#there's just something about characters who were made to die that makes me absolutely bananas

[phantomsf0rever]

oh to be a journalist interviewing the most doomed woman in new jersey about her cute little outfits...

i hope tumblr doesn't compress her... i usually use big canvases and it turns out fine but this file was particularly diabolical

[tookishcombeferre]

I'm about to write something absolutely crazy, but hear me out. I want y'all to listen to these two songs and tell me there isn't some very distinctive similarities in key, notes, and words.

Please forgive the interruption from the nerdy 13 year old who still lives inside my head. As we age, we are still all the ages we once were, and the little 13 year old kid who longed to play Jekyll on Broadway demands to be heard. I have *long* been obsessed with the musical and the novella "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde." I am auditioning for the show at a community theater (but the child inside me is fawning over the chance to play the role anywhere.) As such, I have been spending a good deal of time with the music. And, I just noticed something I *cannot* un-notice. This is the last time I will be rational in this entire post. Both characters, Jekyll and Cedric, "center" around the same "power note" - F#4/ G4. (Jekyll's highest note in the whole show is an "A4" and that's only when he's "screaming." A4 is usually Hyde's sort of "manic" note. Though, the actor has to sing both. It's ... it's a lot. Trust me.) Both characters, at this point in their story, have been put in this position due to public humiliation. (Jekyll due to a rejection of his scientific theory by the "Board of Governors" at the medical hospital at which he presented his research, and Cedric because of bullying and being a social outcast most of his life - as the song explains.) Now, the major difference is, up to this point, Jekyll has been an upstanding and moral dude. He honest to goodness believes that he can rid the entire world of evil by separating good and evil from people. He wants to end war. He wants to cure insanity. He's a good dude with a big heart. However, bro-bro is about to create evil in himself and go absolutely coo-coo for cocoa puffs in like 20 minutes. But, that's neither here nor there. Musically these songs *feel* the same, and I would argue that "This is the Moment" could have been a musical influence ON this song. The idea of an internal war between good and evil - "polar twins that are constantly struggling" - as Jekyll says at the very beginning of the musical. Is the ENTIRE THEME OF THIS SONG. In fact, most of Cedric's music up to this point has centered around the F#4/G4 note. Which, is also the power note for Jekyll throughout the WHOLE MUSICAL of Jekyll and Hyde. (Something I find just fascinating is that there are some STRONG parallels between Jekyll's music in this show and Cedric's throughout the show. Like it goes beyond this song, and it's like REALLY, REALLY strong. Not saying the creators were doing anything there, but I find it really interesting. And they *BREAK* the association as soon as the redemption happens. Cedric's music is happier and bouncier post-redemption. The minor key polar-twin struggle is GONE! UGH!!!!!!!!!! I cannot! It's FASCINATING! I wish I had more appearances from him in season 4 to know if that was intentional. Because, even when he fights with Cordelia, it's NOT written in the Jekyll KEY! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

Jekyll is a soft character who has a really bad thing happen to him. In the end, it's because of his own dumb decision to poison himself. But, in his mind, he feels pigeonholed into making that choice because of other people's prejudice against him. At the point that he sings this balad, his reputation is *completely* destroyed. He has no other choice than to experiment on himself. (Or, at least he thinks so.) Then, after Hyde is released, he's stuck in the pits of warring between the good and the evil within himself because of this one crap decision that he has, somewhat inadvertently, made. But, he ends up in complete isolation with no one to help him by a series of his own, again, poor impulsive decisions. So, he goes completely banana pancakes because he's a tragic hero in a Victorian era morality play. Thus, like all good tragic heroes, Jekyll must die. (He's so complicated and beyond impulsive, your honor, I love him.) Obvs, this does *not* happen to Cedric. We get a nice redemption arc instead. Which, I wish is what happened for my boy Jekyll because the Victorians did him dirty. So, looking beyond the plot and notes, the *words* are incredibly striking. The number of times the word "great/ greatest" comes up in "This is the Moment" is a lot especially near the end. Additionally, the idea of loneliness, isolation, aloneness, and the overcoming of that isolation into greatness is a major theme in both lyrics. The music swells surrounding "I'll prove to them I made it on my own" & "This is the moment/the greatest moment/ of them all" and "I've always had so much to prove/I will not hesitate/ It's time for me to make my move and be/ King Cedric the Great." I'm just saying that if the creators can draw influence from Gulliver's Travels and numerous other really bizarre pieces of classical literature. I fail to see why a super-duper subtle reference to Jekyll and Hyde is off the table? (Is Hyde Wormwood????????????? - Wait a ... nooooooooooooooooo ... more on that later. Separate post. Pip. Separate post. I'm still team Wormwood redemption. But, that's because I believe in the unification of our polar twins not their separation. Again. Stop ... Pip. Separate post!) I just think this is so neat!!! Because, y'all, like I said, the number of literary influences on this show are NUMEROUS. I just can't unsee it or unhear it. (But, I'm a person with mild audio-visual synesthesia so that's all the same to me.) Anyway, music. Literature. Nerdy stuff. Was this intentional? Am I crazy? I dunno. But, all I know is these songs sound similar, and I love them both SO MUCH! UGH! MUSIC! AHHHH!!!!!!!!

(Also, while this song is fine, PSA from a certified fandom adult to anyone younger than, like 15/16, DO NOT go seeking out the whole musical or you might end up with more than you bargained for. It's pretty gory and intense. One and a half steps down in vibe, I'd say, from Sweeney Todd and maybe about a step up in intensity from the Hunchback of Notre Dame revival with Patrick Paige and Michael Arden- so the one where they brought in some of the darker themes from the novel. [Thank you Alan Menken for doing that for us, and for casting Patrick Paige as Frollo. None, of which we deserved.] I found Jekyll and Hyde The Musical at 13 because I was a gremlin who read the novella The Mysterious Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson well younger than I should have because, if it was a classic, I was allowed to read anything. Okay, bye!)

[patrickerville]

how do you feel when (or i guess if, because i don’t know how much fan content you see) people describe feeling vaguely religious towards s11? i think it’s in a similar way to how you’ve described dr. eleven’s story as being godlike, in the way that religion is just a guide on how to live better. i think it’s so cool how, in the show, kirsten and tyler interpret the graphic novel as a kind of religious text, and viewers feel the same way about the show itself. in a normal and not-insane way. (although i definitely did feel insane for a while there until i read what you’ve written about the show, which proves to me that obsession about threads and parallels and metaphors is just a byproduct of how good the story is.) anyway. this is kind of an abstract question but i’m curious!

Any way I answer this is gonna make me sound crazy, so I’ll just try to answer 🤣.

My experience of making this show did not feel like “authoring”; it consistently felt like discovering something that was already there.

My own personal level of obsession went to a place that I think seemed and felt like a kind of madness— and this was true even for the people deeply buried on the creative alongside me, who themselves were all a bit mad, too.

Because of the absolutely bananas way we ended up crossboarded and shooting out of order, as well as shooting in two different cities, as well as shooting DURING a real pandemic (but starting before one)… well, I think there was a period of time where my own brain disconnected from linear time, and I was existing in a fractured and totally alien state. Kind of me, but not me. I would talk for a long time and then realize everyone I was talking to had no idea what I was saying— I was leaping around between multiple episodes and switching from theme to character. It was… a lot.

I didn’t go crazy, but I went half-crazy, maybe, and the help and understanding of many beloved collaborators kept me tethered to the ground, too. So did the actors, who by nature just can’t exist in an abstract or nonlinear space while working on a specific scene. Thank god for the actors.

Finally, without getting too into the details, I also suffered what I would call a sudden collection of traumas— a number of bad things, but all of them largely centered around my sister being diagnosed with cancer— right before we started shooting. I started Day 1 of shooting having slept only a couple hours in the week leading up to that day, and I didn’t see my sister again, or know she was going to survive, for a full year after that day.

Amidst all this— every day I’d go watch something astounding happen, on camera. Every day felt like the world just kept showing me it’s most beautiful things. I think THAT kept me sane and okay, actually.

All in all, it was a holy and formative time for me, personally, and so the experience fans are talking about, when they talk about that feeling, is (I think) one I know, too. Not because I created it, but because the show made me feel it, too. I was looking for a reason to love life, whenever I was at work. First it was because my sister was going to die, and then… well, during the pandemic, it felt like everyone was going to die.

I loved it.

[beautifulduckweed]

Get to Know Me Memes

Thanks for the tag, @afewbulbsshortofatanningbed! I'm procrastinating furiously, and I would absolutely so much rather do this than anything else right now.

Last Song: That Jack Harlow song except it's about chinchillas:

Favorite Color: Uhhh either hot pink, dark purple, or eye-searing teal.

Last Book: A Power Unbound by Freya Marske. This book has so many great bits, but also so many bits that were infuriating, inconsistent with established canon, broke previously established rules, or just plain made no sense, that it ended up being one of the worst books I've read in quite a while. It was at its best when it allowed the protagonists to be tender and intimate with each other, which meant that the last two chapters were the only ones that didn't make me want to thump my head gently against the wall.

Last Movie: No Time to Die. The tallwife and I decided it was time for us to finally sit down and (re)watch all five Daniel Craig Bond movies, and I gotta say, Casino Royale and Skyfall absolutely hold up---Skyfall in particular feels like a good movie, period, and the best Bond movie yet. The other three movies were entertaining but a hot mess. No Time to Die made many people furious with its ending, but I enjoyed Bond's character arc there, especially in the context of the four movies that preceded it, and especially because we'd watched the movies in rapid succession.

Last TV Show: Delicious in Dungeon, which is absolutely cuckoo bananas bonkers. Highly recommended. Anime on Netflix about a party of D&D-esque adventurers who are so broke that they have to make their way through the dungeon with zero money for provisions. The solution: cook and eat the monsters they slay! Every episode lovingly goes through the proper preparation methods and talks about the importance of eating balanced meals. If you miss original flavor Iron Chef and love D&D, you 1000% need to watch this show.

Sweet/Spicy/Savory: Savory!

Relationship Status: Le married

Last Thing I Googled: That chinchilla Tiktok

Current Obsession: Trying to slowly and painfully wrench my wardrobe around from "buy whatever's cheap and sort of fits" into something resembling a coherent aesthetic. And my true loves---romance novels in general and KJ Charles romance novels in particular---are never far from my mind.

Looking Forward To: Visiting @theglintoftherail and @etoilesombre in March, aaaaahhhh it's gonna be so great!

get to know me(me)

Three Ships: Jerry Crozier/Alec Pyne from Any Old Diamonds. Utterly obsessed with their dynamic. Kim Secretan/Will Darling from the Will Darling Adventures, because what's not to love about a twisty secretive angsty shit + stoic oblivious dude with a boatload of war trauma? Also Arthur/Eames from Inception, I will never not love that universe in general and those two in particular. Just thinking about them makes me want to reread weatherfront's Inception fics.

First Ship: Man, it was probably Todd/Neil from Dead Poets' Society? I watched that movie when I was 11 or 12 years old, and it hit me like a truck, but I had no way to express the horrible yearning I had for Neil to have a different ending, and for him and Todd to remain VERY CLOSE FRIENDS forever.

Currently Reading: King Solomon's Mines. Hilariously, am reading this for KJ Charles reasons, because Think of England is set in that universe and I want more background info on Archie Curtis's adventure-loving guncles. I enjoyed this a whole lot as a child (I think I first read it when I was 11?) and reading it as an adult is...an experience. Colonialism: What a drug!

Currently Watching: Delicious in Dungeon; also slowly catching up on Lower Decks (which is proceeding at a snail's pace because we don't have Paramount Plus, we watch an episode or two every few weeks at a friend's house).

Currently Craving: A Cosmic Crisp apple and some cheddar cheese. For whatever reason, my body has decided that This Is Food and very few other things are. Fuckin' bodies.

As always with these things, I'm not tagging anyone. Feel free to jump in if you, too, are in the mood to talk about yourself and are trying to put off actually thinking about or working on something.

[salute-the-dead]

A List of My OTPs

because it's 11 and I can't sleep.

Enjolras x Grantaire a.k.a. Enjoltaire a.k.a. ExR- Les Mis

How I fell into this I don't remember now. I vaguely remember reading a crackfic of this and then everything just went sideways.

This was also the fandom that helped me realize that I wasn't exactly straight and that it's okay to not be loud about my sexuality, that I can just be.

I think that explains my attachment to this ship, not to mention just the movie's Grantaire (played by George Blagden) also shipped the characters and played his character like how he thought it should be, Grantaire loving and pining after Enjolras without the revolutionary knowing it.

Except in the fan fics, Enjolras returns his feelings and they work it out, even though it's not easy because they're both stubborn as mules. Ah, ultimate fantasy I guess. And the number of great fics here, *whistle*

Also, the Les Amis? Is amazing? Especially in the modern AUs? Like they're great friends? I love this fandom so much! Permets-tu!

Shen Wei x Zhao Yunlan - Guardian / Zhen Hun

C'mon, Zhu Yilong & Bai Yu's performance and emotions? Plus just the fact the fanfic writers of this ship are absolutely amazing? Please, escape from this pairing is impossible!

Best opposites attract trope for me. An academic by day, superhero by night in love with a roguish police chief who has no powers but whose charisma, wit, and heart can get him to toe to toe with the legends.

Also, Professor Shen Wei constantly acting like an innocent civilian and lying badly? Gold!

Loki x Tony Stark a.k.a. FrostIron - Avengers

How did I honestly get to this ship? I really can't remember what started it all. I think it must have been a Loki redemption fic where Tony Stark and Pepper broke up and something something happened. Let me tell you, the writers of this ship have written sagas and ballads of epic and sometimes confusing proportions, and that is why I fell deeper into the pit. I mean, they gotta give justice to two brilliant but chaotic characters, right? Angst. This ship has sooooooooo much angst.

Eiji x Ash - Banana Fish

My god, if you want to keep your heart intact and not be reminded of all that's ugly in the world, DON'T WATCH OR READ BANANA FISH. YOUR HEART WILL NEVER HEAL!

If you're gonna watch/read it anyway, make sure to watch something fluffy and sweet after. There's a reason that people from this fandom go, "If you've seen Banana Fish's ending, then you can handle whatever angsty show you're watching now." ~ or something to that effect. Another thing we like to say in this fandom is, "Other fandoms: Let's write a Mafia AU! Banana Fish fandom: We are the Mafia AU." Yes, all of us in this fandom is dramatic af.

Yuuri x Viktor - Yuuri!!! on Ice

Uh, does this really need an explanation? Aside from the fact that you will surprisingly find a lot of Mafia AUs here because we all know that hiding behind that beautiful face of Viktor Nikiforov is a devil capable of... tearing down your self-confidence, like WTF Viktor, don't make Yuuri cry! Also, their dance together at the end, such beautiful love.

Magnus Bane x Alec Lightwood aka Malec - Shadowhunters

I never read the books and have no plans to in the near future. I just saw a video on Youtube about why Malec is life and now here I am, still reading some Malec fics from time to time.

Some stuff on the show were WTF but overall they were a really good couple who supported each other. Plus, they're a Power Couple.

Erwin x Levi aka Eruri - Attack on Titan / Shingeki no Kyojin

Not to be confused with Ereri, which is Eren x Levi, which I don't generally ship except for that one time when a writer wrote an epic fanfic series with Eren in his mid 20s and Levi in his late 20s/early 30s, reincarnation AU. Boy was that one a surprise. I did not expect that.

Anyway, I'm an Eruri fan through and through. Especially with that promise that Levi made to Erwin. And the reason he gave the serum to Armin. HE DIDN'T DO IT FOR THE KIDS YKNOW. HE DID IT FOR ERWIN. Plus, Levi, Erwin, and Hange are my special trio. Erwin's batch was really amazing.

Also, I really like the fact that the shorter and slighter person is the more badass fighter while the taller, bigger one is the more calculating and strategic one. Rocks the boat of stereotypes and all that. Bonus: how these two met. My god, what a meet-cute! 😂

Dani x Jamie aka The Au Pair and the Gardener - The Haunting of Bly Manor

It really is more of a love story than a ghost story. I dunno how to feel about this. I loved these two characters so much and I wished they had a better ending but I wasn't SO surprised because it was a horror series (Like, I was still hoping at the end that they'd be together forever but yknow...). In any case, Jamie was just awesome. And her nickname for Dani? Poppins?! God, what a lover and fighter. She was not afraid to cock a gun in a ghost's face.

... and now for my flexible BROTPs

Merlin x Arthur aka Merthur - BBC Merlin

Yeah, my brain is so chaotic multiple OTPs and BROTPs of the same pairing exist at the same time without clashing with one another or having major identity crises.

I actually really like BROTP Merlin and Arthur and also like reading OTP Merthur.

And when Merlin is paired with Morgana or Freya or sometimes even Gwaine, that's fine with me too. As long as his bromance with Arthur stays intact, because that's what drew me to the show in the first place. Personal preference. I see them as platonic soulmates.

*Shout-out to the Merthur writers though, you kept me sane during my "Post-Merlin Depression," which is actually a term thrown around in the fandom because of that horrid final season (not saying it's a good term but it's what it was called). A lot of amazing fics here, too, both Magic Reveal and Modern AU ones. Full of action and adventure too! I mean, there are boy-band-looking Knights and magic-wielding badasses!

Tim Drake x Conner Kent/Kon-El aka Red Robin x Super Boy - DC Comics

More like flexible otp. I dig Stephanie Brown and Tim Drake BUT I really really also dig Tim Drake and Conner Kent. When they're TimKon, it's like an entirely different entity from TimSteph. Ugh, hard to explain.

I mean, Kon telling Tim, "You'll always be my Robin" and Tim telling Kon, "And you'll always be my clone boy" is the shit. Also when Kon could pick out/recognize Tim's heartbeat. And when Tim nearly went mad scientist trying to bring his bestie back. Like, dudes, wtf. And at the same time, hell yeah.

Liu Kang x Kung Lao aka LiuLao - Mortal Kombat

- I see these two as more like ride or die best friends connected by fate/platonic soulmates. But also like their dynamic is so awesome, cute, sweet, badass, can't-live-without-you vibes.

Basically the same way I feel about Merthur. I like reading both romantic and platonic relationships between these two characters. Like, the LiuLao fan creators peeling off the layers of this relationship and exposing every raw nerve is beautiful.

They love diving into the characters' psyche, emotions, motivations, fears, and doubts and you get really amazed because... Aren't they just characters from a video game, you ask? Well yeah, but MK video game has several interesting storylines and the Mortal Kombat 2021 movie was just the perfect jumpstarter to this beautiful blaze.

I mean, "We swore that if we were to die, it would be together"? Hell no, you're not dropping that on us and not expecting us to create our very own spin-offs and 12-page essays on that shit. That's what we fans do, baby. And also, really, we need a shaolin monks/white lotus spin-off/prequel. We're starving here.

As this ship is the newest one on my list, it's the one I'm looking forward to the most. Not enough fan content, I tell you. Not enough. One of these days, I just might add my own.

