#verse: red thread of fate

[dwarfstaralloy]

@wildthiiing | liked for a starter. for mick.

His fingers fumble with the bandage he is wrapping around his wrist. Ray knows he can ask for help, but it seems so stupid that he's gotten hurt, and he doesn't really want to see or hear people's judgement right now. So he struggles on his own, only pausing when he hears footsteps behind him.

[elysian-voices]

Tag Dump 12: Ganondorf

Because Tears of the Kingdom has everyone thirsting for rehydrated Ganondorf, I figured I'd write my own interpretation of the Demon King. This is a headcanon heavy interpretation of Ganondorf based on the first Calamity mentioned in Breath of the Wild and therefore will not follow any plotlines from the upcoming game.

[m1dn1ght-r0t]

Tethered by Fate [pt. 1]

Yandere! superhero! childhood friend x civilian! fem reader

Synopsis: A seemingly innocent act of kindness from you sets off a chain of events that will irrevocably alter the course of your life. TW: bullying (not towards reader), obsessive & delusional behavior, murder (of a side char), descriptions of gore, stalking, mans is an unreliable narrator, eventual smut in pt.2 (18+, when both are adults ofc) A/N: pt.1 is mainly setting up the scene and tracing the root of his obsession through the years, so apologies if it's a little slow and long-winded. the juicier parts and climax will be featured in pt 2 (which i'm currently working on)!! Also in this universe, the red string that connects soulmates is a visible thread that everyone can see, so you'll know who is/isn't your soulmate.

You wonder if things could've gone differently.

If only you hadn't befriended him. If only you had spoken up and defended him when it mattered. If only you hadn't distanced yourself. If only you'd noticed the glaring signs, bold and bright as red ink. If only you'd been more vigilant. If only you'd skipped the shortcut route home. If only you hadn't been so trusting as to invite him inside. If only you'd been firmer with your no's and pushed back harder...

... a million iterations of what ifs circulate your mind. But none of them would've mattered.

Try as you might to conjure up fantasies to hide yourself away and find solace in, the wretched outcome remains: your invisible shackles will forever bind you to the man who tore apart and rewrote fate itself. The one who single-handedly destroyed your life.

Once he decided you were his—that you belonged together across every universe: past, present, future, alternate—no sacred verses etched in scripture, no divine prophecies, no eternal threads could ever stand in his way.

~

"Honey, don't cry. The kids will love you for you. You're bright, amazing, and such a good boy. Trust me, they'll open up to you, and you'll all be best buddies in no time!"

... was what your childhood friend's mom had softly cooed into his ear when he came home from school one afternoon, bawling, thick snot running down his nose.

For a middle schooler, things like reputation, fitting in, and having friends mattered a great deal. So for him to fail so miserably in all departments meant he was truly at the bottom of the food chain.

A head shorter than most of his peers, who were eagerly speculating about whose powers would manifest first, he became an easy target. His tiny, stick-thin stature made him the subject of ridicule, with some kids sneering that standing too close to him might infect them with some “powerless disease”. Ignoring him wasn’t enough—they made sure he knew exactly where he stood: nowhere.

He'd begged his mom to let him change schools (again), but she simply shooed him away, insisting that he just needed time to adjust to his new environment.

What he failed to mention were the key details—his lunch money being stolen every day, his gym uniform constantly soiled in dirty mop water, his desk decorated in insults scribbled in Sharpie, and the ugly yellow-and-purple bruises marring his skin. How could he possibly tell her? He knew his poor mother wouldn't be able to handle such distressing news or fathom that her precious baby boy was being bullied.

And so, he bided his time and suffered in silence, growing more isolated with each passing day—worn down bit by bit until he started to believe he truly was nothing more than a scrawny, useless, four-eyed freak.

That was until... you came along.

From the moment you enrolled at his school, you were loved by everyone. It was hard not to be, with your easygoing and friendly demeanor.

Imagine his surprise when you sat next to him in Math class. Never mind the fact that it was the only available seat, but does that really matter? To make it even sweeter, you said hi to him first. Him. Of all people!

Sure, maybe it was just a segue to ask to borrow a pen. But you didn't have to say hi to him, and there were plenty other classmates you could've asked. Didn't you know you were committing social suicide by talking to him?

Maybe you hadn't gotten the memo that he was the grade's biggest loser, the one everyone oscillated between taunting or ignoring. Maybe it was all part of some cruel joke he wasn't privy to.

Or maybe... you genuinely wanted to talk to him.

That latter possibility was confirmed when, for the rest of the year, you kept sitting next to him in class. Every. Single. Time. Willingly. A conscious choice you made. You began greeting him by name—wait, you actually knew his name?—and sharing whatever snack you brought that day.

He found himself looking forward to seeing you, to sharing brief moments of laughter, to basking in your comforting company. Piece by piece, his defenses chipped away. While he shrouded every room in a blanket of gloom, your presence was as radiant as the rising sun, your pretty smile blinding him with the warm, golden rays that eventually filtered through the broken walls he had built up.

Suddenly, the suffering he endured all those years didn't matter. None of it mattered, because it all led to this treasured moment of meeting you.

For once in his otherwise shitty childhood, he had someone to call a friend. A friend who made his heart race so fast it felt like it might leap out, his skin tingle with goosebumps, and his cheeks warm with a deep blush. As incoherent and messy as it was to make sense of his own feelings, one thing was certain to him—you were his destined soulmate.

But with that realization came the bitter truth: life didn't always have your best interests at heart. For this perfect happily-ever-after he dreamed of was shattered by the harsh reality he couldn't bear to face—

His red thread didn't connect to yours, and neither did yours to his.

He could see it, the string that should have bound you together. But it remained stubbornly absent, yours and his leading elsewhere—to other people—like a mocking, cruel reminder of what could never be.

~

By high school, he barely saw you anymore. Granted, you didn’t have any classes together, and with senior year meant more work and less spare time. But he’d hoped you’d at least make some effort to continue your after school hangouts or talk during the in-between moments. Wasn’t that what friends did?

Except, whenever he bumped into you—whether in the hallways, at the front gate, in the cafeteria, or by the convenient store both of you frequented—you didn’t even offer him a "hi" back when he called out your name. Nor did you flash that beaming smile you used to send his way.

In fact, save for the fleeting glance you’d graciously deign him every now and then—only to quickly retreat your eyes to safer territory—you acted as if he didn’t even exist.

Oh.

Somehow, that hurt more than—get out of the fucking way, freak—being haphazardly shoved into the lockers and kneed in the ribs ever could. From his crumpled position on the ground, he searched pitifully for your gaze in the sea of mindless students traversing the hall, hoping you’d cast him a lifeline. Any lifeline he can latch onto to prove he was still worth acknowledging.

It was so brief that anyone else would've glossed over it. But he knew that look; he wasn’t new to this. The message was so pathetically obvious you might as well have shouted it from the rooftops.

You looked at him like he was someone you didn’t want to be associated with, someone you were embarrassed by, someone you wanted to avoid—like he was some shit stain stuck to the bottom of your shoe, waiting to be scraped off.

It was a visceral image, seared into every ridge and groove of his mind, playing on an endless loop—each repetition feeling like you had wrenched a fist into his chest, squeezing his heart tighter and tighter until all blood flow ceased.

Slowly but surely, you were beginning to morph into the faceless monsters who’d made his life a living hell.

Nononono. Sweet, lovely you couldn’t possibly. Surely not.

Clutching his snapped-in-half glasses, fat tears brimming in his eyes, he couldn’t seem to wrap his head around your sudden change in behavior. What went wrong? Did he do something wrong? Was it because he’d finally confessed to having a crush on you?

If you were just going to reject him and toss him aside, why talk to him in the first place? Why string him along and give him false hope? Unless... unless you were playing hard to get.

Yes, that must be it. That seemed like the most plausible explanation.

After all, you secretly liked him too, didn’t you? You felt the same soulmate bond he felt so deeply in his bones too, right? Suffice it to say, once this thought took root—an all-consuming unease that sat heavy in the pit of his stomach, born from his desperation to prove his belief true—it quickly spiraled into a cancerous obsession.

He shadowed you everywhere. Memorized your schedule and lingered in spots you were most likely to pass. It was no coincidence, then, that every time you rounded the corner, he was somehow there. Or when you lined up for food during lunch, he was always standing right behind you. At the library? You can bet he was at the same row, pretending to check out books he didn’t care about.

It was during one of these moments, in the midst of trying to catch another fleeting glimpse of you, that he overheard something that would cement his spiral further. You were laughing with your friends near the lockers, unaware that he was standing just far enough to hear every word.

"Sooooo, any thoughts on who your red thread connects to?" the whiniest of your girlfriends giggled.

Me. Who else would it be?

He’d expected you to say something casual, or even tease them, but instead, you spoke without hesitation. "Well, I'm hoping it's someone like Zenith."

His heart dropped into his stomach. That... up-and-coming superhero?

A chorus of "booooring", "you're literally like every other bitch," "can you get any more basic?" erupted from your posse. For once, he actually agreed with them.

You let out a carefree laugh—god, even your laugh sounded ethereal. "Nah, hear me out. He's strong, brave, and has a literal heart of gold. That's the holy trinity right there. Heard he stopped some major armed robbery last week. And he's only 24!"

"Yeah, and? So is Blaze."

"Why are you looking at me all crazy, like I just pitched your dad or something?" you playfully scoffed. "C'mon. I mean, have you seen those muscles on Zenith? And he's tall..."

It was stab after stab. Perhaps because Zenith was close in age to all of you that the jealousy in him amplified tenfold. The hero's popularity was unmatched, and it seemed like everyone couldn’t stop talking about how perfect he was.

The idea that you—you—might be thinking about him like that, the way others fawned over him, made him want to throw up.

He wasn’t like that. Not strong, not charming, not good enough.

Of course, that was it.

He was just... not what you wanted. He couldn’t measure up to someone like that. That was why you avoided him, why you wouldn’t acknowledge him anymore. It wasn’t that you weren’t interested. It wasn’t that you didn’t like him. Or that you didn’t believe he was your soulmate. No, it was that he didn’t fit the ideal you had in your head. He wasn’t the hero you were dreaming of.

The curiosity that had initially taken hold mutated exponentially, growing into a festering itch he couldn’t ignore. You were the itch, burrowing under his skin, making bile churn in his gut, his insides writhing like a breeding ground for parasites.

He staggered to the bathroom, barely able to keep himself upright as nausea clawed at his throat. Slamming the stall door behind him, he doubled over the sink, dry heaving into the basin. The bile didn’t come, but the suffocating pressure in his chest wouldn’t let up.

His breaths came in shallow, panicked bursts as his trembling hands tore at his neck, nails raking deeper and deeper into his skin until blood welled beneath his fingertips. I can't breathe. I can't breathe. I can't—

When he finally forced himself to look up, his reflection in the mirror seemed almost unrecognizable.

The sink shook beneath his grip, a low, shuddering rattle that reverberated through the tiled walls.

And then, with a sharp, earsplitting crack, the mirror shattered into a thousand jagged fragments. Overhead, the light bulbs exploded in rapid succession, sending tiny shards of glass cascading down like rain.

Everything around him fell eerily still. The ringing noises in his head drained into silence, leaving only the sound of his own labored breaths.

In and out. In and out.

As he stared at his broken reflection, bloodied fingers trembling against the sink edge, his eyes flickered a deep, vivid red.

It was like a fog had lifted from his mind.

He knew exactly what he had to do.

