#who's base happens to relate close to me in several ways XD | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

withered-rose-unbreakable-lotus · 6 months ago

Text

@sleeplesssmoll True that about her mother. Like a little animal indeed. An older her still searching though would have worked for me as well, I agree.

Yeah but we don't know if knowing what to do with other characters was because she knew or because she winged it xD. Again because of the argument I mentioned that she obviously didn't know what to do. Also it's interesting take, but it just hit me that the characters you mentioned with whom she knew what to do happen to have several similarities to Vertin, hence why I think she could indeed know what she was doing with them. Druvis is a loner, she had expressed how her only place was the forest, that this is what she wanted to protect etc. In a way Vertin too doesn't know where she belongs but she too has sth to protect. Her knowing what to do in that case comes from relatability. She did what she probably wish others did for her. Jessica is another loner. One completely cut out from the world at first. All she knew was the forest around the lake and Blonney. She too tried to attack everyone cause she wanted to keep Blonney close and protect her too. So I feel that with her too, Vertin acted based on relatability. Schneider. She didn't know what to do at first, she didn't even know where Schneider stood. When she saw her hesitation and realized she was doing all she did because she had no choice, but still wanted to protect her sister, it comes back down to "where is my place in this world, where do i belong". She too sailed alone, but she would still do anything to protect the one thing she knew mattered to her, her sisters. And having Manus controlling her and forcing her hand also hits close to Vertin. Cause she has never been that into the ways of the Foundation. And sometimes she has to find loophole after loophole to help everyone without the Foundation harming or taking things and rights from other arcanists. Vertin is not free. She is given power so I think she still feels trapped. That's why everything went down with the voting while she was sleeping and even Lilya helped. Finally you mentioned Regulus. Regulus is very similar to the rest but responds differently to her not feeling no place like home. She doesn't want one. She liked to sail around in her little ship and all that mattered to her was that ship, her records and Mr. Apple. Perhaps Vertin sees Regulus as someone she aspires to be; more open and carefree, effusive with emotions and without caring so much where she is and with whom. I don't know Vertin knew what to do with her. Cause she literally just asked her to trust her. She didn't need much to be convinced xD. Especially after seeing the world around her melt with her own eyes. I remember she was a bit hesitant at first but after the world started going crazy she was like oh hell nah, take me away big hatted girl! xD So yeah it could be that she naturally knew what she was doing in those occasions as you say, it could be simply cause relating to those people was easier than say Spathodea oooor she winged it xD. Like perhaps having seen similar people in her youth and how they were handled by teachers and learnt. Also I think we shouldn't ignore that Foundations kids did learn a lot about teamwork and politics at their school. We can imagine it from how the rest of them speak, like look how Z almost turnt everyone to her side and Sonetto, even though scared, she did speak up in a very professional way in support of that dude in court. So Vertin's debating skills ought to be good enough based on her studies, even if she wasn't the best student among her peers.

Yup. Shamane is sb who tried to deal with things as an adult and indeed didn't have all the answers. In fact, his doubts were still there due to unresolved trauma and the answer, funny enough, came from the smallest kid among everyone. I loved how Kanjira woke him up. Because Kanjira grew up in the streets, she learnt from the hardships of life from a very young age and had no standards to fit in. Shamane was like a caged bird, he couldn't speak up for the longest time. So sb had to tell him that it's ok to do some things that for years he thought weren't ok because of his childhood brainwashing. Also kids tend to be more fearless so, he needed to remember how to take risks. This is also very true to life. The more we grow up, most people tend to "cower down". They could be the wildest kids in their youth but due to having to follow more rules and not really risk stuff after becoming adults, they forget how it's like taking chances and even grow fearful of them.

I see what you mean about SPDM kids.

I unfortunately don't know much about the anecdotes. Due to playing the game in front of a crowd for youtube, i tend to play them only when i record and because the limited events take most of my time I've only done Charlie's and Oliver's so far. Out of the two only Oliver's had an interaction with Vertin and even then she didn't push anything. It was Mr. Knight that pushed Oliver see the truth and face his grief for what it trully was. I can't think of a moment Vertin was more like you mention in the suitcase so feel free to give me an example.

About the meta take, I'm afraid I'll have to disagree because, the limited events are pretty much stuff that co-exist with the main story, they aren't as separate as anecdotes are, so while she doesn't take center stage, her being there was important enough I think to interfere. And even if it was so, even if it was because she is not supposed to take the spotlight, why didn't Ulu and Desert say anything. Desert had many lines and she's a sassy one too but didn't interfere. I have my thoughts why, but I don't think it was to let them cool off. I see. Well I don't think it would have worked without her though I dunno. For example in Kaalaa's story it didn't make sense for her to be there so she wasn't, same for the current patch. The Uluru stadium had to be checked by high ranked arcanists because it seems to be immune to the storm, so if not Vertin, I think some Laplace arcanist or Sonetto would have been sent to check it out. So yeah while she was there to connect things only, I think she could have stopped the argument or just intervened without really taking the spotlight. In fact, I think that if there was no reason for her staying quiet, I think she shouldn't even be in the room in that moment. She could have been outside dealing with I dunno some paperwork or contacting the Hat character again.

I see. Just to clarify, I don't think Vertin is kind out of naivity. You didn't say that of course, I am just clarifying that's not where I see naivity in her. She has always been super kind so it's part of her personality I think.

Yeah but if you notice many of the arcanists on her side rn aren't that strong. For example Laplace arcanists are with her for their brains, not their powers. Sonetto is there cause she was assigned to her as sb the Foundation thinks is a good pet and if Vertin went berserk she would let them know (good one cause she is now attached to her compared to when she was a child but ok xD) etc etc. She would have had an army still but not for as many different things she needs them now.

Well Sonetto and Mathilda were in the same class so if she and Mathilda aren't 19 they are both 14 which doesn't make sense for them both to be graduated students of the Foundation and with the little medal they wear too. (The game says sth about it and being a top student in Mathilda's character page) Also when Vertin was preparing to leave the Foundation with the little group of kids, we had a visual of her talking with both Sonetto and Mathilda and well, they didn't seem as young as they should be if we really accepted they are currently 14. I don;t remember the exact ages rn, but let's say Vertin was 16 when the kids got out to the storm. If Vertin's age difference with the other two was 5 years, they would have been 11 years old back then....well they all looked like babies to me xD but we know that short hair Sonetto was a kid kid, and long hair Sonetto, but shorter height was a teen. So yeah based on the visuals and how things transpired I think they are the same age, aka so are Mathilda and Mesmer Jr.

Yup I agree about what you said about Vertin working better from inside the Foundation. And how if they were older it would add more depth. But in general, I think, they are not trying as hard with Vertin as they try with others. She is still a bit of your typical main character in a story with many other characters. At least so far that is, she might change in the future and have way more depth but so far she doesn't openly show us a lot of depth compared to others. She is mostly there experiencing everyone's stories and slowly finding herself. I see. We will agree to disagree there because like I said in my previous reply Vertin and several others, not all of them, do add a bit more fragility to things by being young and inexperienced. I would trust an experienced adult character more than I trust Vertin or other young kids doing things. Like Sotheby's stories greatly amuse me but every time she's about to take sth into her hands I am like "please don't mess it up. ;;" but she's very lucky in all her clumsiness and it always works out in the end. xD

...yeah i can't answer that, I come from a country that kids drink from ages 12-14 and it isn't a problem. xD They don't let you get drunk but you can get access to it xD. As for punishing her like an adult, excuse me but I wouldn't consider the Foundation very child-friendly xD. This is not a factor for thought to me, that's because the Foundation is corrupted as fuck. They literally let rebelling kids go out in the storm as punishment for disobeying. There is no logic or reasoning to that to base anything off of it, so please don't do this to your brain xD. The rest yeah, are very young adult coded in how people treat her. But let's be real, every big head in the Foundation treats others as small brainless animals that all they have to do is obey so yeah, even there I wouldn't focus too much on her age, but on their being narcissistic bastards.

No problem I like discussing my views on the game, and other games too. ^^ I'm a writer so I tend to analyze characters and plots a lot, in general. Yup yup, totally got it and it was more than welcome. ^^ Thank you for reading my essay of an opinion as well. ^o^

One thing I'd change about Reverse 1999.

The more I think about it, the more I wonder why Vertin and the others are so young. It's like the anime problem where they're so reluctant to use young adults/adults even though it'd make more sense in terms of immersion. Or they make a character look young but they're actually very old.

Matilda is 14.

Tooth Fairy is 25! I read her as at least 28-30ish. To put that into perspective, Blonney is 20 and Horrorpedia is 21 which I can see. They made Zima 29 so I know it's possible!

From a story standpoint, I read Vertin as at least 19, and that's including the trauma that forced her to be the mature and stoic Timekeeper. Her charisma, ability to travel the world on her own, and experience in the field made me think of one who is old enough to deal with problems but not quite at the level where they have all the answers. Also her travels and sneaking around in places she shouldn't be would be easier if she's older. For example, more job opportunities, the ability to get a license etc. 19 is a transitional stage where she's both a kid and adult. Although, you could say this about a 16yo Vertin too but it feels...different. like a different type of transition happens during these ages but I can't put my finger on it.

Idk if I can really put this feeling into words because that's all it is really. Certain characters ages don't "feel" right.

On a completely unrelated note, I want an arcanist that looks like your stereotypical witch with a point hat and black cat! She seems like a scary grumpy lady (70), but she actually has butterscotch in her pockets and and a big ol' loving heart in her chest.

I also want a Salem trials "witch" who is actually an arcanist.

97 notes · View notes

theangryjikooker · 3 years ago

Note

You used the darling anon tag for me 🥺 I'm just gonna add something to my opinion about a on-off relationship, I do agree with you that they are probably too sensitive to just go on with their lives after a break up - though I guess it depends the reason behind the break up but I'm not willing to go that far into the speculation. But they seem estranged and awkward with each other during the black swan Era so it fits my theory BUT I'm perfectly aware I'm stepping in fanfiction territory here. It's just my brain telling me things that make sense (to me) but it's a possible explanation amongst a thousand others.

Now onto other things XD I'm sure several people asked you already but what's your take on the new moment from the latest concert? I don't think it's that big of a deal even if I properly lost my mind over it because they're so darn cute. But it's no rosebowl, not even close, and the comparison undermine the emotional depth of what happened back then imo. Thoughts? :)

(I might harass you with asks, sorry, but it's so liberating to be able to 'voice' opinions going against the popular narrative that your blog has already become a safe place for me!)

Welcome back, anon! (❁´◡`❁)

I agree with you on that front--that there a lot of things one should consider if we're theorizing how they might react to something in any given situation--and it's territory one should tread lightly, if at all.

I don't know if they seemed estranged and awkward during the Black Swan era; I at least didn't get that feeling..? Which really goes to show how perception works and is influenced by the individual.

Tangent, not that anyone cares, but I think it's something that's interesting: a person's perception is highly influenced by the mindset you're in at the time of experiencing something. If you ever find yourself looking at a moment (doesn't have to be ship-related, could be anything) and having one reaction to it, try revisiting it in a year and see if you feel the same way. I find the phenomenon rather fascinating. /nerd

Haha, I know I said I wouldn't be talking about it right away, and it does seem a little bit too soon, but this question seems fine.

I was obviously excited about it--maybe shocked is more accurate because it was so unexpected. Jikook had flyby (but cute!) interactions onstage the previous two days, and I expected more of the same. As everyone should know by now, interacting less in front of the cameras doesn't mean there's something wrong between them because odds are they spend enough time together where that detail is inconsequential.

My favorite things about that moment is as follows:

1. It wasn't brazen, per se, but I think there was an odd weight to it that you can't really compare to any of the other moments between Jungkook and [member] or Jimin and [member]. Moments after he slings his arm around Jimin's shoulder, he casts this lengthy and seemingly intense stare on him until he finally lets go. Coupled with the fact that this moment goes on a few seconds longer in videos after they go dark on the big screen, and that based on different video perspectives, it looks like Jungkook is saying something to him based on Jimin's nodding at a couple of intervals (though I can't confirm this), it's hard to dismiss the heaviness that they're (unintentionally?) fueling in that situation.

2. The biggest !!! for me, though, is that I keep reminding myself that Jungkook is the dongsaeng, and he isn't deferring to that role at all. I get that maybe in the maknae line, the hyung-dongsaeng dynamic can more easily be flipped at times vs. if someone in the maknae line tried to be that way to another person in the hyung line, but all I'm trying to say is, it was a good example of what that one guy who made the rounds of Twitter said: when it comes to Jimin, Jungkook sometimes affects a "hunk oppa" role, and that was violently on display here.

And then, you have that moment where Jungkook (and Namjoon) slap Jimin on the shoulder, and Jimin gets all up in Jungkook's grill for it, but the vibe was a touch too playful? I don't like to say this so frivolously, but when you combine everything that happened last night and put it into perspective, the boys either had shots before the show or someone spiked the L.A. air. (Before anyone gets weird on me, I don't think Jimin not giving Namjoon the same treatment is indicative of anything; Jimin is unlikely to do anything of that nature to him).

On the other hand, I'm well-aware that if I let this moment settle some more, it's not as note-worthy in the way that it's being blown up. What's note-worthy is that they do this shit at all, that this is the kind of fun they have with each other, and that they don't have any qualms about whether what they're doing is platonic or flirtatious. Rose Bowl was comparatively more offensive to my garters than this.

Nonetheless, it's still worth screaming about. I'm still screaming. Silently. Because I have no choice lol. Final word? Jikook, as I've said before, is just really fun to watch.

(I am so glad you feel that way, anon! No problem to "harass" me with more asks/have a conversation 😆)

#TAJ asks #darling anon #jikook #kookmin #bts la concert

7 notes · View notes

mikauzoran · 4 years ago

Text

The Ascendancy of The Plan ™ (re: Mikau’s WIPs)

So, I feel like I’ve gotten a lot accomplished in the past few months since I last did one of these status updates. Most of the stories I ended up writing were much longer than anticipated, and I’ve had a lot of ideas just pop into my head that I hadn’t originally been planning, so this list isn’t going to look very different from the last one, but I promise that I have accomplished things, and there are some new projects in the works. ^.^;

I’m currently posting the final chapters of Among the Wild Things and Betting Against the House. Below is a list of works I have planned for the coming months. Let me know what sounds interesting or what you’re excited for.

Anhedonia: When Adrien Met Marinette: (Adrienette, post-reveal/pre-relationship, roommates) So, I’m taking a screenplay writing class, and we’re studying the scripts of several movies to get a feel for how the writer evokes different cognitive responses from the audience. One of the movies is When Harry Met Sally. I’ve never seen this movie, but apparently it’s about two friends finally ending up together after some trials and tribulations. It’s about never giving up on finding love and happiness...only I’m feeling depressed at the moment, and I don’t want to hear about true love because I’m lonely and despair of ever finding someone to share a life with. So I’m using my feelings to write a story. ^.^ Naturally. XD

It’s post-reveal/pre-relationship Adrienette. They’re roommates, and there’s been a misunderstanding because Marinette didn’t tell Adrien how she felt about him after she found out he was Chat Noir, and he’s told her that he’s over her because he thinks that the only way to preserve their friendship (since she’s already turned down his advances as Ladybug, so, obviously, she wouldn’t want him as Marinette either). It has a happy ending, and they straighten things out because I still believe in finding true love and happiness. XD I’m a sap like that, and these two deserve happiness.