But right now, it's past 1 and so I shall attempt to sleep.

***No images for TimKon and LiuLao coz apparently I've gone past my 10-images allowance 😤

[spockandawe]

What are your favorite chinese webnovels? What are some of the differences youve noticed between cnovels and other types of novels?

That second question is really, REALLY interesting, and I really want to answer it well, and I am REALLY sure I’m going to do a bad job of answering it, so let me just noodle about that first question for a minute while I try to think XD

I went through some of my TOP-top favorite novels in more detail yesterday, but generally speaking, mxtx and meatbun are both at the top of the pack. They’re really good at writing compelling main characters and balancing piles of angst with plenty of humor and pulling everything together into a very satisfying ending (which is something I don’t alwaysssss see, even in some of the novels I really like). After them, The Disabled Tyrant’s Pet Palm Fish (transmigration, ancient chinese prince falls in love with pet fish) and Golden Stage (ancient chinese gay arranged marriage between bitter enemies(?)) are two novels that I love a lot, which both have very cute romances and go a bit lighter on the main character suffering front, and which I broadly recommend to anyone who’s interested in the genre. They didn’t end stick the landing QUITE as hard as an svsss or tgcf, but they still were very nice.

Then, let me see. I’m trying to remember which books I’ve read in the last year, and am doing a terrible job, haha. I will say that a book I enjoyed for like... eighty percent of it and then the ending let me down terribly was The Dreamer In The Spring Boudoir (modern day career woman transmigrates into barely-fantasy ancient china novel as the disliked primary wife of a nobleman), which is also the only straight webnovel I’ve read so far. The main character and romance were delightful, but that ending... haha, wow, I felt betrayed. But I did like the first half very much!! I’m idly contemplating a deliberately-partial reread. Then I’m currently like two chapters away from catching up with the current translation of The Wife Is First (ancient chinese prince lives out time travel fixit fic, determined to treat his spouse better this time around). I’m also catching up on Heroic Death System (transmigration, across MANY universes, where the goal is to die heroically in each one, and also maybeeeee to find his boyfriend in each one. this shit gets fucking bananas. in one of them, he emotionally seduces his boyfriend while he’s a dolphin. in another one, he’s a sentient mushroom. i’m in the middle of a section titled ‘I Am An Evil Pen’. yes, like a writing utensil type of pen. this is the weirdest book I’ve read so far). Oh, and Thousand Autumns (righteous sect leader gets sabotaged and loses a fight, wakes up blind and amnesiac, demonic sect leader is like ‘lol i bet i can turn him evil’ and accidentally catches feelings along the way).

What else... I’m keeping up with (but behind on) some others. First, there’s How To Survive As A Villain (modern terminally ill CEO transmigrates into stallion novel, wakes up as villain, accidentally seduces hero). Then, we’ve got Transmigrating Into The Body Of The Heartthrob’s Cannon Fodder Childhood Friend (only modern webnovel I’ve read, young man transmigrates into beginning of gratuitous whump book, back in high school, and is determined to protect the protagonist from all the canonical suffering). Then there’s Pulling Together A Villain Reformation Strategy (guy transmigrates into story as the hero’s childhood friend who will eventually become his enemy and get killed, successfully acts out his part and dies, completely fails to realize he’s broken his friend’s heart in the process... and then wakes up in another character’s body). And then there’s The Villain’s White Lotus Halo (a transmigrator keeps bouncing from universe to universe as a cannon fodder villain, who gets like half a line before being killed. he tries to purchase an upgrade package so he can be a COOL villain instead, but accidentally gets sold a ‘white lotus halo’ package instead, so that no matter what he does, everyone is just DEEPLY moved by his appearance and is positive he did nothing wrong). All of those are EXTREMELY delightful. You may notice a running transmigration theme, which....... yeah, I think there are a TON of delightful stories in the webnovel scene that deal with this genre, which seem so rare in English language media.

Which makes a good transition point to what’s different about the cnovel scene! I’ve seen hardly any transmigration stories in English, and I’ve got a couple go-to examples for when I’m trying to explain it, but like. Only a couple. Which is such a shame! Like, there’s the default idea of ‘I was reading this book and then I woke up inside the book!!’ but it’s clearly such an established genre that people are playing with it in all kinds of interesting ways, like in The Villain’s White Lotus Halo or Heroic Death System setups. It’s kind of wild to me, because it seems like such a gimme for a nice easy story structure? Whatever kind of world you want to present, there’s no need to introduce it to the reader from the ground up, or find a good way to hook them in. Either the main character read the book in question and can explain the premise and why we should care in pov, or the main character is new to the universe too, and trying to find their own footing. I enjoy it a lot! I’ve sampled transmigration books that didn’t grab me, but I’ve sampled way more that did. 

And then, the one semi-technical answer I thought of to this question was the way that these novels tend to handle pov. It’s not a hard-and-fast rule that regular novels are restricted to one pov, or that pov can only change at hard breaks in the story, but if I saw a bog-standard american novel glide from pov to pov the way these novels regularly do, I would tend to wonder if it was sloppiness or a mistake, or I would grump to myself about how I don’t like omniscient third person pov. And I still don’t know exactly what I think about this, or why it’s different in here, but I’m pretty sure I like it a lot, especially for stories where the romance tends to play a large part :V 

I used to read a lot of Books About Writing, and read plenty of stuff about why you don’t DO this, but.... I like it! In dtppf, Jing-wang can’t talk, and when Li Yu is a fish, he can’t talk, and drifting from one of their perspectives to the other gives me lots of useful information about how they’re both feeling. Could that be conveyed through restricted pov? Maybe! But I’m typesetting the svsss extras right now, and I’m in the bing-ge vs bing-mei section, and we get a few brief flashes of bing-ge’s thoughts, and it’s so NICE. It’s information I would not have otherwise received, because Shen Qingqiu sure wasn’t going to notice it. But early in the story, that pov was withheld from me, which also made sense (or hua cheng’s pov was withheld from me FOREVER, which makes me so sad ;u;). There don’t seem to be any hard and fast rules, which makes me really nervous about writing fic and trying to match the style, but I do like it a lot! 

And I’m definitely not able to articulate this in the way that I would like to, or speak with any real authority (I’m not that widely read in the cnovel scene, and i’m not very genre-adventurous in english), but there’s something about the role that the romances play in these stories that’s different from what I’m used to expecting, and it’s VERY tasty to me. I only rarely read romance novels, because I’m not often interested in the romance as a primary plot driver, but the romances in these books play a more substantial role than I’m used to expecting. And I’m into it! It’s a balance closer to what I’d expect from, like, a shippy longform fanfic. Which covers a lot of ground and is NOT a precise measure, but there’s more emotional weight given to the romance than I would expect, but without the romance carrying ALL of the emotional weight, and it strikes a perfect balance for me in a way I’m not used to encountering. Now, some of this could definitely be due to me not finding the right authors, or right subgenres, or whatever. But in the genres I inhabit, it’s a subtle difference, but one I find compelling.

Oh, one last thing. The cultural differences, duh :P I’m only familiar with things like, say, ancient chinese court etiquette through a lens of fan-translated novels like these, and I didn’t grow up steeped in the culture in a way I’m used to the trappings of something like medieval european courts. But there’s a distinct flavor to the social dynamics of these novels, from the formal levels down to the casual, and I know it’s super intricate and detailed and that authors play with differing degrees of historical accuracy vs fictional fun, and I wish I was better equipped to speak to the nature of any of this. But I find it really compelling! I recognize that it’s only new to ME because I didn’t seek out chinese media before now. And, the point that I originally wanted to get to before I got super distracted: the flirting. The flirting and teasing are a very different flavor from what I would expect in most english language media, and I love it, even if I can’t speak to how much of that is purely cultural, and how much of it is like... the conventions of How Fiction Is Written varying by culture, if that makes sense. I adore seeing what flirting and affection and indulgence and attentiveness look like in different settings, and these books, with their heavy romantic focus, absolutely deliver.

[sanchoyo]

danny phantom, season 3 episodes 3-6 thoughts!

see prev episode thoughts in this tag <3

-johnny was actually pretty civil with danny and left when he asked! thats nice. also, SKULKER?? HAD A FRAMED PICTURE OF EMBER?? oooo fuck wait had they established they were a Thing Before?? I dont think so. thats weird. its like that country boy/goth girl meme lmfao. I think i am going to choose to ignore this new info and pretend I didnt hear it. 100% unrelated to the jazz/ember fanart I already drew and posted....😳

-LADIES NIGHT EPISODE THIS IS WHAT ITS ALL ABOUT. wish it didnt really center around the guys or them being pissed at them, but. willing to bet this was written by men lol

-THEY ERASED ALL THE MEN??? meanwhile, jack and danny are fishing at. silent hill or something. im glad jack is trying to read a parenting book and making an Attempt. (theyre at lake erie, but, they made it actually eerie...thats fun)

-the girls alt outfits...cute. EMBER MADE A NEW SONG TOO!!! kinda. jazz being one of the backup singers and being AWFUL. NOOOO

-'how are we going to get kitty to blow a kiss?' 'she'll have to think there are still some males in town!' ...i dont know how to break it to you, but I dont know that a 100% het girl would wish for all men to Begone. I think. I mean im not a het or a girl so I dont really know for sure. she Is probably Bi tho. esp having the other ladies in town chanting NO MEN!!! excitedly............(then again, the kiss is to get Rid of men, so, she probably would have blown it at the ladies only if they were actively trying to attack/stop them, so...I MEAN. THE DRESSING LIKE DANNY BIT WAS SO EXTRA)

-I feel like an all female cast ep couldve been way way way way cooler than that was. like. why was it still somehow all about Men. ...anyway. (where was valerie...)

-next ep opens with the observants, and, way way more of them than I expected...existed? I mean I guess them being a council/jury of some kind is what I expected from their first appearance (bc at that time they were basically TELLING clockwork to kill danny, not asking,, so I figured they had SOME kind of authority) but. there were so many. anyway, here goes vlad! letting his own hubris go brrrr. releasing a weather ghost for political gain! #justvladthings

-okay say what you will about him (he IS an asshole) but having an umbrella with his own face on it and more prepared to share is SUPER FUNNY. and him being fanned by huge wads of money by his bodyguards. SO ineffective but so Dramatic. He UNDERSTANDS that if youre rich you need to be. you know. obnoxious and kinda eccentric about it! fuckign hate when rich people are boring about it. I would trust vlad with nothing except to not be a boring rich asshole who wears...fucking khaki or some shit. man knows his Presentation Skills. and that 'V' chair in his mayoral office. is that fucking embroidered?

-maddie get your MAN PLEEEEASSSE. IM SO EMBARRASSED FOR HER. the way jack stays simping for this man. in FRONT OF HIS WIFE!!!! ...my god its like a love triangle. jack clearly loves vlad, who loves maddie, who loves jack. jack fenton is at the very least bi, right................. this is an OBSESSION . 'THE V MAN COMETH'???? i...my god. (also, on a serious note, to have a friend THIS SUPPORTIVE...and still be SUCH A DICK TO HIM (TRYING TO KILL HIM AND STEAL HIS WIFE??) NOT COOL VLAD. JACK IS YOUR 1 AND /ONLY/ HYPE MAN. if someone loved and supported me THIS HARD...LIKE. CMON DUDE.

-STOMP the fucking GAS, JACK

-this would make a great shirt design, looks like a metal band design! we love The Maelstrom

-oh, so vlad did in fact get a mansion in amity park. and its purple! good color choice! not as flashy as a CASTLE or MURDER CABIN, but still pretty eccentric, which I appreciate.

-...vlad knows the difference between picasso and da vinci? in the ep last post where we were watching him fail at conquering every historical time ever he didnt seem to know history well enough to like. be effective...was vlad taking art history at college?? (was he an art MAJOR??? we never DID KNOW WHAT HE WENT TO SCHOOL FOR. I kinda assumed business because in the masters of time ep he was still rich without ghost powers so he had to have..known something about business or something, right...but also, art and or theater FITS HIS PERSONALITY. possibly also something science-y, I guess, but I always felt like he got roped into that, esp how pessimistic he was about the ghost portal in the flashbacks to college, like, i felt like he was just there for maddie and was uninterested/un-invested at the time...)

-THIS GHOST JUST ELECTROCUTED MADDIE (THE CAT) BITCH!! THATS MY FAVORITE MADDIE!!! vlad going after vortex and being ~shocked~ .....WHEN. WHEN WILL YOU LEARN. THAT YOUR ACTIONS. HAVE CONSEQUENCES!!!

-the way this random man with a camera sees the mayor laying in an alley covered in TRASH AND DECIDES TO TAKE A PICTURE HAHAH

*snap* this ones going in my cringe compilation!

-vlad 'if we're going to defeat vortex, we're going to have to do it together!' *immediately dips after dropping danny off in front of vortex* JKASDFHKJHJKN

-DANNY CAN DUPLICATE!!! ...he couldnt even attack with it, but he DID IT!!! INTO (4) OF HIMSELF!!! SO PROUD!!!!!!!!!!

-'THE ROLLER COASTER EMOTIONS OF A TEENAGER THREATEN MY PLANS!' ...0 self awareness of his own dramatic moodiness. incredible, how dumb this man is. its very close to circling around to endearing, if he was less of an asshole. at least its very very funny to see danny shooting him with tiny lightning bolts anytime he's even slightly irritated! vlad you should be nice to danny anyway. this is what you GET

-...making sandwiches and ice cream and playing video games with your nephew is a totally normal thing. WHY is vlad acting like this is the end of the world. if you were a GOOD UNCLE YOU WOULD ALREADY BE DOING THESE THINGS!!! bitch I make my nephew food all the time and dont forget what he does and doesnt like. if u didnt know danny didnt want tomatoes, thats on u. if u, a grown adult, are gonna piss of the 14 yr old by not letting him win, u deserve to have to pay for the arcade machines he ruins because he now has uncontrollable storm powers because YOU THREW HIM INTO A FIGHT WITH THE STORM GHOST. fuck u vlad. paypal me $400,000 while ur at it tho. (also, gamer vlad confirmed)

-VLAD CAN COOK THOUGH???! I assumed he had...people working for him that did that. I mean. billionaires usually dont do that. then again, we've only seen those vultures working for him (and I guess the dairy king was AT his old mansion, but it was never really clarified if he worked there...I think he probably just Hung Out and they Enjoyed Cheeses Together. thats what I think, I dont think a KING would be working for anyone and also the dairy king was nice <3) but then again he would be a private person and we cant have anyone accidentally finding Ghostly Things, so...still, that's hilarious. pour one out for that really cute banana split that got ruined 2 seconds later

-vlad just fucking picking danny up and THROWING HIM AT VORTEX TWICE WITHIN LIKE A MINUTE. JUST ABSOLUTELY LAUNCHING HIM. BITCH THATS MY SON BE CAREFUL!!! HES GOT ORGANS AND THINGS!!!!

-danny seeing those animal commercials and feeling sad is the biggest 2000s throwback so far. i legitimately had to change the channel or walk out of the room when those came on bc id CRY AND BE SAD ABOUT THEM FOR DAYS AFTER. fuck those commercials and fuck that IN THE ARMMMS OF AN ANGELLLL song 😭

-'vlads ego almost got the town destroyed!' yes danny thats the entire episode. the entire series anytime vlad shows up honestly. this episode was just him being really embarrassing the entire time, and, me laughing about it. 10/10 would laugh at him again

-NEXT EP WE HAVE A SHAPESHIFTING GHOST?? I've said it before but shapeshifting is the power I would want when asked those 'what superpower do you want' questions...its the Best power! this guy looks like a homestuck character. ive never read homestuck but thats the vibe

-I love every time we see tuckers family, they are by far the most functional family. and dash has a lil chihuahua!!! named pookie!!! i am crying (I've had 3 chihuahuas, so I am very biased, but...) AND HE WATCHES THE ROMANCE CHANNEL WITH POOKIE. POOKIE I WILL DIE FOR YOU YOU SWEET LITTLE BABY.

-danny can lift a bus! I shouldn't be surprised, but i am proud of my son. hes got lil kid fans. i am going to cry about this

-JAZZ KEEPS A SCRAPBOOK WITH DANNY'S LIL HEROICS AND NEWSPAPER CLIPPINGS!!! we've actually seen it on her floor before, but I didnt realize it was a scrapbook!! thats sooo cute.

-...and danny has to stand there listening to his parents saying danny phantom sucks and is a 'filthy ghost' and calling him egotistical...i am once again stealing their kids!

-THIS GHOST RIPPING JAZZ'S SCRAPBOOK!!! ILL KILL YOU. SHE WORKED HARD ON THAT!!! BITCH

-yes, maddie, the one with red eyes is For Sure Actually Your Son. ignore the, red eyes... (CLEARLY she hasnt watched the other 2 eps where danny has been evil, she doesnt know red eyes= evil!!!)

-'billy fenton'.......................

-danny being stuck as phantom in his own house, no way out is a fucking NIGHTMARE. his parents pointing giant weapons against him and SHOOTING AT HIM. THIS IS A HORROR MOVIE.

-NINE INCH NAILS POSTER.

-this is the most screenshot of all time

-amorpho turning into mr. lancer because hes 'someone no one will want to be around' BUT HES WRONG, I WOULD BEFRIEND AND HANG OUT WITH MR LANCER SO FAST.

-tucker dressing as danny, now I have the full Tucker set of him being sam and also being danny. also saying 'the ghost...uh...RIPPED MY FACE OFF.' and then running. SMOOTH. NOT AT ALL CONCERNING TO ANY PARENTS.

-sam accepts the toast from jack. and then 2 seconds later is like 'why am i eating this.' THIS SHOWS HUMOR IS SO UNEXPECTED SOMETIMES ITS REALLY GOOD. and then the scene after, mr lancer running into his ghost doppelganger and being like 'YOURE GORGOUS' THEN FAINTING. I AM CRYING. AND DASH FAINTING TOO.

-sam disguising herself as danny again to help tucker run from the fentons. but leaving him shirtless in the streets. incredible. 'plEASE DOnt NOTice MY FACELessNESS I MUST LIVE IN EXILE' this episode is destroying me the humor in this show is exactly my brand of corny and cheesy

-the impromtu story made up by danny and amorpho to explain stuff to the fentons. my god they are both such bad liars. but amorpho is a good egg. wish danny wouldnt have said he didnt wanna see him in town again!! I want him to be reoccurring. not that thats gonna matter since I'm almost done with the series, but the idea of this being the Only Time We See him is :(

-NEXT EP SAYS STARRING MARK HAMILL??????!!! hello ! mr . joker....mr. star wars.... I feel like I should be. idk. taking off a hat im not wearing in respect. I shouldnt be surprised tho bc hes in a lot of cartoons as a very good voice actor, and dp has already had a lot of talented ones so I've been looking out for ones I might know, but....mr. hamill....