~ Good evening. We bring you shocking and tragic news tonight. Beloved superhero Zenith, a symbol of hope and strength to many, was found dead late last night in an alleyway on Broad Street. At just 34 years old and at the peak of his career, his passing has sent shockwaves through the nation.

A passerby discovered his body, which authorities report was severely mutilated, with deep lacerations rendering him almost unrecognizable. Forensics have confirmed he was decapitated, though the full autopsy results are still pending. As investigators work to piece together the circumstances of his death, the burning question on everyone's mind remains: was this a case of suicide, or a brutal, targeted murder?

If it was murder, the world is left wondering—who could commit such a heinous act against one of our greatest heroes? We’ll continue to provide updates as more information comes to light. For now, our thoughts and prayers are with— "Jesus, that's fucking gruesome," your fiancé interrupts the TV broadcast, the sound of the news anchor’s voice muffling as he slides beside you on the couch. He balances a plate of heated lasagna in one hand and hands it to you.

"Thanks," you murmur, the warmth of the plate grounding you momentarily as you take it. Your gaze remains fixed on the TV, the harrowing details of Zenith's death replaying in your head.

"It's honestly so crazy, really," A pause, your voice quieter. "I mean, I can't believe it. He was so young."

"I'm more surprised he didn't survive the fight, for someone his caliber," he replies, taking a bite of his own lasagna. His nonchalance contrasts sharply with the knot of unease forming in your stomach.

"You think it’s a murder?" You glance at him sideways.

"And you don’t?"

"Well..." You hesitate, shifting the plate in your lap. "I do, I guess. With injuries that bad, it couldn’t have possibly been a suicide. It’s just... so sad. And I won’t lie, if someone like Zenith can die like that, meaning there’s someone out there more powerful, more dangerous, roaming our streets..." You trail off, absently twirling your fork in the pasta. "I don’t know how safe I feel."

Your fiancé hums thoughtfully, then leans back against the couch. "Well, there’s always that other hero our age. He’s quite popular now, isn’t he? I’ve seen him all over my feed. Twitter, TikTok, billboards, Youtube ads—fucking hell, it’s getting to be too much, honestly."

The mention of your old classmate's superhero alias pulls at something uncomfortable, buried deep. You tense slightly, fingers curling around the plate. "Can you blame them?" you manage, forcing a casual shrug. "The world loves to fixate on the next hot thing."

"Wait, didn’t you two go to school together? How was he like back then?"

Your stomach twists. "Oh yeah... we did," gaze suddenly focused on your lasagna as if it holds all the answers in the world. Your silence afterward feels louder than it should.

Thankfully, your fiancé doesn’t seem to notice your lack of response to his question. He mistakes your discomfort for grief over Zenith, not the weight of old memories—flashes of your classmate's persistent confession, of clinging to you everywhere—crawling their way to the surface.

He places a comforting hand on your knee. "Don’t worry, I’ll be here to protect you," he says with a wink.

At that, you snort, the tension breaking just slightly. "Pfft, you? And what can you do, huh?"

"Hey! I’m very strong, thank you very much," he protests, flexing his biceps dramatically. Before you can respond, he lunges forward, his fingers digging into your sides with an attack of tickles.

"H-hey! Ahaahaha! S-stop it!" you gasp, squirming beneath his playful attack.

You both tumble into a heap on the couch, breathless and laughing. You collapse onto his chest, feeling the steady rise and fall as his arms wrap loosely around your waist.

For a moment, the world feels lighter. Closing your eyes, you intertwine your fingers with his, the soft red string looped around your pinky tangling neatly with his. The faint connection hums warmly, a quiet reassurance against the discomfort tucked in the corners of your mind.

"I love you," you whisper, though something inside you feels unmoored.

He squeezes your hand gently. "I love you too."

As you lie there and the buzz of the TV fades into the background, the heaviness in your chest remains. Zenith's death. Your former classmate. The memories you try so hard to suppress. They linger, like shadows that no amount of warmth can fully dispel.

~ You're not sure why you decide to take a different route home from work this time, but you do.

Perhaps it's the paranoia creeping in. First, there's the unsettling fact that the killer responsible for Zenith's death is still at large, which is hardly reassuring for a normal civilian like you. Then there's the chilling sensation you've been experiencing for the past two weeks, a feeling you just can't shake, like someone's watching you.

Your fiancé was quick to rationalize it, insisting that the latter might simply be your fear projected from the former playing tricks on you. But that doesn’t change how real and invasive it feels. It's as if unseen eyes are salaciously snaking up and down your body, peeking under the gaps of your clothes, tracking your every move—from your apartment to work, the grocery store, and even the gym. It's unnerving.

Tonight, you're hoping the shorter route, dim as it is, will be your saving grace.

As you trek down the poorly lit street, you clutch your bag a little tighter. You glance back, just once, to make sure no one's there.

Your fiancé has your live location—a precaution you ensured before leaving the office. Just a few more meters, and you'll be home-sweet-home, ready to jump into a hot shower and unwind for the day.

But luck has never been your strong suit.

At first, you almost don’t hear it: the faintest scuff of a footstep behind you.

A chill pierces through your body. You freeze mid-step. Your heartbeat thunders, hammering against your chest so loud you swear the entire neighborhood can hear it.

You're just being paranoid. It's late and you're imagining things.

But then it happens again. A step. And another. You walk faster, and the sound mirrors your pace. When your pace turns to a sprint, so does theirs.

And fuck! Why the hell did you decide to wear these stupid heels today of all days? You're running as fast as you can, praying and praying you'll make it out alive, but that person is suddenly catching up to you because you can hear their breaths and it's scaring you and your legs are starting to feel like lead, anchoring you to the ground, but you can't stop now if you stop they'll catch up and god knows what they'll do to you oh god oh god oh god—

A sickening crunch.

"Woah," a deep, smooth voice cuts through the night. "That was close. Any second later, and things could've gotten... real messy."

You don't have to turn around to know who the voice belongs to.

He steps into view, and you meet eye-to-eye—or rather, after craning your neck to look up—with your former classmate.

"It's been a while, hasn't it?" His smile is bright, almost boyish. For a split second, his laidback, easygoing demeanor disarms you, almost making you forget about being chased. But then your eyes drop to his hand. Crimson coats his open palm, shards of skull and smears of brain matter wedged between his fingers, the carnage dripping sluggishly down the back of his hand and pooling at his wrist.

Reality crashes down on you.

Your body moves to let out a bloodcurdling scream, but sensing that, he quickly interjects—

"Hey, hey, none of that, okay?" His hand—cleaned off in one swipe across his dark hoodie—comes up in a mock-placating gesture, palms open. "You don’t want to wake the whole neighborhood, do you?"

Your scream dies in your throat, lips trembling as you clamp your mouth shut.

“See, that’s better. No need for theatrics. You’re safe now. Though, with a reaction like that, you’d think I was the one chasing you. You wound me, you know?” He presses a hand to his chest in mock pain, as if your terror has genuinely hurt his feelings. “Here I am, your knight in shining armor, and all I get is fear.” It’s difficult to process exactly who you're talking to, owed simply to the fact that the man before you is so vastly different from the timid, nerdy boy he once was.

For one, he’s no longer the small, scrawny kid with limp arms. His once frail frame has been replaced with broad shoulders, lean muscle, and a big-boned sturdiness that makes it impossible to look away. And two, he exudes a confidence that feels almost foreign, his tone carrying a gravitas and assuredness that commands attention.

He’s grown into someone almost unrecognizable, eerily reminiscent of Zenith in both presence and charm. "Thank you," you eventually remember your manners, shaken from your reverie. "I—god, that was...that was fucking scary." A shudder of relief escapes you as your fingers brush through your hair, soothing yourself, trying to steady your racing heart.

But beneath the relief, a thread of confusion winds its way into your thoughts. You're surprised, but grateful. Grateful for his intervention, yes, but something about this situation doesn't sit right.

He's an elite, A-list superhero. Why the hell would he be dealing with petty street crime? Shouldn't that be left to the junior heroes, the ones still earning their medals? And how the hell did he end up in your neighborhood at exactly the right time and place? The timing alone feels too perfect, almost too convenient.

Your mind screams at you to drop it. To not pry. To avoid opening Pandora's box. But you can't help it. So against your better judgement, you ask, "Why... why are you here? This... doesn't seem like your usual type of scene. You know, with your—" you gesture vaguely toward him, the potent aura he's practically radiating, "—everything."

He chuckles, the sound light, carefree, as if he hasn't noticed the way you're trying to process it all. "Why not? You think I only deal with the big stuff?" He steps closer, teasing grin widening. "No, no. It's my job to save everyone. Doesn't matter if it's a suspicious guy lurking around the corner or a city-wide crisis. Every life counts."

"People have been reporting strange sightings around here," he continues. “Someone’s been poking around the area lately. Guess I was just in the right place at the right time. And I'm glad I was."

On any other given day—when you would be thinking straight, less frazzled, more like your logical self, and not on the verge of hyperventilating from a near-death experience, you might've exercised more caution, more discernment.

You might’ve pressed further, questioning whether it was truly necessary to kill the man in such a grotesque way. You can see the headless corpse left to rot in your periphery, blood pooling on the asphalt, and—shit—you’re gonna be sick. Isn’t it protocol to hand him over to authorities first for custody anyway? By now, alarm bells should’ve been blaring in your head.

But tonight? Tonight, your sense of self preservation is dimmed by the weight of what just happened, your nerves still rattled by the close call.

So, while your mind lingers on the oddity of it all, the warmth of his smile, the ease with which he carries himself, are enough to disarm your defenses, reassuring you more than you'd care to admit. Somehow, in a haze of confusion and adrenaline, you find yourself standing at the front of your apartment. How you got there, you're not sure. The walk from the street to the lobby, through the elevator, and up to your floor feels like a blur. You can barely recall the steps, yet here you are, staring at your door—unlocked and ajar. It almost doesn't make sense, yet your hand is already on the handle, pushing it open with a slight jerking motion as if on autopilot.

You don’t say goodbye, though. Instead, you look at him with a half cocked head, as if still questioning your own actions. A strange combination of guilt, relief, and the faintest sense of obligation rush through you.

Maybe it's the guilt for how you distanced yourself from him in high school, never standing up for him when he needed it most. Or perhaps it’s your gratitude for not dying tonight—you're still floating on that cathartic relief. Maybe it’s the lingering impulse to repay him, or simply a strange desire to reconnect with someone you once knew a decade ago. Besides, your mind rationalizes, your fiancé will be home soon, so it’s not like you can’t kick him out if things get uncomfortable. And he's an old classmate, right? Nothing to lose here.

"Do you want to come in?" The invitation tumbles out before you can even think to stop it.

Little do you know just how terrible of a mistake that is.

[dharmafox]

(i cant stop yapping about Asakame please help me-)

Do you think every illustration in the Fusuma/Shoji doors decorated in the Ooku means anything to a scene? I saw in the Fire Rat trailer when the woman meeting is held the door was a tiger, it sort of gets me on a "cat-fight" between them. And will the final boss of the trilogy be a snake? Since the first ever teaser for the movie had snakes on them

(trying so hard not to mention when Asa said what kept her emotions on ground was Kame the scene had her place beside the WHOLE panel illustration of the Fox Wedding door and the fact that a foxes wedding is associated with sunshowers)

By all means keep posting about Asakame, I love it!

Given that it's Mononoke, the Symbolism and Metaphor show, I do think every piece of door and wall art has meaning. You can also see that there are tamari balls bouncing around on the wall of Mugitani's room (a tamari ball being the object she threw into the well).