Ladrien Present: (Adrienette, Ladrien) I’m still trying to write a story where Ladybug brings Adrien’s birthday party to him. ^.^; I have half of it written (the Adrienette half), and I have an outline for the rest. I just...need to sit down and make myself write it. I’ve seriously been procrastinating on this one. I don’t know what my deal is. -.-;

Marichat Prompt: This is an overflow prompt I received as part of my Productive Procrastination Prompt Giveaway. It’s about Chat Noir visiting Marinette and it somehow coming up in conversation that Marinette has always thought of Chat as a player. For some reason, this makes Chat really angry because he can’t stand her in particular thinking that about him. I thought this story out a couple months ago, but I didn’t write it down, so now I’ve forgotten, and I’m going to have to think up the plot all over again. XD

Alyadrino Prompt: Someone sent me an Ask that said, “Snuggle party makes me imagine what if nino and alya accidentally did to adrien what luka and marinette intentionally did to him in shades 12″, and I thought, “…Oh, all right. Why not?” I had a basic outline of what I wanted to do with this story a couple months ago, but I didn’t write it down, so now I have to figure it out all over again. Oh, well. I have the basic idea, I think.

Lukadrigaminette: At the beginning of the month, I thought, “I should do Valentine’s Day stories!” I ended up writing a Marichat one, and then I had this idea. It’s not Valentine’s Day related, so I decided to shelve it for later. So, several years ago, my friend and I concocted this scheme to bake for our respective crushes and win their hearts that way. It’s a really fond memory for me, and I’m turning it into a Lukadrigaminette story. Luka and Kagami join forces to bake for Adrien and Marinette in order to win their love.

Plagg and Wayzz Prompt: I got a comment on one of my stories that said, “Can you do a top wayzz bottom plagg one? Preferably in universe and in human form. Doesn’t have to be smut.” First I thought, “What the bloody hell?” because it was a comment on a Lukadrien story, and that’s all it said, and I thought, “Well, that’s random.” I’ve never really written Wayzz before, but this gave me the idea for a story where the team is up against an akuma that somehow separates them from their kwamis, leaving the heroes unable to detransform and the kwamis in defenseless human form. What I came up with really doesn’t have anything to do with the prompt other than Plagg and Wayzz will both be in human form. It will probably just end up being a Lady Noir identity reveal piece, honestly.

Supportive Adrien Lukadrien One-Shot(?): I haven’t actually pinned this story down well yet. ^.^; I was just thinking that I wanted to write something where Adrien is the one supporting and encouraging Luka, since I typically write Luka being a supportive presence for Adrien. I was thinking that the scenario could be that Luka is feeling down because Marinette still loves Adrien and things aren’t going well between Marinette and Luka, so Adrien takes Luka on an outing and confesses his love and they live happily ever after or something.

The only thing is that a different scenario is trying to creep into this story. It’s really weird. It’s post-Papillon defeat, and Adrien is twenty-four (Luka is twenty-six). He’s been in kind of rough shape the past few years since his father was arrested and he lost his family and home and fortune. He couldn’t finish university, and he’s been travelling around, trying to find work and make a life for himself. He ends up back in Paris, broke, and auditions for a band because he happened to see a flyer advertising for a new lead vocalist. It just so happens that it’s Luka’s band, and Luka ends up finding out about Adrien’s situation and taking him in and feeding him...but that scenario is just more Luka taking care of Adrien, and that’s not what I wanted to write. XD It also feels like multiple chapters, and I don’t want to go there. Oh, well. We’ll see what happens.

Adrien Trapped in AU-Land: (Adrienette, canon universe featuring AUs) My idea is based off of a writing prompt submitted by @graaythekwami on the @miraculousfanworks Discord server: AU where all the characters wake up in a different AU every chapter, fully remembering what happened in the last AU. My idea is for Chat Noir to get hit by an akuma (probably named Escapist or something equally dumb ^.^) who traps Adrien in a series of alternate realities (AUs) until he realizes his feelings for Marinette and manages to break free.

L’Amour de Loin: (Lukadrien, post-Papillon defeat, Félix wingman) I did a sneak peek for this here. This was one of the two “Winter Lukadrien Pieces” mentioned on my last status update. Adrien is living in London with his aunt and cousin three years after Papillon’s defeat and arrest. He’s in rough shape and hasn’t kept in touch with anyone from Paris. One day, he gets a text from Luka out of the blue, and they rekindle their friendship. Félix acts as wingman to ensure that it turns into something more.

Adrienette Hanahaki: Awhile ago I did an ask game about a trope I’d like to try writing, and the one I came up with was Adrien with Hanahaki disease (The one where you start coughing up flower petals due to unrequited love making flowers grow inside your lungs). I’ve been thinking about it, and I’ve decided I’d like to actually write this story. My basic outline is: Adrien starts showing symptoms, and Gabriel badgers him about whom he’s in love with, and Adrien just blurts out, “Marinette!” And Gabriel threatens Marinette into dating Adrien, and they start fake dating but then fall in love.

Happenstance and Magic: Marichat May 2019. Marinette and Chat Noir adopt kittens together, and Adrien tries to get Marinette to see that he’s not perfect but still a worthwhile person deserving of her love.

I’ve been thinking about this one, and I think I’m going to cut the number of prompts I actually use. Once I’m done with the other stories, I want to sit down and make a more thorough outline of what I want the story to be and which prompts I’m going to use to get me there.

The Seduction of Adrien Agreste: This is part of the Springtime in Wonderland (Daisy/Jabberwocky) series. It deals with Luka and Adrien experimenting with physical intimacy to see if they can reach a compromise where Luka and (asexual) Adrien are both comfortable and have their needs met.

Things Currently on the Backburner:

The Rejects Club: Predominantly Marichat with Adrienette. Chat Noir and Marinette unexpectedly grow very close very fast as they open up to one another after Marinette overhears Adrien seemingly dismissing her as a romantic prospect. Identity shenanigans at farcical levels ensue.

I can’t really deal with Rejects right now. I’m feeling super overwhelmed by basic life stuff, so I don’t really have the mental or emotional energy to put into a story where I don’t know how many more chapters there will be until the end. I’m thinking that what I have planned will take at least another one or two hundred thousand words. This thing is just so massive, and I’m not in good enough mental heath to deal with it right now.

Springtime in Wonderland: Yeah, no. See the paragraph directly above. This is another one that’s going to take another couple hundred thousand words to complete, and I just don’t have the stamina in me right now. I’d rather focus on smaller projects that actually feel attainable. I’m trying not to burn myself out.

And that’s it for the moment. I’m sure I’ll come up with plenty of other stuff between now and the next time I do a status update post, but is there anything that you’re particularly interested in? Let me know what you’re thinking.

Thoughts? Feelings? Suggestions? Opinions? ^.^

#Adrinette #Adrienette #Marichat #Lukadrien #Lukadrigaminette #Alyadrino #Lady Noir #Miraculous Ladybug #Adrien Agreste #Marinette Dupain-Cheng #Chat Noir #Ladybug #Luka Couffaine #Status Update #Mikau's WIP

44 notes · View notes

redxblueihateloveyou · 4 years ago

Note

spill the yoi hot takes :o

I’m really flattered with the amount of asks (I hope you won't mind that I combined at least 5, it's just easier this way), interested in my yoi opinions, I wasn’t planning to get into that honestly, until I mentioned it to my friend Alex (I’ve mentioned him here before without a name tho, he’s gay, he’s very into anime, he was also the one behind that 4am text “but how do u think Rin’s teeth feel on Haru’s dick” lol).

I just didn't want to rewatch it, as I've said before, but something he said got me very intrigued and last week ended up with me staying until 7am for a virtual watch party that got pretty hilarious, but not for the yoi reasons lol.

So just know that to be completely fair we did it and I'm saying everything below with a very fresh impression, which hasn't changed really bc like I'm 25, I was watching it the first time when I was 21, not 14 xD. I think it got worse actually.

Once again, I know that since they’re both gay sports animes comparisons are inevitable, but to me one has nothing to do with the other and no matter the fact that I adore Free! and don’t like YOI, I don’t want to throw words like smth is “superior” out there, bc I don’t want to be like those YOI fans back in the days, who thought that none other gay ships should exist after this (unless they say smth specifically for me to counterattack, then I can say whatever lol).

Like if you love stories like this, it’s okay. Like what you like. But to yell at everybody that they must think that this is how relationships should be and trash every other gay ship in existence, you maybe should not, especially when you don’t really have much to be proud of. Just like kisses don’t make a love story high-quality, full censorship doesn’t take away a good love story.

"Heaven official’s blessing” is also censored, but no matter how much you censor it, their love for each other is seen in their actions so clear, that it is in fact will not take anything away from the power of their feelings and the greatness of their love story if at the end they won’t show them kissing. Just like if I kiss a random stranger on the street, it won’t make us the best couple in the world.

Now I went into watching YOI unbiased the 1st time I watched it (I did watch it after Free, bc it was in “recommended”). I did not expect it to be “like Free”, I just wanted smth that’ll give me the same kind of emotion, investment in the story, ship, etc. It didn’t, so I just moved on.

I didn’t even think deep about why. I thought I just grew out of the “Cinderella” stories a long time ago or as it was here not very gracefully called “how to turn the pig into the prince”.

Like if you want the “she’s all that” but with the boy instead of a girl, you’ll probably enjoy YOI. But once again, love stories I enjoy are the opposite of those. It's really nothing bad, if you enjoy the stuff like “Someday my prince will come” in whatever age tbh, but I since a certain age just wasn’t invested in those anymore and began to obsess with stories like “Anastasia” instead, and I’m talking about love stories with less naivety in between and feelings out of nowhere, but more stuff like “yes, bitch, I find you attractive, true, but whether I fall for you unconditionally or not, only real life situations will tell later on”.

And I don’t mean stuff like going through war together or some epic journey, but grown ups must know those. Those life situations or even tiny things someone do, that make you not only fall for someone, but think “yeah, I can imagine my life with you”.

Like in my humble opinion, you can’t fall in love with someone bc of the way they swim or skate, for example. What ppl call “love at first sight” is in fact “attraction at first sight”. So yes, we do joke about Rin falling in love at first sight, bc he did in fact walked into the hall, saw Haru and was like “dat bitch is so fine”, even tho he was just standing there, but once again, he was just attracted to him. What happens after this is you can go on a whole beautiful journey with tiny Rin putting together the prettiest puzzle of why he falls for Nanase Haruka. In such little things like when Haru slowed down when he saw Nagisa feeling bad during running and Rin was like “omg you’re so uwu”, how he mentions that he always helps ppl, but never asks for help himself, he slowly gradually paints a picture of what kind of person Haru is, same goes for Haru about Rin. And then you have a whole story of them falling for each other all over again when they’re already adults, and you again watch it through their eyes, and once again I’m not in fact talking about some grand gestures like 1x12, I’m talking about stuff like them focusing on Haru’s eyes shaking, when he saw that Rin secretly helps Rei to learn how to swim. It’s the little things, that you watch and you get why they feel what they feel for each other. And that also makes you fall in love more with their characters by seeing how the other sees them.

YOI doesn’t have those moments. Not only they weren’t in any situations that would make them know each other for who they really are, they hardly even know the basic info about one another. Hell, the viewer doesn’t know anything about them. And this is why to me it goes into the category of those typical romcoms I can’t get invested in.

So I don’t think these two can be compared. And while some yell “bc you’re not canon, but yoi is canon”, I think they can’t be compared for another reason. Bc some ppl are trying to prove to me that a 27 years old man fell head over heels in love with someone overnight during a drunk banquet, then watched a vid of him skating and flew to another country and hey “if you win a gold medal, lets get married”. This is not the kind of relationship progression I’m looking for like at all. Between that time he started training him and their “censored kiss” there was nothing and I mean nothing that’d made me go “yeah, I see why he loves him”.

But anyways, lets live piecefully really, you can like one, you can like both, it’s all okay.

Like I know many have ptsd and it’s true that back when YOI was popular, most of their fans for real did annoy to death almost everyone, bc they yelled that No.6 is trash, when someone said “but you’re not the only one gay story that’s not based on sex”. They yelled that Free! has no right to exist bc its queerbating (LOL). By that time, I’m not gonna lie I was ready to poke my eyes out each time I saw smth YOI related, bc it was like: you make a multigay shipping vid - “how dare u not include YOI”, you make a gifset - “you forgot YOI” like I HAD TO like it just bc it’s gay. There is no such rule to me. Just like I don’t care for some hetero romances, I don’t care for some gay romances. Simple is that. Once again gay has nothing to do with the relationships dynamic and the story.

Yeah, comments about fanservice. Like why should I watch Victor’s naked ass for several minutes every episode, but don’t get to see Haru or Rin’s at least once? So salty rn.

Free is more fanservice-y.. well, it’s hella fanservicy, yes, but like we can’t swim in shirts, you can tho not show naked ass in each episode, I thought you were skating.

See, it’s all debatable.

But I do wish ppl stop putting yoi relationships on a piedestal, their relationship are waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too far from being inspirational for many and not even close to the what love is in my opinion. If you seek smth of a very high standart of gay love, choose MDZS for example, idk. But don’t throw YOI at ppls faces as a “this is how should be”. Not everyone wants that.

I don’t need a half-assed engagement and esp the censored kiss (like either do it or don’t do it at all honestly). Also stuff like this should carry weight. I don’t want things for the sake of things.

Like to me Rin’s “the only thing that hasn’t changed in my life is how I feel about you” speech, considering the fact that he felt like that throughout all those years, means hella more, than this.

I think 1stly, it’s because of the “it’s like it was a destiny xD” factor and 2ndly, bc at least this scene gives a little more sense to the fact that he flew to another country to train him. Now it’s if “I fell MADLY in love in one drunk night and was pining my whole life after that and that vid was a sign for me to go see you again” makes any sense to you. At least that’s how some fans read it.

Once again it might be a good thing for a passable one-time romantic comedy. But plots and pairings like this is what made me turn to anime in the first place, so.. sorry lol.

All this mega tragic posts of “Victor was soooo in love for such long time, it’s so sad” made me laugh so hard. Like he feel in love so hard during a one drunk banquet with a guy who was so drunk he didn’t remember anything he did? WHY? HOW? what could he possibly do to make him fall that hard, no one knows. Like to me the only reason u can fall for someone in one night is if you saw him risking his life saving a kitten or a puppy from a car or smth.

I’m just not the kind of person who thinks you can fall for someone for no reasons. Again, you can find someone attractive and go from there, but there must be things along the way that will make me believe in the progression of it. It can of course all come in the future, but the story was what the story was. Whatever you are trying to add to it is already a fanfiction.

YOI is not boring per se, bc everything goes way too fast and sometimes with no reasoning, so I was more surprised that “this was it?” lmao. But their relationships are dull, yes. Bc there is nothing to even discuss really, you can only assume things, bc the whole thing didn’t give u much, esp in the characters department. It’s just really funny to me that someone would write a whole post of “I love this character bc I presume he’s like that”, usually it’s “I love this character bc facts, facts, facts”.

______

Now back to the beginning of my post and to the funny story that happened. We were randomly discussing shit, when I mentioned about possibly rewatching YOI, bc I didn’t want to start talking about smth in case I forgot some stuff (I didn’t btw lol) and turned out that he freaking disliked it a lot. I never even asked, for some reason, and we’ve been yelling about Free! and other stuff for ages and like his boyfriend is in love with Sousuke and they both adore rinharu to death.

And he has lots of gay friends who love Free (this made me happy the most, btw during our YOI chat I asked and it was 4:1 harurin:rinharu haha I win) and some ships from Haikyuu too, but turns out that literally none of them were into YOI. And the funniest thing he said was “bc it felt more heterosexual than some heterosexual stories I’ve watched”. Now I don’t know if it would make sense to anyone else out there, but I kinda did get what he meant.