-sam has her own greenhouse, names all the plants, and says thank you to them (in the languages from where the plants are from) whenever she harvests from them. thats SO cute. and her lil gothy lunch box...

-and danny's lil red fuzzy lined jacket!!! ive said it before but every time the characters get alt outfits im like :D

-danny has ice powers now!!! THATS WHAT FROSTBITE MEANT. HE KNEW SOMEHOW WAY BACK THEN

-THIS SHOW NEVER LETS YOU FORGET VLAD IS A BILLIONAIRE, HUH.

-danny's lil 'holy hibiscus!' first off the 50s batman swearing is hilarious. 2nd. my username is from the flower sanchoyo hibiscus, so, shoutout to ME this ep. hi :)

-EURGH UNDERGROWTH MAKING EVERYONE PLANT ZOMBIES. HIVEMIND PLOTS SCARE THE SHIT OUT OF ME. and this dude made the city SO overtaken so quickly like how long was danny asleep?? oh god

-evil fucked up sam! now the whole trio has gone evil at some point! the voice actress did a really, really good job with making her sound like a zombie...

-frostbite's paws are so so so big compared to danny. oh my god. i want to hug the snow dog...

-the far frozen has an advanced medical stuff!!! very cool. very smart snow dogs

-im so glad danny has a friendly ghost snow dad to explain this new power and teach him!!! this is so sweet. DANNY'S GHOST SENSE WAS A PART OF HIS ICE POWER?? OOOH. COOL. we love a training montage!!!

-danny saying if he cant defeat overgrowth, that he'd want to stay with frostbite...oh my god...do you think this is the first real supportive adult figure in his life (I am NOT counting his parents because they threaten him on the daily even if they dont realize it.) I mean mr lancer is a Teacher, but he was also nice but this is different, but this is a GHOST WHO IS WILLING TO HELP HIM with his powers and also will help him when hes injured and is so so nice and comparatively so much more mature than 90% of the adults in this show!!!! god. dad frostbite is my everything.

-the framing and lighting this episode, and all the angles...they went all OUT and it looks really really good. this is my nightmare scenario, tho. like, FUCK zombies and dead city zones and hivemind shit. and using the humans as 'nutrients for the children' i am going to THROW UP.

-MALEFICENT VIBES WITH THE HORNS AND GREEN EYES! this costume kicks so much ass. sam is now mark hamills daughter, I guess.

-danny's ice powers making his eyes blue!!! thats neat. and him going for the roots underground was SO SMART. i will not stand for danny ever thinking hes stupid, hes SO smart.

almost done with the show... :"( thats a sad thought!!!

[cosmicjoke]

Ash and others perception of him:

This is gonna get long, and I keep amending it, sorry.  It’s difficult for me to work out what I’m trying to say, but here it goes.

One of the things I find most interesting about Banana Fish is the recurring theme throughout of what the other characters think of and how they perceive Ash, and how, almost all of them to the letter are completely wrong.  All, of course, with the very notable exception of Eiji.

Almost everyone speaks about Ash as if he’s some sort of otherworldly being. They often use terms such as “devil” or “Satan”, or “demon”, or “angel” when talking about him.  This occurs with Dino, Yut-Lung, Blanca, Foxx, and any number of other characters.  Even Ash’s friends, like Shorter, Sing, Cain, and his gang, talk about him like he’s almost inhuman.  And, more important still, there seems to be an across the board notion between all of the former characters that Ash will eventually, one day, become like them.  That he’ll become a monster.  A “Prince of Darkness”.  There’s even a notion among readers/viewers of Banana Fish that seems to buy into this notion.  That without Eiji and his influence, Ash would eventually succumb to the dark side, as it were.

But I think it’s something a little different than that.  Because, deep down, that isn’t who Ash is.  It isn’t what he has inside him.  Ash never cared about money, or power, or control.  He never had the desire or wish to dominate people, the way all of his abusers wanted to dominate him, and control him.  Despite the perceptions and beliefs of all of these characters regarding him as this incredibly dangerous, wild beast, what Ash actually is, is just a young kid who’s been horrifically abused and who is struggling every moment of every day simply to survive.  And the only one who seems to ever really understand this about him, the only one who ever really sees this about him, is Eiji.  Eiji even has that moment of internal dialog where he’s talking about how Ash has had to put on this facade of an ice cold heart, but that he knows it’s only, in reality, a defense mechanism.  To keep himself from losing his mind.  To keep others away from him because he’s been repeatedly hurt and betrayed by everyone in his life, especially adults.  To simply keep himself alive.  Ash shuts down when he kills, not because he doesn’t feel anything, as he keeps accusing himself of, but because he feels too much.  The very act of killing is so horrific to him, he’s naturally so repulsed by it, that he’s had to learn to shut off his own emotions in order to simply survive.  We know that killing has always been a terrible thing in Ash’s mind from Dino’s own words, near the beginning of the story, when he’s talking to Ash, and he reminds him about how he used to always cry with every “job” Dino gave him.  One can easily infer from this that he’s talking about forcing Ash to take out hits on people, to kill people.  Ash cried about it then because he hadn’t yet learned to detach himself from the act for his own sanity.  Of course, as this continued, as Ash was made to do more and more terrible things to survive his own, horrific situation, it gradually and consistently eroded away at his own self-esteem, until we see how he regards himself throughout the course of the story.  His deep self-loathing and disgust at himself.  The tragic irony, of course, is that Ash’s own self-hatred is proof in itself of his good heart. He hates himself for killing because it’s always been something he understood to be bad, to be wrong.  He’s never had a problem understanding the nature of killing.  He’s never had difficulty understanding what it is, or what it means to to kill.  He’s never had a lack of empathy or sympathy.  He was never a sociopath, or a psychopath.  He doesn’t care what the reasons for it are, or that he’s justified in it.  It still tortures him, to know that he’s taken a life.  It haunts him and eats away at him in the worst ways.

Ash relaxes around Eiji, because Eiji is the only one who knows that Ash isn’t this wild, out of control, vicious animal that everyone else seems to think he is. He knows that the cold, frightening facade he puts up is just that.  A mask, used to protect himself and those he cares about.  And because he knows that about Ash, he treats him just like a regular boy, which is all Ash has ever wanted.

The thing about this notion that Ash would become like Dino, or Yut-Lung, or even Blanca if Eiji hadn’t come into his life is, I think, wrong.  Eiji doesn’t give Ash his humanity.  Eiji gives Ash a sense of normalcy and a sense of what it’s like to be treated like a normal kid.  He makes him feel human, because he treats him like he’s human.  But even before Ash really knows Eiji, we see how deeply he cares about and is willing to sacrifice for those he loves.  When he goes after Skip after he gets abducted, and willingly gives himself up to Arthur and Marvin.  We see he’s formed deep and loving connections to people, like Skip, and Shorter and of course his brother Griff.  We see him show genuine, anguished emotion over all of them when they’re killed.  He cared about them deeply, and it wrecked him when they died through their association with him. That isn’t the reaction of a monster.  That’s the reaction of a human being who’s lost someone they love.  It hurts him to his core.

We see him go out of his way to spare the members of his gang who moved against him by working for Dino, telling them to get lost instead of shooting them. He spared Arthur even, during their turf war, when he took over all of Arthur’s gangs.  All of those acts of mercy eventually came back to bite Ash, because all of those people then turned around and betrayed him and tried to kill him.  And that really informs the one moment in Banana Fish in which Ash’s morality seems to waver somewhat, when he’s taking out members of Arthur’s gang in systematic fashion.  Even during this point in the story, Ash gives those guys ever chance to save their own lives by telling his own gang to get the word out that if they skip town, no one will come after them.  Ash and his crew will leave them alone, as long as they don’t join forces with Arthur against him.  After that, those who fail to heed his warning or accept his leniency, yeah, Ash goes after them without mercy.  But that, again, ties back into what we see earlier, with how Ash’s previous acts of mercy towards Arthur and others resulted in the situation he then found himself in.  The fight he has with Eiji, when Ash screams at him that if he shows any of Arthur’s gang mercy, they’ll just kill him, is founded in Ash’s own, brutal experiences.  He knows that if he lets those guys go who beg for their lives, that they’ll just run back to Arthur, regroup, and attack Ash and his crew again, not only risking Ash’s life then, but those who have placed their trust in him as their leader.  Ash’s actions here, as harsh and merciless as they may seem, are actually based on his own past experiences and logic.  He isn’t killing Arthur’s gang because he wants to.  Or because he’s trying to gain power.  Or because he thinks it’s fun.  He’s doing it because past experience tells him if he doesn’t, him and those who follow him are going to pay the heavy price of their lives.  It’s not even really revenge for Shorter’s death.  It’s defense through offense, protecting the lives of himself and his gang because he’s been forced to take action by Arthur’s refusal to leave him alone.  Even then, Ash is willing and wants to simply fight Arthur one on one to end the war, so no one else has to die.  He’s willing and even expects to die himself in order to save the lives of not only his gang, but Arthur’s gang.  That shows a strong moral conscience.  That shows goodness of heart.  It’s only again when Arthur betrays him and has his entire crew try to gun Ash down in the subway that Ash kills the rest of them. That’s pure self-defense.

Beyond that point in the story, Ash, from beginning to end, constantly displays a deep and powerful moral conscience, constantly going out of his way to help others, and tries very, very hard never to hurt or kill anyone he doesn’t absolutely have to.  We see Ash consistently unable to turn away when someone he knows or cares about is in danger, like Max and Ibe when they get captured in the mental facility Ash had just fought tooth and nail to escape from, literally running back into the line of fire to rescue them, directly putting himself in danger in order to help them.  He’s constantly pushing other characters out of the way of gun fire, putting himself instead in the line of it.  That’s a knee jerk reaction.  It’s just what he does naturally.  The same as Eiji.  He’s constantly into firefights in order to lead others away to safety, sacrificing himself physically to rescue others, sacrificing his own privacy and mental well-being for the cause of others, when he tells Max to use the photo’s of him being molested as a child to spare the other kids who’ve been through the same thing.  Ash only kills either in self-defense, or in defense of those he loves and cares about.  Even in heat of the moment situations, like when members of Sing’s crew shoot Eiji and try to kill him and Ash, even when Ash seems to have lost it, repeatedly shooting their already dead bodies, when Lao comes at him with a gun, Ash doesn’t kill him. He has the presence of mind to simply shoot Lao in the hand.  He isn’t ever an out of control wild animal.  That’s just what people have made Ash believe about himself, which is one of the most tragic aspects about him.  That he’s been manipulated into seeing himself as a monster, when he never was.  When Lao screams “He’s not human, he’s a monster!”, Ash doesn’t even defend himself. He agrees with it, even though it’s so blatantly untrue.  That shows the ravages on Ash’s mental and emotional state from the abuse he’s suffered.  But even with all of that, he never became like those who abused him.  He never tried to hurt anyone who didn’t try to hurt him first.  By contrast, everyone who claims Ash is some sort of demon, everyone who claims him to be this inhuman monster, all themselves tried to hurt Ash and those he cared about when he himself had never done anything to them.  Ash never did anything to Dino, or Yut-Lung, or Foxx, or any of those people.  He never went after any of them until they went after him first, or those he cared for.  Even towards those who failed him so miserably and set him on the path he ended up on, like his father, Ash showed incredible compassion and care towards, despite the awful way James treated him.  When Ash had every right to hate him.  But he didn’t, and in fact was immensely distressed when James was shot.

As an example of how intrinsically Ash differs from the other characters who deem him a monster or a demon, I think comparing him to the character who most resembles him is a good case in point.  That of course is Yut-Lung.  Yut-Lung suffered his own horrific abuses and cruelties at the hands of the people who were meant to care for him, namely of course his brothers.  And understandably, he wanted and was justified in taking revenge on them for what they did to him and his mother.  But here’s where he and Ash diverge from each other.  Yut-Lung has in him a capacity for deep pettiness, jealousy, and resentment.  Failings which he acts on again and again throughout the course of the story, without hesitation, and failings which Ash himself never displays even the barest hint of, despite having suffered similar and even worse abuses in his life.  Yut-Lung tries with absolute commitment to kill Eiji, over and over, simply because he can’t bear the idea that somebody actually loves Ash.  He can’t bear to see Ash have even a little happiness, in a life of otherwise complete sadness and pain, because he himself doesn’t have it.  He can’t stand the idea that Ash might find “redemption” through love.  And so he tries with all of his considerable power to take it away from Ash.  It’s the definition of pettiness and cruelty, which is something Ash, even in his darkest moments, never showed a capacity for.  I don’t think Ash ever had it in him to be so ugly and unkind and vicious.  He can be manipulative, of course.  But he only ever used those manipulative abilities to defend himself and others.  He never used them to hurt anybody who hadn’t first hurt him or those he cared about, or at least tried.  He never tried to hurt someone simply because they had something he didn’t.  He never tried to take something away from someone simply because he didn’t have it too.  He never resented anyone for having a better life than him, or for having love when all he had was pain.  And therein lies the difference between someone like Ash and Yut-Lung, and it means everything.  

Ash sees himself as a monster because everyone’s always told him he is, those people projecting their own monstrosity and ugliness onto him.  Trying to twist him into what they are, trying to force him into a position where he has no choice but to do terrible things in order to survive.  They try to corrupt him because they themselves are corrupted and cruel.  But somehow, despite all the horror of Ash’s life, he never becomes like that.  He never loses that part of himself that recoils at violence and abuse, that agonizes over having to make the decisions he has to to survive.  He never becomes petty, or cruel, or hateful.  He never becomes unable to love.  Like Ibe says about him “He’s such a good kid.  He’s just such a good kid.”.  I think Ash is able to resist becoming like the monsters who abused him because he had in him an innate goodness.  I think Eiji could see that in him from the start, when everyone else could only see a savage animal, or a beautiful commodity.  It’s also why I think Eiji was so profoundly drawn to Ash, because he could see that goodness in him from the start, and why he had the opposite feeling and reaction toward Yut-Lung, because he saw the pettiness and cruelty in him.  It’s why there were so many people who deeply cared about Ash.  Eiji, and Max and Skip and Shorter, and Sing, and his entire gang, and Cain, and why someone like Yut-Lung didn’t really have anyone who cared about him, except I suppose Blanca and Sing to an extent, but not with nearly the level of real love and respect Ash garnered.  Not with nearly the same loyalty.  And that’s also why both Sing and Blanca sided with Ash eventually, against Yut-Lung. As deep a capacity for cruelty and petty envy as Yut-Lung had, Ash had an equal capacity for kindness and love.  He just doesn’t realize it about himself because he’s been manipulated into thinking the opposite, and because he was so savagely abused and put into such nightmarish circumstances, that he had to do awful things just to keep living.  And that’s a massive tragedy.  That Ash is the only one who won’t forgive himself for having to do the things he’s done, despite the very real and justified reasons for those actions, is further testament to the goodness in his heart.  Ash can’t and won’t give himself a break, can’t and won’t forgive himself for it, even as everyone around him tells him he should.  Because Ash always was and always would have been a good kid, with a good heart, who understood from the beginning the awful reality and seriousness of taking another life.  He understood that in a way Dino and Yut-Lung and even Blanca never did.  Those things were always going to weight him heavily down with awful, crushing guilt and remorse.  He hated himself for having done it, and saw himself as worthless because of it.  He was never what the others thought of him as.  He was never this “prince of darkness”, never this demon, or devil.  He was just a young boy trying desperately to survive.

It’s Eiji who sees that about Ash, where everyone else fails to.  Even Shorter doesn’t understand in the beginning of the story why Ash lets those guys go who tried to kill him.  Even Shorter, I don’t think, understands the toll that killing takes on Ash.  It’s Eiji, and only Eiji, who sees Ash for who he really is.  It’s why he’s the only one Ash can actually be himself around.  The only one who LETS Ash be himself.  Why it’s only around Eiji that we see Ash really able to genuinely smile, and relax, and let down his guard.  Because he knows Eiji isn’t going to try and make him into something he’s not, doesn’t see him as something he’s not, and isn’t going to try and get something from him.  Who isn’t going to try and control him, or mold him into what they want him to be, or what they think he should be.  He understands why Ash acts the way he does, why he does the things he does, and he doesn’t judge him or condemn him for it.  He accepts it, and tries to help Ash forgive himself and love himself.

Even without Eiji coming into his life, I don’t think Ash ever would have become like Dino, Yut-Lung, Foxx or Blanca.  I don’t think Ash ever had the capacity to become a monster like them.  His heart was always too big, and he always cared too much, felt too much, to become that.  What Eiji did give Ash, which Ash never had before, was the knowledge of what it is to be loved.  He gave Ash a sense of what it was to be treated like a human being, not an object to be admired, or a weapon to be used.  He acknowledged that Ash had feelings. That he had emotions and thoughts of his own.  He treated him like he MATTERED.  He didn’t make Ash human, because Ash was always human.  He didn’t give Ash morality, because Ash always had morality.  But he was the only one who saw those things about Ash, where everyone else failed to, even Ash himself. And because he could see that about Ash, he was the only one who ever made Ash feel like a normal boy.  The only one who ever made Ash feel like who he really was.  The only one who ever allowed Ash to BE who he really was.

[mrstransformersfanfiction]

Title: New Beginnings

Disclaimer: my OCs I designed belongs to TorianScriber2012

A/N: So it was meant to be a one shot but apparently I decided to do a very short mini series. Writing prompts I thought out yesterday. A little dabble in the alternate universe of and I definitely was upset when Bayverse movie killed Jazz.

I feel need to doze some love to this little bot character that didn't deserve to die in Megatron's hands in the movie and Jazz is cool! I'm kind of working on the title and haven't come up with one unlike the crossover I was working on. That's my primary goal. I did have many series one shots in mind but I might turn to series.

Summary: (AU) What if Jazz have a human partner to protect and still is alive? William Lennox asked his student, Esther Tseo, a graduated soldier on the NEST team to bring her Autobot guardian home. What can possibly go wrong when her family meets Jazz?

Graduation

Chapter one

Esther Tseo was finally packing her bag. It was time to go home and she only got one week leave. After all, she promised her mum that she will come back home and to the rest of her family.

She now triple check on her items in her luggage until there was a knock on the door. The new recruit soldier went out to the entrance to find herself face to face with her commanding officer: Colonel William Lennox. Esther gave a salute to him.

"What did I say about formality when not on duty?" Lennox sighed.

"That I don't have to salute you when on duty?" Esther replied cheekily at her CO.

"Yes. Relax, kid. Come to my office." Lennox declared to her. "I got three things I want to go over with you before you go back home to Hawaii."

Oh scrap. Esther had a feeling she knew what he'd wanted to discussed with her about and it was something she hidden not just from her Autobot guardian, Jazz, but also to her teacher and wasn't surprised at all if her mum did blabbed out her medical condition to him.

The young female officer followed her mentor out to his familiar office. The loud ruckuss outside was considered normal within the military base from the Autobots. There is always training involved especially hand to hand combat or else weaponary designed courtesy by Wheeljack.

