him breaking away from his shixiong/shidi, yet his past still haunts him in the way his tassel earrings resemble long hair at times. (The flower meaning of ZJH is also very very in line with this latter theory. I will elaborate more in my next part about the meaning of the Chinese redbud/ZJH.)

Suo could also be omitting this character on purpose to reconnect with his Chinese side after immigrating to HK and then Japan, I suppose? This might be EXTREMELY controversial to show in HK/China if he shows bias towards one side's culture by stepping away from the other, and I don't see a way this can be written without stomping on one side's good graces + provoking political disgruntlement amongst HK/CN readers, so this is probably not going to be an option up for consideration (hopefully).

Furthermore, if Suo also shows favor of JP culture/claiming that he's JP over being HK/CN as his arc and that he's abandoning his past identity as a Chinese/HK person, I promise you that some CN readers might become unhappy as there are long-standing grudges between the Chinese and the Japanese from WW2 that are too long to elaborate here. If you're curious to learn about it, search up 'Nanjing Massacre' and 'Unit 731' to see for yourself — please heed a TW for extreme brutality and inhumane torture.

OK, this is the last of all things political, but I promise the historical part will still continue. Let's move on.

3. The Meaning and Stories Behind the Zijing Hua/Chinese Redbud and The Yang Zijing/Bauhinia x blakeana

In Chinese culture, the Chinese redbud/zijing hua has a well-known cultural story behind it. It is deeply tied to the flower meaning of the Chinese redbud -- which has core symbolisms of familial reunion/love (親情) and brotherly harmony (兄弟和睦). And to any SuoSaku enjoyer's delight, they also symbolize steadfast love, passion, and affection; it is known to be a well-received gift for husbands and wives; it can even symbolize a strong and loyal friendship (if you're into that). The growth structure of a Chinese redbud, as said by a user in an online Chinese forum to whom I will graciously quote:

3、倔强坚强

紫荆花的花语为倔强坚强，紫荆花的花朵生长的十分紧凑，就算在阴雨天气，叶片被大风所吹动，不断摇慎态摆，也不会掉落，好似一位倔强的人，永远不会向困难低头，努力拼搏，最终收获成功。

(Edited MTL):

3. Stubborn and strong

The flower language of the zijing hua is stubbornness and strength. The flowers of the zijing hua grow very compactly. Even in rainy weather, the leaves are blown by strong winds and keep swaying cautiously, but they will not fall off. Just like a stubborn person, they will never bow their head to difficulties, work hard and exert oneself to the utmost, and ultimately achieve success.

It can also symbolize new beginnings, just like Sakura's sakura:

紫荊花的象徵意義 紫荊花象徵著愛情、美麗和純潔。 在中國傳統文化中，紫荊花還被視為春天的使者，寓意著新生命和新的希望。

(Edited MTL)

The symbolic meaning of zijing hua symbolises love, beauty and purity. In traditional Chinese culture, the zijing hua is also regarded as the messenger of spring, implying new life and new hope.

Moving on to English sources, I've basically learned that the Chinese redbud:

Is not resistant to winter frost, but is generally able to survive the cold. Suo's favorite season may be winter, but both the sappanwood and the Chinese redbud are not resistant to either the cold or frost, with the first losing all its leaves in winter and the second potentially dying to snow/frost (like most plants lol.) Despite being resistant to the rain and heat of spring and summer and being able to tolerate degrees under 38°C (remember Suo not breaking a sweat when training in the summer with Furin?), Chinese redbuds fall short when it comes to braving brutal winters, thriving best when the temperature is above 10°C.

They bloom during spring, around March-April. Could this be a parallel as to why Suo idolizes Ume, the 'plum blossom' that can bloom in the cold of winter? For being able to stay resilient and stand proudly/beautifully even amidst harsh and stressful conditions?

Has many parts can be utilized for traditional Chinese medicine, cooking, and decoration. The wood and the bark have been used to treat abscesses, bladder ailments, and head troubles. Treats bladder diseases, post-partum discharges, bleeding piles, and internal parasites; its flowers are used for relieving rheumatic muscles and joint pain. Even the flowers can be eaten raw or pickled, containing vitamin C with a fresh and acidic taste. The bark of young shoots can be used to weave baskets, as the wood of Cercis species is generally of good quality. -> Suo's plants can both weave baskets and act as good wood...

Is also known for its ornamental purposes, and has a neighboring family tree—the Cercis siliquastrum, known as the 'Judas Tree', which is a symbol of betrayal. Judas Iscariot betrayed Jesus and committed suicide by hanging himself from a redbud tree. Additionally, I was told by my friend that u/Snowy-kitten realized the kanji for Suo's name is is 蘇枋（すおう), but the tree he represents is Chinese redbud (花蘇芳/ハナズオウ/hanazuou in Japanese). 蘇枋 and 蘇芳 are pronounced the same and one of the hanakotoba (flower language) of 花蘇芳 is apparently death by betrayal.

While the Chinese redbud/ZJH is known for these traits, the YZJ is a little bit different; it was difficult to find meanings and symbolism for the Bauhinia x blakeana due to it being a lesser-known flower + a sterile hybrid flower.

Locally, the leaves of the YZJ are considered "clever leaves" and a symbol of wisdom; sometimes harvested to be dried into bookmarks to bring good luck in studies.

The Bauhinia x blakeana is a hybrid between the Bauhinia purpurea and then Bauhinia variegata. But I could not find anything about the symbolism of the Bauhinia purpurea... I looked at some other ones in the Bauhinia genus, though.

From what I found, the genus has flowers that typically represent new beginnings (is he twinning Sakura?), feminine beauty (he's still ♂ fertile ♂ like that), grace, elegance, and nobility.

Bauhinia kappleri:

Historically, it has been seen as a symbol of unity due to its bilobed leaves resembling joined hands. This symbolism was especially prominent in cultures that valued harmony and cohesiveness. [...] Pink Bauhinia represents grace, unity, and resilience. Its delicate yet sturdy appearance communicates a balance of beauty and strength. [...] In Chinese culture, for instance, it symbolizes renewal and new beginnings [...] Meanwhile, in Western contexts, it often represents appreciation and noble elegance.

Bauhinia acuminata:

The Bauhinia acuminata's striking appearance symbolizes beauty, elegance, and grace. It is often associated with the ideals of feminine beauty and charm. In some cultures, these blossoms are seen as symbols of new beginnings and growth, making them popular choices for weddings and other celebrations.

Bauhinia variegata:

1. [...] the white orchid has held reverence throughout Chinese culture and stands as a symbol of nobility, beauty, and innocence.

2. The Orchid Tree holds symbolic meaning in several cultures. In India, it is associated with love, fertility, and prosperity, often featured in weddings and religious ceremonies. In Chinese culture, Bauhinia variegata is a symbol of beauty, grace, and the fleeting nature of life.

Bauhinia x blakeana in Chinese Sources:

在中國文化中，紫色常代表高貴與權力，而洋紫荊則代表了優雅和力量。 此外，洋紫荊還象徵著團結和繁榮，這也使它成為許多盛大活動的首選花卉。

(Edited MTL)

In Chinese culture, the color purple often represents nobility and power, while the yang zijing represents elegance and strength. In addition, the yang zijing symbolizes unity and prosperity, which makes it the flower of choice for many grand events.

I have a headache. 🤕 Am I just yapping or was this all preordained by Nii Satoru?

Do you still remember that Suo's earrings are made of coral? The very coral that symbolizes a lofty status, auspiciousness, nobility, power, and eternity? 🤕

It's all coming together...

The Story of Three Brothers and the Zijing Hua Tree/田真兄弟：

This story could very well be a direct hint towards Suo's future martial siblings + how his arc will end. I vaguely remember(?) studying this passage for DSE unseen 文言文s so I managed to find it again. I'll cross-reference and do a direct word-to-word translation. If you understand Chinese I recommend just reading the 文言文 because it has more of the OG meaning 💪

原文/Original:

京兆田真兄弟三人，共议分财。生资皆平均，唯堂前一株紫荆树，共议欲破三片。翌日就截之，其树即枯死，状如火然。真往见之，大愕，谓诸弟曰：“树本同株，闻将分斫，固憔悴，是人不如木也。” 因悲不自胜，不复解树。树应声荣茂，兄弟相感，遂和睦如初。

註釋/Glossary

（1）京兆：京城地區。

（2）生資：生活資料。

（3）皆：都。

（4）唯：只有。

（5）破：使之破為。

（6）就：開始。

（7）即：立即；立刻。

（8）狀：形狀；狀態。

（9）然：通假字，同“燃”，燃燒。

（10）翌日：第二天

（11）愕：驚訝。

（12）諸：眾；

（13）斫（zhuó）：砍。

（14）勝：承受；控制。

（15）憔悴：枯死。

（16）故：所以。

（17）解：分解。

（18）其：他家的。

（19） 堂：門。

（20）株：棵。

（21）遂：於是。

句子翻譯/Sentence TLs:

1、翌日就截之：第二天就準備截斷它。

2、狀如火然：形狀像被火燃燒過一樣。

3、樹木同株，聞將分斫，故憔悴，是人不如木也：樹本來是同根的，聽到要砍斷分開，所以枯死了，我們人都不如樹木。

4、樹應聲榮茂：紫荊樹聽到（田真的）話後（立刻）枝葉繁茂（了起來）。

My attempt at an English TL:

In the capital city [Beijing], the three Tianzhen brothers divided their property. All other assets [means of living] had already been evenly divided; all except the Chinese redbud tree/zijing tree in front of the door. They discussed and agreed to split the tree into three pieces each. The next day, they prepared to cut the tree down, but the tree immediately withered to death, as if it had been torched by a flame. The oldest brother looked at the sight and was extremely stunned, saying to his younger brothers: "This tree is originally from the same root. It heard it was going to be separated after it was felled, and thus, it withered. We, as humans, were no match for/couldn't live up to even a tree."

Because they were unable to bear with/contain their remorse, the brothers decided not to cut the tree. When the Chinese redbud/zijing tree heard the eldest brother's words, it immediately sprouted flowers once more. The Tianzhen brothers were astonished and emotional and thus returned to their harmonious relationship from the beginning.

From this, I'm heavily inclined to believe that:

Suo is one of three brothers/martial siblings.

Suo left/they left Suo due to family issues or family inheritance trials.

Suo's arc will end well, with all brothers reaching an understanding and becoming friendly again.

OR, Suo is the Chinese redbuds/zijing tree in this scenario.

Suo might end up facing Endo because the passage mentions 'as if it had been torched by a flame [状如火然]'. Endo's name is '棪堂' -> this also means something else which u/Snowy-kitten mentioned, it being 'a tree that bears edible red fruit' in Chinese, which contributes to Endo's biblestuff. But let's analyze it later in Endo's part.

Chinese can somewhat be considered playing Pictionary—if you separate the words from 「棪堂」 into three: 「木」、「炎」、「堂」， you could literally interpret this as, in 文言文/Classical Chinese, 「Tree/Wood」、「Flames Rising」、「Courtyard/Doorfront」

This coincides with the "Chinese redbud tree/ZJH" looking as if it "had been torched aflame" in front of the house/the courtyard/the door.

In conclusion, this might allude to Suo having to fight Endo, or Endo having to fight Suo to get him back due to a family feud—and Suo might get heavily injured. His martial brothers might realize the impact of their actions and finally retreat and make up.

Suo and Sappanwood:

Sappanwood can make a type of valuable red dye named brazilin.

The character of 'Su' (蘇) in JP also means resurrection, reviving, resuscitation, and rehabilitation.

The red pigment found in the sappanwood tree (brazilin) has also been used to treat wounds and ward off infections, encouraging faster healing.

Sappanwood isn’t as favoured for extracting dyes as brazilwood, though—the discovery of brazilwood led to a boom in red pigments due to its greater concentration, whereas sappanwood was much less saturated in comparison.

This is pure yappanese but maybe Suo sees himself as inferior compared to his brothers...

That's the color of the dye sappanwood creates and that is the color of Suo's eye and his coral earring. I don't need to say anything more, right?

4. FALCON KICK 𓅃𓅃 FALCON PUNCH 𓅃𓅃

Rejoice!! We have made it to the next section of Suo's name at last!! I never thought I'd get here!!!! LET'S MAKE THIS QUICK (it's not quick).

Again, from the document that u/Snowy-kitten wrote, "隼" means 'falcon' and "飛" means 'fly/flight', spelling out "隼飛" lit. 'flying falcon'.

Reviewing the Symbolism Blargh Off This Page: (OG text has been slightly edited)

"The falcon represents vision, freedom, and victory. Hence, it also connotes salvation to those who are in bondage whether moral, emotional, or spiritual." <- I find it very interesting that many of Suo's symbolisms tie back to things relating to a new beginning/healing: salvation, revitalization, resurrection, a new hope, etc., which falls in line with his dream: the liberation of slaves. And look, I know this possibly means Suo breaking free of whatever chains down his heart, but ACTUALLY Suo will be stuck in 𝓯𝓻𝓮𝓪𝓴𝔂 bondage and then be saved by EndoSaku. Trust me y'all I'm Nii Satoru's right-hand man

"In Christian symbolism, the wild falcon represents the unconverted, materialistic soul and its sinful thoughts and deeds. The tamed bird symbolizes the Christian convert pursuing his lofty thoughts, hopes, and aspirations with courage." <- I don't think Suo is wild or tame or Christian in particular, but you could take it as current-Suo suppressing and masking his true identity/emotions. And that actually makes sense when you remember how Suo nearly went Insanity.PNG during KEEL Arc and Sakura had to stop him from continuing to pummel a guy when he was down; when Sakura admitted he was pissed at himself and turned away Suo thought 'I really am no match for you'. On one hand, this could be explained extremely well if we view it from a Confucian + Suo's theory of adulthood lens which will be talked about later in Part 6. However, this could also symbolize Suo being bound in emotional chains and having... wtf, 'sinful thoughts'? That he's suppressing?? Maybe that's why he doesn't use his phone around people coz there's a bunch of 料 (blackmail) in there 🤣. And when Suo gets his arc I suppose he gets 'tamed' and is finally free to pursue his aspirations with courage (being with Furin and supporting Sakura), which will effectively act as another new beginning/his healing—further tying into his whole shtick surrounding resurrection revitalization healing salvation blah blah blah. (POV: the 'Suo has no Christian allusions' part comes to bite me back in the ass via. Taiping Rebellion parallels where an ethnically Han Chinese mf in Suo's triad or Noroshi proclaims to be "Endo's brother-in-christ" slash the brother of the WBK Jesus Christ. And then I kill myself)

"In Egyptian hieroglyphs, the falcon glyph was used in words and phrases such as 'god', 'pharaoh', 'greatness', 'year', 'sovereign', 'star', 'hour', 'prayer', 'land', and 'world'. It was associated with the deity of the sky, of kingship, and of the sun, Horus [...] In early dynasties, the king’s ascension was known as the “Flight of the Falcon”." <- Aha! AHA! YEAH MORE NOBILITY HOURS AND A DIRECT REFERENCE TO THE DEFINITION OF HAYATO. Okay. So. This is highly unlikely to happen but imagine Suo becomes the head of his triad branch. Or maybe this means that Suo is the heir to something lofty... deadass the fated ascension to big bad boss which he skedaddled from or was denied from, who knows?