I'm not sure what the meaning of the tiger would be. It looks like it's trying to get in, so maybe it symbolizes the rage of the mononoke trying to break through?

That's a good thought about the snakes... There is a snake youkai called Uwabami that's known for its gluttonous nature. It also once called down a huge rain and flood on a guy who ticked it off, so there are possible connections with the Kun Trigram (connected with the stomach) and with the Karakasa. Another is Yamata no Orochi. I remember someone suggested when we first saw the art that it was reminiscent of the Yamato no Orochi legend.

Snakes are also symbols of life, death, and rebirth, and in Buddhism they're symbols of the poison of hatred or anger. In the first "Bakeneko" arc, there are snakes on the walls behind Lord Sakai and his son, along with a red thread, which is a symbol of fate.

I think part of the Nue looks like a snake as well? It's quite possible that the final mononoke could have a snake form.

The fox wedding thing... Yeah, they may well have been going straight for the lesbians thing there. 😛

A couple other things I noticed about the walls in Karakasa:

The three "eyes" of the mononoke sometimes appear on the images. For example, they're in the eyes of the flamingos on the wall when Awashima cuts Kame's hair. It's notable, I think, that when those "eyes" appear on images and objects, they tend to stay put for a while, whereas when they appear in human eyes, they vanish quickly.

Also, the art is sometimes animated. When Kame is talking about wanting to become a concubine while Mugitani is giving them "the tour," the puppies playing on the wall are blinking.

In these shots where the wall art appears to be alive, I think it's connected to the idea of life existing in objects, like the objects the women threw into the well, which carried parts of themselves.

And of course there are flowers everywhere, with the idea of the women themselves as "flowers" being a big theme in the movie.

Kusu also has a mischievous little kitty and a demon behind him here, so make of that what you will. 😛

That same wall also has a kappa on it right above the cat. The kappa is an aquatic ayakashi, so that's a probable connection to Karakasa's rain/water theme. According to yokai.com, they're also "a kind of water god" in Shinto.

I'm sure there's a ton more that others who have seen the movie more times than I have, who are more observant than I am, and/or who are better versed in Japanese culture than I am have picked up on. But yeah, all that wall art is important for sure. I'd say all the wall art in the series is important as well, but that's a whole other post.

[bittersweetresilience]

author's commentary part one

now that we've reached the end of the fic, i will finally explain the beginning.

i named this piece after 大鱼, a song whose title means big fish. in the fic, jing yuan references void songs twice, which i imagine are the sounds that void song whales make. if you remember, yukong talks about these whales in her visitor dialogue. they swim freely through the stellar seas while their sibling species on the luofu has disappeared into history.

whale songs. dream fish. the call of the void. the language of longing. to me, renjing.

author's imagery only the most important bits

the sky is freedom and departure, and it is jing yuan, eventually. the sea is the dissolution of the self and the thing that will swallow him, and it is yingxing. the lightning is the portent of death, but also the electricity of being in love. the wine is the representation of shared wishes and togetherness and history. the starskiffs are the memorials of the past and the vessels into the empyrean. the fire is desire and destruction. the ink is the color of blade's hair and the sincerity of the letters jing yuan writes. the bandages and the iron are blade and the violence of his existence. the paper birds are the fragility of jing yuan's memories, which cannot be buried. the nightclothes are the vulnerability he will shed in the morning. the string is the red string of fate between renjing, but also the strings that tether jing yuan to the luofu and to his ending. the womb and the egg are the places of rebirth and the representation of returning to the beginning. the sun is the stellaron, and it is jing yuan before the sky and the sea consume him, and it is the end of the dream.

author's commentary part two

below is my translation of the song.

大鱼 big fish

海浪无声将夜幕深深淹没 the waves soundlessly submerge the night 漫过天空尽头的角落 rising over the corners of the edge of the sky 大鱼在梦境的缝隙里游过 the big fish swims in the rifts between dreams 凝望你沉睡的轮廓 watching your sleeping visage

看海天一色 听风起雨落 seeing the sky and the sea in one color, hearing the winds stir and the rain fall 执子手 吹散苍茫茫烟波 holding my son's hand, i blow away the hazy ripples of smoke 大鱼的翅膀 已经太辽阔 the wings of the big fish are already too vast 我松开 时间的绳索 i let go of the thread of time

怕你飞远去 怕你离我而去 afraid you'll fly far away, afraid you'll leave me 更怕你 永远停留在这里 even more afraid you'll stop here forever 每一滴泪水 都向你流淌去 every tear flows toward you 倒流进 天空的海底 flowing backward into the ocean floor of the sky

(...)

看你飞远去 看你离我而去 seeing you fly far away, seeing you leave me 原来你生来就属于天际 so you were born to belong to the sky all along 每一滴泪水 都向你流淌去 every tear flows toward you 倒流回最初的相遇 flowing backward into our first meeting

without this song, this fic wouldn't exist. every part of the two was intimately interwoven. in particular, the line about the thread of time was what made me certain it would be a nonlinear narrative and the mixing of the sky and the sea was the image that created the entire story.

i further drew from the lyrics the most important imagery, the idea of ending on the beginning, and the son's hand as not only yanqing but everyone jing yuan leans on today in order to support himself against the weight of history. i drew the themes of dreams and reality, the dialogue on leaving, and the breathless, surreal atmosphere of melancholy and yearning. but in addition to all of that there is a double meaning in this song to me.

the first time you hear it, you think it's about jing yuan. and it is, of course. everything is about him. he is the holder, the sleeper, the one submerging. but by the last verse, you realize it is also blade, talking to him as he walks into scalegorge waterscape. trying and failing to call him back from within the endless dream.

both of them were born to belong to the sky. only one of them truly died in it.

author's dictionary

rèn, 刃, word for 'Blade' (lit. 'blade's edge') jiāngjūn, 将军, word for 'general' gānbēi, 干杯, word for 'cheers' (lit. 'dry cups') mèngdié, 梦蝶, word for the shortness of life (lit. 'butterfly dream') (this was not said explicitly but alluded to in the first dream) shīfù, 师父, word for 'martial master' bàitáng, 拜堂, word for the act of bowing to the heavens and the earth, the parents, and then each other in marriage (this is what the high-cloud quintet was joking about) yǐnyuè-jūn, 饮月君, word for 'Imbibitor Lunae' (lit. 'moon-drinker') nàihé qiáo, 奈何桥, word for the Bridge of Oblivion where souls drink Meng Po soup to forget the memories of their past life in preparation for reincarnation húlu, 葫芦, word for 'gourd' (this is what bailu uses to dispense medicine) qīng, 卿, word for 'senior official' (this is the honorific jing yuan uses for fu xuan in light of her position as master diviner) xiàngqí, 象棋, word for 'Chinese chess' (this is what starchess is based on, where my vision designates aurumatons as cannons, starskiffs as elephants, and cloud knights as pawns) gē, 哥, word for 'older brother' (this is a casual term of address for older men) shíhuǒ mèngshēn, 石火梦身, word for 'Starfall Reverie' (lit. 'sparks in stone, body in dream')

author's references

all of the xianzhou trailblaze missions. all of the relevant characters' character stories and companion missions. character dialogues. visitor dialogues. battle dialogues. battle mechanics. lightcones. relics. readables. item descriptions. character designs. character messages. the new trailblaze continuance. area maps. chinese voiceovers and their english translations. character trailers. combat guides. animated shorts. possibly more things i'm forgetting to mention. my wealth of insanity.

author's appreciation

wiki editors who came before me. people who upload youtube videos of different dubs of each trailblaze mission. spouses and ssswips. my beloved commenters. the composer of 大鱼. renjing.

[ay0nha]

The Ritual of Chaos | N.K.

SUMMARY: You refused morality just for the sake of being difficult. You made a habit of it. There were reasons habits quickly morphed into vices, something immoral and wicked. You were lethal, the definition of torment. Your silhouette alone was enough to send Nananmi spiraling.

PAIRING: Nanami Kento x f!reader (anti-hero of sorts)

WORD COUNT: 2K

WARNINGS: Introduction to story/reader/plot, higher-ups after reader, Nanami being a softie deep down, description of fighting/related injury, jjk typical things, tad angsty, made-up cursed objects, etc.

A/N: Posting from the drafts. Enjoy.

Nanami tags:

@chimamire-ga @eliuriastwo @moon-taffy @thefutureastronaut @planetahmane @musababy @khaleesihavilliard @vee-ai @killlerqween @nokkoongie @anti-heroism @nanamin94 @hatsunemitskislobotomy @mischiefmanaged71 @darkstudentsaladbakery

“Answer the question.”

The brief and concise statement thrown at you mimicked the ones prior. Your reluctance to answer was anticipated; everyone seated before the Jujutsu higher-ups reacted similarly. But the jury surrounding you didn’t have the same empathy for you.

“The answer is obvious, isn’t it?” You were oddly relaxed in the stiff wooden seat. The eyes on you hadn’t made you nervous but instead energized your subtle rage. “Or is our system that dull? Have you truly failed to see who is behind this?”

“Be mindful; your responses have repercussions.” The Jujutsu Commander warned. His position saved you from a scornful vote against your innocence. Yet, those who looked on weren’t too far off. “Were you or were you not responsible for what happened?”

The framing of your trial was spectacular. All evidence was vindictive, and the story was so perfectly skewed there was no way to worm your way out. Your fate was already sealed.

“You lot ask the wrong questions.” Your laugh was bitter.

“Your admission. Only.” His patience was running thin, and his politeness was only formality, as his tone opposed it entirely.

The truth was a volatile thing. Children were taught that it was essential in life, valued so highly that corrupt justice could manipulate it so finely that you almost believed it yourself. 

Lying, therefore, became a habit. It came naturally as if it was second-hand nature.

The twitch of your lip was poisonous. “Guilty.”

The others murmured at your feigned candor. The whispers were silly, as anonymity never existed for those behind the walls. Every face was bared, burned into your memory by resentment.

—

Your wrists itched. 

It was as if phantom threads tethered you down. When the knots tightened due to resistance, you became a marionette for those who put you in your place. You’d move with talent as a puppet controlled by those ranked above you. 

Your exhaustion created a silly—delusional— image. Your cheeks were rosy with red paint, and your eyes brightened with Pierrot-styled tears. You performed on a stage silently, an alienated observer of the mysteries and shadows of sorcery.

You took on a second life, reciting an alert, troubled, swaying, and deliberately uncertain verse. It didn’t matter if the audience understood; they considered what you said genuine art. Then, when it all ended, the standing ovation wouldn’t bring you joy but the flowers that waited for you. 

It wasn’t until the third time your name was called that you acknowledged its source. 

“Let’s go.” Nanami’s tone was sterile, but you knew he was fighting frustration at your closed eyes. Ignoring his instruction, you languidly rolled your head in his direction to finally acknowledge him.  “The car is outside.”

“Nanami…” You yawned through his name with teasing indifference. Although you were in the office under other pretenses, you would have been content toying with him. “I’ve missed you, you know.” 

It was as if you knew how your words tickled Nanami’s sides. They taunted him with childhood memories that made the tips of his ears heat. However, your words cemented that you siphoned your humor through affection. 

Nanami remained practical; any endearment had to be taken at face value. 

“You look good,” you commented politely as if years had passed. In reality, you saw each other often, but conversation was rarely exchanged past regulation directives. 

Your compliments continued to flow while you met where Ijichi waited. You noted how Nanami filled his suit well, age defining his features in a way most found enviable. There was hope in your voice that Nanami would return the favor to catch up with you. 