In passing, Jazz waved at her and Esther smiled at her guardian in response. The lady returned a friendly waved at him. Once the colonel and Esther walked into the office, Will threw the file back on the desk and gestured her to sit down. His student took the sit.

"Why didn't you tell me you had a heart condition?" The colonel rested his chin on his knuckles.

"How did you find out I had one?" Esther's eyes widened in shocked.

"Answer the question, kid." Will said very firmly and raised a finger at her sternly. "I'm only going to asked once." He looked already stressed out. There was a huge concerned in his tone.

Esther sighed and slumped back to her sit. There was a whole lot of reasons why she didn't declared her medical condition onto the paper and wanted to try her luck. She always felt that Will was like a father that she never have. She pondered his request.

"Because I didn't want my medical condition to be an excuse, to get in the way and I wanted to try my luck, to see how far I can get." Esther admitted to him guiltily to him. She gazed at the floor when she answered.

Will walked over to her. He clasped onto her hand and the other, lifted her chin up with his finger. Reluctantly, Esther returned her gazed to him. She pictured the whole conversation Will must had with her mother and can imagine how her mother berated at him in her panic voice in clear desperation.

"No. You won't be dismissed from the NEST team. That's a promised. But, I spoke to your mum and she's pretty determined to get you off the military service. You know I had to follow protocol after an injury report, Esther. I am behind you one thousand percent because you were the best candidate soldier I ever seen in the field. I will personally vouch for you and fight for your case.

"All I asked in the future is not to keep anything from me. So I can take all the necessary precaution. Personally, I would not even have minded even if you told me back then. I can also see that serving with the NEST team means the whole world to you. I understand you also gotten closer with your Autobot guardian, Jazz.

Esther nodded in agreement. The last part was very true. She become very accustomed to Jazz and he was the one who taught her how to drive a vehicle because she didn't have her license. Plus, a good opportunity for the duo to learn the road rules. She looked apologetically at her teacher.

"I'm sorry, sir. I didn't mean to lie to you. That wasn't my intention. I guessed I wanted to hold off the matter for as long as possible. All my life I wanted to feel normal and I didn't want anyone to choose for me. I wanted to be able to choose a path for myself." Esther told him truthfully.

"You didn't lie to me, kid. Trust me. We all kind of found out on our own to be honest with you." Will massaged his eyes with his palms. He stiffled a yawned. It had been a really long day for all of them. "Okay. First up, after this meeting, I want you to see Jazz. He was worried out of his mind about you when he found out and didn't stopped hassling me all week about human anatomy and medicine.

Esther grinned. That definitely sounded a lot like Jazz. She can imagine her Autobot guardian personally walking beside him, annoying the hell out of her superior officer around the base. She didn't dare to speak but merely listen to her boss who'd continued in a business way of the day to day schedule per usual. Will definitely looked rattled.

Though, she can imagine Jazz's reaction and the entire scenario in her head, where her guardian was poking for further information when he wasn't meant to and after her last encounter with the Decepticon made him all very jumpy. It was his job to know everything.

"I'll be honest with you, Esther. Jazz actually found out on his own too and did a quick scan on you when you were unconscious the last time you were at the infirmary. I want you to apologize to him too in person. He looked pretty offended you didn't tell him because he felt you were family to him even though you're not by blood.

At his words, Esther felt a wave of guilt erupted in her heart. Her stomach churned uncomfortably. She didn't intend for Jazz to worry or the fact to feel that way. This was one of the main reason why she didn't want her medical condition to be known because everyone worries. Esther always considered herself to be a very capable independent person.

"Secondly, what I wanted to talked to you about, and I know it sound totally ridiculous or unnecessary, is to let your family meet Jazz. I put my hand up: this isn't my idea. The idea belongs to Optimus. So you had to try to convince him and believed me, I tried. Optimus wanted to introduced himself to your family. But, I put my foot down on that. Personally, I think Jazz will be more than enough for your mum to handle. Will assured his student.

He noted Esther looked on the verge of hysterics amusement now with a mix emotions shown on her face. Her face tells him all. At this, Esther couldn't helped but to burst off laughing at what he just told her. She could imagine Jazz being in her tiny occupied garage and knowing her Autobot guardian, he definitely couldn't sit still all day. There are a lot of incidents scenarios Esther was certain anything can go wrong in one day.

It took her awhile to settle down from her hysterical giggling that Will know all too well. Even Lennox cracked a smile at her. He had expected her reaction would be like this and didn't blame her. It was nice to see Esther looked like she was back to her normal self from her injury trauma incident encounter with the Decepticons attack at the base.

"No. Absolutely not, sir! This — This is a terrible idea. A total catastrophe in the making without a doubt. You don't know my mum. She have a temper and definitely will have a meltdown if she ever meets Jazz in person. No way! I will be more than happy to tell you the reasons why. Don't get me wrong. I love Jazz very much and like spending my time with him too because I learned a lot from him. He's a great teacher too.

"I have a very nosy neighbour with her two pet dogs, parks up the damn drive way like she owns the damn shit, plus her other relatives that drives up all the time to blocked the road and definitely there will be more than a few incidents while Jazz is on guard duty." Esther finished and blurted out completely.

Will placed his hands on her shoulder. "Calm down, Esther. Take a deep breathe. I totally agree with you what you are saying and don't think for one minute I haven't consider the consequences that can occur without neither of our knowledge.

"I was definitely thinking along those lines. Because, the first time Ironhide met my wife, Sarah, was exactly what your mother's reaction would be and when my daughter met Ironhide, she went absolutely bananas and started calling him Uncle Ironhide.

"I also did a lot of thinking and as crazy as the idea sound, I am incline to agree with Optimus fully because he was the one who'd led all of us to victory. So, I asked Optimus if he would be obliged to be in a human holoform which the Autobots are working on right now. I know is a lot to take in too.

"But, he's also right about your recent encounters with the Decepticons musn't happened again. His greatest fear is any of us to be hound onto the Nemesis warship for any sensitive classified information interrogated by the warlord. Optimus is usually worried about everyone's safety.

"And one last thing, Esther...I don't want you to feel awkward or intimidated or get the wrong idea or anything. But your mum gave me an earful earlier and she insisted I should stay at your sisters vacant room while I'm at your place for the week to talk about why you should still be with the military service." Will informed her. He even looked embarrassed.

"My mum said what?!" Esther yelped. She covered her face with her hand, now embarrassed in return. "I'm so sorry sir and I am totally embarrassed she cornered you like that! Let me speak with my mum." She reached for his phone and was about to dial home.

But Will stopped her mainly because he didn't want to also deal with her mum personally and definitely have enough of an earful for the day. At this, he realised how Esther and her mum is very alike: persistent and determined with no avail. One of the qualities that Will admired her very much and liked.

Esther turned to him when Will clasped his hand around hers. She never seen him this way: terrified at the prospect of an earful from a woman. Poor Will. She looked amused and sympathetic at the same time. She even forced herself not to smile about it. Her mum can be a push over person sometimes.

"N-n-n-n-no! H-h-h-hear me out, kid! I'm also going to be honest with you on this, one hundred percent! Because I took a deal with your mum. She said I had to convince her why she should let her daughter stay on, to show her the kind of man I am and I told her, that you are my responsibility and will do everything in my power to keep you safe." Will explained seriously.

Esther's heart was racing now. Her insides melted into tiny little pieces as she said it and wasn't why she felt so emotional right now. Will represented to her a way her father never did. All the young girl knows is her father walked out on the family when she was very little. Will was determined to go to extra length just for his modest student.

He wouldn't admit the real feelings towards her mainly because he was married and decided at that moment he will seal that feeling to lock away in a box never to be opened, ever. Very reluctantly, Esther sighed for the second time and nodded in answer, too stunned to comprehend anything else and too shocked to utter a word back. Her voice seem to be lost.

There was a moment there when they looked into each other in the eye. Will gripped onto her hands very tightly.

To be fair, Esther never looked at him in a boyfriend manner more like a father figure she couldn't explained even to herself. Sure, they'd spend every day at the base. So why was today any different? They had been alone everyday in the base together at the NEST team.

It wasn't until then Esther managed to find her own voice. She felt awkward indeed because she noticed his married ring on his finger on his left hand. She felt heat rise up her cheeks completely. Silent fill the room for a short while. Until, she spoke in a croaky voice.

"Uh, sir?" Esther gesture her head at her hand where Will gripped firmly on.

"Oh, right. Sorry." Will rubbed the back of his head in embarressment. He cleared his throat just to clear the uncomfortable tension. "I think that covers everything. Please. Don't call your mum. She knows we're coming over. I just feel your mum is a bit of a pushover sometimes. She's a great mum. But she's something else."

"Welcome to my world, sir." Esther smiled appreciatively at him. "Now you know why I stayed with a family friend of mine who's like a second mother to me. I don't mind people being protective. I just want to feel free and be independent."

"And you will be. Don't forget you got a job waiting with the NEST team." Will reminded her. At that moment, he looked immensely proud. "Congratulations Esther. Happy birthday. You completed all your training very successfully." His eyes twinkled with happiness genuinely.

"Thanks boss." Esther grinned broadly. A true smile Will witnessed on her face.

"You're welcome, kid. You earned it. I think we'd covered everything we need today. I truly understand why you hide your medical condition. I'm very impressed with how you carry yourself out. I'm super proud of you, today, Esther. I'm very proud. You are one of the best student I ever trained, kid." Will concluded.

"Thank you, sir." Esther couldn't helped her routine formalities. Will groaned only to earn a chuckle to his now former student.

"Kid, you do know you can call me Will when we're not on duty right?" Will smiled at her knowingly.

"I know. It's just traditional culture to respect the elders. Oh, and you might want to add in on the paperwork I got learning disability." Esther added casually now she was more inclined to trust her former mentor.

Will swiped his face with his hand. He still couldn't believed how she'd managed to keep that piece of information quiet or even her medical condition for that matter.

"Jesus Christ, Esther. One of these days, I'm going to have a heart attack." It was Will's turn to sighed and he rested his knuckles onto the table. "Duly noted. Enjoy your day. Happy birthday. Please go and see Jazz. You're free to go." Will said dismissively.

"Thanks...Will." Esther stood up. She made her way to his front door until she was stopped by her former teacher behind her who'd called out to her from the distance.

"Oh and Esther," Will tapped the side of his chin with his finger with a thoughtful look plastered across his face. "I feel I owe you a last explanation."

Esther gave him a questioning look at him. "How do you mean?"

"You know how your mum often writes letters after letters and electronics letters to the court house to petition to be exempt from the field?" Will said honestly to her in the open.

Esther's heart sank like a stone discouragely and felt her chances at the military base was slim. This should be good, she thought hopelessly at this situation.

"You should know Jazz was the one who'd interfered with it all and brought all the letters to me and trashed her emails that was about the exemplary from the base. In fact, he tore it out the paperwork in anger.

"He cares a great deal about you for your future and so do I. I just hoped you put more trust in us and don't feel like you got to do everything by yourself and let people in sometimes. That's all I asked. He's actually a pretty bad ass and had a real knack of interference too. Don't apologise to me, just see him. Be glad is not Ironhide that is your guardian." Will advised her seriously.

At this new knowledge, Esther let out a low whistle. Suddenly, out of the blue, she threw her arms around Will and hugged him tightly, forever grateful for their actions that they were the reason she made it this far to graduation. Will's face flushed brightly when his own student gave him a kissed on the cheek.

"Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! You're the best! Where's Jazz?!" Her whole face lit up.

"Uh...in Wheeljack's labratory...tinkering again..." Lennox patted her on the back lightly and felt awkward when he almost keeled over.

"Whoops! Thanks Mr William Lennox! Yeah. I'll see Jazz now!" Esther flung the door opened, closed the door lightly behind her and ran on ahead to find her Autobot guardian. It was clear that this was the best birthday present she'd ever received. A graduation. A job and a home. What more could she want?

Will sighed and stared after his former student. "It's William Lennox."

[lovemesomesurveys]

What do you waste your time doing the most? Lounging in bed switching between social medias and watching TV. I’ve wasted so much time these past few years doing absolutely nothing. :/ Have you ever been back-stabbed? Yes.

If you could be anything, what would you be? Healthy.

If you could be any Tv show character, who would you choose to be? Hm. I don’t know.

If you switched genders for one day, what would you do? Let’s be real, I wouldn’t do anything different. I’d do the same things I do everyday but as the opposite sex instead.

What power would you choose to have if you were superhuman? Is there a healing power?

What stereotype/clique would you say you are more like? I don’t know.

How do you handle being under pressure? Not well.

What does your phone cover look like? It’s clear and has Winnie the Pooh sitting in a honey jar underneath a tree branch with a beehive hanging off it and some bees buzzing around him. 

Have you ever done anything illegal? If so, what was it? I’ve downloaded music, movies, and books back in the day like a lot of people did. Real rebels.

What is the perfect weather to you? Fall weather.

If you were a stripper, what would your stage name be? Nah.

What is your favorite holiday, why? Christmas. I love that time of year.

What is your least favorite bug? Um, ALL of them.

What is your favorite thing in the opposite sex? Guys with a good sense of humor.

What is your biggest fear? Losing my loved ones, death, getting worse/never getting better.

What is something your looking forward to? There isn’t anything currently.

If you could live on any planet, which one would you choose? I’ll just stay here on earth.

What is your favorite junk food? Little Debbie snack cakes, brownies, donuts, cheesecake, cookies, cupcakes.

If you could have any animal as a pet, which one would you choose? I like just having a doggo. I wouldn’t want an exotic animal or something.

What is your favorite time of the day? When I’m drinking my coffee and my nighttime routine.

What name do you wish you had? I’m fine with the name I have.

What would your dream home be like? Spacious enough for 4 adults and a doggo, hardwood flooring, a balcony, big backyard with a deck.

What is your favorite color? Pastels, rose gold, sea foam green, coral, and yellow.

Where is your favorite place to be? In bed.

What is your favorite fruit? Bananas. What is something your embarrassed about? Myself--how I look, the way I am, and where I’m at in my life.

What is one thing you'd like to be the best at? I just wish I was actually good at something.

Ever been on Chatroulette? Yeah.

What is the song that you know every single word to? There’s many.

Most painful memory? There’s a lot of those as well.

What is your favorite place in the whole wide world? I love being at the beach watching and listening to the ocean waves crash in and out, as well as feeling and smelling the ocean air.

A word that to you is impossible to spell? Onomatopoeia. Not impossible, but I definitely need to stop and think about it first. <<< Omg, same. I can never seem to remember how to spell for some reason.

What's something that you collect? Giraffe stuffed animals and knickknacks and Baby Yoda stuff.

Listener or Talker? Definitely a listener.

Thing you hate the most about the opposite sex? There’s things I don’t like about people in general, like close-mindedness and people who are very opinionated and judgmental.

Could have anything you wanted right now, what would you have? Good health.

Scariest movie you've ever seen? Hmm. I don’t know what movie I’d give the scariest movie I’ve ever seen title to. 

What is the most awkward moment you've been in? My life.

A memory you'll never forget? Many memories with loved ones.

One of your quirks? I don’t know.

What type of phone do you have? An iPhone 12 Pro Max.

Favorite quote or saying? There are plenty that I’m able to relate to. <<<

Something you wanna do before you die? ”Live” sounds good. <<< !!!

What is a habit of yours? Picking at my nails. Look around you.. What is the thing you like the most around you? All my giraffe stuffed animals and my Baby Yoda plushies.

Favorite possession? All my things.

Favorite shirt? All of ‘em.

What is the name of your best friend? She’s Mom to me.

What is your favorite shoes? My pairs of Adidas. Least favorite singer? Hmm.

Something you love and hate at the same time? Food.

Are you one of those people who don't like to admit when their wrong? I can admit when I’m wrong and I’m wrong a lot. I’m always quick to blame myself for everything, too.

Girls who try too much are annoying.. Aren't they? Anyone tries too hard can sometimes end up coming off annoying or obnoxious and it tends to just backfire. 

What color makes you relax? Colors don’t help me relax.

Are you an awkward type of person? Yep, that’s me.

Is it hard for you to make friends? I never had a problem getting along with people, but I had more acquaintances than friends. I’m just not a people person, I’m not someone people gravitate to or someone everyone wants to get to know. I’m really just not that interesting or make much of an impression.

How would you like to leave this earth? Painlessly.

What do you find stupid but most people like? Modern sitcoms I feel like.

What is a hobby you have? I love to read.

What's your plans for next weekend? I don’t have any.

Have any big dreams? What are they? No. :/

Restaurant that is horrible. Hmm. I haven’t had a horrible experience at a restaurant.

Have a fetish for anything? No.

Do you like long or short surveys? Long.

What age did you stop playing with dolls or action figures? Like 10 or 11.

Do you think your more mature then most of yours friends? I don’t have any friends, but I feel like everyone I know in my age range is more mature and adult than me. My 22 year old brother is more mature than me. 

Like labels? For certain things.

Does your school have cliques? --

Do you enjoy running? No.

Something that you are horrible at but wish you were good at. Living, adulting, stuff like that.

A sport you think is dumb? I’m not interested in any sport.

What is your favorite food? Ramen, garlic parm and lemon pepper boneless wings from Wingstop, and scrambled eggs and biscuits smothered in country gravy.

Ever think about what it would be like to be someone else? Yeah. Night owl or Early Bird? Both since I don’t even go to bed until like 7 or 8AM. Lately, it’s been later. :/ If I’ve actually gone to sleep and I have to get up early, however, then I have a hard time. What celeb would you not mind meeting? Alexander Skarsgard. What's your favorite Tv channel? My TV is generally either on TV Land, CMT, The Hallmark Channel, or MTV.

Have texting? Yeah.

You have 3 wishes. What are they? Good health, financial stability, and more wishes. ha.

What did you first think about when you woke up? I haven’t gone to bed, yet, it’s 1:27AM.

What's the last thing you thought about before you went to sleep? ^^^

What do you want to be when you grow up? Or what are you? I’m 31 and still have no idea.

Like cartoons? Which one is your favorite? I still like some of the cartoons I watched as a kid such as Rugrats, Doug, and Hey Arnold.

Do you watch what you eat? No.

Have a favorite number? What is it? 8.

Are you quiet or loud? I’m a quiet person.

Were you an annoying baby? Not from what I’ve heard from my parents.

Worst subject? Was always mathematics. <<<

Best subject? Was English Language Arts. <<<

What's your favorite brand of shoe? Adidas.

What's your favorite month? Why? October and December. I love the weather and the holidays.

Favorite season? Fall and winter.

Least favorite holiday? Valentine’s Day.

Do you try new foods or do you stick with what you know you like? I stick to the same few foods now because of appetite and eating issues.

Love pictures or hate them? I like taking them and looking at them, but not having mine taken.

Have you ever thought about going to Fiji? I certainly wouldn’t be opposed. 

What's your favorite movie character? I have several.

Have any nicknames? What are they? Steph and Sis.

Who do you miss? Loved ones who have passed away.

