#missing them hours and copium time let's go

[frankenjoly]

Hopefully tumblr doesn't troll you again with the asks... (this app is so buggy sometimes)

I'd like to request Bram & Aya + "beach" (it's missing them hours)

thankfully i discovered the issue quick-ish lkjlk but yeah... also: bramcraft mention bramcraft mention bramcraft mention

“And here I thought you wouldn’t like this.” Aya said, with an amused smirk, as she gave the final touches to the sand castle they had spent part of the afternoon making. “The beach, I mean.”

“What I am not an enthusiast of is being too much exposed to sunlight, but I do enjoy the shore and the sea.” And a day as cloudy as that one did the trick, even if they needed to be ready for the possibility of some rain. Besides, such weather also meant less people around, something Bram wouldn’t exactly complain about but quite the opposite.

“Yeah, it didn’t occur to me that you gotta come here a lot with your sea creature boyfriend.”

“Strictly speaking, Mr Lovecraft does not exactly come from any sea.” Or that planet by that matter, nor was ‘boyfriend’ as a term enough to describe their relationship either. But it started conveying the idea, he had to give that some credit.

“I know, I know, but you get me.” She simply said, and Bram nodded.

“I do.” The last detail was adding some little stones as decoration, then putting a tiny paper flag over the highest tower. And once that was done, Aya smiled from ear to ear. “Waddaya say, lord, count and expert? Is this a good castle?”

He didn’t even have to think about it; the answer was obvious.

“The best from the best, undoubtedly.” Bram assured her, smiling too.

(Also on ao3.)

[momentomori24]

Keiji is a character that I'm pretty sure every one of us can recognize is an absolute weirdo (ok maybe some are too hard on copium for the "weirdo" part) and sketchy as hell, but thinking about everything he's done it really feels like he's so much shady and ruthless than we give him credit for. So here's me bulletpointing some the moments that I haven't seen too many talk about, a little theory throwing his status into question and addressing the massive elephant in the room that almost everyone refuses to acknowledge. If there's something else you feel I missed or wanted to evaluate on, do leave it in the comments.

[Also, disclaimer: I will be discussing Keiji and Sara in a romantic light near the end of this post, so if that makes you uncomfortable please proceed with caution or skip entirely. This should go without saying but for my own sake I will say it anyway-- No, I do not condone their relationship in real life. No, this is not meant to be "shippy" or endorsement of any kind. This will simply be pointing out their dynamic as another example to prove the whole point of this rant. But if someone else does ship them that's totally fine. Fiction doesn't equal reality and if you harass a real person over fictional characters you will not see the light of heaven. Be civil, please and thank you. My block button is rated E for Everyone and if anyone decides to ignore the warnings and be an asshole I won't hesitate to use it. Thanks for listening. Disclaimer over.]

*Being a murderer.

I feel like I should start with the most obvious and undeniable. I don't think this is debatable to anyone here. Mr. Policeman may have been an accident and kinda confirmed by Midori to have been set up, but he still shot and killed an unarmed man in a moment of panic and recklessness. Even putting that aside, there's no denying that he killed Megumi in cold blood to get out of his debt to her and covered it up to the group to preserve his credibility. Regardless of what you think of Megumi, he has no excuse here. Not only is he one more kill away from being a serial killer, he's the only participant in our group that has actually killed people directly aside from Alice. Another reason why I bring this up is cuz something that completely flew over my head is this:

At the start of the game he had the audacity to complain about not having a partner or someone he knows with him like Sara does as if he didn't literally let Megumi get ripped apart by chains probably not even an hour ago Keiji what the hell--

*Throwing Kanna under the bus repeatedly.

Despite positioning himself as a protector and someone to rely on, he's far from above putting their youngest members in danger. Next to voting for the fourteen year old girl to die, he had the great idea of letting said fourteen year old be the one to babysit their biggest liability. Up to the point where they would stay in the same room both day and night. While I absolutely 100% trust that Sou would never EVER do anything to her, Keiji had no guarantee of that when he send her off. Hell, he literally just got done accusing Sou of setting Joe up to die (which I don't believe almost solely based on the fact that he said it, more on that another time maybe). He knew Sou was bad news, and openly acknowledges how adults can be terrifying, but he did it anyway. The dubiety of throwing the already traumatised little girl to keep watch on what they thought to be the most dangerous adult that had manipulated her once before is not lost on me, and that he didn't take any responsibility for her afterwards isn't lost on me either. To be fair, the Sou and Kanna thing doesn't just fall on him, it falls on everybody (Alice gets a pass because he actually swapped out with Kanna to watch Sou for her), but he was the one with the final say on the matter and who encouraged her to take the role despite Reko's rightful protests. The fact that he also voted for her to die in the Main Game, and is the only adult to do so, doesn’t help his case.

