valderaa

[valderaa]

Later that night, controller held lazily in his hand, Tashiro asks, “Don’t you get eye strain?” He clicks through some dialogue and clarifies, “From gaming in the dark.” “Nope,” Shirahama replies. “I have perfect vision. 20/20 and everything.” Tashiro doesn’t need glasses, which is probably why he doesn’t react to this statement with the appropriate level of awe. Instead he flicks through the dialogue choices, and picks the blatantly terrible option (“Who are you, again?”). Shirahama wrestles with him for the controller. (“It’s glaringly obvious!” he squawks, trying to bat Tashiro’s hands to the side. “It’s so in your face, you should get blinded by it!”)

[valderaa]

“A year and some months older,” Laxus flippantly confirmed. If he was counting the months, she bet Freed was closer to two years older than one. “Really?” “You didn’t know?” Evergreen shook her head. “You know, he looks all”—she waved her hands in an ambiguous gesture—“waifish, or whatever. I never woulda guessed.” Laxus’s expression darkened in an instant. “Wife-ish?” he asked, threat laced deeply in his voice.

hey guys. do you like. the raijinshuu. i have a lot of thoughts and headcanons about them. this short piece is about freed. mostly. you should read it if you want. also it's my birthday which is why i'm brave enough to post it without writing like 5k of context to my headcanons

[valderaa]

happiest of birthdays to my dear friend @aranarumei and their lovely fic the anomalous agate.... I have selfishly rendered my favorite scene with my favoritest guy sorry. but its also with love for the whole thing. anyways this is a scene from the start of chapter 4.... it's read left to right. Also if you somehow found this from looking at jeweler richard tags then i'm sorry but also theres way more seigi and richard in the whole fic. it's really good and awesome. if you're here from the sasaki to miyano general tag then im also sorry. look at my favorite side characters boy.

anyways. rest of the comic under the cut !!

the end... hope everybody enjoyed and also everybody should just go read the original fic. peace and love on planet anomalous agate.

[valderaa]

blur.

here's a short fic about tashiro & shirahama in college. and a bit of an explanation:

I wrote this as quick thing back in may of this year, and liked it to the point that I wanted to turn it into a bit of a longer fic. that... is happening, and is actually going to happen quite soon, but I liked the original as well, and it's different enough to the point that I thought I'd post it. consider what will follow in a few days as a remix of sorts? with all that said:

.

You’d think, for a guy who seems so infinite in vivacity, that Tashiro would be brimming with energy. He sure looks the part—even in college his hair’s remained that shock of brown and gold like he’s the sunflower and sun all at once. You’d think that he’d be restless. Twitchy, in the same way he darts to volley in ping pong, electric eyes and electric lights haloing the bleached edges of his hair.

But when Shirahama’s hands are in his hair, Tashiro is deathly still, neck tipped back and open, sat there like he’s a corpse waiting to be transformed. Maybe an angel—maybe a hallucination; Shirahama’s drunk.

Still, even with the alcohol blurring his thoughts, Shirahama can’t understand why Tashiro had never done the crossdressing contest. Why he’s letting Shirahama do his makeup now—daub lip gloss onto his mouth and blush onto his cheeks, though they’re already flushed from the aforementioned alcohol. Shirahama’s not a pretty blusher—he gets red and splotchy like he’s developed a new kind of rash—but Tashiro is, skin going all soft and pink in just the right places, like he’s modelling for some kind of skincare line. Some guys have all the luck.

He's wearing a skirt, too—Shirahama can’t quite remember when or why they’d picked it up, but he can remember the distant expression Tashiro had when he’d turned the fabric around and around his hands, can remember the suggestion to try it on tumbling from him all too easily.

I’ll help. It had sounded all too easy, only now he’s dressed in that skirt—knee-length and soft green—and a loose tank top, both fitting better than they should. Shirahama, looming above him, can feel Tashiro’s leg hair absently scratching against his own shin. Can see the curves of muscle on Tashiro’s arm. Can see his Adam’s apple move as he breathes, in and out, splayed before him like it is, still, easy.

Shirahama tugs off Tashiro’s hair tie, and watches the freed locks tumble in front of his face, casting shadows he doesn’t often see.

“How do I look?” Tashiro asks. He’s staring, eyes wide, into the open dark.

Shirahama’s eyes flicker once to the swirling patterns of the still-shadowed ceiling, and then back down. His mouth’s gone dry.

[valderaa]

laugh lines.

beat ff7 a couple days ago and this is a like. necessary exorcism of feelings. will decide if I post this on ao3 later or not…

all that said. cloud-zack stuff below. obligatory spoiler warning for the entire game.

.

He hadn’t remembered why, yet, but Zack was laughing. 

Head thrown back, the blazing sun beaming down on his face, laughter erupted from him like a glittering fountain—overflowing, resplendent, and capable of wish-granting. 

He was always laughing, Cloud remembered. Like second nature, to have a smile in his voice. Basking in it was like finding a patch of sunlight cast through the window—an obvious yet secret warmth.

Apparently I’m not good at watching my back, he’d told Cloud, once. You, you’ve probably got a better sense of awareness, yeah? Teach me! 

Teach you? Cloud hadn’t asked, because the question was too absurd to respond to. Still, he glowed with unearned pride at the idea he was Zack’s confidant.

Isn’t your hair getting long enough to cover it, he’d said instead, and here he still couldn’t understand the why—it wasn’t particularly funny, but Zack had laughed like that anyways, full-bodied and open, like Cloud had delighted him beyond belief. 

Hopelessly and involuntarily, he’d ducked his head and smiled, thinking it would go unnoticed, but Zack broke out of his laughter at just the right moment to look at Cloud and say, You’ve got a great smile. 

He didn't know what it was Zack had liked in the shape of it, because when he's tried to find it in the mirror the expression had looked flat and unappealing. Maybe it was just the irreplicable way Zack looked at him—incredibly real and too good to be true all at once. 

You, too, Cloud hadn’t said, the fact too damn obvious to waste words on, but now he wishes different—wishes he’d told him how his eyes crinkled when he smiled and how he was charmingly incapable of standing still and how he was like a compass point away from home and how he was so easy to love that it was almost frightening, and that Cloud had nevertheless loved him in his cowardice, and that he was part of the reason he could no longer say something like, I wish they’d killed me instead of you because every time he remembered Zack’s face he found he couldn’t remember it in heartbreak, and he knew now that it would break him to hear it. 

You can’t be real, he’d said. Who even says that kind of thing? I don’t believe you.

Zack had just grinned. Come on, don’t you trust me? 

When he’d hefted the Buster Sword from Zack’s corpse, the metal had been cold and unforgiving, the burden impossible to carry. But the body had remained warm. He couldn’t remember him any other way. 

The fires of Nibelheim had scarred his memories with heat, the all-consuming hatred and guilt seared into his skin. After, when sunlight would warm his skin, he’d flash to that deep sense of loss and linger in it, the cruelty of the moment pinpointed on his flesh. But he remembers, now, what it was like, to stay by the sun and be rewarded with his smile, his laughter, his belief.

Even now, the answer remains the same. 

[valderaa]

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

I'll take any info on the sasamiya ones but I must admit that since I'm subscribed to your profile getting notifications about final fantasy fics was a fun experience.

ask me to give “director’s commentary” on some part of a fic! or send a ⭐️ for me to talk about a bit of my choice?

ohhh…! that’s so many stars. and you’re subscribed to my ao3 profile….! how lovely! anon you’re wonderful. always nice to know I have a—if I dare be so bold—fan. now as that’s quite a lot of stars, so I… went overboard. consider it an expression of my affection for you, anon. going to put the rest of it under the cut:

about ff7: I’ve been playing ff7 veryyyy slowly for the past six months or so! it’s been exciting—I’ve managed to avoid a LOT of spoilers, and am still doing so, because I haven’t finished the game lol! but I had a reallly strong fic idea, centered around cloud & tifa, so I couldn’t resist. the dynamic between those two is so fascinating to me, because with the deaths of zack and aerith, I think they, as the ones “left behind,” have a really good opportunity to like… share in grief, and such. I wanted to write that fic in a way where any romance is kind of ambiguous, and secondary to the pure feeling of like, grief and love and living intertwined.

anyways. since you asked about sasamiya, I’m going to talk about various scattered sasamiya fics! I’ll gloss over the anomalous agate, because though I could talk about it for ages, I also wrote up a general commentary post. I’ll also skip over something there, since I just answered something in relation to that already. I’m really quite surprised (and flattered!) you said any of them, anon… there’s quite a few oddities in there.

