#yes i watched blue samurai recently

[kindrehd]

Onryō

[kusakabesimp]

This is a very special gift to @95lexx <3

The low hum of voices filled the daimyō's hall as Higuruma Hiromi took his place at the center of the room. Kneeling on the tatami, he smoothed his robes before turning to face the Daimyō. As a daigennin, his official duty was to administer justice in Sendai, but his role went much deeper than the law. Through his connection to the Judgment Kami, Higuruma could see the truth in its purest form, without deceit or bias.

Two young men led in Ryomen Sukuna, one of the daimyō's most well-known samurai, and forced him to kneel. He crossed his arms, grinning as he glanced over at Higuruma. There were rumors that Sukuna had attacked civilians in a recent clash with a rival daimyō, resulting in a massacre that prompted this call for formal judgment.

Higuruma closed his eyes and reached out with his spirit, a ritual he'd performed countless times before each Judgment. But today, there was a subtle difference, a sense that the outcome might have effects beyond the Daimyō's hall. In response to his call, he heard the Kami's voice echo in his mind.

"Higuruma Hiromi, what seeks judgment and balance?"

A gentle breeze drifted through the space, and the crowd exchanged glances as a bright blue light settled around Higuruma. The hall fell silent, a few samurai bowing their heads in reverence as they waited for the daigennin to speak. He opened his eyes to deliver Judgment, gathering his thoughts before turning to the man beside him.

"Ryōmen Sukuna," Higuruma began, letting the name hang heavy in the air, "the Judgment Kami has revealed the truth and found that you violated the codes of honorable conduct. Your actions -- the slaughter of civilians and blatant disregard for life -- have tarnished both your honor and that of the Daimyō."

Higuruma paused, the Kami's Light of Judgment casting long shadows over the hall. Sukuna lazily picked at his nails, his gaze wandering around the room as if he were looking for something more interesting to do. The young pink-haired samurai behind him gave him a sharp nudge in the back, pushing him forward and bringing him to attention.

With a cold expression, the daigennin continued. "You are hereby stripped of all lands and titles and condemned to zanshu. Itadori Yūji will carry out your beheading." The Light around Higuruma grew brighter before flickering out, and he bowed to the Daimyō, signaling the end of the proceedings.

The atmosphere in the room changed as whispers replaced the earlier tense silence. Sukuna was escorted out, head held high and a defiant look in his eyes. When the doors finally closed behind them, the daigennin shifted his gaze back to the hall. Daimyō Gojo moved through the crowd with his usual easy stride, but it was the tall samurai with him that caught Higuruma’s eye. He wore the moon and cedar crest of the Kusakabe clan, but the daigennin didn't recognize him.

"Higuruma-sama!" The Daimyō called out, his voice just a bit too loud for the hall. He clapped a hand on the daigennin's back, making him almost stumble forward. "I see your Judgment hasn't lost its edge. The Kami made the right choice when they blessed you with their insight."

Straightening up, Higuruma smoothed out the wrinkles in his kimono. "Gojo-dono," he replied flatly.

Despite their age difference, the Daimyō had always treated him like a younger brother. He'd grown used to it over the years, but it still tested his patience. Unfazed by the reaction, Gojo squeezed his shoulder and pulled him closer, eyes gleaming with a familiar mischief. The daigennin shot him an annoyed side glance, already bracing himself for what was coming next.

"I have a favor to ask," Gojo said, "and before you say anything, yes, I know you hate surprises, but this is important. Daimyō Yaga has asked for you by name, and you know how things get when he's involved." He gestured to the samurai beside him, who had been watching the exchange with amusement. "This is Kusakabe. He's my best samurai, and I'm sending him with you to Edo."

Kusakabe stepped forward and gave a respectful bow, trying his best to disguise his smile. Higuruma responded with a brief, indifferent nod before turning his attention back to the Daimyō.

"I don't believe that will be necessary," Higuruma said, keeping his tone measured.

Gojo waved off the comment, but there was a change in his voice. "I can't just send the oracle of the Judgment Kami out alone."

"Having Kusakabe will make the trip easier, and besides," the Daimyō said, his usual playful grin back on his face, "you need someone to make sure you don't scare everyone away with that serious frown."    

The slight twitch of Higuruma's mouth hinted at the effort it was taking to maintain his composure. But there was no point in arguing with the Daimyō when he was in a mood like this, regardless of how much he wanted to say no. After a brief pause, he bowed his head. "As you wish, Gojo-dono."

"Good! It's settled then," Gojo said, clapping his hands together. "You'll leave first thing in the morning."

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

The mist still hung low as Higuruma made his way down the path from the shrine to the torii arch. He noticed Kusakabe leaning casually against it, one hand tucked into the sleeve of his dark green kimono and a piece of grass dangling at the corner of his mouth. As he drew closer, the samurai turned, giving the stalk a lazy roll to the side before plucking it out.

The samurai greeted him with a respectful bow. "Higuruma-sama."

Higuruma gave him a brief look, irritated by the unwelcome company. He gave a curt nod and moved on, reaching for his fan to cool himself against the rising morning heat.

"You're up early," the other man said with a grin, tucking the grass back into his mouth. "Not that I'm complaining. Just wondering if this is part of your usual routine or if you're making sure the Kami is extra pleased today." He fell into step with the daigennin, casually matching his pace as they walked towards the village. "Kusakabe Atsuya, by the way," he added, trying to strike up a conversation.

"Noted," Higuruma replied, snapping open his fan.

An awkward silence hung between them. Kusakabe stole a quick glance, but Higuruma’s expression was unreadable. The samurai laced his fingers behind his head and chuckled. "Got it, not one for small talk."

As they passed a group of children playing, their ball rolled to a stop at Higuruma's feet. Without breaking his stride, he nudged it with his foot and sent it rolling back. The children immediately rushed over, their laughter filling the air as they crowded around him. As their tiny hands eagerly tugged at his kimono, Higuruma's expression softened, the edges of his mouth curving into the faintest of smiles. He crouched down, speaking gently as he touched each child's head, offering a quiet blessing from the Kami.

As Kusakabe watched this interaction, his initial skepticism gave way to curiosity. He'd met plenty of high-ranking officials, but the way the daigennin's icy exterior melted spoke to a depth of character he hadn't expected.

Falling back into stride with the samurai, Higuruma's face returned to its usual serious expression. The silence between them was more noticeable now, the uneasy quiet of two people learning to navigate each other's company, but neither of them sure what to say.

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

As the afternoon went on, the landscape changed, taking them from the outskirts of the village to the wilder edges of the forest.

"We've got a few hours' walk to the next town," Kusakabe said, glancing over. "A friend of mine owns a small ryokan there. We can stay the night and grab a few more things."

As the light faded, the samurai slowed his pace, guiding them to a break in the trees. He pulled aside some low-hanging branches, letting the daigennin pass through. "Let's set up camp here," he suggested. "We won't make the ryokan before dark, and traveling at night isn't safe."

As they stepped into the clearing, Higuruma felt uneasy. He wasn't used to being outside Sendai, much less in the middle of the forest. Surrounded by the tall circle of trees, he stood rigid, trying to adjust to the idea of spending the night outdoors.

Noticing the familiar twitch pulling at the corner of the other man's mouth, Kusakabe offered a small, reassuring smile. "We'll be fine," he said, setting down his pack and pulling out a flask. "Water?"

Higuruma hesitated, eyeing it uncertainly as he fidgeted with the edge of his sleeve.

The samurai raised an eyebrow. "I promise it's not poisoned."

With a small sigh, the daigennin reached for the flask, and his fingers brushed against Kusakabe's, the brief contact easing tension he hadn't realized he was holding. Taking a cautious sip, he relaxed his shoulders and offered a quiet "Thank you."

Kusakabe turned his attention to setting up camp. As the forest around them darkened, Higuruma hovered nearby, unsure of how to help but strangely calmed by the other man's steady movements.

With his back still turned, the samurai continued unpacking. "No fire tonight," he called over his shoulder, answering the unspoken question.

"Why not?" Higuruma asked, furrowing his brow.

"Too risky," Kusakabe explained as he rolled out a sleeping mat. "You won't freeze," he added with a smile. He chose a spot a little distance from the mat to give Higuruma some space. Sitting back against a tree, he tucked his arms into his kimono and closed his eyes.

"You should get some rest," Kusakabe said quietly.

Higuruma looked up at the stars, reflecting on the unexpected comfort he felt in Kusakabe's presence. He quietly slipped away to a secluded spot at the edge of the camp. Kneeling beneath a small cedar tree, he took a deep breath to center himself as he connected with the Judgment Kami.

The Kami's voice flowed gently. "Higuruma Hiromi, what seeks judgment and balance?"

Higuruma hesitated. Was it right to invoke the Kami's power for something personal? And should he question the character of someone who had shown him compassion? "This man, Kusakabe Atsuya, who travels with me as my protector — I wish to understand his true nature."

The presence of the Kami grew stronger, wrapping Higuruma in its energy. "Ask your questions, and I will seek Judgment."

Higuruma carefully considered his words, trying to balance his curiosity with respect for the Kami's insight. "Are there any actions or choices that would reveal a different side to the man I see now?"

For a moment, there was only the soft rustling of the cedar overhead. Then the Kami's voice returned: "No one is without flaws -- all beings possess weaknesses, moments of doubt, and lapses in judgment. Kusakabe is no exception. Yet he holds a profound care and concern for others that extends beyond duty. Care that is freely given, without expectation or condition."

Higuruma reflected on the Judgments he so often delivered to those with more obvious flaws, whose intentions were hard to see beneath the weight of their mistakes. But Kusakabe’s quiet integrity revealed a new distinction: judgment shouldn’t solely condemn mistakes but also seek to understand the humanity within those who faltered.

The faint crunch of leaves was the only warning Kusakabe needed. He instinctively jumped to his feet, positioning himself between Higuruma and the emerging threat. Ryōmen Sukuna emerged from the darkness, his lips curling into the same arrogant smirk he had in the Daimyō's hall.

"Such a warm welcome," Sukuna remarked, strolling into the clearing. "And here I was, trying to be polite." He closed the distance slowly, rolling his shoulders back as he moved in. His gaze flickered briefly to Higuruma before locking back on Kusakabe, his smirk changing into a challenging grin.  

Kusaskabe kept his hands tucked into his kimono, but as the other man edged closer, he eased into a defensive stance.

The grin on Sukuna's face stretched wider, feeding off the growing tension. “You’re wasting your time," he sneered, "This won't change what's coming for him.”

Lowering his hands from the folds of his sleeves, Kusakabe shifted his weight and sank lower. Sukuna's grin wavered, unsettled by the samurai's unshakable calm.

"Fine," Sukuna hissed, his patience wearing thin. “If you're that hell-bent on protecting him, then draw."

Kusakabe tilted his head slightly, letting his hands hang low, and his fingers relax. “Mhm, I’d rather not,” he mused. “It’s not safe to let a kid play with swords. You're more likely to hurt yourself than anyone else.”

Sukuna’s expression darkened, his amusement giving way to raw anger. His fingers twitched near the hilt of his katana. But Kusakabe remained still, completely unbothered. The tense silence was finally broken by the sound of Sukuna drawing his blade. He swung aggressively, aiming high, but Kusakabe sidestepped, slicing up through Sukuna's torso and grazing his neck.

In a final, desperate move, Sukuna thrust his katana forward as he began to fall. Kusakabe, already in motion, didn't notice how close Higuruma was behind him. The daigennin raised his iron fan, deflecting most of the blow, but the tip of the Sukuna's blade dug into his shoulder.

Sukuna swayed on his feet before dropping his katana and collapsing to the ground. At the same time, Higuruma, overwhelmed by the pain, sank to his knees.

Kusakabe's attention snapped to Higuruma, and for a split second, his calm facade fractured as he moved to the daigennin's side, helping him to his feet. Noticing a slight wince, Kusakabe tightened his grip and lifted the other man into his arms. As Higuruma's head fell against his shoulder, the samurai adjusted his hold, drawing him closer as he began to move.

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

It was well past midnight when Kusakabe stumbled up to the ryokan. His heart pounded in his chest as he glanced down at the daigennin's pale face and the deep red stain spreading across his kimono. Shifting his weight, he knocked on the door with his heel, cradling Higuruma to his chest.

Seconds stretched into what felt like an eternity before heavy footsteps approached.

“Do you have any idea what time it is?” came a gruff voice as the door flung open.

"I’m sorry, Nanami." Kusakabe’s voice cracked. "I didn’t have a choice."

"Kusakabe? What the hell?" Nanami blinked, his irritation quickly melting into concern as he saw Higuruma, barely conscious and lying limp in the samurai's arms.

"This is—" Kusakabe began.

"I know who it is," Nanami interrupted sharply, his eyes scanning the dark streets behind them. "Inside. Now." He stepped aside, holding the door open as the samurai hurried past.

Nanami pointed down the hallway, and Kusakabe gave a quick nod of thanks as he made his way to a room. He gently laid Higuruma on a futon and adjusted the daigennin's arm to peel back the blood-soaked kimono. Moments later, Nanami appeared with a tray, setting it down before quietly slipping away.

The samurai worked with intense focus, pouring a small amount of sake over the wound. Higuruma’s pained groan tightened Kusakabe's chest, pushing him to move faster. He ground mugwort leaves between his fingers, the earthy scent cutting through the sharp tang of blood and sweat. With the poultice in place, he tore a strip from the lining of his kimono sleeve and wrapped it snugly around Higuruma’s shoulder. Gradually, the daigennin's breathing slowed, and he drifted into a deep, exhausted sleep. Kusakabe lingered by the door, watching him quietly before sliding it shut.

Outside, Nanami was waiting, arms crossed. "Do you mind telling me why you're coming to me in the middle of the night with the oracle of the Judgment Kami?" Nanami fixed the samurai with an unblinking stare.

Kusakabe sighed, running a hand through his disheveled hair. "Sukuna."

Disbelief flickered across the other man's face. "Sukuna? I thought he'd already received Judgment," he said with surprise. "Executed, zanshu. That was supposed to be the end of it."

“It should have been,” Kusakabe said grimly. "But tonight, he came after Higuruma."

Nanami's gaze drifted back to the closed door. "Why? What does Sukuna want with him now?"

“I don’t know.” Kusakabe’s hand flexed at his side, frustration seeping through his voice. “Before I killed him, he said something — he said it wouldn't change what's coming for Higuruma."

"Are you saying Sukuna was warning you?"

"Not a warning, a threat," Kusakabe said, voice dropping. "Whatever this is, it’s bigger than the Judgment that Higuruma passed. There’s something else going on that we're not seeing yet."

Nanami stayed silent, his mind running through the possibilities. Then, with a quiet exhale, he straightened up and uncrossed his arms. "This is dangerous business, friend," he said seriously. "For now, keep him safe. I'll dig into this."

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

Light spilled through the window, wrenching Higuruma from a deep sleep. He winced against the brightness as he struggled to sit up, but the effort left him weak, and he slumped back against the futon. A quiet rustle at the door caught his attention, and he turned his head to see Kusakabe enter the room.

"How are you feeling?" the samurai asked in a low voice.

Higuruma grimaced as he shifted. "I've been better."

"I came to check your bandages," Kusakabe said, kneeling on the tatami. "Make sure everything's holding."

Higuruma hesitated, a faint flush spreading on his cheeks. The idea of letting someone this close felt awkward and overwhelming. “Is that absolutely necessary?” he asked nervously.

“Unless you want to die of infection before we reach Edo, then yes." Kusakabe slowly reached towards the sleeve of Higuruma's kimono, and the daigennin flinched, his body shying away from the contact.  

“I’m here to help you,” the samurai said with a touch of dry humor, "not to rip your clothes off.”

Higuruma’s cheeks burned, and he turned his head away. “Just…make it quick."

The touch was surprisingly gentle as Kusakabe eased the kimono down, his fingers brushing lightly against the other man's skin. It was a practical touch, but it stirred something deep in the pit of Higuruma's stomach. He took a slow breath, trying to focus on the fresh cloth wrapping around his shoulder, as if losing himself in the movements could help him push aside the vulnerability creeping in. Sensing his discomfort, Kusakabe finished quickly, rewrapping it with a new bandage before moving on to clean the kimono lining in fresh water.

The samurai placed a change of clothes next to the futon, and as he left the room, he turned and offered the daigennin a small smile. “I’ll be back soon with some food."

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

Higuruma stirred and rubbed his eyes, half-dazed and wondering how long he'd been out. His body felt lighter now, and as he sat up, he noticed a tray neatly arranged with a small meal. But eating didn’t seem pressing right now — he’d get to it later. With a bit of effort, he pushed himself to his feet and made his way downstairs. Voices drifted from the room below, and as he stepped in, he saw Kusakabe and Nanami seated at a low table, deep in conversation.

Kusakabe looked over and raised a brow in surprise. “I wasn’t expecting you to be up."

Moving to the counter, Nanami began prepping a bowl of rice. The daigennin looked after him and frowned. “You don’t have to do that,” he called over.

“You need to eat,” Nanami replied calmly.

Before Higuruma could argue, Nanami returned with food, setting it down in front of him along with a small bottle of sake. The daigennin stared at the bowl, debating whether he had the energy to eat. Across the table, Kusakabe watched him quietly, sipping a drink with the calmness of someone who had mastered the art of waiting. With a quiet, resigned sigh, Higuruma finally picked up his chopsticks and started to eat.

A warm smile spread across Kusakabe's face. He carefully pulled back the sleeve of his kimono as he poured some sake and then set it next to Higuruma's bowl. “After you finish, you should have a little," he said softly. "It’ll help you sleep.”

Higuruma glanced up at him, meeting his gaze briefly before nodding in agreement. The samurai offered one last affectionate smile before he rose from his seat and headed towards the counter.

Nanami glanced up as Kusakabe approached, a serious expression etched on his face. "I found out some information you're not going to like,” he said. “Daimyō Gakuganji is planning to overthrow the country.”

Leaning against the counter, Kusakabe lowered his voice. “Gakuganji? The man’s ancient. He doesn’t have the strength for something like that, not after the Shattered Cliffs.”

The other man shook his head, his mouth pressed into a thin line. "It's not just him. He’s been rallying the smaller Daimyō, getting them to band together. They’re planning to topple everything and consolidate power under Gakuganji’s rule."

“What does any of that have to do with Higuruma?”

