#back to the start//backstories

[penismage]

trying to get back into drawing a bit with a little sketch of one of my favorite d&d characters i’ve ever played

[captainuranium543]

Tartaros really was hiro mashima going "hey what if I just put all my characters in the blender" huh.

[hanzajesthanza]

geralt "i will NEVER deadname my best friend" of rivia

"he will ALWAYS be dandelion to ME"

[agentc0rn]

🏮Happy 1st anniversary teal mask!! 🏮Thank you for the many cool memories, awesome mons and characters that we met along the way! Ogerpon the iconic 🙌 I’ve met many cool people on here through shared interests in the story, expressed in many fun arrays of art, writing, memes and etc.

[juniemunie]

"Why am I still doing this?"

"Don't you get it?"

"This is all just a show... and we're playing parts~"

[transingthoseformers]

Seemingly lighthearted sitcom focusing on a handful of autobots and decepticons but it becomes increasingly obvious that something isn't right and this isn't real— actually, where are they??

[faislittlewhiteraven]

Been having some ISaT tech level and timeline (as in 'when backstory things happened') thoughts and want to ramble a bit:

Tech

ISaT's setting is based on your classic sword and sorcery fantasy JRPG so its easy to assume that tech wise everything is 'fantasy medieval' and call it a day but consider:

Body Craft is at bare minimum is magic sex changing surgery (earliest known equivent in our world dating to 1930) that any old person can learn to do safely on themselves in only a few months, and more likely has many many broader applications like regular old surgery, the 'combat healing' Mira and Sif use, etc.

Cameras and photos are rare enough that Odile comments on it (namely she's happy the group get a photo in the House due to them being 'so rare') yet are also common enough that everyone in the party knows about them and doesn't question the existence of a camera beyond being surprised that the mirror was one. (In our world cameras date back to the 19th century, with the earliest manufacturing of them being in 1839). 

Printing presses and ways to make plenty of paper to feed those presses given absolutely everyone in this game can read, expects everyone else to know how to, and both mass produced book series and newspapers are a thing. (Note: Printing presses have existed since waaaay back but it's the mass paper manufacturing that makes newspapers and The Cursing of Chateu Castle possible that really has my eyebrows raised here, especially since neither Siffrin or Odile find either odd in any way, indicating such things are common everywhere, and while newspapers have been around since 1604 in our world, mass produced fantasy books didn't really take off until the start of the 20th century).

Food production and storage: despite being in the middle of a national disaster that almost certainly cut off trade networks and access to most suppliers for literal months now, Bonnie, a small child, is able to easily get their hands on fresh Pineapple, curry ingredients (for samosa), potatoes, plantains etc with no issues or anyone commenting on this being unusual or lucky. Oh and the only character who even brings up the concept of potential starvation is the Fishing One, and only in a sort of 'we're not at risk now but sooner or later...' kinda way due to noticing that the fish they fish up for fun are disappearing and likely being frozen. So yeah, that heavily implies Vaugarde has very good food storage tech/Craft (possibly better than ours), and likely also good food production and harvesting tech/skills also.

The Island's incredible knowledge of the stars: while the oldest known orrery in our world is dated from around 205 to 87 BC (ancient Greek, earth centric model), the fact Sif -who would've learnt this as a child/teen- is so very certain that stars are big balls of fire made up of gas is interesting as that's something our world couldn't prove the theory of until around the 1900s (note: it'd been theorized a LONG time but Sif talks like its complete facts to them . Additionally the earliest existing record of a telescope in our world dates to a 1608 patent and we see one of those in game.