I suppose I’ll start with a delinquent and a stargazer. that was a title I only ever came up with once porting a bunch of fics over ao3… and I was so embarrassed to find that backdated fics apparently show up as email notifications for subscribers. I’m sorry.

titling was so hard, but I’m pretty proud of this one, as in the fic it’s questionable who, between sasaki and hirano, the “delinquent” and the “stargazer” are. the section I wanted to talk about, though, is this:

Hirano keeps laughing for a while longer, eyes scrunched in small joy, and then he flops down, flat on his back. His knuckle grazes against Sasaki’s arm before he pulls it back. “I think that’s the first time I’ve seen you smile.” “What?” “Just—” Hirano falls quiet. “I don’t know.”

so, when I was talking about something there, I briefly touched on the idea of sasaki being attentive when it comes to hirano, and that sense of Attention and Observation is something that’s really important to me in the sasahira dynamic. even when they’re not quite friends (first year), they’re deliberately conscious of each other in a way they’re not going to vocalize. so that’s what’s going on here, dialogue-wise—hirano makes a comment that’s indicative of him paying special attention towards sasaki, and specifically what makes him smile. in the description, sasaki’s remarkably attentive towards how hirano laughs, so he’s also cataloguing expressions of joy. they’re doing the same thing! also, sasaki focuses in on that graze of touch because it’s a very slight… crossing of boundary, here. like, you don’t usually casually touch people you’re not friends with. at the very least, sasaki is not going to do that (see: his issues with controlling his strength and stuff—I bet that spills over into being a bit over-conscious of touch)

next, let’s address this bit from help! my classmate’s asking for relationship advice, but I’m aromantic!?:

“Those are common descriptions, sure.” Hirano levels him with a flat look. “You sure lose all your worldly upperclassman charm when Miyano’s not around, huh?” Miyano was different. Miyano was the type of person to have stars in his eyes. Hirano was… also the type of person to have stars in his eyes, even if he went about it differently. It was, strangely enough, Hanzawa’s favorite thing about both of them. “It’s my secret,” Hanzawa says. Thankfully, Miyano hasn’t really asked him for advice of this kind yet.

my secret is that hanzawa’s “it’s my secret” is quoting. something that got stuck in my head. it's not famous or anything so I doubt anyone will recognize it. but it made me laugh, so I kept it in for the same reason I decided to use my wip title as the actual title… because it’s funny! also it killed the stress of having to title the thing.

I tend to headcanon hirano as some form of ace—it’s clear he responds to touch in a different way than kagiura, so it’s an angle i think is fun to explore—so having him connect with an aromantic hanzawa headcanon was neat, here. this bit shows hanzawa’s underlying pessimism regarding love & romance, as contrasted with hirano’s optimism, as he's looking to meet kagiura where he is. both asexuality & aromanticism, to me, have things to say about “unconventional love,” and this was an opportunity to explore that, in a way that tries to fit with canon. right now, hanzawa is feeling uncomfortable about the idea of dating, and romance—these feelings are going to have him blow up at his brother a little later. this conversation is also going to make him reformat his approach for miyano, later. on hirano’s end, he’s clearly trying to puzzle out his feelings, but both he & hanzawa are limited by conventional descriptors of what “love” has to look like. i think hanzawa envies hirano for his feelings, as much as he kind of disdains them—they’re not things that could every apply to him, after all. so that’s what motivates the fic, for me.

I know I write a lot of hanzashiro fic, so it might have been a surprise to see me write hanzawa as aromantic, but it’s like… man, no matter how I think of hanzashiro, it’s always in a way where hanzawa’s got some hang ups about the idea of romance in general. there’s a reason I’ve never written them actually dating—if that happens, it’s not going to be conventional, and I’m far more interested in exploring the tension of things being ambiguously romantic between the two. this is fun because i characterize hanzawa as romance avoidant as well as generally avoidant (see him self-describing himself as picking the path of inaction in this fic) and that interacts well with tashiro, who seems like a regular guy, but has never had a girlfriend, doesn’t seem to care about having one, and is sometimes curious about romance in a way that’s suggests he doesn’t quite “get” it. tashiro’s also got a surprisingly sharp intuition, while hanzawa is perceptive and knowing… hanzashiro, then, to me, is about the tension of seeing, of understanding.

speaking of hanzashiro. I’ve written quite a few fics centered around it, but I’ll settle with talking about the first thing I wrote, two-tone. how about… this long concluding passage:

“Some attention’s fine,” Hanzawa said carefully. “Fame is different. It’s like… being inspected, over and over. Like an object.”  The silence between them stretched a little too long. Hanzawa cleared his throat, planning to leave, but the sound that emerged from his throat wasn’t gentle but rough, long, and dry.  “Hey,” Tashiro said, before Hanzawa had the presence of mind to be embarrassed. “You look parched.” He held out his water bottle, fingers curled around the neck. It swung between them.   Hanzawa stared back at him. He’d been doing it a lot, nowadays, but right now he felt overwhelmed by it, just looking at everything and the hint of a smile on Tashiro’s face, the way the awkward, close feeling in his throat was loosening already, feeling like he was on the edge of many realizations that were all secretly the same one. There was a metaphor here, somewhere, to be pulled from the shape of Tashiro’s knuckles brushing up against his hand—something about hunger. A starving man who’s been drinking an ocean given his first sip of spring water. For now, Hanzawa was content to let that stray thought swirl along with the rest. Maybe years later he’d think about how to write it down. Tashiro grinned as Hanzawa accepted the bottle, took a long, slow gulp. “Feeling better?” he asked. Hanzawa stared up at his half-bleached hair and sunny smile. “Yeah,” he said, voice smooth. “Something like that.”

two-tone is a fairly obvious title—tashiro’s got two-tone hair, and hanzawa’s two-toned in that he’s multifaceted. originally this was meant to be a 2-chapter fic, w/ a tashiro pov sequel, and this… kinda but not fully exists in two-faced.

but—okay. let’s break down this scene. hanzawa is someone who’s really aware of what is “normal” and doesn’t really want to be “abnormal.” this is why he doesn’t want to be famous—he’s already wearing some kind of mask, and that level of constant inspection is going to turn him into someone who’s like… fully dissociated from himself. he’s going to think of himself like an object or a puppet to maneuver, rather than a person. so being inspected scares him, because he’s not good with honesty, and feels like what’s underneath isn’t like… evil, or bad, it’s embarrassing. hanzawa reveals some of his discomfort with this, and immediately wants to escape. but his throat is dry, so any smooth escape is broken up by this harsh, ugly sound—like the ugliness of himself is being shown, here.

next, tashiro offers water. there’s a couple reasons for this. the primary and obvious one is because hanzawa is parched. the second reason is that I was heavily inspired by what I’ll call @dirtbra1n’s river series, which uses the river as a really fascinating metaphor for a lot of hanzawa’s character. I think you can do a lot with the shifting nature of water—how it adapts to take the shape of its container, for example, and I wanted to pay some kind of homage to that, so that’s why we’re using water bottles. I then proceeded to lose my mind when i read that anthology bit where tashiro slides a drink over to hanzawa when he’s accepting the possibility of being captain.

okay, but back to the offering—tashiro’s fingers are curled around the neck. this evokes a sense of—albeit gentle—strangulation. so that pairs well with what hanzawa’s fearing at this moment—honesty, awkwardness, etc. he doesn’t want to be caught. but the bottle’s also swinging… a motion that puts it in limbo, and I imagine it’s got a sort of, hypnotic pendulum vibe. it’s alluring. hanzawa accepts.