I asked if it was bc of the “fairytale setting” and the fact that no one cared that they’re gay (bc “in front of the stadium?!” was the reaction, when I told them “there was a cencored kiss here” (btw not everyone got it lolz) and then “did they just write the story with a girl, but then changed it by the end?”), but they said “no, just the overall feeling”.

And like everyone knows that YOI targeted audience is hetero girls. It wasn’t made for the sake of the LGBT community and none of the homophobic ppl will watch it either, no matter what some think. So for whom they did it the way they did it is very questionable tbh. They say it’s the LGBT representation in anime, and yes, good, great, always happy about, but isn’t it kinda funny that some of LGBT representatives don’t even feel like it apparently.

Now I’m just saying some, I’ve asked him to ask around out of curiousity, and it was only 11 gay guys in total, who watched it, including our company and his bf who was forced into it haha, but 11 is quite a lot, considering the fact that not even 1 liked it. But then somehow stuff like MDZS and even uncanonical mikayuu was highly appreciated and loved, bc it accidentally made a dent in some extra conservative parents and dull ppl.

It’s just much more interesting to hear what guys who are actually dating guys think about all those kind of animes and ships, than some girls here who yell at me stuff like “why are you supporting queerbating”. Btw I asked Alex if he’s offended by that, he said “no, but we for real think they’re doing it” lmao.

It is supposed to be funny. You didn’t get it wrong. But if you saw many ppl would aggressively disagree with you. I just thought that “analysis” was an “interpretive process that draws conclusions from a set of facts”, not “writing a fanfiction based on assumptions”, but then again to each their own.

The problem is that I don’t even get what’s cute about it, it’s just absurd to me. Like it’s pulled out of an ass, for real. They’re not in the stage of a relationships, when I would find such thing romantic. And all the agressive denying of the fact that it was indeed wedding rings made this scene cringy, too. The whole thing is cringy to me idk. The “win the gold, only then we’ll get married”.... It all gave me a weird feeling. The opposite of “touching”.

So in conclusion, when you skip most of the important parts of the love story and jump into stuff just for the sake of it, then also make fun of it, it leaves a hella weird impression and aparently not just to me.

And once again trying to market some primitive story as an epic love story, just bc it’s gay is extremely weird to me. If you make 50 shades of grey gay, it’s not gonna suddenly become a pulitzer prize winning kind of book, it’ll stay the same dumb af story with dumb af characters, but gay.

So being happy about some representation (and btw they still managed to add stuff like “its not gay if you exchange rings with your hommies” here and there and make it “hahahaha joking”), I get it, but to say that this what all the gay ships should aim for, pls stop. We really don’t wanna. Sincerelly.

We here stick to a motto “I can picture the kiss of the characters whose story is so amazing, that the kiss is the only thing missing, but if I basically have just a picture of two guys kissing, I won’t write a whole story myself.”

P.S. I will forever laugh now tho at the fact that calling your bf a “pig” and being an arogant asshole without any canonically established reasonings is a great relationships, but Adam with his past gets what he gets now for the “dog” comments even tho his bf enjoys it lmao like I did not remember this bits in YOI. I honestly thought it was like completely “unproblematic” one, but it’s like hilariously not. So what ppl are trying to even put out their as a “pinnacle of the lgbt representation” as you say, like there are for real older yaois that are much better than this.

#answered #anonymous #anime

12 notes · View notes

dredshirtroberts · 3 years ago

Text

Tagged by @tumbleweedtech!!

What is your total word count on AO3?

Oh thank god you're asking me to look there where they calculate it for me so i don't have to try and figure it out across all eleventy-million of my fucking WIPs xD.

uhhhhh looks like...274,424 heh. that's lower than i thought but then again I post very little of what i actually write so...

How many fandoms have you written for?

On AO3? if I lump the related ones together (which i do) it's 4. If we're talking across the board in general? uh...f u c k. there's so much i haven't posted or thought about posting yet. just go ahead and like. add ten more on top of the four fandoms on AO3 i think that's about close if we're counting crossovers and inspired-bys

What were your top 5 fics by kudos?

Right Back to the Beginning

Constellations

Please, What?

Spearwort, Iris and Ash: Spearwort Yellow for Joy

Lia & Em's Adventure In Thedas Part I: The Wrath of Heaven

Do you respond to comments - why, why not?

I... want to? I try sometimes, if someone's comment touches me or came at a particularly bad time. It's overwhelming to respond to people - I'm a lurker by nature and never really grew out of the habit of teen-me knowing i wasn't supposed to be looking at the fics i was reading and so i wouldn't interact with them or the authors at all. So it can be hard to like. reconcile that I'm a fully grown adult person who is allowed to not only read and write what i enjoy but also that like. other adult people are reading and enjoying what i write? and that they'd want to tell me? I admit to also falling out of what little habit i'd started due to continued weirdly critical (yet not *negative*) comments that just. rub me the wrong way so I can't figure out how to respond? yeah.

What's your fic with the angsty-est ending?

Again I guess if we're going by what's actually posted, I'd probably have to say the Super Fucking Old fic I added from my FF.net days: A Late Summer Afternoon (hopefully that's the right link - sometimes copy and paste doesn't work the way i want). warnings for MCD. I...imagine you might be able to pick up on why that one's my angstiest ending xD I generally try to like. end my stories on a positive note? even if it's not all better yet - so the second angstiest would be Color of Your Eyes or Have This probably. Likely more Have This over Color of Your Eyes but they're both relatively tame as compared to my earliest writing xD

Do you write crossovers?

Uh...yes but i haven't posted any yet. Most of the reason nothing I write gets posted is because I am incapable of writing small projects and I get nervous about posting chapters before i know where i story is going yet because i feel like i can't edit if it's been posted? Anyway I'm going to try and get over that eventually. Not right now, though. I still have to edit some stuff.

Have you ever received hate on a fic?

Hate is a strong word. I...assume most people who have commented mean well, regardless of how their comments may come off to me on my end. Several have rubbed me the wrong way due to phrasing and an inability to read tone over text-based communication, but I refuse to believe they would have kept reading if they didn't like most of the story. Certainly it has been generally positive feedback across the board so I don't feel comfortable at all calling any negative comments i've received (intentional or not) "hate"

Have you ever had a story stolen?

As far as I'm aware, no. Thankfully I tend to write shit that people just don't care that much about so I'm pretty safe I think. Watch that come bite me in the ass xD

Have you ever had a fic translated?

Nah. I hope one day to be proficient in my target language and will be able to translate my own fics myself but see aforementioned note about how no one really cares that much about what i write xD it won't happen unless i do it myself.

What is your all time favourite pairing?

You want me? to pick favorites? in THIS economy?

What is a fic you would like to finish but don't think you ever will?

currently none are looking like "never gonna finish"es which is good. RBttB sat unfinished for a long while and I probably won't polish the ending on that one, but it's technically done. I also don't want to finish that one either so. it wouldn't have fulfilled the requirements of the question.

Writing strengths?

You want me? to compliment myself? in THIS econo- alright alright i know, it's a terrible joke. Uh...I understand i'm pretty good at smut. and descriptions? i think? I feel like my humor is unparalleled but that's also because i'm pretty sure i'm the funniest person in my apartment (we'll just casually not mention i live alone...) Seamless integration of current and historical memes? Puns? i don't know. i am super confident about writing but i couldn't tell you for sure what i'm actually strong at.

Writing weaknesses?

uh. Getting anything finished. endings. d i a l o g u e. writing. flow. pacing. repetition. writing. see what i did there? i told you my humor was awesome. no but really i struggle with actually starting to write and then it ends up being a lot of me repeating myself a bunch until i find the sentence or four that work best. and like. my pacing is weird so it can be hard to...figure out what i'm trying to say? oh and commas. i use commas wrong.

What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages?

I enjoy the shit out of it. I know it's not everyone's cup of tea but I try really hard to get it right. if I'm not 100% positive it's correct I will change the whole sentence. mostly because i only know a handful of people who know languages other than English and I am bad at reaching out for help when I need it. mostly the second part though.

What was the first fandom you wrote for?

YuYu Hakusho! A friend and I wrote this epic fucking self-insert not-quite-isekai style fanfic back and forth in notebooks back in the 6th grade (which was about...oh. nearly 20 years ago jesus i'm old). Only one of my notebooks survived when she decided anime was demons and the devil trying to tempt her away from Jesus so a lot of the story was lost. It was also in pencil so it's half worn out of the notebook as it is. then there was the phase i went through where i decided i could make my notebooks more interesting by cutting them into shapes which lost me a bit of text in the margins that i'd forgotten about... look we're mostly lucky i had it at all or that i've kept it all these years. Why do i still have it?...hm.

What's your favourite fic?

Of mine? So far it's probably a toss-up between Spearwort, Iris and Ash and Lia & Em's Adventure in Thedas. you know. My two biggest projects Oh...oh possibly also the Current-Reworking-The-Title fic I've started that I've not posted anything of yet in the Arcana fandom. Which is also a huge major project. I don't write small if I can help it, apparently.

of someone else's? You want me? to choose favorites? in THIS- yes i know that's the same joke three times. I think it changes based on what I need most out of my fic reading experience. I have an extensive bookmark collection on AO3. one of them in there's probably holding a spot as favorite, most likely.

Tagging: @concertconfetti, @daughterofdungeonbat, and anyone else who wants to do this! If you want a specific tag to do this, please LMK and i'll tag you <33

#about me #tag game #writing #the captain writes #tagged by

1 note · View note

quilloftheclouds · 4 years ago

Text

Quill’s STS Catchup

I’m playing catchup with STS asks! Some of these are... from well over a year ago. Oops. ^^’

Thank you folks for all sending such marvelous asks, and I’m sorry it took me so long to get to answering them!!

@ettawritesnstudies asked:

Hello there! For STS: what is your favorite type of sea creature that you wanted to put in OSS but weren't able to? If this doesn't apply, what are your top 5 favorite sea creatures that did make it into OSS?

I have an absolute ton of cephalopods that I wanted to put in but wasn’t able to! Like the mimic octopus, or dumbo octopus, or cuttlefish? I love them all so much but I just couldn’t find a place for them. ALSO SEA OTTERS. I really wanted sea otters. :c That said, a few of my favourite sea creatures I was able to base sirens off of! Like the firefly squid, a speckled flying fish, a leafy sea dragon, several betta fish, and a sailfish!

@musicofglassandwords asked:

storyteller saturday!! who's your most secretive OC and why is this? Do you have any OP characters and if you do, how are they OP? Favorite snack/dessert of your favorite OC?

I think Dione fits both the first and second question! She definitely keeps a whole lotta secrets, and mostly because one: she’s scared of what will happen if the truth gets out, and two: she’s protecting others from the truth! The reason she’s OP? She’s just. A heckin’ powerful three centuries old sea witch.

And Xuân’s favourite snack is munching on dried nori! I personally love this salty snack so much and if I can get my hands on it, it’ll disappear in less than a minute.

@ccwritesstuff asked:

happy STS! If your characters had to choose, what would be their favorite games to play, be it board, card or video games! ive been playing a lot of three houses recently so... yah. kinda inspired or stm like that

I don’t really know many board games that existed during the time of OSS! I’ll tell you that Emery, from my new wip CIRCUIT, absolutely loves UNO. He wins every time.

@maxgraybooks asked:

Happy sts! Who are your most eccentric characters?

Oh my good stars. Pretty much EVERY one of my characters is super eccentric! That’s just the way I am. XD I think Captain Xuân would be my most eccentric, though? Based on the way they act, plus the way they dress... they love to act especially weird, since they love being the center of attention!

@geth-consensus asked:

Storyteller Saturday! What's the most ridiculous scene you've ever written? As in what's actually occurring in the scene itself.

Probably when my two characters who are over three centuries old stick their tongues out at each other.

@livvywrites asked:

STS!! Do you have strong associations with any of your characters? If so, what are they? | What are your mains favorite weather conditions? | What originally inspired you to write One Siren’s Soul?? | Do you have any other large projects planned for the future??

Ohh!! I have a bunch of strong associations but a lot of them are spoilers, because I LOVE foreshadowing through symbolism! Let’s just say... storms play an important role for Celestine~

Favourite weather conditions! Celestine: Dry as a desert - Dione: Gentle snow - Caelin: Light rain that he can run around in - Phoenix: Clear night, somewhat cool, perfect for a bonfire

And original inspiration? I mean... I was obsessed with pirate and adventure stories for a while there... PoTC, Our Bloody Pearl, Treasure Planet? Plus then there was all the ocean stuff I was doing in biology at the time. ^^

And I have CIRCUIT and The Mirror’s Rifts that I’m also working on!

@ditzysworld asked:

Storyteller saturdayyy!!!! what colours do you associate with your main OCs and why?-ditzysworld

OH STARS. I love colours so much!!! I won’t explain why because that tends to be spoilerish, or really obvious!

Celestine: Dark blue, celestine blue, maroon.

Dione: Inky black, deep brown, pale green, vivid leaf green.

Caelin: Browns, beiges, dark blue.

Phoenix: RED. BRILLIANT RED.

@evelyns-spilled-tea asked:

Oh shoot it's that time already; Happy Storyteller Saturday! What're the differences between your characters and the idealized versions of themselves they wish they could be?

Celestine wishes she could get rid of her stupid fear.

Dione wishes she could be less of a coward, and could make up for the mistakes she did in the past. Also, she wishes she could control her temper.

Caelin wishes he would be less useless and oblivious.

Phoenix wishes she could be less scary.

@lordkingsmith asked:

story teller saturday trying again lol: what symbolism shows up in your works and what's your favorite to write about?

SYMBOLISM IS A MAJOR THING IN OSS. Some main things to look out for: Storms, ice, colours, and flowers! My favourite thing to write about? Uhhh... I really heckin’ love writing about geology and gemstones. I’m a Rock Nerd~

@lottieiswriting asked:

Storyteller Saturday but a day late (is storyteller Sunday a thing?) What would you say is the biggest flaw of your main character, and who would you say out of all of your characters has the worst / biggest flaw that causes the most problems? Hope you don’t mind my late ask!

I’M PROLLY A NUMBER OF MONTHS LATE SO NO SWEAT, MATE.

Celestine’s major flaw is her inability to trust people! And Dione’s flaws, her selfishness, is the one that causes the most problems throughout the story!

@timefirewrites asked:

Happy Storyteller Saturday! I'm sure you know at least one scene where there's suddenly a clone/doppelgänger/etc. of a character and they have to convince their friends that they're the original. How would your ocs do that? Would they succeed? What's a dish related to your ocs? (Be it inspired by them, or relating to their story in some way or simply by being their favorite food)

alfkjsldgkjsdg I love this trope. I don’t think it pops up in OSS? But it does in CIRCUIT! But if Celestine had a doppelgänger: she would likely convince everyone it’s her by insulting people with the unique insult-nicknames she has for everyone. XD For example: she only ever calls Phoenix “idiot”! Poor Nixi. And Celestine’s favourite dish of all time is PANCAKES.

@ditzysworld asked:

happy storyteller saturday! do you have any WIP ideas that you never really ended up pursuing, and why didn't you? -ditzysworld

My first attempt at a major novel that actually got anywhere was Soul Tied! It was about shapeshifters and dragons and the chosen one trope, but with twins! Mainly, I never really had an idea of where the story was going to go, and my outlining skills sucked at that stage.

@aslanwrites asked:

STS!! Would you ever write a self insert? Which OC do you relate to the most?

I actually make a small cameo in OSS! The lighthouse keeper that tries to stop Phoenix from destroying their lighthouse is based almost completely on me~

And as for who I relate to the most: Caelin! Originally, Caelin’s character was a persona of mine!