*Attempting to frame Sou knowing Reko was actually responsible.

While you could argue he was trying to cover for her since he knew why she did what she did, trying to pin this act on Sou to cast more doubt on his is extremely shitty. Never mind the blatant corruption and the irony of a supposed man of the law abusing his power to knowingly frame an innocent person (in this situation at least), and him sowing more seeds of confusion and resentment within an already rattled group, and giving Sou legitimate reason to be suspicious of him (and by extension Sara)-- this makes it so difficult to trust him after realising he's done this. Literally every time he accuses someone of being or doing something suspicious (mostly Sou), I always have to think in the back of my head if he’s telling the truth or just telling a blatant lie. He's shown that he's willing to not only lie to cover for himself, but to lie to delegitimize someone else. And Sara never caught onto it (Sou and maybe even Nao likely did tho). She never openly acknowledged it-- No one did. The complete lack of mention of what he did here makes this action quite missable. Hell, I didn't even catch it the first time. Has he done this before? Who else has he lied about? Who else would he lie about? Who else would he knowingly pit against the group? You don't have to wait for that answer, because I will provide an example later. And with "later", I mean now.

*Casting suspicion on Gin before the vote while hiding the fact that he killed Megumi.

While it's not as blatant as with Kanna, there are two instances where Keiji shows a readiness to either put or leave Gin in harm's way. The biggest one for me is in the Main Game. Like, how dare you. That is a furry child, sir. This kid’s like TWELVE. Even though he makes a valid point about calling out suspicious actions to clear them up so we can all trust each other, casting doubt on Gin of all people right there feels pretty screwed to me. This was before the preliminary vote. His words could’ve very well gotten Gin voted for if he couldn’t disclose why he did what he did for whatever reason and therefore being unable to clear himself from suspicion. It’s even more fucked when you realise that Keiji has literally murdered his partner and is currently planning to get Sou killed while giving this whole spiel about doubting others so that we can believe them and pointing the finger at a little kid to make an example to the group. But when Nao, Sou and Sara call him out on his suspicious actions that could rightfully damage his credibility, he tries to shut them down completely. My brother in Christ, you brought it on FIRST (don’t get me wrong I’m very much aware he didn’t really mean the whole “trusting each other” bit but come on dude)--

Speaking about not meaning what he says:

*Letting the group think he’s Ok to vote for knowing he’s the Keymaster.

This kinda got to me because I thought this was Keiji actually being… vulnerable? Accepting the consequences of his actions and allowing them to vote for him in their distrust without protest even tho it could cost him his life, maybe. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I can’t remember a lot of times-- or any times, really-- where Keiji has willing put himself into the line of fire, at this point at least. He always finds a way to keep himself safe, give himself insurance, and I thought that this would be the one time he doesn’t do that. But this feels so ominous looking back knowing that he was the Keymaster the whole time. That our distrust and betrayal and his resignation to it all didn’t matter because he was going to be safe no matter what. That he knowingly allowed us to assume that he was a safe vote because he didn’t want his plan to kill Sou to be ruined, which narrowed down choice of people we can safely vote for even further. That this action is ultimately the reason why Sou and Kanna were our only options to kill off in the end. If he had admitted it there, we could’ve found someone else to vote for so our final options could consist of three people, not two. But he didn’t, and the rest is history. There’s a lot of things he’s done I can’t get over. This one ranks pretty high. The second Main Game is already a huge sore spot for me for obvious reasons; knowing that a lot of the things that happened were due to his inaction where it truly mattered and activity in all the wrong places doesn’t make me fee any better. He didn't say he was a safe vote-- he didn't lie-- but his words carefully omit that voting for him means a total party death, something he should've stated then (and before this, really).

*Leaving Sara with the sacrifice card.