accepting doesn’t bring any kind of awful thing. instead tashiro’s nice, easy, in the way that honesty is when you feel safe. hanzawa’s throat loosens even before he drinks any water, because tashiro’s presence is one that makes talking comfortable. hanzawa’s staring at him, and tashiro’s looking back—some attention’s fine. he’s on the edge of many realizations, things about how he’s allowing himself to be vulnerable and the like, but the reason for all that stems from a simple I like him.

then we get to talk about hunger. of course it comes when tashiro’s touching him, just barely. like sasaki and hirano, it’s a mild crossing of boundaries. a starving man drinking an ocean is not just having problems, he’s having “solutions” that are ill-fitted and actively damaging. starving tends to mean you need food, not water… and ocean water tends to make you dehydrated on account of the salt. then, a sip of spring water is a path towards a solution for thirst, but it’s not solving the starvation problem, yet. that’s why this is the barest of touches. it’s like spring—like the green tashiro wears, which, by the way, I said his favorite color was spring green before I knew he wore it a bunch—it’s like hope.

finally, tashiro asks hanzawa if he’s feeling better, and hanzawa responds truthfully. his voice is smooth—because of the water, and because tashiro makes it easier to be honest.

well, that was a lot! the last thing I thought I’d talk about is a dating sim au fic, because… it’s a pretty crazy concept and thus I thought I’d touch on it last. to give a quick summary, @dirtbra1n conceptualized an au where just shirahama & miyano exist in modern day japan, and then get isekai’d into the sasaki to miyano universe (only now it's a dating sim!), where miyano is the player character, and shirahama is Just Some Guy. a lot of the major sasaki to miyano characters have become romance routes, and that's going to bring around a lot of shenanigans where miyano runs from love and then runs towards it, and shirahama is losing his mind for a lot of reasons. the biggest of them being that shirahama’s got an unrequited crush on miyano, a thing that is semi-confirmed by volume 10 but was pretty left field at the time of this concept’s inception. what can i say. @dirtbra1n is some kinda genius. now, they have... a lot of very cool ideas that I'm not quite sure I can explain or conceptualize, but what’s interesting to me is the setup of shirahama as an npc in someone else's game.

I think this pairs interestingly with how unrequited love can kind of… make a person a side character. it’s usually there to introduce love rivals, to fuel plot, or to reach a requital. but I think there’s meaning and value in unrequited love that’s never reciprocated, too…? so there’s this bit in the stranger in the hall:

Ichinose turns his gaze to the floor. “Well,” he says, “since I’m graduating this year and I really doubt we’ll run into each other after that�� like recognizes like, or whatever.” Nice, Shirahama thinks, the game never had any love interests that are third years when you’re a first year. Then he feels mortified. “And it’s a…” he trails off. “Um. Yeah,” Ichinose says, picking the dirt out of his fingernails. “It’s not really a—even if he wasn’t… it’s kind of a hopeless effort, you know? But I still…” A tightness abruptly seizes Shirahama’s throat. “Yeah,” he manages to get out. “I know.”

first off: meet ichinose ao. he’s a side character in hirano to kagiura that I’m obsessed with. if only I had the energy to post extensively about why I am. but we know he gets easily anxious to the point of stomach cramps, he’s a high-achieving student, and he’s got what looks to be a pretty hopeless crush on the dorm manager. I think this is fun—it’s pretty futile as far as mutual romance goes, but there’s valuable exploration in pining, in crushes, in learning the ways in which you love. he pairs pretty perfectly with shirahama.

I use the phrase like recognizes like because it’s a common one to signal two people’s similarities, but also because it’s literally liking—their unrequited crushes—that makes them similar. you see them mirror each other with how they talk about ichinose as a third year—he’s like, well I’m outta here so I can be a bit honest, and shirahama also relaxes because he’s going to be out of here and is therefore irrelevant to the miyano romance routes. and in this case, ichinose’s irrelevance means that he’s someone shirahama can talk to without fear.

and through their vague dialogue, this moment of connection allows shirahama, for the first time, to really vocalize the enormity of his secret love. and it allows me to try to express how even love, unrequited, has its own special place. that as it remains hopeless it remains valuable.

…and if you, reader, got through all of this, you have my kudos!

[valderaa]

Kiriiiii

For the writer's ask game, on Something There-

There's a part I'm curious about:

“Kagiura,” Sasaki clarifies, who indeed does say his teammate's name like he's never said those syllables in that order before. Come to think of it, he had called Kagiura by some kind of nickname, hadn't he? “I just… knew of him. Was just curious,” he mumbles.

“He does always get a bunch of confessions on Valentine's day,” Shirahama grumbles on instinct. Then he realizes there's a lot of terrible implications to that routine complaint and backtracks. “Not that—”

“He's popular?”

What are Sasaki's thoughts here when he asks that? Is it possible that he ever worries about Kagi's popularity and Miyano's thoughts on him?

ask me to give “director’s commentary” on some part of a fic! or send a ⭐️ for me to talk about a bit of my choice?

something there

hiii morgan!! great question—my response got a bit rambly, so I’m sticking it under the cut!

so, sasaki’s thoughts here are, funnily enough, not related to miyano at all—which makes it weird in a fun way, right, because shirahama’s working himself into a conniption over miyano, and here’s this thing that’s actually not related to him at all, that sasaki, who shirahama keeps thinking of as just “miyano’s boyfriend”,” takes an interest in.

so, on a larger level, this dialogue is interesting because shirahama is incredibly Aware of how sasaki is miyano’s boyfriend, but the most substantive thing they talk about is entirely unrelated to miyano! it’s a destabilizing feeling, where this person you think of through one angle has now revealed another. I think it generates a fun complexity, because now shirahama’s not just the guy who has an unrequited crush on miyano, and this is miyano’s boyfriend—it’s not as simple and reductive a situation as that.

now. about sasaki’s thoughts regarding kagiura. we’ve only seen miyano & kagiura interact in a non-canon bonus, and in canon sasaki’s like… so shifty about him? asks shirahama about “kagi-kun” but refuses to tell miyano about him. some might say this is a sort of jealousy / possessiveness where sasaki doesn’t want miyano to meet kagiura, but I think it’s actually him being protective (in his own way) about hirano?

to a reader, it’s obvious sasaki and hirano care about each other, but sasaki’s also… a bit strange about it. in one of the light novels he calls hirano his friend out loud and feels extremely weird about it afterwards. so they’re friends, but sasaki’s kind of uncomfortable acknowledging it out loud.

anyways, there’s a lot of moments where you see sasaki paying careful attention to what hirano’s up to. he knows that hirano’s roommate is super tall, and when they’re having a conversation about lap pillows, even though hirano doesn’t mention kagi explicitly, sasaki’s able to deduce that it’s him. ogasawara’s in that convo and presumably never thinks deeper about it, or goes so far as to ask hanzawa if such an action is normal. startling that sasaki asks hanzawa, to me. those two rarely talk to each other!

so I think sasaki’s not doing anything about it, but he’s really Aware of something going on with hirano and his roommate… something that’s maybe even BL-ish, and he’s, like, preventing interference. so he observes carefully and takes special note of when hirano mentions his roommate and stuff. but he also doesn’t tell miyano about any of it.

so in this scene, when sasaki’s like, “he’s popular?” it’s not really a question borne out of worry, it’s a question because sasaki just wants to have more information about kagiura. he just wants to know more about what hirano’s roommate is like. and he wants to know this because he cares about hirano’s happiness, and his way of displaying that is extremely subtle.

[valderaa]

heyyy kiri dearest 47 and 83 for the writing ask game :)

ask me something from this list of asks?