@tragedyshow asked:

sts!! what would your MCs animgi forms be? Their patronus and boggarts?

I know next to nothing about Harry Potter, but let’s see! (I actually see their patronus and animgi forms being the same creature, so I’ll just be answering with two!)

Celestine: Magpie, a giant heckin’ tidal wave.

Dione: Stag, a giant fire creature.

Caelin: Puppy!! Pup!! He literally turns into a border collie in canon!! AND FREAKIN’ MANNEQUINS I HATE THEM.

Phoenix: Can I make it a phoenix? Is that allowed? And a zombie or other clearly undead thing!

@fair-folk-nonsense asked:

Happy STS! What are your character’s worst fears and how do they deal with them? ~fair-folk-nonsense

Celestine’s worst fear is water! Or getting close to someone only to lose them again. And they usually deal with it either by running away as fast as they can, or denying everything. :/

That’s 15 asks answered! Phew~ Tune in next time for even more. XD

#sts #storyteller saturday #Quill's answers

20 notes · View notes

ffamranxii · 5 years ago

Text

Okay folks, I am all caught up with Tokyo Mew Mew Au Lait chapters 1-3 and Tokyo Mew Mew 2020 Re-Turn chapters 1 and 2 so I am Doing A Thing! Buckle up, bitches!

MASSIVE SPOILERS IF YOU’RE WAITING FOR THE OFFICIAL ENGLISH RELEASES (whenever the hell those will be). Thanks to @berrychanx, @hikayagami, and @ribbonstrawberrysurprise for the scans, English translation, and hard work putting the translation onto the manga so neatly.

LEADERS

MOMOMIYA ICHIGO AND SHIBUYA AOI

Honestly this is the biggest difference between the 2020 Re-Turn reboot/original series and the magical boy tribute. Aoi is in no way like Ichigo once you get past that they’ve both been injected with Iriomote cat DNA. Whereas Ichigo is cheery and bubbly and cute, Aoi is withdrawn, suffers from low self confidence, and sort of breaks the fourth wall during nearly every fight, freaking out at how catchphrases and such just seem to burst forth from him after he transforms. (It’s honestly a funny highlight.) Their respective crushes are also treated differently, with Aoi falling hard for Anzu (though of course saying nothing) almost immediately, almost a love at first sight sort of deal, and Ichigo already having this crush on this boy when we start vanilla TMM and already deeply committed to him in the reboot. In civilian form, (using vanilla Ichigo here, it’s not fair to compare Aoi to 2020 “been a magical girl for years” Ichigo), Aoi is a lot more unsure of himself, and seems almost to be in this Mew Mew thing for Anzu, whereas Ichigo immediately had a “I’ll do my best” acceptance mindset from the start. (Both freak out over their cat ears appearing at random moments, even Ichigo in the 2020 reboot, and I think I can finally give poor Aoi a point over Ichigo here. It makes him uncomfortable but he just wears a hoodie and hopes no one notices. It makes Ichigo freak out more lol.)

THE LOVE INTEREST / DUNGEON NAVI / SECONDARY PROTAGONIST

AOYAMA MASAYA, HINATA ANZU, SHIROGANE RYOU

Anzu is a precious peach and she occupies such a weird role here that I almost couldn’t make her a neat little graphic. She doesn’t fit neatly into a “oh, they’re a genderbent so and so” like nearly everyone else, and it’s fascinating. On the one hand, several panels in the first chapter of Au Lait make it clear that the writers are setting her up to be Aoi’s love interest. Every magical girl anime has a love interest, so why wouldn’t a magical boy manga? But that’s where she diverges. Unlike Masaya, who is a very clear tribute to Sailor Moon’s Tuxedo Mask (with the exception that he’s a cute bean as a civilian, he’s nearly the same person. No past, gets kidnapped, magical form to protect the magical girl, evil form to fight the magical girl [this happened in PGSM, and he’s been brainwashed several times]), who has always been a secondary character, Anzu actually starts the Au Lait manga. She wasn’t even featured on the promo images, so when I opened the first chapter in a zip file I thought I’d downloaded the wrong one. My rudimentary Japanese confirmed I hadn’t, but I was like “well who tf is this chick?” I waited for an English translation to be sure and yup - Anzu is being treated almost like a secondary protagonist. Well that’s new. It’s as if the Au Lait writers smashed together the characters of Ryou and Masaya and named their love child Hinata Anzu. She’s intelligent, she knows more about this project than she should, and, like Ryou in vanilla, she’s out and about and helping the boys, not just as a civilian, but in every battle. She doesn’t have powers (that we know of), but her smarts and knowledge of animals have served them well time and again. Au Lait seems more like, as one reader put it, Anzu And The Dork Squad than Aoi’s team.

Masaya in 2020 Re-Turn is adorable. He is at odds with Quiche over Ichigo (or more like, he dislikes just how much Quiche likes Ichigo), and in a moment of panic he uses his leftover remnants of Deep Blue’s power to... change his clothes. I’m not sure what actually happened there. (Note: Thanks ribbonstrawberrysurprise: Deep Blue manifested to float the chimera anima/train and its passengers to safety.) But I love that he was so concerned for Ichigo, who at that moment desperately needed help, that the being who created his body and didn’t like Ichigo wanted to protect her. Ryou was his standoffish self, but even he seemed to have a hint of a lingering crush. He organized a party for the Mews and then took over in cafe duties so Ichigo could meet her man at the airport, unable to quiiiiite meet her eye while saying so. I always did like Ryou/Ichigo.

THE SASSY RICH BITCH

AIZAWA MINTO AND YOYOGI SHIZUKA

First of all: SAILOR JUPITER TAUGHT ME THAT PINK EQUALS FLOWER HURRICANES AND CAN I JUST SAY THAT I AM DISAPPOINTED AS FUCK THAT SHIZUKA ISN’T PLANT BASED AND CAN’T DO FLOWER HURRICANES THAT IS ALL.

Admit it. When we saw the promo image, we assumed certain things. One of those things turned out to be true: Aoi would be the Iriomote cat, because of course he would be Ichigo’s counterpart. Shizuka is wearing glasses, and his costume had the little tail, which meant he must have been a fish or a marine mammal and therefore Retasu’s counterpart, right? RIGHT. But also very, very wrong, my friends. Shizuka is indeed water based like Retasu - he’s an Amazon river dolphin (the pink ones!) - and that’s where all his similarities to our gentle green girl end. Instead of making everyone exactly the same but gender flipped, Au Lait is going in a slightly different direction, and I really like it. Shizuka is actually the most similar to our resident princess Minto! They both attend prestigious elite schools and generally act better than everyone else, but the real gem here is their interactions with their leaders. Shizuka has some truly snappy one-liners - such as discovering Ryuusei (”that’s the power of an idiot”) - and his reactions to Aoi are gold. He considers himself a genius, and indeed he’s very intelligent according to Natsume (and his school seems to be for smart people, it’s not prestigious for music or anything like that), and he makes little quips at Aoi all the time about how Aoi isn’t. I could totally see him spending an entire shift reading a book at Cafe Mew Mew while Aoi does all the work, only for him to stand up and someone to scream “HOLY CRAP, SHIZUKA’S UP, SHIT’S ABOUT TO GO DOWN.”

Minto is also full of snappy quips at Ichigo in the reboot, mostly about how Ichigo should handle the biggest, strongest enemies since she’s the leader, and can’t Ichigo even keep them in place so Minto can shoot them down? (And yeah, someone totally said the above comment ^ when Minto stood up at Cafe Mew Mew.) Minto was always one of my favorite characters, and I love that we saw a lot of close ups of her in the reboot, and that she seemed to be second in command.

THE CHILD

FONG PURIN AND KANDA RYUUSEI

Oh my god these two. I refuse to believe they aren’t related. I know Purin is Chinese but you cannot take this headcanon from me.

Purin is my favorite character in OG Mew Mew and Ryuusei claimed my heart the second I saw the Au Lait promo. NEITHER OF THEM DISAPPOINTED ME, I AM SO IN LOVE.

While I WILL say that I in no way care for Mew Pudding’s redesign (I hate literally everything about it. I miss her jumpsuit. I hate the little pigtails at the top of her head. I hate the ribbon. At least she still has her fingerless gloves), I love that she got an entire panel of just her being badass. She stood in the middle of some train tracks, facing a runaway speeding train chimera anima, with that ^ fucking look on her face, and was like “where you going, na no da?” Purin from like, ten years ago wouldn’t have done that. She has matured so much, but she’s still the young, goofy little acrobat monkey who provides for her tea-themed siblings (who criminally do not make an appearance) and I just love her so fucking much, you guys.

RYUUSEI. Guys. He’s an idiot. Oh my god. He’s a cute lovable idiot. “What’s a gomodo dragon? What’s a kodomo dragon? What’s a condo dragon and why does it need a house?” Anzu was in love with him for like five seconds until she learned he’s a dumbass, and Aoi was jealous as fuck, and no one ever told him what his damn animal was, and I laughed my ass off through his entire last couple pages. He also had his jacket hand embroidered with the kanji for dragon, BUT IT’S MISSPELLED. It’s missing a stroke! XD

Ryuusei is the KOMODO dragon (which is Anzu’s favorite animal), and komodos are badass. He also either always had weird animal powers, or just never noticed that he suddenly got super smell. Komodo dragons, by the way, can track their prey for literally MILES by smell alone, for DAYS. It’s absolutely terrifying (thank you for the nightmares, Wild Thornberries), and Au Lait made it fucking comical. I can’t even. HE CAN SMELL THE RED DATA ANIMAL ON PEOPLE. I love it. He’s super strong and super cute, apparently lives with his grandparents, and is Purin’s counterpart in every single way, except I think SHE might be more mature than him. I love him. He is my baby.

Yellow is my favorite color and yellow never disappoints.

THE FAMOUS

FUJIWARA ZAKURO AND ROPPONGI AYATO

Zakuro had next to no presence in the reboot. She occasionally made some panels look pretty. She twice had a half page to herself, one per chapter. I am sad. I love my wolf lesbian. In semi-related news, I feel I have solved the mystery of Zakuro’s red data animal, something that has plagued the TMM community for years. The grey wolf is not endangered at all, yet Zakuro is injected with one, right? I read somewhere (either in a TMM blog or a conservation blog) that there is a subspecies of grey wolf that IS critically endangered. I believe it’s the Mexican grey wolf? I headcanon she was injected with DNA specifically from a Mexican grey wolf.

Moving on. In Chapter 3 (which was a DELIGHT), we met Ayato. Chapter 3 was the most frustrating chapter because let me tell you, Au Lait marks the first time I have ever read a manga chapter by chapter as it was being released in Japan. So I’m waiting Nakayoshi to publish the chapter, then I’m waiting for someone to scan Nakayoshi, then I’m waiting for someone to translate it, over and over and over, and omg I can’t believe this is what people DO. I’ve waited for full volumes before, but CHAPTERS? This is torture. Ayato, I haven’t had enough TIME with you!

Ayato seems to be an actor (in a really... really weird stage play), and has very few lines in his first appearance. I’m not sure what I make of him. He says about six sentences, which is actually a lot for a character introduced on a cliffhanger, but... I can’t decide if he’s said them in a mysterious Sailors Neptune and Uranus way or a flamboyant Sohma Ayame way. I ALSO DON’T KNOW WHAT ANIMAL HE IS AND I AM VERY ANGRY. BB Ryuusei said he smells like yakitori (a type of grilled chicken), which confirms he’s a bird. But. WHICH BIRD, DAMNIT?

CHAPTER FOUR WHERE ARE YOU?

THE FUNDING

AKASAKA KEIICHIRO, HINATA NATSUME, SHIROGANE RYOU

Hello again, Ryou! The boys here were wallpaper (though cute wallpaper) in the reboot. Natsume is 100% a troll. I love her. She admits in chapter 3 she literally just injected hot boys for her Mew Mew project. Even Ryou wasn’t that blunt. I mean, if you gotta save Earth and stare at people while you do it, they better be cute, right?

IF FOUND, PLEASE CALL THE FANDOM

MIDORIKAWA RETASU, SHIRAYUKI BERII, AKAI RINGO

Aside from her two half panels as a Mew Mew per chapter, this is the only good cap of Retasu as a civilian in the reboot. D: I believe Hiroo Taichi will be her counterpart in Au Lait.

I never liked Berii. There, I said it. She got TWO animals. She was some random newbie and she got to be leader just like that? And she was clueless and dumb and the writing in A La Mode wasn’t great. But I really like 2020 Berii. She’s cute, she seems more rabbit than cat, and she seems more intelligent and less of a blonde Ichigo clone. I don’t know if she’ll have an Au Lait counterpart.

WHERE IS RINGO? THE REBOOT WAS THE PERFECT OPPORTUNITY TO PUT HER IN THE STORY FOR REAL AND SHE JUST... WASN’T THERE?! THIS IS BLASPHEMY. RINGO IS THE BEST MEW MEW. BEST GIRL. JUSTICE FOR RINGO.

THE RELATIONSHIPS

MASAYA & ICHIGO VS AOI & ANZU

ZAKURO & MINTO VS AYATO & RYUUSEI

Nearly all of 2020 chapter 1 focused on Ichigo seeing Masaya again. I’m guessing this took place after he left for London. Ichigo left with him after A La Mode, and some time between then and Re-Turn came back to Japan, and now Masaya is back. They are still as lovey as ever, but not as sickeningly cute as Tsukino Usagi and Chiba Mamoru or anything. Phew! Their counterpart in Au Lait seems to Aoi and Anzu. (Look at that height difference! Poor Anzu, her poor neck.) Aoi already has a massive crush on her, but Anzu, bless her, is oblivious.

AND NOW FOR THE GAYS.

I think Zakuro and Minto is probably one of the most popular TMM ships and holy lesbians, Batman, they were well fed with this GORGEOUS panel at the end of chapter 2. Look at it. Zakuro had literally no panels, save for her two intros, to herself, and barely any panels at all in the reboot, and then BA-BAM, this beautiful ending shot. I swear Ikumi did it on purpose. Speaking of gays - is Ayato/Ryuusei the new Zakuro/Minto? Ayato seems to be at least bisexual (he also hit on Anzu), but this was literally his second panel. He is in a (terrible, TERRIBLE) play, and the actors are walking in the audience looking for the villain. Ayato walks into the audience and HITS ON RYUUSEI. His first goddamn words are “Do you want me to keep you, my cute little puppy?” to Ryuusei. He says fuck this acting shit, I see a SNACK. I think I ship it. I think I ship it hard.

THE STORY

*Au Lait is just getting started, so typical magical girl boy anime manga: Let’s find the others! Shenanigans! Some fillers! It’s cute, I love it, go read it.

*2020 Re-Turn is actually REALLY GOOD and chapter 2 reminds me of just how unique Tokyo Mew Mew was and still is among not just magical girl series, but animanga as a whole. Quick, what was the last environmental series you remember? Mine was Captain Planet - in the 90s. Preachy, in your face, after school special about things like pollution and endangered species and littering and honestly it was really cool, but very much a product of its time. Even now, magical girl animanga is still focused on bad guys, but bad guys are generic and represent something created for the series. Here, the bad guys are US, other human beings, who traffic animals, who endanger them, who wreck our planet enough that animals are barely clinging to life. There’s a very poignant scene featuring the adorable snow leopard up there (who’s the secondary protagonist of the reboot) ^, showing his mother being shot and himself being snatched by poachers, and he’s terrified, and has no idea what’s going on or where he is, and Ichigo is terrified for him. We need more series like this - not just of the magical girl genre, but of ALL genres. To make it accessible in this way, for people of all ages, something enjoyable, that people can fangirl over and love and its creators clearly put a lot of love and thought into. We need another Captain Planet, but less preachy, less after school special-y. We don’t want to be like the aliens (who remember, are descendants of humans who fucked up Earth so badly they had to leave it).