Someone have your heart? Just me.

Have any sports you love? What are they? Nope.

Do you keep to yourself or are you out there? I keep to myself. 

What's your outlook on life? It’s been rather bleak the last few years. What is the prettiest object/person/landscape/anything that you have seen? That’s hard to choose. 

Do you wear your heart on your sleeve? No, it’s more covered up by the sleeve.

What's your style? Very casual and comfortable consisting of leggings and oversized graphic tees.

Did you like this survey? Cause I might make more! Sure. Too bad I won’t know if you make or have made any more because I don’t know who you are.

[recurring-polynya]

In my Great Summer of Austen, I have just finished Persuasion, which I don’t hear talked about all that much and I wanna talk about it.

The plot of Persuasion is that you’ve got Anne Elliot, middle daughter of a baronet who lives beyond his means. In her youth, Anne fell deeply in love with a young (relatively) poor sailor, Frederick Wentworth. Anne’s mother died, but she is often advised by her mother’s best friend, Lady Russell, who convinces Anne to break the engagement because she doesn’t think Wentworth is good/rich enough for her (hence the name of the book). After an eight-and-a-half year timeskip, the Elliots are in the middle of the process of moving to Bath because they can’t afford their ancestral home any more, when Wentworth rolls back into town and all the Austen-esque shenanigans you expect ensue.

I didn’t like Persuasion as much as Pride and Prejudice, but I liked it a lot more than Emma. It was recommended to me by someone who knows my taste in OTPs, so this book already had me at “eight-year painful separation”, “poor guy makes good and proves himself” and also “sea captains.” It’s not a perfect novel-- Austen keeps trying to hammer home this theme of whether it is better to be strong-willed or persuadable, and it’s like, yes, Jane, we see the name of the book, we get it. Anne and Wentworth are also just a little too perfect; the only conflict of the book is them being not sure the other one still likes them. That’s not the worst thing in the world, though because the supporting cast is bananas.

Walter Elliot is Anne’s dad, and he is the exact flavor of Awful that I love and adore. Not only is he extremely vain, but he is constantly judging people for their physical features. Freckles? No. Ginger? Absolutely not. Sailors? As a rule, hideous. His rant about there were too many uglies in Bath is ::chef’s kiss.:: After Admiral Croft moves in to his house, Anne asks him how he likes it, and he’s like “it’s real nice, but there were so many mirrors in the bedroom, wtf.”

Speaking of which, Adm. and Lady Sophy Croft move into Kellynch Hall. Everyone in the Navy has just come back from the war super rich, and the Crofts rent out the ancestral Elliot home, saving everyone a lot of trouble. Apparently, Sophy just tagged along with the Admiral on all his cruises. She is made of leather and is awesome. Adm. Croft loves tearing ass around the county in his phaeton even though he tips it constantly and Sophy goes with them and they have a great time. These two are #squadgoals and Anne wishes they were her parents. Anne has to ride in the phaeton at one point and Sophy is just “watch out for that pole, dear” the whole time. At one point, Adm. Croft sees a drawing of a ship in a print shop window and complains about how shitty it is for about three pages, has the artist ever even SEEN a ship??

Charles Musgrove is married to Anne’s younger sister Mary, who is A Lot. Charles actually asked Anne to marry him first, but Anne turned him down. Charles is super chill about this. Charles is super chill about everything actual, except for shooting, DO YOU WANT TO GO SHOOTING? An astounding amount of plot gets going by Charles making people go shooting with him, or inviting people over for shooting, or one time they had to come home early from shooting. There’s a part where everyone is in the sitting room, and Charles’ head appears in the window “DOES ANYONE WANT TO GO SHOOTING??” At the end of the book, Wentworth has just sent Anne a love letter and she desperately wants to talk to him, but can’t because Charles is walking her home, and Charles sees Wentworth and shouts “CAN YOU WALK ANNE HOME, THIS GUY SAID I COULD COME LOOK AT HIS GUN AND IT SOUNDED SO SWEET” and then runs off in a little puff of dust. I love this Austen-ian himbo and his hyperfixation.

Some other stuff I loved:

I counted at least five characters in this book named Charles. This is a baller move, characters are hard to name.

Despite Lord Elliot’s diatribe on how leathery sailors are, every sea captain in this book was an absolute dreamboat. For all the doofy-ass side characters, every sea captain was handsome, chill, fun to be around, and thought Anne was super cool. There was the melancholy, poetry-reading sea captain, the happily married sea captain, cool ass Adm. Croft, and of course, Capt. Wentworth himself, hot, rich, sensitive, but chill, and at one point, he holds a baby. This book was Jane Austen’s sea captain thirst tower, and I am here for it. I love a sea captain, especially when he is also a smokeshow.

Carriages. I think it was Anne’s sister Mary who was obsessed with what everyone in this book drove, but they were constantly talking about various kinds of carriages I had never heard of before. I very much enjoyed letting all of this wash over me, even though I could not tell you the difference between a barouche and a landaulette. This is like a modern day romance novel with an unnecessary attention to detail on which Lexus everyone drove and I enjoyed contemplating whether or not Jane Austen would be into Jalopnik if she lived today.

The trip to Lyme. The trip to Lyme was so fun! They took a bunch of walks and saw the sea and stayed at an inn and met all of Capt. Wentworth’s cool sea captain buddies and it would have been the best trip EVER, except at the end, Louisa (the red herring sister-in-law you think Wentworth is gonna get with) jumps off a dune or something and Wentworth fails to catch her and she gets a concussion and everything thinks she’s going to die. You’re just reading along and then this happens and it’s like... wut? What just happened?? BIG YIKES.

There’s some other dude who is Anne’s cousin who wants to marry her and it’s mostly boring, until, three chapters from the end, Anne has been meeting with this old school friend of hers, who is now poor, and Anne’s like “I’m not that into Mr. Elliot, actually” and the friend absolutely GOES OFF on Mr. Elliot and details his Crimes for roughly 15 pages. Wow. Damn, son.

Conclusion: Persuasion slaps, eleven phaetons out of ten.

[hamliet]

Who are your top 10 female villains? And your top ten male villains? Thank you!

Oooooh. Well, in this list I am including antagonists (people I see as conflicted/not committed to like, the bad side, if there even is a bad side, but basically oppose the protagonist at some point). Also, they are in no particular order:

Female Villains:

Cersei Lannister (A Song of Ice and Fire)

She's sympathetic enough so that we understand how she came to be the way she is, yet terrifying and depraved enough that we fear for the characters around her. I don't think that's an easy balance to strike for a character: if you make them likable it's hard to keep audiences from rooting for them, but the balance is struck perfectly with Cersei.

Azula (Avatar: The Last Airbender)

As @aspoonofsugar wrote recently on Azula, I think she is a fantastic female villain. I think she is sympathetic despite her actions, and I wish the story had explored her redemption, which was clearly hinted.

Claudia (The Dragon Prince)

The first three seasons have kind of been Claudia's fall. While as a whole I don't think TDP is very well-written, I do think that Claudia, Viren, and Soren's family dynamic is a polished gem of writing that literally carries the story. I fully expect to see redemption for Claudia down the line, but not until she spirals further and further. At the end of season 3, Claudia resorts to killing someone to save her father's life when she has nothing and no one else left, and she makes this choice after her brother Soren (now redeemed himself) chooses to kill their father in front of Claudia, devastating her. Their choices are clear parallels and both are somewhat negative, somewhat sympathetic. Soren can't kill his past: he has to live with it, and Claudia can't cling to the past: she has to let it go.

Delores Umbridge (Harry Potter)

She is awful and I hate her, but you're also supposed to hate her. Her comeuppance is hilarious ad perfect, and just--I think she's a fantastic villain because she reminds every single one of us of an albeit exaggerated version of a teacher we all know.

Karren von Rosewald (Tokyo Ghoul:re)

Karren is TG:re's best written character in my opinion. Her tragic arc takes place throughout the first three arcs, which imo is also the highest point in the series. Karren just wanted to be loved, and if she had to die, at least she got to die as herself. 

Nora (Noragami)

Nora! The reason I read Noragami is pretty much for Nora and her redemption arc. The fandom hates her for... reasons, but she's always been primed for redemption. Her name is in the title (which yes also refers to Yato, etc.) She's important. I wrote a few metas on Nora, notably here.

Enoshima Junko (Danganronpa)

Despair. It's fun to find a character who is, well, just plain fun, but who is also bored, despairing, cruel, and terrifying. She's unique and a brillaint character.

Toga Himiko (Boku no Hero Academia)

I'm not the first one to say that Toga is BNHA's best written female character, but I do agree that she is. She, like Junko, is fun and interesting, and she has an arc that is compelling. Her actions directly move the plot; she’s bloodthirsty and yet uniquely empathetic and compassionate. 

Yoshimura Eto (Tokyo Ghoul)

Eto's backstory and her motivations were fascinating. She was one of the most complex characters in the entire story, and despite the fact that you understood why her father gave her up, you also understood her pain and justified anger at his doing so. She perfectly illustrated the divide between human and ghoul.

Male Villains:

Shigaraki Tomura (Boku no Hero Academia)

BNHA's best-written male character, imo. His backstory and the current chapters that focus on him are extremely well-done, thematic and full of character development, and detailed artistically. He gets so much focus that I can tell he's important to Horikoshi, and I'm excited to see where he goes.

Dabi (Boku no Hero Academia)

I'll admit there's a lot missing here. Namely, we don't know his identity for certain, but it seems basically certain that he's Todoroki Touya; however, we still don't have his backstory. Still, his fury at the presumed father who destroyed his family and yet has the audacity to be a "symbol of hope" is fascinating to me, and I'm excited to see how he develops as well. (Both Shigaraki and Dabi seem primed for some kind of redemption).

Adult Trio: Illumi Zoldyck, Hisoka Morow, Chrollo Lucilfer (Hunter x Hunter)

Am I counting these three as one so that I can get extra characters? Of course I am. In all honesty I really think all three of these antagonists are really well done, sympathetic and/or likable. They're the shadows of the three MCs they foil: for Illumi, Killua, for Hisoka, Gon, and for Chrollo, Kurapika. They represent the traits the three protagonists (sorry Leorio) don't want to acknowledge in themselves, and therefore their encounters with their shadows are particularly thematic and powerful. Also, one doesn't usually kill their shadow, but instead integrates with it, so I highly doubt the three of them will be killed by their respective protagonist.

Meruem (Hunter x Hunter)

Yes, again, HxH. It has great antagonists. But Meruem's development is literally one of the most powerful I've ever read about. I don't know anyone who starts his story not loathing him, hoping he dies, and then by the end of it, ebfore you've even realized it's happening, you're crying for him and Komugi. His arc explores human nature at its finest, most horrific, and ultimately most beautiful.

Furuta Nimura (Tokyo Ghoul:re)

Furuta's a fantastic villain whom I wish got a better ending (not even redeemed really, but just... something more). He was so damaged by the system of an unfair world that he made it his life goal to become the villain and burn the system down, destroy it no matter what it took--and also hoped to destroy himself in the process, as he was born knowing he would die young and longed for it. I wish he had been forced to live.

Mori Ougai (Bungo Stray Dogs)

Mori's utilitarianism is chilling. He's not exactly unlikable, despite being absolutely morally repugnant, and the Beast AU from Asagiri himself shows us that Mori is certainly capable of a positive life and positive change; however, within the canonical story, I don't see that for him. He's been set up IMO as the final boss of the series, and his habit of targeting the most vulnerable (especially children) to control people is almost certainly going to bite Dazai in the ass eventually.

Eren Jaeger (Shingeki no Kyojin)

I can't believe I'm writing this. I don't know what to call Eren: he's the protagonist, and he's sunk to becoming the final boss. While it's possible he, like Furuta and like Lelouch of Code Geass, is playing the villain, I really hope not, as I think the themes are much more powerful if Eren sincerely believes what he proclaims to believe. He's a kid who has always wanted to fight for freedom and for the people around him, and now we're seeing the dark side of those traits, wherein he's destroying the world via genocide to save the people close to him. He's driven by fear and by anger at the cruelty and unfairness of the world, and he's forgotten the beauty of it. I hope Mikasa can  remind him before the end.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky (Bungo Stray Dogs)

MY BOY. Look if a character is named after my very favorite real-life author, I must stan. But actually I do think Fyodor is well written and a master manipulator. He's modeled after my favorite character in all of fiction, Dostoyesvky's Demons' Alexei Kirillov. He really seems to want human connection, to live, and has forgotten that empathy is an important and necessary part of both of those. I hope--and think it is likely given BSD's prolific redemption arcs--that he will remember eventually.

Lee Yut-Lung (Banana Fish)

Again,, he's less a villain than an antagonist. Like Ash, the main character, he is a teenage boy betrayed by the people who were supposed to protect him and abused his whole entire life. He's driven by a desperate need to be loved and jealousy that Ash is loved while he is not. His ending, when Sing finally tells him he will in fact be staying by Yut-Lung's side and will help Yut-Lung redeem himself, "because you're in pain... your soul's bleeding, even now" is literally the perfect ending for him.

Jin Guangyao (Mo Dao Zu Shi)

I've written a lot on Jin Guangyao, but he's a walking tragedy. He ties with Wei Wuxian, the protagonist, as my favorite, and the reason is because they are two sides of the same coin--in fact, they're the same side of the same coin. They're not very different, and the fact that he finally at least got empathy in the end and was able to push the person he loved most to safety because of that--well. Brb time to cry.

[fictional-worlds-are-exquisite]

i am out there!! i'm glad you liked it! i'm definitely trying out the recipe you left in the tags. it sounds way better than just banana and peanut butter. i always have to pay a lot of attention when i type banana because i've ended up with "bananana" way too many times

i was planning to run straight to your askbox the second i saw you replied but then the end of the semester happened and it killed me. hopefully i'm done with it now

i do exactly the same thing with height! if you tell me your height in feet i have absolutely no idea how tall that is. if you say that in centimetres that's easy. i mean you're 155cm so that's 12cm shorter than me. when you told me that in feet i was like okay cool i have no idea how much shorter than actually is

i love birds!!! so that seems awesome! i am now titling you the queen of birds. and i'm glad your vacation was good! i think i saw a couple of posts you made about it so it definitely does seem like a lot of fun! and did you ever figure out completely what that see through animal (?) in the sand was? i had no idea stuff like that even existed so now i'm invested in knowing what it is

i am 100% hiring you for my coming out party i'm throwing in a couple of years. it's gonna be fun. if we don't get immediately kicked out i promise good food and some spicy drama between my homophobic relatives and my accepting relatives! and my brother's, who i already came out to, dry commentary

i was definitely not the one you told about burma trails! but from the tags i'm just gonna say how is that allowed and why does it seem like a weird type of torture? i hate it, i probably would've had a heart attack 3 seconds in

oh yeah i actually can't tell most of the time if the memories from my childhood are actual memories or if it's just a combination of having seen photos and heard stories about it

my glasses prescription is fine i think. my eye doctor said that i get headaches from glasses because... well i tried to explain this and then deleted it all because it was a very scientific explanation when she said it and i zoned out pretty much halfway through and even the part that i did understand i can't translate to english! but it has something to do with the fact that with contacts it's enough to move my eyes in the direction i want to look at and with glasses i have to move my whole head and my brain got so used to contacts that it overdoes it with the eye movements when wearing glasses? i dunno. this is the best i can do in explaining it

i must admit i'm very jealous of the never snows part because while snow is pretty to look at it's absolutely freezing! for the past week i slept under a duvet, three blankets while wearing pants and a long sleeve shirt and i still woke up cold. because for a couple of nights it was around -22°C. it's great

ohhh you got pretty lucky as a kid then! my kid self would have absolutely lost it at getting the equivalent of 5/10 bucks. i probably would have bought so much candy

excellent!!! hope you’re enjoying the vague void from whence you came! i’ve never said whence before in my LIFE i wonder if i used it correctly. anyway. the actual recipe was way more specific but once i saw ‘2 frozen bananas’ and looked at all the sliced bananas in my fridge, having no idea how many there were, i just started improvising sdfkhsdfs. I’d be interested to try it with yoghurt though if I can get some dairy free plain stuff, I’m sure I can somewhere. Banana used to be my biggest problem when I was younger. Then I learnt words like occasion and necessary and embarrassed and I realised the more english I tried to learn, the worse my life was gonna get. And I was right. On the bright side, developing an inability to ever spell occasion correctly made banana seem a lot easier to handle.

that is fair. end of semesters are rough. i cannot function during them at all. i hope everything chills out for you!! i’m not sure how the school year is over there but maybe it’s break time? that’d be nice. but rest in peace anyway, enjoy being dead! they say necromancy is frowned upon in all societies but I reckon it’s just called making a friend when you’re dead so maybe you wanna take that up as a hobby! I’ve heard it’s nice this time of year!

yup! sometimes I’m like oh you’re 5 foot 4? that sounds way taller than me. but it...it really isn’t...it’s like an extra 8cm or something. which adds up! but in my head I was picturing a MUCH taller height. In my head I think I picture 6 foot and 5 foot 4 as the same height, now that I think about it.

!!!!! my first order as queen of birds is to meet a morepork face to face so we can chat about the price of pork these days. yes!! the first half was nice but the second half was really fun. my best guess is still that it’s a salp? Maybe? So many salp pictures are massive groups of them but like,, from what i can tell of singular photos,,, it was maybe that? I guess the only other possibility is it’s just some clear jellyfish but salp does seem more likely. At first I was like oh duuude boob implant for the ocean!! but then I realised it actually seemed kinda alive and was probably an actual creature. my bad.

excellent. i’ll break any tension by dropping the vampire act for the mouse act. will do backflips for cheese. will bite ankles for homophobic comments. Will pull a knife out of god knows where, not to threaten anyone, just to clean my nails with to make everyone nervous. I offer many services. I’m flexible. And I love me some good food.

I actually DON’T know the reason behind burma trails. I really don’t. The reason ‘it’s a fun activity!’ seems a little fake. if it’s a fun activity then why did Mrs. G. tell us a horror story about the forest before we went out to navigate said forest at night, blindfolded, surrounded by wildlife and parents supervising (*cough* waiting for the opportunity to jump out at you *cough*) with a teacher at the end waiting to scare us. So we can learn how to navigate the forest in the dark? So we learn how to follow a mysterious rope INTO the forest at night? seems dodgy to me. school camps be like [drives you out to forest] follow this rope and don’t take your blindfold off. like. bruh. i almost DID have a heart attack one time, I got stuck like something was holding my leg. First thought-ah, must’ve got my leg stuck in a big stick. Second thought-maybe this is one of the parents fucking around, it feels more like a grip than a twig. Third thought-I cannot get my leg free no matter what I do what the fuck is HAPPENING so I started crying out for help. When they FINALLY came they found nothing my leg was caught on so that was fun. love that for me. I was able to move as soon as they arrived. That’s not weird at all. anyway.