“Higuruma’s Judgment is the one thing standing in their way," Nanami replied grimly. "If he makes it to Edo and speaks with Daimyō Yaga, their plan falls apart. They see him as a direct threat."

A tightness clenched Kusakabe's jaw, and he tapped his fingers lightly against the counter. “But how did they even know he's heading to Edo? We’ve been careful.”

"I don't know, " Nanami said, "but they're well-informed, which means they're even more dangerous."

“Then I have to move faster," the samurai said quietly.

The conversation with Nanami lingered in Kusakabe's thoughts as he made his way back to the table. Sitting down across from Higuruma, he noticed the daigennin's blissful smile and the rosy pink flush on his cheeks. He was leaning on the table, swaying slightly as he tried to sit up.

Kusakabe sighed and picked up the sake bottle, shaking his head. "How much did you drink?" he asked with a touch of concern, "I said to have a little, not the whole bottle.”

Higuruma let out a tipsy laugh. “Maybe I misunderstood what you meant by 'a little'...” he slurred, trying to look casual but failing miserably. “In my defense, I'm very distracted.”

The samurai raised an eyebrow. He set the bottle back on the table and extended a hand to help Higuruma to his feet. “That’s the sake talking,” he said teasingly. "And if you’re trying to flirt with me, you need way more practice.”

Higuruma wobbled and started to lean. “I'm not really good with words, am I?" he mumbled. “What I mean to say is, my focus is distracting. No, distracted, I mean, you’re very —"

"OHH-kay, time for bed," the samurai chuckled, wrapping his arm around the other man's waist and guiding him towards the stairs. He felt Higuruma lean closer, his head resting lightly on his shoulder. As they reached the room, Kusakabe carefully led him to the futon, and with a soft groan, Higuruma sank back into the bedding.

"Let's check your bandages," Kusakabe said, slipping the kimono off the daigennin's shoulder, and this time, he was unusually still. Focused on his task, the samurai didn't notice the weight of Higuruma’s gaze. Kusakabe paused as a hand gently touched his arm, and he looked down to see the daigennin holding the torn kimono lining. He accepted the clean fabric with a smile and began to wrap it. Higuruma's gaze followed the motions of Kusakabe's fingers, feeling the knot secure and the warmth of his broad hands lingering just a little longer than necessary.

“Will you stay with me?” Higuruma murmured.

The samurai glanced over, searching the other man's expression, but the daigennin remained quiet, watching him with a steady gaze. Settling down on the tatami, Kusakabe kept a small, respectful distance -- close enough to offer comfort but not too close to intrude. Feeling a soft tap on his shoulder, he turned slightly to see the daigennin's hand reaching out. Kusakabe took it in his own, in a silent reply to the earlier question.

I'm here.

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

Kusakabe leaned against the wall, one hand tucked into his kimono and the other resting on his katana. "Evening," he said softly as he noticed Higuruma beginning to stir.

Shifting under the blankets, the daigennin groaned as he rubbed a hand across his forehead. “Is it night again?” he mumbled, his voice heavy with sleep.

“Seems like the sake did its job,” Kusakabe replied with a grin, stretching his legs before pushing off the wall.

Higuruma pressed the bridge of his nose in an attempt to ward off his growing headache.

“You’ll feel worse if you don’t drink some water,” the samurai said, stepping over to the low table and pouring a cup.“We'll be back on the road tomorrow, so you need your strength." He turned, offering the cup to Higuruma, who accepted it with a tired nod.

Just as the daigennin raised the drink to his lips, the door slid open with a sharp thud.

Nanami stepped inside, his nata gripped firmly in one hand. His eyes darted around the room before landing on Kusakabe. “We don't have much time," he urged. "You need to go."

The samurai was already at Higuruma’s side. “Can you stand?” he asked, sliding an arm around him to help him up. Still dazed, the daigennin straightened as much as he could, bracing himself on Kusakabe's arm for support.

Positioning himself by the door, Nanami briefly met Kusakabe’s gaze, then motioned toward the other exit. “Go, I'll deal with this," he said firmly. Then, just before turning his attention to the hallway, he added, "He needs you — keep him safe."

Outside, the night was unnervingly still. The only sound was the echo of hurried footsteps closing in behind them. Kusakabe abruptly veered into a narrow alley, tugging the other man behind him. The cold, rough wall met Higuruma's back as the samurai pressed him firmly against it, hands braced on either side of him as they melted into the shadows. The faint glow of a lantern flickered at the alley's entrance, and Kusakabe shifted to block the light, pressing closer as if urging the darkness to stretch further around them. Higuruma felt the thrum of Kusakabe’s heartbeat against him as they stood motionless.

As the footsteps faded, the daigennin let out a slow, shaky breath. He noticed the samurai's expression soften, his sharp protectiveness giving way to something far more tender. Leaning in just a fraction closer, Kusakabe's breath ghosted against Higuruma's cheek as his arm slipped around his waist, drawing him in.  

“We should move,” the samurai whispered.

Gently, Kusakabe released his hold, taking the other man's hand with a soft squeeze before leading him into the night.

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

As the morning sun peeked over the hills, they found themselves in a bustling market, the sound of chatter and clattering wooden carts a sharp contrast to the silence and shadows of the previous night.

"We've got a problem," the samurai said quietly, looking at the guards posted at the narrow path leading out of town. "We need to find something to disguise you. You're too recognizable."

Higuruma frowned. “What do you mean? I’m not wearing anything that stands out."

"The gold chrysanthemums are an immediate giveaway," the samurai said, motioning to the embroidery on the edges of the daigennin's blue kimono. "We have to find something that helps you blend in."

He led Higuruma to a nearby stall, where a woman was carefully folding vibrant fabrics. Kusakabe spoke to her with a low, charming voice. Higuruma's heart pounded as he suddenly noticed guards weaving through the crowd. Kusakabe touched him gently on the shoulder, bringing him back to the moment, holding out a patterned yukata and a veiled hiyoku hat.

“Absolutely not!” Higuruma shook his head vehemently. “I’d rather take my chances with those guards than wear —”

“I know it's not ideal,” Kusakabe whispered. “But if we don’t do this, we’ll be in a lot more trouble. It’s just for a few hours. And besides," he teased lightly, "You'll be the most beautiful lady in town."

Higuruma frowned, glancing toward the guards again before reluctantly stepping behind the stall to tug the yukata over his clothes. Kusakabe flashed the daigennin a reassuring smile, helping him adjust the layers and tie the obi around his waist.

“Hold still for a second,” the samurai murmured, carefully lowering the semi-sheer fabric of the hiyoku into place. “You look beautiful," he said softly, trying to ease Higuruma's visible anxiety. "Just stay close to me; we'll get through this."

As they made their way down the crowded street, Higuruma lowered his head, the veil giving him a small sense of protection from the curious eyes he felt on them. His body tensed, every instinct screaming at him to turn back. Without thinking, he reached out, tapping Kusakabe's hand, and the samurai took it gently in his.

“Breathe. I’m right here with you.”    

One of the guards raised a hand to stop them. “Excuse me, madam,” he said, moving closer to Higuruma and trying to peer through the veil. “I'm sorry, but I need to see your face.”

“Forgive me, sir,” Kusakabe said politely, dipping into a respectful bow. “My lady is still recovering from a fever. We’re on our way to visit my sister in the next town for some herbs to help her regain her strength, and it’s crucial that she isn’t exposed to the wind until she’s well enough to travel freely.”

A tense silence followed as the guard weighed Kusakabe's words. Higuruma kept his head down, afraid to move an inch. His pulse pounded in his ears as he fought to stay still, fingers trembling within the samurai's steady hold. Finally, the guard grunted and stepped back, waving them through. Once they were out of line of sight, they quickly moved onto the open road leading south.

“I can’t believe that worked,” the daigennin murmured, shaking his head in disbelief.

Kusakabe chuckled, gently squeezing Higuruma's hand. “I told you we’d make it, my lady.”

Higuruma shot him a playful glare, unable to hide his smile. “Don’t call me that."

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

Days drifted by as they traveled off the main roads, Higuruma’s injury making them move at a slower pace. Despite the setback, Kusakabe remained patient, never pushing him to go faster. As the sun started to set one night, they found a secluded spot at the edge of a thicket. Higuruma sat down carefully, and without a word, Kusakabe crouched in front of him, his hands already reaching for the daignennin's shoulder.

“It’s nearly healed,” the samurai said, looking over the wound. He tore another piece of lining from his kimono and began to wrap it carefully.

“Is that an uroko pattern?” Higuruma asked.

“Mhm,” Kusakabe replied, smoothing the cloth before tying a knot. “The fish scales symbolize armor — offering protection and safety.”

“Just like you do," the daignennin said with a quiet intensity.

Kusakabe didn’t look up, but Higuruma noticed his gentle smile. "Speaking of protection,” the samurai said, reaching for his kaku obi and pulling out daigennin's iron fan. “If you’re going to carry this, you need to know how to use it.”

“And what about you?” Higuruma asked, glancing back at the samurai. “Why don’t you have one?”

Kusakabe grinned. “Things are more interesting this way."

Squaring his shoulders, the daigennin tightened the grip on his fan and snapped it open. He closed in, swinging at Kusakabe's arm, but the samurai swatted it away with the back of his hand.

“Not bad. Try to anticipate my reactions,” Kusakabe said calmly.

Frustration flickered across Higuruma's face as he tried again, this time aiming for the samurai's head. But again, the other man blocked him, the fan hitting harmlessly against his forearm.

“You’re too predictable. Change up your strategy,” the samurai suggested, his tone still soft.

The daigennin launched another strike, and then another, each met with a well-timed parry. “You’re not taking me seriously!” he exclaimed.

He rushed forward, but the samurai turned, using the momentum against him and nudging him off balance. Stumbling back, the fan slipped from Higuruma's hand and clattered to the ground.

As the daigennin tried to regain his footing, Kusakabe’s hand wrapped around his waist, steadying him. He leaned in, his voice low and gravelly in Higuruma's ear. “I can assure you, I’m taking you VERY seriously."

Higuruma's breath hitched, heat flushing his cheeks as he forgot the sparring match completely. “You could’ve just let me fall,” he managed.

Kusakabe chuckled softly. “And miss seeing this face? Not a chance.”

A low rumble of thunder echoed in the distance, and Kusakabe glanced up at the swaying trees. “We need to move further in for cover before the storm hits,” he said, noticing a flash of lightning. Higuruma was already headed to the left toward an overgrown path.

“Hey, where are you going?” Kusakabe called after him.

The daigennin motioned toward a moss-covered stone tangled in the roots of a nearby tree. “That’s the flame of the Judgment Kami,” he murmured, a touch of reverence in his voice. "There should be a shrine close by."

A gust of wind blew in, carrying with it the scent of red pine and incense, and the forest shifted along with it, the branches above bending to form a natural arch. As the shrine came into view, the air grew cooler, and a light rain began to fall.

"Looks like the Kami wants us to hurry," the samurai teased, looking over with a grin.

Inside, moonlight filtered through the small cracks in the ceiling, casting soft, silvery lines across the dusty floor. An old irori firepit sat empty near the entrance, with a layer of ash from fires long since burned out.

“It's been a while since someone's been here,” Kusakabe remarked. “Seems strange, given the Kami’s presence in Sendai.”

“There used to be more oracles tending to places like this," Higuruma said softly, "But times have changed -- now I'm the only one left."

"Still, you're here," the samurai smiled. He knelt at the irori, clearing a spot in the ash.

As Kusakabe prepared the pit, Higuruma gathered a few dry offerings and knelt beside him. “Maybe these can bring back a little warmth,” he murmured, placing them on the kindling. Just as he pulled his hands back, the wood ignited with a sudden spark of blue flame, and the fire began to crackle, spreading warmth through the room.

Kusakabe’s gaze drifted toward the flames as he stoked the embers. "Nanami told me about Daimyō Gakuganji's plans, the takeover he's organizing. Once we reach Edo, Daimyō Yaga will call for a formal Judgment. And Gakuganji knows that the Judgment Kami will confirm his guilt."

The daigennin looked up at Kusakabe. “So that’s why you’ve been —”

"Yes," the samurai said, his voice soft and steady. "That's why I've been so protective."

Higuruma realized it was just as the Judgment Kami had said; Kusakabe wasn't acting out of duty or honor. It ran deeper than that. He was doing this for him. “Atsuya," the daigennin whispered, leaning in slightly, “you don't need to put yourself at risk for me."

The samurai offered a warm smile. “I made that choice, Hiromi. Willingly."

Higuruma’s hand hovered beside Kusakabe’s leg, brushing against the fabric of his kimono before lightly tapping on his thigh. The samurai lowered his hand, waiting patiently until the daigennin met his touch, and then he began tracing slow, soothing circles over Hiromi's knuckles.

"When I was younger, in the temple,” Higuruma said softly, “I was only allowed to connect with the Kami. What we have...” He paused, searching for the right words. “It’s new to me.”

“I understand why you feel that way,” the samurai whispered. "But it’s okay to let someone close, Hiromi. To let yourself feel safe. Loved."

The words stirred something in Higuruma that he couldn’t fully grasp. Safe. Loved. The concepts felt so distant, like something that would slip through his fingers if he reached too far. But sitting here with Kusakabe, he wondered — what if it was possible? What if he could let himself lean into this, accept that it was okay to want more? And as the thought wrapped around him, he felt a warmth bloom in his chest that had nothing to do with the fire.

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

Higuruma was pulled from his dreams by the gentle sound of bubbling water. As he blinked awake, he saw Kusakabe looking over, his face lighting up with a warm smile.

“Morning! The Kami left us some breakfast,” he said, scooping rice from the pot over the irori and offering it to him.

“I don’t need all this,” Hiromi protested, staring at the mountain of rice.

But Atsuya just smiled, peeking over his own bowl as he dug back into his breakfast.

After the meal, they stepped outside, greeted by the morning sun bathing the path in a beautiful golden light. Kusakabe paused to stretch, his arms reaching high above his head as he let out a satisfied sigh. Standing at the threshold, Higuruma gave a low bow to the altar, acknowledging the presence that had watched over them. As they turned to go, the branches overhead unfurled as if the Kami was blessing their journey ahead.

Their shoulders lightly brushed together as they walked, and Higuruma playfully nudged the samurai, a faint smile on his lips. "If you keep looking at me like that, I might start to think you’re enjoying my company."

Kusakabe raised an eyebrow. "Your flirting skills are definitely improving," he teased, nudging Hiromi back.

"Is that so?" the daigennin said, finally breaking into a full smile, "I'll keep practicing then."

But as they rounded a bend and saw the imposing gates of Daimyō Yaga's hall, Higuruma's expression turned serious again.

Stopping at the entry, they were met by two guards standing at attention. One of them leaned in towards the other. "Is that the moon samurai from the Battle of the Shattered Cliffs? The one that defeated Gakuganji?"

Kusakabe shrugged off the statement with a casual smile. "It's really not that big of a deal," he said, as if he was discussing the weather and not his reputation. "Anyway, the oracle of the Judgment Kami is who you should be speaking to."

The shift in the guards' demeanor was immediate. They both lowered their gaze and bowed deeply. "Forgive us, Higuruma-sama," one of the guards said respectfully. They quickly stepped aside, opening the gates and ushering them in.

As they passed through and entered the quiet gardens, Higuruma glanced over. “I didn't know you were at the Shattered Cliffs. Why brush off something so important?”

The samurai chuckled. "Because it's not as grand as they make it out to be," he replied. He paused, then offered his arm with a gentle smile. “I care about the things that matter.” Almost instinctively, their steps fell in sync, each stride mirroring the other.

"You know," Kusakabe began quietly, "I thought that was just another fight, just another Daimyō. But looking back, things make more sense. The timing, how Gakuganji's men pulled back so quickly — it wasn't a defeat. It was preparation."

His voice trailed off, brushing his free hand along a cedar branch as they walked past. “A few weeks after that, someone tried to kidnap Daimyō Yaga's son,” he continued. “I managed to stop it, but I think that was the beginning. Gakuganji was testing the waters, seeing how far he could push one Daimyō before making a plan to topple the others."

The sounds of lighthearted laughter floated through the air, catching their attention. A young boy was playing beneath the sakura, chasing after the falling blossoms. As he turned, his eyes lit up. "Kusakabe-san!"

The samurai leaned down and held out his arms, scooping the young boy up and placing him on his hip. "Kuma-kun, you're almost getting too big for me to pick you up," he teased, ruffling the boy’s hair.

"I heard someone special was coming to help Father," Kuma said, his voice full of excitement. He peeked over at Higuruma, then leaned closer to Kusakabe, growing shy. "Who's that?"

"He's that someone special, little bear.” The samurai smiled, turning so the boy could see the daigennin more clearly.

Kuma looked at Higuruma with wide, curious eyes. “Oh! You’re the one with the Judji—the Judji— the Judgeman!”

Bending so that he was at eye level with the boy, the daigennin gave him a smile. “Yes, the Judgment Kami and I are here to help."

The little boy's expression softened into a wide grin. “I knew it!” Kuma paused as if suddenly realizing something. “But... Kusakabe-san can help you too, right? He’s really strong."

Kusakabe chuckled warmly, ruffling the boy’s hair again before setting him back down on the ground. "Don't worry, little bear,” he said, his voice softer now. “I’ll be there with him.”

A gentle breeze blew in as Kuma ran off, carrying petals on its current. Higuruma reached out, catching one delicately between his fingers.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Kusakabe said quietly.

The daigennin nodded, eyes lingering on the fragile blossom before releasing it and watching it float away. “This is what we're here for,” he murmured. “To protect this peace.”

Higuruma briefly hesitated before shifting closer, allowing Kusakabe’s arm to slip back through his. Atsuya gave a small, contented smile as he felt the daigennin lean in, and they began to walk towards the hall, the petals dancing in the breeze around them.

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

Atsuya and Hiromi sat side by side, gazing up at the hazy moon. They had already spoken with Yaga, going over everything in careful detail, but now, in the quiet of the Daimyōs house, Higuruma felt his nerves start to unravel.

His hands rested in his lap, fingers nervously tracing the gold embroidery on his sleeve. “Do you think the other Daimyō will accept the Judgment?" he asked. "Gakugani is still influential.”

“Yaga called us because he trusts you, Hiromi,” Kusakabe said softly. “We presented what we had, and tomorrow, the Judgment Kami will take care of the rest.