Post posting EDIT: A wonderful user qds-place pointed out that Mirabelle has anti-anxiety medication in her room. This is in both ISaT and SAaP and though we're not sure what form the medication takes (pills? Valium? Megitech esc Craft boosters???) the fact they specifically have 'anti anxiety' medication at all (as opposed to idk dragging Mira off and drugging her through the gills) is kind of impressive and if it IS modern anti anxiety pills those could be as recent in creation as the 1950s! So um. Some high levels of tech implied in chemistry there <3

So... yeah. All this, plus the fact that the highest tech implied area, The Island, literally specialised in the study/Craft of turning wishes into reality (for a long enough time period that Wish Craft is culturally so ingrained in the King and Sif that they do it without thinking and it seems intertwined with their nation's religion) has been completely erased from memory to the point anything heavily associated with them has been forgotten, and also we only ever see Dormont aka a little village well away from the cities, it's not hard to conclude that you can basically justify giving the ISaT world any level of tech you want, so long as you lock any of the truly 'setting breaking' stuff like planes and rockets behind The Island's forgetting curse (I would've said trains too but thinking about it trains were invented in 1802 so it's honestly easy to imagine that they totally exist in the ISaT setting/Vaugarde but aren't ever on screen because rail is way too dangerous to consider using while the Curse is active and potentially time freezing things on the tracks).

Side note: We know absolutely nothing about Vaugarde's transport system but as a fan of fantasy RPGs it is honestly a travesty I have yet to see a fic that has flying dragons/wyverns or other fantasy mounts in setting. Like, ok yes, the party would probably have wanted to use those but maybe they don't like the Curse and fled? Maybe the King's Curse targeted them first? Maybe all their handlers dropped the heroes off in Dormont and said 'Well Saviors it's been fun, but well me and Scales here are off to Poteria until things wrap up so best of luck to you' before buggering off?

This isn't really a serious complaint just. Me reminding myself/potentially other fanwork writers out there that there's a lot about the setting we just don't know about and limiting all travel to walking, horse drawn carriage and boat is not actually required. (Also please mix up travelling to the Island. Boats are a wonderful classic and have great thematic vibes for Sif's original leaving of the Island but like. Imagine the sheer in-universe wtf of the memories of The Island suddenly coming back and people on the north coast suddenly realising there's a massive bridge, subway or underwater tunnel leading there that everyone just forgot about - potentially filled with all kinds of Sadnesses that need taking down. Or Warp Panels in a House of Change, idk XD).

Timeline

Canon notes first:

Bonnie is a preteen (8 to 12), Mira and Isa are in their early to mid 20s (with Isa slightly older), Sif is late 20s to 30, and Odile is 40+ Nille is stated to be around 18 to 20.

Siffrin ran away from home when they were a teenager (13 to 17? 18?) and this is heavily implied to be when the Island was Forgotten.

Bonnie (in ISaT specifically*) says that Nille told them that when it happened all the adults were talking about it, hence why they think The Island is close to their village. *In Start Again a Prologue, Bonnie says that they themself remember the adults talking about the Island disappearing, which er. Is a bit impossible given they likely weren't even born yet when that happened but that can be explained away by AU differences, InsertDisc5 still finalising details between SAaP and ISaT, and/or OG Siffrin having been in the loops so long they weren't actually listening when Bonnie was talking and just 'scripted' in their head something 'close enough' to what Bonnie was saying to get the idea (note: mentioned that idea before in my post here on the differences between the House and King in Start Again vs In Stars and Time for anyone curious so er please feel free to give that a read if you haven't already).

Odile mentions remembering 'when it happened' as well and has been 'travelling for years'.

The King 'appeared out of nowhere' sometime in his adulthood, and lived in the city of Corbeaux for a few years before he became the King.

The King became the King as was freezing people in time long enough before his attack on the House of Dormont that everyone inside knew he was coming, there were a wall's worth of newspaper articles about him, and everyone was expecting Euphrasie to defeat him.

Mirabelle's quest began 'almost a year ago' and Sif lost their eye 'recently'.

Thoughts on the above:

Calculating when The Island was forgotten:

Sif being mid 20s to 30 and having run away from home as a teen means that The Island has to have been forgotten somewhere between 9 to 17 years ago with nine only possible if he ran away at age 17 and is only age 26 now, and seventeen being the far opposite if he ran at age 13 and is currently 30.