47. what story are you most proud of?

i think this is an obvious answer... obviously it's the anomalous agate. i even made a commentary post on it. it’s the only multi-chaptered fic I’ve ever completed! and I didn’t write it all at once and then post it, I actually wrote it chapter by chapter. so I had to outline every piece of it and such. and I think it’s definitely the fic that to me, has the highest level of… refinement? like in terms of theming and everything it was a very focused piece of work, and I tried a lot of things during it. that was my first time in years using the first person in writing, and when I wrote the bonus, not only was I using first person, I was trying to really closely imitate someone else’s style. the entirety of anomalous agate is, in some respects, a style-matching challenge, because I tried to make it feel like a real case, but I’ll admit that while I tried to make sure seigi sounded like recognizably himself, I took some liberties with the prose.

the fic I’m currently working on is also something I’m crazily proud of… this is perhaps more in just sheer prose in some of the sections? I don’t know that if when I post it, it’ll make me as proud as the anomalous agate, but I think both of those to me are within the same specter of deeply important passion projects…

83. less is more or more is more?

so this is something that i feel is quite contextual. someone's definition of "less" might be someone's definition of "more", and vice versa, yknow?

but coming from my angle, less is more, for sure. I’ve been working pretty hard as of late to try to make parts of my work more ambiguous or leave out details, rather than holding my audience’s hand through everything. I think it’s a more satisfying feeling when the audience themselves is coming to conclusions, and also more realistic in some senses, to have characters not extrapolate on everything. I feel like I’ve got a habit of having a character be like “oh, I know character B has something they’re not saying, but I don’t know what it is” as my sense of like. ooh mystery ooh you don’t know everything. but actually I can cut that entirely and just have the character Not Know that they Don’t Know something? I feel like as a reader, I tend to like characters that are kind of repressed, because their emotions feel stronger to me. because they’re subtler and delivered with more restraint! so I want to try emulating that to a degree… who knows how good I am with the whole show don’t tell stuff, though…

[valderaa]

the anomalous agate, commentary

hello! I said I could talk about the anomalous agate forever, so here is me, talking about it. this is a post covering just like, overall notes I had when writing… maybe I’ll post about specific scenes or chapters sometimes, but I was really compelled to at least talk about overall things because unlike individual chapters, I think it’s something that’s less likely to be picked apart? so, all of that’s under the cut.

okay, first up! the biggest challenge in writing this fic was essentially, how do I make this fic feel like it’s a case from The Case Files of Jeweler Richard?

Based on the first two volumes alone, there’s a couple of things I think the series really exemplifies. First, it can examine things that are fairly mundane, and place value and importance on even small details. Second, Richard has a wide variety of knowledge, and I always read The Case Files of Jeweler Richard and come away with a new sense of the world. There’s something I, or Seigi, hadn’t really considered before, that I’m now considering. Finally, Seigi’s got all of his quirks—I didn’t try to match his exact style of narration, but I aimed to blend my own style and his in terms of vibe, and did my best to, at the very least, express his feelings accurately. So whether the wording of how he says things are exactly how he’d express it, the base emotions are correct.

To address the second point, this means that I have to talk about a wide variety of things! A lot of what the anomalous agate references is stuff I already knew of—champagne’s brand protection, Johannes Vermeer and ultramarine, The Little Prince, the commonality of dyed agate… but there’s some stuff I knew absolutely nothing about, the biggest of them being makeup and coffee. For coffee, I ended up watching quite a few bits of stuff from James Hoffman’s YouTube channel, and for makeup I watched a couple of video tutorials and read quite a few blog posts. Then I referenced Wikipedia to doublecheck any information I thought I knew. For the gems, I trawled quite a few websites, the main ones being the websites of GIA, International Gem Society, and American Gem Society. And I tried to avoid as many crystal healing websites as I could. Any inaccuracies present are my own fault.

As for why I picked coffee, a drink I don’t particularly like (though I’m a huge fan of coffee ice cream), and a subject that isn’t of necessary relevance to the rest of the story, unlike makeup, it was because I’d had a really good tiramisu crepe cake a few months ago, and thought it was such a neat form of tiramisu. It ended up being a nice choice, considering that Hanzawa and Seigi met up at a café twice!

And speaking of references! As a fun challenge, I made sure to add a reference to every single case mentioned in the first two volumes. It helped ground the fact that this was, indeed, part of The Case Files of Jeweler Richard for me, and I felt like it ended up strengthening some bits, too, but I mostly did it just because I wanted to see if I could. Some cases are mentioned multiple times, but I’ll list what I think is the first instance for every case below:

case 1-1: Coffee at a café was meant to be pleasant; I had no desire to remind myself of what it felt like to work night shift after night shift as a security guard. [ch 1] case 1-2: “When you put it that way… there’s definitely times I don’t want to say everything about myself,” I conceded, remembering how I’d felt when confronted by Mami-san’s deep, uncomfortable sense of shame. [ch 2] case 1-3: Come to think of it, he’d called himself thoughtless for selling that amethyst to Takatsuki-san, who’d been moved by the powers it was said to possess. [ch 3] case 1-4: “Department stores existed before you began working here, but only once you took an interest in diamonds did you notice the kinds of jewels they sold.” [ch 1] bonus (to wish upon a rose quartz): Remembering it now, it was hard to explain why I hadn’t had one in such a long time, but I hadn’t developed the habit of searching out cafés, bakeries, and sweet shops until I started working at Jewelry Étranger, either. [ch 1] bonus (cleopatra’s pearls): Since he’d just mentioned her, my mind flashed to Cleopatra—she was certainly an image that was out of sorts with Hanzawa. [ch 3] bonus (daily life at étranger ~ professor kunz and morgan): I hadn’t heard of moganite until now—unless I was mishearing morganite, but Richard had such wonderful pronunciation I thought that was impossible. [ch 1] case 2-1: “Well, Hajime-kun was much younger, but his circumstances were different…” [ch 1] case 2-2: Just like Yamamoto-san trying to buy herself a garnet. [ch 1] case 2-3: It was obvious in the way I’d found out about Tanimoto-san’s love for rocks and minerals, as well as her friend Shinkai-san’s dance company, or, in a more negative light, Hase-san visiting at the exact time I happened to be in the back of the shop, but when I told Richard this, he simply brushed it off. [ch 1] (technically the above is the first instance for case 2-4, too, but I’ll point out another instance) case 2-4: Though I doubted this surprise encounter would go as badly as the last one had, the sharp sense of déjà vu kept me wary. [ch 2] bonus (the serendipity of euclase): I’d only recently put my foot in my mouth by comparing us to a married couple, so I refrained from trying to make comparisons. [ch 5 / epilogue]

second! I wanted to talk a bit about some of the themes in the anomalous agate… this will probably be a bit more unstructured, but it contains some stuff I wanted to express, so I’ll to my best.

The title of this fic is the anomalous agate, and it is the stone that Hanzawa Masato ends up purchasing, but it’s not entirely what this fic is about, right? Lapis lazuli occupies a pretty big part of the chapter, and it’s an important part, too. So… why? Why have two stones, why have a title that doesn’t reflect the stone that Richard talks about, etc.?

The answer for this comes in the form of how I approached this story and how I feel about Hanzawa Masato—fundamentally, he’s a kind of tricky guy. He’s an inherently mysterious type of person, with a lot of layers and facets to him. And while I’m in love with these universes crossing over, I felt like it would be disrespectful to throw Hanzawa into the universe of The Case Files of Jeweler Richard and have him be laid completely bare. So, from the beginning, I wanted to work under the limitations that whatever change Hanzawa went through, and whatever we learned, it wouldn’t be something dramatic. And because Hanzawa’s so many things, I had another idea: as much as I could, when I introduced an idea into a fic, I’d try to make it two, instead of one. It’s an easy way to create a Hanzawa that feels properly multilayered, because making everything two things means he can’t be simple, and Hanzawa Masato is never simple. It's also an easy way to have Seigi misunderstand him in a way that shows that Hanzawa’s kind of a tough nut to crack.