Yet, you knew criticism riddled his thoughts. 

Ijichi wasn’t as skilled at hiding his impression of you. He caught your eyes more than once through the mirrors as Nanami highlighted the dangers of the mission. Ijichi looked nervous to be so close to you, as if another one of your mistakes would cost him his life. 

“Ijichi, expect her to accompany us on several missions...” Nanami hadn’t looked up from the case file, but his intuition knew how to calm his coworker “...until I say otherwise.”

“Don’t be afraid to say it, Kento…” You mused coarsely.  “One oversight and mediation doesn’t apply to me…” 

The scenery slowly started to shift from highrises to foliage. The missions on the outskirts were always more discreet. The fresh air was too pure for the deadlier cursed spirits. Their strength had little to latch onto without a dense population to feed on. 

“I’m dangerous, don’t you know?”  You taunted your driver, eye sparkling with amusement. “So they ship me off to the countryside.” 

“We’re still within Tokyo limits.” Ijichi recited, thinking his misplaced comment would be helpful. “Mr. Kento specifically requested that—

“Notice how this never happens to Gojo?” You ignored him deftly. You scoffed tightly, your reprimands still fresh.  “How many buildings has he totaled? And yet, he doesn’t have a babysitter.”

“Twenty-four—” Ijichi’s answer flew out of his mouth before he could stop. You watched him shrink under your glare. “Excuse me, I didn’t—

“Enough. Focus.” In a tired tone, Nananmi reminded you both of your purpose. “The locals believe the church is haunted. Records say an occultist died there a few years ago…” 

Taking advantage of the car’s sway, you moved to see the file. The church was made of dilapidated stone that belonged to centuries prior. It only just started hosting more curses than humans could handle. Analyses were taken, proving that first-year students could handle it well. 

Yet, there was something off.  Nanami always read residuals uniquely. 

The blood looked fresh, scattered, and so beautifully patterned that it was clearly intentional. It swirled hypnotically, challenging anything rational. There was no use in prayers. The gore set the air with dust that could never settle; a blood-warm heat had set into your marrow, never to be forgotten; it had been dragged to your doorstep like a cat bringing in fowl. 

“Shit…” You finger traced the photo of some faint carvings. Your shoulder pushed into Nanami’s, your interest outweighing personal space. “This has to be one of us…”

One of us. Nanami flinched at the thought. It was this thought process that represented the rift you created. This mission was to determine your morality and whether Nanami was wrong to advocate for your reinstatement. 

You refused morality just for the sake of being difficult. You made a habit of it. There were reasons habits quickly morphed into vices, something immoral and wicked. You were lethal, the definition of torment. Your silhouette alone was enough to send Nananmi spiraling. 

However, you weren’t more than a wolf in sheep’s clothing to him. He struggled himself with his decision, he struggled with the blind faith he had in you. This was different, he decided. 

Nanami learned the hard way of earning your loose alliance. The scar you left behind cinched on his side, and sometimes, if he found you lingering in his mind, he swore he felt it ache. Yet, being in your presence seemed to be the closest thing to a remedy.

—

“What do you see?” Nanami’s tone was sterile, but you knew he was fighting frustration at your languidity. 

You felt childish and undermined, but you knew Nanami was following orders. Yet, your core frustration came from being in the countryside. The higher-ups slowly pushed you out of the city with each mission you were attached to. Away from real problems, you were no longer deemed theirs. That distance kept you busy with the unwanted chores of dealing with low-grade curses who were scared of their own shadows. 

The stone walls of the church were icy, and the lack of sunlight nurtured the cold. Nature started reclaiming every pew, and the stained glass became disfigured. Its evidence of abandonment seemed uneventful—normal. 

“Graffiti.” Your response was dull, your attention fragmented by your thoughts. 

Effort was a comical notion.

Sorcery required effort at times, just as breathing did. The icy air that reached the ends of your lungs stung. Yet, each breath was quieter, the effort only coming in the form of physical mechanics of pushing a warm breath back out that the air around you marked.

Although studied meticulously, sorcery’s fundamental trait was its vitality.  It shifted and molded. Evolved.  It made even more concrete things seem like rubber, rejecting electricity with an uncanny ability to mold into shapes unknown. It was the type of thing that could be so exciting to happen just to become something so vague that it no longer held value to it.

“No.” Another wrong answer.  “Look closer.” Nanami urged you, hands tucked away and nodding ahead. “The carvings are in a pattern. Do you recognize it?”

It was an ancient incantation, one whose effectiveness had lessened with time. Most charms were for protective measures, but the spiraled swirl of lettering was fresh. You traced your fingers across the symbols, feeling their lingering heat, only freshly scorched. 

“Cursed user?” Your breath was just shy of being transcribable in the air. 

The temperature was dropping by the second. Something dense settled on your skin as a warning. The cursed energy came from multiple points and was not able to find a convergence point. Instead, its disharmony grated against itself, creating such pressure that its purpose became overt. 

 In hushed tones, you were careful with your words. “Something is trying to get out.”

“Precisely.” Nanami’s voice echoed lightly, as did his footsteps.  “It has been entirely overlooked…” He explained leading you to the heart of the church. “...I’ve been monitoring this place for months—  

“So this is where you disappear to?” You bubbled, Nanami's whereabouts unintentionally drawing a smile out of you. Your laughter started to grow gently. “…and here I thought someone—a man like you, of your stature, would have—well, you know.”

“I don’t follow,” Nanami answered absentmindedly. His focus was still following the etchings and hoping to find any residuals.   

“You value your privacy,” You weighed earnestly. “I don’t blame you for handling your more intimate business away from, well, everything else.” 

Nanami paused. 

After a few heartbeats of hesitation, he caught onto your implications.  There was no reply save for a subtle retexturing of his breath, the gap between inhalations infinitesimally smaller, the length of his exhalations protracted.

It was nearly imperceptible as Nanami fought to smother it. It may have gone unnoticed, mistaken for concentration. However, to an experienced eye, you watched your words ripple an ever-still puddle of emotions.  

With a gentle clear of his throat, Nanami quelled your suspicions. “You’re the only other that knows this exists.” 

“Not even those old conservatives?” You were impressed by his discretion. “Breaking the rules for me, Kento?” 

It was as if you knew how your words tickled Nanami’s sides. They taunted him with childhood memories that made the tips of his ears heat. However, your words cemented that you siphoned your humor through affection. 

Nanami remained practical; any endearment had to be taken at face value. 

“Our visit is to resolve this before they find out.” He ignored you, reaching for his blunt blade. “Now, stand back.”

Cursed energy fluidly surrounded his stature as he conjured his technique.

With sharpened eyes, you took Nanami’s presence in. The suit he wore was filled well.  Even late into the evening, he was always so poised. Professional.  It worked silently, exuding from his presence alone. That magnetism couldn’t be credited to sorcery but to how he evolved, becoming pointed and moving without fault. 

It channeled well into his movements; the swipe of his blade was swift in finding the wall’s weak point. Everything was so well calculated. Nanami remained standing, untouched by the debris that floated around you. 

“Stay close,” He instructed, knowing curses fed off the unanticipated. “Please understand this is for information only.” 

Very little light penetrated the swamp of shadows. That gleam revealed etchings of connected hands. They were conjoined by a thin tongue of brilliant flame that wound around the hands like a red-hot wire.  

You stepped carefully, tracing the path Nanami created for you. He mumbled warnings that always came with the unknown, but his voice slowly warbled into a tune you could barely make out. The walls seemed to pull you in, their dissonance filling your senses. 

“It’s warm…” You noted the oddity, furthering your curiosity. Your fingertips burned against the markings.  “It’s like the cursed energy is…is it? It’s–It’s moving.” 

“It’s growing,” Nanami stated. A feeling of regret bubbled behind his words as if reprimanding himself for thinking aloud.  “These confinements can no longer hold it.”

The continued touch burned. 

You flinched, drawing your hand to your chest. The walls were upset by the action, groaning with age and anger. The sound was sharp and tonal, lacking an echo, its mournful cry resonating with despair. 

“Do you hear that?”  Your question dissipated lamely. Although words were spoken, the sounds around you overlapped, creating a deep and thunderous sense of urgency. 

The noise was luring you into a past that never was. This was the moment before a ship could crash onto the rocks. Your arms felt like lead, weighing down with poisonous consequences. 

The cursed energy pressed into your abdomen from all directions; the air was pushed from your lungs, your ribcage about to crack; your eyes felt forced back into your head; your eardrums swelled, pounding within your skull, and then with a crack like a whip you—   

“Are you alright?” Nanami watched you return to yourself. He called for you, but you were lost under the curse’s lure. It wasn’t until he reached for your palm that you sucked in air. “What happened?”

You felt a needle of pain in your nose like you were near tears. “It’s—crying.”

The missions on the outskirts were always more condensed. The fresh air was too pure for the deadlier cursed spirits. Their strength needed more to latch onto with a dense population to feed on.  This, however, deviated at the core. It was a mistake that relied on the distance to stay hidden. It was an anomaly that should have never been touched. And yet, it found its new prey. 

Nanami’s grip on you tightened with regret. “This was a mistake—

“No, wait…” Your brows furrowed as you pulled away. “There’s something in here,” You continued, hands reaching for the inner wall’s deterioration. The walls became silent, unwilling to guide you any further.  “We need to exorcise this—

“This was to survey only.” Nanami checked his watch, the hands taunting the idea of overtime. A sinking feeling swirled in his chest. “Exorcising an unknown, most likely, unregistered curse is too unpredictable.” 

A quick solution was never appealing when you were capable of unearthing hidden answers. That novelty fed your reputation of being offensively bold. Even now, as you moved through the unknown, you weren’t afraid of the repercussions. 

“Why did you bring me here, then? Huh?” The anger you carried felt foreign. Rarely, if even, had you directed it towards your counterpart. “Pity? To make me feel better about being benched?”

Although you were still present, Nanami watched you flee. Your guard returned stronger, but he didn’t regret his words. Nanami’s eyes were pleading, and you went to chastise him, but you found something distinct there. You didn’t know what to do with it, but to muse a buried thought. 

“You know that’s not—

Years worth of vexation simmered on the surface of your skin. “Save your lecture.”

You weren’t lucky like the others. There wasn’t a defining moment that made you who you were, or something so tragic that its vengeance led to motivation. Your birth was uneventful, your existence logged by a series of numbers, and your childhood consisted of mediocre memories. 

Even now, the memory of arriving at Jujutsu Tech was muddled with an indifference put upon you.  It wasn’t for a lack of enthusiasm but for the way, even there, with its rarity and quaintness, you were ignored so blatantly. 

There was never any demureness in how you spoke out.  You dissected the obvious flaws of the teachers and higher-ups, but your voice wasn’t considered the way others were. Your presence only became perceived insolence. You hadn’t cared about the threats offered, even when you were removed from the curriculum entirely.

The lack of lineage attached to your name and rare technique led to reprimands even in adulthood. Your presence with Nanami was one of them. 

Although not on an official mission, Nanami’s current company was obligatory. Where he went, you were required to shadow: learn from your mistakes and behave like a true first-grade sorcerer.   

After a so-called catastrophe, you were put before the higher-ups. Every grievance was brought forth and judgment determined you were unfit to even advocate for yourself. It was then those imaginary-thin strings wound around your wrists with permanency. 

You pulled at them the further you ignored Nanami’s warnings. 

“This is why you brought me…” You reminded him of your punishment. For you, even this, was to keep an eye on you. “...isn’t it?” 