"The Eye of Horus, the Egyptian symbol for the Sun, depicts a stylized falcon's eye and face markings. It signified royal power and protection from danger, evil, and ill health." <- More nobility/higher status allusions and illness-warding shit, typical Suo Hayato behavior.

"A human-headed falcon served as a symbol of the human soul on its flight from this world to the afterlife. Similarly, the crossed arms of Egyptian mummies were intended to symbolize the folded wings of a falcon at rest." <- And here we have more Suoshit related to afterlife-isms resurrection-isms and new beginnings-isms. Chat can I stop talking about Suo Hayato ... he's just a never-ending Pandora's 24-hour unboxing video...

"The sport of hunting with falcons was associated with nobility in Europe, Japan, and China, where falcons symbolized keen vision, boldness, and power." <- 'Takagari (鷹狩) is Japanese falconry, a sport of the noble class, and a symbol of their nobility, their status, and their warrior spirit.' - Wikipedia.

To continue with Wikipedia: In the 13th century, hawking became popular among the rising samurai class as well as among court nobles (kuge). At that time, the practice of hawking was a means of resolving struggles over land ownership among lords. <- This feels a little similar to the splitting of property mentioned in the Tianzhen brothers!

What's more interesting about falconry is that falcons typically wear 'falcon hoods' that blind them, which forces them to be calm.

The bird wears a hood, which is used in the manning process (acclimatizing to humans and the human world) and to keep the raptor in a calm state, both in the early part of its training and throughout its falconry career. Out of all the falconer's aids, the hood is the most important piece of equipment. There are various styles and types of hoods for raptors within falconry. The hood is handmade, often from kip leather or suitable kangaroo leather. —Wikipedia

Suo's eyepatch is made from leather as mentioned in his character sheet even though nowadays, a lot of eyepatches and most medical eyepatches are made with cloth and/or other adhesive materials.

What's more, a majority of traditional falconry gloves/gauntlets have tassels extremely close if not similar designs to the earrings Suo wears:

Remember when Suo once mentioned that he had an 'ancient Chinese dragon spirit sealed away in his eye', hence the eyepatch? Maybe there's weight behind that joke because he might lose his composure if the eyepatch is taken away.

If Suo is a trained falcon belonging to his family��although he's 'flying' right now, either for a hunt or free roam—he's been educated in a way that eventually, he will always turn back and roost on the gloves of his master.

"The falcon was seen as the bird of Princes, the gyrfalcon the bird of Kings, and the eagle the bird of Emperors. [...] A falcon [would be released] at the funerals of Pharaohs. This illustrates the ancient view of raptors as intermediaries between the divine and eternal heavens and the mortal earth." <- The 'bird of Princes' part really makes me want to believe Suo is truly in a high-ranking and potentially triad-inheriting position of power; he could really be a 'prince' of sorts for his gang... The O (枋) in Suo can stand for a 'sturdy plank', and even 'raft/boat', which might symbolize him being a bridge of connection between the 'divine and eternal heavens' (his triad/family/whatever dude) and the 'mortal earth' (Furin).

"Furthermore, falcons are represented by the constellation Aquila [lit meaning eagle], as are all raptors. This constellation is said to confer the qualities of boldness, ambition, courage, liberty, generosity, penetrating vision, and a noble spirit, along with a gift for martial arts and the fabrication of weapons.

"This contrasts with a vulnerability to and enmity toward reptiles and their symbolic qualities of deceitfulness, underhandedness (venom), vindictiveness, and baseness of spirit.

[OP's Quick Interjection: from the source some mf added a little 'that aint falco' after the following part and I gotta agree. But also, falcons and eagles are both under raptors as birds of prey, and from what I've seen, Suo is the only known person in WBK so far to have a bird of prey in his name, so I'll still keep this here as food for thought—as well as a theory I have for later.]

"Reflecting this opposition, the battling eagle and serpent has been a motif from ancient times, common to Western, Eastern and New World civilizations. See classical Roman statuary, the ancient coat of arms of Mexico and the Garuda emblems of Indonesia, Thailand and Ulan Bator. The dichotomy can also be seen in the eagle and the rattlesnake competing to be symbols of the Revolutionary United States in the 18th century."

Right. So. I have a lot to say about this chunk. The first is the numerous stories of raptors, mainly eagles, and serpents/snakes, as well as my theory that the family Suo has been sworn into will feature new characters with birds of prey as their joining kanji.

I'll elaborate on the latter first because it's shorter: so far, out of all of the named and introduced people in WBK up till Rooftop Fight, not a single person except Suo contains the character of an animal capable of flight, much less a bird of prey.

The only person who comes remotely close to having birds as a symbol is Chika Takiishi and the full-page spread ft. his fight with Umemiya which u/Just_EveB theorized to be the karura, which originates from the Garuda in Hinduism (will also elaborate later). But even Chika doesn't have any bird radical in his name. Shishitoren isn't exempt from this; the gang known for people with animal radicals only contains land mammals and reptilians:

Tomoyama Choji (兎耳山 丁子) = rabbit

Togame Jo (十亀 条) = tortoise

Sako Kouta (佐狐 浩太) = fox

Arima Yukinari (有馬 雪成) = horse

Kanuma Minoru (鹿沼 稔) = ♫ Shikanokonokonokokoshitantan ♫

(There's also Inugami Teruomi who is a dog for "inu" but I CAN'T FIND HIS KANJI AND HE DOESN'T EVEN HAVE A WIKI PAGE??? FREE MY MAN!!!)

Even other characters who happen to have an animal in their name e.g. Hiiragi Toma (柊 登馬) (馬 -> horse) don't have an animal capable of flight, much less a bird of prey, and no one has the radical for bird (鳥).

Hence, I'm genuinely going to go out on a limb and say that the family Suo has sworn into—or his biological brothers or martial brothers or whatever fucked-up triad business he's in—will have characters containing '鳥' (bird) or one of the following in their names: 鷹、鵰、鳶、鵟、鷂、鴞、鵂鶹、魚鷹、鷲, which are respectively eagle, eagle but different*, kite, buteo, the birds that are under here, owl, collared owlet, osprey, and vulture. OR, if these family members have Chinese names instead of JP, it's plausible they have the same pinyin pronunciation as some of these.

*Btw, this is the difference between a 鷹 and a 鵰. Don't even ask me tbh

Next up, let's talk about the correlations between birds of prey and serpents. I did some scouring through the internet and dug up quite a lot of stuff.

Let's first establish that the only person so far who has been shown with serpent/snake imagery is none other than Endo Yamato himself.

(And yes, I switched to desktop just to embed more images, I'm crying. Anyway, these panels are all taken from Chapters 144 and 145.)

The tattoo on Endo's neck, an infinity symbol, is derived from the ouroboros, a snake/serpent/dragon biting its own tail.

It symbolizes 'eternal cyclic renewal' or 'a cycle of life, death and rebirth'. Wow, so Suocore.

(BTW, in some religions... the ouroboros is also a fertility symbol. This just in: Suo, Sakura, and Endo are all ♂fertile♂)

I have so much more to say about Endo's tattoos but that's reserved for when I'm done with Suo Hayato... so let's go back to the topic of serpents and eagles and their tales.

Here's some prominent stuff I found:

Aesop's fable: This is the first example I managed to find. It's a story about how kindness will always be repaid. I honestly can't seem to think of a way this coincides with Suo/Suo's family/Endo etc. You can click on it to read the story yourself. Like, I think Endo's on a path to pseudo-redemption or at least 'potential future allies', and I can't see a reason why? He'd want to poison? Somebody?? Even 'figuratively'. Like, let's pretend my theory of Suo's family having birds of prey in their names is correct. Why would one of Suo's martial bros, or better yet the head honcho or something, swoop in to save this Countryman from Endoshittalk? But well, if anyone can think of anything, feel free to comment on it!!

Thus Spoke Zarathustra:

An eagle soared through the sky in wide circles, and on him there hung a serpent, not like prey but like a friend: for she kept herself wound around his neck. “These are my animals,” said Zarathustra and was happy in his heart. “The proudest animal under the sun and the wisest animal under the sun” […]

“That I might be wiser! That I might be wise through and through like my serpent! But there I ask the impossible: so I ask my pride that it always go along with my wisdom. And when my wisdom leaves me one day—alas, it loves to fly away—let my pride then fly with my folly.”

Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, “Zarathustra's Prologue,” translated by Walter Kaufmann.

This is something that also came up, yet this is a more different example compared to the beginning—instead of feuding, the eagle and snake are in harmony, representing the mind and body becoming one, as well as taken from u/__Can__ from the linked Reddit post detailing what they symbolize:

It represents the highest strivings/capacities in man (eagle) and the lowest and more earthly/instinctive faculties (serpent). They are not opposed to one another but are rather one. Just like the other metaphor Nietzsche used, the tree (thought as the self-actualizing man) that if it wants to grow towards heaven (the highest in man) has to have its roots deep beneath the earth in the dark and evil layers of the psyche so to speak. You have to integrate your obscure and evil side in order to become whole.

There's a lot of tree imagery that I'm not really familiar with but know exists in WBK... such as that time Sakura's branch was nearly snapped off by Endo. To me this feels more like a general 'concept' that can be written into the story rather than an important foreshadowing towards future arcs ... plus I haven't read the book so I can't commentate on the philosophies of Nietzsche, so far the only thing I know about him is that he is one of the philosophers outspoken on overcoming Nihilism... taken from a deleted Reddit user:

People who haven’t read or understood Nietzsche think he is a nihilist, which is a bit understandable as his thought is complex, and he was a devastating critic of both dominant and trendy movements/institutions and their values. I believe he once described himself as a maggot that goes into a wound to eat away at the decaying flesh to clean it out. He also described himself as philosophizing with a hammer. In many ways, he is one of the intellectual fathers of postmodern deconstructionism. Which can often border on the nihilistic, but Nietzsche wasn’t simply trying to tear everything we believed in down for its own sake, his intention was to make things better.

From a site (really good read about Nietzsche and Buddhism):

Nietzsche aimed to overcome nihilism by affirming the unconditional embrace of existence. For him, life was not to be denied but rather created by one’s own value system, and built on the foundation of understanding that there is no inherent meaning in the universe. Nishianti describes this process as “dying the great death in the abyss of nihility and coming back to life again” (1983, 233). In doing so, active nihilism becomes a transitional stage rather than an end in itself. It is the abyss into which we must descend, “the darkest night before the dawn” (Nietzsche, 1968, 12). It is through the experiential stages of active nihilism that an individual strives for the heights of the ideal being, the übersmench. He asserted that living by one’s own ‘noble morality’ is characterized as a vigorous, free, and joyful existence, ruled by an innate “will to overpower, and will to rule” (1968, 16). From his works, it is evident that Nietzsche detested the weak and humble man who sought to escape the realities of life.

I can somewhat link Nietzsche's theories on nihilism with the process of creating the Philosopher's Stone (nigredo, albedo, citrinitas, rubedo), which is suuuuper interesting because Endo has vaguely alchemic symbols tattooed onto him. But again I'm digressing.

Norse Mythology [1] and [2]: According to ancient Norse mythology, the World Tree Yggdrasil has an unnamed eagle at the top and a serpent/dragon named Nidhogg at the bottom, and beneath the eagle there is a hawk named Vedrfolnir, standing for '"storm pale", "wind bleached", or "wind-witherer". Between them, there is also a squirrel named Ratatoskr who carries messages between the eagle and Nidhogg.

From Wikipedia: In historical Viking society, 'níð'(nid) was a term for a social stigma, implying the loss of honor and the status of a villain. Thus, its name might refer to its role as a horrific monster in its action of chewing the corpses of the inhabitants of Náströnd: those guilty of murder, adultery, and oath-breaking.

It's faster to just attach images of me and my friend tweaking:

I might one day do a separate post about Norsestuff and Furin because this is really interesting.

This entire Reddit comment section: Talks about the historical significance of the eagle and the snake in tales, depictions, etc. From u/Wayrin:

This symbol goes way way way back. There are depictions of eagles with snakes going back to Babylon and Elam around 3000 BCE. Of course the image was borrowed by everyone and the Egyptians saw it as Horus defeating Seth. Similarly Ahura Mazda was depicted as an eagle and Ahriman as a dragon. The Greeks borrowed the idea of the eagle as a symbol of resurrection from later Egyptian tradition and then it starts popping up everywhere. India, Indonesia, Rome and all over the Mediterranean. Most of these traditions use the Eagle to represent some great good. Usually a god related to the sun combating the forces of evil the snake. We believe the symbol to be borrowed and expanded (except for Mesoamerica) since they have so many commonalities. A lot of the stories have the Serpent winning over the Eagle before the Eagle triumphs. If you can access it, this is my source "Eagle and Serpent. A study in the Migration of Symbols." It was written in 1939 though so take it with a grain of salt.

And from u/tonycmyk, about ancient Mesopotamia:

[...] The snake/serpent has always represented the giving of knowledge to humans and the connection to earth. The eagle has always represented power over the earth and war. And this symbolism can be traced back through every ancient culture we know of and probably the ones we don’t. Powerful stuff.

Something not related to Suo: So about the Karura... the theorized demon JoJo stand that Chika has in the spread originated under 'Garuda' in Hinduism. You can read more about Garudas VS. Nagas here and the common point between Karuras and Garudas is that they're both depicted as people who feud constantly with dragons/serpents/snakes. In Hinduism, though, Nagas aren't depicted as evil like in Christianity. (And they're also a symbol of fertility... Endo's more ♂fertile♂ than Suo confirmed...)

5. Final Closing Notes on Suo

So, in summary, what do I think about Suo?

... What do I think about Suo... (crushing the chopsticks in my hand) I have multiple proposals as to what Suo is doing in Furin and what's going on with his family. And other Suostuff in general.

Falcon flying away: - To me, I see this as Suo leaving the family for a brief period, similar to how falconers can train their falcons to hunt but inevitably return to their owner. - If Suo's arc involves him cutting ties with his family, then this part could also symbolize Suo's desire to leave his original background behind in favor of Furin. - If the falcon symbolizes Suo's family as a whole, then this could represent the downfall of Suo's triad/noble family too, or that they're conducting some of their business elsewhere from their place of origin (*suspiciously Chinese ringtone starts to echo from my phone holder*)

u/Snowy-kitten's traitor Suo theory: Suo could be a spy in Furin. He could be scoping out the area for his own triad/gang/whatever. But what's most curious is the already-existing relevance between Endo and Suo that u/Snowy-kitten pointed out: Suo’s given name and Endo’s given name, Hayato and Yamato respectively are the names of two ancient Japanese tribes. [...] The Hayato is a tribe of ancient Japanese people that existed during the Nara period. The Yamato is another tribe of ancient Japanese people that existed alongside the Hayato. The Hayato frequently resisted the Yamato rule until the year 720 when the Hayato rebellion broke out. It was a rebellion of the Hayato against the Yamato. The rebellion ended in the year 721 with the Yamato being victorious. The interesting thing about the name 'Yamato' as u/Snowy-kitten also mentions is that its kanji (哉真斗) holds almost no meaning in JP. In Chinese, though, this can more or less translate to an expression, 'Ah, a real fight!' as '哉' in classical Chinese can be translated into an exclamation of sorts (「哉」可表示感嘆、疑問及反問語氣，相等於「啊」、「呢」、「嗎」), the '真' translates to 'real/true', and the '斗' (or 鬥 in trad) translates to 'fight'. So in the end, the Serpent VS. Eagle thing might happen in the form of Endo fighting Suo himself or Endo fighting one of Suo's family members.