Behind all the cute of this manga and its reboot, and its new spinoff, Tokyo Mew Mew has a powerful message that we should all be following. It’s not even subtle. Get yo shit together, peeps.

#tokyo mew mew #tokyo mew mew 2020 re-turn #tokyo mew mew au lait #tokyo mew mew ore

88 notes · View notes

malidane · 5 years ago

Text

Just some Merformers world building, don’t mind me-

Ok, so, this is literally just a large dump of whatever that’s related to my merformers AU, so it’s literally going to be so random (owo’) hope you enjoy this trash

—————————✧—————————

What are merformers?:

Well, there more like large humanoid fish than they are half fish half human. They have the basic upper body shape of a human — head, neck, arms, hands, torso — but all of their other characteristics are much more fish like. Their skin is often very colorful and can be any color under the sun and horns that grown almost anywhere on them. They also usually happen to be huge. You have the more human-sized ones called minimers, but the rest of them typically are several times larger that their land based cousins.

Merformers are very powerful creatures. While they already have inhuman strength and durability, they can also hold “superpowers”. All merformers are able to camouflage, but they mainly use this ability to change their “paint jobs”. Most stick to the colors they are born with though.

The reason they’re called merformers is the fact that they have the ability to transform into a human at will. They are very much naked, unless they had something in their larger form, but those don’t shrink down. Several mers have built small cabins by the sea that are stocked with clothes and canned goods. Many hide their valuables in their cabins, so no, they aren’t rarely used. Many mers actually stay in their cabins during the spring and fall when the weather isn’t going to dehydrate of freeze them. Only family or close friends know the location of a mer’s cabin as many valued items are there. These cabins don’t have appliances or anything of the such. Merformers aren’t very friendly with humans as they pollute their homes and cause plague breakouts with all their waste material — chemicals mainly. This means that they don’t associate themselves with humans very often. Their cabins have no electricity, plumbing, or anything of the like.

Merformer Racial Groups:

Yes, merformers have their own races. The saying “every shape serves a purpose” still stands in this AU and different merformers have different builds.

Whale Class - Very, very, large merformers made of more skin that scale or armor. They have long tails that resemble whale tails, and their fins usually aren’t webbed like other mers. They’re actual appendages. Examples are Optimus Prime, Ultra Magnus, and Fortress Maximus.

Shark Class - Though usually smaller than those of the Whale Class, those of the Shark Class are large and powerful. They are basically Whale Class mers with shark tails and more teeth/claws. They often serve as guards or mine workers. Main example is Megatron (because I can’t think of any others right now XD).

Seeker Class - Dolphins. That’s all I have to say. They’re often seeing who can jump the highest out of the water. Examples include Slipstream, Dirge, and Ramjet (the main trine is part of this class but not fully).

Speed Class - Very flashy and very fast. They are often either very sleek and lack extra fins or are covered in them. Examples are Knockout and Blurr.

Octopus Class - Usually medics with all their tentacles. Good multitaskers and very sharp. They’re often more anxious mers are will go into camo mode when frightened. They can have beaks, like First Aid does. Examples are Ratchet and First Aid.

Eel Class - very silent, very slender, and very deadly. Often serve as spies or racers, but are usually very reclusive. Main example is Soundwave.

Norm Class - Just fishes (OwO) They have webbed fins and smaller bodies (usually) than the other classes.

Minimer Class - More of a subclass, but these mers are very tiny compared to their brethren. Human-sized. Often wear little visors and masks (still working on why). Examples are symbiotes (cassettes), Rewind, and Tailgate.

Mixed (subclass) - Mixed mers, or mers with parents of different classes. They’re not belittled for this. They’re just as popular as the Norm Class. They have one class they mainly stick with. Examples are the main seeker trine (seeker/shark class), Breakdown (shark/octopus class), and Soundwave (eel/octopus class).

There are probably more classes that I will add later, but these are the ones for now.

Merformer War(s):

Unless I come up with some marvelous idea, the Quintessa War never happened (n-n’) I don’t have a good idea that fits the lore yet

The main war is going on though. The Autobots are now called the Autobons (taken from the Latin word “bonum” with means “good”, they’re not rabbits) as I don’t think mers would take “bot” very kindly. Even if they want to protect humans, they still don’t appreciate their machines and what they’re doing to their home.

The Decepticon keep their name though. Megatron started the war in an attempt to overthrow the humans. He originally wasn’t going to try and wipe them out, but as the war has continued, his mentality has been highly skewed. He simply wanted to overthrow them and make them stop polluting the ocean, but Optimus wanted a more peaceful approach that wouldn’t cause them to break the ancient codes (one of them being “don’t talk to human, they will destroy you, yada yada”). With all the chaos, their home became desolate and uninhabitable (Bermuda Triangle). Only recently did the US government become part of the war, creating a “base” of sorts on land where the Decepticons usually never dwelt (it was an old aquarium, because the gov was cheap and wanted to stud-*cough* get to know them better). Several teens somehow find their way here (always teens, they basically make up the staff now) and were “hired” by the government in an attempt to keep them quiet. They consist of Spike, Buster, and Sam Witwicky, Sari Sumdac, Jack Darby, Miko Nadkadai, Raf Esquivel, Verity Carlo, Hunter O’Nein, and Jimmy Pink (small headcanon to my own AU that Verity is actually half mer and Magnus is very much her biological father, but I’m still working on that).

—————————✧—————————

That’s all I have for now. Feel free to ask questions! I’ll definitely be wanting to answer those. Also, sorry for any misspelled words. I didn’t really go back to spellcheck.

131 notes · View notes

isa-ghost · 5 years ago

Text

Corruption AU

*Galaxy brains*

Catch me tempted to start a whole AU based off my theory that Chase got corrupted at the end of Dark Silence and is living through slowly changing and growing sick and discovering freaky powers he didn’t have before and realizing this is what his comatose best friend went through before the August 3rd/March 5th operation was hijacked by Anti.

Oh god this might be a temporary muse but god am I about to blow it up real quick anyway. There’s details on it below the cut.

Henrik is the one who put Jack in the coma and regrets it deeply. Half-possessed by Anti in the moment he did it, he knew Jack would die unless he induced a coma to stabilize him easier than blindly trying to figure out how Anti his possessed self was killing him.

He wasn’t gone for 9 months but rather 2. In-game the time Jack flatlined was March 5th, 2018 and Henrik reappeared May 3rd, 2018. He has barely revealed any info about what happened in that time, but any time he’s opened up about it to the other egos, Jack’s comatose body, or in vlogs on the channel, he gets extremely anxious and can’t elaborate. He’s trying to coach himself into healing enough to tell the story so it won’t happen to others.

It wasn’t one big operation from August 3rd, 2017 to March 5th, 2018. Jack was in the hospital on and off suffering severe affects from Anti’s constant assaults on him. Anti hijacked the August 3rd operation and March 5th operations. He might’ve hijacked a few in-between but nowhere near the level of chaos and damage on those two days. (I haven’t decided yet lol).

Henrik saved Chase’s life after a suicide attempt soon after his divorce was filed (Bro Average) and is very protective of him, but stretches himself incredibly thin between caring for Jack, watching over Chase, and dealing with his own trauma.

Obviously Chase took over the channel for Jack in his place. The community is suspecting he’s him and not Jack slowly, which he’s somewhat worried about, but hasn’t seen any anger about it yet so he feels like it won’t be a big horrific reveal if he ever gives up the facade and comes clean. It was hard enough watching Henrik’s vlog announcing Jack’s coma.

Being that he’s running the channel in Jack’s place when that’s (one of many things?) what Anti wants to do in order to gain more power, Anti attacked him (Dark Silence) and this is how/why Chase is slowly suffering the slow corruption Jack did from October 2016 to now.

Chase blacked out for a very long time after Dark Silence but beelined for Henrik when he came to his senses. When he found Henrik, he started to grow unstable again and broke down about being cornered by Anti and not knowing what was happening to him now before completely snapping again. Henrik had to fend him off, restrain him, and then had a minor trauma-related meltdown because his best friend is going through what he did on August 3rd and March 5th. Little does he know, this is going to progress far beyond just two one-off traumatic possessions and a two month kidnapping.

Anti lurks around constantly in between times harassing the community or toying with Jack’s comatose body on occasion. He’s watching and very much savoring the downward spiral Chase is in. A majority of what’s happened since May 2018 has been Chase glitching and acting strange rather than Anti, hence the camera/screen glitching more often than his physical body. The remaining fractions of cryptic/glitchy videos has been Anti hacking into the channel and reminding the community he’s lurking. After each time he’s done this, Henrik and Chase have had to reset all passwords to Jack’s social media that they’ve been using to make sure he’s kept out.

Sometimes Chase doesn’t feel/realize/see the recording getting meddled with by himself until well after its uploaded and he sees the community panicking about it, other times he’s well aware it’s going on and is acting that way on camera on purpose because he’s experiencing corruption affects or having blackouts. He‘s ashamed of himself for letting the community see what’s happening to him. Little did he know Anti had cameras record what he did to Chase and uploaded it to the channel so they all already know something is deeply wrong with Chase. He doesn’t have the will to go into detail about everything and clarify, so even though he’s upset about all the different speculations and theories about what’s going on because most of them are incorrect, he’d rather leave them to their own devices because the truth is complicated and messy and would be way too much to explain in a video or post.

Not only Chase, but Henrik keeps in close communication with the community. He keeps them up to date on Jack’s condition, how he personally is doing, how anniversaries and birthdays go, if Anti makes any appearances off-screen around them, his progress with finding Marvin and small updates from Jackie.

Jackie and Marvin are Henrik’s best friends since before Henrik met Chase. They all met through Jack. The coma struck all three of them with different kinds of grief. Jackie stopped heroing for a while and has kept a pretty low profile. He’s too distraught to fight as hard as he usually does and he’s also terrified he’s next on Anti’s list. He Probably Is. Marvin has completely vanished and nobody has heard from him. The truth is, he’s wiped himself off the radar to practice every type of magic he can find a way to learn about. He’s relentlessly training himself to avenge Jack and keep Anti away from the others.

Jameson is a sort of wild card buzzing around wherever needed. He typically hangs around Henrik, who saved him between operations on Jack. Anti attacked him the moment he was created to get him either on his side or out of the picture so he had less loose ends to tie up. He mutilated Jameson’s throat and left him for dead (though Jameson was created mute, the subtle throat scar he has is a common misconception people have when they first meet him). Jackie and Marvin found him, brought him to Henrik, and he was saved. Now recovered, he’s slowly taught Jackie, Marvin, and Chase BSL (Henrik already knew it in case of disabled patients), and floats between places doing whatever he can to help. He knows minor medical assistance from Henrik and helps him with Jack sometimes, he guards Jack’s hospital room (he’s got rapidly developing time powers and he’s not afraid to use them), practices said developing powers on his down time, and just generally does whatever small things he can to make life easier on the other four.

Jackie and Marvin had no idea Dark Silence happened until they both (at separate times on their own) found Anti’s footage on the channel. They’ve sunken even deeper into the grieving/coping methods they developed after Jack went into a coma.

Quit the Game to Win, most (if not all) of the X Scary Games, 1 Video series, any other videos we’ve had random, strange, fiery panic-worthy behavior and glitches from since May 2018 are all Chase. If someone were to watch the videos consecutively, Chase’s deterioration would be a lot more clear, a lot more scary, and a lot more heartbreaking.

So far Chase’s side affects are small glitches, mood swings, nose bleeds, ears ringing, nightmares, random blackouts (usually in which he does cryptic shit or uncharacteristic and unnerving behavior during), headaches, paranoia, and several other (mostly mental) symptoms.

For now, Henrik and Chase are waiting things out. Both of them are very stressed, scared, and tired.

Might edit this (will reblog if I do) or just straight up reblog it with more info if I think up more,,,, if I ever touch this AU again?? Idk it was spontaneous and usually my muses like that don’t last long. XD But I’d be happy to keep this an occasional writing prompt thing or something... Hmmmmm...

Also if you wanna send me asks/write/draw about this AU ever, feel free! Just tell me and tag me! :0

#jacksepticeye #chase brody #henrik von schneeplestein #dr schneeplestein #antisepticeye #septicegos #Isa's Corruption AU

111 notes · View notes

withered-rose-unbreakable-lotus · 5 years ago

Text

Sth that has been happening a lot to me since I got into visual kei and started interacting with other people who were into it is this (this might make some of you laugh or relate, hence why I am sharing xD, just in case I am able to raise some laughs in dark times. Maybe it’s funny only to me, though, fair enough xD, I tend to laugh with my own jokes so...I wouldn’t be surprised if that just looked silly to the rest of the fandom):

I will never understand why people, when we play silly fangirl games, tell me I’d look or be good with Byo. You know those games, you sure have played at least once when you first started being a fan or answered tests on fb about which member you are most likely to be with or who are you most alike xD. It’s been 8 years xD and whenever I am like yes let’s play this, most times people pair me with Byo (yes I occasionally still play this stuff, I am 5). There were times of course when your friends are nice and pair you with the person you are most into and there were times my friends actually thought I could match with my favorite one, but yeah xD.

I generally think I am fugly so when I play these games I play them very lightly, cause I don’t really think I could match with any of my favorites, cause both appearance and personality are meh, but it’s funny to me because I never said to anyone that I see Byo like that. I would love to have a brother like Byo for sure and there were times I talked a lot about him in front of a particular person but that was a) because that person liked him too and b) because I really admire him as an artist and also agree with several things he’s said in interviews or find them funny so yeah xD. My close friends know that even though I don’t talk much about him, Ikuma will always be first in my heart and then when I was asked about top 3s I always went Ikuma, Kazuki and Ruiza. This hasn’t changed through the years but when the games aren’t limited to my top 3 everyone says Byo. xD I played a game yesterday and I remembered it xD, I was like damn, every-single-time xD. And no one has given me a good reason why? I do act a bit like him sometimes, a friend used to call me Byo if I didn’t respond the first 3 times she called my name and I’d turn, but the fact we have similar humor and all doesn’t say anything. I have sth in common with all of my favorites. I mean if I was attracted to him, fine, but I never said I was. I guess it will remain a mystery xD. And I also remember one time, on my bday...a friend who was very close to me for 4-5 years that we hadn’t talked for a while at that time, on my bday, she sent me her wishes and a gif from Screw playing Gather Roses live when Byo was tearing his shirt open. At that moment I was like “Oooh bitch, that was a low blow, how dare you“, you know acting the fool cause I wanted to be nice, I mean she remembered my bday, but in my head I was like “....why Byo? xD I am not...oh man, there we go again“. And even the fb tests always said I was Byo or that I’d match Byo. And to be fair with you, I watch visual kei artists in my dream often, giving me courage when I am down or working with them and stuff like that and the first Screw member I ever dreamt of was Byo. Like, even my subconscious is against me xD. In fact I think I dreamt of him around 5 times before the others decided to show up. I don’t know. It’s started to creep me out. (no offense of course, Byo is a babe, just not my kind of babe. I have the same issue about that with Gackt, when I tell people who like him too that I can’t see him as/like a man they go “OMG ARE YOU FOR REAL?!“, even my sister who isn’t into visual kei has told me off for not being attracted to Gackt xD. I love him but not that way xD)

Side note: Sometimes I think I confuse people based on who I talk the most about but I do it instictively. When I was in junior high I was crazy in love with a guy and I was always talking about him, which had lead people getting bored of me, or friends struggling to find a subject to talk to me about besides him, so I think that, due to that experience, I chicken out from talking about those I don’t only admire but also am attracted to and turn it to someone that is somehow linked to them in my head. For example, I feel it’s easier to talk about Ruki than about Ikuma (when i first got into vkei many people compared them or called them twins so in my head, by talking about Ruki, I calm my need to talk about Ikuma), about Byo than Kazuki (cause same band) and for Ruiza I have no outlet so no one can guess he is my favorite D member unless we end up discussing about the band or sb notices how often I post his pictures compared to other members.