...So, maybe you’re beginning to see why there’s two gems. The first chapter actually begins with a talk about authenticity, and it’s only in chapter two that Hanzawa brings up the concept of being anomalous. Both authenticity and being anomalous are topics that influence the kinds of things Hanzawa thinks about, and so do lapis lazuli and blue lace agate. Seigi realizes Hanzawa’s “something like a birthday gift” is a gift for himself, but he never once learns that Hanzawa’s birthday is in April, so it’s not for a special event at all that he’s buying this. Though I hadn’t intended it, considering that the guidebook says Hanzawa’s only got a younger sister, Seigi realizes that his older sister may not have been who taught him how to use makeup, but he doesn’t realize that Hanzawa might not even have an older sister. (This one was truly unintentional… I guess Hanzawa gets one over me, here!) Cafés are soothing, but coffee can stimulate one into sleeplessness. Seigi parallels Tashiro, and Hanzawa parallels Richard, but at the end, Seigi feels that it’s he and Hanzawa who are the similar ones. Seigi discusses the merits of concealment versus enhancement, and Hanzawa says that they’re the same thing, for him. Two things and one thing, again. Fox or prince, both are tamed. Two and one.

Essentially, I forced myself to make sure that any idea I introduced had a certain level or complexity and/or depth. I couldn’t just make a statement and then move on from it without exploring or developing it. Uniqueness, for example, is a term that gets used in quite a few ways in this story. I don’t think any of this really comes across as being intentionally a sort of “doubling,” but I think having this in mind while I wrote really forced me to be thoughtful about what I was writing.

third! I thought I’d talk in a few more specifics about when exactly this fic is set.

This happens mainly in the October of Seigi’s second year of college, which, now that I’ve read Volume 3, seems placed pretty perfectly? In case 3-1, he mentions Jewelry Étranger opened in April, and he’d been working there for six months, placing the first case around October as well… my fic ends when it’s November, but I’m still pleased by how close the time is. The reason it’s set here, of course, is because that’s when the cultural festival will be happening in Miyano’s third year. I’ve talked at length about what I see Hanzawa and Tashiro being up to around this time, particularly surrounding Tashiro crossdressing for the cultural festival, and the exploration of their relationship along with their own personal issues, and this was the perfect backdrop to set against this case. This is because I wanted Hanzawa’s changing to not be solely motivated by Seigi, so I needed sufficient events to be happening in the background that would prompt him to actually make that purchase of blue lace agate. And that’s why there’s a three-week gap between Seigi and Hanzawa meeting in that café and when he actually purchases that blue lace agate. The exact details of what happens there are vague, but the bonus scene I wrote shows at least some of it.

I’d planned to have Tashiro barely cameo in the background at first, but while I was outlining, I realized that Hanzawa was the kind of stubborn guy who needed a lot of prompting, and that Seigi wouldn’t understand half of what was going on if he’d never met Tashiro. Thus, Tashiro made an appearance, to which I’m very glad for! I think he acted as a really disarming presence for Hanzawa, and allowed Seigi, and thus, the audience, to see a lot of Hanzawa that we hadn’t been privy to before.

Here's the timeline of main events in the anomalous agate:

October 6th, 2018 — SATURDAY: Hanzawa Masato visits Jewelry Etranger for the first time.  October 8th, 2018 — MONDAY: Nakata Seigi and Tanimoto Shouko have mandatory English class. October 11th, 2018 — THURSDAY: Nakata Seigi and Hanzawa Masato meet for the second time.  October 12th, 2018 — FRIDAY: Kaede and Nakata Seigi wave to each other on campus.  October 12th, 2018 — LATE FRIDAY:  Kaede informs both Nakata Seigi and Hanzawa Masato that the senior harassing her has been expelled from the university.  October 14th, 2018 — SUNDAY: Hanzawa Masato visits Jewelry Etranger for the second time.  October 20th, 2018 — SATURDAY: Hanzawa Masato, Tashiro Gonzaburou, and Nakata Seigi run into each other at a cafe.  November 3rd, 2018 — SATURDAY: Tashiro Gonzaburou’s last cultural festival occurs.  November 10th, 2018 — SATURDAY: Hanzawa Masato visits Jewelry Etranger for the third time. 

finally! some random notes I didn’t know how to categorize:

If you’re wondering who Kaede is, during the volume 5 extras, Hirano mentions this girl named Kaede that Hanzawa hangs out with often, and then asks if they’re dating. They’re not—but in ch 27, we spot him at the movies with a friend of his who’s a girl, and I’d decided that this is the Kaede Hirano mentions. That’s why she’s into movies—because that’s the only thing I could think of that’s even somewhat related to her appearance. The rest is kind of invented whole cloth… it ended up being helpful to get a kind of outside perspective on Hanzawa, so I was happy with how it turned out, and I hope it didn’t feel like she was just a boring plot device.

Also, when Hanzawa reminds Seigi that they’ve got each other’s numbers at the end, to me it’s the sort of thing like where in the early MCU movies, they’d end with getting contacted about the Avengers Initiative, or whatever… I haven’t watched them properly. But it’s a sign that like oh, stuff is going to cross over! So, for me, that’s a way of telling myself that if I ever feel like it, when I’m writing Hanzawa, he can call up Seigi, and I’ll have +20k of justification for that choice. Also, even though I said I didn’t want Seigi to be like most important life-changing person in Hanzawa’s life, I still did want them to have some of an effect on each other. And this is kind of proof of that.

edit: FUCK I FORGOT TO MENTION TEMPERATURE. hanzawa's associated with the cold and tashiro's associated with warmth. thats whys seigis always shivering or feeling gusts of wind when hanzawa shows up. and why he meets tashiro on a super warm day. richard gets some description mentions aligned with cold, specifically when he's asking seigi about his bruise, and that kind of mirrors hanzawa making tashiro sit still while he pulls out the eyelash curler. only there his hands are warm because like. hanzashiro's weird.

and for anyone who read the whole thing: some images for you! first, here's a sketch page that I messed around with while writing, so I could get some visual feelings:

and here's a screenshot of what editing / writing for ch 4 looked like when I discovered the magic of track changes:

[valderaa]

So Cloud had legs, some days. Some days he didn’t. Each day the planet still spun on its axis and revolved in orbit.

I've been slowly playing my way through ff7 and just had to write a fic about cloud & tifa, because their relationship fascinates me. considering I don't know how the game ends, this was a bit difficult, but I made my best guesses!

[valderaa]

wrote a fun lil fic about bakugou and todoroki. also HAPPY BIRTHDAY @dirtbra1n !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[valderaa]

something there.

hello shiramiya fans. got inspired by ch 51 to read something. it is under the cut but you can also read it on ao3

—

On some level, Shirahama’s always been aware that he’s weak-willed. But this—this feels like something else. “Tashiro,” he says. “I'm going to slack off.”

“For the last time, I'm not—what?” Tashiro cuts his complaint short, turning to face Shirahama with a searching look.

Whatever this is, it sucks, that’s for sure. He grits his teeth. “I'm just—I have to dip out for a second.”

“Huh,” Tashiro says, the word suffused with both carelessness and judgement. His eyes flicker around their surroundings, and he adds, “Okay. It's not too busy, anyways… did you ask—”  

“I already asked Karasubara.”

“Then what are you still doing here?”

It’s a good question, but it’s not one that has an answer. It’s just—it probably isn’t anything serious, but Miyano hadn’t looked great, and what if it is serious? Even if his boyfriend’s taking care of him, it’ll be good for Miyano’s classmates to know how he’s doing. And that way he—they—won't worry.

“I don't know,” he says, and because he’s vindictive: “Why didn't you compete in the crossdressing contest this year? You seemed so pumped about it last time.”

Tashiro's hands stray to his hair, and he twirls a loose strand around his fingers. It vaguely strikes Shirahama that it’s not dissimilar to one of the sprites of the sporty basketball girl he’d romanced last week. “I didn't want to shave my leg hair,” he says, even though last year Miyano hadn’t shown a single inch of his leg.

Tashiro’s just non-committal like that, Shirahama supposes—even now, he likes to act as if his ping pong captaincy just “happened” like an accident. He's spent three long-suffering years on the basketball team—he knows the apathy Tashiro unintentionally or purposefully projects is deceptive.

“What are you waiting for?” Tashiro asks, pulling him out of his thoughts. “Go.”

It’s enough of a push, and crucially: it feels like enough of an excuse.