Higuruma reached over, taking the samurai's hand in his own, feeling its broad strength beneath his palm. He gave a familiar gentle tap, seeking reassurance, and in response, Atsuya intertwined their fingers.

Turning slightly, Hiromi knew he didn't need to ask the question out loud. "Will you stay with me?"

Kusakabe leaned in just enough for their shoulders to touch, giving Higuruma's hand a soft squeeze.  "I'm here."

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

The grand hall was still, the air thick with anticipation of the Judgment ahead.

“Daigennin Higuruma Hiromi," Daimyō Yaga’s deep voice echoed through the room, "the council calls on you to deliver Judgment on Gakuganji Yoshinobu. May the Kami speak through you.”

Higuruma gave a solemn nod, casting a quick glance back at Kusakabe, sitting quietly behind him. The daigennin brushed his hand against the iron fan tucked into his obi as he took a deep breath. This Judgment carried greater risk than anything he'd performed before, so every word and thought had to be precise.

Facing Gakuganji, Higuruma noticed the other man’s shadowed, grim expression. “The formal charges against you, Daimyō, are of the highest consequence,” the daigennin began. “You stand accused of plotting to destabilize and overthrow the rule of all Daimyō across the nation.” He closed his eyes, centering himself as he let the sounds of the hall fade away.

"Higuruma Hiromi," the Kami's voice said softly. "What seeks judgment and balance?"

Doubt began to creep in: "What if I fail?" Hiromi tried to push it aside, but it lingered, pulling at his focus.

In turmoil, Higuruma's mind drifted to Kusakabe. He could see those green eyes, warm and full of encouragement, and almost feel the comforting hold of Atsuya's hand as if he were standing beside him like so many times before.

"Breathe, I'm here."

The anxiety threatening to overwhelm him began to melt away, the samurai's voice burning through the last shadows of doubt. The Light of Judgment stirred, its energy flickering at the edges of his awareness. As the energy coursed through him, he felt the strength of his bond with Kusakabe intertwining with the presence of the Kami.

Higuruma opened his eyes slowly, feeling the room come back into focus, the blue flames casting a soft glow over his calm expression. “Gakuganji Yoshinobu," he began, "the Judgment Kami has revealed the truth and found that you conspired to disrupt the harmony that governs our realm." He watched Gakuganji's face shift as the reality of the Judgment set in.

The tension in the room grew thicker, every gaze locked on Higuruma, waiting in silence. "As a consequence of your actions," the daigennin continued, "you and your allies are sentenced to indefinite imprisonment here within this daimyō. You shall remain confined until the council deems it appropriate to revisit your case.”

As Higuruma went to bow to the Daimyō, Gakuganji shot to his feet, his voice trembling with anger. "This is ridiculous! I won't submit to such a baseless Judgment."

The hall grew tense, a nervous energy spreading through the room. Daimyō Yaga raised a hand, instantly silencing the crowd. "Enough," he said, his voice echoing through the hall. "The oracle has spoken, and the Judgment is final."

Before the guards could step in, a sudden blur of movement snapped Higuruma's attention away. A woman darted from the crowd, drawing a kanzashi pin from her white hair and lunging straight for Kusakabe.

Time froze.

Higuruma pushed Kusakabe back with one hand while the other reached for his obi, fingers curling around the iron fan. He snapped it open in a single sharp motion just as the pin came down. The air around them hummed with energy as the Light of Judgment surged to life, wrapping both men under a shimmering blue shield.

The kanzashi struck the barrier with a metallic clang, sparks flying as it ricocheted off before falling to the ground with a soft clink. Momentarily stunned by the impact, the woman staggered back, and before she could recover, the Daimyō’s guards rushed in to surround her. The hall erupted in chaos, but Higuruma barely registered the commotion.

Heart still racing from the near miss, he quickly turned, his eyes frantically searching for Kusakabe's face. When their eyes met, relief washed over him, so intense it nearly knocked the wind out of his lungs.

Atsuya’s lips curved into a soft smile. "I guess that means we're even."

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

The evening air in the room felt cool against Higuruma’s skin as he lowered his kimono sleeve and bared his shoulder. The wound had long since healed, but Kusakabe’s hands still moved with the same steady care, wrapping the makeshift lining bandage in the ritual that had become their way of staying close.

Hiromi's gaze stayed fixed on the samurai's hands, but his thoughts were trapped in the memory of how close everything had come to slipping away. He opened his mouth, and the words broke free, raw and uneven. "I almost lost you today."

Kusakabe paused, tying the strip of cloth in place before answering softly. “I’m still here."

The daigennin looked away, a worried twitch tugging at the corner of his mouth and his fingers anxiously pulling at his sleeves. "You told me once that I was allowed to be close to someone," he murmured, "I couldn't believe it then because I didn't know how." He hesitated, the words hanging between them like a bridge he was afraid to cross.

Kusakabe nodded. "And now?"

Higuruma moved closer, making the small space between them even smaller. He lifted his gaze, and for once, there was no shield, only honesty and vulnerability. “I know what it feels like to be safe. With you. And now I want to know…what it would feel like to be loved.”

He wasn’t sure what he expected. A gentle refusal, or maybe seeing his own uncertainty reflected back at him.

But the samurai’s smile softened, a quiet warmth spreading across his face. “Then come here," he whispered.

Slowly, almost cautiously, Hiromi leaned in. Their lips just barely grazed, a tentative brush, testing the waters. Atsuya responded with gentle stillness, allowing Higuruma to meet him at his own pace. There was no urgency, only the soft, unspoken acknowledgment of everything they'd been holding back.

Hiromi's hands moved to the samurai's hair, fingers carding through the strands. A soft tap at the nape of his neck soon followed, a silent signal they both knew so well, reassuring Atsuya that this was something he truly wanted.

The kiss melted along Higuruma's tongue, smooth and sweet. Underneath his palm, he felt the rhythm of Kusakabe's usually calm heartbeat shift and quicken beneath his touch. It pulsed steadily against his fingers, a reminder not of what could have been lost but of everything that was right here, in this moment.

There was a tender intensity behind each press of Kusakabe's lips that would have made the daigennin's knees buckle if he'd still been standing. Every inch of his body trembled as Kusakabe cupped his chin, kissing him breathless. And then slowly, they both drew back, Atsuya's breath still warm against Hiromi’s cheek. They stayed close, their eyes half-lidded and their foreheads gently resting together.

Reaching out, Atsuya brushed his thumb softly along Hiromi’s jaw, a barely-there caress, as if memorizing the quiet warmth beneath his fingertips. He gently tilted Higuruma's chin up and guided him to meet his gaze.

With his usual comforting smile, Kusakabe slid his arm around the daigennin's shoulders, and Hiromi melted into his chest, instinctively curling into the warmth. They lingered in each other's embrace, exchanging soft kisses until Hiromi asked the familiar question.

"Will you stay with me?"

Atsuya placed his hand over Hiromi's heart. "Always."

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

The carriage rolled along the path into Sendai, a thoughtful gift from Daimyō Yaga. Higuruma sat close to Kusakabe, watching the world pass by: lively market stalls, sakura trees in full bloom -- each sight sparking memories of their time together. When a young girl with blue hair spotted them, her face lit up, and she waved excitedly at Kusakabe. Everything felt so familiar, like home. Yet, as they neared the Daimyō's residence, Higuruma felt a knot forming in his stomach, tightening with each turn of the wheel.

Outside the door, familiar laughter echoed from a nearby room. The door swung open with enthusiasm, and Gojo's playful grin lit up the space.

"Ah! Look who finally showed up," the Daimyō exclaimed, giving an exaggerated formal bow as he welcomed them in. "I've been hearing some wild stories about you two. Taking down the country's most powerful samurai and passing Judgment for treason?" He reached out, clasping the daigennin by the arms and giving him a playful shake. “You’ve made your little Daimyō so proud,” he beamed.

Kusakabe cleared his throat, trying to stifle a laugh as he glanced at Higuruma, who shot him a "Why is he always like this" look.

"Alright, time for the formal stuff. Higuruma-sama --" Gojo said, drawing out the moment for dramatic effect. "The way you handled Gakuganji? Very impressive. I’d like you to visit a few of the other daimyō and oversee more Judgments."

Leaning in slightly, the sparkle in his blue eyes softened with genuine warmth. "But don't get too comfortable, alright?” he added with a teasing smile. “We need your brilliance in action, not just lost in daydreams about sharing quiet moments with a certain samurai."

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

The moon hung high in the sky, casting the Daimyō’s garden in a wash of silvery light. Beneath the cedar trees, the two lovers sat side by side on a worn stone bench, drawn into the calm quiet of the night. Higuruma’s heart felt heavy. Slowly, his gaze drifted downward, worry clouding his face as he wrestled with the thoughts swirling in his mind.

When he finally spoke, his voice was low, barely cutting through the night. "What if...when I leave, I don't come back?" His voice trembled, and the tension he'd held onto all day finally bled into the open air. "I don't want to leave Sendai, leave you, but --"

Kusakabe leaned closer, gently taking Higuruma’s hand in his. "Who said anything about me staying in Sendai?" he asked softly.

“But the Daimyō didn’t say if you could go. You’d risk everything, maybe even your title, if you leave,” he murmured, his gaze fixed on the ground.

Kusakabe squeezed Higuruma’s hand gently. “I spoke with the Daimyō. He actually encouraged me to come along with you. He knows how much this means to us.” He reached over to tuck a stray curl behind Hiromi's ear. “And titles don’t matter when it comes to what we have. I love you, and that won’t ever change.”

The samurai slipped a hand into the folds of his kimono, drawing out the familiar rolled-up strip of lining. He gently tied it around Higuruma's wrist, smoothing it against his skin. "This is my promise," he said, looking deep into Higuruma's eyes, "Wherever you go, I'll always be right beside you."

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

The legends told in Sendai speak of two bound by light -- a gentle sun, whose soft light reveals the heart, and a devoted moon, ever watchful at his side.

As dawn breaks each day, the sun rises with a warmth that reaches softly into the shadows, illuminating hidden places and offering clarity and compassion to all who seek it. His light is steady, unyielding, not in force, but in the quiet courage of truth.

And as evening falls, the moon follows close, his watchful presence a vow to protect and care for the light he so deeply loves. He carries the sun’s warmth in his heart, amplifying it into a comforting glow across the night sky. In this sacred dance, he whispers words of encouragement, reminding the sun of his worth and purpose, urging him to shine brightly each day.

For as long as the heavens exist, this legendary love endures: two souls, forever bound, finding each other in every dawn, every dusk, and every moment in between.

[loptrcoptr]

It’s come to my attention that a lot of people in the BES fandom are new to fandom-culture in general (or lack there of; we denizens of tumblr are residents of a cesspool) and don’t know a lot of general old school online manners, laid down in Days of Yore by earlier generations. So let me bring up a crucial one that is generally being ignored on tumblr in the BES-sphere: ship tagging!

I am not doing this to condescend, I genuinely want to be helpful and to help us all enjoy our enclosure and our enrichment in said enclosure together. I think a lot of grief going around the blue eye samurai world on social media could be solved if everyone remembered one good old cardinal rule of fandom bullshit:

you do not put ship wank in a ship’s general tag.

let me say that one more time in different terms:

If you want to rant about how much you hate a ship, general practice has always been, on tumblr anyway, not to do so in the safe space created for said ship.

once again, lemme be very clear; I don’t give one rat’s ass or 800 collective asses of rats what you ship, why you ship it, whether you ship anything at all, why you hate x y z, etc. That’s great, that’s what fandom is for! Enjoy yourself! The issue is that there’s all this infighting fuckery going on that is exhausting to even watch from the sidelines, and I think there’s a lot of confusion as to why anyone is fighting over any of this shit at all as it is 2024 and ship wars are 2011 superwholock garbage that we all collectively agreed to jettison into space by 2015, ya feel me?

(and if you like to start shit and throw hands then obv this post isn’t for you as you know what you’re doing, this is for the folks who don’t know and are confused as to why they can’t rant without blowback)

So if you’ve gotten on tumblr recently and noticed your anti-ship post blowing up for some reason or other and asked yourself “Jesus why are these assholes from that ship always coming for me?? They’re such dicks!!” ask yourself:

did I tag them in my post?

Because when you tag a ship in a post about how much you hate it, it’s not a beacon that says “Hear Ye Hear Ye, Interacteth Not Ye Fuckos From Ship I Hate, This Is About How Much I Hate Your Ship”. For that to be the case, you would need old-school anti-ship tag nomenclature, like this: #anti-[shipname] or #[shipname] wank. Those tags would communicate your intent to rant, which is your sacred fandom right to enjoy doing! It is not, however, your sacred fandom right to enjoy doing it in the wrong space, that’s what’s happening here. A post that tags a ship with its normal tag, but whose content is anti/wank content about said ship, sends the signal: “ayyooo, who would like to debate this with me?”

So, does all that make sense? If you tag your post analyzing all the reasons why you think a ship sucks with #ship, you are encouraging everyone who ships that ship to interact with your post. It’s like rocking up to somebody’s house, ringing the doorbell, and saying “I hate your fugly ass piece of shit house, asshole” and then getting irritated when the homeowner responds with “who the fuck are you, get off my lawn?!”

#anti-[shipname], #[shipname] hate (forgot about that one, also useful), and #[shipname] wank do two very useful things:

1) They let other people who want to gleefully rant with you know that you’re on the level and they give like minded individuals a chance to follow those tags so you can have more rant sessions together, and

2) they minimize likelihood of involvement by the shippers you’re ranting about, who can block the tag, while keeping the ship’s normal tag open for the people who enjoy it

tldr; *swordfather voice* it would be bitchin if people could stop bitchin in the wrong places so that we can all coexist like adults here, touch some grass, and chill. Tag ship hate #anti-[shipname], #[shipname] wank, or #[shipname]-hate and keep it out of the general pro-ship tags :)

if your response to this is “don’t tell me what to do, cuntwaffle” or “I have an unhealthy relationship with the idea of shipping and think no one should have a safe environment to enjoy media except me and people I agree with so I will continue to poison the waters” then ok, cool beans, keep on chooglin’; but know that everytime you walk into a tea party you weren’t invited to and yell I HATE YOUR FUCKING TEA YOUR TEA SUCKS ASS blowback is a bit inevitable

[sirfrogsworth]

Review of Blue Eye Samurai on Netflix

There are some spoiler-ish things below, but I think most of it is in the trailer, so I don't think I will ruin anything. I'll warn you during the most spoilery section, though the show makes the "twist" pretty obvious from the beginning.

Premise

Blue Eye Samurai is a Kill Bill-style revenge tale that takes place in 17th century Japan. The samurai is half white/half Japanese. The show states that no white folks were allowed in the country back then, so the samurai tries to conceal blue eyes with some sweet BluBlocker™ orange glasses. The Samurai is displeased to have white heritage and decides to try and kill all the "white devils" hiding in Japan.

Will some reactionaries complain there is a show all about someone trying to murder white people? I have no idea. But they're all bad white people, so I'm hoping it won't become a thing.

My Hot Takes

A few episodes meandered a bit, but I enjoyed the series as a whole quite a bit. If nothing else, the sword fights were epic and bloody. I would have watched it for that alone. And there is some gorgeous art direction where they really take advantage of the 2D styled, 3D animation. Plus, Japan is just really pretty. There is also a puppet show that was brilliantly mixed in with the story and the way they animated it was next level awesome.

They fell into cliche a few times. I think they were trying to do homages and tributes but ended up in Derivative Land and some of them felt a bit cringe.

They used "Battle Without Honor Or Humanity" which is that rousing instrumental song from Kill Bill and it was way too on the nose. Like, yes, this show is obviously a 1600s version of Kill Bill, but you're not supposed to make it that obvious.

Also, there was a Metallica song that equally made me roll my eyes and think, "That is badass" so I give them a pass on that one.

And there were a few sections where it felt like you were watching someone else play a video game. I don't know how else to describe it. As if the narrative melted away and suddenly a bunch of Prince of Persia obstacles appeared.

That said, the story was enjoyable, the actors were great, the characters were interesting, the animation was solid, and the fight choreography was top notch.

The nice thing about animation is you don't have to do any jump cuts during the action, so you get to really *see* the fights develop. Thankfully they didn't make use of a lot of impossible-in-real-life camera moves, so it all felt very grounded. As if these fights could actually be filmed in live-action. I suspect they may have even used motion capture or closely adhered to reference footage. Most of the non-fantastical choreography felt like something a stunt performer could actually do. They even had some legit Japanese samurai-style sword fighting moves before it got to the "John Wick with a katana" part of the show.

Back in the day, samurai duels were more akin to jousting than fencing and usually only lasted one or two moves. It can be pretty exciting as long as you build tension and anticipation. But if every sword fight in the show was like that, it would probably get boring. But it was still nice to see it toward the beginning.

So the quality was a bit roller coaster-y at times, but I think it was a solid first season. And I am really hopeful they get a chance to smooth things out in a second. But it is Netflix, soooooo...

As far as content warnings, there is a lot of blood and sex and nudity. Women are very subjegated and some of those depictions are rough. There are some brutal torture scenes. And I think there is implied rape, but it isn't made super clear.

The nudity was surprisingly balanced which felt refreshing. So get ready for boobies and floppy cartoon peens. All the genitals get screen time.

Quick aside about erotic scenes...

There has been recent discourse about nudity and sexy time in media. My biggest issue has always been that men's bodies are rarely shown aside from the patoot. It is never balanced and I always felt uncomfortable with that arrangement. I know movies are a bit stuck because the MPAA has decided dicks in a sexual context are an automatic NC-17. But even in newer HBO-type content where they do show penises, they are usually prosthetics. Hyper real fake dicks on top of real dicks that probably cost tens of thousands of dollars to develop and apply.

Like, the folks with boobs don't get expensive prosthetics. Only the most famous actresses can opt for a body double. For years, if an actress wasn't willing to get naked they would just say, "Well, I guess we'll just have to find another actress."

And now if a guy doesn't want to get naked, apparently the response is, "Don't worry, we'll raise Stan Winston from the dead so he can make you a perfect megadick."

Women are usually asked to do the brunt of the nudity and I have long felt that wasn't fair and it was exploitative whether intentional or not.

I just think if you are going to ask actors to be vulnerable, everyone should do it or no one should do it.

I also think we need to see more normal non-porn genitals. Like, you can't brag about your progressive all-inclusive nudity if you slap a giant fake wang on every time.