If you guys have sth like that happen to you, share, I’d love to see I am not the only one but well xD, I am in peace with the fact I am a weirdo xD. Who do your friends paired you with in such games? Your favorite or someone else? About those old vkei tests, I think sixth guns are more likely to have experienced this, like wanting a specific member and ending up with another xD. Although, after some time, if you had read enough interviews, you could get the member of your choice if you just followed the lines he had said. In Screw tests, for example, I knew who said what but I was trying to choose stuff I agreed with which often ended up giving me Byo by 1 point difference to Kazuki i think xD. For the Gazette games my results often pointed to Reita and I was wondering why xD. Cause I sure wasn’t picking his answers as often as Aoi’s (again by whether or not I agree with them, otherwise I would go straight to Ruki, I knew what to press to get there xD).

11 notes · View notes

littlemisssquiggles · 5 years ago

Photo

LittleMissSquiggles’ Summary of Art 2019

Another year of art drawn to a close. This is not your typical art summary from yours trule. It's more of an art collage of some kind, if you can even call it that XD A definite art summary would imply that I actually did art for every month of this year and that is not what happened at all, fam.

As a matter of fact, it’s a miracle I even have anything to show since admittedly, 2019 was not a very creative year for me. I mean, I did create things but not as much as I would’ve liked.

Instead I spent most of the year focused on my studies at Animschool while juggling any small work-related projects I managed to score. And even when I did have some free time to work on my own stuff, I still didn’t have the drive to do all that I wanted to do which was a bummer.

Nevertheless, I’m still proud of what I was able to accomplish for this year no matter how small. Something is better than nothing, am I right?

Some squiggly good accomplishments I achieved for 2019:

I worked as a storyboard artist for two potential animated web series with the prospect of it being a recurring gig (we’ll see what happens in the new year with that).

I got the opportunity to work as a background colourist and tackled one of my biggest creative banes---background and environment design. I learnt quite a lot from this experience and it certainly inspired me to develop and improve on that aspect of my art. Still have ways to go with it but the drive to go for it is definitely there now and I have this small gig to thank for that inspiration.

Thanks to Animschool, I learnt how to use Zbrush and use it in the creation of characters and environments.

I created my first full 3D character model this year based off art from an artist whose work I’ve admired since my Deviantart days---Meago. I even showed the model to Meago and not only did she like my model, but she also gave me the okay to model any of her other characters from her Dollicious series which made me feel proud.

Apart learning Zbrush, I also learnt how take sculpted characters and props designed in Zbrush and retopologize them into production quality models for rigging and animation. I even learnt a bit of UVing---though I need to work on my UV Mapping skills more for the New Year.

My work was featured three times on the Animschool Instagram page where the school only shares the best work so that was fun little surprise each time it happened XD

I also successfully scored a feature in Animschool's Model/Rig Student Showreel 2018-2019.

I got to visit Tobago again for the first time since 2012 and I got to travel by plane for the first time ever. Turns out plane rides aren’t as nerve-wracking as I thought they’d be (even if it was a small 30 minute flight).

I got the chance to participate in the first-ever RWBY Rosegarden Charity Fanzine hosted by @darleenas-art with the zine proceedings donated to the Child Mind Institute.

I discovered my newfound passion for hand painted 3D models and successfully created my first hand-painted model despite being a complete noob to the craft.

So yeah, overall 2019 didn’t go too bad for the squiggle meister. Hard to believe that we're at the end of another year and with 2020 around the corner, it's hard to believe that we are at the end of a freaking decade too. 10 Years of Squiggling!

This is why I make it a habit to post all of my past art summaries. It’s a great way to compare how my artistic growth over the years and looking back at how my art looked way back in 2010 and seeing where it is now, it’s honestly insane! If you saw some of my old digital art back then, you wouldn’t believe it was drawn by the same person.

While I didn't get to do all that I wanted to do for this year, it doesn't change the fact that I did learn a lot. This year also helped me to realize a bit more of what I want to do with my craft and where I would love to take my art.

I have some ideas for projects I'd love to do for 2020 going forward. Not sure if I'll get to accomplish any of them. But like with any creative year, I'm excited to go into it and see what I am able to achieve.

Wish me luck for the New Year folks and the same goes to all the amazing peeps, old and new, who have supported me throughout the years including this one. Words and a mere thanks are never enough to express my eternal gratitude to all of you for your continuous support of my content.

That being said, I pray that 2019 turned out to be a good year for you guys as well and wishing you just as much luck in your respective endeavours for the 2020 too!

On a final note, I'd like to close off this summary with my tradition of sharing my personal best/favourite piece of this year.

The inspiration for this piece actually took me by surprise because it wasn't exactly planned. I think you guys already know which piece this is. Can’t say much else other than it turned out to be a quite the beautiful bouquet!

My Bouquet of Roses character design set remains to be my personal favourite piece of this year because it’s a unexpected project that made me gain more confidence in my style of drawing/designing characters. Before I admittedly didn’t have a lot of appreciation for the way I drew characters. I always did the thing where I compared myself too much to other artists whose worked I loved and felt my way was inferior.

But from doing this one project--- having to draw so many characters in my style and seeing how it all turned out and how much folks turned out to like...was fun. I hope I get to continue this project for next year since...I’m not exactly done with it yet and I’d honestly like to do more with it. Hopefully.

Still can't believe this all started with a small headcanon post which sparked the creation of a character that spawned more characters, an AU, one illustration project followed by several more projects and AUs---a hella lot more like hot damn!

But above all else, this one idea also sparked a small circle of friends whose interactions and conversations have definitely made this squiggle meister's year a lot brighter.

I may not be the most vocal person in the world but I still wanted to say thanks for the laughs and happy fun storytimes to @lookyeekiti, @che1sea-xiao-long, @miki-13, @nykamito-x, @cloudburst-paint-water @beaver-sen, @keyenuta and @ezroar!

Hears to the New Year folks! See you in 2020!

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

♦ PREVIOUS ART SUMMARIES ♦

2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

~ LittleMissSquiggles (2019)

#art of littlemisssquiggles #art summary #art summary 2019 #artists on tumblr #forward march to 2020

20 notes · View notes

shijiujun · 5 years ago

Text

[ENG] History3: Trapped Novel - Chapter Two

~6,500 words (proofread by @weilongfu)

Translation Masterpost can be found here

Disclaimer: Translations are entirely mine - these are not official translations and some phrases have been changed for better English interpretation so you’ll definitely see better/different translations elsewhere. Also keeping in mind when we translated this we aren’t exactly thinking about the style of writing and this translation is as close to the novel as we can make it XD So yes, some parts may be a little awkward to read. And yes some teeny weeny details and words may not turn up in the translation because the Chi to Eng mind acrobatics didn’t work out. If you see asterisks, scroll all the way to the bottom for notes!

Full chapter below the cut

Chapter Two

The sound of a gun’s silencer echoes from inside a black sedan, and both Wang Kun Cheng and his driver are found dead inside with bullet wounds through their right temple, just hours after their meeting with Xing Tian Meng.

Time of death, 9pm.

Meng Shao Fei lies on his bed, thinking back to the meeting with Interpol during the day, where Team 3 and Interpol exchanged information on this case. Although Wang Kun Cheng’s men insist that the person who murdered their leader was Tang Yi, but as seen from Team 3 and Interpol’s investigation, there were no signs of struggle and fights inside the club where both parties met, and moreover, Tang Yi has a perfect alibi.

As Wang Kun Cheng was shot at close range after he left the club, it is impossible that Tang Yi, who was at another location attending an evening gala dinner — they have CCTV footage to prove that he entered the hotel at 8.30pm and left only at 1am in the morning — was the culprit for the murder. They aren’t ruling out the possibility of a third party committing the murder at Tang Yi’s orders, but the surveillance cameras in the area were tampered with and damaged before the murder happened, so before they can find further evidence and witnesses, Tang Yi is definitely not the culprit. However, he is curious about one thing… in the 48 hours after news of Wang Kun Cheng’s death was made known, Cambodia’s drug syndicate’s leader Chen Wen Hao immediately returned to Taiwan. Both Chen Wen Hao and Wang Kun Cheng used to be members of Xing Tian Meng, especially Chen Wen Hao. Xing Tian Meng is able to grow to its scale today because it was he and Tang Guo Dong who built the organisation up from scratch.

Even after Chen Wen Hao was sentenced to prison for 24 years due to the skirmish with Si He Hui, but during this time, the person who visited him most frequently was Tang Guo Dong. From this, it is obvious that they were very close to each other and had a deep relationship. If this was so, what reason would Tang Yi, who took over Xing Tian Meng in Tang Guo Dong’s place, have to go create trouble with Chen Wen Hao’s men, and even going so far as to kill the man?

Unable to sleep no matter what he does, Shao Fei finds himself leaving the bed and walking over to his bulletin board, filled entirely with profiles of people and information related to Xing Tian Meng. Staring at the drawing he made, he mumbles, “Four years ago…”

Four years ago, Chen Wen Hao immediately fled for Southeast Asia the moment he was released from prison, and his whereabouts have been unknown ever since until now with his return to Taiwan. Four years ago, Tang Guo Dong and Li Zhen both died on that hill, and no one knew why they met in secret, and there were so many rumors about Li Zhen illegally colluding with the mob. Four years ago, Tang Yi was shot at the scene and managed to live after many attempts at trying to resuscitate him. He became the only survivor of the incident, the only witness who possibly knows what happened on that day.

Meng Shao Fei looks at Tang Yi’s portrait sketch again, and asks it, as if he’s speaking directly to Tang Yi himself, “Aren’t you going clean with the mob? Aren’t you staying away from drugs? And didn’t you say you would never kill a person? Why are you giving up on your principles NOW? Why did you go touch Chen Wen Hao’s people?”

Shao Fei cannot think of any possible answer, and scratches at his head in frustration, pacing back and forth in his apartment.

The Tang Household

Standing at the balcony and looking into the night view in the distance, in Tang Yi’s hand lies a black, metallic lighter. He recalls what Boss Tang said to him eight years ago…

“Drizzle olive oil in the wok and circle it for two rounds? Can we do three rounds?”

At that time, Tang Yi had just turned 20 years old, and the thing he liked to do most was to bother Boss Tang in his space when he could, asking him to pass his cooking skills on to him.

“That’s fine too. The point is you have to make sure the entire wok gets the same amount of heat, that’s why we circle it,” Tang Guo Dong stands next to the stove, an apron tied around his own waist and guides Tang Yi to pay more attention to cooking as he smokes.

People always say that the lines on one’s foreheads represent the passing of time and age, as it catches up with you, and with every horizontal line therein lies a story that belongs to it, but in Tang Yi’s eyes, every mark on Boss Tang’s face is the culmination of both wisdom and duty. No matter how severe the problem is, once it lands in Boss Tang’s hands, the problem can be solved easily, just like no matter how complicated the cooking and recipes are, he is always able to handle it, all the while smoking at the same time.

In comparison Tang Yi is impatient in both his personality and cooking and thus, he deeply respects this man who is both like a father and teacher to him. He wonders if there ever will be a day, where he’s able to catch up to Boss Tang and this 30 year age gap, and from Boss Tang’s mouth hear-

I feel at ease leaving everything to you.

“Don’t smoke when you’re cooking,” Tang Yi says, immediately dropping the garlic and bell peppers he’s holding and snatches the cigarette pressed between Boss Tang’s lips.

The man whose cigarette was snatched away smiles a little helplessly, then crosses his arms and continues guiding Tang Yi, “After you put in the noodles, you need to stir it in the wok, otherwise it’ll stick to the base.”

Tang Yi looks at the food cooking in his wok and says, delighted, “It looks just like yours!”

“We’ll have to try the dish to know.”

Tang Yi tastes a spoonful of the food from the wok, frowns, then picks up the spicy sauce next to him and adds another half a spoon in, “Not spicy enough.”

Tang Guo Dong, who tried the dish at the same time, is frowning on the other hand, because of the spiciness he is tasting in his mouth. “Xiao Tang, you’re eating this so spicy?”

“Strange, why is it that no matter how I cook I just cook it the same way you do?”

“To govern a country is like cooking, have you ever heard of this?”

“No.

Tang Guo Dong smiles, then opens his mouth to explain, “All these years from handling and dealing with the gang’s every single matter no matter how big or small, I felt that, when we do things, we cannot be overly impulsive and rush into things, nor can we be complacent and passive. we have to think through each detail carefully in order to do things well. Take cooking for example, every brother is like an ingredient, you need to understand each ingredient’s taste to be able to put it in a dish, and then the taste of the finished dish will be the best.”

Tang Yi is intrigued by this analogy, and also curious about how Boss Tang sees him, he asks, “So which ingredient am I?”

“Lotus root.”

“Lotus root? Why a lotus root?”

“Did you forget the first time we met, how much dirt you had all over your body? Isn’t it just like the lotus root that’s just been harvested and pulled out from the soil?”

“Oh, so you detested me this much actually,” Tang Yi says, sulking as he brings the wok over to the person who’s plating dishes at his side.

The person most important to him just called him a dirty little runt, how could anyone be happy?

Tang Guo Dong laughs and takes out his cigarette box again. “Hey, Xiao Tang, you were born into unfortunate circumstances and grew up in a terrible environment, you managed to keep your spirit and character pure. I hope you never forget this, and that you don’t ever change.”

At this, Tang Yi returns Tang Guo Dong’s smile and replies, “I got it, Lao Tang. I will keep being like this.”

As long as Tang Guo Dong likes him like this, then Tang Yi will become the person that he likes, because to him, there’s no one else in the world who’s more important to him, more important than Tang Guo Dong.

“Actually, there’s another reason in persevering in cooking,” Tang Guo Dong adds somberly, taking off his apron and walking over to Tang Yi’s side, opening a wine bottle and pouring a glass for himself.

“What is it?”

“People like us who face death every day and are used to it, we don’t even know when we’ll die and go to meet our makers. If we can’t even deal with the basic necessity and function of eating in our lives, then what more fun in our lives can we have? So we have to be serious towards every meal, and that means also that we have to live our lives seriously.

“I understand. So when I’m done learning cooking from you, I’ll let you taste my cooking.”

“Done learning? You little shit, you only just learnt this little bit and you want to represent the Tang family and con people outside already?”

“I have confidence that I don’t need too much time to learn your ways.”

Tang Guo Dong puts up his thumb and praises, “Okay, you’ve got ambition. But if you want to take the wok and metals away from me, it’s not that easy!”

“I won’t disappoint you… although-“ Tang Yi looks at the failed finished product in the wok today, and laughs, “It looks like we still have to eat this not so delicious dish, let’s hope when we are done we won’t need a trip to emergency.”

Watching Tang Yi’s back as he picks up the plate and walk towards the dining room, Tang Guo Dong, who’s lived more than half a century, stops smiling, and in his heart, he makes a decision.

At a Japanese restaurant

The various members of Team 3 are gathered at a restaurant undercover as guests and wait staff for the ongoing investigation on Wang Kun Cheng’s death. They are currently surveilling a particular guest, who’s discussing business with another person.

Suddenly, a tall figure walks into the store, and once Shao Fei, who’s seated right at the entrance of the restaurant sees him, he stands up and brings the other person to a corner in the restaurant.