—

There are too many people inside this school. Shirahama can hear Tashiro's voice in his head still, the strange wry twist that he'd clearly picked up from someone else, paired with his evergreen bluntness—what did you think was going to happen at a cultural festival?

I wasn't thinking, he replies in his head, aware that it's a horribly strange conversation to be having, and the kind of shameless, setup-to-punchline answer he'd never give in real life. But when he'd thought about the decorations, he'd mostly thought about having something that would look nice, feel nice, and have their class at ease. He hadn't been thinking about all the other people that would be milling about.

If they're staring at him, he certainly isn't going to chance making eye contact. So he ducks his head and soldiers on towards the relatively isolated nurse’s office, and in a sudden fit of bravery pauses for only a moment before opening the door. That courage immediately leaves him when the door opens with a sharp creak and he startles, hold almost slipping from the doorknob, but it's the pathetic thought that counts. Or something.

As he's about to slip in and shut the door behind him, a rustle sounds from one of the beds. The breath leaves Shirahama's chest, and he watches as Miyano's boyfriend—Sasaki, that was his name—emerges from the curtains, hair wild in a way that reads more like “bedhead” than “artfully tousled”—not that he'd say it was ever artful, but he's got no place to be critiquing Miyano's boyfriend's hairstyle…

—and speaking of. Sasaki’s staring at him. He sure is tall—for a moment Shirahama wonders why he'd never played basketball, but it’s the kind of wonder that’s paired with utter relief at the nonexistent situation. Then he feels very strange about that thought until Sasaki, with the sedate aura of someone who’s just woken up, blinks at him as if to communicate something.

Shirahama stares back, caught like a deer in headlights.

“Close it quietly,” Sasaki says. Shirahama finally re-registers that his hand is hanging slack on the doorknob. “He's sleeping.” His voice is low, smooth, and deliberately softened to the point that Shirahama has to strain to hear it.

He wavers in the still-open entrance; his legs don't let him run away. The door closes with a soft click, but it may as well be a marching drum.

“I just… came to check in on him,” Shirahama says, too many beats late, careful to pitch his voice just above a whisper. He's not sure he manages. It's the “too many people” thing again, only concentrated—somehow, he’s the one out-of-place in a school he's attended for two and a half years.

Sasaki nods. “Thanks for looking out.”

“Oh… no problem.” He represses the urge to throw up his hands in a sign of “I come in peace,” but he doesn’t know what else to do with them, so they hang limply and indecisively in front of him. Miyano's boyfriend is—it would be rude to say that he's scary, because he's seen the way he acts around Miyano, who doesn't seem to think he’s anything close to intimidating, but he's also Miyano's boyfriend, a term that feels—he shouldn't say it's strange. It shouldn't be any stranger than Kuresawa's girlfriend—bad example, because Kuresawa’s so weird, and Shirahama’s suddenly, overwhelmingly relieved that Miyano doesn’t make hour-long professions of his love—but the thought rests uncomfortably in his head. It's like there's an itch he doesn't know how to scratch.

Sasaki takes the time to inspect him now, squinting at him with a look that’s not akin to judgement but does feel like some kind of thing, and Shirahama would be embarrassed about his inarticulacy if he wasn't already beyond embarrassed with himself. Though he's always hated the feeling of assessment, he does his best to not squirm under Sasaki’s gaze. What Sasaki's likely remembering is the strange hanger-on to Tashiro's high-five run and jump, but even if that's banal in comparison to, say, the date-spying—which is mortifying in retrospect and has given him an eternal respect towards Hanzawa, though he’ll never vocalize this to anyone for fear of the result—something about recognition is just sour.

“Ah,” Sasaki finally says, snapping a cord of tension in Shirahama's shoulders. “You're on the basketball team.”

A strange flush scatters across his neck. “You remembered that?” His voice cracks at the last word, and he tacks on a whispered “Sorry!” that Sasaki accepts without fanfare.

A light shrug. “Just happened to.”

Shirahama throws his memory back to the interaction. He remembers the stray basketball, for sure, but on review something clicks into place. “…Kagiura, right?” His voice settles. “You were looking for him.”

At that, Sasaki falls silent.

Shirahama almost offers to call up Kagiura, but they're not particularly close, and Sasaki's expression doesn't really read as “excited” or “pleased.” In fact it's kind of reading as “ticked off,” which doesn't bode well, because he's pretty sure that if he got into a fight with Miyano's boyfriend, he'd lose. Embarrassingly.

Then, delivered in an unsettlingly flat voice: “I don't know him.”

“What?”

“Kagiura,” Sasaki clarifies, who indeed does say his teammate's name like he's never said those syllables in that order before. Come to think of it, he had called Kagiura by some kind of nickname, hadn't he? “I just… knew of him. Was just curious,” he mumbles.

“He does always get a bunch of confessions on Valentine's day,” Shirahama grumbles on instinct. Then he realizes there's a lot of terrible implications to that routine complaint and backtracks. “Not that—”

“He's popular?”

He feels, suddenly—not actually suddenly but an ebbing and flowing always—wrong-footed. “…Yeah?”  Huh, Miyano's boyfriend is kind of a weird guy. Whether this thought puts Sasaki squarely in the space of “not scary” is debatable. But it is some kind of comfort.

There’s a rustling sound by the bed. The room falls silent in an instant, and Shirahama finds that he’s locked eyes with Sasaki. Something like meaning almost passes through there, but before Miyano's boyfriend can say something about needing him to be silent, or his unnecessary check-in, or his unwelcome presence, Shirahama tumbles out excuses in rush of whispers. “I’ve still got to help out with the festival—just thought I’d check—I’m sure you have it handled—I’m going to—I'll go.”

He stumbles out of the office, thankful he hadn’t even taken two steps past the entrance, and closes the door as quietly as he can. His mouth is so dry he’s not sure any of those words he'd said were audible. It’s entirely likely he stood there, gaping and sputtering like a dying fish, before running away.

No one's there to look at his expression and tell him. Shirahama's glad for it and the fact that there's no mirrors in the hallway—the last person he wants to look at is himself.

[valderaa]

update: i posted some of my tumblr fics to ao3!

below is a list of what's been posted, along with any changes I've made (they're all pretty minor). they're all sasamiya-related fics btw

bonus: hanzawa to tashiro (ft. the anomalous agate) (tumblr) -> the peridot of favor (ao3)

content remains unchanged

listed in a series named the anomalous agate

day negative fourteen (tumblr) -> day negative fourteen (ao3)

minor phrasing + grammar edits

listed in a series named DIE OVER ?

the stranger in the hall (tumblr) -> the stranger in the hall (ao3)

minor phrasing + grammar edits

lowercase changed into sentence case

listed in a series named DIE OVER ?

sasaki to hirano (?) (tumblr) -> a delinquent and a stargazer (ao3)

minor phrasing + grammar edits

help! my classmate’s asking for relationship advice, but I’m aromantic!? (tumblr) -> help! my classmate’s asking for relationship advice, but I’m aromantic!? (ao3)

minor phrasing + grammar edits

lowercase changed to sentence case

corrected dialogue to align with the fact that hanzawa ranks higher in grades than hirano

hanzawa to tashiro warmup (tumblr) -> scenes from a cultural festival (ao3)

minor grammar corrections

corrected dialogue to align with the fact that hanzawa has a younger sister, not an older one

untitled / "whenever I have Thoughts..." (tumblr) -> two-faced (ao3)

minor phrasing + grammar edits

lowercase changed to sentence case

listed in a series named two tones

two-tone (tumblr) -> two-tone (ao3)

minor grammar corrections

listed in a series named two tones

[valderaa]

HI KIRI i almost forgot about the ask game. tell me about His name isnt actually cain and/or two-tones.......... if i had to pick one. two-tones. i love you

ask me about my wips | wip list

every time i get one of these asks i'm like AMAZING and then i'm like ah fuck i gotta write MORE for these wips??? you guys are so talented at avoiding the wips i've ACTUALLY got an outline for <3

anyways of course I'll answer both! it's you!! how could i deny you... since it's two, I'll put this under the cut

two-tones:

the running gag of my life is that i try to do two things and only do one. for example with the htt bonus in the anomalous agate i meant to do a third and first person pov before settling on just doing one. and when I first wrote two-tone i meant for it to be a two-parter: the first being what got published as two-tone and the second... didn't work out. it is, very loosely, this thing i posted, but though it tied in (there's a reason that thing starts with "II."!) it was the kind of thing that I knew would get way too long to actually properly mirror two-tone as like, a dual thing. but i did want to extend it. at some point. and i kept having these ideas and building out a sort of hanzawa to tashiro timeline for myself, and then it was to the point that I went well. i need a document to collect this bullshit. and that is what two-tones is--my hanzashiro scrap bucket. so you've forced me into writing more scrap...