With Nanami’s cemented frown, his intentions were further concealed. It didn’t have the capacity to speak of the trip’s impulsivity. It ignored the uncharacteristic apprehension that created knots between Nanami’s shoulder blades, new to the sorcerer celebrated for composure. 

It was rash, but the innate desire was clear; Nanami wanted to be behind your reprieve. 

“There are rules and regulations. ” He swallowed any lingering remorse. “They don’t stop for you.”

He mistook his demeanor for bravery, but his true bravery formed by being across from you. The only barrier seemed to be Nanami’s incorruptible moral code, a space where you couldn’t quite freely exist.

“Nanami Kento, the reluctant hero…” You tutted with tender sarcasm. A hand rested above your heart like the elderly read the headline that exploited your name, “...how kind of you to pity a recluse like me.…” 

Your words carried back to Nanami’s core, becoming distant as you furthered into the mess he’d created. The darkness succumbed to your presence, your cursed energy steady as it unknowingly created space for the spirit that lurked. 

Nanami’s lips shaped your name, but all you could hear was a mild ringing, a buzz. Your anger dissipated into a murky haze; the harder you blinked, the more the argument dissipated. Even if you had held onto it, the lump in your throat wouldn’t allow it to exist. 

The longer you lingered with the feeling, the more your surroundings slowly morphed. 

All you could hear was your shaky breaths, and all you could see was a faint familiarity with your surroundings. Even your stumbling steps forward felt practiced. 

“Keep up…” A disharmonious voice called for you. It was airy, like a child filled with excitement. “Hurry!”

The environment was damp, still reflecting the country’s dreariness. It was a good hiding place to play, to sneak, and for you to abuse. But the fog in your mind started to swirl. The colors became deeper, more like shadows that soon transformed into familiar figures. 

The curse’s magnetism was a warning you ignored, causing your pupils to blow large at the burden before you. 

The scene was explicit—nothing could be saved from the carnage. 

There was no use in prayers. The gore set the air with dust that could never settle; a blood-warm heat had set into your marrow, never to be forgotten; it had been dragged to your doorstep like a cat bringing in fowl. 

You recognized your own body from the anguish of your shoulders. Hunched over Nanami’s body as you held him tightly, that lump formed in your throat again. 

The fabricated illusion scratched at subconscious emotions and controlled your movements. Your sentimentality was your weakness. Even your stubbornness couldn’t block the overwhelming flood of anxieties and longing.

You watched yourself stuck in a loop, hand rhythmically gliding across the fabric of his shirt in hopes of softening it. To revive something that was determined to remain still.  Its structure was that of a fever dream, its kaleidoscope quality provoking you to interpret it. 

“Nanami?” You couldn’t tell which version of you spoke. Regardless, his name was like torture. “Nanami—please.”

Your defenses damped, your cursed energy draining the further you succumbed to the hallucination. 

“You can’t leave me—” The wails you let out grated against your skin, unrecognizable as your own. “I can’t do—please, Nanami!”

There was a disillusioned passion you felt. It grounded you within the false reality. Even if your mind wasn’t your own, your body moved with muscle memory. Your cursed energy crawled from your core to your fingertips, using the little amounts to start your technique. 

The blue energy extended like nails. You stalked forward until they met your second self’s back, piercing through your back until you could feel the breeze on the other side.  

The puncture flashed an image, revealing the truth of your damage. The spell you were under broke. The veil was no longer misguiding you. 

“Nanami—” You cursed his name as he grunted in pain. Your hand was warm with his blood. “Fuck. Fuck—” The words tumbled from your quivering lip. You couldn’t think of anything else, repeating the curse. “I’m so sorry—I—

Guilt crawled up your throat when you recognized his hold on your wrist. Nanami’s grip was the only thing keeping your strike from being lethal. Your mouth was dry, shallow breaths passing your lips with a bargaining plea.  

“No, no, no—” Your vocabulary became limited the further you panicked. “Nanami—

Nanami’s breath struggled, but there was determination on his brow. The copper taste took over his tongue; any warning could never make it out in time. 

Your body froze, and you were more aware of your surroundings than your mind. It happened too quickly for you to realize the position you had put yourself in; in a flash, you pushed Nanami to endure the hit from the curse that had forced your hand.

[gravesung-moving]

OK BABY IS COMING TOGETHER!!!!

chiaki. lastname to be determined

fc: yosano suzume

tokyo girlie. not connected to any of the major clans. born to non-sorcerers. albino (a real ravus's ravus) but dyes her hair/brows/lashes black or brown depending on mood. very light-sensitive, wears astigmatism contacts with UV blocking built into them and has to be diligent with skin protection

eyes are slightly different shades — blue/lavender! like i said, a real ravus's ravus. shut up let me indulge ok i like pretty colors 

tokyo jjt verse, teacher verse & general post-grad sorcerer verse!

technique: weaver — sees the 'weave' of cursed energy in the world around her and can pull on the threads to make things happen? something something red string of fate. something something what is reality but a tapestry of woven threads something something. i'll marinate on this idea and come back to it.

lifelong acrobat & dancer — used to use the threads to enhance the way she moved sssllightly beyond what physics would normally allow. will definitely affect her martial arts style! her biggest weakness is low power/raw strength — going to really need to work hard if she wants any of her hits to actually cause damage.

insecure about her big forehead but bangs don't look good on her. the agonies.

manages to kill every plant she owns

still depressed but what sorcerer isn't am i right

has several gymnastics awards from childhood

visuals under the cut!

[familydrivenbyfate]

Seeing Stefan's reaction to the sketches, Skuld couldn't help but smile warmly. Her smile only grew as she felt his lips press a soft kiss on her forehead, and his had caressed her cheek. Brown hues watched the vampire curiously as he set down the drawings, and picked up a bag. How did she not notice that bag before when he came in? Well, to be fair her attention was solely on the man who captured her heart.

Looking down at the other bag she smiled as she looked up at Stefan. "You didn't have to do that! Thank you, you are too sweet!" chimed the blonde as she leaned forward and kissed his cheek. "Oh right!" exclaimed the blonde, as she gave another laugh. "One more moment please!" she chimed, another laugh escaping her lips as she ran back over to the small desk, grabbing a bag that was underneath it. Walking back over to the vampire, she handed him the bag with a bright grin on her face. "Here! I almost forgot! It isn't much, but I got you some things that aren't sketches." explained the blonde, another light laugh escaping her lips.

It wasn't much. There was a small book filled with sketches of her daily life, as well as Stefan, that she had drawn, as well as a new watch, and a fancy pen to go with the leather bound notebook. She figured it may be a little bit cliche, as he was someone who has lived so long, but from what Urd had told her -- a journal wasn't ever a bad thing. Especially for someone who lives longer than most.

Looking into the bag, she happily let out "ooo!"s as she looked at the goodies, wiggling side to side in an excited manner. She then grabbed out one of the boxes of jewelry, opening it up to reveal a beautiful bracelet, which made her jaw drop. Looking at Stefan with wide eyes she gently shook her head. Surely this was far too beautiful and extravagant for someone like her. Someone who wields a bow and arrow. Someone whose hands are calloused from practicing her violin, her bow and arrow, and drawing so much. "This is so beautiful. It is too much for someone like me." she spoke, softly speaking the last part as her hands gently traced the bracelet, tears filling her eyes. She was beginning to feel like her gifts were going to fall so short compared to Stefan's.

stefan watched with an amused smile at the blonde hurried over to a desk and looked through piles of sketches. she always had a way about her that amused him and warmed his heart. even after all of his years on this earth as a vampire, no one made him feel more alive and loved than skuld did. hearing the “aha!” leave her lips, a soft chuckle left stefan’s, his eyes filled with amusement and love towards her.  stefan’s eyes raked over the drawings, smiling brightly at her as he felt his heart warm. leaning in, he pressed a soft kiss to her forehead, his hand resting on her cheek. “i always feel loved when i’m with you,” he said sweetly, his thumb gently caressing her cheek. “i have missed you more than words can express but…” he gently set the drawing down, careful to not bend them as he picked up a bag and handed it to her. “i got you some things. there’s another bag for your family,” he said, motioning to the other bag on the ground before looking back at her. “but that one is solely yours,” stefan grinned. there were multiple goodies in the bag for skuld but also some beautiful pieces of jewelry he thought she would love.

[esta-elavaris]

I won't list all of my stuff here - just the things that I think are worth shouting about. Organising it all via fandom, with some little sub-categories within those because some of them *cough*James/Theodora*cough* have decided to become ungovernable.

Where to find me: AO3 -- IG -- Goodreads

Catch the Wind-verse:

Catch the Wind - James Norrington/Modern!OC Status: Complete. [400k+ words] AO3 The behemoth that started the absolute sickness in me, and probably where you should start if you want any of the rest of my Norrington stuff to make total sense to you.

When it was completed, I also did a read-through on here talking about some behind-the-scenes type stuff. The tag is here, but it's obviously reverse-chronological order so spoilers abound! I plan on doing this for other fics when they're complete!

Sainted by the Storm - James Norrington/Modern!OC Status: In progress, updated sporadically. AO3 The home for any random snippets of this pairing that I write - there are a few AU chapters here and there, mostly it's flufftober fills, or pieces not long enough to warrant their own story. Wicked Game - James Norrington/Modern!OC Status: In progress. AO3 Semi-sequel to CTW, just a very small smutty series set after the events of the main story. Red Thread of Fate - Theodore Groves/Pirate!OC Status: In progress. AO3 Vague companion piece to CTW, taking place in the background of that story, and then branching into the timespan that follows it - with appearances made by Norrington and the OC I write for him.

Catch the Wind AUs

Fallen Through Time - James Norrington/Modern!OC Status: In progress, on a break. AO3 -- Tumblr An AU of Catch the Wind, exploring what might've happened had Elizabeth Swann been the one to find Theodora when she fell into the world of POTC.

As It Was - Modern!James Norrington/Historical!OC Status: Planning - a teaser can be found on tumblr for now. AO3 Another AU of Catch the Wind, where James Norrington is the modern character, and Theodora Byrne is the "canon" character from POTC who is fated to die.

Here, Where Fire Grows - Boromir/Modern!Amnesiac!OC Status: In progress AO3 Writing Catch the Wind didn't get the "modern girl falls for fictional dead man" trope out of my brain, so I had to inflict another on Boromir - but this time with an amnesiac twist, just for some added fun. Other mini-stories for these two written during flufftober can be found here.

Flufftober '23 The non-Theorrington flufftober fills can be found in this series on AO3, but all of the fills also be found on Tumblr where they have pretty banners to go along with the chapters.

About a Girl Captain Hook [Peter Pan 2003]/OC AO3 Hook sets out to manipulate a former member of The Lost Boys in order to gain the upper hand against Peter Pan…and learns the hard way that it's best not to underestimate one's opponent. Manipulations, trust issues, lots of "falling for you would be the worst possible idea so I won't do that haha...unless 👀" on both sides.

Obscure, Plain, and Little Aemond Targaryen/OC AO3 A Jane Eyre-inspired fic -- probably won't follow the events of the show/book.

Absolution Dracula [Van Helsing 2004]/OC AO3 Set in the modern day, lots of cliché favourites with (hopefully) some added twists to spice things up a bit! Free Cullen Rutherford/F!Inquisitor AO3 Modern!Royalty!AU which will eventually follow the events of the game.

This is the hub that contains all of my post documenting my progress with the challenge I'm setting myself for 2025, in which I'll be aiming to have twelve consecutive 50k word months.