Tsuge-chan and Suo: Remember this part?

Yeah, so, wtf was that? Fun facts on Tsuge's name from u/Snowy-kitten again (thank you bro you're saving my life):

I feel like Tsuge is going to be interlinked with Suo's backstory, that maybe he knows something more about Suo's 'family' than anyone in Furin should. Whether or not the XL river in Tsuge's name can be crossed with a bridge from another character's name or not... IDK we'll see if said bridge can be crossed when we get to it or burnt in favor of Suo lol... because Suo mentions bridge building in his character song gg

My final hard read on Suo's arc (take this with 2 mouthfuls of salt): - Suo will be called away briefly and leaves Furin either without notice or on short notice. He might leave behind enough clues to let Furin know why or where he's going. Or he might leave none at all, and Tsuge has to guess and explain what's most likely going on. - Endo might have to fight Suo in some way. Or he ends up fighting Suo's older martial siblings (the 'eagle') and triumphs over them. - If the oldest is truly the 'eagle', then there will be a younger one, the second-in-command, the 'hawk', like in Norse mythology. - I might come up with more stuff and I'll edit this into here as time comes.

6. I Lied

Suo isn't over. We still have to talk about how well he fulfills the shit we learnt in the HKDSE about our goat Johnny Hung's virtues/morals/principles.

So anyway, this is Johnny Hung our fucking GOAT!!!!!:

AKA Confucius lmao. Sorry it's an inside joke

This man is the reason I had to memorize so much classical Chinese sayings and literature that eventually culminated into Knowledge for the Suopost. It was all built towards this moment :( Let's start with an explanation of 論仁、論孝、論君子 as well as 五倫/四端！

...User Pyschicwavementality, wtf is this?

(Stares at you with the most depressed, sick, and haunted eyes) Chinese lore.

I will sadly not be sane if I explained every single one of these sayings to you guys. (Mutters) I mean I did have to memorize all of them back in the day but I'd kms elaborating on all of them so. I'm just going to take the relevant ones that could tie into Suo's character.

Let me first establish: the core of Confucianism revolves around "仁、義、禮、智、信、恕、忠、孝、悌". The arguably quote unquote """""important""""" ones (to today's discussion and in What I Learnt in general anyway) would be 仁義禮智信 and also 孝, of which I will now try? My best? To explain?? Please forgive me I learned everything in Chinese and it's really hard to do an accurate translation/analysis without going deep into culture and history 😭

CLASSICAL CHINESE 101

仁：This is read as rén. It is like... altruism, betterment, and love, I guess? Rén is how you interact with people, it is the innate connection and bond and interaction between human beings. (人與人之間互相關懷，尤其以關愛自己的親人最為重要。) It is respect and love and doing good deeds and Kind deeds out of our inner Goodness in our hearts. It is born from our inner individual and it affects our actions and what we do. We aim to always be a 'jūnzǐ' （君子）in Confucianism, someone who embodies all of Confucianism as the "self-improving and good-hearted" individual. To be empathetic and the kindest/most altruistic and loving person to one and all; to treat everyone equally from our innate Goodness—that is more or less rén. In the ideal society of Confucianism, everyone practices rén. This would mean society would always be harmonious.

義：this is read is yì. It is morality, justice, and helping others when in need. It is doing what is right and according to rén.

禮：this is lǐ. It is respect, treating people with manners, following social rules under rén, showing filial piety to your parents and elders, etc.

智：this is zhì. It is the pursuit of knowledge, creation, innovation, and improvement. It is having the intelligence to separate right/wrong and good/evil.

信：this is read as xìn. It is to have faith and belief in our beliefs and pursuits and our governing body. It is also integrity, honesty, and truthfulness. Whether it be a person, an organization, a business, or a government, they must have integrity as their core value.

(Additional) 孝：this is read as xiào and is essentially filial piety. Confucius believed that respect and love towards our parents should not be seen as an 'obligation', but rather something inner from the heart. There are four 'levels' of xiào: 孝順、孝敬、孝養、孝承 (xiàoshùn, xiàojìng, xiàoyǎng, xiàochéng). This is super complicated to go through so if you're bored and have tons of free time on your hands, feel free to run this PDF through a translator to get a better idea on what xiào is.

To get an idea on xiào, Confucius said that, if our parents became old and we only send them food and money, this is no different from raising a dog or a horse (孝養). He says, "Without respect (敬), where is there a difference?". When his disciples asked what we must do to respect (敬) our parents, he answered "We must not turn our backs on them [or more specifically, do not turn our backs on lǐ (etiquette)]. We serve them according to etiquette while alive; bury and commemorate according to etiquette after death."

But anyway, in turn, parents must also treat their children with all the above-mentioned virtues and said parents need to respect their parents with the same attitude as well. In theory, this goes both ways.

There's also Mencius' beliefs branched from Confucius' teachings (still part of Confucianism):

惻隱之心：read as 'cèyǐn zhī xīn'. This is your innate ability to feel compassion and empathy. Some people always see the "evil" around them and fail to see the goodness inside people and thus choose to be "evil" in turn. Mencius, one of Confucius' disciples, believed everyone was born kind and carried compassion. For those who are unfortunate, people will sympathize with them out of their own kindness; for those who are weak, people will have compassion for them and reach out to help them. He believed that people should never abandon their inner kindness, as kind people will always be rewarded by the kindness of others.

是非之心：read as 'sh��fēi zhī xīn'. This is the innate ability to differentiate right and wrong actions as well as morally incorrect/correct decisions others make and reflect on them to judge why it is wrong and what not to do.

羞惡之心：read as 'xiūwù zhī xīn'. This is the innate ability to feel shame and guilt for making mistakes or doing things that are not following lǐyí (禮儀). It is also feeling scorn/disgust for others who do not follow lǐyí (禮儀).

辭讓之心：read as 'círàng zhī xīn'. This is the innate ability to feel thankful when others do something kind towards you, and you will feel like you need to pay it forward. It is giving others opportunities in exchange of your own and taking a step back to put others in mind first.

There's also the concept of inter-relationship hierarchy from the foundations of filial piety, which stipulates the order of respect should go from 君臣、父子、夫婦、兄弟、朋友 -> Lord/Emperor & Gov., Father-Son, Husband-Wife, Brothers, and Friends

Additional aid via. translations of my super helpful diagrams I made ages and ages ago about how to differentiate 仁義禮智:

(2) Analogy: POV you are in Ancient China and you see an elderly man killing a random guy

(3) Because you have 惻隱之心 (cèyǐn), you feel pitiful for the guy being killed. Because you have 是非之心 (shìfēi), you can judge and realize why the elderly man killing the guy is wrong. Because you have 羞惡之心 (xiūwù), you feel angry that the elderly man is killing the guy.

(4) Because in Ancient China, the lǐ [social rules] is to respect your elders [filial piety], but because the elderly man is doing something not in accordance with lǐ and yì (禮儀) [social rules and justice], you will do what is right (the lǐ action) and stop the elderly man from getting killed.

(5) Think: your choice to act and do correctly and the correct act itself is yì; your heart's inner compassion is rén; your ability to tell if the situation is in accordance with lǐyí (禮儀) or not is zhì; and the environmental/social rules = lǐ, e.g. respecting your elders. When you do actions that are not fulfilling yì, you feel guilty because you have 羞惡之心 (xiūwù). Rén is inner moral/virtue requirements [to be a 君子 jūnzǐ)，whereas yì is your outward action.

(6) Oh, and don't forget: 羞惡之心 (xiūwù) is feeling disgusted/hateful when you see others do something not in accordance with 禮儀 (lǐyì). If you do non-lǐyì things yourself, you will feel ashamed.

(7) Adding on to the last sentence in (5), 'rén' is not a requirement; it is inner 'love' exuded from the heart. If you are forced or required to do so, that is not 'rén', that is 'duty'.

So how does this all tie into Suo Hayato?

(Shakes my fist full of documents) so this is where I start CRAZYMAXXING.

If you also lovehate this man you might have already made some connections between Suo and the above few values I've described. Otherwise let me elaborate: when dear old Niisato made Suo to be the most stereotypically Chinese lad ever, he also managed to include a shitton upstanding moral traits that a jūnzǐ (君子) would have, essentially making Suo an amazing representation of core Confucian beliefs (so far as of writing this post in my theory state of mind).

When Suo talks about 'growing up' or taking the steps to adulthood, he mentions one of the most important core values being able to make your imagination reality as well as empathy.

You could actually simplify rén into putting yourself in another person's shoes to see/think/feel from their perspective, and one famous saying from Confucius is to wish no harm to come upon others that you do not wish to come upon you, which ties in with Kanuma mocking the fallen Shishitoren member and only starting to feel panicked once he realizes the same harm was going to happen to him. ("己所不欲,勿施於人。")

Suo also insinuates the ability to chase your goals and turn them from dreams into reality is another part of 'attaining adulthood'. You can boil this down to being able to fulfill what you say/living up to your claims/fulfilling your beliefs. Honesty and integrity also play a major role in Confucian beliefs. There are a few sayings under xìn '信‘ that Confucius said about this:

5.1 A jūnzǐ (君子) must be mindful of what they say and do things swiftly/efficiently/quickly. 5.2 A jūnzǐ (君子) does not endorse a person just because he speaks favorably, nor does he reduce a man's worth just because he has a bad impression of him. 5.3 A jūnzǐ (君子) will feel shameful if he cannot go through with what he said he will do. 5.4 [Text Before Image] If one's name/renown is not righteous, his speech will not be reasonable; if one's speech is not reasonable, he will not be able to accomplish anything. If things are not accomplished, the law will not be able to reach into one's heart; if the law cannot reach people, the punishment will not be fair; if the punishment is unfair, the common people will be at a loss. [Text In Image] Therefore, leaders must be steadfast and reasonable in both what they do and what they say. When leaders speak, they must not be careless (read: 'whatever' energy) or rash.

^^ When you translate this, doesn't this essentially reflect Umemiya as a leader? Which also falls in line with Suo seeing Ume as his ideal 'picture' for adulthood and further aligning w/Suo's statement of 'making your imagination reality'?

It doesn't end here though...!!!

KEEL ARC! When Suo got PISSED as hell seeing his friends around him hurt, Sakura had to step in to stop Suo from losing composure in Chapter 50 | Extreme Emotions. Remember when I talked about explaining how this could be understood SO WELL from a Confucian lens in Part 4?

What Sakura said: 'I'm pissed as all hell at myself. I was talking big [I can 'em all on my own], and look what's happened. But getting pissed off isn't gonna help. We need to focus on what we have to do.'

(Pokes my finger at statement 5.3 and 5.4)

This ABSOLUTELY makes Suo's reaction called for ("I really am no match for you") because right now Sakura is embodying the core values of Confucianism better than Suo was moments prior. In that moment, Sakura was the one closer to being a jūnzǐ (君子). At that moment, Suo was the one who should've been learning and modeling after him.

Remember 羞惡之心 (xiūwù)? It is feeling disgusted/hateful when you see others do something not in accordance with 禮儀 (lǐyì). If you do non-lǐyì things yourself, you will feel ashamed.

Suo was disgusted/hateful at the KEEL member for hurting his friends. He may have reflected and felt shame when Sakura came up to stop him.

It's still not over though!

Suo has consistently shown contempt for those who are older than him yet do not practice the same values of 仁義禮智信! Another one of the major Suo moments:

"Goodness... How self-centered. Even to the very end. To teach others, you need to engage with their feelings and support them to stand on their own two feet for the first time." — Suo Hayato on the most Confucian thing he could say at the moment

How self-centered:

顏淵問仁。子曰：「克己復禮為仁。一日克己復禮，天下歸仁焉。為仁由己，而由人乎哉？」 [1] 顏淵曰：「請問其目。」子曰：「非禮勿視，非禮勿聽，非禮勿言，非禮勿動。」 [2] 顏淵曰：「回雖不敏，請事斯語矣。」（《顏淵》第十二）

(HIGHLIGHTED = TRANSLATED BELOW; EDITED MTL)

[1] "Rén is to restrain one's selfish desires and to conduct oneself in an honorable manner. Once you have done this, all the people of the world will submit to your benevolence and virtue. The fulfillment of rén depends entirely on oneself. How could it depend on others?"

[2] "How do you practice rén?" "Do not look; listen; speak; or do things not in accordance with lǐ."

Already, gymnast-guy has violated the above.

To teach others [...]:

"與人交,推其長者,讳其短者,故能久也。"

"When interacting with people, you should pay attention to discovering and promoting others' strengths, rather than always pointing out other people's shortcomings." [MTL]

Confucius was known to be a very open and benevolent teacher. He did not require students to pay fees; he simply wanted your desire to learn. Suo's really open with teaching Nirei and he matches the teaching style of Johnny Hung really well <3 He's very positive and uplifting when it comes to Nirei. Personally, I also like to believe Suo also sees a younger or past version of himself in Nirei which adds more layers to his intrigue...

Scroll back up to the part where I had three Instagram stories explaining how 仁義禮智 linked with Mencius' additions if you forgot about it. You can re-read what I said regarding the example of seeing an old man killing someone.

Then the gymnast guy talks about 'discipline', and Suo has a vision of his master, which he adds with: "'Discipline', 'training and passing down your teachings'... Okay! I've got a question, sensei! How are you supposed to act when you go barging into another person's home?"

(He's pissed.)

Rewording [2] from my Instagram Story Explanation: Because you have 惻隱之心 (cèyǐn), you feel pitiful for Furin getting invaded and fighters/friends getting hurt. Because you have 是非之心 (shìfēi), you can judge and realize why the Noroshi invading Furin is wrong. Because you have 羞惡之心 (xiūwù), you feel angry that Noroshi is invading Furin.

And once again, just like from KEEL: 羞惡之心 (xiūwù) is feeling disgusted/hateful when you see others do something not in accordance with 禮儀 (lǐyì).

For someone older to be breaking 禮儀 (lǐyì) and speaking on how Suo's 'similar to him' and how he's having 'fun', this was The singularly most awful thing gymnast-guy could've done at the moment as someone Suo is meant to respect according to the age/skill hierarchy in Chinese culture. Not to mention the gymnast guy establishes himself indirectly as a 'teacher' in this scenario by using the phrase 'discipline'. It's even crazier when you realize that Confucianism explicitly believes that anyone can be a teacher to you because you do not know everything. There's literally a story about Confucius speaking with a 7-year-old who spoke so much facts that Confucius himself recognized the kid as a teacher. Suo taunting the guy asking what he could learn from the gymnast is NUTS.