To narrow down the timeline: Given Sif ran away from home because he 'didn't want to eat his veggies' and 'just wanted to scare [his] parents a little bit' it's probably safe to assume Siffrin was likely on the younger end of the teen spectrum (teens run off all the time sure but with loving parents and over veggies? That screams 'kid who has not yet learned that freaking out the parents will get their ass grounded and/or yelled at a LOT and is therefore best saved for doing fun forbidden stuff that ideally the parents will never find out about' XD) Additionally given Siffrin can't remember his age/birthday etc but Isabeau outright says near the beginning of the game "But you're older than most of the people here?" meaning Sif must be visibly older than Isa or Mira, so he's probably closer to 30 than not.

Those alone would imply the Island likely disappeared closer to the '17 years ago' side of things BUT Nille (tops 20 years old) told Bonnie that "[the Island's disappearance] was all the adults would talk about for ages" and kids usually can't remember anything prior to 4 years of age so with that in mind...

I'd say The Island most likely disappeared between 13 to 16 years ago.

Nille stuff:

This is more a general mention but. Nille is tops 20 years old. Bonnie is between 8 and 12 and doesn't remember their parents at all.

This means Nille ran away with Bonnie and gained emancipation and custody of Bonnie (if Vaugarde has formalised that kind of legal stuff) while she was at most 12 years old herself and could have in theory been as young as 6..!

Regardless, it's very likely the original home situation was that bad, Nille deserves a ton of credit for raising Bonnie as well as she has and I'd say it's very VERY likely she had a lot of help from villagers in Bambosche and/or the local House of Change in doing so. ...But also Bonnie is very adamantly 'my sister and village' and not 'my sister and [specific names who live with us]' so there's clearly by the time Bonnie was 4 or so they were living in their own place so... Yeah. Lotta drive for independence there too it seems (so the party might have more trouble adopting Nille into their group post ISaT than Bonnie might expect).

King stuff:

Already an adult 13 to 16 years ago so at bare minimum 33. Given his vibe probably much older though.

Newspapers get printed pretty quick though for there to be so much speculation and research done into his background so quick, either Vaugarde has some form of fast messaging system (something like a Chappe telegraph on top of the Houses of Change? Odile I think does mention that they'll have a message sent to let Nille know they'll be returning Bonnie...) or the King was freezing stuff for IDK around a month or two before reaching Dormont? Alas can't find out how long it takes to walk across all of France out very easily (I'm sure the numbers are out there but my brain is pudding rn) but if we had those numbers we could probably make some guesstimates based off the rough sketched map of Vaugarde InsertDisk5 did... Which I would link but apparently the tumblr post I had it linked on has been deleted???? 'wails at this very unhappy development'

Mira's journey and Sif's eye:

We really don't know a lot but almost a year ago gives us somewhere around 9 to 11 months to spread the journey out along and after eye removal surgery the patient can out and about as soon as 2 to 6 weeks after, maybe sooner with magic healing (though full recovery/growing used to the changed spacial awareness -which Sif clearly does not have- probably can't be sped up and takes around 3 to 6 months) so um. I'd guestimate Sif's eye injury is really recent; like two months ago tops recent. ...Which sorta explains a lot of why Bonnie is not dealing with it right now and also why the others might be trying to avoid bringing it up (since Sif clearly loves avoiding the issue but they haven't yet realised that maybe they really should bring it up even if it annoys them anyway?)

Odile with some Ka Bue speculation:

When it comes to The Island, how did Odile, presumably living in Ka Bue at the time, remember 'when it happened'? Was the Island well known enough even on the other side of the world that it's disappearance made waves? Or was Odile herself or someone she's close to paying attention to the region? (Like maybe her dad or a friend is/was into politics or trade, keeping up with overseas news and got concerned it could happen to Ka Bue? I'd say 'I remember when it happened' line implies it was more immediate knowledge than being informed by a messenger much later though...)