I think most of my early memories are just from stories I’ve been told and photos I’ve seen. My memory tends to be horrible I highly doubt I remember that one time I was eating dirt from the garden out in the yard gleefully. I just saw the photo evidence. mm spaghetti. bone apple teeth. my character hasn’t changed at all since I was a wee babe.

ohhhh okay. I think I get what you mean by that. Thank you for trying to explain! That’s really interesting. I guess I do move my head a lot with glasses. Although I have massive glasses so it’s probably easier for me to just move my eyes where I want. I reckon with smaller glasses I’d have to move my head way more.

the temperature comment is so funny because during the heart of winter i tend to sleep with a sheet, a blanket, a duvet, then 2-4 blankets on top while in a long sleeve shirt and long pants and sometimes bed socks and often a hottie (i’ve never realised how that sounds out of context...a hot water bottle...is calling it a hottie normal or is a my family thing? is this a nz thing? now i’m questioning myself). in my uni accommodation last year we didn’t have proper heating during most of winter and well. there was a quilt added to everything else. every blanket i could find. how cold does it get here in winter? rarely ever past 0 degrees celsius. I would literally die in your position, clearly. I could not survive that. Props to you for making it through aha.

yesss. Before when I found five dollar notes it’d be on the street and I’d be like oh no! Mum we have to hand this into the police station! It’s a lot of money, someone will be looking for it! Understandably she was like,, lindsey they might miss it but there’s not really any way you can find them,,, I still refused to spend it. That was like my first time really getting that much money for myself. The dairy on main street sold lollies for 10 cents each and they had like, 30 different lil glass boxes so you’d go I want 3 of 26, 5 of 7, ohhh and 5 of 13 please! I dunno if they’re still 10 cents each but I thought it was the best thing ever as a kid. I think I wanted to save the money though sfdjsdkfhs put it in my piggy bank to save up for something ‘super cool’. Aka probably like a neat soft toy to sleep with sdfsdkfs.

[amwritesitall]

Sarah’s AHS Characters (+Alice and a Ship) as Songs I’m Vibing With

Masterlist

Instead of a collection of songs from one artist these are songs I’m currently vibing with? Here’s the playlist if you wanna listen (warning it fluctuates a lot because it’s just songs a vibe with at the moment). I skipped the songs I used in artist posts.

Billie Dean Howard

“24 / 7/ 365″ by Surfaces

Met, this girl down by the vine Had long tan legs and big brown eyes Seemed the type I would wanna make mine

She said nine to five, I'm killing time But twenty-four-seven, three-six-five I have to be where I feel your sunshine

One to two-step, three-step, four She's everywhere out on the dance floor She's everything you could ever want and more

Picture it. Billie Dean is at some event. She spies a girl who’s mesmerizing, killing it on the dance floor. Realizing this girl is absolutely the person she wants to be with. The line “I have to be where I feel your sunshine”!! Big Billie Dean vibes right there. In the darkness that her job sometimes entails, she’s drawn to the light of her lover. A ray of sunshine if you will.

“Heaven Falls / Fall on Me” by Surfaces

Woke up early in the mornin' Just to feel the light of day Had to open up my window Get the shadows out my way Banana pancakes for my problems Find me jamming old Jack Johnson Swear I heard them angel calls Lay outside

As Heaven falls Heaven falls

If you can’t tell, Surfaces really makes me think of Billie Dean. This goes with my explanation for the other song. Billie’s job gets pretty dark and intense. Although she never completely gets a break from her job (because she can’t just turn off being a medium) she tries to use her time away from filming and darker locations to focus on the lighter aspects of life, savoring all around her and her lover. I have no idea if what I said makes sense though.

Lana Winters

“Let’s Fall in Love for the Night” by FINNEAS

Let's fall in love for the night And forget in the mornin' Play me a song that you like You can bet I'll know every line I'm the boy that your boy hoped that you would avoid Don't waste your eyes on jealous guys, fuck that noise I know better than to call you mine

This song gives me Lana vibes in the sense that she doesn’t really want to get too attached to people. This also makes me think of how Lana is the type of lover that someone’s conservative/strict family wouldn’t want them with (because of the gay). When you go this route, it’s hard for me not to picture teenage Lana when listening to this.

Fun fact: I have a vague idea for writing a Billie Dean Howard x Reader imagine over this song.

“me & ur ghost” by blackbear

I'm not alone It's just me and your ghost And this cripplin' depression I thought I learned my lesson But, I threw out my phone And I burned all your clothes And now I'm not alone It's just me and your ghost

Now hear me out. Post break up Lana dealing with all of her memories of her ex and then burning all of their shit because Lana is lowkey that bitch. It’s a bit of a stretch, but that’s just my humble opinion on the matter.

Cordelia Goode

“If We Were Vampires” by Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit

It's not the long, flowing dress that you're in Or the light coming off of your skin The fragile heart you protected for so long Or the mercy in your sense of right and wrong It's not your hands searching slow in the dark Or your nails leaving love's watermark It's not the way you talk me off the roof Your questions like directions to the truth

It's knowing that this can't go on forever Likely one of us will have to spend some days alone Maybe we'll get forty years together But one day I'll be gone Or one day you'll be gone

Cordelia knows that one day she will die. There will be another Supreme after her and she can’t live forever. This is her coming to terms with the fact that maybe it’s for the best that she won’t stay around forever. Not being immortal allows her to live in the moment and savor all the time she has.

“PlantedInMyMind.Memo” by Charlie Burg

Saying things I don't believe And your love casts it's shadow on the things I do And I can hear so clearly all the words I'd wish I'd said You're stuck in my head But I only think of you Will we be together soon? I'm thrown on the wayside You're planted in my mind But I don't wanna be ok without you

This makes me think of an angsty Cordelia relationship like post “In Another Lifetime”?!?! Cordelia being stuck on her lover from the past 

Also makes me think of Cordelia x Misty after the events of season 3

Bette and Dot Tattler

“prom dress” by mxmtoon

I can't help the fact I like to be alone It might sound kinda sad, but that's just what I seem to know I tend to handle things usually by myself And I can't ever seem to try and ask for help

I'm sitting here, crying in my prom dress I'd be the prom queen if crying was a contest Makeup is running down, feelings are all around How did I get here? I need to know

I guess I maybe had a couple expectations Thought I'd get to them, but no I didn't

I’m not going to lie, this is a bit of a stretch.

I’m kind of getting Bette and Dot wishing they could be like everyone else. They just want that normal teen experience?

Sally McKenna

“Teeth” by 5 Seconds of Summer

Call me in the morning to apologize Every little lie gives me butterflies Something in the way you're looking through my eyes Don't know if I'm gonna make it out alive

Fight so dirty, but your love's so sweet Talk so pretty, but your heart got teeth Late night devil, put your hands on me And never, never, never ever let go

The angst! The tension! The passion! SPICY TIMES WITH SALLY

“fuck, i’m lonely” by Lauv, Anne-Marie

I call you one time, two time, three time I can't wait no more Your fingers through my hair, that's on my mind I know it's been a minute since you walked right through that door But I still think about you all the time

Sally just wants love. She’s sick of being lonely and wants to be with the person she loves. Being a ghost sucks and she wants out of that damn hotel.

Dealing with her ex that is still alive while she’s not.

Audrey Tindall

“Prom Queen” by Beach Bunny

Shut up, count your calories I never looked good in mom jeans Wish I, was like you, blue-eyed blondie, perfect body Maybe I should try harder You should lower your expectations I'm no quick-curl barbie I was never cut out for Prom Queen If I get more pretty, do you think he will like me?

Teen Audrey. I will stand by this.

Now I’m thinking about teen Audrey and my heart :(

Ally Mayfair Richards

“I Needed You” by blackbear

When I needed you the most, I needed you I fucking needed you the most, I needed you, the most Now I won't be there to give you what you need Now I won't be there, no

You know this was never really about us And everything was always 'bout you You never knew a thing about trust And I knew everything about you, what's happening Three whole years, they can go by In a blink of an eye, and you won't know it, but What a damn waste of time

You can’t sit there and tell me this doesn’t sound like Ally dealing with Ivy’s betrayal. No. There is no way this song doesn’t give off those vibes. Like sis was dealing with a ton of shit and where was her wife??? Off gallivanting and murdering with a cult because she voted for Jill Stein. 

Wilhemina Venable

“Lovesong (The Way) [feat. Bluets]” by Charlie Burg 

Now you're away with nothing to say My heart aches like never before Filled with desire, you've inspired me to write another verse

I think we're alone now You can tell me it was all just a game Yes, we're alone now But the feeling's slightly changed

But you take your time, my love Don't ever tell me that it just takes time to love As long as I'm writing this song about my love for you Is it too much to ask For a reply? Or a text? Or a way to tell you love me like before

I don’t knooowww. This just makes me think of Mina trying to deal with her feelings and possibly her significant other kind of giving up because they feel like Mina will never reciprocate their feelings. Mina does love them but it’s hard for her to express it.

“Someday” by Peach Tree Rascals

I hate the fact that you Run on mind, all damn day There she goes

Girl won't you wait for me

I settled down, I'm better now I never knew what this life was about Days got too plain, colors got dull All of the roses fell on to the floor I'll pick them up, wipe the dust Need a chance for your love For your love, for your love, ooooh I've been floating between oceans And the darkness in the sky I've been lonesome in this old shed And it's burnin through my mind

Similar to the song above, Mina hates the fact that she’s stuck on this person, but she eventually realizes that she needs this person in her life. This love really out here making her appreciate life and all the good things in it.

Basically Mina is turning into a softie.

Alice Macray

“Mariposa” by Peach Tree Rascals

I can't wait for you To come my way I've been far away But I'll keep runnin' Just to find a way to you til' then

I been running from it Tired of running from it Scared of feeling something now I'm stuck and tryna get up out of this hole

Surface level this song has some good vibes like our baby Alice. Over analyzing level is not as good vibes. This song is kind of like our baby Alice running from her feelings for someone because the thought of such strong feelings is scary for her.

Billie Dean Howard x Audrey Tindall

“Channel Orange in Your Living Room” by Charlie Burg

We met when I was drunk That party didn't actually suck You made fun of how slow I drank

But now I can't stop thinking about you Each moment passes and my thoughts return to you And the memory of us too As we listen to Channel Orange in your living room

Even when you're away That album makes me feel like you stayed To listen now would make me a fool again for you

Without a doubt, I always think of these two when I listen to the song and that’s one of the reasons why I love it so much. I’m just picturing the two of them meeting a party together and Billie taking Audrey back to her place. Then they end up thinking of each other long after the night is over.

-

You might like:  Sarah Paulson AHS Characters as Hozier Songs or  Sarah Paulson AHS Characters as Rex Orange County Songs

[killscreencinema]

Death Stranding (PS4)

The first week of quarantine, I lost my job.  It wasn’t COVID related, more like “I hated my job and my employers finally realized it” related.  So it was actually really good timing that I began this game while unemployed, as virtually delivering packages to people made me at least feel like I still had a job! 

Death Stranding, released by Hideo Kojima’s new independent studio in 2019, is set in a bleak, post-Apocalyptic future where the world of the living and the dead have converged in a catastrophic event called, well, the “death stranding”.  Dangerous phantoms, called “BTs”, roam the countryside, dragging anyone unlucky enough to encounter them into their world.  The only person who can stand up to them is a porter named Sam Bridges (Norman Reedus), who has a unique condition called DOOMS which allows him to sense a BTs presence (who are otherwise invisible to the naked eye).  Paired with a child bred to act as a link between the living and dead, called a  Bridge Baby, or BB, Sam can even see a BT, making him the only candidate who can possibly bring the world back together by traveling the wastelands of the former United States, delivering packages and connecting the surviving human cities via something called the “chiral network”.

So it’s basically a fucked up, but better, version of that Kevin Costner movie The Postman.

Also, if it seems like my story summary took longer than usual, welcome to the world of Hideo Kojima!  I tried my best to explain the story in a brief synopsis, but I still didn’t even scratch the surface of it.  For example, I didn’t even mention how Mads Mikkelson intermittently drags Sam to a battlefield-like purgatory so he can steal his BB; or how Sam’s mysterious connection to the BTs makes his bodily fluids deadly to them, so you will often use weaponry made from his piss, blood, and shit to fight them; or how his primary objective is to rescue an enigmatic woman named Amelie, who may or may not be the daughter of the recently deceased President of the United States, from terrorists who want to use Amelie to bring about the extinction of humanity.

This game is bananas, ya’ll... but in the best way.

I started this game with extremely low expectations, as it had been critically lambasted by most of the major gaming sites and YouTubers.  From the previews of the game I watched, it just seemed.... weird.  I didn’t understand what the hell I was looking at - Norman Reedus with a pod baby strapped to his chest, and a strange flappy doodad on his shoulder, while walking on a tar beach strewn about with dead whales?  What the fuck, Hideo?  Visually alone the game was such a stark (and I mean *stark*) departure from the Metal Gear games, so when I found out the gameplay was delivering packages, I became convinced that Hideo Kojima had done lost his goddamn mind. 

Turns out... and this should hardly come as a surprise... the man is a goddamn genius.

Truly brilliant art always offends and bewilders the senses at first because your mind doesn’t know how to cope with what its experiencing.  Watch any given David Lynch movie and you’ll see what I mean.  The human mind has trouble processing totally new information that has no frame of reference in memory or cultural awareness, which is why “weird” art initially repulses before it gains a following (and many great artists die in poverty before they are recognized for their genius).  Imagine introducing a peasant from the Middle Ages to a helicopter - they’d think it looks absolutely ridiculous, so when you tell them it can fly, just IMAGINE their incredulity. 

Anyway, I think that is why initial impressions of Death Stranding were so negative - it was a lot to take in for a lot of gamers used to being spoon fed repackaged versions of the same games but with different titles.  Even things that seem at first “original” have recognizable gaming mechanics that ease the player in.  I mean a game set in the apocalypse where the core gameplay is centralized on package delivery???   There’s nothing like this!  So your reaction is either going to be “This is brilliant” or, like the medieval peasant, “this is ridiculous”.

Mind you, I’m not saying if you don’t like this game, you’re as stupid as a medieval peasant.

I get why people would hate this game - it’s very different than a lot of games out there.  Death Stranding is bold and audacious in its storytelling and its gameplay.  It takes a lot of risks that most AAA publishers (like Konami for example) would balk at, which is why Kojima had to create his own company to make it.

The gameplay seems simplistic at first - deliver packages from point A to point B.  However, it’s a little more complicated than that.  For one, the key element of the game is item management and learning not to bite off more than you can chew.  Sam can only carry so many boxes, and the more you stack on top of him, the more difficult the journey will be, especially when crossing BT territory or bandits (called MULES) nipping at your heels.  You also have to take into account the rocky terrain, river crossings, and weather (oh, did I mention that rain in this game, referred to as “Time Fall”, can rapidly age items and people?).  The game is all about carefully choosing equipment you’ll think you will need, whether it be weapons, ladders (for climbing large cliff faces or crossing deep rivers or chasms), sprays for repairing damage to packages, or even a spare pair of boots in case the shoes you’re wearing wear out.  So to say that the game is “just delivering packages” greatly diminishes some of the nuance going on here.  Yes, there are lots of long stretches of just walking across a landscape to some of the most melancholy music ever assembled on a soundtrack, but I’d argue that having patience for those moments is part of the gameplay. 

The game can be frustrating, such as when Sam refuses to climb a ledge you KNOW is climbable, so he just trips and falls over instead.  The vehicles that you eventually unlock are some of the most goddamn frustrating vehicles in video game history.  At first, I figured it was because I would eventually unlock better modes of conveyance more adequately adapted to crossing rough terrain, but no - they all drive like shit.  Just getting the truck to drive up a hill without spinning out and rolling backwards can fray on one’s nerves.  It’s hard to discern how much of it is the vehicle and how much might be poor controls.

The story, as alluded to above, is ambitious at best and pretentiously bloated at worst.  However, if you’ve played any of the Metal Gear games, you know what you’re signing up for when it comes to high concept, over-indulgent story.  I would say that for the most part, Death Stranding’s story is coherent enough to enjoy, although there are long expository cut scenes that convolute the plot more than clear it up.  Fortunately, the characters are well developed enough, and are interesting enough, to keep you invested (a storytelling skill that is perhaps Kojima’s saving grace).  Also, the more dramatic beats of the story are impactful enough to still resonate, even if you’re not entirely sure what the fuck is going on.  It helps to have talent like Norman Reedus, Mads Mikkelson, and Lea Seydoux in the cast, whose performances bring the characters to life.  Sam in particular might have been an insufferable loner, were it not for Reedus’ gruff likeability that made him famous from Walking Dead. 

If you’ve avoided this game because, like me, you were convinced by bad reviews that it sucks, I would highly suggest that you reconsider.  It may not be as fun, or compelling, as a Metal Gear Solid game, but it’s an interesting departure and one worth experiencing.