Some other quotes that I think really match Suo's character:

子曰：「君子病無能焉，不病人之不己知也。」（《衞靈公》第十五）

“A jūnzǐ (君子) worries that he himself is incapable, and not that others do not understand him.”

子曰：「君子不重則不威；學則不固。主忠信。無友不如己者。過則勿憚改 。」（《學而》第一）

"If a jūnzǐ (君子) is not steadfast/solemn/decisive, he will not be dignified; and what he learns will not be stable. Maintain loyalty and integrity as your main principles. Do not make friends with people who have lower moral standing than you/who are not as good as you are, and do not be afraid to correct your mistakes."

Final Theory Pitch: "Death By Betrayal"

"Death By Betrayal" in Suo Hayato's name based on the symbolism of the Chinese redbud might make one immediately think of his master and his family. Perhaps Suo's teacher passed and Suo's embodying his master's teachings, or his family has backstabbed/been backstabbed. If we go down the route of Suo still being an active triad member, then this may talk about his triad being betrayed and Suo having to briefly live/train with his master under a new identity. If Suo's former martial siblings (whom he respects, by the way, literally so xiào) want to reform the group, Suo might force them to align with his current set of values (which are extremely similar to Furin too—to protect the common people) and avoid harming innocents.

From another point of view this can also symbolize the "death" of Suo Hayato's former character, where instead he was the one who turned his backs on his clan/family first. Either to learn from his master who may or may not be dead, or to escape his supposed triad ties.

There is another piece of classical literature that I can yap about: 《魚我所欲也》. Here's a quickest translation of it possible:

“魚，我所欲也，熊掌，亦我所欲也;二者不可得兼， 舍魚而取熊掌者也。生亦我所欲也，義亦我所欲也;二者不可得兼， 舍生而取義者也。

"Fish, I desire it; bear paw [rare and believed to have medicinal properties], I also desire it. If I cannot obtain both at once, then I will sacrifice the fish for the bear paw. Life, I desire it; yì [to do morally correct/upstanding/good things], I also desire it; if I cannot obtain two at once, then I will sacrifice my life for yì.

生亦我所欲，所欲有甚於生者，故不為苟得也; 死亦我所惡，所惡有甚於死者， 故患有所不辟也。 如使人之所欲莫甚於生，則凡可以得生者，何不用也 ? 使人之所惡莫甚於死者，則凡可以辟患者，何不為也 ?由是則生而有不用也，由是則可以辟患而有不為 也，是故所欲有甚於生者，所惡有甚於死者。非獨賢者有是心也，人皆有之，賢者能勿喪耳。

Life is something that I want, but there is something I want more than life [yì]! so I will not be greedy for immediate survival. Death is something I hate, but there is something I hate more than death [not fulfilling yì], so I will not avoid the evil that comes my way. If there is nothing that men love more than life, why do they not use whatever means they have to live? If there is nothing that men hate more than death, why do they not use any means of avoiding evil? By these means may we live, but some do not use them; and by these means may we avoid evil, but some are unwilling to do so.

Thus (it can be proved) that there are things that people want more than life, and there are things that people hate more than death. It is not only the 賢者 (virtuous man) that has this nature—all men have this innate nature, but the virtuous man can preserve and maintain it.

一簞食，一豆羹，得之則生，弗得則死 。

A serving of food, a bowl of soup; if you obtain it, you will live. If you do not obtain it, you will die.

嘑爾而與之，行道之人 弗受;蹴爾而與之，乞人不屑也;萬鍾則不辯禮義而受之。

Giving this to someone while mocking and hollering at them, normal people (people on the road) will not accept it because they feel disrespected; stepping on it before giving it to someone, a beggar would not accept it because it is unclean. The temptation (t/n: 萬鐘 is similar to 'bad temptations' or 'great benefits') for benefits: one will not differentiate whether or not it is aligned according to yì [etiquette/moral ethics] before obtaining it.

萬鍾於我何加焉?為宮室之美、妻妾之奉、所識窮乏者得我與?鄉為身死而不 受，今為宮室之美為之;鄉為身死而不受，今為妻妾之奉為之;鄉為 身死而不受，今為所識窮乏者得我而為之，是亦不可以已乎?此之謂 失其本心。"

What do these benefits have that can help me? For a beautiful house, many wives, and for the recognition and thanks from poor people? In the past, one would sacrifice their life before accepting these benefits; but now, for a beautiful house, many wives, and the recognition and thanks from poor people, they will accept temptation. Can we not stop this? This is the act of losing one’s trait [of sacrificing your life for the greater good]."

A summary of this thinking would be to "捨生取義", lit. 'sacrifice your life to obtain yì/the greater good'.

It is completely possible that Suo, when raised or sworn into the triad, was taught by his master (either in secret or after he briefly leaves) about the importance of 'upholding the ultimate good', which may have caused him to realize his triad—which may or may not prey on the weak—does not align with his moral worldviews any more.

To escape, Suo could've decided to fake his death or leave behind his old self and turn his back as betrayal, which ties into his 'noble' symbolism and 'flying falcon' name in Hayato.

But tbh, I'm inclined to believe Suo's master was on okay terms with the triad because he/she had long hair. Suo's hair, as I've stated elsewhere, could be short due to hair being used as a major symbolism device in WBK as a way to say he's tried to leave his past.

Yet some things may be unable to be broken away from so easily, and Suo, a trained falcon, might be unable to leave behind everything. He was likely loyal since a young age and unconsciously finds himself lingering on old sentiments. Maybe his earrings are gifts from his master. Maybe his eyepatch is from his triad/family.

Still, Suo being from a criminal family and having distaste for Noroshi/KEEL is really interesting because we can see that he doesn't enjoy it when people lack empathy or cause pain to others. You’d expect him to react more to Choji’s gang because of their “violence for violence’s sake” going against his whole empathy tangent, but Suo seems to hate it more when someone finds interest in violence for meaning’s sake or violence for profit’s sake. I think Suo understands Shishitoren is built off violence to become stronger (<- literally the WBK OST), and everyone in SSTR seems to mutually be okay with this in-fighting. There's also a big difference between Suo clashing with SSTR and the other: he hasn't forged as deep of a bond with Furin compared to vs. KEEL and vs. Noroshi, and the latter two have made active attempts at hurting Furin through morally corrupt means (beating Nagato up and taking over Furin for personal gain).

Suo could've developed this sort of morality to distance himself from his family, who may have gotten infamous/profited off similar methods. (<- and this is really funny because Confucius has ALSO said that a jūnzǐ (君子) should not accept wealth or escape poverty if it wasn't achieved through morally correct means. A jūnzǐ (君子) cannot turn his back on rén in the span of a meal, and this remains true even during hasty and urgent times + when one is poor/wandering/living in tough conditions.)

A possible timeline:

-Suo is born to a rich family, possibly wealthy through a criminal empire.

-Suo dislikes his family because of his morals (may not have happened), and his family may dislike him back because he is considered “weak” (could explain why he’s the one who offers to help Nirei or why empathy as an adult is so important to him). Or, he's a super loyal lapdog and hella admires his brothers. Maybe they're the only good guys in the triad. Maybe they're really bad and Suo's also really bad. Suo might have two wolves inside him... the Confucian morals vs. Organized crime persona

-Suo studies Chinese fighting techniques and philosophy with someone (possibly a figure outside his family)

-Suo's family and/or mentor is betrayed/Suo betrays them

-Suo has to escape and create a new identity fully based off of his Confucian learnings.

...

And with that, I've said almost everything I need to say on the topic of Suo Hayato.

It totally didn't take 10,000 words or anything.

What's up next in Part 2?

I'll be writing Endo's version of this post and include some Suo-Endo joint theories and/or notes. Things to look forward to include Endo, Christianity, and alchemy... And maybe I'll even start yapping about the 0.2472983% potential Daoist/Taoist influence Sakura has.

I'll be back in 1 business century!

(Bonus) out of context convos and quotes my friend and I have said during the process of writing this that may foreshadow Part 2 or something:

Me: Picture Endo being Chinese too but it's Mainlander vs HK [Suo] beef

Me: WHO'S THE TAIWANESE 😭😭😭 IS IT UME??? HE HAS PLUM BLOSSOMS

Nakama: Okay so (crackposting) it's choji because of TW's association with the sun

Me: What if it's Chiitan [Chika Takiishi] and we get the Mainland x TWnese "forbidden" romance...

Me: But anyway I find it devastating choji would say cao ni ma wo che ne and its not even ooc

Me: ...Shit now I can imagine endo with a strong beijinger accent

Nakama: ...yamato儿(er) endo儿(er)

Nakama: ....chiika儿(er) takiishi儿(er)

Nakama: ...sakuraur harukaur

Me: endo going BEJINGRR WELCOMES YOU

"You not only ate, you devourered that like you were unaccountably peckish." —Nakama-kun 2024

Nakama: Waiting very politely for ur suopost to show up

Me: It might tonight, I'm typing like a keyboard warrior rn

Me: When u wake up it might be posted 😎

—A lie quoted from the 17th Aug 2024 at 3：57 PM GMT+8, a whopping one month and seven days ago.

"Y'know maybe suo's from oklahoma" —Me, delirious, 2024

The Suo Post's TLDR:

"WE NEED TO KILL HIM FOR BEING TOO CHINESE"

—User psychicwavementality after 1 month of crying in voice messages about Suo Hayato.

(Total word count: 11,781 words. Part One, scene!)

[fatallyaddictedtofiction]

Im just gonna allow myself to yap about supernatural and see where destiny takes me. SIDENOTE IF U WANNA TALK ABOUT THIS WITH ME LITERALLY PLEASE I WANT TO PLEASE INTERACT WITH ME.

Okay first of all im starting with the start (s1+2). BEST LIGHTING TO MOOD EVER EVER EVER. Like you want dark scary monsters??? ITS THERE. I remember there being a reason they changed the lighting (smugly: yes i listen to the podcast) but i CANT REMEMBER. The characterisation of the macho eldest son coded scared eldest daughter Dean is unreal and parallel in epicness to repressed queer allegory something is inherently wrong with him little brother. The brief moments of emotional vulnerability. Dont get me STARTED on Dean's monologue in the s2 finale i'll start crying. It's crazy how rude john is to Dean like excuse me he raised your kid and now ur bitching about him? Try saying thank you for once. I think the only reason john actually said im proud of you was because he realised when azazel said it dean was like "ur not my dad" and to john it was a little "oh shit" moment. Sam has every right to be angry but every time he gets angry at dean something in me shatters a little because deans trying so hard for himself and sam and sam doesnt know who or how to lash out (emotional dysregulation baybee) so aims for deans jugular like nooo honeyyyy noooooo. This era was the best sam in my opinion.

Rest of the show down here:

Onto S3-5. Cant remember jack about season 3. Season 4 CASTIEL MY BELOVED MY LIGHT MY LIFE MY REASON FOR LIVING. Absolutely loved everything about Weird Cas and i wanted more of him why did they have to domesticate him. His and Deans dynamic was impeccable and yk something??? I wanted to see Dean in hell torturing people i wanted to see it on his face how much he hated that he enjoyed it and i wanted to see Cas' face at watching the righteous man lose. Like the best we got was Yellow Fever GOD I LOVED THAT bit when he was hallucinating the book and it said "you gonna cry?" Like so many people think thats a funny episode but it makes me so sad because he is DYING and from such a young age hes been told to stow it away, lock it down to the point hes HALLUCINATING IT. Cas falling for dean. Im sorry i just. They are the best love story. LUCIFER. He was scarier back then, but i do love later seasons lucy too. Something about the peeling skin and the "we will always end up right here" just slapped. ENDVERSE EPSIODE god so good can we just take a moment to think about it. Okay cool thanks okay. Demon blood Sam arc was fun but had unfulfilled potential. Cant give you specifcs rn its late and my brain needs to get this all out so if you know you know. The whole meta stuff with Chuck was eh until he was confirmed as god and then i was like duuude the faint strings of marionettes are glistening in the sunrise like how do we know --- im getting ahead of myself.

S6-11. I know, its a big chunk. But basically the whole thing could be renamed "Crowley's unrequited love story". Cas and crowley were the best duo i almost forgot like they are genuinely so funny together and i bet it would be great to be tortured by them UMM THE BETRAYAL i honestly loved Cas' episode the only thing i didn't like was how the reveal itself was done like... Idk just a bit... Kryptonite???? Anywho i Loved the tension between Dean and Cas DEAN LOOKED BACK. Um leviathans were my favourite monster but they became so dumbbbb after washing up liquid killed them. BOBBYS EPISODE ALWAYS MAKES ME SOB MY EYES OUT "i raised two boys and they became heroes" allow me to DIE. Also damn impressed a shot to the head didnt take him down but it was lovely to see Deans first world, first solid rock properly crumble around him (forgetting john okay he wasnt a healthy rock) . PURGATORY DEAN JDJSJDJDJD kill me please his fight or flight mode was SO. So sad we didnt get more of purgatory like i would pay to see more i would kill probably but we'll overlook that. Benny my beloved. They definitely all got together Cas included like who wouldnt at that point. Smth i didnt like is how wheneer they went back to purgatory, unlike how dean described it "360 battle 24/7" or some shit like that it was EMPTY. Like please,, i know the plot needs convenience BUT PURGATORY ISNT SUPPOSED TO BE CONVENIENT. But dean recrafting his own memories to make himself believe that he failed to save Cas rather than what he perceived as Cas giving up on him- hang on i dropped my jaw somewhere, gimme a sec i need to go find it-- LIKE. HHHH. The whole mind control shit going on with Cas because his ties to Dean had been severed (saw a post about that and loved it but cant rmb it) and HIM BEING THE ONE TO BREAK IT. The crypt scene mmmm i love. Want more. Mark of Cain dean was literally my favourite. A violent, mentally unstable man who also has bad mental health and is often covered in blood? Yes pls. Cas being with him every step of the way. I havent mentioned Sam in a while. Hes just kind of been there. Hate that he slowly became 2D. Far away in the background hes got his worried expression and is rocking, saying "Dean? Dean? Cas? Jack? Dean?" Like writers why did u strip his personality except for worry. Do Not get me started on the whole Amelia thing ill stab someone. But yeah cas saying he'll watch dean murder the world is my universe :). If someone said that to me id say "omg really?" And develop a huge fat crush (somehow). CHARLIE DYING WAS AN ABOMINATION When they brought back Eileen why not charlie like. Dont bring characters back at this point because theres all sorts of issues grr. Amara was cool af but i didnt like the whole amara x dean stuff because it was just weird. Luciferrrrr hes so girlypop i love him DEAN DIDNT KNOW IT WASNT CAS but thats only because lucy purposefully wore less clothes around him to distract him.