List of ideas for tentative future pairings and fandoms I want to go into can be found here. I'm also always open to suggestions, so don't feel too shy if you want to send me an ask or a message 💜

[freisende]

Married Thrice to Salted Fish Audio Drama Season 2 Song - "Three Wishes" 《三願/San Yuan》 (Hanzi/Pinyin/English) Lyrics & English Translation

✲ Married Thrice to Salted Fish (三嫁鹹魚/San Jia Xian Yu) Audio Drama Season 2 Song

✲ Singer: 大C

Youtube Music Lyric Video: here

•Original work: Married Thrice to Salted Fish 《三嫁鹹魚》by Bikabi (比卡比)

♫Production Group♫

📌Original Production Team ℗ 2024 猫耳FM:

•Produced by: Maoer FM (猫耳FM)

•Planning: Jiangzao (降枣)

•Lyrics: Long Xiaotao (龙小套)

•Composition: Lianya (莲琊)

•Arrangement: Ouyang Wenjun Lianya (欧阳文俊 莲琊)

•Singing/Harmony: Da-C (大C)

•Post-production: Liu Shuai Lian Ya (刘帅 莲琊)

•Assistance: Hua Chao (花朝)

•Poster design: Wei Shan (伪鳝)

•Title: You Fei (有匪)

•Music producer: Lian Ya (莲琊)

•Music production team: Chao Sheng Zu(潮声组)

✲ Released on: 2024-08-26

——————————————

Lyrics:

Verse 1:

问谁与同行

wèn shéi yǔ tóngxíng

长风千里灵犀 

cháng fēng qiānlǐ língxī

风雨同舟济

fēngyǔ tóng zhōu jì

从来冷眼看

cónglái lěngyǎn kàn

尘世里

chénshì lǐ

世人庸碌奔忙 

shìrén yōnglù bēnmáng

千百种执迷

qiān bǎi zhǒng zhí mí

Pre-chorus 1:

若称为知己

ruò chēng wéi zhījǐ

知情知意知我 

zhīqíng zhī yì zhī wǒ

偏凉薄冷情

piān liáng báo lěng qíng

从来不信命 

cónglái bu xìn mìng

任因果报应

rèn yīnguǒ bàoyìng

却因他动容 

què yīn tā dòngróng

悄然改写命局

qiǎorán gǎixiě mìng jú

如何云淡风轻 

rúhé yún dàn fēng qīng

日月朝夕

rì yuè zhāoxì 

红线暗牵系

hóngxiàn àn qiān xì

举杯相约重逢

jǔ bēi xiāngyuē chóngféng

莫再违期

mò zài wéi qī

Chorus:

愿与君如梁上燕 

yuàn yǔ jūn rú liáng shàng yàn

岁岁年 长相见

suì suì nián zhǎng xiàng jiàn

隔世霜雪落 

géshì shuāng xuě luò 

寄我意 送君前

jì wǒ yì sòng jūn qián

辟如生死爱欲 如刻骨云烟

pì rú shēngsǐ ài yù rú kègǔ yúnyān

随朝暮尽散 又随朝暮还复来

suí zhāo mù jǐn sàn yòu suí zhāo mù hái fù lái

庭院桃花已开

tíng yuàn táo huā yǐ kāi 

Pre-chorus 2:

若称为知己

ruò chēng wéi zhījǐ

知情知意知我 

zhīqíng zhī yì zhī wǒ 

相思无绝期

xiāngsī wú jué qī

从来不信命 

cónglái bu xìn mìng

任因果报应

rèn yīn guǒ bàoyìng

却因他祈愿 

què yīn tā qí yuàn

来世姻缘再续

láishì yīnyuán zài xù

如何云淡风轻 

rúhé yún dàn fēng qīng

日月朝夕

rì yuè zhāoxì 

红线暗牵系

hóngxiàn àn qiān xì

举杯相约重逢 

jǔ bēi xiāngyuē chóngféng

莫再违期

mò zài wéi qī 

Chorus:

愿与君如梁上燕 

yuàn yǔ jūn rú liáng shàng yàn

岁岁年 长相见

suì suì nián zhǎng xiàng jiàn

隔世霜雪落 

géshì shuāng xuě luò 

寄我意 送君前

jì wǒ yì sòng jūn qián

辟如生死爱欲 如刻骨云烟

pì rú shēngsǐ ài yù rú kègǔ yúnyān

随朝暮尽散 又随朝暮还复来

suí zhāo mù jǐn sàn yòu suí zhāo mù hái fù lái

庭院桃花已开

tíng yuàn táo huā yǐ kāi 

Last Chorus:

愿君千岁身常健 

yuàn jūn qiānsuì shēn cháng jiàn

执手白发红颜

zhí shǒu bái fà hóngyán 

士为知己容 

shì wéi zhījǐ róng 

常相看两不厌

cháng xiāng kàn liǎng bù yàn

任凭日月如箭 

rènpíng rì yuè rú jiàn 

轮转过尘缘

lún zhuǎnguò chényuán

随你登高殿 或随你天涯仗剑

suí nǐ dēnggāo diàn huò suí nǐ tiān yá zhàng jiàn 

寻得一隅桃源

xún dé yīyú táoyuán

回身看 盛世河清海晏

huíshēn kàn shèngshì héqīng hǎi yàn

——————————————

English Translation:

Verse 1:

Asking; who is the one going with me?

Though the wind blows with rain thousands of miles, we stand together and are in sync with each other

I have always viewed the world with a cold glance

People are busy bustling about with thousands of obsessions around

Pre-chorus 1:

If you call yourself my soulmate

Understanding my emotions, my thoughts, and me;

I am cold and indifferent

Never believing in fate, letting karma take its course

Yet because of him, I was touched and subtly changed the course of my destiny.

How can it be so light and peaceful, day and night?

The red thread is secretly tied

Raise a glass of wine and make an agreement to meet again, not breaking the appointment

Chorus:

I wish to come to see you year after year, like a swallow on the beam

Frost and snow fall from another world, sending my messages and thoughts to you along the way.

Love is like life and death; like clouds and smoke, 

It vanishes with the morning and evening, and comes back with the morning and evening

The peach blossoms have bloomed in the courtyard 

Pre-chorus 2:

If you call yourself my soulmate

Understanding my emotions, my thoughts, and me;

along with this endless love for you

Never believing in fate, letting karma take its course

Yet because of his prayer, ensuring the continuation of our marriage in the next life

How can it be so light and peaceful, day and night?

The red thread is secretly tied

Raise a glass and make an agreement to meet again, not breaking the appointment

Chorus:

I wish to come to see you year after year, like a swallow on the beam

Frost and snow fall from another world, sending my messages and thoughts to you along the way.

Love is like life and death; like clouds and smoke, 

it vanishes with the morning and evening, and comes back with the morning and evening

The peach blossoms have bloomed in the courtyard

Last Chorus:

I wish you a thousand years of good health, hand-in-hand growing old together

The man looks at his soulmate, never growing weary of looking at each other

Let the sun and the moon streak across the sky like arrows; and let the wheel turns through the world

Let me follow you to the top of the palace, or to the end of the world ready with sword in hand

Discovering a trace of the paradise

In retrospect, those prosperous times were peaceful and tranquil like the rivers and oceans.

——————————————

Don't forget to check the Youtube Music Lyric video here.

Thank you for reading. Have a good day! ✨

Please feel free to tell me if you have any questions, or if you notice any mistakes-- whether they be the vocabulary, grammar or something else.

Navigation: ✤ For translations, here. ✤ For more discussions and perspectives, here. ✤ For meme, here! If you like my writing, please consider giving me a tip through Ko-fi! 😊 ✤ More information (commission, messages, requests): Carrd

[dent-de-leon]

“Once upon a time,” sang melodious Elatis, enveloping him in her warm embrace, “There was a happy family.”  

Her honeyed words flowed saccharine sweet; a litany of pretty lies glistening in rose glinted glass. He welcomed her gladly, opening his mind to the Dream—for of all the mages who held his chains, she was by far the closest thing to kindness. 

Mollymauk fell into a deep sleep, dreamed of another world amidst a sea of glistening stars. Warmth, connection, a thousand hearts all beating as one. The faces of his mother and father. His dear sister. His lost brother. The burning light of every departed soul returning to the earth. Singing the cherished verses of childhood plays and ballads, losing himself in the steps of a merry dance. Here he is himself again, whole.

And for the longest time he was content to dream--to forget.

Until he started to become real again, stirred awake in the mages' prison.

The sight that greeted him was an eerily familiar one, the same empty stone walls he'd stared at for months upon months. A domed, high vaulted ceiling that cradled a softly glowing crystal crest, its otherworldly azure light bathing the whole chamber in ethereal radiance. The gentle thrum of whispering minds reverberating all around him, a chorus of disparate voices drowning out the rest of the world--a soft murmur that became a rushing current, a roaring tidal wave, a tempest sea--

It was almost enough to drive him back into the cold embrace of that terrible, clawing Emptiness.

The Dawn Crucible was a temple to the ineffable world of dreams and endless possibility, an archive of countless dreamers' dazzling fantasies and worst nightmares. A research facility dedicated to..."The work," as Elatis echoed gravely again and again, lost in a distant trance, her awestruck crimson eye burning into his flesh. A library built of a thousand sleeping minds.

At the very least, dreams are an escape. Exciting, unpredictable. The prime material plane is monotonously dull in comparison--he opens his eyes in the same luminous chamber, the same cold cell. Back always aching when he rises from the freezing stone floor on shaky feet, the world slowly drifting back into focus. The chains cut into his raw, blistering skin if he wanders too far. And he still carries the mark of every blood red Eye, every aching scar.

He stopped dreaming about escape a long time ago.

And yet, for all its constants, the waking world finally surprised him. Another wizard stood before him, hand pressed to the bars of his cell. Not the philosophers who marked him with their brand, tugged and tore at the threads of Fate that forever bound him. Not the other grand mages of the Convocation, the reigning nobles and wealthy aristocracy of Aeor. The hungry eyes as they bled him dry, all the eager spectators and patrons who reveled in the somnovem's cruel experiments.

When Tealeaf opened his eyes again for the first time--in the longest time--he was met with a strange visitor. His soft, wistful gaze was morosely melancholy. Haunted. Deep dark circles etched under his gentle blue eyes, his pretty face buried in layers of dirt and grime.

Molly could feel the magic stirring in his veins, a rush of warmth and the scent of ashes. Raw and tender in a way none of the Convocation or philosophers ever were. A patch of sunlight in the dead of winter. A feeling he had just the name for.

"Magician."

[recitedemise]

Now, that's a line of thought, indeed. As a wish, to who do you truly belong to tonight? Well, certainly not to him. He hasn't wished for ages.

Wishing is too indulgent for a soul like his.

But seeing you strut up to him now, a flash of surprise, perhaps even frazzling anxiety, creeps up strange and fluttering in the pit of his chest. Gale reasons it's just his muscle, that one that's atrophied egregiously in his most silent of years. Fortunately, he's still sense enough in him to scrounge up the barest modicum of charm. If your ears are truly burning, fortunately, he thinks it's just his vision.