“Why are you here?”

Walking into the restaurant and stunned at seeing Shao Fei, Tang Yi abandons his original intentions for coming here and turns to leave.

“Since the police are investigating a case, I will not disturb.”

On the other side of the restaurant, Zhao Li An, who’s dressed as a waiter, is just about to run over to stop Shao Fei, but Zhou Guan Zhi stops him by holding onto his arm. He eyes Zhao Zi, indicating that they should continue as planned, or they will risk ruining the mission this time.

Shao Fei grabs onto Tang Yi’s elbow, staring right into his eyes and asks, “Since you’re already here, you might as well assist us on our investigation. Do you know a person called ‘Chen Wen Hao’?”

Tang Yi’s expression suddenly becomes stiff, and this does not go unnoticed by the cop who’s been hounding him for the past four years.

“Looks like we have the same goal, we’re here for the same person,” Shao Fei continues, his eyebrows raised.

“So you killed Wang Kun Cheng just to lure Chen Wen Hao back here. And for you, Xing Tian Meng’s leader who’s also trying to wash everything clean at the moment, to care so much about a Cambodian drug syndicate leader, there can only be two reasons. Firstly, you’ve made him come back because this was Tang Guo Dong’s mission for you.Or two, Chen Wen Hao has something to do with the double homicide from four years ago.”

Shao Fei’s guesses are so close to the truth, that in that moment, Tang Yi’s repressed rage emerges again — these four years, he has wanted to kill this person who’s only ever ruined all his plans countless of times, but countless of times, Tang Yi has also had to end his murderous thoughts towards this police officer.

Such action is out of character for Tang Yi — if Hong Ye and Ah De are unable to comprehend why he’s doing this, Tang Yi himself has no idea either.

“Have I hit the nail on the head, is that why you want to run?”

“I have nothing to say to Officer Meng,” Tang Yi snaps, gritting his teeth and turning away to leave the store.

He follows the stairs outside the restaurant to where he parked his car. His tone filled with anger, Shao Fei who’s only ever seen Tang Yi’s two sarcastic and cold expressions, is momentarily stunned. He breaks out of his trance, then rushes out of the restaurant to chase Tang Yi, his hand pressing against Tang Yi’s chest and stopping him from moving forward, his eyes incredibly sharp.

“I’m getting closer to the truth, correct?”

If he isn’t getting closer to the truth, why would Xing Tian Meng’s poker-faced leader make the effort of snapping at him?

“Officer Meng has his own mission that he’s not carrying out, and instead he’s here to obstruct my freedom again?”

“If my hypothesis is correct, then following you is the only way I can find out the truth.”

Tang Yi pushes Shao Fei’s hand away and walks over to the driver’s side to open the door, but Shao Fei grabs onto his wrist instead, slamming shut the door that’s just been opened.

“I’m asking you to leave, did you not hear me? These four years my tolerance towards you has reached a tipping point. Meng. Shao. Fei! Don’t test my patience!”

He pushes Shao Fei away, hard, and settles in the driver’s seat, shutting the door behind him securely. Unexpectedly, Shao Fei circles the car to the passenger side and unceremoniously sits inside the car, holding onto the brake.

“Tang Yi, if I don’t get my answers today I’m not letting you leave!”

Tang Yi points outside and shouts, “I’m warning you for the last time, get out of my car.”

“Hmph!”

Shao Fei turns to grab for the seatbelt, obviously having no intention to leave.

“You!”

Angrily, Tang Yi swings his right fist out to restrain both of Shao Fei’s hands, reaching to his back and grabbing the young police officer’s gun, that Tang Yi knows he has usually stuffed into the back of his waist, then pressing the muzzle of the gun to Shao Fei’s temple.

Just as Tang Yi is about to throw Shao Fei out of the car, the driver’s seat door is flung open from the outside, and reflex has Tang Yi moving the hand holding onto the gun towards the person outside, but his opponent quickly strikes at his hand, the gun falling to the ground.

Losing his most useful weapon hardly means that he has no other way to defend himself. He rushes out of the car with tight fists and immediately starts to land repeated blows on his attacker, who’s clad in a black suit. Shao Fei on the other hand is also facing a similar attack by a person wearing a black baseball cap and fighting him intensely.

Eventually, both Tang Yi and Shao Fei are forced into a corner by their attackers, pressed back to back. Unconsciously, they leave their vulnerable backs to one another, exchange a glance and then simultaneously attack. Punches and kicks going against the two men with retractable batons and knives, they are soon overpowered by the weapons.

“Boss wants you to meet him,” says the man attacking Tang Yi, pushing him to the floor and pressing a knife at his jugular.

===

As the black van follows along the left and right curves of the mountainous road, the occupants of the vehicle find themselves swaying from left to right as well.

“I can’t believe I’m handcuffed by my own handcuffs.��

Tang Yi side-eyes the man next to him, and scoffs, “It’s not like this is the first time.”

“Hey do you have to speak like this? If you didn’t take away my gun, would we be in this situation?” Shao Fei retorts, holding up his right hand that is currently attached to Tang Yi’s.

“Shut up!” warns the man seated in the third row of the car, one hand holding up a knife.

Tang Yi turns around to look at the man in black seated right behind them, and says, “Kidnapping a police officer is going to get troublesome for you guys.”

The man ignores Tang Yi; instead, it is the man seated in front driving the van that shoots both hostages a look through the rearview mirror, and smiles icily, “You should worry about yourself first!”

Their hands handcuffed together, Tang Yi taps Shao Fei’s pinky finger with his own, and once their gazes meet, Tang Yi gestures at Shao Fei. Shao Fei nods in understanding, then in an irritated tone, laments, “Why is it that when you guys do bad things you always run towards the mountains? It’s not that I want to comment, but this method lacks so much creativity that it really isn’t OK-“

Shao Fei yells immediately, after ensuring that Tang Yi’s right hand is creeping towards the handbrake of the van, “NOW!”

Bam!

Tang Yi kicks at the driver’s right arm, sending the man forward against the steering wheel, and at the same time Shao Fei leans forward to pull the handbrake up. The van strikes against the walls of the mountain and the impact stops the van immediately. Before the driver can react, Shao Fei has already moved into the passenger seat and with a kick, knocks the driver out.

He sees Tang Yi getting punched in the face by the other guy in the back, and Tang Yi, with his hand movement restricted, can barely defend himself against the attack. Seeing that the other guy is rushing towards Tang Yi with a knife in his hands, Shao Fei moves back to his seat and stands between Tang Yi and his attacker, getting a slash across his arm for his trouble. Then, they use the handcuff chains between them to trap their attacker’s wrists, and Tang Yi strikes the knife in his hands to the ground.

In the chaos, Tang Yi sees Shao Fei’s wound on his right arm, bleeding profusely.

And right in that moment, Tang Yi loses all composure and logic that he is so proud of. He swings his fist repeatedly at his attacker, and doesn’t stop even when his face is all bloodied from the impact of his punches.

“We have to go!”

Shao Fei is afraid that Tang Yi will just kill the man, so he opens the door and pulls Tang Yi, who has lost all control, out of the car. They give up on moving along the visible and easily trackable roads and instead choose to head inside the dense forest to escape.

In between the trees, four other men — their attackers’ accomplices who were travelling behind them in another van — split up to look through every nook and cranny of the forest.

“Damn it, they can really hide huh?”

“Did you find them on your side?”

“No.”

“You, and you, go that side and look.”

“Yes.”

They continue their search for an hour to no avail, and they do not realise that the Xing Tian Meng leader they’re trying to find is actually hiding behind a big rock, covered in green moss.

Tang Yi is using his entire body to protect and shield Shao Fei, until the noise grows faint and more distant from their hiding spot, only then does Tang Yi heave a sigh of relief. He turns around and crouches low to the ground, using the rock as a backrest.

Maybe it’s because fleeing for their lives is an intense sport, or maybe it’s because the both of them were suddenly so close to each other earlier, so close that Shao Fei can even catch a hint of Tang Yi’s cologne, Shao Fei feels his face heating up strangely. All he can do is raise their hands up, still cuffed to each other, to distract himself.

“If only we didn’t have this.”

“Who brought it here?”

Having just experienced a life or death situation, Tang Yi’s tone as he speaks to Shao Fei has changed somewhat from before. From being ice cold and distant, Tang Yi is now talking as if he would make fun of a friend.

Unable to retort, Shao Fei rolls his eyes instead, but in the next second see Tang Yi using his right hand to pinch at this left thumb, and just as he’s about to ask, he hears the sound of a bone being dislocated.

“What the fuck are you doing?”

With his left thumb dislocated successfully, Tang Yi’s hand leaves the restraints of the handcuffs, and then easily snaps his dislocated thumb back into its original place. Shao Fei can feel how painful that action just was just by looking, but Tang Yi just did it with barely a sound and a frown.

“This can also work?”

Shao Fei, with wide eyes, watches as Tang Yi just walks off with a shake of his hands, then follows the man to hopefully somewhere more suitable to hide at, a hand covering his own wound.

===

Ding dong ding dong!

“Ah Fei!!! Ah Fei are you inside?” Zhao Zi stands outside Shao Fei’s apartment door, one hand pressing at the doorbell and the other dialling Shao Fei’s number, but all he gets is Shao Fei’s voice message.

“This is Meng Shao Fei, if there’s anything urgent, please leave a message.”

“Ah Fei if you don’t pick up the phone, Boss is really going to throw me out!”

Zhao Zi’s pitiful complaint echoes down the empty stairway. After half an hour of no reply, all he can do is give up. He walks down the stairs, worried.

“I’m at the alley near Ah Fei’s house. He’s not at home and I can’t get through to him on his phone. Oh, okay. We’ll keep in touch. I’ll contact you guys after I find him. Okay, bye.”

Hanging up on the call with his team’s colleagues, Zhao Zi recalls how Boss always scolds him for not using his brains, and at the spur of the moment, he leaves his phone in his jacket’s pocket and pulls up the zip, then does a handstand and begins walking on the ground on his hands.

He giggles. He’s actually still pretty smart, as long as he make all the blood rush into the top of his head, and when that happens, his brain will begin to work at a higher capacity. Maybe he’ll be able to find a way to find Shao Fei like this even! Just as Zhao Zi smiles gleefully to himself, a pair of cool blue leather shoes step into his line of vision, and as his eyes follow along those long legs all the way up to see who this person is, he sees the man who he brought to the station previously. Tang Yi’s bodyguard, the man called Jack.

“Are you looking for me?”

Zhao Zi puts both his legs down and dusts his hands off, but Jack grabs him by the back of his shirt collar around his neck, and picks him up. “Let’s go!”

“Huh? What are you doing? Where are you bringing me to?”

Like a rabbit whose neck was just bitten by a wolf in the wild, Zhao Zi follows the man called Jack helpless, leaving the alley at Shao Fei’s house.

“What are you catching me for?” asks Zhao Zi later.

He doesn’t know when he was struck unconscious. All he knows is that when he woke up earlier, he found himself incarcerated in a dark room. In the room sits only a single lamp and the big bad wolf who caught him, and brought him here.

“Where did Meng Shao Fei bring my boss?”

Zhao Zi opens his mouth wide, surprised, and asks, “Ah Fei is really with Tang Yi then?”

“Are you pretending to be stupid?”

Jack, with a whole head of red hair, glares at the rookie police officer, his eyes tinged with a glint of danger and sharpness. Jack doesn’t know what tricks Zhao Zi is playing here, but he takes out his phone, and plays the surveillance footage from the camera at the Japanese restaurant’s entrance for Zhao Zi to see.

“They’re really together! I’m looking for Ah Fei urgently, do you know where they went?” He sighs. “Forget it. You definitely don’t know either, otherwise you wouldn’t have brought me here… Damn it, if we don’t find Ah Fei soon, it’ll be my turn to write 3000 words in my apology letter,” Zhao mumbles, standing up from the chair.

“Call him!” Jack commands, taking out his phone and presenting it to his ‘hostage’.

“I tried, but his phone is switched off.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“I said, if I can’t get through to him, I really can’t get through to him.”

Jack holds onto his own phone, and coldly says, “Then give me his number, I’ll call.”

“I’m not going to give it to you! I’m a police officer and at the very least I need to ensure that my colleague is protected and safe, so I won’t give you Ah Fei’s number. I absolutely will not!”

Intrigued suddenly by this fearless boy, Jack circles around Zhao Zi, then stares at him head on, unnervingly.

“Even if you glare at me I won’t.”

Jack takes a step forward, approaching the boy who’s hugging his knees and curling into a ball on the couch.

“Even if you beat me to death I won’t.”

Bam!

Wrapped in fingerless leather gloves, that fist suddenly slams against the back of the couch, and the sound of something being hit echoes in the room.

“No matter what you do, I won’t!”

Zhao Zi is so afraid that he’s already covering his own ears, his entire body shaking in fear, and yet he still refuses Jack in a clear, loud voice.

Jack’s lips curve in a smile. He turns around and walks out of the dark room, and locks the door from the outside.

“Hey! Open the door! Open the door!! Don’t leave me here alone! Hey!” shouts the rookie cop at the top of his lungs as he strikes at the door, the rookie cop who’s not afraid of threats but is apparently, afraid of the dark.

On the mountains, in an abandoned structure

In order to hide from either Wang Kun Cheng or Chen Wen Hao’s men, both Tang Yi and Shao Fei chose to take temporary refuge at this abandoned house first. They started a fire earlier with the wood that Tang Yi found to keep warm, and it is the only source of light in the dark place.

“Can you really not help me open this?” Shao Fei asks, shaking the handcuff still attached to his right wrist.

Tang Yi sends Shao Fei a look, then stresses, “It will hurt!”

“Please, I, Meng Shao Fei, have survived even bullet wounds, will I be scared of this pain?”

Carelessly, Shao Fei reaches his hand over, but the moment Tang Yi grabs onto his thumb and starts to twist it, Shao Fei begins to yell out in pain, “It hurts! It seriously hurts!!”

“I thought you aren’t afraid of pain?”

“Stop twisting it!! Okay okay, I’ll just keep on wearing it then!” Shao Fei implores, his face entirely pale as he hits at Tang Yi’s arm to let him go.

Tang Yi smiles knowingly, as if expecting this outcome all along, and returns to his position by the fire. At this, Shao Fei steals glances at Tang Yi with astonishment, and mumbles, “Fuck. How can this not hurt? Does that guy have any pain nerves in the first place?”

Leaning against the wall, Tang Yi watches as Shao Fei picks up the unused wood and head towards the inside of the house, and he asks, “What are you doing?”

“The weather is so cold, I’m going to start a fire inside and at night we’ll sleep in there.”

“I’m going to take the first watch,” refuses Tang Yi.

It’s as if his rejection just erected a tall and cold wall between them both, but Shao Fei is already used to the way Tang Yi is, so he merely shrugs. He picks up the lighter sitting next to the wood, and says, “Up to you. If you’re not afraid of the cold you can sleep here by yourself, I’m going inside, and lend me this-“

“Don’t touch that!”

Suddenly, Tang Yi who was just a few seconds ago sitting next to the fire, snatches the lighter back from Shao Fei’s hands.

“Why are you so fierce? If you don’t give me the lighter how am I going to start a fire?”

Tang Yi does not reply, only picking up glowing branch from the fire and passing it to Shao Fei. He listens as Shao Fei’s mumbles return to where he was earlier, and as he looks at the lighter sitting in his palm, Tang Yi recalls…

Four years ago

“Here.”

After lighting a cigarette, Tang Guo Dong passes the lighter in his hand to the young man standing next to him.

“Why?”

“I thought you liked it?”