-

“oh—um, hang on a sec.” 

when tashiro’s voice reaches him, it’s muffled and muted, and at first hanzawa wonders if the hesitancy he’s hearing is pure imagination. but then tashiro’s head peeks out from the door, eyes flickering anywhere but forward, and he says, “it’s—I found kuresawa’s old outfit.”

his hair curtains his uncertainty, gold and black curling around his face, and despite himself, hanzawa’s already charmed. it’s not often that tashiro wears his hair down, and every time hanzawa sees it, he feels like his hair has grown impossibly longer, even though it looks like nothing’s changed when it’s been tied up.  

“well, how does it look?”

before he can assume the face of neutral, yet compassionate critique, tashiro jumps out with a skip-step, and laughter bubbles up under his skin. 

“tashiro-kun, that doesn’t suit you at all,” he manages to get out, overwhelmed by the stark blacks and reds greeting him. 

“It’s really strange, isn’t it?” tashiro asks, and hanzawa properly attunes himself to the seriousness in his voice.  

in the back of his mind, there runs a strange thrill at the downturn of tashiro’s expression, but he leaves it there and adds, “the outfit looks lovely on you, but the color… doesn’t it makes you look like… a bad boy?” 

the fretfulness leaves tashiro’s body, and he shakes his head with a laugh. he takes a few steps towards hanzawa. “so you’re saying you should be wearing this?” 

his name isn't actually cain:

so i say most of my fics are for a limited audience / audience of one but this one is ACTUALLY for an audience of one. i got super into playing honkai star rail for like. less than a month? uh and i get often annoyed by playing as like, a player character where I'm like. a nobody person lol. so I decided to commit to hard roleplay with my character. and i named him cain! hence the wip title lol. the "guy" trailblazer's / player character's name is normally caelus. but he's cain to me. and i play cain as a very specific character. kind of serious and considerate... and i have like. rationalized everything! so this is a fic exploring my take on the character. so it's basically OC fiction. but maybe i'm good enough to sell you on anything...? ;) pfft okay i can't keep up that sort of arrogance. here's the beginning:

-

Three months after Cain had joined Astral Express, Dan Heng was in the archives, digitizing a piece of romance fiction he was almost sure was never going to help any kind of future research initiative. As he squinted at a line of faded paper he realized that there was, in fact, a missing page from Vol. 5 of When Winter Met Wildfire, took out his phone to text Cain, realized that he could probably just grab him from a few doors down on the Astral Express, and decided he needed the walk. It was only once he’d stood up, phone in hand, that he realized that he couldn’t just walk a few doors down, because he wasn’t even sure if Cain had a bedroom on the ship.

The guy was always jumping around, flashing back to the Space Station with regularity and even dragging Dan Heng and March around on his missions whenever he felt like it, but even with all of that, Dan Heng had seen him on the Astral Express with enough frequency—chatting with Pom-Pom, talking to Mr. Yang and Himeko in the main room, making small talk with their special visitors, admiring March’s collection of photos, or tapping on Dan Heng’s door quietly before poking his head into the room and reading silently next to him. That was the reason why Dan Heng was looking for him in the first place—he had the uncanny ability to find new books and articles to add to the archives, and he was probably the only person who wouldn’t see anything out of sorts with looking for the missing page of a romance novel. The only person who wouldn’t say anything about it, at least.

The more he searched his memories, the harder it was to find anything reciprocal in those interactions. Apart from picking him up at their first meeting, they’d mostly left Cain to fend for himself. It bothered him more than it should’ve—by nature Dan Heng would never consider himself a friendly person, so it made sense that he wasn’t hanging out with Cain in his free time. But it bothered him anyways—like he should’ve wanted to get more invested in his life, considering how easily invested Cain seemed to get into his. Like maybe the whole Stellaron body business should’ve been a bigger deal than it was.

[valderaa]

was offline most of today building a bookshelf but I saw the ask game was back and if you're still feeling it can I hear about that villainess au =D

this one's almost embarrassing to answer... but I won't be embarrassed! i want to say like, back in 2020...? ish? I started running into like, a bunch of isekai webcomics where it's like... oh no! i've become the villainess??? or it's like, even if it's not an isekai it's about like, this maligned woman getting together with someone unconventional... I don't know if I can describe them well. anyways my experience with them has been "oh this is fun but i want this to be pushed harder"? by and large.

now that's my like... inspiration, in some regards, to this fic. hence the title. it is not the fic. this fic is hualian (from tgcf / heaven's official blessing)

uh and ultimately all of this rambling is unrelated because this fic is actually just. a hualian sort of like. fake-arranged marriage thing. hua cheng is basically this like... noble who's known as this cursed figure. and he and xie lian are faking an engagement for like. Reasons. my reason being that i wanted to write hualian where they have a much more tumultuous relationship but it still like Works. there's fun stuff with like mistaken identities, misunderstandings, shenanigans between the noble families, i live out my yushi huang and hua cheng friendship dreams. eventually. dunno if this makes any sense so i will just put a bit under the cut...?

When he wakes up, he can’t get the crown prince’s voice out of his head. It lingers in his thoughts like the imprint of the floor against his cheek, overshadowing the soft, golden light of the morning. He’s always woken up early, ever since he crept out of his room one night and watched in amazement as the stars glittered in the night and were overtaken by the warm expanse of the rising sun. That sense of wonder eclipsed any fears he might’ve had about being caught, and now that Hua Cheng is well into adulthood, there’s nothing stopping him. 

Today, the sunrise feels dark and unappealing, a reflection of his own self-worth. He holds the weight of the mask in his hand and debates whether he should wear it. Eventually he sighs and affixes it to his face. He’s not an idiot. He knows that something has happened. There is no universe where the crown prince visits their manor and nothing happens. 

If they had more servants, maybe someone would spot him perched up on the roof of the manor, but most of them have left, and the ones that are left don’t like to concern themselves with Hua Cheng’s whereabouts. Besides, some of them actually like him. 

(Like would be an exaggeration. Hua Cheng has one attendant who is brave enough to withstand his presence, and even he seems vaguely uncomfortable at all times.)

Something shifts beneath him, and Hua Cheng presses down to the ground. The house is bustling in a way it hasn’t in many years, and it’s this which startles him out of his quiet contemplation. He slips back into his room, skin electrified with nerves in a way it hasn’t been in forever. Something about the house feels radically alive, like the way it had been when he was too young to be hit or sent to fend for himself. Noise seeps in through the walls, and Hua Cheng shakes a little at the enormity of it, trembling on a precipice of the most dangerous feeling there is—hope. 

[valderaa]

kiri, I have to know, what is art class for dummies?

ah... art class for dummies is... a very tiny wip! i wanted to write something related to kou & mitsuba's relationship in toilet bound hanako-kun, and there's this one note that like, kou got an F in his art class? anyways i was having a lot of feelings. it was actually so hard to write more of this... it was more a writing exercise than an actual fic, so it's definitely gonna need some more doctoring... still, here's an excerpt under the cut

minamoto kou failed his first and only art class in his first year of middle school. fail is a bit harsh—he scraped by with a passing grade, but his teacher had told him with big and kind and serious eyes that he had no talent and vision.