S12-14. Im running out of steam. MARYYY. It hurt to see Sam get along with Mary becsuse he never knew her as anything else while all dean wanted was a mom and that wasnt who she really was anymore. He loved her so much but couldnt break through that barrier of "it wasnt the perfect marriage until after she died" vibes. God that scene in s5 where its suggested dean saw +/ smelled what happened to Mary and he was literally backing himself into a corner BROKE me. Havent mentioned the Wayward sisters but please know they are so important to me they are my everything. Jack is also. Loved Kelly, very sad she had to die. Wanted Jack to be a baby but thats not good for television is it. But i love Jack so much hes such a sweetie who can kill with a thought. Alternate universe michael and Michael!Dean was epic af but michael dying like that was so anticlimactic gonna be honest i think they were just reaching for ways to lose Jacks soul. Garth GARTH!!! Hes so cute. I loved all those "hand recorded" episodes btw like ghostfacers and that one teen wolf type stuff. Dean hiding in his room is so me. Free Will Theory is so fucked up at this point ur sat there saying gods been pulling the strings this whole time and i supposed to be okay with it?? I so get why deans angry but i definitely think thats something Chuck emphasised (crappy excuse for crappy writing) to an extreme level because WHAT. Like dude. I cant even describe how out of character he felt at some times.

S15. Currently rewatching and cant rmb much of it. 3 characters dead in the first 3 episodes. They either kill off all side characters or we dont hear from them at all to tie up or shove away loose ends. I cant even talk abiut the finale please i cant rn im way too tired. It straight up didnt need to exist, it could've only been 19 eps. Cas. Castiel. He did want you my darling.

[soopest]

SO GUYS. I FINISHED III

GOD DAMN DO I HAVE THOUGHTS GUYS. but i'll just cover things i think are relevant to the doodles i made afterwards. if you have any questions on my thoughts on things i wouldn't be impartial to asks or replies to the post :3 i just need to rant for a minute im so mentally ill please

knife is only there because my friend watched ii s2 and he LOVES knife and i was like. word. hes awesome so i drew knife for him

HOOO BOY OKAY nickel and balloon. it was a bumpy ride fellas. going immediately from s2 where nickel was kinda a POS to s3 where they suddenly became acquaintances was a little weird to me. (especially in that one episode where silver & candle interrogate nickel about baseball. no suitcase mention?? huh???) but it was cool to see their journey! the buddy-buddy thing seemed weird throughout earlier episodes because in s2 balloon and nickel kinda hated each other's guts so i'm glad that was covered in a later episode and that their friendship was actually solidified. BUT that doesn't leave nickel off the hook if he dont march his ass up to suitcase and say sorry the minute they go back to season 2 i'm gonna have a WORD with that boy

BOT!!! OH BABY BOT they are SO adorable and i loved the reveal that they were a robot! i was so mystified on how bow was magically alive at the beginning and seeing that it was just a product of tt and fan's grief was very heartbreaking... but seeing bot evolve into their own person was genuinely so so so beautiful and the representation for queer folks is done very gracefully and it's very wholesome. seriously im not even trans and i was tearing up like a little bitch y'all. fan and test tube are the parents ever it's so cute and they are the cutest fam ever

silver spoon and candle.... hrrrmmm you are certainly funny little guys.... i would like to put you in a jar and study you.... their sudden intense craving for winning was a little jarring but their dynamic is funny. i didn't like silver much at first but he def grew on me especially in the finals, and candle's friendship with yinyang was really cute too (still bawling he got out i really grew to love him.) AND dont think i didnt see ur blushing in ep 17 silver. im onto you

i already covered bot but i just needed to say their friendship with painty is the BEST THING and for some reason painty just stating they were nonbinary made me unnecessarily happy like YES KING (NONGENDERED) GO LIVE UR TRUTH WE LOVE YOU

cabby... oh you are an interesting little gal. i saw her design before ever watching iii and i was like wow! what a critter! but i'll be so honest at first i didn't like her because her information obsessed demeanor seemed very cold and calculating to me (and i'm so biased for fan and tt so when she got them out i was like. Girl.) but now that i understand her whole character arc, how she learned that its not always about the "facts" and how to lean on people, it was really heartwarming and shes rly grown on me. im a cabby appreciator

blueberry's whole fiasco was interesting. errrrrm u tried buddy that's all i gotta say. respect the hustle man

AND FLOORY IS THERE TOO i love him he's in the club of my favorite brits he's a silly guy

okay. if you read this far i'm so proud of you. also the whiteboard doodle was before i finished the series LMAOOOO um hope u enjoy that. thanks for reading my insane ramblings it might happen again i am not sorry

[domain-of-sentience]

ch 38 ramblings

in which this chapter managed to make me give a shit about every character involved which was completely unprecedented. but also what the fuck just happened

also filled with susannah feelings, damn.... truly a girlfailure who graduated to girlwinner

anyway this chapter started off pretty strong (esp with that sage fight) but i was pretty paranoid that they would make seele pull a kiana for bubble universe(s) #547887648 which was the only thing i didn't really care much for in this chapter. i guess it's bc all they've interacted with is faceless npcs and vita, but vita isn't a native so......

at least there was plenty of gay shit

side note, i was curious about the two new mobs: white sword of damocles and black wine of theramenes. the sword of damocles is a famous symbol but i couldn't figure out the symbolic significance of "wine of theramenes," which doesn't seem to be a thing? and i don't see any parallels between theramenes and the sage other than "figure centered between two sides (worlds)" idfk...

this was one of my fave moments in the chapter bc you very rarely see a "smart" character fuck things up royally and also try amend them, by a former antagonist no less. honestly i did not care much about misteln initially but they managed to humanize her (and prometheus) throughout this whole ordeal so that's cool

y'know she didn't have to defend fuhua here but she did anyway hehe 😳

also i noticed they modeled the shark teeth for niggurath which is kinda funny considering they were lazy enough to reuse hua's model and face, and this shit would be too hard to see on a phone.. but now i wish they would give hos shark teeth too 😔

Yay ❤️

i saw this a long while ago too but i still don't know what to make of it other than some potential space exploration arc

WHICH reminds me i'm glad they delved into the sky people a bit. sorry i cba to read the manga

this whole segment hurted ☺️ but it also reminded me of my friend's super good and famous sentihua fic. let it be known that she tackled this concept first 🫡

THANK You kira i wish i could beat this into the heads of people so they stop applying human rules to her. i forgor the timeline already but just because she came into existence a few years ago doesn't mean she's a literal baby-brained minor 🤓🤓 by that logic i would have to revoke your license to talk about misteln milkies or w/e

okay that was my 532327th rant on that topic moving on

and despite being inhuman she has plenty of empathy for people, chad moment

umm i stopped taking screenshots here but I LOVE SUSANNAH NOW.... like i actually teared up when she was so frustrated with herself but she pulled herself up by da bootstraps and ran that marathon against all odds. she's an S-rank valkyrie in my heart okay 🥺🥺🥺

also rip vita but i know this isn't the last of u. still dunno what's going on with her

i give this chapter a rating of sussy vita/10 not quite a steel chair moment but was quite close

[suffarustuffaru]

Reading your tags about how people miss the very obvious "there's some fucked up shit boiling underneath" regarding Otto, just gave me a sudden realization. Otto is the only character I know in fiction where they act all innocent and drive up the "clumsy", "just in the side-lines" and "straight-man (heh)" persona. When. Like no one's in the EMT camp is buying it. They know he's way more capable than he let's on. Meanwhile, the tomfoolery is completely brought on by the Western audience.

Like Otto is failing miserably to make other characters believe that he's not up to mischief, Roswaal even thinks it can bring his downfall. But the audience, who even sometimes *sees* his fucked up thought process, is buying it.

*head in hands*

no u bring up so many good points bc ive been really thinking about this for a while T^T its such an interesting phenomenon in the difference in perception otto has between the japanese speaking half of the fandom vs the english speaking half which can be explained by—yeah. media illiteracy mainly. im also putting my head in my hands anon T^T

because—okay sorry wkdndn im gonna get into meta again but hear me out bc this pattern of the fandom underestimating otto is interesting bc i kind of sort of i cracked the code maybe??? o.o i think the nature of otto is a character is that youre SUPPOSED to underestimate him at first, just like what happens sometimes in universe. i mean wayyy back then i definitely wasnt expecting him to get more depth added to him in arc 4–which was a pleasant surprise—which is also the reaction the vast majority of people have to reading/watching arc 4, along with the other vast majority reaction which is being a bit endeared to ottosubas friendship and respecting otto for being a good friend. and then its easy to underestimate otto bc of 1. all the chaos going on in rezero at any given moment and 2. hes almost always overshadowed by other characters doing worse shit or being more insane than he is and 3. otto of course damn well knows hes easy to underestimate and counts on that. thats what he did against roswaal in arc 4. plus—i mean even aesthetics-wise hes 100% DESIGNED to be easy to underestimate. his outfit and physical features make him look either friendly or frazzled or soft. so i think that the point is that we were supposed to be kind of fooled—at first.

because yeah, we’re endeared to otto. we respect him for helping subaru the way he did. we think that hes a nice person and we now support his actions especially after feeling sympathetic towards him after learning his backstory. (or at least the average audience member will think this wjdndn.) but like—you dont even NEED to look at any side content at all for it to dawn on you that theres something Wrong. with him. like all you need is main route arcs 3-8 aka ottos entire screentime thus far, because at arc 4 its so easy to overlook otto unless youre thinking a bit deeper (for example—he gets violent with subaru. like yeah its entertaining, its played for laughs a bit, yeah subaru needed to be snapped out of his own head, but was it 100% necessary??? why did otto have this response??? bc if you just look at the main timeline otto really decided to beat up subaru first. and bc this tendency is now Less Funny in arc 8).

but even if youre just looking at rezero face value, when you get to arc 5 its starting to get even more clear that ottos weird in the head. like we already saw him being very good at scheming and planning in arc 4–in arc 5, we find out about otto hiding the tome for a year. we find out WHY hes been hiding the tome for a year. the tome then leads the witch cult into priestella, so like—in the sense, otto is RESPONSIBLE for arc 5. but theres STILL a tendency sometimes for the audience to continue underestimating him even though by this point we’re getting more clues and many characters around otto, like you said anon, KNOW hes very capable. i keep wondering why this is, but arc 5 is, again, FULL of chaos and different storylines happening at once, so its so easy to almost kind of forget otto there in the background until he occasionally pops up again. plus otto serves an additional role as comedic relief sometimes—he spends all of arc 5 being bitchy and whiny (i say this affectionately HAH) about his camp being full of disasters, for example, so i think the natural response from the audience tends to be “aw otto!! what a silly guy!!” sometimes. you know? so its like. i think at this point some people tend to be like “yeah fair that otto was wary of roswaal and thats why he saved the tome…. anyway ooooh whats going on with these other plot points” wobsbss. its so fascinating bc—ok this might be my own personal experience but anyone reading this pls tell me if you agree or not—i dont think ive seen a lot of people actually even MENTION otto bringing the tome into priestella attracting witch cultists. and the english speaking fandom LOVES to go into certain characters’ wrongdoings so why gloss over otto????

the only explanation i have for this is that from arcs 3-4 underestimating otto is. kind of the point of his character UNTIL you get to arc 5 and the clues in the main story start seeping in even more. and also the western audience DOES have media illiteracy a lot. theres that too. just look at rezero content on youtube or reddit or fanfic sites or other things of that sort T^T but no yeah i think ottos nature as a character exacerbates it. youre supposed to start asking questions about him. youre supposed to start connecting the dots and then SUDDENLY its now EXTREMELY obvious in arc 7-8 and even while theres so much chaos going on its basically shoved in your face. arc 7-8 is just delivering on all the leadup that was arcs 3-5.

and i think that youve gotta be media illiterate for sure to NOT get that otto is not squeaky clean and innocent BY ARC 8. i think that ottos the deconstruction of the loyal best friend trope, and also a mirror into what subaru couldve been like if he decided to be more ruthless instead of jumping right to forgiveness and saving everyone, except sometimes that flies right over the audience’s head wkdndnd. it confuses me bc ive seen some people completely miss the point or completely agree with otto and overlook the Bad Parts of it or, you know, STILL think ottos perfectly sane—like T^T please.

and yeah so back to what you said about otto Not being underestimated In Universe—its such an interesting detail bc hes ALWAYS been simultaneously pathetic and Very Competent wjdndnd. but yeah no all of his friends have seen various hints and clues and evidence of what hes capable of. like even though he hid the tome from them successfully and even though hes hiding info now its INEVITABLE that its gonna blow up in his face one day. like you got characters like garfiel who literally saw otto punch the wall and break his hand in an unhinged fit of rage, julius who got snapped at by otto and while julius is a Bit naive definitely knows somethings off there, anastasia whos smart as hell and definitely knows not to underestimate otto, and roswaal who, like you said anon, literally went out of his way to stop otto from breaking his hand in another unhinged fit of rage and warned otto that he will literally be destroying himself if he keeps going on like this. its this fascinating dichotomy bc otto is NOT fooling anyone around him but at the same time his current schemes are mostly unnoticed—for now—which yeah i havent seen that in a lot of media!!! its an interesting balancing act bc people around him realistically know hes competent after seeing the Proof of that for the past couple arcs, but otto is still finding ways to try and Win…

which—again, the anger and violence is an extension of arc 4 otto!! this is the same guy!! hes always been like this!! ottos kind of stayed the same, deep down, this whole time and as an audience its ONLY shoved in our face with a big gigantic spotlight on it FOUR ARCS LATER, but it was hinted to all this time. and like you said anon—we LITERALLY see ottos fucked up thought processes. literally what sane person thinks any of that shit. its spelled right out for the reader HAH T^T which—yeah. media illiteracy…. and also this whole ask was a longer way of just saying that otto is VERY easy to see at surface level if youre media illiterate. but at the same time it should be very easy to figure out otto is A Bit Fucked Up bc tappei underlines it in bright red print!!! i think people sometimes just hang onto soft awkward silly otto and forget about the rest T^T either that or they dont think he cares about subaru at all. which. that phenomenon of thinking characters that do care about subaru Dont Care is also interesting to me bc why????? we’re at arc 8 and you STILL dont get it??? o.ooooo

but yeah apart from that….. i said this earlier but yeah sometimes some people agree with ottos realism in arc 8 which is. understandable, but the whole point is that he is EXTREME. with it. hes Not in the right here, but the same crowd that wants wanton revenge in rezero is gonna agree with that kind of stuff T^T ottos been lurking in the background so much so that tappei made it meta by doing the whole “walking in darkness” part of his character, so i guess people just. dont see ottos ACTUAL worst traits and instead think he would ditch subaru at the first opportunity or something. but at the point we are now, arc 8 ottos problem isnt that hed ditch subaru. his problem is that he would sacrifice the world for subaru. his problem is that he gets extremely angry at subaru for trying to do good. his problem is that hes trying to micromanage everything around him and is willing to sacrifice anything necessary to get what he wants. but sometimes people dont get that bc otto doesnt look sound or seem like a character thatd do that. the Underestimation part of his character is doing too well on. certain audiences. please T^T the soft and awkward and silly parts ARE part of his character just like all the Darker parts are!!!