“No work, no reward,” Tang Yi places the lighter back in Tang Guo Dong’s hand, and seriously looks at the man. “What do you want me to help you with?”

Tang Guo Dong is stunned for a moment, and then he laughs, “”Xiao Tang, it’s really so hard to lie to you! I think you, too, know the answer to this question. Help to dismantle Xing Tian Meng, and start to move everything into legal businesses.”

“Aren’t you already doing that?”

“I need someone to continue doing it for me.”

Tang Yi frowns, and once again snatches the cigarette away from Tang Guo Dong’s mouth. “Don’t say that as if you’re going to die soon.”

“When you’re in this line of business, you must always be prepared for death.”

Tang Guo Dong exhales, then opens his left hand where the lighter rests in his palm. He asks, “So what is it? Do you dare take it?”

“Hmph. You failed at your request, so you’ve switched to challenging me instead?”

Tang Guo Dong laughs, taking the cigarette back from Tang Yi, and replies, “You’ll accept it, because you hate drugs more than anyone else. But to make sure you take care of everyone, you need to have money, that’s why no gang in the world will stay away from drugs. Since we’ve decided to call a halt to it, we must be prepared.”

“The person you’re meeting tomorrow… is there a problem?”

“No.. it’s just,” Tang Guo Dong shakes his head, then reaches out with his left arm and hooks it around Tang Yi, “Just treat it as a back up plan. Please. If one day I’m not here anymore, you have to continue with the work of washing Xing Tian Meng clean.”

Hesitantly, Tang Yi looks at Tang Guo Dong who’s speaking with so much emotion. Tang Guo Dong, who is both his father and teacher.

“Xiao Tang! Humans are really too weak, we’re always looking for excuses so we can escape, finding excuses so we can make mistakes, and even blaming our failures on fate, but we forget that for every decision and action we make, we have to pay its price. After all, the money we made from drugs is dirty money, and even if we survived long enough to earn the money, we wouldn’t get to spend it. I don’t want our brothers to live a life standing at the edge of death. I’m not afraid to be laughed at, but it took me a few decades to realise that the best life is one where we live normally.”

“What’s good about a normal life? We’ll only get bullied.”

Just like that year’s 12-year old Tang Yi and 10-year old Hong Ye, two children stranded on the streets, homeless — that was normal enough a life, was it not? But ‘normal’ didn’t feed them, and it would only ensure that they get bullied by children older than they, and if they didn’t meet Tang Guo Dong then, they probably wouldn’t have made it to adulthood. They definitely would not be like this now, having experienced the happiness of being doted on by someone.

Tang Guo Dong turns around, leaning against the railings behind him and thinks about the past. “Maybe the you right now won’t be able to understand, but some people, because of me, were robbed of the ‘normal life’ he should have had. I owe him too much, and in this life, I am unable to make amends.”

“Who? A woman?” Tang Yi asks curiously, looking at the man who, with every sentence, is becoming even more serious.

However, Tang Guo Dong has no intentions of answering that question, and instead just smiles. “One day there’ll be a certain someone who will make you understand what it means to lead a normal life, and what a beautiful feeling it is, to be able to lead this life. So, do you accept?”

The lighter is once against thrust under his nose, and this time, as Tang Yi looks at the wisps of white smoke in the air, he promises, “I promise you. If you’re not around anymore, I will still make sure Xing Tian Meng is washed clean, even if I die-“

“Hey hey hey! You’ve only got one life, don’t waste it.”

Tang Guo Dong tries to stop Tang Yi from saying such inauspicious words, but the 24-year old merely looks into the sky and repeats what the man just told him, “When you’re in this line of business, you must always be prepared for death.”

“You!”

Lines pulling at the edges of his mouth as he smiles, Tang Guo Dong looks at Tang Yi, doting.

“Lao Tang.”

“Hmm?”

Tang Guo Dong throws the butt of his cigarette on the ground and steps on it, then proceeds to light up a second stick.

“I want to ask you a question.”

“Nnn!”

“Why did you pick me? Xing Tian Meng has so many other uncles, and brothers, no? Even if you wanted to find someone younger, there’s still-“

“It can only be you.”

“Why?”

“Because only if I hand it over to you will I be at ease.”

Tears quickly fill his eyes and his vision blurs. Tang Yi looks away, because finally, he’s hearing the words he wanted to hear most.

I’ll be at ease, handing everything over to you.

On the mountains, in an abandoned structure

Tang Yi returns back to the present from his thoughts, only to see that Shao Fei is already lying on the wooden boards, prepared to sleep.

“I really envy you, you can sleep anywhere.”

Lying on the boards, Shao Fei covers his own body with his olive green jacket, as he removed the jacket earlier to treat his own wound, and says, “As human beings we need to be adaptable and take whatever comes, a young, rich master like you who can’t sleep without a bed will never understand.”

“Do you know how to train, to escape?”

Shao Fei looks at Tang Yi at his sudden, seemingly irrelevant question, not understanding why he’s bringing this up at all.

“You have to train when you’re young. First, you twist the thumb inwards. Wait for the bone to grow again and then twist it broken again. Grow, then break. You practice it repeatedly until you’re able to do it. I ask you, which rich master from any family grows up like that?”

Shao Fei looks at this man, who now seems so different from the man he imagined in his head, and asks, “Who forced you to?”

“No one forced me to, I wanted to do it myself. Being part of any gang… we are closer to death, and when you want to survive, you’ll force yourself to do a lot of things.”

“So it’s not that you can’t sleep… but you don’t dare to sleep?”

So when Tang Yi said that he would keep watch earlier, it wasn’t because he was distancing himself, or putting a wall back up in between the both of them, but because the man before his eyes doesn’t feel that he has a person he can truly rely on and trust.

At this sudden display of sensitivity from the usually impulsive and fiery character that is Shao Fei, Tang Yi is speechless. He then laughs wistfully, walking to where there should have been windows installed in this entire building. Leaning against the rusty surface and looking at the clear sky and moon, he says, “I’m only pretending to go legal with Xing Tian Meng, actually I am-“

Shao Fei gets up from where he’s seated and interrupts Tang Yi’s sarcastic monologue. Bowing, he apologises, “It’s my fault! I was wrong. I was too full of myself, to be so sure that it was you… Tang Yi, I’m sorry!”

Tang Yi looks at the man before him, and somewhere deep inside his heart, he is moved by Shao Fei’s words.

“Hey, I’ve already said so much, you should at least give me a response!”

“This is my first time seeing a monkey who knows how to reflect on himself.”

“Hey! Who are you calling a monkey? Let me tell you, even if you’re sincere in trying to wash Xing Tian Meng clean, I will be keeping my eyes on you. The moment you do anything illegal, I’ll still arrest you!”

“Keep your eyes on me?”

“Yes! Keep my eyes on you. Both eyes!” Shao Fei points his fingers at Tang Yi.

In that moment, Tang Yi’s mouth curves into a smile that Shao Fei has never seen before, and says, “Okay. Then I’ll keep on letting you keep your eyes on me.”

“Then I- I’m going to sleep. Good- good night…”

Suddenly, Shao Fei can feel his cheeks heating up again. He flees back to the corner he was lying at earlier, pulls his jacket over himself and pretends to sleep.

#history 3: 圈套 #history3圈套 #history 3: trapped #history3: trap #history3: trapped #history3 novel #translations #history3 merchandise

101 notes · View notes

seven-oomen · 5 years ago

Text

Okay, so first off, Happy Birthday to your cat! I hope he got lots of his favorite treats. Glad to hear that today went as well as can be hoped for you. And overall today wasn’t too bad here. We got several big truck deliveries, but when I deal with those I tend to deal less with customers, so it sort of balances itself out. We’ve been told that we’ll be closing early all week because of the protests, so that’s been ramping the anxiety, but the internet has provided a number of pleasant distractions on my breaks.

Secondly, I would pick Noah for the one that has the second set of twins, for mainly two random reasons; 1) because last time it went Chris, then Noah, so it feels like it should do the same this time, and Chris already had Ben, 2) because it keeps the number of kids per family more balanced- 4 & 3 rather than 2 & 5. Idk, my brain just gets weird about symmetry and balance in things and I’ve never figured out if it’s an ADD related thing or just a me thing. Also, the idea of him trying to do his job while pregnant, with Chris and ESPECIALLY Peter trying to be super protective at the same time is just amusing to me.

And actually, thinking about that and the preview for the next chapter made me think of a couple things that didn’t make it into my reviews. When/how/from whom did Chris learn about the fire? Did Gerard or Kate tell him in a gloating sort of way and kind of tip him off that something was hinky about it, or was it through other hunter contacts, so the thought of outside involvement came later?

Was he still pregnant with Ben, or was it later on? Did he contact anyone in Beacon Hills about it for further info at any point before he showed back up in town? Because I was trying to think about some of the things that could turn up later for angst (why I was doing that to myself is anyone’s guess, but here we are…) and it occurred to me that if Noah was going to have any lingering upset over Chris leaving it would most likely (to me) be from the time right after the fire.

He’s just lost Claudia, and went off the rails from it, but at least he had Peter, and Laura, and the other Hales. Now Peter is in a coma, Laura’s left town, and the rest of his adopted/found family is dead. He has no idea where Chris is, or if he’s safe from whoever did this (does he know about what happened between Chris and Peter before Chris left again?, and he’s dealing a set of even more heavily traumatized twins right now. I feel like even the most understanding person is gonna have some stuff to work through there. (Also, Jesus, poor Melissa [possibly for multiple reasons])

Uhhh…sorry to send things into a drama tailspin there for a moment. Allow me to try and brighten things back up with the original impetus for me to make this a submission and not an ask; because you mentioned X-Men Halloween costumes and I have Thoughts. *takes super deep breath* Because omg, yes, so very many options.

Side note - I would be so happy if someone dressed as Nightcrawler. He is my precious fuzzy elfin bb, and I love him to bits and get so tired of him getting left out of things (looking at you Funko.) I feel like Stiles or Peter have the best attitude match (maybe, MAYBE Jackson), but don’t know if anyone would want to deal with the amount of makeup involved. But, anyway, just, the possibilities.

Stiles telling Malia she can’t just take the easy way out by going as Wolfsbane, so she takes one of her old white A New Hope Leia dresses and cuts it down into an old school Mystique costume.

Peter pulling rank and telling Derek he’s the Alpha so he gets to be Wolverine (this even works better height-wise [I didn’t realize you didn’t know their approximate heights. I’d looked them up before for…reasons. Having seen them standing next to each other repeatedly, I’m pretty sure any actual height advantage Ian has comes strictly from his hair], although when Stiles points this out he earns himself a hell of a glare.)

Naturally that means Chris has to be Cyclops, because, well, calm and serious. Noah realizes this means they expect him to be Jean Grey. (N: “Why can’t I ever be a character that wears normal pants?!” C: “Well I have to be the boring one all the time” P: “I mean, you are the closest to a telepath of the three of us. Don’t you want us mock fighting over you?” N: “…if we do this I get my pick of the Phoenix costumes.”)

Stiles and Noah trying to fight over getting to be Gambit so they can do exploding playing cards, but getting told they can’t be Gambit unless they can do the accent correctly (Gambit isn’t Gambit if he’s not Cajun, that’s just how it is, I don’t make the rules.) While part of me thinks it’d be funny to see Jackson as Nightcrawler because of the tail thing, I think Stiles would be more entertaining.

He’d make little smoke bomb things to fake the sulfur and brimstone effect of his teleporting. All the family members with enhanced senses would HATE him because they STANK something fierce, and it LINGERED. But anytime one of them tried to tackle him to get them away, he’d yell “BAMF!” throw on to the floor and run like hell.

Jackson would be Iceman so he could make it a crossover costume with the character from Top Gun so he could wear aviators and a leather bomber with his outfit. Allison could dress like Shadowcat from the early Excalibur run, and she could see if Ben would dress up as Lockheed with her (because that would be adorable).

Derek would decide that if he can’t be Wolverine and glare angrily at people the whole time, he’ll be Colossus so he can just stare with silent disappointment the whole time. Scott would decide he wants to be Cable (because “…he just looks so cool…”), so Melissa and Chris would dig through their old hunter gear to help him make his costume.

Melissa could be Jubilee, and rig up little flash bangs to fake the plasma bursts (unlike Noah she has absolutely no qualms about proving that she can still rock a pair of short shorts.) Lydia would either be Rogue to show off that SHE at least can manage a believable accent, or Emma Frost for the looks that costume would gain her from Allison.

Alternatively; both sets of twins argue over who gets to be Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver, so they decide that one pair will do the classic comic version, and one will do either the Evolution cartoon version or the MCU version (though they are allowed to switch out the Quicksilver for the other film version if they choose).

Lydia claims Mystique instead (it’s tempting to make her Banshee, but that seems a bit TOO on the nose), or maybe one of the other Phoenix looks (when I say Phoenix looks I mean Jean’s Phoenix or Dark Phoenix suit from the comics, because I LOVE that outfit), and Ben dresses as Beast (because that would also be adorable). *finally stops to take another breath* …umm…so anyway, yeah, as a perennial X-men fan I think it’s safe to say I love this idea, and am so grateful for you putting it in my head… …sorry about the wall of text, I may have got a little carried away… …again…

I loved every single sentence of this wall of text, so never apologize. (Although I did break it up a little before posting because that makes it easier to read for other people.

I think all of my ideas for the middle of this fic where either based on questions you, or @artemisa97 asked me in reviews. So honestly, keep them coming if you want to ask them. They help me determine where the problem areas are, what kind of kinks I need to work out, so honestly, even the sad ones are a great help.

And yeah, I hadn’t looked up their heights yet, I just assumed Peter and Chris were a bit bigger than Noah, but I was delightfully wrong!

I do have one more gem to share, a height comparison of some of the boys and to show you just how tiny Ben is compared to the others.

Blue - Noah (182 cm / 6 ft)

Purple - Chris (177 cm / 5′10)

Red - Peter (178 cm / 5′10)

Yellow - Derek (183 cm / 6 ft)

Green - Ben (111 cm / 3′8)

Turquoise - Jackson (170 cm / 5′7)

Ben’s height is about average for someone between the age of 5 & 6, Jackson’s height is a little on the short side, but I’d imagine that he’d still grow a little until he’s like 20 and end up being around 175/176 cm.

I’d imagine Stiles to be a little taller around 172 cm, Allison is a little shorter at 165 cm and Malia is around 168 cm. (They will all still grow a bit, averaging between 173 (Allison) and 178 (Stiles) )

And the one thing I will say about whether or not Noah gets the twins, without getting too spoilery, or maybe it is, I’m sorry if it is but I can’t help not share.

Is that eventually both Noah and Chris have the same amount of kids from Peter. And one of them has twins. I’m still debating on names, in the deleted scene I named them Mikhail and Adeline, I currently have different names picked out.

And I think the balance thing is ADD related, because I had the same issue with planning the story XD. So yeah, Peter gets to have a lot of kids, and adopt a lot more into the pack, because Season 2 is kinda canon in this universe, in the sense that Isaac, Erica, and Boyd are still turned. Kira comes along, and of course Lydia. Considering what I have planned for Danny and Mack, I might add them to the pack as well.

And omg I LIVE for those X-men costume ideas <3 Omg. I love it. Considering Stiles’ abilities he would definitely be Nightcrawler and would probably use a quick spell or two to get the makeup in place. (A druid invented this fantastic spell to always get eyeliner on fucking point and shared it in their spellbook. Spoiler alert; said druid was Noah in his teenage punk years. Turns out, it works for other makeup too.)

And I’m in fucking love with all of these ideas actually, I can’t really say which I like more.

#once upon a time comments #ben says stuff #submission #once upon a time spoilers #kinda?

1 note · View note