“I’m fine with abstract art,” she’d said, “but it’s like you’re unable to capture the shape of anything. everything you turn in is like illegible handwriting. you just don’t have the sense for it.”

it wasn’t a big deal, at the time—art was an elective, so kou switched to a different one the year after. but now that he's got a collection of tear-stained photos under his pillow, he finds himself drawn back the art room. last week, it seemed like the students had been working on portraits, and he paused, staring at the unfinished strokes, wondering if he could redeem himself with a paintbrush and capture the strokes of mitsuba’s smile. 

[valderaa]

the anomalous agate (epilogue)

for anyone who has no idea what this is about, go here for part one

for those who do, here's the ao3 link

there's a lot I want to say. the first, I guess, is that this isn't quite over—like I've mentioned many times before, I still have a bonus scene that's all hanzawa to tashiro. but this, here, is the end of the anomalous agate as it exists in seigi's pov, and as a case in the case files of jeweler richard.

out of curiosity, I found the longest case I could think of in the first two volumes of cfojr—case 2-3—and checked the word count. it totaled an approximate 21k, and with this epilogue, my case reaches the same total.

this is by far my favorite fic that I've ever written, so I could talk about it forever (I really might). but here, I won't say any more, and leave the epilogue under the cut:

case 2-x: the anomalous agate (epilogue)

Richard had always liked to read during his downtime. Rather than keep a stock of books in Jewelry Étranger, he liked to cart them back and forth from his home. Once, when I asked him if he’d ever considered purchasing e-books, we spent the next hour discussing the value of physical versus digital media. There were a lot of arguments for either side, but after analyzing the various pros and cons, Richard admitted that he just preferred the sensation of flipping pages and having the weight of a book in his hands. I tried to imagine Richard scrolling pensively through a tablet in his downtime, and the image was so jarring I almost apologized for asking about e-books in the first place.

Still, one of the cons we’d discussed about physical media was the fact that it took up way more space. Despite that fact, it felt like Richard always had a new book in his hands. I’d never seen his place, so I could only imagine that he lived in a palace with a sprawling library. Or, more realistically, a luxury apartment with a room the size of my apartment allocated for his books.

Most times, the things he read were texts about jewels that went entirely over my head, or books so thick that they were similarly impenetrable. Sometimes they were both. Today, though, Richard was flipping through the pages of a thin book with an illustrated cover. It was a deep blue color, and though Richard’s hand obscured some of the illustration, the blue of the sky was dotted with golden stars—almost like lapis lazuli.

This was enough to pique my interest, and I had downtime in spades, so I sidled up behind him.

From his relaxed position in one of the red armchairs, Richard glanced up at me. I must have successfully conveyed I’ll pace around the room unless you entertain me with my face, because the corners of his mouth quirked upwards.

It had to be an awkward angle, looking up to see me leaning against the back of his chair and unrepentantly staring, but Richard made every move with elegance. I watched the way his hair began to fall away from his face as he tilted his head, opening up his expression into something a little more unreserved.

“What book is that?” I asked. 

“Le Petit Prince.” 

Le Petit? Sheepish, I said, “My English isn’t that great yet…”

Richard raised an eyebrow. “It’s French,” he said, and though the words themselves weren’t laced with malice, I could read the obvious Surely, Seigi, by now you must have learned enough English to distinguish it from other languages in his expression. “The translated title would be The Little Prince. I was reminded of it recently, so I’ve been rereading portions.”

I peered down at the page Richard had open. Sure enough, though I recognized the letters, none of the words made any sense. “What’s it about?” 

“Many things. But there was a particular scene…” He thumbed through the pages until I saw a simple illustration of a fox and a boy dressed in green. “The novel deals with a lot of things—it has a lot to say about the world, but one of my favorite moments in the travels of our titular character is when he meets the fox. The fox asks to be tamed by the little prince—here, he explains what it means.” Without hesitation, Richard translated the French before me into Japanese. “‘But if you tame me, then we shall need each other. To me, you will be unique in all the world. To you, I shall be unique in all the world.’”

“…Tame?” 

“It’s an interesting word, isn’t it?” Richard said. “The fox defines it first as ‘to establish ties,’ but it’s still a peculiar way of expressing friendship. More truthful, perhaps.” He smiled. “Either way, I was reminded of the complications of your troublesome client.” 

There was only one person he could’ve been referring to—the one who’d bought blue lace agate earrings just the other day. I wondered if Richard had remembered the book because he’d seen the same bit of Tashiro’s green hoodie that I had, or because the cover had reminded him of lapis lazuli. But these musings took only a moment; I was stuck on the word tame.

It wasn’t something I’d ever heard used in the context of friendship, but the idea clicked with me. The word evoked a kind of dependency that I felt keenly. I glanced towards Richard. A tamed creature becomes unique, huh? If it was me… Richard couldn’t be anything but a prince.

“What’s on your mind?” Richard asked. 

I’d only recently put my foot in my mouth by comparing us to a married couple, so I refrained from trying to make comparisons. Instead, I chose to bring up a different curiosity of mine. “I was just thinking about how quick Hanzawa’s last visit was. I wish I could’ve heard him explain his choice a little more…” 

Richard set his book to the side. “The blue lace agate?” 

“It wasn’t even something you’d mentioned, so…” 

“I think that was Hanzawa-san’s way of showing initiative,” Richard said. “And it was a rather perfect stone for him. I was not needed for his choice in the slightest.” 

“That’s not true,” I said. “I—there’s no way what you said was unimportant.” 

Glossing past my words, Richard continued his speculation. “I’d mentioned, then, that agate is often dyed to enhance its visual appeal—judging by Hanzawa-san’s reaction to the word ‘truth,’ I’m inclined to think this is somewhat of a sore spot. But what it did tell me was that he was sincerely considering the jewel as a reflection of himself.” 

“…You really know everything,” I said. I’d run into Hanzawa twice, but Richard’s understanding of him matched mine.

“Not everything,” Richard said. “Agate is not metamorphic like lapis lazuli, but its banding pattern demonstrates a subtler uniqueness and complexity. I would think that choosing a naturally colored type of agate, which carries these qualities inherently, was a matter of pride for Hanzawa-san.” 

Pride was really the perfect word—I suddenly remembered Hanzawa’s words about needing strength to be anomalous. To be happy as you were… like Mami-san had expressed, it was certainly a hard thing to do.

“Maybe not everything,” I allowed, “but seriously, you’re spot on. I talked with Hanzawa a lot more than you did, but I didn’t make any of those connections.” 

Richard straightened up in his armchair, obscuring his face from my view. With a sigh, he said, “In this case… I have something of an unfair advantage.”

“Unfair?” I asked, leaning to get a better look at his face.

“Hanzawa-san and I… I believe the expression is, ‘cut from the same cloth?’ That’s the way we are. It makes me feel ill-suited to speak to him, and I suspect the feeling is reciprocated.”

“I don’t think you’re alike at all, though,” I said, studying the mild discomfort on Richard’s face. 

He looked back up at me, curious. “Why do you think so?” 

I wracked my brain for an explanation. If anything, I felt it was Hanzawa and I who were similar, but I couldn’t say why. I could see glimpses of Richard in Hanzawa—something about the grace they made look effortless, but it wasn’t enough for me to truly compare them. Finally, my gaze strayed to the cover of The Little Prince, and I blurted out, “You’re a prince, and he’s a fox.”

As if to prove me wrong in an instant, Richard laughed, his lips curving into a foxlike smile. But even as he did so, he looked like a beautiful, otherworldly prince who could have traveled to many planets before the two of us could meet. “It isn’t that literal,” he said. “Fox or prince; they tame each other the same.” 

Well, I thought, drinking in the visage of the beauty before me, I’m probably not smart enough to be a fox, anyways. “Maybe there’s something you haven’t noticed yet,” I said like the fool I was. “Tell me more about the book?”

After some hemming, hawing, and a promise of milk pudding from yours truly, Richard agreed. He opened the book at the beginning and translated the words before him in a smooth, beautiful tone.

My weight braced against the back of his chair, I closed my eyes, and let his words wash over me.

…If I was ever in Kyoto, maybe I’d get him some kitsune senbei.

-THE END-