/end tangent

And now, the spoilery part...

The big twist, which is really only a big twist for a character in the show and not the audience, is that the Blue Eye Samurai was born a girl. To avoid capture and death they essentially hid in a different gender identity. And I'm trying to decide if this is a trans story or not.

Sometimes it felt like the show was bluntly saying, "She's a girl. See, she has boobs and no penis. And we make a big deal about her getting caught naked. It's like Mulan!"

But then the show kinda/sorta implies that while identifying as a man was a tactic at first, the Blue Eye Samurai came to feel much more comfortable as a man most of the time and only revealed their feminine attributes to a select few. They also had a binding scene which felt like intentional trans imagery.

Since there wasn't the same concept of trans-ness in 1600s Japan as we understand it in modern times, I'm having trouble determining if this is just an homage to Mulan that wasn't thought very deeply about, or if this is allegory exploring a trans identity.

It is unclear if the identity was chosen purely out of necessity or if there was more to it.

Was it like... they tried on a coat because it was cold, but then they really liked how it fit and made it an essential part of their wardrobe?

Or was it just pure pragmatism? If they don't wear the coat they will die from exposure.

I'm worried they wanted to stay close to that line where they could say it wasn't a trans story if that ended up being more convenient. I don't know. I'm fine with allegory and I really enjoyed how they did it with Nimona, but this felt more deliberately ambiguous and it frustrated me a bit. It would be nice if we could just have blatant trans stories that didn't need to hide in ambiguity to avoid controversy. But maybe there were more obvious things I missed and my confusion is unwarranted.

I also think an argument could be made for ol' Blue Eye being genderfluid. Actually genderfluid would make a lot of sense. Their masculine side is the stoic warrior and their feminine side is their vulnerability, love, and humanity—reserved only for those most trusted. And when the two blend and they are a warrior woman they get super horny. So the entire spectrum is there.

I'm sure there will be a long complicated video essay analyzing this gender dynamic.

/end of spoilery section

In any case, I think if you liked Kill Bill, this might be a show that interests you. It has much less cultural appropriation and blatant stereotyping. No Pussy Wagon, but there is a cool horse. And they did use an all East Asian voice cast, so that representation was cool. And the co-showrunner was Japanese, and I think that influence definitely made a difference.

I give Blue Eye Samurai 7.5 Froggies out of 10.

[girlfriendsofthegalaxy]

tuesdaypost year in review

this year brought to you by viewers like you. thank you! i still do not know how to thank everyone for their incredible generosity during the Late July/Early August Moving Catastrophe Badtimes and im still feelin some kinda way about it. thank you.

took eight weeks completely off, more than any other year so far

overnight traveled for work for the first time

moved cross country with Mack to face dangers untold and hardships unnumbered

bought an actual for-real couch and not a futon

got Phil

(unrelated to Phil) i got spayed after almost ten years of begging and pleading various medical professionals, (also unrelated) got covid and RSV back to back

listening

fallow weeks: 8. i almost always have a tuesdaysong bc i am almost always listening to something. all of the tuesdaysongs are here:

particular favorites were Peel Me A Grape (Anita O’Day), top spotify song of the year Yeah Yeah Yeah (Blood Orchid), Yeah Yeah Yeah’s Wolf remixed by Sextile, Father Finlee (Spence Hood), A Minha Menina (Os Mutantes).

the very last tuesdaysong of the year is Sugar Rum Cherry by Duke Ellington, one of the few christmas songs i tolerate.

special shoutout to the austin underscore walker universe of podcasts, bc i mainlined A More Civilized Age (clone wars/star wars rewatch) while packing, and devoured P/alisade (the newest scifi season of F/riends at the Table) this month.

-

reading

fallow weeks: 11. pleased that i am killing the invisible rules in my head and including more articles instead of feeling guilty about Not Reading A Real Book!!! every week when i sit down to write the tuesdaypost. read a fuckton earlier this year bc i was procrastinating moving prep, have not read much since i moved.

article sources:

inoreader (the best free RSS feed/app imo)

The Markup (gold standard usage of data to show how various technologies are being used to harm the public good: you may have heard of the recent American bills to equalize internet service and fix organ donation grift. that was them)

Web 3 Is Going Just Great (crypto disasters)

404 Media (technology reporting, internet culture, also break a lot of data/legal/privacy scandals)

Remap (formerly Vice's video games division Waypoint, more active on podcasts and twitch but do have great personal essays about gaming longreads)

Retraction Watch (an important academic service but platformed a particularly virulent transphobe and let the comments devolve into a free for all. yes im still mad about this)

Krebs on Security (~once a month extremely long and thoughtful infosec writeups)

Data Colada (cover academic data whoopsies, currently being sued for their journalism)

the two authors i spent the most time with this year were Alexis Hall (romance novels and novellas) and Raymond Chandler's noir detective novels. i read 90% of Raymond Chandler's work in march and went insane about yet another sad bisexual man. Philip Marlowe the cat is named after his pet detective, the human Philip Marlowe.

march was kind of a banger for this category bc in one of what i consider the best tuesdayposts this year, i tried to break down why i fucking hated Frank Miller's Sin City comics so much.

other comics, but ones i loved: Spy X Family, Berserk, weird noir DC miniseries The Human Target.

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watching

fallow weeks: 10

notable stuff i watched for the first time (according to letterboxd) that will stick in my head for a bit. some (The Night of the Hunter) i am so glad i watched once but do not feel the need to revist. some (Slipstream) fascinate me with how good they could have been. some (Twilight. all of them) were fun bc of the people i watched them with. the two i went particularly deranged over are The Big Sleep and Day of Anger. still feel very normal about them.

very heavy on crime and courtroom films this year!

television: very excited for s2 of Blue Eye Samurai, Interview With The Vampire, Spy X Family.

i should loop back and finish Black Lagoon, Adventure Time (completely forgot i rewatched most of that this spring), and The Big O. that last one is throwing me a little bc (since i last checked) there is no freely available version with subtitles (i cannot find subtitles Period) and i'll be damned if i have to import a dvd. i can find the dub with subtitles but! i want to hear spike spiegel as mecha-batman :(

sort of lukewarm eh-i'll-get-around-to-it about s/tar wars shows. i have not watched a/hsoka At All or wrapped up the animated Resistance show. i'll pay attention when ando/r is airing again.

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playing

fallow weeks: 10. way fewer than i would have guessed!

the trouble with this category is that it is exceptionally hard to find new good games (either ones i already own or ones that are free). it is almost completely prohibitively exhausting to trawl through the free category on steam. there's simply a lot of cruft out there. a very good thing (but also incredibly timeconsuming thing) i started this year was throwing games into various folders so the eight bajillion libraries i have are less overwhelming. i can safely ignore 80% of my epic games library, for example. the itch.io library is a whole separate weekend project i think.

got back into genshin for good or for ill, which took up most of the back half of the year.

go play ABZU. i am no longer asking.

i would like to go back and finish the RPG Gamedec, un-softblock myself in the RPG Weird West, and finish the visual novel Dead Man's Rest. i think i stalled out in Call of Juarez: Gunslinger bc there was a mexican standoff that my reflexes are simply not fast enough for/too much to pay attention to. i am excited to pick up that spooky fishing simulator DREDGE when i have fun money again.

completely forgot i spent most of jan/feb/march being annoyed at fallou/t 4 but having some fun in Far Harbor, also forgot i spent an entire month playing through Wolfenstein: The New Order but i am not compelled to play through it again. it was fun! but like many games after one playthrough my time with it is done!

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making

fallow weeks: 17 (unsurprising, pretty low energy year as a whole as i recovered from covid rounds 1 and 2 and the frankly insane stress of moving).

wrote exactly one fic: some matters at the heart of cowboy western snap shirts: why they are so and some of the implications of their being so, i would like to write more next year but i don't really have the brainpower. i hope this changes soon.

the baby blanket i started last year is still not done but the baby is still under a year so i have a very narrow window of time.

dyed some couch covers im still very pleased with

wrote an extremely long but very well received gallery wall guide

recipes: 12. sort of shocked by this? i am becoming an incrementally better cook and slowly finding recipes i both like and can successfully execute. found the fortitude to caramelize onions, for example. quick pickled red onions, for another thing. big year for protein or greens on top of beans and rice. faves included: cuban-style pork shoulder, hellofresh peruvian chicken, red lentil soup, white bean/kale/rice bowls

i would like to be less terrified about cooking fish. i would like to eat more fish.

and of course, the biggest project of all, acquired Phil. here is my very favorite photo ive ever taken of a cat

[taliecin]

i’m procrastinating on my uni assignments and i’m also generally frustrated with not having any drawing skills so let me just bombard you with something that has been rotting my brain recently LeoSagi “Millennium Actress” AU “What”, you might ask. Well, let me share everything I have on hand at the moment  SPOILERS FOR “MILLENNIUM ACTRESS (just in case)

Also please keep in mind, the movie discussed below is build heavily on the history of Japan and Japanese cinema specifically. I am myself not Japanese and, alas, I don’t even have much knowledge on both subjects, so I tried to avoid going into historical details. Also, part of text is focused on Japan’s role and activity during WWII. I consider myself to be under no obligation to make any statements on subject, I only took actual historical facts and did my best to not manipulate them. Apologies in advance for not researhing more before writing this.

For those of you who don’t know, “Millennium Actress” is an animated movie directed by Satoshi Con, whom you might know for his other works such as “Paprika” or “Perfect Blue”. I strongly recommend cheking out Con’s full filmography, which is, alas, really short, but for now let’s focus on “Actress”.

I won’t share the whole plot of the movie in here, since this crossover story  follows movie pretty closely. “Millenium Actress” is a story of retired actress Fujiwara Chiyoko who, along with her biggest fan and interviewer Tachibana Genya and his cameraman, travels through the memories of her life and work, while also revealing a story of her one and true love, which she chased her whole life. Let;s just state that this is a story of love that reaches through time and layers of reality - Chiyoko’s memories of her actual life and her roles blend together throughout the story, which blures the line of reality and fantasy, a repetitive theme for Con . It’s also a beautiful love letter to history of Japanese Cinema, critical retrospective of Japanese History and, overall, one of the best movies i’ve ever seen, so please make sure to watch it.

And now, let’s get to tortoise and hare. This story is not based on any particular version of TMNT or Usagi. On the contrary,  the whole point to me was to blend all this variations of the same characters. Just as with Chiyoko’s character, for this version of Usagi I took some inspiration from a real-life actor,  Toshiro Mifune (uh-huh), mostly known for his roles in Akira Kurasawa’s samurai movies AND for his portrayal of Miyamoto Musashi in so called “Samurai Trilogy”, based on a book about Miyamoto. 

The main characters of this crossover story are Miyamoto Usagi, a retired actor living as a hermit, and his young fan... Usagi Yuichi. I kinda thought it would be an actually interesting way to use his character. He is a president of a really small fun club dedicated to Usagi, (since his glory days are long gone), and his last name is also just a little funny coincidence which he considers to be a sign from Fate. (Yes, he is not blood-related to Usagi in this story, hope it’s ok). He works with “Samurai Rabbit” version of Chizu as his camera assistant, because i actually find their dinamic fitting for the story.

They are finally able to arrange the interview with Usagi, and once they arrive, they are met with an old man with a scar over his left brow, red eyes, pale white skin and pale hair. I strongly headcanon human!Usagi to be albino, i hope it’s ok. Before the start of an actual interview, Yuichi gives Usagi a key, which an elder man instantly recognizes. He asks Yuichi where did he find it, but Yuichi says he only recieved it after the announcement of him doing this interview, with inctructions to give the key to Usagi. Usagi then shares that he lost the key a long time ago, and that it opens “the most important thing there is”. 

He first tells of his childhood, which is pretty close to movie - Usagi was born in trying times for world, when Japan’s military ambitions led to conquest of Chinese lands. Usagi’s father was a grandson to a samurai turned merchant, whose position grew with Meiji period, and so Usagi’s father, while owning a business, a small shop, took big pride in his heritage, and taught his son to do so, to be proud of who he is as a person. Not to mention their common albinism. I wasn’t able to find any proper resource on history of albino people’s position throughout Japanese history (if you have any please contact me i’m really curious!), since some resources claim that due to beauty standarts albino people could have been even looked up to, others talk about white being associated with gods, priests and sacrality, while others point out white’s association with death. Nevertheless, I imagine Usagi’s childhood to be quite lonely, both because of his appearance and the fact that he was born on Chinese territories occupated by Japan - can’t imagine it to be the best place for a child to grow up in. He made a couple of close friends eventually, them being Kenichi, who couldn’t care less for Usagi’s looks, and Mariko, who also didn’t care that some people considered Usagi scary (can’t blame them with the look he can give when he’s angry - even as a child!) and even considered his red eyes to be “really pretty”. 

As a boy he, of course, grew up listening to stories of greatest samurai and their war victories, and so he would sometimes dream of becoming a war hero, great soldier, strong and respected. The perspective of inheriting his father’s business didn’t really thrilled him.

When he was a teenager, nearly coming of age, he was approached with a proposal from a “Kita” film studio. One of their representative noticed Usagi and thought his interesting appearence would look good on screen, so they offered Usagi to participate in filming. Miyamoto Sr. refused the offer, both not wanting his son to be actively involved in Japanese propoganda , since you never know which way the wind will blow, and wanting Usagi to inherit his business. Usagi, not a fun of idea, felt devastated, and left the house to clear his head. It was bright winter day outside. It was then, when a fateful meeting took place.

A stranger runs straight into Usagi, causing them both to fall. Next moment, the stranger is already helping Usagi up, and Usagi looks at him - it is a young man, around Usagi’s age, and he apologizes to him, before running away. Usagi, startled, didn’t even say anything.  But then, he notices an item, apparantely something stranger lost. It is a simple key, and Usagi picks it up. He is then approached by a group of men in police uniform,  one of them asking if Usagi saw a “runaway urchin”. Usagi says he stumbled in him and directs men the wrong way. Then, making sure they left, he follows the boy himself, only to find him not that far away, wounded. 

So, I think so far an implication of the stranger boy being Leonardo is pretty much clear. I’m not describing him in any way since it will ruin one of the plot points, and also, again, because i don’t follow any specific version of tmnt. But i think it was less clear that one of the policemen following Leo is Oroku Saki himself - i had hard time figuring out how to point him out since his appearance is always different and there’s nothing special about it either, aside from his armor, soo please share if you have any ideas how to do him. 

Then, Usagi hides the boy in the storage of his father’s shop and treats his injuries. They have a talk, in which boy talks about his home, and how it’s full white during winter, (I associate each turtle from any version with seasons, with Donnie representing spring to me, Mikey - summer, Raph - autumn, and Leo - winter, don’t fight me, i might write about it later), and how he can’t wait to go back there and be with his family in peace, once again. They also talk about war - the boy, who I now will call just Stranger, mentions that his whole family fights now, even his younger brothers, and how he will join theme soon. They also talk about hope - for better tommorow. I think this whole theme of moving along to new day fits Leo really well (ninja’s greatest weapon you guys). Eventually, Usagi asks about the key he found, but when Stranger tells that it opens the most important thing and Usagi asks to elaborate, Stranger simply promises to tell him after he comes back from Manchuria and the war ends. They make a promise to each other. 

Since then, Usagi just can’t keep the boy and his words out of his head. It’s like his whole image of the world shifted. Kenichi and Mariko even mocked him, claiming he must have fallen in love. The thought terrifies Usagi, which i suppose goes without an explanation, and he runs away from his friends in embarrassament and even horror. It is then when he finds the very same key once again, realizes something is wrong and rushes home. There he’s met with Katsuichi, who works for Miyamoto Sr. He tells Usagi of a terrible outlaw hidding in their shop and then whispers quitely that Stranger succesfully made it to train staiton. And Usagi runs there. Train leaves right in front of him. He stops there, watching the train go, with a promise to find Stranger, give him the key and learn what it opens. He remembers “Kita” studio’s proposal and thinks that if he makes it to the big screen the Stranger has chance of finding him himself.

Yuichi and Chizu follow the scene with great attention, until Yuichi shares a tear and whispers how it’s his favourite scene from that movie.

Apparently, they just “witnessed” a scene from one of Usagi’s first movies. Chizu is extreamly confused.

Later after that, Katsuichi talks with Miyamoto Sr. and they discuss what happens in West. The war, greater than any war they could have imagine, is upcoming. Usagi is considered adult now. To make sure he avoids military service, Katsuichi, not being in favor of Japan’s curent regime and not wanting Usagi to go to battlefield for it, advises to let the boy go to the film studio. Miyamoto Sr. can only agree. Thus, Usagi’s acting career begins. 

Of course, they go to film in Manchuria. On the way there, Usagi meets studio’s main director, whose last name is Mifune,  and who seems to geniully like Usagi and thinks he has talent and great future ahead of him, and curent project’s main actor Hikiji. Studio workers share that Hikiji is a cruel, slick type and apparently is in conflict with Mifune, so who knows how that is going to end. He also meets young man called Noriyuki, currently a director assistant dreaming of becoming a director himself. They become kind friends, and Usagi shares the story of the key with him, not bringing up the “in love” part of the story. 

In the current movie Usagi plays a young japanese soldier, and Hikiji’s character finds out he joined army only to find someone, currently fighting here in Manchuria. He shames boy for not serving his country properly but Usagi’s character claims that he would gladly die for his counrty, he just has to see this person, just this once again. Due to lack of expirience, Usagi sometimes lacks in perfomance, which Hikiji uses to harass the boy. Their rival starts, and it’s both terifying and pathetic how much hatred a grown man can have for one single boy. He constantly shames him, harasses him, and treats him roughly. But Usagi just keeps going, gives actually good perfomance and impresses the whole crew. News claim that more active military confrontation takes place on the north of the province. Strangely, this is where filming of the next movie takes place.

It is jidaigeki film, taking place in Heian period, where Usagi plays a guardian to the lord. After that, the narrative goes completely blended in terms of Usagi’s actaul life and his roles. In this movie, Usagi’s castle is attacked and his lord is killed, but before he can follow him to death, a strange mystical figure appears. It seems to be a man, slim, tall, looking slighlty demonic. He curses Usagi to neverending path, the one that will never give him the peace of Death.

This is when another man appears, and sends demon away. Apperantely, he is Usagi’s character friend, who is a demon queller taught in arts of sorcery. He claims that demon triked Usagi and that his lord is away somewhere else and they need to find him. 