additionally im also wondering if western audience perception of otto is also clouded by the fact that otto looks and sounds more feminine / androgynous and he doesnt have the appeal of Overt Power either……. he cant Really be waifu-ified… and he cant be used as a weird self insert like subaru…. and you Have to look at him closer to understand him…. and for some reason people dont tend to hate on him so aggressively, if anything people cant even see his actual canonical flaws half the time wkdndn so if youre not paying attention otto CANT be aggressively hated on bc theres nothing there if ur not looking at it….. and if youre not paying attention otto seems more “boring” compared to the others…… (not that people arent allowed to not have otto as a favorite character bc thats totally fair but im talking about the tendency to think hes Saner than he actually is.) but yeah these are just my guesses. i have no clue the western fandom is a little T^T some people unfortunately cannot read.

anyway. big thank you to the japanese fanbase for understanding ottos character more and making so much wonderful fancontent for him T^T also i think that we as a collective fanbase should stop underestimating otto in general bc its exactly what he wouldnt want and i think itd be really hilarious. <3333 make him explode with rage please

[tableintheteacherslounge]

Abbott Elementary S03E07 thoughts

Melissa having a spare room baring in mind we’ve seen her house feels fake sorry - How will she have a room mate but noone look at her pictures and keep control of her kitchen. I get its gonna be for plot but i don’t buy it

I’m w ava that’s a woman who just found out she’s not pregnant - that’s a woman who’s been successfully slutting it up (how’s she gonna slut it up with a roommate)

Omg protective barb 🥺 (ALSO BARBS RIGHT BC MEL WOULDNT GIVE OUT HER ADDRESS WILLINGLY)

AS SOON AS SHE SAID NERD I THOUGHT JACOB

“I know its gods will but hes gotten awfully creative” 😭😭😭😭😭

I love it when Mr johnson lore gets unlocked

Manny and the beard whew 😮‍💨 I was literally wondering where he was so I’m glad they’re using him again

Janine ur SO SMART this is such a good idea and not like a janine unnecessarily fixing a problem like an actual good idea- good job babygirl

Not ava spilling the tea to the whole room

Ponytail melissa at home is so personal to me, I love that this continues from s2, this is just who she is, she throws her hair up when she’s at home. I like that she’s wearing the eagles hoodie we’ve seen before too. Love the hair, makeup & costume details on this show

“I only know how to cook for 12” 😭

Finally mel talking about her breakup! Damn maybe it really was “im not bringing this to school” this whole time

Also Gary being a dead ringer for her dad?? I’m not saying my headcanons are more correct than the show but I disagree with this statement. Gary is not schemmenti coded.

Omg the jacob melissa work momming work sonning ive been dreaming of

“And dont forget theres a 3 booked limit 😒” barb is PISSED and i LOVE IT

“Oh i know what a google doctor is 😤”

Barb really is the best character on tv im sorry noone can do it like sheryl lee ralph like they just cant Shes everything

Janine forgetting the key term (pottery wheel) in her analogy she is so me

“Jacob if u dont like my ziti just say so and i will heave myself out that window” 😭😭

“I went to find mr johnson but he was still crying” NO 😭💔 hes just a sensitive guy 😔

“Mrs howard i blew down the house” 🥺🤏🏻 I love the kids being so central in this ep, I’ve missed that recently, and the kindergarteners are soooo cute

“🐷 I am a pig 🐺 i am a wolf 😄 and im a librarian who thinks she can just change everything around here 👋” IJBOL no please give sheryl another emmy I beg

“This programme is more of a distraction than an improvement” that’s teaaa actually. Thats so often what councils etc do, distract with new flashy things rather than fix the real problems. Even though in this case it’s well meaning it does make u think how big a priority should the library actually be? But actually children reading is super important and what did they say last season? The librarian was an alexa in glasses? 🤣

“You okay? You look like raven having a vision” 😭 you don’t understand how often i say this

I have thoughts on Barbara’s intentions and my instinct is gregory needs to keep her name out his mouth. I do think it’s really important that Janine stood up to Barbara, just maybe gregory made barbara seem worse than she was

“It’s been a rough week I could use the pick me up” i just love mr johnson

My immediate reaction was this one of my favourite episodes of the season - lots of excellent Barb moments, the kids, more mr johnson, story arcs I enjoyed and felt completed.

Janine standing up to Barbara was a really big deal for her considering her hatred of conflict and worship of barbara as a mother figure. It made me really proud to see how far janine has come.

But the longer since watching the less I like it. And it’s two main things:

- the jacob melissa room mate situation feels like jumping the shark for plots sake and not something realistic for those characters. So as much as I enjoy them and their dynamic and their growth it just feels fake.

- I dont care about the librarian. The set up feels like she could stick around and I just don’t care for new characters, I like my main people. (But then the same apprehension was had w the district people and they’ve not seemed to be around much).

I do still really like this ep and it definitely ranks highly in the season, just idk, some eps I enjoy more over time but this has made me feel more confused as to what will happen next I guess.

[girlbossblackbeard]

brain thoughts whilst watching s2 ep1

if u saw me post some of these as their own posts no u didnt

-y'all are so smart for predicting that the steard HAD to be a fantasy/dream sequence

-"I never made you leave him. You did that yourself" *stede kills him* hmmmmmm definitely not a metaphor for stede trying to kill/silence the part(s) of himself and his actions that he hates and is ashamed of and that story arc DEFINITELY isn't a parallel to Ed's comatose dream journey we see later in ep 3 when he confronts Hornigold's ghost only to realize that it's actually a manifestation of Ed's self-hatred. this is just a silly little pirate show with silly little fake sword battles that's all :)

-Okay. We know this is a fantasy. We know this is a silly little pirate show. We know it's a haha funny comedy with two of the best comedic actors the world has ever seen in the starring roles. And Yet. The ungodly heartbreaking "Ed" that Stede yells the second time just before running to him is so gut-wrenching, so full of desperation, so overwhelmingly breathtaking in the undeniable agony laced throughout that one syllable, I wish god had put me in Izzy's place instead bc it would've been a thousand times less painful to literally be stabbed directly through my abdomen than to hear Stede say Ed's name like that while tears well up in his eyes

-watching stede and ed run like that gave me the ick im so sorry yall i wanted to be brave about it but i just cant be

-okay but WHY am i blushing when Ed looks directly into the camera for his lines in the fantasy sequence.........how in the hell did stede not spontaneously combust the second those stupidly big brown beautiful doe eyes made eye contact with him

-EVERYONE SHUT UP STEDE'S FACE AFTER HE AND ED COLLIDE AND ARE ROLLING AROUND IN THE SAND IS A LOOK OF ABJECT DESPERATION AND AGONY WHAT THE FUCK HE MISSES HIM SO MUCH AND FEELS SO GUILTY HE CAN'T EVEN BE TRULY HAPPY IN HIS OWN DREAMS

-"I knew you'd find me, babe" "You're not mad?" "I knew you'd find me, love" "So, we're good? About everything?" "Fuckin' love the beard, mate" Even in Stede's dreams Ed does not confirm that everything is alright between them. I'm starting to think this dream sequence is actually a nightmare sequence because he gets confronted by his fears by not only Izzy throwing it in his face that Stede left Ed of his own volition but Ed steadfastly refusing to answer Stede's questions about their relationship being okay

-in stede's dream ed has his full beard because that's a marker of the last time/era stede remembers being truly happy with ed before he ruined everything at the naval academy and broke ed's heart so severely it turned him into the very monster the rest of the world always wrongly made him out to be

-"can't be worse than you moaning 'ed, oh ed' all night long" black pete my beloved

-GOD stede's hair and scruff look so GOOD on him what the HELL

-WEE JOHN'S HAIR AND EYELINER AND PIERCINGS AND EVERYTHING LOOK SO GOD DAMN GOOD HE LOOKS SO GOD DAMN GOOD

-stede's silly little thumbs up to the swede as jackie makes him throw that ass in a circle reblog if u agree

-stede talking to the patrons at spanish jackie's is just a typical customer interaction working in the service industry

-ayo i think spanish jackie's is serving food now?? guess that overhead issue she mentioned to geraldo in s1 is no longer an issue bc that place is popping

-if ricky was able to clock stede immediately and doesn't think he's dead even after his very public and very loony-tunes-esque death then how many people in barbados actually believe he's dead??? does the whole town just kinda know he faked it and have accepted that he abandoned his family, became a pirate, came back home, drunkenly bisexualized his ex(??) wife's new boo thang, then faked his death so he could abandon his family again???

-"Demon? I'm the fuckin' Devil" I can't accurately put into words how hearing this line so softly spoken paired with seeing Ed's beautiful kohl-covered eyes as the guitar and xylophone from the song kicks in has affected me but I can say with 100% certainty it is the root cause of my new mental illness, whatever that may be

-fuck OFFFFFFFFFFFF EVERYONE LOOKS SO FUCKING GOOD ON THE KRAKEN CREW IT'S ACTUALLY INSANE

-LOVE LOVE LOVE the freeze frame with the day of the week overlay it is SUCH a visually excellent component of those scenes

-i know we're all supposed to be very sad and upset at ed shooting a guy (that was BASICALLY ALREADY DEAD) but for the love of GOD that man has never served so much princess babygirl gender in one cocking and shooting of a gun as he did in that scene

-JUST REALIZED ED IS WEARING A LONG TRENCH COAT JACKET THING IN THE SHOOTING SCENE AND THAT'S WHY THAT SHOT IS AFFECTING ME SO MUCH IT LOOKS LIKE A DRESS

-the immediate stoppage of the music with the smash cut to the crew trying to process the trauma that they've been through is so fucking funny, the editors have absolutely mastered the science of comedic timing

-"i dunno, i've never really been to a wedding before so i've got nothing to compare it to really" archie my beloved

-"i've never seen blackbeard like this. he didn't even bat an eye when ivan got killed" i don't have the energy to really put all my thoughts about this into coherent sentences, so all i'll say is that i'm really disappointed this is how they chose to deal with ivan not being in the show anymore. idk what went down with guz khan and whomever made the decision not to invite him back for s2, but at the very least i feel like they could've either written him off in some other way or simply not mentioned him at all. killing him off in one sentence that gets immediately interrupted with a comedic line just doesn't sit right with me

-"i lock the box and then i don't open it again" frenchie just like me fr

-i know stede did NOT just say "he's just blowing off some steam" in response to olu pointing out that ed has been committing so many crimes they literally had to start listing them on the back of the wanted posters. it's giving "girlfriend whose boyfriend acts like a massive asshole to her in front of her friends but she tells them he's actually soooo sweet when it's just the two of them together"

-"well, we can't turn up with any old ship. we need to look good" stede you literally haven't touched clean water in who knows how long, i think pulling up to the revenge in a dope af whip might need to be a little lower on your priority list babe

-the way ed gently strokes that cake topper before stuffing it in his jacket right above his heart like he used to do with the red silk bc stede's entire being eclipsed the silk when he became ed's whole heart. cinema

-i said it before and i'll say it again: izzy looks like a sad clown with his rudy giulliani lookin ass hair dye dripping down his face and the black panda rings around his eyes as a sad excuse for war paint

-when watching the first ep for the first time, i found myself becoming extremely uncomfortable and even anxious at times watching ed doing drugs and having a very public spiral that he takes out on the crew. massive props to taika and the writers for being able to make me genuinely a little terrified of Blackbeard in those scenes

-conathan o'neill. words cannot describe how enrapturing every single second of screentime you get is. every pixel of your performance is pure perfection. every tear that glimmers in your eye but refuses to fall is gloriously gut-wrenching. every laugh out of izzy's mouth is uniquely, ineffably uncomfortable in ways that should be futilely studied by science. also u look really hot when you're leaning on the rigging in the storm

-the swede shaking his head "no" at stede trying to warn him not to talk back to jackie when she steals their savings. he was trying to help his friends :(

-"i know that guy, we had breakfast together :D" "you'll be having a lot of breakfasts together" "oh okay :))" the swede my beloved

-buttons opening his mouth when it starts raining. buttons my beloved

-"im afraid your...your life is better without me" is SUCH an amazing line read from rhys, the way stede's voice hitches and you can hear the tears in his throat as he tries to voice his deepest fears is so incredibly moving which is why i got both the ick and medically diagnosed whiplash when he busts out that extraordinarily cringe ed voice to RESPOND TO HIMSELF. idk what's wrong with that man but it's not in ye olde DSM-5

-the fact that, once again, in stede's own imagination ed is not refuting stede's fears but is rather confirming them in the case of him talking to ed's wanted poster about how he's worried ed's life is better without stede in it and stede responding "could be...could be mate" in "ed's" voice is actually really desperately tragic and heartbreaking when you think about it ! :)

-"i know everything about you" i truly hate to say it but SOME of us, and im not saying who (me), are unfortunately extremely ricky-coded. it's giving "hi kevin" in spongebob

-"i, too, am a child of wealth" STOOOOPPPPPPPP I WAS ABSOLUTELY HOWLING AT THIS LINE IDK WHAT THE WRITERS ARE GETTING PAID BUT IT NEEDS TO BE ON PAR WITH WHATEVER RICHES RICKY WAS CLEARLY STRUGGLING WITH AS A CHILD VICTIM OF TOO MUCH MONEY

-someone smarter than me should do an analysis on how quickly stede's attitude towards ricky flipped once ricky told stede he was his hero and the gentleman pirate saved his life and how stede maybe saw a lot of his past self in ricky and is intimately aware of how the mundanity of living a life that's been prescribed to you from birth with expectations you could never live up to can drive you to the edge unless you choose to do something drastic to change your situation and how stede already feels like such a failure because of both the situation with his family/old life AND with ed/his new life that he took the opportunity to be the kind of gentle guide he could've used when he was starting out in the same situation ricky is before stede met ed and started to learn the ropes more. so if ur reading this please get on that thx <3

"my time with jackie has been the happiest of my life. her love has helped me locate parts of myself i didn't even know existed" (his prostate) "and reclaim others that i had long missed" (his teeth and nails)

-"but...i owe you a life debt and i am bound to honor it" something something mary telling stede "we made a contract in front of god and i am bound to honor that" something something stede being told by multiple people he cares about that the only reason they're dealing with him is because of societal convention

-i was gonna start this post off with "sorry" but i actually will not be apologizing for the unabated foaming-at-the-mouth level of hedonistic intoxication i experience every time i look at ed in his warpaint. if you have any issues with this that's between u and god buddy

-"i have...love for you, edward" actually made me gasp so hard i choked

-"i heard that you think the vibe here on the ship is poisonous" ed said VIBE CHECK and then took izzy's leg

-fang whimpering is actually illegal

-ed asking blackbeard about the vibes on the ship was such an incredibly well done performance from taika because i was genuinely so uncomfortable watching that go down i almost had to look away

-frenchie shaking his head "no" at izzy after izzy yells at ed to stop with his insane blackbeard monologue about the vibes on the ship is such a tiny moment but speaks VOLUMES about how trauma-bonded that crew has become under the kraken's rule. frenchie doesn't want to see izzy get even more hurt than he already does on a daily basis but i think he also knows it's already too late

-god the way ed just casually turns away and shoots izzy the second he hears the first "st" syllable of stede's name is so chilling