As for Odile's 'years of travel' I have to wonder, what's left behind for her in Ka Bue? She brings up going back there quite a bit, might just miss home and possibly her father if he's still alive, but given it took her years to get here for something so personal rather than idk 'materially rewarding' I think Odile might have some kinda family estate or something back in Ka Bue... Something she wasn't worried about potentially losing while far away, but solid enough to want to return to, beyond her father who she'd definitely want to see again if he's still around. (...But given how open she is to chilling about Vaugarde a few more months with the others, I really don't think he is alive, since well, given their respective ages and travel between Vaugarde and Ka Bue apparently taking years, there'd definitely an uncomfortably high chance of him passing away while she's gone and that seems like the thing that'd stress Odile out so... Yeah. Probably got an estate in Ka Bue she'd like to take the Family to visit/possibly sell off if she decides she'd like to live with them in Vaugarde so... Just my off the cuff headcanoning here and hoping that gives others ideas or something).

---

Anyway that's all the ramble I've got in me so... yeah! Hope this was interesting and useful for those needing a bit of a 'possible tech'/timeline calcs breakdown for the Island + a few more vague things and um. Probably will post a long winding ramble about my attempt at a ISaT Selkie AU fic I've been working on next <3 (Not to be confused with looped-140-and-counting's already existing and quite wonderful Selkie Siffrin AU which already has a completed oneshot fic, a snippet of sequel, two snippets of prequel/Sif flashbacking and I believe a comic too, all of which I highly recommend <3)

[salpho]

OC I MADE IN 0.5 SECONDS he's called Wildcard and he's a trivia bot who got a little bit conscious and "broken" technically and is sent by the watchers with the rest of the bots to quiz everyone. He's a bit mischievous and asks players really hard and impossible to answer questions on purpose, sometimes lying to them if they do get the answer right somehow. The only way to avoid this guy screwing you over is if you provide actual evidence behind a your answer and then he accepts and floats away all sad. Ant with bindle style.

[luvuomi]

༄˖°. 𝐏𝐀𝐒𝐒𝐀𝐆𝐄 𝐎𝐅 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐒𝐔𝐍.

゛i am yours. even in this waiting, i am yours ⸝⸝.ᐟ⋆

“i love you.”

kazuha had never known such a feeling could exist in the great mystery that is love. he’s read the many prose that describe declarations of love akin to the first blossoms of spring or the explosion of fireworks crackling in the night skies. all this time, he was convinced he knew what it felt like to love and to be loved.

their love had always existed behind the veil of fate, existing in the form of an intricately embroidered thread that held together the bonds of promise and devotion between two souls that recognized a home in each other.

though it was buried beneath years of longing and pining, it was always there with him. from the moment their paths converged—carmine eyes meeting the honeycombed ones of another—kazuha would never know what it meant to be “alone,” so long as he was tethered to the one he believed he could never go on living without. but being together with her was painful, in its own twisted yet beautiful way. despite loathing himself to think as such, it was almost a burden to remain at her side and not ever feel a need for something more. even when all kazuha ever wanted was just that.

he should be happy, overfilled with a joy that is beyond measure, right? so why — why is there a heartache dwelling deep inside him?

the truth is.. the wandering ronin now cannot bear to fathom the thought of leaving behind his beloved to continue his travels, knowing that every view he’ll see will feel incomplete without her. a heart truly is a heavy burden.

🎨 →⠀﹐⠀╱⠀thank you so much to @scarameownya for this beautiful and heart-wrenching ( /pos ) commission🥹🤍 !! i absolutely LOVE how everything turned out and omg.. zuzu’s expression 💔💔 IM CRYING IK I ASKED FOR THIS SPECIFICALLY BUT IT STILL HURTS OKAY? and then coupled with had i not seen the sun ?? yea im gonna go dark for the next few hours chat /j /lh also yes i did cry while writing out this blurb leave me alone-

[loveselenade]

Crisis of the family in n25 (Part 1)

The case of the Daughter’s talent erasing the Father.

Right from the very prologue, Nīgo's story presents us with the idea that Kanade’s family life has been obliterated— with that of her father’s hospitalization and her mother’s demise. The literal, physical absence of her parents serves to map her (more abstract) experience of child abuse through neglect into something visually concrete, as well as highlighting the precarity of her position as a child within the private (heterosexual) couple-based family.

Categories in crisis.