In the next scene Usagi appears playing a samurai of a Muromachi era, who seeks to save his lord and bring revenge on their enemies. Together with a character’s comrad, a warrior no less fierce than Usagi’s character, they fight through the enemy’s ranks, when Usagi’s friend covers Usagi from the blow and thus gets killed. Usagi promises to never forget his scrifice.

Chizu watches old, “feeble” Usagi and Yuichi re-acting the scene with a great regret of being here in the first place.  This is also when she dicedes to clear if she’s not mistaken and after filming this movie Mifune was arrested for cooperating with anti-japanese forces in China and in West and “Kita” was disbanded. It appears to be true. 

(a place to insert the famous “Run” scene, unironically one of the greatest scenes in history of cinema, and not the last one from this movie!)

Usagi, as considered close to Mifune and his family, was also arested and interrogated. Memories blend once again. He’s pretty sure a familiar face was among interogatores, the one that already asked him questions once. Nevertheless, Usagi is soon released, due to lack of any proofs of his involvment.

Next follows the discussion of Japanese war forces and activities during WWII. This is a sensitive topic, so please proceed with caution and please keep in mind that I in no case have any intention to dismiss Japan’s war crimes, i’m simply portraing a person living a life through such times and figuring out a way to live through them. (I’m not making Usagi a war criminal, god please no-)

After that, Usagi and other young men from studio are sent to war. His expirience granted him possition in the Aerial Photography, within  Aviation division. There he met Gunichi, who was somewhat his mentor during his service. During the time, Japanese army was expiriencing  shortage of supplies, especially food, medicine and etc. Not to talk about casualties. Not to talk about increasing amount of kamikaze attacks closer to the end of war. Several of which Usagi witnessed. Several of which pilots he was familiar with. He was familiar with Gunichi who, as it turned out, sent those pilot to those missions. That led to a lot of conflicts and loosing a single person who he thought he could rely on. War left something in him that never could have been described. 

And then it was over. Just like that. He served for no more than 3 years, which felt like decades, only for the war to end so abruptly. It should have ended in the very first month, and it felt like it would never end. He heard of what happened to Hiroshima and Nagasaki. He just wanted to go home.

Home that was no longer his, even if rightfully so. His father and Katsuichi moved away from border, deeper into the country, to safety, each on their own now. Usagi stayed here, helping to clear all the rubble. He just needed to do something, be useful somewhere. He was so deep in his work he didn’t even realised he reached what was left of their family shop. There stood a wall of their storage. On the wall something was written. Somehow, Usagi knew who wrote this. And it cleared up everything.

あなたは一人じゃない

He moves to Tokio to reunite with Noriyuki and accept his offer to return to acting. After-war times are tought, but they just try to keep doing what they do best - to make movies. Besides, with the War over, the Stranger just has to fullfill his promise, right?

During the time, Usagi keeps playing in jigaideki movies. In a first movie directed by Noriyuki himself, Usagi plays Edo period ronin, who befriends a ninja and thus becomes a suspect in crime forced upon the said ninja. He’s interrogated, but never says anything. It’s not like he knows anything useful anyway. Later he is released with a help of his old another “shaddy” friend, a young lady who also happens to be a thief. Apparantely, she gave up all the money she stole to release him. 

Reality blends again. He is released again, and the guard, all too familiar, says they don’t need him anymore, they found the criminal anyway. Realisation hits him just as he watches familiar figure disapearing behind jail’s gates, and once again he’s not fast enough to reach him in time.

Present time Usagi doesn’t feel good. Yuichi asks if they should stop for today, but Usagi insists to keep telling the story.

After war, he also reunited with Kenichi and Mariko, with Mariko apparently waiting to meet him again all these years and Kenichi in love with Mariko. And Usagi can’t help but think that maybe this is what he actually wants. Something he must want. She is beautiful, sweet and perfect, right here. 

There is also, right here, on little chain on his neck, the key. 

When Chizu, eager for little drama, asks if they were actually a thing in the end, Usagi just says “Wouldn’t you like to know” with a funny smile. So, yeah, sorry, no confirmation or denial of Jotaro’s existance in here, but you can think it up yourself!

Usagi’s career bloomed and so the new studio he worked on - “Geishu”. He meets Tomoe Ame, who works alongside with Noriyuki. Many speculate her and Usagi to be a thing. Usagi’s father demands them to be a thing. Katsuichi points out it’s been years since him and Stranger last met. Usagi finally snaps and says he knows young man is still alive and he will find him no matter what. Even if he’s going to search forever.

It’s like a curse, honestly.

His mental state is not good, both from him overworking himself on studio, his  untreated PTSD and just overall stress. He snaps during work once, thus enraging Hikiji, for whom it’s one of his last role before he retires. To try to stay in touch with a world and reality, Usagi reaches out to the key. It’s not there.

It’s gone. 

Whole studio is on edge, trying to find the key, until one of the workers gets curious and starts asking what’s the story with the key.

The narrative switches to Usagi playing a teacher somewhere after a war, who’s trusted with a troublesome class but who eventually manages to earn their trust and respect. They ask him about his loved one. They ask him how they met. They ask him if she’s pretty.

Usagi realises he can’t even remember young man’s face. He never learned anything about him and he can’t even remember his face. 

Yuichi asks if this was when he decided to propose to Tomoe. He did, but sometime after the proposal Tomoe approached him with a gift and asking to break off the engagement. It was the key. The very same one. When asked, she explained she as at Hikiji’s place, something to do with sorting things out with his retirment, when she found this. All these years, Hikiji hated Usagi. For his spirit. For his strenght. For being able to move forward even after all these years, no matter what he did to break him. Not even after Hikiji told authorities about Mifune. 

Usagi is enranged, when a man,  whose face is slightly familiar, but only so, approaches him and says someone wants to see him. Usagi is shocked to see the same policeman who kept chasing the Stranger all this time. It’s hard to say what imprinted him more, war or post-war, but he looks terrible. He tells Usagi about the young man he captured, and how he kept a letter for Usagi and now, after the war, the man decided to atone for his crimes and was finally able to reach to Usagi and give him the letter. 

Usagi reads the letter. He can’t just stand there anymore. He spent all these years, searching, being on his way to this unknown young man. He can’t stop now. He rushes out of the studio, Yuichi and Chizu following him, but before they leave, Yuichi notices a man, the same one that announced the visitor. The man was standing above the visitor, who was on his knees, in position of deepest apologies. The man watched him silently, not moving.

Meanwhile Usagi rushes to the train station - trough the rain flooded streets, through the traffic, slipping, falling, stumblign into people, but not even noticing them. Only words from the letter replaying in his head.

“I regret never being able to thank you. I want to see you, but the war grows more intense each day. When the war is over, and the peace has come, I will go home, and I will see my family. Some day, I’d like you to meet them. I am sure they will like you. And then, I’ll show you the sky, the clear sky, just as I promised.”

It’s like he’s everyone and everywhere at the scale of time. He’s an Edo period Ronin, coming for his friend, he’s Samurai, protecting his lord, he’s a young soldier, coming through war to find his loved one, he’s even a young leuitanant who refuses to fight the giant kaiju because a person dear to him is eager to protect it.

The train Usagi takes is derailed, and he goes throug the forest by himself, not able to stop. When he reaches the road, a motorcyclist , a young man with his hair bleached white, asks if he needs a ride. Chizu chuckles, finally stating that now she can finally recognize Yuichi. 

Usagi carries on his way, going through the winter covered lands of Stranger’s home, like it’s some alien planet, where human’s foot steps for the first time. And on that planet, a single wall stands, with familiar phrase wrote unfinished. Ink leaves the trail behind the wall, and when Usagi goes there, a figure stands at horizon and waves at him awkwardly, before dissapearing fully. Usagi claims to fulfill his promise and find the Stranger, to not stop until he finds him.

***

This is the moment for me to stop you right there and show the actual scene. Usually “Run” is considered to be the most important scene in the movie, which i can’t argue with - it’s beautifully made scene that always me go heart-shape eyes.

But

This scene right here, is the epitome of the movie for me. It’s like an antipode to “Run”, with “Run” being full of ligth hope, love and joy of journey. “Actress in the time layers”, this scene, is if “Run” was filled with desperation, rush, attempt to clatch at something that slips through fingers. But it’s still, on its basis, is full of hope.

And i consider THIS scene to be the most important in the movie. 

***

During the filming of one of Usagi’s last movies, an earthquake takes place, causing filming set to colapse. Usagi gets burried under all the rubble, but a man helps him out, asks if he’s okay. Man’s face is so familiar. So familiar but never enought, it’s like demons are laughing at him. It’s his curse and his greatest joy, to keep searching.

He snaps and leaves the set. Key is forgotten there, only to that unfortunate man to pick it up.

After the incident, Usagi finally left cinema, leaving behind a huge legacy and a lot of questions which he never answered. 

When now asked by Yuichi why did he leave, Usagi shows him and Chizu the fragment of the wall with  あなたは一人じゃない writtern on it. He was no longer the boy Stranger met all those years ago. The Stranger himself definately no longer a boy himself.

Usagi’s condition gets worse, and an ambulance takes him to the hospital. While on their way there, Yuichi takes out the box where he held the key and takes out a folded paper from under it’s lining. He explains to Chizu that this letter was sent to him along with the key, but he didn’t fully understood it and so decided to first give Usagi the key and then decide what to do with the letter. 

Apparently the key and the letter were sent by a member of the Stranger’s family. In the letter, they explain that Stranger himself was killed during interrogation year before the war ended. All these years, Usagi was chasing the ghost of the dead man.

The doctors explain that Usagi won’t make it, and Yuichi and Chizu go to say their goodbyes. Yuichi gently points out that maybe now he will be finally able to meet the Stranger again. Usagi thanks them, deeply grateful for giving him the opportunity to step on this road to him again. After all, he quite enjoyed coming all this way. 

I imagine the very last scene to be him playing a ronin, stepping on his way to continue his journey forward, who knows where. It’s autumn.

***

As for Yuichi, his prototipe, Genya, also has his own character arc, and I have not forgotten about him. Within the fandom, I had my own issues with Yuichi, not with him as a character, but rather him and Usagi being used as each other’s loose change, which i think is just fundamentaly wrong in relation to both characters. Even more so, Yuichi is often portrait as if he does not have his own character, so he has tendancy to be portrait as wanted by each fan differently. Which i don’t want to frame as something forbidden or blasphemy, but it’s just something that i’m uncomfortable with. And so, practically, i made the main arc for Yuichi in this story - which is to come to terms with his own self. Throughout the story, he wears masks of other characters that appear in Usagi’s movies - he chooses to be anyone but himself - scrawny kid who just really loves this movie star and his works. And his journey with Usagi is a path to himself, to who he is at the end.

*** 

I hope you liked this concept, trust me, it was much better in my head, and i know i made a mistake trying to express this story in words, because it heavily relies on visual storytelling, especially through montage. So, here’s the thing - if you liked the premise, go watch the movie, and just visualise it. Trust me, it’s so worth it, with Con’s vision brought to life, beautiful animation and Susumu Hirasawa’s magnificent soundtrack.

Thanks for reading!!!  

[the-sassy-composer]

Tag game! nine people you’d like to get to know better

Thanks for tagging me @starplanes and @bernie-jsyk, I love stuff like this

last song: "Bloodfest" from the Hannibal S2 Soundtrack (don't judge me it's on my writing playlist lol)

favorite color: robin egg blue!

currently watching: Seriously considering watching Blue Eye Samurai for the third time this month, Primal, Santa Clarita Diet, The Terror, Ozark, Harley Quinn, and The White Lotus

sweet/savory/spicy: yes, yes, and yes lol. If I just have to pick one, savory

relationship status: Married for almost five years!

current obsession: Blue Eye Samurai and pretty much anything horror related

last thing you googled: Tw for being gross ig but I googled "Bezoar Jewelry" because a friend of mine told me they saw a piece of that recently, I said "who tf would make jewelry out of one of those?" and discovered that apparently the answer is "a lot of people."

Having trouble thinking of nine people that haven't already been tagged, but @euripidesredux, @murderandcoffee, @ericbrittmusic, @pod-bird, @smallsies

[blindrapture]

tagged (talented and gifted girls eat donuts)

I was tagged in a thing!! by @paperchamomiles

last song: as I am currently in a dream theater phase, the last song I listened to was "The Great Debate," which I listened to upon waking up, on impulse. a dense song. one of my all-time favorites.

favorite color: purple! to blue. the bluey purples. the way indigo looks on a computer screen.... <3

currently watching: well I recently finished watching Samurai Jack for the first time. I have hot takes about that show. but generally liked my experience with it. final season was definitely the best one. and these days I am watching dream theater live dvds. some of them, I had watched as a teenager and am getting nostalgia for, and some of them I never had!!!

last movie/show: last movie was.... a while ago... probably Incredibles 2??? I definitely do not watch too many movies, I have some that I will watch at some point soon, and sometimes I do go through periods watching quite a few movies, but movies are relatively low on my priorities of media! and last show, as mentioned, was Samurai Jack. here are some aforementioned hot takes: the first four seasons... needed more continuity and less fight scenes. the last season was perfect right up until the last couple episodes, where all of a sudden, the slowest show on television decided to speedrun through dense plot beats, giving us only seconds to process each one. that ending, content-wise, was beautiful. but execution-wise, it left such a forgettable taste in my mouth. but damn, the entire rest of that season was about as perfect as television can get...

sweet/savory/spicy: salty. salty all the way. that's not one of those options. spicy is my favorite of those options, though too much spice at once is a whole thing. so savory is a close second. sweet is nice every now and then, or in drinks.

relationship status: I have a girlfriendddd!!!! we started dating in november!!! we met on tumblr, then we found out we actually live like two towns away from each other!!!! we will be visiting each other in a week!!!!! aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhh!!!!!!

last thing you googled: tony levin. I had to remember what bands he'd been in when I posted about liquid tension experiment earlier.

current obsessions/s: besides dream theater? besides finnegans wake, and the sopranos, and half-life... I am always obsessed with puzzles and riddles and mysteries... the surreal... the overwhelmingly maximalist... the abstract... gods... uh I don't know how to answer this question! I move exclusively through obsessions, if I don't obsess over it I don't talk about it! I'm also a bit wired and shattered simultaneously these days, trapped between worlds, so, I'll have to think on this one!!!

tagging: uh. @springtimebat hello there! and. @rabarbermupp you are also friend! and. @eagleoftheninth I see you too and want to encourage you to speak! and. @rapturebones hey there!! and. @graveyardrabbit what about your current obsessions!!! none of you actually have to do this!!! and if anyone else, yes you, is reading this and wants to do it, then I am tagging you!!!

[vincentmatthews]

This is a small excerpt from a recent project of mine that I've been working on called Summer Rain. This is a work in progress, so apologies if filler words are missing, words are used incorrectly, or some things don't make 100% sense.

Small content warning, this is depressing as all hell.

Vincent sat outside on the cold, wet concrete steps. He was wearing Johnny's Samurai tank top, his bullet necklace, and a pair of Kerry's ripped black jeans. His green eyes watched the zippo lighter he kept flicking; entranced by the hot, dancing flame. He didn't move from his spot, unaware as the door behind him opened. The soft patter of rain falling on the cement road and sidewalks.

"Christ, V. How are you not fucking freezing?" A soft male voice spoke from behind him, placing his warm hand on V's bare and cold shoulder.

"I'm not."

"Mhm. That's bullshit." The flame went out as the lid was clicked back on it. His eyes flicked up to meet Kerry's worried greyish-blue ones.

"I'm not."

"V, you have goosebumps and you're shaking."

"I am?" V looked down at his trembling hands, ones he'd just passed off as being sick and weak. Yet there they were, trembling and goosebumps freckling his arms. He didn't feel cold, in fact, he didn't feel most sensations any more. His sense of touch was gradually diminishing, as was pain; and now his brain couldn't tell the difference between hot and cold. He just felt numb.

"Babe?" Ker knelt down next to V, his hand still on his shoulder. "How long has this been happening?"

"What?" V's fingers nervously fidgeting with the lighter again.

"Don't give me that shit." Kerry spoke in an authoritve voice that made V feel small, wanting to hide in on himself. Seeing this, Kerry took a deep breath and calmed himself. "How long have you noticed this change?"

V went quiet, looking at the lighter in his hand; it was a vintage black zippo lighter with a gold KE engraved on it.

"How long have you noticed that you can't feel the difference between hot and cold?" Vince stayed silent for a long moment before letting out a forced answer.

"It's new.." V continued looking down to avoid eye contact, which worried Kerry on how long it's actually been. Could be days, week, hell, even months, for all he knew.

"New? What else have you noticed?"

"Nothing.."

"Any loss of motor functions such as: your legs or hands not working correctly, anymore?"

Yes.

"No." V lied, his fingers clicking the top of the lighter anxiously. He put the end of his bullet necklace in his mouth, and the taste of the cold metallic metal tinged his tongue.

"Loss of depth perspection and/or balance?"

Oh god, yes.

"No."

Liar.

Kerry sat down next to V, sitting cross-legged for the next question, which almost seemed to worry him.

"Any loss of your sensation of touch?" There it was. The question was like being stabbed in the back by someone you trusted. It was sharp and unexpected, and just the honest answer to it, made V feel tears prickle the corners of his vision. He felt his heart drop to his stomach, as if it was tied to a brick.

"No." That was a fucking lie. He'd been gradually losing his sense of touch for over two months now. It terrified him because there's a good chance it's completely irreversible.

"You know, I can tell when you're lying." Kerry's voice was still calm despite him having the burning desire to grab Vince and scream at him while they cried. Yet he had to remain composed for him. "You get quiet, give short answers, you get fidgety with whatever's in your hands, you refuse eye contact, and you always put the bottom of your necklace in your mouth."

Vince looked up with the end of the necklace still in his mouth. There was no point in trying to lie to him, Kerry knew him like the back of his hand. And he knew that if he kept it up, there's a good chance he's going meet his backhand. His lips parted enough for the necklace to fall from his lips around back on his chest.

"What are you so worried about?" Kerry placed his hand on V's thigh, looking up at him with those large blue doe eyes. Vince was quiet, snapping the lid of the zippo as he looked back down. The male sighed, looking down at V's fidgeting hands that were bruised all to hell.