>>>side note: does ed look away because he can't watch himself actually hurt izzy THAT badly? he later turns his back to izzy in the hopes izzy will shoot him and when he doesn't, ed leaves before izzy shoots himself

-izzy's resigned inhale and small smile before starting to say "your feelings for stede bonnet" is so unbelievably heartbreaking because he knows. he knows he's about to get majorly fucked up for what he's about to say but he's tired of everyone walking on delicate shards of glass around ed

-the fucking joke of "how are you so good at this" because he's literally doing the swedish massage. credit goes to my friend shane for realizing this right away when it would've taken me 20 rewatches to come close to getting it

-"I can't believe how well this is going" black pete my beloved

-"this is where you went wrong with the whole gentleman pirate thing. details like this are important to build a brand" she's an influencer

-"i cant believe you guys robbed jackie. wow. so bad" the swede my beloved

-wee john covering his nose as jackie says she's about to get more noses for her nose jar

-"aint you that soup bitch" "im the money bitch" well im gay and i want them both to step on me

-"it's okay sexy dutchman"

-ed crying on the bow of the ship is sooooooooooo insane to me like i keep getting reminded of the fact that he's literally been crying every single night for MONTHS over stede

-"never going back to land. we're gonna sail, rob, and raise hell forever and ever without end" "sounds like a plan" frenchie's face as he realizes he's probably gonna spend the rest of his life on that ship may have actually caused heart damage

-HI THE TRANSITION FROM ED SAYING "FUCK YOU STEDE BONNET" AND LOOKING AT THE MOON TO STEDE LOOKING AT THE SAME MOON AND SAYING "GOODNIGHT ED TEACH" SHOULD EITHER BE GIVEN AN OSCAR OR CODIFIED AS A VIOLATION OF THE GENEVA CONVENTION I JUST DON'T KNOW WHICH ONE YET

[stuck-in-the-ghost-zone]

blank check for ur gold morning thoughts/predictions/etc. how are we feeling about all of this. (& how do u think it's going to end?) <3333

HI. FORGOT I HAD THIS STILL. taking my allotted break time (just started arc 29 ouahg) to finally . answer this

god. what the fuck man. how the fuck am i supposed to put my gold morning thoughts into words. this is gonna be so stream of consciousness and not organized AT ALL sorry :] btw i love that its called gold morning for one. thats so fucked. for the record i still feel so fucking vindicated that i was right all along about scion being scary i will never come down from this high of being so correct about media !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i was actually just thinking abt this earlier i still think its so fucking crazy that. the slaughterhouse nine is like NOTHING now. all this time i had thought the apocalypse was gonna be some crazy rise to power for jack and instead hes just. fucking suffocating in some containment foam and his only meaningful contribution was saying some cryptic bullshit that set scion on a rampage. god. i have a lot of feelings abt that. and also the vague bonesaw redemption arc thats happening in the background (i dont want to call it that but also i cant think of the other word for that rn. only other word i can think of is domestication and thats not right either. you know what i mean)

uhhhhhhhhh okay predictions??? overall i do NOT expect worm to have a happy ending. i do still expect taylor to die at some point (shes gotten pretty fucking close a few times but god DAMN that girl is a cockroach (pun . intended)) i think a lot of people are gonna go out in a blaze of glory, specifically because that term has been used quite a few times recently... but i do think theyre going to succeed in either killing scion (probably more likely, we know the worms can be killed or. can at least DIE bc of his counterpart) or my insane person theory which is punting him back out into the cosmos and sending him to continue his cycle somewhere else. if that happens i think all the capes with (natural) powers will lose their powers, but the cauldron capes will still have theirs bc theyre like... artificial and it seemed like scion couldnt affect them as efficiently as he could capes with shards?????? idk. still DYING 2 know what happened to the corpse of the counterpart. potentially the way they send him away is by finding a way to revive it?? and then they can leave together. that seems way too happily ever after than what im expecting though. idk man im just. throwing wet pasta at the wall. if i say enough insane things perhaps i will be sort of kind of right and itll be really funny.

EXTREMELY excited bc like. i have 2 arcs left. i definitely wont finish it today like i was kind of hoping i would but im definitely gonna be. done with worm this week. what an insane thing to say. ive been reading this book since like. what. april? may?? i dont remember. either way holy shit good fucking book everyone read worm NOW. i was planning on drawing/writing some nhw this weekend but god damn i just got sucked into the worm fugue instead i NEED to know how this damn book ends dude.

[pookietsunoda]

(first of all sorry for the lack of punctuation)

okay i saw your post abt the zero effort of research or like knowledge of actual f1 in romance books and that fanfic writers should just write some original shit and post it and i do have to say i recently read these hockey books that were like written originally as original works on ao3 and then published and they focus massively more on the sport than other romance books which gloss it over with little to no understanding of what or who (as in like it barely registers that these characters are athletes ykwim) they’re actually talking about and i was so gassed and i read all of them in maybe a week and loved them but i kept seeing goodreads reviews complaining about the amount of hockey in it just saying it’s unnecessary and like takes away from the plot and it’s a romance book no one cares why is it there and i kind of realised damn yall don’t actually care do you, you just wanted to read it as a trope and tbh that’s why i think so many hockey romance books are collage hockey bc then u can kind of gloss it over more and moreover they can’t do that w f1 bc there’s no equivalent so they just gloss it over w bare minimum dts understanding and that’s why they’re all so bland and boring and unrealistic bc it’s just a romance book the f1 stuff is a trope, not actual imperative to the book or the characters they could still exists anywhere in any book with any plot

Hi anon! I do think this is very true-- there are a lot of romance readers who just want a silly good time and don't want to be bogged down with technical details. (Like if you buy a regency bodice ripper, you would probably be annoyed if you had to read 40 pages about British court politics before the smut.) And that's okay! I think for me the problem is not that fluffy sports/ f1 romances exist. It's more that 1) some of the stuff is just obviously inaccurate, to the point where it takes actual fans out of the immersion, and 2) there aren't really any other options.

On the first point, I don't need people to be going into the weeds about aerodynamics or focusing a ton on on track action in a romance read, but it does take actual fans out of the immersion if a romance book includes something about the sport that is just factually wrong and easily googleable. (Ex. the driver who gets a seat through a one off "test race" instead of going through the feeders.) It's totally possible to have some elements of realism while still being a lighthearted romance! Like, Legally Blonde still has some pretty accurate stuff about law school like the LSAT studying process and cold calling. The legal setting doesn't detract from the film and is actually essential to Elle's character arc and romance plot.

On the second point, there aren't a lot of fiction books about motorsport that I can find, especially not aimed at female readers. It would be like if the only films about being a lawyer were Hallmark movies about a city lawyer girl falling for a hunky farmer, and not more "serious" courtroom dramas or even comedy films that portray being a lawyer with some degree of accuracy. I don't necessarily begrudge people who just want light, fluffy sports romance, but I think that it is a disservice that people think that sports romances are incapable of being deeper or more about the actual sport.

[rivangel]

hi kane, hope you're doing well :3 for the aot ask game:

2. What is your favorite opening song (OP) from the series?

5. Favorite manga panel?

10. Favorite arc and why?

hiii :3 thx for the questions flo!!!

2: favorite OP

this is SO hard you have no idea :(((( EVERY single song is a masterpiece for me so that can’t go into my decision i mean it😭😭😭

OKAY in terms of the actual OP that plays before the episodes, it has to be Jiyuu no Tsubasa (from s1p2). it’s unbeatable in terms of presentation and animation for me.

in terms of the full song, i’m biased towards The Rumbling for SURE (my metalhead ass lol). but it’s neck and neck with My War.

5: favorite manga panel

answered :D

but i’m subjecting u to more.

speaks for itself?

sorry but this is at the top for me LOOK at them (never saw levi squad just hanging out much) (especially levi in his lil malewife outfit) (and oluo trying to imitate him)

10: favorite arc and why

all the hard choices😔

i know my least favorite one for sure and that’s the attack on trost arc😭it always has me so stressed on rewatches bc eren was either out of commission, dreaming, or out of control. (still 10/10 though) (like all of them).

my FAVORITE arc is clash of the titans (season 2). it’s shorter than most of the others but sets up just as many juicy mysteries as it answers

the action is sort of condensed down to pretty basic sequences (like erwin’s charge -> getting eren back + massacre -> getting titans thrown at them). BUT that’s what’s satisfying about it when the plot is SO fucking confusing. atp SO many characters know SO much shit that the survey corps/we don’t. so on top of the relationship between action and narrative, it’s captivating instead of frustrating because most of the main characters have no clue what’s going on either, and are just trying to stay alive.

EVERYTHING IS SO FRESH AND INTERESTING

you’re also on the edge of your seat the whole damn time while it’s not clear if wall rose is fucked or not.

and obviously this arc has the most iconic twist in the story.

(((the war on paradis arc is runner up, which goes from coming back from liberio to the end))))

[marsbotz]

hello I keep seeing u talk ab loving skybound but I'm curious as to why u love it, and would LOVE to read a super in-depth explanation bc im kinda a skybound notliker and ik uve changed my mind on certain thigns ab this show b4, and I was hoping u cld do it again !!! :DDD /gen

YEAH. OKAY !!! sorry this is super long and rambly i already had to rewrite it once cus tumblr ate it lol... and also sorry its all basically abt jay (running away embarrassed)

first of all let me say i do think skybound is a BAD season. having the characters suddenly all be sexist out of nowhere to drive plot is stupidddd and so is having a retcon ending that makes it all redundant except for Jaya Canon Now. i think thats mostly what makes the fandom not like it. BUT. i think its sooo interesting for like so many reasons also

i think s8 is considered the darkest season which is fair. but skybound also has a crazyyy amount of dark and DEEPLY interesting things it touches on. the ninja disappearing one by one. jays birth father being his favourite actor. jay torture. jaya actually being interesting!! lets talk abt these.

having the ninja slowly be cut out of the season is GREAT for not only building tension but also being able to more deeply build upon jay and nyas characters (and their relationship). the 22 min format means that some characters (like wu and kai) are gone for AGES. which is sad for kai fans but greatttt for the season. it rlly makes u feel their absence, and some of their disappearances are scary!! zane trying to outsmart nadakhan but realising too late hes been tricked... AHH!!!

if you compare this to how they did it in s12 its a lot more impactful as theres more time for the characters to... be gone. and the videogame nature rlly does take away a lot of the tension IMO. if jays mothers had been in prime empire like planned.... it would have been a GREAT parallel i think but as it is its just kind of odd. thats another convo tho lol (altho there issss the mention of jay being adopted at the end. very interesting [it goes nowhere])

i literally think abt jay adoption arc every god damn day of my life. ill try to explain this without getting too deep into my personal sicko hcs lol. first you get a rlly nice callback to s1 w jay being ashamed of his parents and living in a junkyard only to realise how litte he cares once theyre threatened. thennn you have the whole situation at cliffs house. jay finds out the man who abandoned him at birth (possibly? we dont know details) is the actor for fritz donnegan. the same character who jay imitated and aspired to be like. and then he realises his father felt the same admiration towards jay!! and they both never knew!!!

i think this twist is what makes a lot of jays behaviour in s6.... not excusable... but understandable. jay is shown to be insecure and have weird fucking ways of coping with this (lying. lying lying all the time) and so it kinda feels natural that his way of coping with this information would be to 1. hide the fact he made wishes 2. try to imitate his father through his book and 3. Never Speak Of This Again.

speaking of that lets talk about jay being tortured. can we talk about that?? they FUCKED him up. but the most important part out of allll of it is a character trait i rarely see ppl attribute to jay even though its like... pretty consistent for him. is his willpower!! hes able to endure days of torture to the point where he can barely walk and talk at the end of it just to stop nadakhan from gaining more power

nadakhan also directly points out jays insecurities and how they make him lie to his friends... and jays able to show some of his smarts thru trying to get flintlocke to stage a mutiny! honestly the whole episode is so damn interesting it makes me SEETHE its not more talked abt LOL

i wont get into my insanely complex jaya opinions rn but i will say s6 has one of the most interesting depictions of the ship to me. nya being reluctant to date jay due to being seen simply as his girlfriend is soooo interesting and fits well w her arc of not wanting to give up her own deal w sam x to become a ninja. its just a shame they had to retroactively make everyone misogynistic to do so lolol... and the ending w jays wish Potentially forcing them together is soooo odd and kinda goes what the rest of the season was setting up for them. THIS IS MAINLY why i think ppl hate this season. cus it sets up SOOO much cool stuff and then drops it all last second

i think the things that could have saved skybound from being so hated would be

1. do the same plotpoints w nya but dont drag the ninja AND DARETH into it ..... make them supportive of her!

2. makes jays final wish have some FUCKING consequence! you could do a LOT with how he worded it to twist it badly (im a nadakhan return truther for life)

3. not dropping every single intersting character trait ever. and also not dropping the GOD DAMN ADOPTION ARCCCCCC and also not revealing jay to be so crushingly insecure he physically cannot stop himself from lying to ppl and putting on a happy mask and then turn him into a one note comic relief character. [becoming a soulless husk]

LOL i realise this sounds now like i hate skybound I DONT i just think its very flawed. BUT thats whyyyy i love it... because its so interesting! its flawed in a way like "there is soooo much i cld do w this" and not like "i dont care about any of this its so bad". w ninjago my fav parts have always been the weird icky edgy parts that are almost too much for what it is... which is a childrens lego show. ik they cld never have done most of the interesting stuff i imagine coming out of skybound and thats ok! bc i get to think abt it evilly.

heres some assorted things i love and think are fun in skybound

kai and zane banter at the repo yard

ronin capturing the ninja!! specifically him shutting down zane from the inside is super scary and cool

NINJA IN PRISON!!!!! i almost threw up when they went to jail in crystallised its so fuckign fun. SKYBOUND 2!!!

zane playing chess against nadakahn. another scary zane moment

jay trusting only cole w the truth abt his wishes (HELL YES BROTHER)

clanceeeeee <3 him being like one sided friends w jay and standing up to nadakhan at the end of it all... wahhh

NINJA REPLACEMENTS. so fucking funny i love jay and his assortment of old guys And Skylor

everytime i watch it i cant stop thinking of this ytp and it makes me cry. its not even that funny i just have watched it like 50 times

its dungeon media. this is smth i made up and only i know abt . dont worry abt it but its true

ok my brain is mush HOPE THIS MAKES. some sort of sense . bascially trying to condense 6 years of Thoughts into coherent analysis is impossible for me LOL

[hannahssimblr]

Chapter Three (Part 2)

After lunch, Petra stops me in the shop. “Evie.” She says, giving me a big, soft hug. She is the type whose affection knows no limits, and I like that very much about her. “I was talking to Simon about you this morning, did he tell you I wanted to chat with you about something?”

“Yeah, he did actually.” I glance up and wave at Izzy as she disappears back into the studio, and then back at Petra who is pink cheeked and smiling excitedly, so I relax, knowing this is not about something I did wrong without ever realising. 

“He mentioned to me that you do window art? For shops and things?”

“Oh, well, I did one time.”

She purses her lips and gives me a little wink. “The correct answer is yes, my dear. When a client asks you if you can do something, you say yes.”