The segments in the main story detailing Kanade’s backstory center her relationship with her father, apparently long after her mother has passed away. Mr. Yoisaki’s status as a widowed freelancer complicates his position in relation to hegemonic masculinity[1]: while he still is the ultimate authority of his household and carries the responsibility of financially maintaining it as the head of the family, he goes from the very image of success— being a heterosexual, married man who’s the sole provider for his family to a certain degree of financial security (if we’re to judge by his equipment)— to a single father struggling to both secure work and successfully complete his client’s requests. As a freelance composer, his ability as a Father is predicated on his talent, and his struggle for this talent to cover his family’s needs threatens his masculinity.

Even after becoming a widow, Mr. Yoisaki rarely participates in domestic life due to work commitments— “the couple-based heterosexual household (is) built upon a gendered division of tasks, not least via the naturalization of particularly intensive mothering[2]”. The gap in reproductive labor (in the form of caretaking and housework) left by his wife’s demise then falls onto his middle-schooler daughter to fulfill. Kanade’s efforts underline her quality as a child: her attempts at cooking involve using pre-made ingredients and food from the convenience store, evidencing her status as a beginner cook. Her efforts to ensure her father’s well-being through cooking and cleaning, monitoring his needs are met and tending to his dejected moods often are politely declined and/or ignored. Even though she’s taking on the (invisible) labor a wife would undertake, she has no real way to influence her father or affect their family life. Furthermore, in the absence of her mother, there is no one left to ensure Kanade’s own needs are met, and she will often spend long periods of time ignored by her father and trying to come up with ways to earn his attention and love.

The place of a Daughter.

The ideal of the family promises the “grasping at a chance of guaranteed belonging, trust, recognition, and fulfillment[3].” This promise keeps Kanade and her Father motivated to continue their beleaguered maintenance of their household. For Mr. Yoisaki, to secure his place in the world as a parenting man that provides for his family and wisely guides and nurtures Kanade; his role as a Father is meant to secure him love, care and fulfillment. For Kanade as a Daughter, to have her material needs provided for and her future potential properly guided and eventually realized. Familial love is supposed to instill in her a sense of security in her place in the world and her agency in it.

What we see in the time the main story takes place is quite literally the opposite: her parents’ literal absence means that she will often neglect herself through denying herself food and rest for as long as possible, not to mention the fact she's a hikikomori whose only source of companionship are her online friends. She is single-mindedly dedicating all her energy and resources to redeem her existence through “creating music that can save anyone.” This attitude didn't originate from her Father's hospitalization, however. During the flashback segments, Kanade is weighted down by the sense she's burdensome: after all, she is the reason her father has to work himself so hard (nearly to the point of karōshi). So, she attempts to ease the burden she represents through being a dutiful daughter dedicated to caring for him and to her studies; she feels responsible for his happiness as the sole other member of their household. Post-hospitalization, she's haunted by the fact she is the reason he can no longer enjoy music (untrue), that she has killed his passion and reason d'etre, robbed him of his place in the world. Rather than fulfilling her role as his Daughter to ensure his happiness and fulfillment, she has failed and made him miserable.

Kanade’s status as a virtually parentless hikikomori highlights two things: 1. The precarity of children's position within the private household, and 2. The untenability of the Family Ideal. With regard to the former, one only needs to remember that there aren’t viable structural alternatives to child care, in Japan or globally. When Japanese children cannot be cared for/live with their parents, they’re more likely to end up institutionalized in state child care institutions[4] than to be fostered or adopted (98% of adoptions in Japan involve adult men)[5]. This is because “parental rights trump those of the child’s even when there is evidence to suggest the child is being abused or neglected by their parents(...);”[6]  “parents prefer ‘to have their child placed in an institution than they are for the child to be fostered or adopted…as it allows them [children] to maintain a link with birth parents’.” This facilitates the parent to disengage from “the stresses of child-rearing without giving up their child or their legal rights over their child.[7]” So even in the case of Mr. Yosiaki being unable to care for Kanade due his hospitalization, it’s considered preferable for him to retain custody of her; Kanade’s living situation as a child that lives completely alone with no one to care for her represents the reality of many neglected, virtually parentless children.