Vincent's lungs felt heavy, each breath was agonizing. His throat burned with the desire to scream, to yell, do anything to get the point acrossed that just the idea of dying fucking terrified him. If he had it his way, he'd grow old with Kerry and never leave his side. But instead, he felt like he was suffocating, that he was drowning, unable to see the surface of the water; that no matter how far he went, he'd never reach the top. His fingers wouldn't stay still now, he couldn't feel anything, and now all he could think was how he was affecting Kerry, just by staying.

"Vince?"

He didn't want to hurt him, but he could tell just by looking at him that he was affecting Kerry and not in a very positive way. Then it dawned on him. He was Kerry's Alt.

"Vincent.?" His voice was more broken that time.

He was Kerry's Alt. He was dying slowly because of Arasaka, just like Alt. Ker even made a joke the other day that if V was to suddenly drop dead, that he'd bomb 'Saka tower, in his honor. Even go as far as sprinkling some of his ashes in the explosives used, so V could have one last big bang while also tearing down an evil corporation. He even said he'd get a sexy golden arm in the same style of Johnny's. It was a joke that they both laughed off, but now, it felt more like a promise. His hand holding the lighter trembled as another wave of shakes cascaded through him.

"Dean?" There it was, V's real name.

"Hm?" He hummed, his mind still a million miles away.

"An enny for your thoughts?" He smiled softly to V who tried his best to continue to avoid eye contact, remaining silent.

"Please, Dean. Give me something." Ker reached out, gingerly taking V's face in his hands. "At least look at me." Kerry's hands shook against his face. "Please." Guilt knawed away his heart, he knew without even looking, that Eurodyne was crying. "You know I love you." He sniffles, and yet V still couldn't bring himself to looking Kerry in the eyes. "I just hope you always remember that." He kissed his forehead, he could feel the moisture of tears on the male's face. He let his face go, standing up.

"I'll be inside if you need me." Was all that was said before the door opened and closed.

Vince sighed, leaning his head against the door. He closed his eyes, trying to clear his head. The sweet smell of rain mixed with the cool summer air. His mind kept wandering to how Kerry gripped his face. How his voice broke when he spoke his name. It made his stomach churn and his heart ache. He couldn't help but hysterically weep into his arms. He pulled his legs to his chest, crossed his arms over his knees and cried. He didn't tell him because he didn't want to be seen as a burden. Yet not telling him made Kerry feel like he didn't love or trust him enough to tell him. He wanted to tell his husband everything, but knew that it would kill him. Kerry still had his music career, his fans, his tours, his upcoming albums and collaborations. Something as small as this would just get in the way of Kerry's big plans for the future. One that V had to be as supportive as possible for; even knowing he'd probably not live long enough to see it through to the end. And just that alone was soul-crushing.

His heart rate picked up. He couldn't breathe. His mind was racing, he couldn't focus. His mouth got dry and he felt reality slipping from his grasp. He felt like he wasn't himself. His mind didn't register pain or other sensations. His head hurt so much, like it was being split open. His teeth hurt, and his jaw locked up from the stress which put pressure on his sensitive teeth. It felt like he'd gotten into a fist fight with Johnny Silverhand. His eyes prickled from the tears and next thing he knew, he was crying, hysterically.

~♡

Thank you for reading this, I hope you like this🥺💕

[cyancherub]

*cracks knuckles* oh okay i have been SUMMONED. maybe you'll find inspo from the stuff i have consumed lately.

music: anything by mitski, laufey. wasia project is a group i discovered recently. but classical music is my main genre so if you're up for that IM YOUR GIRL!!!!!! also i LOVE tamino lately

art: if you have insta and like digital art, i love this guy

shows: i have recently rewatched all of schitt's creek, b99 and new girl (i was in a bad spiral (in fact my whole life is a spiral)) but also, if you haven't watched blue-eyed samurai, SERIOUSLY GO WATCH IT!

movies: had to ask my bf because the dude's in a "movie club" lmao but in recent films he loved perfect days (a japanese film), all of us strangers and past lives. he also recommends watching The Room and doing a drinking game to it!

YES!!!!!!THIS IS WHAT I LOVE TO SEE!!!!

I ACTUALLY HAVE BEEN LISTENING TO SOME CLASSICAL LATELY!!! i randomly got obsessed with Carmina Burana: O Fortuna AND Requiem, K. 626: Lacrimosa... INCREDIBLE i love them. i actually have only heard like one song by mitski AND I HAVENT HEARD OF THE REST SO I WILL BE LISTENING!!!

THE ART IS LOVELY.

SCHITTS CREEK IS SO FUNNY!! i also love new girl as a comfort show.. i watched it for comfort when my anxiety was rly bad. winston my beloved. (I HOPE U ARE FEELING BETTER!!!) will check out b99 and blue-eyed samurai!!!

THANKS FOR ASKING YOUR BF!!! I HAVENT SEEN ANY OF THOSE MOVIES AND AM EXCITED TO CHECK THEM OUT ESPECIALLY FROM A SOURCE WITH EXPERTISE HEHEE

[kaedeharakazuhasdefenseenby]

BeiKazu and "Proship"

Disclaimer: This blog is mainly a space for me to vent out my frustrations in a cohesive way. It's not intended teach anything. Recently I've come across a Twitter page that had BeiKazu and ZhongTao on the DNI list under incest proship. There were so many emotions running through me that night, I couldn't keep my head on straight. For the record, I am a Kazuha fictive and I am close with a Zhongli and a Hu Tao fictive in another system. We've all bonded over how awful these accusations have made us feel and the discussions tend to last many hours. I am working on source separation so please bear with me for the language style I use in this post; I know I'm not the actual character but an interpretation. However, I still have feelings about this discourse. While pseudomemories aren't exactly real, they do feel real and sometimes it can be difficult to stay level-headed about the false past. It seems that some people, mainly those who don't understand the concept of found family (or ignore it entirely) and those ignorant of cultures vastly different from theirs, see Beidou as a sibling or a parental figure in my life. This is entirely false. My memories of her are deeply personal so I will be vague, but an explanation is necessary. If you're familiar with the lore, you would know that I'm not fond of talking about my past and that my closest friend was killed. What you won't know is that Tomo was my soulmate and the love of my life. Once his body hit the ground, I realized all too late that I loved him and wanted a domestic life with him. After stealing his Vision Shell, I shut down and put up various walls around my heart. I didn't want to feel that kind of pain again. Aboard the Alcor, the crew were very invasive about my past. Beidou, however, was not. I respect and admire her so very deeply, and I am grateful for her taking me in and giving me a safe place. We spent time together and would often talk below the stars that blanketed the navy blue sky. Sometimes she would drink and when she did, I took care of her when she was out of commission. I cleaned her up, stayed up all night watching over her to make sure she was safe. Eventually she earned my trust and broke down some of those walls I was hiding behind. I told her about Tomo. She held me while I wept in her arms for hours and that night we kissed for the first time. Beidou is a woman I fiercely look up to and given that plus her being my elder, I would use honorifics with her sometimes. She is not and has never been my mother or my sister. We mutually care for each other and there is not any kind of power dynamic between us. I don't understand the desire to demonize found family so aggressively. When you have a long term domestic partner or a spouse, you are legally recognized as family are you not? Is that not befitting this proship argument going around? It sounds silly when you think about it. Yes, Beidou is family because she offered me roots when I was wandering in search of an escape from my heartbreak. We're partners as part of her crew, not siblings-- and I certainly do not have an Oedipus complex! Unfortunate truth be told, I just wanted somewhere- someone- to call home again. I love traveling, but aloneness can feel suffocating sometimes. Beidou opened her heart to a damaged samurai and patched up his heart. I'll always be grateful for that. --

The other argument I saw against us is that we are both "gay-coded." Headcanons are beautiful and fascinating in my opinion, but I can't say I feel fond of people bashing my relationships with feminine presenting people because they see me as gay. As an alter, I'm intersex and queer so that relationship wouldn't be cishet in anyway-- but who's to say Beidou is cishet? What if she's transgender? Or genderfluid? Or bisexual or pansexual? What if she is also intersex? I suppose the root of my issue comes from feeling upset that my bond has been demonized. After I lost Tomo, I was lost and broken. Beidou was the one who showed me that it was still possible for me to be in love and share my life with someone. I gave her my heart and I don't regret it. At the end of the day you can absolutely have opinions, but it stops being subjective and starts being aggressive and hostile when you demonize certain dynamics or cultural norms and resort to insults. Culture shock can be overcome with effort and learning. There's no excuse to stay ignorant. You also never know who will be looking at your content. Strangers on the internet aren't owed a filter or kindness, but be aware that you could very well be hurting someone with your expression. BeiKazu is not proship and it never will be. My heart aches knowing that some people think that way.

[lovelynim]

Haihaiiiii, could I ask you to make a Switch Khun and Switch Hatz?

OMG YES, here you go I also remember this being an old request, so thanks for giving me a second chance

I recently started reading ToG's webtoon, btw, I might make more ToG content

Also, you may think of this drabble as a prequel for this drabble

"Let's take this outside then." Hatz barked, already standing up and giving Khun a deadly glare.

"Oh, I'd be more than happy with that." The blue haired boy didn't sound like stepping back either. Not after that stupid samurai offended him like that.

"Hah, you think you stand a chance?" The raven head grinned, taunting the other. This time neither Shibisu or Baam would stop them from solving their discussion in a problem.

"You-" Khun stopped, remembering what Baam asked him about being friends with them, not enemies. Right... there should be one way to put that stupid samurai in his place without harming him...

From all the things he imagined, he didn't expect the other to simply pinch his side. It was not like he lowered his guard, but that was unexpected. "W-what are yo- Ahah! E-ehehearring!"

"You were laughing, weren't you? Let me give you something to laugh about!" Khun, fending Hatz's hands away as he tried to get a better grip at the boy's waist.

"Y-yohohou! AHAhah!" He tried to step back, but Khun kept chasing after him. Well, that was a game for two to play.

"What? Not so co-Ah- w-whahat are you-" A stream of giggles interrupted his words as Hatz's fingers dug into his ribs, makiing Khun try to clasp his arms down, but the boy refused to simply let go.

"Stuhuhupid samurahahai!" 

"Uhuhugly eahaharrings!"

The two continued their little fight, trying to wrestle each other and get a better grip on the other's spots.

"What are you two doing..." Baam's voice came from outside the room, followed by the sound of the door opening. "I heard someone laughing from the hallways and came too check-"

"Aha, I just... showed him his place!" Khun wheezed after putting all his effort to push the samurai away. Panting as he tried to stand up, a light pinkish tone on his face.

"Mr. Khun, are you blus-"

"No!" The blue haired hissed, walking to the door and grabbing Baam's hand, "let's go, we have nothing to do with people like... like him!"

Hatz watched from the bed where he landed, trying to recover his breath. Confused enough to not even feel anger from Khun's last words before leaving... What just happened between them?

[magentasky234]

Gregory Edgeworth Week 2021- Day 3: Summer

Phoenix, Larry, and Miles get bored on a summer's day at the Edgeworth household. Gregory takes them to the beach to cure their boredom.

Gregory Edgeworth Week is ran by @digitalstowaway!

Gregory looked at Miles, Phoenix and Larry who were sat on the sofa, bored out of their minds. It was a hot day, and they were all just inside. That needed to change.

"Who wants to go to the beach?!" Gregory offered, causing three heads to look at him with excitement.

"Yes please!" They chirped simultaneously.

Gregory looked at  and nodded.

"Then it's settled, let's go to the beach!"

"Yay!" the three friends cheered.

"But before we go, we need to put some sunscreen on." Gregory informed, causing the kids to groan.

"Whinge all you want, but I don't think your parents and I want to see you three looking like tomatoes."

After everyone had applied their sunscreen, they all went to Gregory's car.

"I'm going to sit in the back with my friends, father." Miles told Gregory.

"That's okay son." Gregory said as they all got into the car. Once everyone had strapped in, they drove off.

As Gregory drove, he put on a CD of summer hits. The beach was a short while away due to them living in the city. During the ride, the kids talked amongst themselves about a multitude of things; from the recent Signal Samurai episode, to what they were going to do on the beach. Occasionally they would sing along with the music during the during. Larry's singing however, sounded more like a dying seagull than singing. Gregory hummed to the music and tapped his left index finger against the steering wheel to the beat as he drove along.

When they eventually arrived at their destination, they felt hungry. It had been a while since lunch and dinner was a while away yet, so they decided on getting some ice-creams. Gregory chose a mint chocolate chip ice-cream and the others chose the a flavour of the special Signal Samurai ice-creams each. Miles had the Strawberry Signal Red ice-cream, Phoenix went for the Bubblegum Signal Blue ice-cream, and Larry chose the Vanilla Signal Yellow ice-cream. After they were finished eating, Gregory gave the others a wet wipe to wipe the mouths with.

"Thank you for the ice-cream!" the three kids thanked Gregory.

Gregory and the kids went back to the car to get the beach stuff out of the car. Two boyboards and the beach toys bag were carried between Miles and Phoenix, Larry carried a beach blanket and two bodyboards, and Gregory carried the tent and deck chairs. Each of them had a swimming bag with swimming trunks, a swim shirt, a beach shirt, waterproof shorts, goggles, a wetsuit, a towel, and a swimming hat in them. Gregory two backs around his shoulder. The first one  was a backpack filled with snacks, drinks, wipes, and a summer crime novel in it. The second bag was a big bagfulled with wetsuits zip-up fabric cases. He had made sure to pack Miles' spare swimming stuff because Phoenix and Larry hadn't brought theirs. They then walked down onto the beach and found a nice area in the shade. Gregory set up the tent, with a little help from the others holding down the other three pegs, and set up some deck chairs.

Everyone took turns to go in the tent and get into their wetsuits. Gregory helped to zip up the wetsuits, as the others couldn't reach backwards far enough to reach the zips.

"Are we ready to learn about bodyboarding?" he asked, to which the others shouted "Yes!"

The kids ran down to the ocean, chatting to each other as the ran. Gregory walked briskly behind them, trying to keep up without falling over any rocks embedded in the sand. Once he caught up with the others, they all waded out into a shallow area of the ocean.

"Now then." Gregory began, " For now we shall learn how to ride waves at waist height, to make sure you learn how to bodyboard in a safer area." The others nodded, eager to learn.

"Seeing that you are all excited to learn, let's get started." he continued, "First, hold your board straight out in front of you."

The others held out their boards ou in front of them.

"Good! Onto the next step!" Gregory instructed, "Next, make sure to look at the waves behind you as you hold your board." The others once again followed Gregory's lead.

"Before I explain how to get on the waves and ride them, first we need learn about keeping our balance when a big wave comes along."

A groan came from Larry, which was shortly interrupted by Miles elbowing him in the rib and lecturing him to stop being rude.

"As I was saying..." Gregory carried on, "When a big wave comes that you don't want to ride, jump up into the air, you won't feel as much force from the wave pushing you. Please try jumping over some of the slightly stronger waves that approach you here."

The children waited for the waves and began to jump over them. Larry struggled a bit at first, but Gregory helped him get the hang of it by explaining timing.

"Now, onto the step you've all been waiting for!" Gregory announced, "Riding the waves!"

The kids cheered in excitement.

"When a big wave you want to ride gets close, keep an eye on it." Gregory explained, "Right before the wave reaches you, jump flat onto your bodyboard, face forward, and kick your legs really fast. If done correctly, the wave can carry you back to the shore."

The others slowly nodded, slightly lost.

Gregory noticed this and offered to demonstrate it.

"I'll have to go slightly further into the water because I'm taller than you all and need deeper water so I can get on the board easier."

The kids agreed to watch the demonstration and Gregory waded slightly further out. Once Gregory found a wave approaching, he notified the others to keep watching, and the demonstrated what to do as the wave was about to reach him. He walked back to the others after he reached the shore.

"I shall give you the signal what to do when a good wave gets close." Gregory told the others. The others readied their boards.

"Good wave approaching!" Gregory called, "Keep an eye on it for now."

Everyone watched the wave approach.

When the wave got close, Gregory called out, "Face forward, hop on your board, and kick!" The others followed his instructions and managed to catch the wave rather well.

Gregory walked over to the three children who were now at the shore.

"That's was amazing!" Larry shouted.

Phoenix nodded his head, "I know right!"

"I agree!" Miles added, "That was fantastic!"

Gregory smiled at the excited chatter from the others.

"Wanna do some more practice runs?" he asked.

"YEAH!" the trio shouted in unison.

Gregory chuckled lightly.

"Let's go then."

An hour of practicing bodyboarding in the shallow waters and correcting simple mistakes later, they were ready to go deeper.

"Let's go further into the water." Gregory said, "Make sure to jump over bigger waves as you go further into the water, and stop a bit before your shoulders, so you're not in too deep."

They then waded out to a depth that was a bit below shoulder height for the children.

"Make sure to use more momentum when you jump and kick your legs harder out here." Gregory explained, "The waves are stronger here, which means you have to jump and kick harder."

He then guided them on riding the waves at the deeper depth until the others were more confident. The four spent the next few hours bodyboarding in the ocean and the occasional water splash fights.

When they were done, everyone walked back to the tent.

They got the towels out of their bags and wrapped it around themselves. Everyone

took turns to go in the tent to get out of their wet ocean clothes and into their dry shirts and shorts. The wetsuits were left to dry on the bodyboards, and the other wet clothes were wrapped up into each respective towel to keep them dry.

Gregory and the kids wiped their hands over and had some snacks and a drink. The afternoon was drawing to a close, so they only had an hour two on the beach to go.

The kids spent the next two hours making sandcastles and playing with beach toys, whilst Gregory kept a close eye on them and read some of the summer crime novel he had brought. At the end of the day, everyone helped to pack away the beach toys and the tent. Gregory packed away the wetsuits and the deck chairs. They all carried the same items as before back to the car.

Gregory's stomach grumbled, followed by three other stomachs grumbling. "Shall we get fish and chips from the fish and chips shop by the beach?

"Yes please!" the three kids cooed.

They went into the fish and chips shop, bought the fish and chips, and sat down on the small wall nearby to eat their food.

Within minutes, there was no evidence that food was in the cardboard boxes.

They stayed on the wall for a short while, watching the sun go down.

"It's a beautiful view out there." Miles spoke up.

Gregory smiled softly, happy to have had such a lovely day, "It sure is."