I grin. “Yes, Petra, I do window art.”

“Well that’s lucky, because…” She spins me around to face the large, ceiling to floor window at the front of the shop. “I’d like you to do something for me.”

“Oh!”

“Yes, oh! Oh how exciting!”

“What would you like me to do with it?”

She spreads her fingers and draws an arc in the air with her palms. “Mezzotint. I want everyone to know who we are. The little sign outside just isn’t really cutting it, and I’d like to do something pretty with the window. Maybe something about what we do, if it fits. You know, like, ‘crafts, prints, pottery’ if it will look good. I don’t know what will look good, I’m just the shopkeeper.”

I nod. “Yeah, I think I can do that.”

“Oh, that’d be fabulous.”

“For when?”

“By Friday?”

I think of the Christmas card deadline and feel myself start to sweat a little, but I remember what she told me about clients. “Yes.” I say definitively. “I’ll start tomorrow.”

“You’re too good.” She says, and by then I’m already halfway up the stairs with my mind set on those damn cards. I have serious work to do. 

After work I join Shane in the gym for our weekly weights sessions. I’m useless at them, and am convinced I must have been born without any upper body strength whatsoever because even lifting the tiniest weights in the stack makes my arms quiver. Standing next to Shane, whose biceps are the size of my head and whose weights make mine look like toys for children, is an exercise in humility. 

“Keep going.” He says as he senses my wavering. “Just a few more and then you can take a rest.”

“Ugh.” I grunt. “How many is a few?”

“A few.” He clarifies, and when I roll my eyes, he does too. “Okay, here, five… four… three… three and a half… two… two and three quarters…”

“Shane…”

He smirks. “Two, and One. Alright, you’re done.”

I toss the weights back onto the rack and shake out my arms. “Jesus.”

“You feel the burn?”

“Yeah and I’m going to feel it even more tomorrow when I’m trying to paint that bloody window.”

“You’ll be grand.”

I sigh and slump onto the floor while he continues to lift the twenty kilo ones like they’re almost nothing. I kick the toes of my shoes together thoughtfully while I watch him from behind, sweat staining his red t-shirt in a big U shape. “I’m going to a gig later on.” I say. 

“Yeah?”

“One of the girls I work with, Izzy, she’s a singer with a band and they’re doing some set in a bar at eight o’clock.”

“Ah, cool. I think I know of her. She’s ginger?”

“She’s ginger-ish” I smirk. “Do you think you’d want to come? I don’t know what kind of music it is or anything but it might be nice to like, do something together. You and Claire and me.”

“Don’t think so.” He says. “She’s coming down with a cold, feeling a bit under the weather so I was going to stay over at yours and look after her.”

“God, you’re so angelic. You’re probably going to catch that cold.”

“If she goes down, so do I.”

“You’re so sweet it makes me sick.”

He grins. “Sorry. Next time, maybe.”

“It’s okay.” I sigh. “I suppose I’ll just go alone then.”

“No harm.” He says. “It’s not as if you, like, go out that much anymore.” 

He doesn’t mean it rudely, I know, he’s just awkward, so I choose not to take offence, but I really am nervous now, about being left to flail on my own with my new workmates and Jen… and Jude. It all makes me feel a bit queasy and I start asking myself serious questions about what I was thinking when I invited him.

“I ran into Jude today.” I tell him. 

He glances over his shoulder in surprise. “Turner, like?”

“What other Jude would I mean?”

“Where?”

“He was outside a cafe in town. It was quite a surprise.”

“Hm.” He says. “I didn’t know he was home.”

“He says he’s around for the next week.”

Shane says nothing for a few curls, and then thoughtfully asks. “Were you like…” A pause. “Were you alright when you saw him?”

“Yeah I was fine. I think I’m probably over all that weird stuff from before now. He was with his girlfriend and everything, and I think it was good for me to actually, you know, like, see her in person. Do you know what I mean?”

His brow furrows. “Astrid?” 

“Yeah.”

“I thought they were broken up.”

My stomach does an involuntary flip. “Are you sure?  Because he introduced her as his girlfriend.”

“I dunno then, maybe they got back together or something.”

I sit up straighter. “You heard that they broke up though? Definitely? Or are you not sure?”

“No, definitely. He told me.”

“When did he tell you?”

Shane sighs and throws me an impatient look, because we both know I’m asking too many questions for a person who is supposedly over him. “Ages ago, Evie. I thought it was like a year ago, but you wouldn’t know with him, he’s always got some manic shit going on with some girl, I can never keep up with it.”

“Oh right.” I say. “He didn’t tell you they got back together? Cause he definitely said ‘girlfriend’.”

“So she must be his girlfriend then.”

“But you don’t know what happened?” “No, I don’t know.”

I sigh. “Men are so strange. How can you be someone’s friend and not know these kinds of things about each other? Do you never think to ask? Like what do you talk about when you’re together if you’re not talking about literally the most pivotal and important things in each other’s lives?”

He laughs and shakes his head. “What do you think we do? Lie on the bed giggling, kicking our legs and painting each other’s nails? Gossiping about girls we fancy and all?”

“No.” I huff. “Just if my friend broke up with someone and then just got back together again I’d probably want to know what happened.”

“Is it really that important, like?”

“No.”

“Well then. I don’t know what happened. Let’s move on.”

“Ugh!” I stand up and start making headway towards the dressing room. “Hey!” He calls out. “Get back here, you still have two more reps.”

“Oh, kill me.” I mutter, and stomp back to snatch the weights back off the rack again. “When I get fired for being unable to hold a marker tomorrow I’m blaming you.”

“You’ll thank me for your toned arms eventually.”

“Yeah. Piss off.” I stick my tongue out at him and he just lowers his head, shoulders shaking gently with laughter as I start up another tortuous rep.

Beginning // Prev // Next

[theriverbeyond]

Does Harrow care about Alecto more than Gideon? Because after Alecto's oath to Harrow, I'm really thinking of Gideon permanently dying in the next book.

cracks knuckles okay i am so sorry for sitting on this ask for like 2 weeks..... anon i hope u still see this:

first off i highly recommend @gideonisms excellent post here that discusses this question and goes really in depth on Harrow's characterization in NtN and how it seems... a little off! of where we were with her at the end of HtN.

to directly answer your ask, i frankly don't know. at the end of HtN, i would have said no very firmly -- it seems like, at the end of HtN, Harrow has somewhat "replaced" her love and devotion for The Body with her love and devotion towards Gideon. she lobotomizes herself, she weeps, and also as soon as she remembers Gideon exists and realizes she still has a chance at preserving her soul, every single cell in her massive brain is focused only on Gideon and how to save her and keep her.

but in NtN that's like... off. she doesnt seem to remember Gideon. or at least, she doesnt think about her at all. and yeah, Gideon isn't super relevant to the story John is telling her. but Harrow in HtN, even having lobotomized Gideon from her brain, could not remove her. Ortus in the dream bubble made a comment about prurient magazines, she thinks about sex jokes unprompted, she dreams up AU scenarios for them to be together in. Harrow and Gideon. bonded pair do not separate.

so i don't know. i am left with far more questions about Harrow & what she is doing & her modivations than answers after NtN than i had before, which i think is largely related to NtN having been chiseled off AtN and we will get all our answers & more when it comes out. and i too am worried about Gideon but... i gotta hope!! and have faith that it will be okay. I don't really need Gideon to Have a Happy Ending but i do just truly and dearly hope she gets something good and kind and gentle and also satisfying wrt her character arc. because if she doesn't then tlt will just have been a book series about how Gideon gets kicked down and abused and taken advantage of her whole damn life and death and i just. don't believe that is the story tamsyn muir is trying to tell.

[hsslilly-blog]

okay im here w my list :)

celebrity skin (but purely for the sound. like do you think it represents her aside from the lyrics?)

just your general thoughts/interpretation on shes a carnival in relation to claire. same as drive my car and fascination

lastly this masquerade. how does it relate to claire? like what specifically makes it define her character and what does it define?

hii!!! okay you asked me about two songs i was dying to talk about (fascination and this masquerade). sorry for taking some time to reply, i wanted to dedicate myself to this lol. for almost all of these i'll have to talk about other songs as well because of the way i structured the playlist following a character arc of sorts. it's long!!!

(playlist here)

celebrity skin: yeah!! the lyrics are pretty straightforward, but i placed it in a spot so the grunge-y guitar riffs would come out as jarring (right after an abba song and with no comparable examples up to that point in the playlist). claire not only grew up in the 90s, but her high school friend group was comprised of two melancholic goth kids and a self important wannabe filmmaker (and goth-adjacent). she was the preppy token friend, visually. in reality her interests aligned a lot with theirs. i think her interests section on her myspace page show this a little. horror, gothic literature, goth culture and 90s/early 00s alt scene really influenced her since she was surrounded by it almost all the time. also seen throughout her film career. back to the placing on the playlist, it works as a divide after many up-beat, positive (?) songs. most of the songs prior to ir characterise claire, her wants and her way of interacting with people. and then there's a jaded, grunge/alt rock song about being a star in hollywood. since the playlist follows a narrative, i think this would fit right around the time she's almost expelled from hollywood u because of backstabbing, petty tatics and because the industry favours some over others. she knew this, of course, but going through it it's different.

she's a carnival: one of my favourite songs from siouxsie lol. i think it serves to further characterise her/people's perception of her. she's fun. she's an amusement show. a fête.

is she a person, though? does she exist only to fulfill your fantasies? it is true that she revels on public attention, but what does this attention transforms her into? it comes right after bubblegum bitch as well, which is also a song i interpret being about others' perception of her.

this is especially in regards to men, i think. claire is a serial dater (for a pletora of reasons) and i don't think she feels like men see her. florence's dream girl evil would fit here nicely too. men fantasise her, then see her as evil once this fantasy is broken (queentex, latex; madonna/whore)(a portrait of a poison)(you like me better in your head)(je suis la belle dame sans merci!).

and not so subtle, but venice carnivals are famous for their masks. theatre is symbolised by masks. these three talk about archetypes: film archetype, psych archetype, etc. she says she doesn't care. is it true?

drive my car: also forms a trio along with material girl and money, money, money. claire likes money lol and she likes scamming men. <- not outright scamming them, but if they're going to use her she might as well get something out of them. the opening is great. "asked a girl what she wanted to be // she said, baby can't you see // i wanna be famous, a star of the screen // but you can do something in between". she states her goal and men are not the first thing on her mind. they're simply a distraction.

fascination: i've loved the beaches since 2017 this is not important to the ask but damn i love them so much. anyway. this is from side b, after her moment of reflection in what is it about men (last song from side a). in that song, claire consciously acknowledges her behavioural patterns/fears/thoughts about relationships/herself. the next song is national anthem. she wants to be someone's national anthem. and later on you have fascination. this last bit of the playlist is about her relationship with hunt.

this is a song about her approaching this relationship (it's not a relationship yet) in the same way she has always done: lightheartedly and without much thought put into it. it's not serious. why would she be into her professor? lol. it's just a crush, don't be stupid. right after fascination comes stupid cupid. it's the first song in the playlist where she approaches romance in a non-cynical way and it's very silly and it was done on purpose. she feels silly and she's acting in a way she doesn't usually do. she doesn't run after men, this is stupid. and then the next songs approach the subject much more directly and without putting on a front.

also this comes straight out of a scene in red carpet diaries. i've waited years to post this screenshot.

this masquerade: this one works as a reference to hollywood u: the first time hunt and claire have a moment together is in a masquerade ball and they're both wearing masks. literally, figuratively, everything in between.

(i made my friend transcribe this to me so she'd read hollywood u lol). his line about her "seducing" him also call back to femme fatale/bubblegum bitch/she's a carnival. and what is he talking about? do you want her to believe he did not recognise her because of a mask? have you seen claire??!! lol. lmao even. loser. i like her lines about him knowing it was her subconsciously and nothing clouding his feelings and i think it fits here. yeah he wanted it to be her. also psych major moment but you must've noticed there's a theme going through all of these songs.

it's also just representative of their relationship up to the point they actually get together. they're both playing a game they're bound to lose in the end, especially if it's not addressed.

i think that's it. sorry for the lenght + any spelling mistakes, i wrote all of this in one sitting.

[sincerelywebsy]

my arrow favs 🫶

season

s5

season five ollie is so silly, him and felicity’s arc is so good 😭😭😭!!!! i rlly like the development of team arrow too, and his haircut is the best at this part🤗🤗 mayor ollie SOLOS.

ps seasons 4-6 he had the best arrow suit ong.

ship

i think olicity but i’m not super sure!

again, the s4-s6 arc makes me FERAL

the beginning of s4 when felicity wasn’t fully there when oli and her were living in ivy town☹️

when he was about to PROPOSE and they had to leave..💔💔💔

WHEN FELICITY BROKE IT OFF W OLI BC HE DIDNT TELL HE ABT WILLIAM BUT SAMANTHA HAD GIVEN HIM AN ULTIMATUM???

that pisses me off SO BAD u don’t even understand

aaannyway

i’ll say olicity but here’s my honorable mentions:

dig & lyla

roy & thea

i can’t remember any ships all of the sudden whoops

character

oliver ofc 🫶🫶🫶

idk how to explain it rlly but

he’s so me fr sometimes. it’s so cool to see his overall character development, and how he goes from being super defensive and isolating to being more open and okay w himself ??? oml i love this show

more honorable mentions (there’s a lot.)

rene ramirez

his & oliver’s friendship is just 🫶🫶 the end of s6 when they make up ☹️☹️

dinah drake

gf. need i say more

thea queen

her & oliver >> they’re dynamic is so good 🙏 she is so strong jesus

john constantine

he doesn’t appear much here but i’ve seen both Constantine & Legends of Tomorrow and i <3 him

tommy merlyn

pookie ! again, need i say more

ray palmer

i said there was a lot didn’t i. his romantic life is SO SAD oh my lord. he’s the silliest

maseo & tatsu yamashiro

sobbing uncontrollably, i cannot😭😭

sorry last one

laurel (e2)

it’s crazy how much they skipped over her ENTIRE UNIVERSE COLLAPSING????? everyone she had ever known was gone, and they barely covered it holy shit. i understand why oliver did what he did but JESUS

villain

adrian chase (ofc)

he was just generally the best villain. no beating him dude. best evil plan, holy shit he was good.

honorable mentions (in no particular order):

slade wilson

his arc w oliver??? god damn, plus his evil plan was pretty sick

damian darhk

i’m a lot of ppl will disagree w this but i liked him bc he was so silly abt murder. his lines were so good

“sorry i can’t hear you over your throat collapsing” HELLO??

floyd lawton/deadshot

bbg. that is all

team

s5-6🫶🫶🫶🫶

dinah is my beloved, i fuxking LOVE rene, rory, im ngl im not big on curtis 🧍 he’s ok 😭 evelyn was pretty chill, liked her betrayal.

i just love seasons 4-6 if u couldn’t tell

headcanon

sin is nonbinary. i prommy. quentin calling their haircut a boy haircut?? bro is a QUEER. the name sin?? screams trans. their style.. u can’t deny it

they’re nonbinary and no one can change my mind