"If I didn't know any better, I'd say you were luring me into a trap where I ply with you praise. Truthfully, the bass might have rattled my more mental faculties more than I'd care to admit, but if I'm not somehow mistaken, this is supposed to work the other way around." After all, asking for one's ego to be pampered and stroked? Who ever wins company with words like that? Evidently, the answer is you if this one's man's stillness isn't declaration enough. Neither turning on his heel nor bolting for the door... He meets your gleaming eyes. You look--familiar. "You were enchanting. Perhaps it isn't like celestial, but it is magical, and I argue what difference is there between one abstract realm from that of another? Were you to ask me, they're both the very height of fantasy. With the power to spellbound and profoundly enthrall, they're more sisters than cousins. You find great passion in your work." The way you'd closed your eyes and lost yourself... Gale's smile twists, realizing. "Oh, you're good at this."

tabloids and a tyrannical father are far from your mind. you are not the blue devil or heir of a wretched family legacy on stage. you have been remade. under the neon moon, you are born from a wish.

whose wish, perhaps you will discover tonight.

you've been in the game now for a couple of years. good fan rapport is vital to maintain. mister superlunary isn't the first to seek you out at the end of a performance. no fan before him have complimented you quite so . . . thoroughly. the tips of your ears burn with color. mister superlunary's fidgeting endears you to speak.

"hey, don't stop there," dressed down from leathers and silk the color of sin, you amble closer in an open-throat shirt and simple denim. the sensuous and indolent devil from stage falls away with every step. your smile shifts towards the whimisical. "what else do you like about me? it'll be hard t' follow-up "celestial.""

[liliallowed]

listen. I know it looks like I ignored ask dusttale wishes...

but like. THE SOULS WOULD ALSO KNOW ABOUT RHE LOOP THEY'D ALSO BE A CATALYST MAN! first of all none of them would know dust killed anything because they don't SEE ANYTHING they just see Asgore dying and coming back and time rewinding.

from their perspective they ALL did something similar to this at some point and they just gave up.

much like the red soul that's trapped within the confines of a predetermined ending... be ur good or bad they also had a predetermined death.

but thing is crimson changed it. despite everything they CHANGED the story. DUST changed the script.

with that I think the SOULS would all actually be motivated to die on their own terms aswell.

take back the life that was taken from them. if the red soul carved their name into the world by blood and dust to be remembered then maybe they could also weave a thread of color in a cold unforgiving world they were all trapped in.

pushing against the boundaries of the script.

the souls would be spiteful.

because they've only been tools only been able to effect so little. have so little choice. they refuse. they refuse to let the world's confines press against them and suppress them again.

they would all push back against the code SPECIFICALLY BECAUSE it tells them they can't out of spite!

I think sans would eventually be in possession of the souls not because I'm dissatisfied with ask dusttale but because DUST AND THE SOULS WOULD GO DIRECTLY AGAINST IT.

like how cool is that? for the creators words to be directly written into the nature of the story?

and from what I know... if dust knew someone defined his fate... he would not stand for it.

kinda the whole point he killed everyone no?

and who is this anomaly to define him? who's who to tell him what he can't do?

it's not like he'd do something "out of character" out of sheer spite of the script ...

closures timeline the script is an actual entity that dust and the souls all collectively push back against.

it's intentionally canon divergence.

a canon event going rogue if you will to put it in spider verse terms.

do you really think dust sans would let ask dusttale tell him what he can't do when he's already done the worst thing possible? no! because neither can I! dust will be whatever he wants to do. I like to think killing everyone kinda made him feel... more free? like storywise he's no longer a judge or has a specific "role"

he's broken the old script but trapped himself in a new one.

the law of the executioner. the demon that comes when they call it's name. the erased existence of what used to be. the world replacing gears to function.

all of that is forming a script.

and dust CAN'T break it but the HUMAN SOULS can.

dust doesn't absorb the souls. the souls come TO him out of sheer spite

[lvnsrn]

isekaijoucho colors album - my thoughts:

This is my second listen of the album... I listened to it yesterday upon release, but was too tired from having just woken up... So now I'm a bit more lucid, and definitely in the right mindset for this album, so here we go.

Breath - I'm crying already, touched to my soul... It's so beautifully majestic. It's hard to think people don't like this side of her, it's certainly different from Creation/Anemone, but there's just something so powerful about this era of Colors/Nemophila…

And return to white - I've loved this song ever since its release. The MV is just amazing, I feel like it encapsulates everything about Isekaijoucho and her "story." The ending Anima pose reference is amazing too... Note the use of the word "color" and also "breath." It's interesting to think of the dying Isekaijoucho as a form of "Anemone" as well. This song encapsulates Isekaijoucho's grief, strength, beauty, passion, magic, and elegance, and sets the tone for the "story" that follows.

A Doll of Lapis - It's hard to not think the songs are connected somehow. An elegant and delicate song, unveiling her complexity behind her doll eyes. Take note of blue being emphasized, but then "my true color is..." and the scene color changing to red. It adds to "Nemophila" being more sinister somehow, especially in combination with "And return to white." Beneath the pure white and the beautiful azure blue, is blood red; fire red; and darkness. That is most surely "Isekaijoucho."

Pandora Call - Possessiveness, control of a world. Once again following the thread and "story," it feels like a song associated with the destruction scenes in "And return to white," with the lyrics talking about destruction/control of a world through love and song. In the MV, the clock also goes backwards. The key word of this song is "world" (sekai as in "Isekaijoucho") and "melody." I can't help but imagine a story in which Anemone and Nemophila were in love, but Anemone's love was "destruction," so she died amidst the fires and blood that her love brought on.

Dimension - The song closest to my heart. There is strength and conviction; a desire to get back what was once lost. In terms of composition, it's simply moving and ethereal in a very "VOCALOID" way. It has a quality to it I adore very much and resonate with strongly. But I never imagined I'd have the song recontextualized, and given further meaning -- given the context of the "story" of this album so far. I imagine, this is after the death of Anemone, Nemophila struggled to find her "fate/meaning" and was lost, but found the things she lost in mourning -- the things that make her, "her." A reclaiming of identity, a rediscovery of the self. In terms of the word "Dimension," it's like Isekaijoucho traveling through "dimensions" to find these things about herself -- fate, conviction, and more. A common theme so far in this album is Isekaijoucho's "truest" self that is hidden away; a story no one knows. It's something that resonates quite personally as well. Key words, I'm unsure of, but perhaps try repetition and fate; also future.

Kimi syousitu sekai (a world where you disappear) - key words: "world"/"sekai" and "future." A notable mention to "sadness/lament" (ureu) -- part of the second verse of "And return to white" (I am lamenting white/watashi wa ureu shiro.) Another song about grief, loss of "another self." Musically, I love the intense rock angle this song takes, I'm glad she gets to do a rock song that's also very distinctly within her "vibes" and energy. In terms of story and MV, we take note of the clocks again; going forward, than backwards like in Pandora Call. But also the dual motif of Isekaijoucho; and the scenery within a church. Imagining this continues the story of Anemone and Nemophila, this is from Nemophila's perspective about the loss, death, and disappearance of Anemone. Notably this song coming right after Dimension is interesting and paints a duality -- "Dimension" talks about not forgetting, but "Kimi syousitu sekai" laments what will be forgotten in the future after death. We also have an implication about a "bad end" for the one that was lost -- alluding to the disaster shown in the MV of "And return to white" and referenced in the lyrics in "Pandora Call." Without Anemone, Nemophila loses a very important aspect of herself; she is "incomplete" but must go on to the future. Another angle we can take the interpretation of "Dimension" is that, since it was released during Anemone era and has Anemone outfit, it's about Anemone's hopes and convictions for the future, to contrast Nemophila's lament and grief as she moves on to the future without Anemone. The most striking line in support of the "Colors storyline" is "you and me, we are the same person." In the MV this shows Nemophila hugging a "shadow Isekaijoucho" who fades away, so we can also connect this to the dark corpse of (who we've assigned to be) Anemone in "And return to white." Overall, amazing song, interesting narrative so far.

Grayscale - Super interesting song and mysterious too. This song feels like a liminal space; like purgatory. Uncertainty, mystery. Unfortunately have to rely on MTL for the lyrics, but some keywords I think are "colors" (black/white/grayscale), and "world/planet." There is also "endroll" which evokes the theatre from "Tomedonaki Hakujou) (from her first album "Creation.") One lyric that intrigues me is "Isekaijoucho wa henzai suru" -- this is the part that repeats as ASMR panning. Trying to look into the meaning of 偏在 henzai, it seems to mean uneven distribution. I'm not sure, but I feel like this is a "corruption" of 配信 haishin = distribution; livestream transmission. It's like she's saying the transmission is broken/corrupted/unbalanced but once again, I'm unsure since my knowledge of Japanese isn't that good. If any imagery is evoked, this makes me think of a TV set which was also in the MV for "Kimi syousitu sekai." In my interpretation, it's like a broken transmission from the "dying world."

Kokoni togeto shiwo (Here lies thorns and death) - SLAVE VVR AND ISEKAIJOUCHO IS AN AMAZING AND UNEXPECTED MATCH....!!! Keywords: color, goddess, and jewel. Musically, this is so fresh and exciting for Isekaijoucho, it's an amazing song! She even sings quite a bit of English here too, and the lyrics are not as difficult as Grayscale to understand through MTL. Now, about the lyrics of the song, it's about love -- love that leads to death; love as a reverence of a goddess; love as a sin through bloodshed and punishment. Once again, evoking the scenery of the previously established "tragedy" in the "story." Jewel/gem is also an important thing to note as a keyword -- potentially referencing "Isekai no Housekitan" from her previous album -- jewel/gem could also be a reference to "past innocence" before the tragedy. Jewels are also alluded to in "A Doll of Lapis" as the color of the doll's eyes -- blue -- but the jewels in this song are either red or colorless -- whether it's blood-red dying the colorless quartz, or the red quartz losing its color. Red is a color associated with the tragedy, destruction, etc. We can connect this song highly to Pandora Call as having similar themings. The goddess is also interesting here, as it seems Nemophila evokes a "goddess" like image in "And return to white," but in this song it seems that it's like the mortal desiring to be goddess-like for the sake of love, but being punished for it somehow.

Nerine's Secrets - A song by Kashii Moimi, formatted as a "(kana name) no (kanji)" sung by SEKAI/Isekaijoucho? Is this... the third song in the series of Erica & Karen? That's what I want to think, anyways. Unfortunately can't find any lyrics transcript yet. In any case, Kashii Moimi always creates such beautiful songs. Key words: eyes, world, colors (rainbow.) It's hard with my limited Japanese knowledge, but I got some imagery/vibes of a night sky (moon and stars), meetings/coming together, and shining light of a rainbow in the lyrics. Unlike Erica & Karen, Nerine has a more hopeful, "kirakira" vibe to the song, while still being distinctly Kashii Moimi in the same style of Erica and Karen -- emphasizing beauty ("karenna"). (Erica is mourning, Karen is inability to accept her own sins.) As to how Nerine connects to the "story" thus far, I'm a bit uncertain to fully tell, but we can connect eyes to Doll of Lapis (eyes made of Lapis, etc etc), and world/colors to a lot of the previously aforementioned songs. As for a detailed analysis on this song's connection to Karen and Erica, I'll leave that for another time once I get a better grasp of the lyrics, and once I'm in the mood for it.