(On this topic, the only thing that prevents Kanade from being homeless or institutionalized is the narrative convenience of having someone covering her expenses so that she can remain in her family residence. I might be the only one who cares about this, but I do wonder if it’ll come up more in detail eventually. Also, for more information on a contemporary issue with regards the structural lack of support for neglected and abused children, check this article on Toyoko children. Abusive or neglectful families, bullying and harassment, impossibly high academic expectations, are all considered to be the shared causes behind the phenomena of Toyoko children and hikikomori).

Having it all.

“The hegemonic cultural ideal of the man as husband, father, and provider (...) has traditionally been embodied in the image of the daikokubashira— literally the central pillar of a house, but applied metonymically to the male breadwinner “supporting” the household. (...) (This) ideology (...) defines and determines hegemonic masculinity primarily through work.(...) This notion (can impart) a sense of strength, empowerment and achievement to (...) masculine self-esteem.(...) The “fundamental” qualifications for shakaijin masculinity—becoming a daikokubashira, (are) supporting and looking after a family.”[8]

Even though Mr. Yoisaki’s position as a freelance composer, an artisan with no regular, full-time work hours, complicates his engagement to hegemonic masculinity, that his sense of self and achievement is predicated on his ability to complete his work is undeniable:

Mr. Yoisaki’s diary: “30th. I won the competition. But it seems that I’m not entirely happy about it. It was Kanade’s phrase that was highly evaluated. It’s her song. I cannot say it’s mine.”

His growing discontent over his (in)ability to secure and complete work is not solely predicated on practical concerns about securing their livelihood, but on the growing disruption of his sense of self and his certainty in his masculinity; his confidence on his talent becomes eroded:

Mr. Yoisaki’s diary: “They all laugh that the music I make belongs to the past. Even though it was so refined in that commercial, they say. What am I missing?”

This insecurity is what sparks his jealousy over his daughter’s talent. While he does not express his feelings directly to her, they drive his need to reaffirm and express his ego through his music— and his long hours at work. Despite being a freelancer that, in theory, can define his own working hours since he’s not bound by any company, he still pulls in the typical salaryman work schedule in order to validate his own sense of masculine identity, nearly driving himself to an early grave. However, upon being confronted with the enormity of Kanade’s talent through her gift to him, he becomes convinced he has no place in the present, and like his daughter, loses his sense of place in the world:

Mr. Yoisaki’s diary:  “8th. Kanade gave me a song as a gift. Now I finally know. What is missing in my song. Why they laugh that my music is old-fashioned. What I create is merely an imitation of music I heard in the past. But Kanade’s music is different. It touches the hearts of the people who live in the present.”

However, despite his engagement with his own masculinity being very in line with trying to fulfill the image of the daikokubashira, he’s far from the image of the typical domineering father[9]. He shows himself gentle and supportive of Kanade whenever they speak, in spite of his insecurities. His diary confirms his commitment to looking after her despite the sacrifices to his ego this signifies:

Mr. Yoisaki’s diary: “But I still must keep on creating. To make a living. And for the sake of Kanade. I must create music that makes money. Yet is that… the music I want that makes someone happy?”

Even if his words try to establish his daughter, his family, as his reason to continue living, this falls in line with Ueno’s statement “that even today, some men mistake money and success at work for love for their family”[10] (and given Kanade’s grandma ends up supporting all of her expenses after his collapse, it further cements the ego component to his financial struggles). This inability to successfully negotiate his embodiment of the daikokubashira ideal and a redefinition of his masculinity to be more centered around being a Nurturing Father is what drives him into a nervous crisis where his poor health ultimately catches up to him. Narratively, his stasis is portrayed through his partially-amnesiac, convalescing state in which he can only remain himself through limited, sparse recollection of Kanade (and I have to wonder if the resolution —or lack thereof— to his identity crisis will play a role in the climax of Kanade’s own conflicted identity).