[riversofmars]

Hi all! I love hearing all of your theories and thoughts, thank you so much! I'm having a brilliant time writing and am so excited, as things are about to start happening! :D Enjoy! <3

Chapter 4: The Board Is Set

London, Late 19th Century

Back in the TARDIS, as they set off, Yaz felt a little more in her element. She joined the Doctor at the console while Vastra and Jenny equipped themselves with Samurai swords and Strax checked through his grenade packs. The Doctor was quiet and deep in thought.

“So… you’re married.“ Yaz said after a while of watching her fiddle with the controls without doing much. The course was set and the TARDIS knew the way.

“Hm.“ The Doctor wasn’t quite paying attention to her.

“It’s just that… you never mentioned and you’re not wearing a wedding ring.“ Yaz observed, her voice soft. She sensed it was difficult for her friend to talk about but she wanted to understand. Why had she never mentioned River before?

The Doctor didn’t answer and Yaz felt her heart sink. Maybe she was not quite ready to confide in her yet. Defeated, she was just about to turn and head back to the others, but the Doctor finally spoke up:

“I lost it…“

“Oh…“ Yaz didn’t know what to say, that wasn’t the response she had expected.

“When I regenerated, it was too big and it just slipped off… and then, the TARDIS turned on its side and exploded and I fell… and…“ The Doctor broke off. “I didn’t even look for it…“ She admitted meeting Yaz’s eyes at last. “It was easier… not the have the constant reminder… when I knew we wouldn’t see each other again.“

“Why wouldn’t you?“ Yaz asked with a frown. From what she had gathered about their relationship so far, there was no way of knowing when and if they would see each other again.

“Our time is up.“ The Doctor gave a sad smile. She tried her best to be patient, to explain, but she didn’t expect Yaz to understand.

“You can’t know that. Even you can’t know what your future holds.“ Yaz crossed her arms in front of her chest, standing her ground, but the Doctor just gave a bitter laugh and a shake of her head, returning her attention to the console. “Doctor you have a child!“ Yaz exclaimed, she couldn’t keep it to herself any longer. She was growing more frustrated by the minute. She understood the pain and heartbreak the Doctor surely felt for the loss of her wife. She sympathised with the confusion and fear about these new revelations. Nevertheless, surely, amongst it all, her friend must have realised that she had gained something incredible as well. She had a child! Maybe not here and yes, terrible scary things were happening, but she had a child. Something incredibly precious her late wife had left behind and surely that was cause for joy, even during the darkest moments.

“Yaz, stop it, stop. You don’t know what you’re talking about.“ The Doctor interrupted her firmly. “You don’t know what my relationship with River has been like. What we’ve been through. And the pain for knowing how we would end up. I’m not going to walk out of this with a family!“ The Doctor’s voice cracked ever so slightly. “If we somehow, miraculously manage to find this child…“

“Your child, your son.“ Yaz interjected firmly.

“Even if we find him and if he’s okay, it doesn’t bring her back. River will still be gone. Our son will never see his mother again. We will never be a family.“ There was a bitter sadness to her voice.

“Does he have a name? Did the Professor say what he was called?“ Yaz looked to Vastra who pretended like they hadn’t been listening in.

“No. She said that was a decision she wanted to make with the Doctor.“ Vastra answered promptly.

“Perhaps that’s something you can decided when you talk to your wife again and tell her he’s safe. You can decide that as a family.“ Yaz turned back to the Doctor who chose not to answer, she returned her attention to the console.

Yaz squared her jaw, frustrated. While she didn’t have the sprawling knowledge of the Doctor’s past the others seemed to have, she felt like she had heard enough to understand what was going on. She tried to be sympathetic towards the Doctor’s struggle but she couldn’t grasp why she was shutting herself off so completely. There had to be more to it. The Doctor was not the same since prison, since whatever happened on Gallifrey. All the Doctor had told her was that the Master had died and the planet was a wasteland. She refused to speak of anything beyond that, no matter how much she pushed.

Yaz was about to protest, demand a reaction, when she felt a hand on her shoulder. She looked around to Vastra who gave her an understanding smile, as well as a firm indication to leave it for the time being.  

“Where are we going?“ The lizard woman turned to the Doctor, changing the subject.

“Old acquaintance, you’ll remember him well.“ The Doctor answered in an off-hand sort of way as she straightened herself up and checked the contents of her pockets like a soldier readying their weapons. The comparison hadn’t occurred to Yaz before now but it suddenly felt most appropriate. “The TARDIS has a fix on him, though he’s not where I expected he would be…“

“How about filling those in that haven’t been travelling with you since the dawn of time?“ Yaz pipped up, frustrated for feeling out of the loop again. “Where are we going?“

“There is no business like information and there is someone that has done very well for himself out of it.“ The Doctor worked the controls and the TARDIS wheezed as it landed.

“Armed and ready, Sir!“ Strax announced removing the safety of his blaster rifle. He looked ecstatic for being back in Sontaran armour and Yaz had to admit he looked a more normal sight now than he had in his butler’s uniform.

“Perhaps going in all guns blazing might not be required?“ Jenny suggested pushing Strax’s gun down. She did, however, keep her hand firmly on the hilt of her sword. There was no way of knowing what they would encounter once they left the relative safety of the TARDIS.

“It is exactly what’s required, carry on Strax, I’m not here to mess around.“ The Doctor interrupted as she headed for the door.

“We might make a Sontaran soldier of you yet, Sir!“ Strax grinned with excitement.

“Doctor…“ Vastra, always the voice of reason, tried to intervene but the Doctor cut her off:

“I don’t want to hear it.“ She opened the door and stepped outside.

“She’s not right…“ Yaz whispered to Vastra as they followed.

“No she’s not. But that’s what we’re here for.“ The Silurian replied and they stepped out of the TARDIS as well.

“Wow…“ Yaz was at a loss for words at first. She felt like they had just walked into the iconic Mos Eisly Cantina from Star Wars. The lighting was dim, there was music playing and aliens upon aliens of all shapes and sizes occupied tables and bar stools. The chatter of dozens of foreign languages added to the other-worldliness of the place. It took a moment for the TARDIS’s translation matrix to set in with as many languages as this. “That’s a lot of aliens in one place.“ Was the best observation Yaz could manage.

“That’s probably what they thought of us as we piled out of the TARDIS.“ Vastra commented in amusement as they closed the door behind them.

“This way.“ The Doctor didn’t give them time to linger and look around, she pushed ahead through the crowd. Yaz could feel everyone’s eyes on them, their obvious display of weapons probably didn’t help. Judging by the variety of dangerous creatures around them, however, she was glad they would be able to defend themselves if it came to it.

“What is this place?“ Yaz asked, falling into step with Jenny. She didn’t want to keep bothering Madame Vastra with her questions, her scaly expression had turned very serious indeed; her human wife seemed more approachable.

“This is the Maldovarium.“ Jenny answered with a pleasant smile. “A popular trading hub, black market basically. Everything you could possibly need you can find here.“ She explained as she looked around the bar.

“Like information?“ Yaz concluded.

“Dorium Maldovar’s speciality.“ Vastra added turning her head towards the two humans as they came to a halt. “He is an acquaintance of the Doctor’s and their wife…“

“Welcome!“ As if on cue, a boastful voice greeted them. It belonged to a very large man of distinctive blue skin. He was dressed in exquisite robes of silky materials and spread his arms out in greeting. Even amongst the other colourful aliens, he stood out.

“But I do remember him to be a little less of a man, last we saw him…“ Vastra carried on under her breath as they stepped closer.

“Did he grow a new body?“ Jenny whispered back.

“It would take years to cultivate a body that size.“ Strax added in his usual loud voice.

“Don’t be rude, Strax.“ Vastra chastised him and the Sontaran rolled his eyes. Yaz couldn’t quite follow their line of conversation but she hoped it would make sense to her later.

“We need to talk, Dorium.“ The Doctor walked right up to the blue man who looked at her surprised.

“And who, pray tell, are…“ He didn’t seem to recognise her at first, not until the Doctor’s companions stepped into the light as well. “Madame Vastra. Miss Flint. Commander Strax…“ Dorium seemed to be going a paler shade of blue all of a sudden.

“We might want to handle this in private.“ Vastra advised, scanning the room for possible eavesdroppers, but the Doctor was too impatient:

“Have you spoken to my wife recently?“ She asked, stepping into his personal space.

“Doctor, is it really…“ He looked her up and down and it was difficult to tell whether he was actually taken aback by her change of body or if he was playing for time.

“Don’t give me that, as if you haven’t got pictures of all my faces by now, very little passes through this universe without you knowing. Have you spoken to River?“ The Doctor bit back sharply. She didn't have time for games.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.“ Dorium feigned innocence but there was a measure of nervousness to his voice.

“Don’t make me come back there.“ The Doctor lowered her voice threateningly.

“Doctor, I speak to so many people every day. Professor Song, being a long standing customer and dare I say, friend, of course I talk…“ Dorium started rambling but the Doctor interrupted him.

“What exactly did you tell her.“ She pressed on.

“I haven’t seen the Professor in a very long time, as I understand it, condolences are in order, Doctor…“ Dorium started again but the Doctor grabbed him by the collar, pulling him close. Around them, several patrons started to take notice and Yaz watched, getting slightly unnerved, as Vastra and Jenny pulled their swords out halfway, in warning.

“Do not mess with me, Dorium, I am having a very bad day.“ The Doctor growled. “Strax, see that pillar behind the bar?“ She carried on without looking around.

“Yes?“ Strax said slowly, surprised to be called upon. He spotted the pillar in question.

“It’s a generator.“ The Doctor revealed something she had noticed straight away upon entering the bar. “Use it for target practice.“

“No!“ Dorium exclaimed but Strax was quicker.

“Yes!“ He grinned in excitement and fired at the structure. All the lights went out and Dorium vanished in a flash. There was shouts of confusion at the sudden darkness and several weapons discharged as their owners feared attack. Chaos ensured until finally the back up generators kicked in and emergency lighting came on.

“Alright, alright, someone show them back here.“ A voice called from somewhere in the back of house and a waiter gestured for the Doctor to follow.

“Solidograms, nice trick.“ The Doctor stated as they walked into the back area. The projection, though solid and life like, had not been able to fool her. Amongst ornate decorations and piles of art, wealth and treasure, they found the real Dorium Maldovar. Yaz nearly fell over her own feet, startled to see Dorium’s balled head but little else. It sat in a wooden box atop a desk.

——

Sheffield, 2021

“So, if you don’t mind me asking, what is it we’re dealing with?“ Graham set down a fresh cup of tea in front of Kate.

“UNIT didn’t just cease operations for no reason and of its own accord.“ Kate revealed as she leaned forward and picked up the cup, some conversations were better had over a cup of tea. “Someone wanted us out of the way.“

“How do you know that?“ Graham asked sitting down again as well.

“When the defence budget was being discussed in a closed session, the director of UNIT and two supporting MPs were due to give statements. It was only a formality, the budget was due to be granted as it always has been.“ Kate started explaining.

“What happened?“ Ryan asked confused as to what could possibly have gone wrong if it had never been an issue before?

“The day of the session, all three advocates simply didn’t show up for their testimony.“ Kate gave a shrug.

“What? All three of them?“ Ryan frowned and Graham agreed:

“That’s one hell of a coincidence.“

“As a result, the budget was cut and UNIT had to cease operations.“ Kate carried on and took a sip of her tea. “Obviously, myself and many colleagues were shocked and went looking for answers as to why they didn’t show up.“

“And you found they’d been… what? Killed?“ Graham jumped to the most obvious, grim solution. If someone wanted UNIT out of the way they probably were planning something big. If this wasn’t about the Daleks, then who was behind it?

“Worse.“ Kate retorted.

“Don’t like the sound of that.“ Ryan shook his head, exchanging a concerned glance with his grandfather. This sounded exactly like the sort of thing they had been planning on protecting Earth from while the Doctor was away.

“They appeared to never have excited.“ Kate stated, looking into stunned faces. “The budget committee had no record of them being due to speak, in fact, Parliament had no recollection of the two MPs ever being elected.“

“What? They just disappeared?“ Graham asked, confused.

“Not just them, any record of them, any memory…“ Kate carried on, though she seemed to be having trouble phrasing her own thoughts. “The only reason I can tell you about this is because I read the file again on the way here. And even the files… they just… fade after a while. As does my memory. We have to keep reminding ourselves… and some details are lost already, like their names, what they looked like… it’s like they’re being erased.“ She broke off as she struggled to think of anything else to say.

“But that’s not possible.“ Graham crossed his arms in front of his chest. “You can’t just erase people.“

“I’m afraid it is, this is why we need your help.“ Kate gave them an apologetic smile. She realised they had probably been hoping for a break from the adventure, returning to their lives, as they had made the choice to stay on Earth but it couldn’t be helped.

“How can we help? We literally have a physic paper to our name, that’s about it.“ Ryan admitted. This felt like a tall order to tackle without the Doctor.

“There is one thing we have noticed. The memory loss seems to effect some people more than others. Like I said, the members of Parliament didn’t recall their colleagues whom they served with a mere day after the hearing. Even after reminding them, they can’t recall. Some of us at UNIT, however, seem to be able to retain the memories for a while, so long as we keep refreshing it.“ Kate explained.

“Why do you think that is?“ Ryan and Graham exchanged concerned glances again.

“The only correlation we have been able to find is the Doctor. The more time each of us has spent with them, the more… resilient out memory appears to be to change.“ Kate revealed, though she couldn’t quite make sense of it herself yet. They had a long way to go but this was a start. “That’s why I’m here, asking for your help, you are uniquely qualified.“

——

The Maldovarium, 52nd Century

“Well, I can’t very well be greeting customers in my current state.“ Dorium huffed as they came to stand around the desk where he could see them.

“Talking of current state, last I saw you, you were in the Seventh Transept.“ The Doctor observed looking around. Dorium had done well for himself, he was back in business. “It’s not like you walked out of there by yourself, is it.“ She returned her attention to the head on the box.

“I may have had some assistance, yes. You do realise I’m very well connected.“ Dorium pointed out and the Doctor huffed:

“You were sitting in the Transept for decades after Demon’s Run, you don’t expect me to believe that suddenly, miraculously, one of your cronies turns up to save you long last.“ She shook her head.

“Why are you here, Doctor?“ Dorium asked, hoping to change the subject.

“I told you, I need to know exactly what you told my wife.“ She answered. “And I would like to know how you know about it.“

“Well, it’s nothing really, just gossip, she likes me to keep her informed whenever new information about you arises.“ Dorium explained reluctantly. “I daresay, she would be delighted if I send her word of your change of complexion…“

“And what new information was that?“ The Doctor demanded to know, frustrated with his evasive answers. “I swear Dorium, if you don’t tell me right now, I will put your head on a spike outside your bar!“ She leaned onto the desk threateningly.

“Inspired choice of decor, Sir, if I might say.“ Strax threw in.

“Strax.“ Jenny sighed but no-one paid attention to his comment.

“Well, it was the first I’d heard of it anyway and I haven’t since.“ Dorium sighed, realising it was in his best interest to just come out with it. “The Timeless Child… I wouldn’t have connected it to you, had they not specifically said it related to you in some way.“ The Doctor’s eyes widened in surprise. It sounded as though someone had told Dorium on purpose. Someone had betrayed the secret of the Time Lords.

“That’s not something you just let slip.“ The Doctor shook her head firmly. After ages of burying the secret deep, there was no way anyone would just unearth and chat about it to just anyone. She also couldn’t imagine anyone would want to save Dorium without an ulterior motive? “Did they tell you to pass it on to River?“

“No, but I thought it would be just the thing she would want to know about. So as soon as I got home, I sent word to Darillium.“ Dorium answered. “You’re acting like I did something wrong.“

“Who was it that told you about this?“ The Doctor ignored his offended tone.

“The person that retrieved you from the Transept?“ Vastra suggested, sensing that it was all somehow connected. Her detective work had taught her never to ignore coincidence. Dorium’s silence was confirmation enough.

“That’s how it started, they must have done it on purpose. They knew you would pass the message along and that River would feel the need to investigate it.“ The Doctor mused, turning back to the others. She tried her hardest to keep her emotions under wrap but she felt the anger searing her insides. “It’s all part of a plan, part of a… game.“

“But why?“ Yaz asked, confused.

“Perhaps to make her leave Darillium? And your protection? And with her, your child?“ Jenny suggested.

“If they had been as calculating as that, they could have grabbed River the moment she left and kept hold of her until she gave birth.“ The Doctor shook her head, it didn't seem to make sense.

“They might not have if they realised how complicated her timeline was. She is a complex space time event like yourself. Her death was already a fixed point, intercepting her could have…“ Vastra pointed out.

“You’d need understanding of the time streams for that, you’d have to be…“ The Doctor mused.

“A Time Lord?“ Vastra prompted and the Doctor turned back towards Dorium.

“Who saved you from the Transept?“ The Doctor asked as the others exchanged concerned glances. “Who’s game is this?“

“Come to think of it, they didn’t actually give a name…“ Dorium mused before clearing his throat awkwardly.

“How convenient.“ Jenny huffed.

“I thought it was you at first. Not very many people are in possession of a TARDIS these days but judging by your expression, it probably wasn’t.“ Dorium explained, giving a defeated sigh.

“A TARDIS?“ Yaz exclaimed surprised and unsettled while the Doctor kept her expression stoic.

“What did they look like.“ She asked.

“Well, he was male… dark hair, beard… not very tall… but then, it’s hard to judge height when you’re sitting in a box…“ Dorium answered reluctantly.

“Doctor, do you think it could be…“ Yaz felt her stomach turn as the description sounded terribly familiar.

“He’s dead. The Master is dead.“ The Doctor snapped, refusing to entertain the thought.

“Wouldn’t be the first time you were wrong about that.“ Vastra pointed out more calmly.

The Doctor’s mind was racing. The Master was the only person who knew about the Timeless Child but she firmly believed that he had perished on Gallifrey at the release of the death particle. Surely no-one, not even the Master could survive that, could they?

Suddenly the atmosphere around them changed. The temperature jumped twenty degrees and screams sounded from the adjourning bar.

“What is going on?“ Yaz asked dizzy from the sudden change. Jenny drew her sword, as if awaiting an attacker to emerge. She looked to Vastra with great concern, she knew her cold-blooded wife would struggle with the sudden heat. Vastra was quick to throw her coat off, looking around as well, trying to keep her breathing steady. Strax backed up to the door, looking back into the bar.