[moonlightwinterdxxix]

Your first Bits of my Brothers (acronym BomB?) anon here again! Could I request a pretending to be each other Zaimoku at Sutabaa or something? There's just not enough canon Zaimoku and sextuplets identity thief shenanigans in the anime! Maybe Totty is trying to get work there again but gotten sick or something and Karamatsu decided his beloved brother can't miss out on his chance to return~✨. Whether or not it'll end in brotherly fluff or Totty & Karamatsu butt monkey angst is your choice! xD

Hello again! I hope you like this one! It’s at 7K words and I didn’t want it to be longer than it already was 😅😅. Zaimoku is one of my favorite combinations (as I’ve kinda made clear in TVV), and I hope you enjoy this little drabble I’ve made of them. 💙💖😎😘

~~~

Whenever Todomatsu Matsuno was sick, he was more than just manipulative. He was manipulative enough to be entitled as the king of manipulation, besting Ichimatsu’s cruel authority might he be the only one in a safe spot outside feverish sensations and phlegm wanting release. No, Todomatsu treated all of them like butlers and castle servants, taking advantage of his vulnerable position to get them to do his bidding and bless him with their feeble-but-ultimately-needed-to-succeed attempts.

The common instance always left the rest of his brothers with a single prayer in mind: that Todomatsu never got sick. They vowed, each and every one of them, to move mountains for hell if it meant they were to be released from the shackles of Todomatsu’s superiority. But no matter the prayers sometimes getting sick was inevitable, and each time at least one of them would be willing to gamble his life off in the Pachinko parlor if it meant escaping Todomatsu’s ruthless jurisdiction.

And Todomatsu was always proud of it.

But today, he wasn’t. He was far from happy, very distant from it in fact. For when Karamatsu had returned from the shop with a can of warm soup, he had opened their shared bedroom door to find Todomatsu curled up and bawling on the futon. The call of ‘I am back with refreshments for your unwell soul, my star of hope!’ was transformed differently in a mighty scale as Karamatsu dropped the soup bag and raced to his brother’s side with a skipping, worrisome heart.

“Totty! What’s wrong, my brother?” Karamatsu asked, placing his hands on Todomatsu’s shoulder with all the gentleness his muscles could allow. “Are you feeling cold? Or warm? Oh, please speak with me through your unfortunate misery, my dear littlest brother!”

“Shut up! I...Cod, why does it have to be you? Cod, why does it have to be you?!” Todomatsu crumbled entirely, giving in to the cries that racked his body as he tucked his face off in the crook of his arms. “Where are the others?” he asked hopefully, his sore voice muffled with the fortress of cloth acting as transparent muteness.

“Ah, yes, about that.” The thing was, the rest of their brothers had surrendered. They’ve yielded into irresponsibility, wanting no relevance whatsoever with Todomatsu’s cruel behavior for this specific occasion.

Osomatsu had decided to spend his entire day at the races, regardless of a win or a lose. Choromatsu had resorted to paying a visit to the all-week international book fair at the end of the city, hoping to find something new out of his pathetic excuse in being alive. Jyushimatsu chose to spend all of his allowance on the zoo, specifically on dolphin shows to satisfy his mammal cravings. And Ichimatsu...Er...Well...

“I’m gonna jump off a cliff,” Ichimatsu deadpanned.

“Nooo~ Please contain your dark tendencies, my dear Ichimatsu!” Karamatsu wailed.

Then Ichimatsu had strangled him for a bit before leaving the house.

“Forget I asked. It’s hopeless anyway.” Todomatsu smacked his face into his pillow and sobbed openly, gripping his pillow with the force of a hundred rakes on the dirt.

Karamatsu let an apologetic breath leave his lungs, before blinking in confusion at the phone propped face-first next to his brother’s space. As Todomatsu resumed his dramatic storm, Karamatsu picked it up and swiped the screen with his two fingers, the password an easy input, before his pupils scanned through the message and his eyes went spherical.

“Todomatsu! You were supposed to have a Sutabaa job interview this afternoon?!”

“Don’t rub it in! Shut up!” Todomatsu yelled, carrying his body’s weight with his elbows and sending Karamatsu a glare that would’ve been knife-sharp piercing might it not be for his scarily flushed face and red-rimmed, teary eyes. “And yes, I was, if you really wanted to know. It was supposed to be a short one, maybe five minutes at most, but as if I can do that with this stupid fever crap, obviously.” His face crumpled, and he toppled back onto the futon. “Just leave me alone in my own problems, niisan. You’re gonna make it a thousand times worse.”

Karamatsu continued to stare at the text on the screen, scrolling upwards and back-reading. “Oh, my Todomatsu,” he sympathized. “I should’ve known that there was more information you had refused to share. And this has been...two months in the ready?”

“Karamatsu-niisan! Quit it!” Todomatsu pleaded. “I didn’t ask to get sick today, okay?! But how am I supposed to tell Aida that I wouldn’t be able to attend?! Cod, I can’t just say it to her face like that! It’s a huge blow to my pride and I...!” He whimpered, dropping to the futon with watery defeat. “Please, just...I can’t tell her. It’s too embarrassing. Can you call her up for me and tell her that I...? Bullhooey! No, I can’t have you of all people talk to her either!”

Todomatsu continued to break down on the futon, and Karamatsu tried his best to shush his brother to the best of his extent. But it made itself clear to him that there was no way to calm him down at this point, or at least calm him down enough that he was going to stop feeling so sad.

After all, the status of Todomatsu wasn’t difficult for Karamatsu to understand, along with the personality and character that came with it. He had made actual friends at Sutabaa, both being of the opposite gender—two pretty girls with kind personalities and proper standards—a miracle remaining unaccomplished by the five other roaches of their household. And for that alone, Todomatsu was in a position in life maybe more heavenly than heaven itself.

Yet of course, naturally...

Nothing lasts forever, is what Todomatsu had to learn next. Well, it would’ve, but when you had five older brothers who were careless, unreliable pieces of crap, then any ounce of happiness might as well be a disregarded atom of dust from a distant dream. For a few months, even lasting until effing Christmas, Todomatsu had lost communication with the girls because of his brothers’ lack of sensitivity. They had publicly made him strip naked in the mixer, dressed him with a pair of banana earrings and stained underwear, and made him strike a pose at the head of the table in front of a set of pretty girls who deserved better after a dance.

So Todomatsu’s hatred towards them was justifiable.

On the other hand, he shouldn’t have lied as well. To be a person once acquainted in one of Japan’s best schools wasn’t something that would up his ratings with females if it were far from the truth. Heck, he was a literal baby during their third year of high school, crying over spilt milk and reporting himself to the police as a lost child when Choromatsu had to take a trip to throw something in the closest garbage bin.

Truth hurt, yes. But it was unstoppable.

But...Todomatsu was right about one thing. Lying did make himself gain more respect, and saved him from a closed spot that would’ve dropped his person into oblivion. It didn’t last long, but...

Sometimes it didn’t have to.

“Aha! Todomatsu, an idea has been brought forth!” Karamatsu announced, straightening his posture with a finger raised theatrically towards their ceiling.

Todomatsu squinted at him. “Nope. I don’t wanna hear it,” he decided.

Karamatsu’s broad facade faltered. “Eh?”

“That’s a recipe for disaster,” Todomatsu explained, a normal tone bringing forward how awful his voice was. It was scratchy and wiped-out, more huffs in it than actual syllables forming his words. “Every time one of my brothers says something, all that happens after that is me wishing I crashed and burned on the spot. It never changes. And with you specifically trying to subside my torture, I think I’d rather let myself die on the spot than let my ear-drums break at your first sentence.”

Ouch. Karamatsu said, “Oh, you are too early to judge, my Todomatsu!” He laughed, emphasizing his breaths in order to mask his apparent hurt. “Please. Allow access first to the plan concocted in my mind. I assure you, you might eat your words once it is laid out for you. Your misery would at once be hurled into the distance, to become nothing more than a star that glinted before joining with its fallen brethren. Heh.” He tapped a finger-gun to his chin smugly.

Expression contorted in absolute disgust, Todomatsu recoiled. “If you tell me what it is, would you please stop talking in that stupid as hell fanfaronade?”

“It would be my pleasure.” He fluttered his dazzling, anime eyes.

Todomatsu made a hurling noise, slamming his fist against his chest before he deadpanned, “Just say it.”

“Hm. Todomatsu.” Karamatsu began twirling around in swooshing motions, swaying his arms in a slow, whipping circle before posing in a fabulous, dazzling stance. “I shall impersonate you and attend the job interview in your shoes!” he declared.

Todomatsu’s sanity dropped. “EEEHHH??!!”

Without warning, Todomatsu snapped up and grabbed Karamatsu by the neckline of his hoodie, shaking him without a pixel of mercy. “Are you effing kidding me, you piece of crap?! There’s no way in heaven nor hell I’m letting you do that! Are you literally waiting for me to die?! Heck, you’re even stupider than I’ve ever imagined—I’ve been too kind to misjudge you, Karamatsu-niisan! Because you’re so much worse and that idea is absolute garbage!”

“A-Ah! Totty, don’t yell too much with your sore throat!” Karamatsu stuttered out, smiling nervously. “Totty, it’s gonna work. I’m sure of it.”

“As if!” Todomatsu retorted, ignoring Karamatsu’s previous suggestion completely. “You’re gonna go out there making me look like an idiot! I’ve lost friends because of you and the others, and when I might be bouncing back you have to idle up to me all, ‘I’m gonna impersonate you and ruin your life more’—BULL!” He shoved Karamatsu down onto the futon. “What do you think of me—a fool?! You may be an actor during elementary but you’re out of your gosh-darn mind if you think you’re going to do good playing me!”

“How hard could it be?” Karamatsu asked, crawling a few spaces backwards with slight terror. “You have a simple personality, my brother! You have a phone, you can converse rather easily, and you have a light voice that makes you all nice and cute!”

Changing the rules of flavoring, Todomatsu’s grin was incredibly bitter. “You really have the guts to compliment me like that, don’t you? Forget it. Not gonna happen.”

“C’mon, Totty, give me a shot!” Karamatsu argued. “You said it yourself! I’m an actor, and with the hundreds of times we’ve spent together since childhood it won’t be hard to capture your essence! Give me a chance.”

“I don’t believe it,” Todomatsu said, rolling his eyes. “The childhood thing is a good excuse, but it won’t make the cut. Literally everyone in Sutabaa knows who I am, and like hell I’m letting someone like you of all people try to use some gosh-darn trickery on them. I’m not going to let you go out there pretending to be me, niisan. And that’s final.”

“But if you don’t get the job then you won’t be happy!” Karamatsu shouted, placing his hands on his hips. “Todomatsu, I want to be able to assist you as well. It’s what we do when we’re sick, isn’t it? We take care of each other? This is part of the treatment—it’s even better because we’re all identical brothers! Give me a chance. I promise I won’t humiliate you, or do something stupid. I’ll imitate you to the best of my abilities, change nothing from your usual self and keep your relationships as stagnant as you want them.”

“That doesn’t sound reassuring,” Todomatsu said, but he was contemplating.

“It doesn’t sound it, okay,” Karamatsu stated, “but I mean it. I really do want to lessen your stress over the matter. I’ll work to my skeleton if it means doing well in that job interview, Todomatsu. I swear, and Akatsuka-Sensei knows I do. Just...trust me, brother.”

Todomatsu narrowed his eyes, but his eyebrows didn’t follow. They shaped his expression over to consideration other than irritation, his body relaxing from its sitting position on their shared bed.

Finally, he said, “How about we make a deal? Since you’re the only one who stayed to help me with my fever—and I have to say that I appreciate that—how about if you do a good job getting me my old job back, I could be your servant the next time you get sick? I’ll suck up to all those painful demeanors of yours and stand it until you get better.”

“I...It’s fair, I suppose,” Karamatsu assessed.

Todomatsu’s grin was not reassuring. “Yeah? Think so? Sure, it could work out, won’t it? But if you make an absolute fool of me...!”

He stood up from the futon and marched over to their closet, pulling out his huge flamethrower and aiming its front at Karamatsu’s terrified face. “I’ll incinerate all your sequined pants and personalized tank tops until they’re nothing but ashes,” he completed viciously, grin worth jealousy from a sadist.

Karamatsu gulped, feeling uneasy with the top he was currently wearing underneath his hoodie. But he supposed it was a fair trade, with both of them receiving equal shares at each side of the bargain. And both their downs...It wasn’t worth a complain. Losing friends was just as bad as losing all of his wonderful, designed Karamatsu fashion.

Tilting his head down, Karamatsu decided. And it wasn’t even a minute before he reached out a hand and gave Todomatsu a worried smile. “I digress. I accept the terms of our deal, my dear brother Todomatsu. Turn all my clothes into smithereens might I annihilate your persona, Todomatsu. I accept thy conditions.”

“Good.” Todomatsu grabbed his hand and shook it, the resolution of their bargain firm. “This is my lifeline in your hands, Shittymatsu. Your clothes, and my lifeline. Don’t mess this up, or else.”

He wouldn’t. He hoped not.

~~~

With Sutabaa towering over him, it looked like the gateway to judgement. It was a taunting, expectant thing, half a thumbs up as it was a middle finger, and Karamatsu’s nervousness and anxiety sloshed in his stomach and burned his skin. His complexion was moist with his sweat, his hair that he had combed to perfection beginning to paste himself on his forehead, and Karamatsu rubbed it with the back of his shaky hand.

For his clothes, but more for Todomatsu’s reputation.

Shoving Todomatsu’s phone into his pocket and arranging his tie, Karamatsu let himself sigh unsteadily as he let his feet take him towards the doorway. He felt like he was dragging ten-thousand anvils behind him. But it was worth it, he decided, as long as he could finish the interview with a proper attitude and a selfless intention. This was for Todomatsu’s job, Todomatsu’s friendships, and Todomatsu’s reputation.

And his clothes.

But Cod, he hoped he would do well. He wished to say exactly what Todomatsu would say in his position, move with the accuracy of his little brother, and speak with a timbre close enough to the original that the term ‘identical’ made more sense than it had the past few years. But perhaps, he thought, as long as nobody who knew Todomatsu approached him, he would be absolutely, absolutely, without a feather of a doubt, fine.

“Totty? Is that you?”

Ah, shoot.

Karamatsu pulled up a kitty-shaped Todomatsu smile. He brightened his eyes and raised his brows from their thick, constant furrow. And as he spun his heel to face the source of the familiar voice, he tried to recap every single piece of information he knew about Aida as she came to him in her recognizable Sutabaa work uniform, her brown curls bouncing on her shoulders.

Aside from seeing Aida then while humiliating Todomatsu at work, and seeing Aida and Sachiko participate unsuccessfully at the baseball space tournament, the last thing Karamatsu remembered about her was she and Sachiko giving him dark, murderous death-stares on the bridge. That..didn’t seem like it was a good thing. Not then, and certainly not now.

He was so dead.

“Totty, there you are!” Aida said, stopping next to him. Cod, she was so pretty, no wonder Todomatsu was so upset to lose someone like her. “Are you ready for your interview? I hope you can get the job again—it was a shame you had to lose it last time. I have a hunch you’ll be able to do it now.”

“Ah-ha! Hopefully, yes! Thank you so much!” Karamatsu said, forcing his voice up from the low baritone that came with his genes. “Hello, Aida! I didn’t think you’d come from that direction!” He pointed. “I could’ve sworn you were in there.” He jabbed his thumb towards the Sutabaa entrance.

“Oh, yeah. Sorry about that.” She giggled apologetically, and Karamatsu felt his cheeks grow warm. “I wasn’t skipping work, I promise. I just got distracted a little, but it was only for a few seconds before I saw you. I was worried! I thought you weren’t gonna come anymore! It would’ve been so embarrassing to cancel last-minute on the manager.”

His gut plummeting, Karamatsu’s laugh came out less of a laugh and more of the sound of a dying hyena. “Well, I’m here! So you don’t have to worry about that anymore! I made it, so no humiliation whatsoever!” He was tempted to pose, but held back at the right second before he could crack.

Aida eyed him dubiously. “Are you alright? Your voice sounds very...breathy.”

“It does?” It did, and it was because Karamatsu’s voice wasn’t at its quality to accommodate a pitch and speaking pattern similar to Todomatsu’s. When he tried, the result came out very breathy, or if not, very screechy and...wrong. It would’ve given away his true identity so quickly might she be an expert in discerning him and Todomatsu from their brothers. So speaking with his normal, light pitch with added cheerfulness was the only way to match closely to the original source. He thought that perhaps it would be enough.

But apparently, it wasn’t enough.

“Ah, it does!” he corrected, rubbing the back of his head with a laugh. “Sorry about that! My throat really hurt this morning and I guess this is the aftermath of that!”

Except Todomatsu’s throat really did hurt that morning, and it continued so until this point. Hence, Karamatsu being here, in his shoes.

He was almost starting to regret doing this. But keeping his brother’s sad, weeping face in mind was plentiful to glue back Karamatsu’s determination. This was for Todomatsu. He had to remember: this was for Todomatsu.

And his clothes.

“It did? Oh, I feel so bad for you,” Aida said, sounding like she meant it, but Karamatsu’s anxiety told him otherwise. Drawing the line between reality and fiction was difficult when he was living in fiction, that fiction meaning, a world where he wasn’t himself. And he wasn’t, because he was Todomatsu. And ‘Todomatsu’ was talking to Aida...

He had to gather up his Todomatsu-ness.

“Would you be able to complete your job interview with that?” Aida asked.

“Oh, I’ll be fine, don’t worry about it,” Karamatsu reassured, flipping a palm. “As long as my brain works fine, I could accomplish what needs to be accomplished. And since I have experience, I don’t think I’ll do so bad, right?” He pulled up two peace signs and waved them energetically. “It’ll all be a matter of time though before we truly see. Heh-heh! So for the time being—” he put the peace signs towards his eyes “—all it takes is a little more determination! Yeah!” He posed, but it was overly cutesy.

Her smile was somewhere between amused and petrified. “Are you sure you’re okay, Todomatsu?” she asked.

“Never been better! Why would you question it?”

“I, well...” She reached to one of her elbows, rubbing it. Dang, she was so cute. “If you had a sore throat this morning, then I wouldn’t think you’d be okay so fast. And your...Oh, I hope I’m not offending you or anything, and I hope I could say this more politely, but have your eyebrows always been that thick?”

I knew I should’ve taken Totty’s word and shaved them a little. Karamatsu laughed again, but inside, he was screaming about his soul and how it could get ripped out of his body. “I suppose—I never really mind them! I hope it doesn’t bother you or anything!”

“It’s fine, I swear.” She tilted her head, her hair hopping a little. “Are you really Totty? He’s got five lookalike brothers, and I honestly won’t be surprised if you’re one of them. Not saying you are, but your behavior is a little strange. Or is that just nervousness for the interview talking?”

“I’m just nervous! That’s all it is!” Karamatsu lied, clasping his hands not out of the hopes to make himself mimic one of his brother’s cute gestures, but so that he could grab something before he combusted from her accuracy. Shoot, how did she find out?! Keep calm, Karamatsu. You’ve got this! This is for Todomatsu’s reputation!

And his clothes.

“But I’m so touched to know you’re so concerned,” he continued lightly, waving his peace sign again. Was he overdoing it with the peace signs? The last time he impersonated someone, he had made paw gestures and moved them with a tenderness like he were an actual feline, and that wasn’t something Ichimatsu would normally do. Or, maybe it wasn’t something he would to at all. “I really wish to get the job again, so we can hang out more often! I miss the regular days before me and my brothers messed things up.”

Because, duh. Todomatsu did have to take a little blame for the incident none of them asked for.

“Uh, yeah...I miss those days too.” Aida gave him a toothy grin laced with the same uncertainty. “Anyway, we’d better get going. You have that interview and I have my work, so we’ll see each other again later after, alright?”

“Yes, sure! That would be spectacular!” He’d actually hope he didn’t see her again later, not if it meant pretending to be Todomatsu for another round of cringe-worthy torture. But if that made Aida happy, he might. As long as he got a better hang of his little masquerade, then maybe he might offer her the opportunity.

It just needed to be at the extent that he would receive no beating once the day was over.

“Great. See you later...Todomatsu.”

Crap, what was with that hesitation? No, it couldn’t be. But the way she was so casually leaving, preparing to get inside...

He had to make up for it now, or else he was to expect an entire army against him and his feeble-sighted efforts! He shouldn’t let her leave with whatever impression crept beneath that hesitant farewell! No, he wouldn’t allow that! If anyone was ever to question any person involved in this mess, then it would be Karamatsu! So no, Aida-chan! You would not walk away with a remark hanging on your lips that left judgement over Karamatsu’s hapless impersonation of their darling star of hope!

“Aida-chan!” Karamatsu called out, grabbing her wrist before she could enter completely, and bringing Todomatsu’s phone out of his pocket. “Sorry for startling you, but, would it be alright if I got a picture with you? You know, before perquisite or calamity?”