"In Everything for Everyone, Abdelhadi explains how (...) “you were supposed to still do all the things everyone was going while also raising the kid or kids, and everyone kind of questioned your work if it wasn’t 100-percent true. If you couldn’t do it all or have it all—which no one could.”[11] This passage captures the heart of the conflict in the Yosiaki household— that is that the couple-based family unit is “overburdened with work and worry about financial security and children’s unfolding lives[12]”, and such an overwhelming amount of labor and needs easily overtook both Father and Daughter’s capacities.

[1] “(Ryōta) is depicted as successful, ambitious and accomplished: an architect at a Tokyo firm, he leads a large team and works long hours. (...) The film establishes the Nonomiya family as a model of conventional gender roles and relations, within which the father rarely participates in domestic life due to work commitments while the mother takes the majority of responsibility for childcare and housework (...). Ryōta is also portrayed as an embodiment of the hegemonic model of masculinity in Japan, the salaryman: the heterosexual, married, white-collar office worker.” Christie Barber, 2018, ‘Beyond the absent father stereotype: Representations of parenting men and their families in contemporary Japanese film’. in Fabienne Darling-Wold (ed), Routledge Handbook of Japanese Media, pp 230.

[2] Sarah Brouillete (2023), Domestic Heteropessimism, as accessed in 06/01/2025 https://post45.org/2023/07/domestic-heteropessimism/

[3] Brouillete (2023)

[4] Alyssa Pearl Fusek (2018a), Life in Limbo: How Japan is Failing its Institutionalized Children. Unseen Japan, 2018. As accessed on 06/01/2025.

[5] Alyssa Peark Fusek(2018b), Why do Adult Adoptions Abound in Japan’s Business World? Unseen Japan, 2018. As accessed on 06/01/2025.

[6] Fusek (2018a).

[7] Idem

[8] Dasgupta, Romit, 2005, ‘Salarymen doing straight: Heterosexual men and the dynamics of gender conformity’, in M. McLelland and R. Dasgupta (eds), Genders, transgenders and sexualities in Japan, pp168,170-171

[9] “Ryōta’s conversations with Keita recurrently consist of instructions or admonishments about such things as table manners or learning piano—- an expression of Ryōta’s general judgement that Keita is unable to meet his expectations and therefore deficient. In these depictions, Ryōta conforms to a model of masculinity that Michele Adams and Scott Coltrane (2005) argue demands that a man not only be in a position of authority and responsibility, but also autonomous and uninvolved with his family.” Barber (2018)

[10] Quoted in: Gordon Matthews, 2003, ‘Can ‘a real man’ live for his family?: ikigai and masculinity in today’s Japan’ in James E. Roberson and Nobue Suzuki (eds), Men and masculities in Contemporary Japan: Dislocating the salaryman doxa, pp 110.

[11] Quoted in Brouillete (2023)

[12] Brouillete (2023).

[daltonsnightmare]

some things never change

[snailfen]

hello everyone i am definitely the same man i was when deltarune dropped this morning

[essektheylyss]

I am once again knitting which means I'm back to the Nein rewatch and happened to be on Midnight Espionage, and truly INSANE episode. The egg dick, both break-ins, the Zauber Spire attack, and the first time a beacon is on screen in like four hours flat. Trent Ikithon is there. The episode ends with Liam and Marisha yelling, "TRUST THE PORN."

[revyn-moonfox]

I need fanfic recommendations for apothecary diaries, pleeeaaase.

Especially ones where Lakan is able to be a good father... that would be great.

But i'll also just take anything else you like :3 i'm as far as the manga goes and don't trust the light novel, so I just need more input. My hyperfixation brain is starving.

[unforgivingchorus]

I’ve been deconstructing my ideas of Tim to separate fanon from canon for the purpose of my solo run idea. What do you mean Batman calling him Jason was a canon event. I understand fanon has a basis in canon but I thought that was a development of fanon maybe. Eye is twitching I’m bringing back all of my deconstructed emotional disconnected mentor Batman thoughts

[clumsypuppy]

i feel like im not making any sense but does anyone else feel like there are stories that let u run with them and ones that spell everything out for you