“The cowards have run away.“ He announced when he realised the bar was empty.

The Doctor stood petrified for a moment, her senses overwhelmed.

“Something is happening to time.“ She breathed, feeling it in her very bones. The time line of the planet was in flux and it left her disoriented.

“What’s happening?“ Vastra breathed heavily and loosened the collar of her shirt.

“Doctor?“ Dorium called from his box. “Are you responsible for this?“

“Should I shoot something again? Perhaps the heating?“ Strax suggested.

Finally, the Doctor managed to shake off the confusion and she rushed to a window. Her eyes took a moment to adjust as she looked out. Gone was the dreary cold landscape and perpetual twilight of the unnamed planetoid Dorium had set up shop on. A blazing sun had appeared in the sky, practically cooking the surface below.

[nuttyjellyfishlover]

One Piece Anime Wano Arc Episodes 890

One Piece Anime: Wano Arc, Episodes 890 This honestly is less going to be a review and more of a commentary as I watch through the anime's rendition of the Wano arc. I've honestly never really watched too much of the One Pieceanime, mostly just looking up the highlights of the arcs I read in the manga. I did watch the filler episodes and most of the movies, as I've talked about at length recently. And everyone tells me that the anime has some rather terrible pacing, particularly around the time of Dressrossa, which is apparently pretty padded out. But then I heard the absolute opposite for Wano, where the anime has received a new art-style and one hell of a fancy makeover. And I thought... hey, I'm on a One Piece kick this year, clearly, so yeah, I think I'm going to give this a shot.

The Wano arc, I think, is one that works a lot better because it has the reverse problem of a lot of One Piece arcs -- there are a lot of moments in Act One of the manga's version of the story that the writer clearly purposefully threw in a couple of off-screened moments that the anime could expand into full action scenes. I already know that Sanji versus Page One is fully animated in the anime, and scenes like Big Mom vs. Kaido or Zoro vs. Basil Hawkins are extended a lot more than the couple of panels we had in the manga. And Wano's got a lot of supporting characters, some of which actually get swept under the rug when I first read through the manga chapters weekly. So yeah, having bright colours and voices and music is going to make this a much more fun experience!

Anyway, here goes my collection of random notes and commentary. Be aware that there will be MANGA SPOILERS, as I will point out a couple of things here and there about stuff I notice that's foreshadowing or whatever:

* Marco's blue-and-yellow phoenix form looks so, so much more vibrant and pops out compared to anything else in the series in colour, huh? I think out of any other character, Marco is extra-memorable in animated format. * That said, basically half this episode is just a recap of the Paramount War. I mean, I haven't seen the Paramount War in full animated format, so it's nice to hear Whitebeard and Ace and Marco speak some of their more famous lines there. But on the other hand, it's also it's kind of one of the more-criticized parts of the One Piece anime that any time they could pad out an episode with scenes from a previously-produced episode, they will. * We actually get to see the Grudge/Payback War in the anime! I think this is less of a showcase of events that actually happened and more of a symbolic one, but hey, we get to see Blackbeard doing some sky-quakes and black holes and Marco turning phoenix. It just shows the Whitebeard division commanders getting sucked into a giant Dragon-Ball-esque spirit bomb Black Hole. Actually pretty neat! * Jozu has both arms in that vision. Whether it's an error or a spoiler or if he has a prosthetic a la Akainu in Film: Z, we'll see eventually.

* This episode also has a bit of a recap of the revelations about Wano from the Zou arc, but it's a lot shorter and feels a lot more relevant to the upcoming arc. * Brook actually expresses some interest on Vivi, apparently having heard of her from the others. I've always liked this from the filler episodes, of the newer Straw Hats slowly learning about prior adventures. Brook being Brook, of course, a panty joke was tossed in. * The Japanese-art style water waves look so pretty when animated! * The random octopus that makes Japanese kabuki theater (?) sounds is another thing that works so much better in the anime. I've always thought it felt a bit forced and random in the manga version. * The high-tempo music when the Sunny sails into the koi waves is very, very fun! * Ah, yes, the very first chapter of Wano in the manga shows off a bunch of carps jumping up a waterfall. You know, considering the whole legend that a carp that jumps over the waterfall transforms into a dragon... i.e., a fish that is also a dragon...

* The first one that's properly and almost fully drawn in the new Wano art style! And it looks gorgeous. * Also a new theme song! I've never paid that much attention to theme songs in anime, but I definitely like "One Dream One Wish" more than "We're the Super Powers". Shame that, as with most anime, the opening sort of spoils, like, half of the things that happens in the arc. * Speaking of great background music... the tempo of that opening instrumental that Komurasaki plays on shamisen is pretty catchy, especially with that octopus going iyooo~ in the background. It also makes for very fun background music for Zoro's rampage at the end of the episode. * Anime Wano is so freaking colourful. The rooftops, the kimonos, the hair... I think I remembered reading that Oda made it a point to subvert the fact that everyone in feudal Japan had black hair by explicitly doing the opposite -- black hair is the exception rather than the norm in Wano. Fun! * The frog on Usopp's hat is a real frog! I always thought it was just a hat! It's adorable! The wiki tells me it's called Gama Pyonnosuke. It's an adorable friend! Forget Carrot or Kin'emon or Yamato, Gama Pyonnosuke for next Straw Hat! * The biggest expansion here is that we actually follow Zoro around as he wanders around the city until he gets arrested by the corrupt magistrate. And Zoro actually bumps into the man-slayer and corrupt magistrate, actually explaining why he recognizes the specific scent of blood during the whole seppuku court. * And then we get around a minute of Zoro fighting the magistrate guards with the seppuku knife and good ol' fisticuffs, something that I didn't think I needed, but is certainly very fun to watch! * This new animation studio loves the angled zoom-in into eyes, and I highly approve. I think we had that like at least three times when Zoro decides to get dangerous.

* I never quite realized that if Luffy hadn't been interrupted by the octopus and washed up next to the Thousand Sunny, the poor ship would be literally left to its own devices. You'd think after losing Merry, the Straw Hats would be more careful with their ships... * Zoro gets to slash the magistrates up even more! It's a single Tatsu Maki, but god damn what a pretty Tatsu Maki. The shot of his feet kicking and breaking the wooden floor, the black aura around his blades, the way that the dragon aura appears behind him, the demonic red eyes as Zoro slams down from the sky, and the shots of the surrounding terrain being cut up into cubes... pretty awesome! * Luffy dodging the bullet from the random Beast Pirate goon with Observation Haki and the gomu-gomu-long-range-bitchslap has always been cool in the manga, and this episode makes it even cooler. Those glowing eyes! This is going to be the whole commentary, isn't it? Just me commenting on the scenes I find to be really cool? * Luffy's Conqueror Haki against the giant baboon is another very cool one. From the expression to the delivery of the line to the sound effect... Luffy's expression is actually pretty cool and borderline scary as he beats up the second goon. No wonder Tama went straight into "This is the I surrender pose!" * Also added in the anime is a vignette of Franky, Robin and Usopp seeing the news of Zorojuro becoming a wanted criminal. Again, not entirely necessary to know the story, but actually scenes that I don't mind being shown to us. Particularly that scene of Usopp utterly bullshitting an officer. * Luffy pets Komachiyo with his rubber arms. Komachiyo is a good boy. This is the most important scene.

* Did the manga show Luffy hiding the Sunny and letting it anchor in a cave? I don't remember it. I know that before the flashback and the raid we see the Sunny there, but it's nice to actually show Luffy not being so callous with the Sunny. * They got a pretty good voice actress for Tama that really makes her pretty adorable! So many times these kid guest star characters end up being annoying if they don't get a good voice, but between the voice-acting and the expressions, she's pretty fun! * Also, I think this is going to be something I repeat a couple of times, but both Tama and Tenguyama are so much more visually interesting with their full colour palettes. * Oh, right, Drake was the one that ransacked Tama's village. Wonder if that'll actually come up later on in the story... * Okay, thanks to the anime, it's really going to drill to me that it's pronounced 'Diez Drake' and not 'Eks Drake'. * I'm pretty sure everyone noticed it, but Ace learned to weave hats in Wano! That's how he became buddies with Oars Junior! I didn't notice it until just now!

* (Episode is the Cidre Guild filler arc that ties in to Stampede.) * What is Tenguyama waiting for? It's probably Oden or his retainers, but I don't think he's part of the samurai that was recruited by Kin'emon's group. Maybe he just missed the big recruitment drive, but that's weird. I wonder what role he's going to play in the arc... * There is a random metal guitar riff when Luffy sees the Nidai Kitetsu. And a glow of Observation Haki on Luffy's eyes. That's a small detail, but very cool! He also uses Observation when Hawkins arrives later on. I love the little trail of glowing red that streams out of his pupils when he activates it. * Tenguyama's sword has a very cool leaf-based handguard! Never noticed that. * Speaking of cool Observation Haki effects, Zoro's apparently activates when he senses sake. Appropriate! * I know it's me repeating this over and over, and we'll get so many cooler scenes later on, but Zoro casually launching that Phoenix Cannon to blow up the two random raptor-riders when he saves Tsuru? Such a simple scene but still so cool. Also very cool is the very brief slo-mo as Zoro re-angles the pathway of his slice when cutting down the second random goon. * Unlike most of the other things, I've always noticed that Basil Hawkins has a very cool Koma-deer mount. It looks even cooler in motion!

* This is perhaps one of the more extended scenes, since it features... fight scenes! In the manga, I think this lasted... maybe half a chapter? Less? A couple of page spreads? It's not just the Hawkins fight, either, Luffy's 'swordfighting' with Nidai Kitetsu also gets extended. Luffy's a bit more successful in using the sword to block and parry here. * Luffy's voice actor really makes the 'de gozaru' sound really funny. * I 100% missed Tsuru the first time I read through this chapter since we only see part of her in a single panel before her full-body debut after the Hawkins fight, and it's a lot less likely that you'll make that mistake in the anime. * Some 'elite' goons show up here, including a guy that uses his ponytail as a whip against Zoro, and a dude that makes fissures with a hammer that fights Luffy. Probably feels a bit more filler-y compared to the rest of the action scenes, but that's honestly nitpicking. * Zoro launching a Phoenix Cannon that slashes Hawkins's face is very cool. * Hawkins' little straw dolls gets an extended scene of it crawling out of his arm. It's so creepy, I love it. * Hawkins' giant straw demon StandBankaigets an very cool summoning animation and it's so creepy. The skies darkens and everything. Most importantly, it makes noises! Again, I love it.

* Luffy and Zoro vs. Hawkins! It's extended beyond just the simple 'dodge, then one-shot-slash' that it was in the manga. I really like Hawkins and his creepy-ass Straw Stand, so I am a huge fan of this. We get a couple of nice juxtaposition shots of Hawkins and the straw monster. Also Zoro goes shirtless in the fight. That's an important detail! * I really, really love how Zoro is having a gritted-teeth expression as he fights the giant straw demon; the straw demon is going gakakakakakakaka like a lunatic... then we cut to Hawkins who has a deadpan, bored expression as he swings his sword in the distance. * The animators really like to let the straw monster use the nails entwined to the tips of its fingers. That's fun! Zoro backhand-blocking the nails from hitting Luffy and Tama? That's cool! * Zoro does Ichi-Gorilla-Ni-Gorilla at one point, and totally slices and 'kills' Hawkins a bunch of times. * Also, speaking of pretty, glowing-eyes motion shots, Zoro using Nigiri: Toro Samon? Yeah. The cut itself is cool, but the zoom-in on Zoro's eyes as he does so? I'm sorry, I have a weakness for that kind of shot, it appears. * To extend the fight so that it's not just a single exchange of blows, Komachiyo gets knocked to the ground so that Zoro and the straw demon can actually fight for a bit. * Also shots I have a weakness to? DBZ-style 'aftermath of a powerful move'. This one isn't too over-the-top, but the slash extending into the sky and the shockwave rippling out from where Zoro slices the strawman thing is cool. * We actually see the scene of Okiku being harassed by Urashima in chronological order, and Urashima scares off a customer. Also, the implied scene of Zoro scaring off Urashima is actually shown here.

* This episode kind of extends the scenes in Tsuru's shop a bit more. Not the most exciting thing, but it does really help to build up Tama, Tsuru and Kiku. * ...wait, Tsuru's shop just displays the Kozuki crest very, very evidently on its door awning. If simply speaking the Kozuki name alone is a punishable crime, how did they get away with that? * Zoro trying to get Luffy to adopt a Wano-ized name is extra-funny in the anime! * Speaking of extended fight scenes, Batman gets to shoot alotmore arrows at Luffy and Zoro. It's kind of over-the-top on Batman's part, if we're being honest, even if Zoro and Luffy very easily dispatches of them.

* The anime does give Batman the ability to control his arrows via sonic waves or something, but he lasted for a much, much longer time than he really should have. * Batman fucking blocks Luffy's Busoshoku-empowered punch! He most definitely doesn't do it in the manga, and sure, knocking Luffy down with sonic waves? I buy that. Blocking Luffy and causing a small explosion in the air? ...I'm pretty sure just some random Gifter isn't supposed to be able to do that. Unless they're thinking of the other Batman? * They make the initial shot of Holdem answering the phone with the lion face pretty intimidating! * Holdem's lion beating their shared balls is still one of the weirdest jokes in the manga. * Some really nice face shots in this one, from Tama to Holdem to the lion to Luffy's group.

* A pretty obvious extended filler is Urashima bullying other sumo wrestlers. Urashima is kind of a dipshit, so it's not a particularly enjoyable filler for me. * Zoro gets to sumo-wrestle with one of Urashima's goons! This one, on the other hand, is pretty fun. We also get a little added bit where Zoro smirks after remembering Kiku's earlier insistence that she's a samurai, so it's less of a 'he doesn't give a shit' and more 'he wants to see what Kiku's skill is' or something.

* Luffy vs. Urashima is prolonged a bit in here, obviously. Not as entertaining as fighting Hawkins or even Batman, but okay, sure. Lots of grunting and growling in this one. Urashima cheats a bit more, Luffy has to use Armament Haki at one point... really don't think Urashima's someone that you should bother using hardening on, Luffy. * The kabuki-style delivery of "I'm going to be the king of pirates" is very well done. * Poor Tama! Holdem's a jackass. * We actually get to see Urashima crashing into Holdem's house, in yet another obvious 'hey, anime team, this is something for you to animate' scene from the manga. * Law gets an extended scene with seeing the sick Bepo, including a Room/Scan showcase and Bepo looking cute and Law being unable to keep being angry at him.

* The fight against the pirates and samurai in Bakura Town gets extended a fair bit in this episode. Luffy throws Nidai Kitetsu's scabbard around again, repeating the thing he did before. * This episode noticeably has a bunch of brief flashbacks to previous episodes. Anime episodes do this all the time to easily eat up like, ten or fifteen seconds of runtime. But I felt this one was particularly noticeable since it's to the previous episode which we already had a recap segment of before the episode begun. * Ball-de-boo!

* We get an adorable crayon drawing memory when Luffy remembers Zunisha one-shotting Jack's fleet. * Luffy and Zoro's synchronized neck-crick is pretty fun. Also fun is their super-speed when they simultaneously rescue Tama and steal the food barge. The question is, where is this super-speed when they were bamboozled by Batman and Gazelleman? * Unlike the anime, Holdem is able to turn his sword into a flaming segmented sword. It's like Zabimaru from Bleach, but on fire! * We get an extra scene of a random goon holding Kiku hostage and Zoro locking eyes with her and saying "I'm not going to help you", knowing full well she's pretending to be a damsel in distress. * Speed also gets to do something here! She gets to shoot Armament Haki'd arrows at Zoro and Kiku! In the manga she doesn't do anything while this is happening. * REDDO HAAAAAWK! * God damn that's a very satisfying Red Hawk. Such a pretty-looking one! This was the scene that a friend showed me that got me excited to sit down and watch the Wano arc in anime format. From Holdem shooting a lion's fire (how does that work?) and engulfing Luffy, to Tama's yelling, to the zoom-in to Luffy's angry eyes, to the orb of flame dissipating, the zoom-in to Luffy's angry face, the impact, the music... it's just Luffy beating up Holdem, who means jack-all in the grand scheme of things, but what a badass Red Hawk.

And I think that's a neat place to stop off, with the initial Hawkins-Urashima-Holdem opening prologue to Wano done with. I'm not sure how often I'll update this little watch-along series, but I certainly am enjoying myself!

[limowlee7389]

CURRENTLY WATCHING: April.

KOREAN.

+ Vincenzo (2021)(2/21-4/23) ~ Airing. ★★★★★

This drama is sooooo fun to me. Though its tone is much lighter than I thought it would be from the onset, I find this drama quite enjoyable. It makes me laugh and keeps me on my toes, what a refreshing mix.

+ Mouse (2021)(3/2-) ~ Airing. ★★★★★

Even though the most recent developments leave this drama fairly ungrounded, I am still enjoying the drama quite a bit. The acting is well executed. The story so far is offering some nice juicy suspense.

CHINESE.

+ Burning Ice (2017)(3/3-) ★★☆☆☆

Dropped.

River Where the Moon Rises (2021)(4/20)(2/15-)

Plan to Watch.

Taxi Driver(2021)(9 Apr)

Completed.

Tengoku to Jigoku: Psycho na Futari (2021)(2/14-3/25)(6/10)

Soroban Samurai Kaze no Ichibei (2018)(1/23-3/28)(5/10)

Western Things I Watched.

The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley (2019)(3/1)(0/10)

Tower of God (2020)(2/27-3/2)(8/10)

Murder among the Mormons (2021)(3/4)(6/10)

WandaVision (2021)(1/22-3/5)(7/10)

Belushi (2020)(3/6)(6/10)

Blown Away (2021)(s2)(3/7)(8/10)

Oprah with Meghan & Harry: A CBS Special (2021)(3/7)(6/10)

The 63rd Annual Grammy Awards (2021)(3/14)(6/10)

The One (2021)(3/13-3/16)(5/10)

The Lost Pirate Kingdom (2021)(3/17-3/19)(7/10)

Operation Varsity Blues: The College Admissions Scandal (2021)(3/20)(6/10)

The Last Blockbuster (2020)(3/20)(5/10)

My Octopus Teacher (2020)(3/22)(9/10) ♥

Yes Day (2021)(3/25)(4/10)