Aida shot him a look, and Karamatsu winced internally, wanting to slap himself with the force of a Titan to a mosquito. Shoot, watch your choice of words, you stupid, second eldest! Todomatsu would never speak like that—he calls it out for how painful it was! You will ruin everything if you try that again, you crap!

“Sure, I don’t mind,” Aida said, settling herself by Karamatsu’s chest, her spinal cord parallel to where his heart reverberated in his chest in a wild, twister of patterns. He had a girl leaning against his body. A girl. Was this what it felt whenever Todomatsu hung out with them? This closeness, this wonderful emotion that made him want to laugh and cry at once? It had to be. It just had to be.

Suffering from his unbridled, unexplainable joy, Karamatsu lifted the phone above their heads, his thumb sliding against the selfie option of their camera. And when the camera flipped, he saw Aida and himself on the screen, the girl raising her peace sign with a smile, waiting for Karamatsu to do the same. But he stared at himself in his reflection, reading through the curves of his features and where he was going wrong. And it saddened him, when he looked at himself with the acumen of exposure.

He looked nothing like Todomatsu.

Because unlike Todomatsu, who wore a smile because it was part of him, Karamatsu wore his so he could be him.

But he had to remember: this smile wasn’t for nothing. It was for Todomatsu too. It wasn’t a selfish desire that had brought him into this spot, this tight corner, this unpredicted catastrophe of self-humiliation. He was doing this so that Todomatsu had a better life, one he deserved, after he and the other four cowards elsewhere had ruined it.

So he smiled at the camera, and as that smile illuminated his features, a small sense of the Totty he loved as his little brother and once best friend filled his face. His spirits left their corpse-like slump on the ground. “Say cheese, Aida,” he coaxed, his voice not leaving its lightness.

“Cheese!” Aida said, getting her peace sign into a good position, and as Karamatsu did the same, he snapped their picture.

The output was cute, he had to admit. Though the way his hands were positioned had added exaggeration than what Todomatsu would normally have in a casual photo with one of Sutabaa’s infamous baristas, this was still an image convincing enough to fool an outsider who knew nothing about their miracle of six same faces. Or Iyami.

“Alright! See you later, Todomatsu. Good luck with your interview. Just take a turn to that door at the left, and I believe the manager will be waiting for you.”

“Okay, thanks, Aida! I’ll see you as well!”

With that, Aida and Karamatsu exchanged a few waves, and Aida was out of his view as she let herself in before him, vanishing with her grace behind the employees door of the shop, her figure still leaving an imprint in his retinas.

But he shook it off. Entering himself, Karamatsu followed her direction and went towards the meeting door she indicated, stopping in front of it and taking a deep breath. This was for his brother, for Todomatsu who was sick in bed and unable to come. He needed to make this right, and beyond everything else, natural. So without further stalling he was knocking twice before pushing it open hesitantly.

When it was open, he let himself in, and bowing down, he announced, “Good afternoon! My name is Todomatsu Matsuno, and I am applying for a job here!”

Who must’ve been the manager sat up, eyebrows shooting upwards under his glasses. “Ah, Matsuno-kun! You’re here! Welcome! Please, take a seat.”

He indicated to the one in front of him, and Karamatsu followed his order and sat. Inhaling, the scent of coffee saturated his lungs, and the hunger he had that didn’t even know existed let itself be known as a tremor sounded under his blue suit. But praise the gods, it was silent enough for a pass. He had to do this. Todomatsu, his lifeline depended on what Karamatsu said in this one-one-one speech. He had to approach this correctly without error. He had this. Or didn’t he?

“So, I guess we already know each other, since you’ve been here before,” the manager said, arranging a set of papers by clicking their edges against the wooden surface of the table. “But it has been long enough, so how have you been? What have you been up to?”

Okay, so he wasn’t pissed. That was good. Luckily being absent from the mixer’s horrific presentation was enough to keep his perception on the youngest Matsuno well enough that anger wasn’t a visible option for him. Case in point: visible. Any anger or rage was easy to hide behind a mask of a smile, a knife easy to assume as close by and prepared for its session of stabbing. When it came to Akatsuka Ward, knives weren’t for chopping tasty or delicious portions for any lovely course. It was for chopping distasteful NEETs like them.

Thanks, Ichimatsu.

“Ah, I’ve been very well, thank you,” Karamatsu replied, stretching the muscles that wanted to pull up a whimper into a broad, toothy smile. “It has been quite some time. How have you been?”

“Great, really. Thanks for asking.” Interlocking his fingers, the manager rested his chin on them as he straightened his gaze collateral to Karamatsu’s. “I remember that article you once mentioned about the firefighter and the maiden. Thought I forgot about that? Nah, it was too iconic for the mind to sweep away so easily, Matsuno-kun. That was how funny it was! You do still laugh about that experience, don’t you?”

Karamatsu laughed out loud, and the manager flinched at the unpredicted. “Of course! I’m laughing right now! HA-HA-HA-HA-HA!”

You’re messing this up, Karamatsu, you idiot! Don’t laugh like the lunatic you are! You will massacre all of the chances granted for your brother’s probable forthcoming! Quit breaking Todomatsu’s person and show the decency he would when faced with the challenge of real-time communication!

Crap, Todomatsu! You stupid lovable little pice of garbage, why oh why do you need to be the type to camouflage so many secrets from your dear older brothers?! You bring tears to this gullible fool, wanting out of your social status but resumes the struggle just for you! You are loved, little star of hope! And in love comes the infamous, one-lettered word called trust! And by hiding your soul away, you—

“Heh, a bit excessive there, Matsuno-kun,” the manager observed, the waver in his grin a strong symptom to Karamatsu’s fiasco.

“Sorry, sorry! I’m just very thrilled to be here again!” Karamatsu amended. “Please go on. I won’t interrupt you if it means the interview gets postponed.”

The manager dipped his chin, not commenting any further.

Nice. Do more of that and do less of you, Shittymatsu.

“Alright then.” The manager cleared his throat, picking up a pen from the table and clinking it against the papers. “So, I just want to tell you that there are things I would no longer ask, since information regarding your background and education was already accounted for during your first interview under the Sutabaa name. This won’t be a long interview, Matsuno-kun. Just enough for us to decide over your return or permanent departure.”

Karamatsu sweat-dropped. “Oh, sure. That’ll be fine.”

It was now or never.

“Okay then. We’ll begin now.” The manager pressed the pen’s black tip to the paper, marking it with an inky dot. “I bet you recall crystal clear how you lost your job in the first place, Matsuno-kun. How about you remind me of the situation, and follow it with what you might be able to do to repent for the trouble.”

“Eh-heh, of course, sir.” Karamatsu cleared his own throat, summoning up the memory of the situation and picturing it with Todomatsu’s young, victimized eyes.

(But with his undeniable lack of backbone to keep all senses straight and alert, he had lost control over his own, painful words. And he was so naive, so stupid, to have missed it. Darn Shittymatsu, that’s what he was)

“It all began because of the mixer. I made the mistake of abandoning my brothers because of it when Sutabaa’s special glowing girls had gifted me with their invitation. Therefore I made myself look my best in front of them, that was until your doors were opened and my kin of older brothers summoned themselves in our divine territory. They were rather disgruntled with my behavior, and all my efforts to rid them from your wonderful establishment resulted in the turning of tables. Almost literally, as I might say so myself, since we were all so caught up in Matsuno shenanigans that resulted in spilt drinks and traumatized patrons. Sad to say, the mixer was almost as unfortunate, as humiliation had produced scowls and dusted trust. Aida-san and Sachiko-san were quick to strip me of my job the day following.”

The manager nodded, a cringe in his posture at Karamatsu’s theatrical choice of words. “I see you recall the experience as if you had taken it to heart. You sounded like you were out of a stage play, Matsuno-kun.”

Karamatsu blanched, his own blunder dawning on him. “Ah, yeah! It’s an experience that makes a mark on my person!” he alibied gaily.

“And for the repenting?” the manager asked, clicking the end of his pen as he prepared a paper. “What are your plans specifically, and how could you say that those contributions of yours would better the ratings of our business?”

Karamatsu gave himself a few seconds to think. Digging deep in the vault of his memories, Karamatsu pressed on imagining anything that Todomatsu might’ve done that related closely with coffee or anything that could better the antes of the Sutabaa chain. But each option that sprouted to mind gave Karamatsu difficulty, because why won’t it, really. How was tapping on a phone screen nor running some lame puns with Osomatsu going to help in any way?

Shoot, when was the last time Todomatsu even made them coffee? The only person who had come close to trying that had been Jyushimatsu, and Ichimatsu had been confined for three days straight out of food poisoning. So really, what contribution whatsoever would Todomatsu have? Basically nothing, as Karamatsu recalled. But for this interview to work, he had to use what he knew and warp around it.

“I’m skilled in promoting, if that’s what you need,” Karamatsu improvised, Todomatsu’s smartphone in mind. “Since I was gone I had a lot of friends on social media, and I’ve discovered a lot of new ways that could help with marketing. Promotional posters, digital editing, and brochures! I can make the products of Sutabaa stand out more than they normally would!”

“Hmm, I see.” The manager wrote down, and Karamatsu’s anxieties tingled. “Are you describing this as a part-time thing to working as a cashier? Because last time, that was your main job, wasn’t it? And to be a cashier was what Aida had mentioned when she stated that you wanted to reclaim your job here. Am I right?”

“Yes, sir. One-hundred percent.” Heh, if he was wrong about that, then Todomatsu’s career was over. He wished he was right.

“But what of your cashier skills, Matsuno-kun? How much in terms of skills would you say your improvement is? When you still had the job, you were a solid employee with proper manners and the right choice of speech, making our customers feel welcome. Would you say that you graduated into someone better than then? Or are you the same, and want to focus more on marketing than counting money and taking orders this time? Because it would contradict the information on my papers.”

“Uhh...” Karamatsu tugged lightly on his collar, gulping. Save Todomatsu. Save Todomatsu. “Naturally, I’d wish to continue my status working as a cashier. But your question revolved around what more my contributions would offer when it came to the establishment. That’s why I mentioned the marketing. It was merely a suggestion around my part. But if I was to resume as a cashier entirely, then I won’t fight against it. I would be happy with whatever job you offered me.”

The manager eyed him for a bit, the tension killing Karamatsu that it made his nape sweat. The manager then nodded, sold, writing the information down. “Alright. That’s good confirmation.”

Bingo. Nice save.

“So correct me if I’m wrong, but it seems like over time you have turned more adaptable than before. Would you think that’s the case for you?”

Was Todomatsu flexible? No, he was far from it. Todomatsu would never bother waiting for the shampoo at the bathhouse and snag a bottle none of them knew he ever brought with him. He was impatient when it came to his brothers, and very short-tempered when things didn’t flow like the rivers he dwelled in. So no, Todomatsu wasn’t adaptable. He was obdurate, and it was annoying.

But he was making Todomatsu look good here.

“Yes, I am,” Karamatsu lied, smile saccharine. “So if I needed my job here doubled in terms of stress or hard work, then I would be happy to oblige. Being an employee in Sutabaa really was something that I loved dearly, and to be able to comply with any requirement would make me very much grateful. That is, if you brought me back. Then I would go straight to business and work myself to my very core. That’s how much I love it here!”

Which was in fact, the truth. Todomatsu’s love for being in the Sutabaa was stronger, and could surpass any of Karamatsu’s lies by millions and billions of kilometers.

“Hmm, alright. I’ll keep that in mind.” The manager jotted down. “How about your pay? Are there any expectations for you when it comes to the income you will receive from working here?”

Karamatsu went rigid. “Pardon?”

“How much do you aspire to earn?” the manager clarified. “From your salary last time, do you expect to earn twice as much if you did multiple jobs, or are you going to be satisfied with the same amount as before? Or less? And no matter what answer, how much would it be, and what would justify it?”

Oh Cod, why. Why, why, why. Todomatsu never mentioned how much he ever earned working in this dumb establishment ever! And without experience whatsoever with this kind of stuff, how on earth was Karamatsu supposed to know?! He’d be making numbers that didn’t even exist at all on the number line! What was supposed to be the answer to this gosh-darn question if he had never even heard of these kinds of questions since the day his baby form came into reality?!

This was it. He was dead. Deader than a decayed corpse or an animal rolled over on desert roads. He was so, so dead.

“Since I was here before, I was surely satisfied enough with the pay I earned,” Karamatsu replied cautiously, “so I wouldn’t be surprised if you decided to give me the same amount. Most especially since I would—without a doubt—be receiving extra monitoring due to the impression I last left, even if the job was doubled. With that, it shouldn’t be a startle if a few of the workers were weary of me, and I’d accept that. So the money would easily follow the flow of that behavior.”

“Hm. Continue.” He was writing again.

“Not that I would get two jobs when it came to Sutabaa at all, it’s not a priority to extend the marketing. For me now, it’s just to get to work at the cashier again, to reclaim my old position. But when it comes to money—because of the establishment and name that Sutabaa has made for itself, one of the most important things I’d hope from it is honesty and a fair game when it comes to distributing my salary. No bias, but judgement based on my efforts and the way I had attracted patrons into the department. Plenty of agencies in the present are culprits of fraudulent funding, and I believe that Sutabaa follows none of that outlandish conduct. Therefore when it comes to my pay, I wish it to be the amount equivalent to what I have produced for you.”

“Which is?”

“Ah-Ah...” Dang, he was doing so well, he thought. He had no specifics in mind—what was he to say? He blubbered out, “T-The one...before...?”

The manager stared at him. Karamatsu stared back. The terrifying staring contest was getting unbearable, with a smile and the connection of eyes making Karamatsu want to just break away and crumble from insanity. He couldn’t take it anymore. He just couldn’t, he wanted to go home, to crash onto the roof and sing a soliloquy of his own pain and sorrow for the world to hear! He could bear no more of the coffee drifting in the air like a stab to the gut, a spear to the heart, a sword through the spi—

“Have you had any other jobs following the first one here, Matsuno-kun?” the manager asked, already glanced down over his papers again.

“Oh, I haven’t, sir.” There was under the Flag Corporation that one time, and that other thing when he switched with his brothers. But would those really be called jobs? Karamatsu didn’t think so.

“Okay. One more question, Matsuno-kun. What are your opinions on simplicity? Simplicity in a sense that you start small before evolving? Like, a chrysalis before it becomes a butterfly? That kind of evolution on simplicity.”

He couldn’t help it this time.

(Now, here’s the deal: Karamatsu was just plain dumb. Because any smart person would ask why a question like that was necessary at all, especially when it came to working at a cashier for a coffee shop, but this lunatic of a man went straight to standing and posing his arms like he were Romeo might he have broken his back while hunting for Juliet in a poor man’s excuse of a garage)

“The butterfly effect! Oh, how a concept like that just warms my heart!” Karamatsu extolled. “I do believe that simplicity goes in many ways! Plenty of opportunities might blossom like a rose, the sun strike it at the right moment, sending the rose into a mainstream for attention as a result of its beauty! But woe is the past, dreadful and sorrowful for what it contains, when it tears the heart and ruins the soul of its hopes and dreams! The rose, that poor rose, so bundled in its misery, to sit until its last few seconds, ready to fall into despair!

“Then the sun, that glorious sun! Oh, it was the rose’s guardian angel, sending it a spirit for life and the will to fight forward! Oh, and it would now attract all the butterflies that followed a path so similar to it’s! Yes, the simplicity of life’s evolution is a concept to be shared to all ages for the will to fight when life’s chains wish to drag you down! Yes, simplicity is a concept that as it mentions, is simple. And yes, simplicity is a perfect, perfect thing that—!”

“Alright, thank you for your time, Matsuno-kun.” The manager stood up and walked to the other side of the table, standing next to Karamatsu. His smile was anything but sweet, but an amalgamation of horrified, baffled, surprised, and furious. “We’ll send you a call if you get the job or not. Let me lead you out.”

He did, and when Karamatsu was at the other side of the door, he said, “See you then, Matsuno-kun! Have a nice day!” And he slammed the door shut.

Karamatsu stood there.

“Totty?”

Oops, that was Aida from somewhere in the shop he didn’t want to turn towards as his anxiety flopped and flipped and cartwheeled inside him. Nope, he didn’t hear her. And because he didn’t, he dashed out of the shop with speed faster than lightning and ran until the coffee establishment was nothing but a diorama behind him.

Todomatsu was going to kill him.

~~~

One week later...

“Okay, thank you.” Todomatsu lowered the receiver and returned to the main living room, expressionless, mouth a tiny line of nothing on his face.

“Hm? Who might that be, my brother?” Karamatsu asked, glancing up from his mirror.

“Sutabaa.”

Karamatsu immediately sat up with tension freezing his body to its very core. “Y-Yes? What did they say?”

“I have a job.”

Karamatsu’s heart fluttered, and he broke into a wide smile as his eyes shined with starlight. “Oh, my brother! I am so glad you managed to score a position in Sutabaa once more! Thank goodness of your good fortune, your luck be blessed by Akatsuka-Sensei himself! To return as the cashier was what you have wan—!”

“I have a job as a janitor.”

Karamatsu’s smile melted. “Ah, you...Eh?”

Todomatsu’s blank gaze swept over to him. “You turned me into a janitor.”

“I, uh...” Clearing his throat, Karamatsu put down his mirror. A thousand words wanted out for the sake of explanation, but none left him as he tried deciding if he should be apologetic or terrified. Maybe the right answer to this was that he be both. He had been the one to decide the fate of his brother after all, so if it meant feeling both of those things at once, then so be it.

Karamatsu laughed nervously. “You...You still have a job though?” he pointed out hesitantly.

Todomatsu stared down at him without anything in his eyes. “I’ll burn one of your clothes combinations,” he decided.

“A-Ah...! Oh...But would you still care for me if I was sick?” Karamatsu asked.

At first, Todomatsu didn’t say anything at all. Then putting his fingers to his mouth, Todomatsu made a dog whistle.

At first Karamatsu had no idea what that was for, when suddenly Ichimatsu leapt out of nowhere with a feral cat screech, grabbed Karamatsu’s mirror, and slammed it across Karamatsu’s face. Luckily it wasn’t strong enough for the glass to break, but it was enough to leave a burned mark on Karamatsu’s face as he reeled back onto the floor from the force of Ichimatsu’s slam.

Crashing onto the floor and clutching his cheek, Karamatsu doubled over with a yelp and a whimper, a sound of suffocation faintly stuck in his throat. Putting a hand to his cheek, there might’ve been a small wound that bled, now that he touched his face, and it hurt like...It hurt. It really, really hurt.

Karamatsu whimpered.

“I’ll fix that wound up for you, I’ll burn one of your clothes combinations. Can we be even then?” Todomatsu deadpanned, grabbing the mirror from the ‘claw’ of Ichimatsu’s hissing form, and tossed the mirror back onto the table.

“Yeah, that’ll be fine,” Karamatsu rasped.

So Todomatsu’s reputation was secured. As were his clothes.

Partly. Only partly.