Promise in the Twilight - A banger of a song, I've loved this song since its release too! But in the album placement, following Nerine's Secrets, it's like the starlight/"light" from Nerine's Secrets is the same "light" that she refers to in the opening lyric here: "on that day, we were both enveloped by a faint light." Keywords: light, mayday, colors (green), and justice. On its own, this song wasn't in my top favorite Isekaijoucho songs, but as part of the album? It's transcendent, it's amazing, it's actually PEAK. The song's connections to other songs in the album are absolutely incredible. We already addressed Nerine, so let's talk about the others. Most obviously, this song references the musical motif of "Dimension," and both songs have thematic similarities in their lyrics. "Mayday" also is a lyric in "Grayscale" (so I'll have to retroactively add "Mayday" as a key word in Grayscale too.) The song also references a "god in heaven" so we can also check off "Kokoni togeto shiwo" for the goddess. The "color" here is green -- "proof is colored in green." It is also a rock song utilizing guitars, much like "Kimi syousitu sekai." The epic and grand feeling of the song also is reminiscent of "And return to white;" and the relationship/devotion/vow to "another person" -- love; it's a more hopeful and bright "love" that contrasts from "Pandora Call" and "Kokoni togeto shiwo." In addition, we can add twilight as another color -- "twilight" is an in-between of day and night; like how "Grayscale" is an in-between of black and white. Justice is an interesting keyword here because I don't think it's been referenced in the previous songs at all? But in my interpretation of the story, I think previously the lovers of Anemone and Nemophila met a "bad end/tragedy," but they have a "good end" where things were made "right." That might be the "justice" of the storyline. There's also a line about "cleansing these hands," which I'm going to interpret as being cleansed from the tragedy and sin. I think this song is atonement; and atonement is the justice.

Vermilion - Already the first lyric of the song is literally "twilight." Right after "Promise in the Twilight." Also, it seems "vermilion" was referenced as a color already in "Kokoni togeto shiwo," and is already the name of a color anyways -- red referencing the tragedy. As a Hiiragi Magnetite song, this is bound to be one of my favorites. This album just gets stronger and stronger with each song. Aside from the established color, our key words are twilight, dark, future, apocalypse, dimension. Another special mention to melancholy/ureu. Twilight and Dimension are obvious connections to other songs, but what's more is that those two songs are already connected, and here's another song that's connected to them as well. As well as "Dimension" also being by Hiiragi Magnetite. And how about I bring in "Kimi syousitu sekai" as the connection for the word "future?" I think we already have a sense for what could be meant by dark and apocalypse too – the tragedy, of course. I think much like the contrast and connection between Dimension and Kimi syousitu sekai, I think Promise in the Twilight and Vermilion have a similar connection, and these 4 songs being placed the way they are is no coincidence. First off, their respective colors are opposing – green and red (vermilion.) In this song, Isekaijoucho sings of a desolate future that she foresaw, but still holds on to hope. It feels like the “promise” and hopes were shattered and darkness came. Wounds, the end of life, apocalypse… All the hope that was in the previous song, where did it go? All the hope that’s in the other Hiiragi Magnetite song, “Dimension,” where did it go? And in both Kimi syousitu sekai and this song, the future is bleak; lacking light; losing someone precious to you. And yet, while Kimi syousitu sekai despairs, Vermilion still has some hope. In addition, I think the final lyric of this song is important: “Return to that rightful place.” – Connection to “And return to white.” And “rightful” here can also be TLed as justice – another connection to Promise in the Twilight. Perhaps the color of justice is white? God. Just. These songs are amazing… I love them so much

To You Who Kept On Drawing - Keywords from the lyrics: breath, world/sekai, future, anima, color (white/grayscale/red). The title of this song alone is important because of the lyric in “And return to white” about drawing – “people driven by passion picked up their pens and began to draw.” In general, thematically, this song feels like an answer/resolution song to “And return to white” – both by Kashii Moimi, and parallels can be drawn in their composition; and it just overall feels like a satisfying connection to this entire album and especially And return to white. If you thought the previous songs had a lot of references, wait till you hear what references this song has in its MV and lyrics. First we have a star motif – which connects to Nerine and Twilight, but I also forgot to mention the last time stars were mentioned, that stars also connects to Heart of Sirius from the Creation album. Next, we have gems – Kokoni togeto shiwo and Creation’s Isekai no Housekitan. Next we have a frame of duality in Isekaijoucho’s image – Kimi syousitu sekai. Then, the chorus has spinning which Dimension’s MV also does that, and it’s also referenced lyrically. Partway through the MV, the color turns primarily red – this echoes the “turning to red” in the MVs for And return to white and A Doll of Lapis; and another connection to Kokoni togeto shiwo and Vermilion – red being reinforced as the color of strife, “true self,” and revelations. The MV also turns grayscale for a bit (self explanatory.) Finally the MV ends in a sunrise – which I’d like to think contrasts twilight. As for the lyrics, we’ve already touched on the keywords of breath/world/future/color previously, but I want to talk about anima – this is the title of Isekaijoucho’s live concerts, and is a word for “will of life.” I think using anima in this song specifically is just so powerful and evocative. Lyrically, this song is about love for the world, love for another person as they saved her; not caring if she has sins or scars; not wanting to give up, and holding on to important things like vows, prayers, and bonds. It feels like a sort of “resolution” to all the strife previously. Saving is important in the context of Isekaijoucho, since that is the one thing she wishes to do in the Kamicity lore and also in her other lyrics – she wants to save people, and in turn she is saved by another person – “to you who kept on drawing.” I want to think the implication of “drawing” here is to continue one person’s will and continue the story; continue their emotions. If Isekaijoucho had died in the previous song “Vermilion,” then she is revived/saved by “drawing.” It’s possible that this song is also from the perspective of the dead Anemone from “And return to white,” and it’s the other song that references drawing. I think we need to go back to “And return to white”’s lyrics: Right after “people driven by passion picked up their pens and began to draw,” she sings “I’ll dye my heart white to stop it from breaking” – I think drawing and colors here are deeply connected. To draw is to control colors; and to control colors is to define your outlook on life and express yourself. In the MV, although she stained the entire world in red (tragedy,) she returned it to grayscale, and then a more normal, realistic color of the world; and she’s walking towards a white light. I think I understand why this song is deemed the “leading song” of the album. God damn. I have to lay down for a bit after this… This album just becomes more and more peak the more I analyze it. I also think this song is very important to Isekaijoucho specifically with the theme of drawing/colors because she herself is an illustrator; and the meaning of art/drawing for her, it might be the thing that “saved her life,” which is a sentiment I’m sure many artists of different kinds can relate to – art can save lives.

Formless Thing - This one is more somber compared to all the intensity of the preceding songs. It’s an especially important song because not only are the lyrics written by Isekaijoucho herself, from the MV I think it’s a love letter to her past self and future self. We directly see Anemone here as a duality to Nemophila; when Anemone leaves, Nemophila will still be here to carry on Anemone’s voice. What is meant by “Formless Thing” in terms of the song title, I’m not sure; but “katachinaki mono” can also be translated as “one without a body.” Given the song and MV, I’m inclined to think this “one without a body” is Anemone. Now that Isekaijoucho is Nemophila, Anemone no longer has a body, but she still exists in memories. I think this recontextualizes everything in the album previously about their relationship and dynamic… 

ANGELIC - I didn’t write much for “Formless Thing” itself because I think it’s worth it to analyze Formless Thing and ANGELIC in tandem. Between these two songs we get a direct confirmation: this song is absolutely a love letter to Isekaijoucho’s self; past and future: “because you are me, we share our lives.” First established lyrically in “Kimi syousitu sekai” and re-inforced in “ANGELIC.” ANGELIC also references the ocean, which was seen at the end of “To You Who Kept On Drawing.” Both these songs are about wanting to love; wanting to live; living at “your” side (which is the same person); prayers to the goddess; the moon… also referencing the overall theme of colors and also breath. Previously, I thought there was no better album ender than ARCADIA from Creation, but this entire ending section of “Colors” blows ARCADIA out of the water, I think. An interesting lyric in this song is “Nemesis” which could be referencing the previously established strife/disaster/apocalypse/etc.

Colors - This is such an elegant and beautiful closer to the album; it’s so light and pretty; so expressive and beautiful. I am truly breathtaken and full of emotion.

FINAL VERDICT: Overwhelmed immensely. This album… I have so many thoughts. But it’s truly an amazing album, more amazing than I thought. I will definitely be talking more about this album and the songs in the future. But for now, it’s amazingly interwoven and is a love letter to the entire concept and being of “Isekaijoucho” – the character, the art, the presentation, the singer behind her and her thoughts and emotions and past and future and hopes and just; everything. There’s so much more to say, but for now, I’ll leave it at that. To everyone who made Isekaijoucho possible… Piedpiper, Kashii Moimi, reoenl; samayuzame and orie… and of course, the voice and soul of Isekaijoucho herself… thank you.

[pathoscleaved]

THE HERETIC WOLF, THE MASTERMIND, THE PRODIGY . . .

𝐏𝐀𝐓𝐇𝐎𝐒𝐂𝐋𝐄𝐀𝐕𝐄𝐃: 𝐃𝐑. 𝐀𝐋𝐁𝐄𝐑𝐓 𝐖𝐄𝐒𝐊𝐄𝐑 of 𝐑𝐄𝐒𝐈𝐃𝐄𝐍𝐓 𝐄𝐕𝐈𝐋 & 𝐃𝐄𝐀𝐃 𝐁𝐘 𝐃𝐀𝐘𝐋𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓.

Masterminded by 𝐕𝐈𝐊𝐓𝐎𝐑 (21+, he/they). Slow, sporadic activity. The muse can be picky. My portrayal of Wesker is very headcanon based, and is a mix of the Dead by Daylight & Resident Evil Games.

𝐕𝐈𝐍𝐂𝐄𝐑𝐄 𝐀𝐔𝐓 𝐌𝐎𝐑𝐈 // conquer or die

✮ᯓ Narratively paired with @ethoslost. Two threads in the same stitch ; Ensnared by the red string of fate┈ They are my Exclusive Chris.

DOCTOR ALBERT WESKER is many things: betrayer, liar, manipulator, and charmer. As brilliant and egotistical as he is deadly and tactical, upon finding out that he was sold by his birth parents and placed into a project to bring about a new world through plague, Albert decides to become a god in his own right.

enter the web?

RULES // ABOUT

✱ HEADCANON MASTERLIST & LORE DOCKET (main verse timeline)

✱ DYNAMICS

✱ VERSES

BLOG ASSETS // MEMES // PROMO DRAFTS: tbd ASKS: tbd

WHY IS VIKTOR SLOW?

BLOG ROLL

[dynastymusesarchive]

under the cut is muses i am anxious to play, but have had no or little interest for threads. if you would like a one sentence starter, please comment on who. i would love you forever!

rand al’thor -wheel of time qui gon jinn-star wars finn-star wars Enid Sinclair-wednesday Sav Bhandari-degrassi Fiona Coyne-degrassi Clare Edwards-degrassi Jake Martin-degrassi Drew Torres-degrassi Terra Harvey-fate the winx saga Bloom Peters-fate the winx saga Magnus Bane-shadowhunters Clary Fray-shadowhunters Alexander Clearmond Diaz-red, white, & royal Henry Stuart Fox -red, white, & royal Five Hargreeves-the umbrella academy Sloane Hargreeves-the umbrella academy Jill Pole-Narnia Eustance Clarence Scrubb-Narnia Esme Frost-Marvel Scott Summers-Marvel Elena Gilbert-TVD Verse Lizzie Saltzman-TVD Verse Dinah Lance-DC Tommy Merlyn-arrowverse/dc Gar Logan-dc Virgil Hawkins-dc Barry Allen-dc tom jones (tom jones 2023) Sebastian de poitiers (reign) Wendy Darling-Peter Pan/Disney Elinor Fairmont-First Kill Juliette Fairmont-First Kill samwise gamgee-lord of the rings