Despite making a big show about “always being by her side” and being her “reliable policeman”, he chose to look away when she was in real danger. He attached himself to her as her right hand man, made her shoulder the responsibility of being the leader, constantly manipulated and flattered her to win her trust and gain her favour-- but when she needed him the most, he basically left her for dead because it was the most beneficial to him. Keep in mind that not only did he know about her getting the sacrifice (he was also the sage so he'd have seen the trade happen), but he had the tokens to help her get rid of it. But those tokens weren’t for her life. They were for his. He used them instead to give himself the Keymaster as insurance for the Main Game (the Keymaster he stole from Sou/Kanna most likely to buy Sara’s trust btw). His desperation for survival outweighed his sense of obligation to keep her safe, and that’s the most subtle yet transparent he’s been about his selfishness. What makes this so much worse is that Keiji is our support character. He’s an ally, and our closest one at that, to the point where Sara burned her hands in a futile attempt to rescue him and signed her life away to save his. And yet his loyalty and protectiveness pale in comparison to other characters. Compare his actions to Sou’s: one of their many parallels and similarities is that both their girls get hit with the sacrifice card. As we’ve established, Keiji was fully aware of Sara being send the sacrifice by Sou, had 50 tokens ready to go and chose to secure his own survival than save her life. Kanna ended up doing it instead, attempting to trade the card off Sara with Sou realising what happened immediately. And what does Sou do? Completely bend over backwards trying to keep her alive. He lied about being the Sacrifice so the others wouldn’t suspect Kanna of having that role, meaning he could try gathering vote for her without anyone seeing his true intentions. He tried to stop her about coming out with the truth of what she had done so she doesn’t sentence herself to death. After everything he did to survive-- after how much he lied, how much he schemed, how much he hurt, and how he had thrown himself away to replace everything that made him Shin with the man that had traumatised him years before the game began to scrape together even the tiniest chance to survive-- he threw it all to the wind and was willing to let it all be in vain if it meant she got to make it out of the Main Game alive. The worst part is that Sou had never intended to make it through that Main Game. He confessed to already knowing that Kanna would choose Sara over him if she truly had the Sacrifice card. Yet he still did what he did all in the hopes that she could win. Because it was all about her survival first, not about them surviving together.

It also gives a different context to Sou's panic and him stumbling over his words trying to come up with any argument to get them to stop. At first I thought that Sou was afraid for his life. Which would make sense-- Keiji and Q-taro set him up to die and seemed pretty adamant on having everyone voting for him to get it all over with. But he was already prepared to die the minute he realised Kanna traded with Sara. So it means it wasn’t his life he was fearing for here-- it was hers. To him, if they voted for him there, it wouldn’t have just been his end but hers too. But we know that Kanna isn’t the one who has the sacrifice. It’s Nao, and considering how the Main Game can end either or both of them dead, I wonder if he regrets not having given up there, not letting Keiji get away with that shitty stunt he pulled knowing it would’ve at least guaranteed her safety than leave her fate in hands of a girl with enough reason to kill her. Ignoring the sounds of my heart shattering into pieces for the 100th time thinking about the Greenblings, it’s so fascinating that our biggest rival and most distrusted member has a greater sense of loyalty and responsibility for his ally than Keiji has for his own. Sou can be a liar and manipulative and selfish, but for how unpredictable he is something I can always trust is his love for those he holds dear (Kanna) and general desire to protect our most vulnerable (Gin). Sou loves Kanna, and so he’s fine with protecting her even if it comes at a price he never wanted to pay. Keiji surely cares about Sara, but unfortunately that is something I can’t say about him-- at least at that time (also the fact that Sou ended up taking more care and responsibility for Kanna despite Keiji having been the one to throw her on him in the first is so ironic).

*Continuously pushing Sara to take on the role of leader.

I think one of Keiji's biggest failures in the game come from his treatment of Sara despite positioning himself as her most reliable ally and her partner. From the very get-go, he was very adamant of making Sara be the one to shoulder the responsibility of the group. He, along with Joe (he didn't do anything wrong here), pushed Sara to be the Challenger during the Russian Roulette, despite Q-taro and Kai being readily available. He made Sara be the one to interrogate the suspicious convict while distancing himself from the situation. And he encourages her to lead them through the Main Game, lets her make the choices that steer them all forward and as a consequence take the fall for them as well. Rather than take on the role himself, or let another adult take it, he places his full trust in her and makes her shoulder everyone's weight so he doesn't have to. And he can see the effect it has on her: having horrific hallucinations due to the immense guilt she feels. But having Sara as their leader gives him a greater shot at survival and helps his credibility, so even though he tries to provide her comfort he still continues to keep her in that role. Again, the high schooler taking responsibility for the adults falls on a lot of the older people here, but Keiji was the one who kickstarted it rather than just go along with it like everyone else had. Gin, Nao, Kanna, Reko and even fucking Sou to an extent all have moments where they take the burden off her and relieve her of that pain she shoulders all the time (or at least try to). I need Keiji to take more responsibility for both the group and for her.

*Pitting Sara and Joe against each other.

This is just another example of the previous point. This isn't as bad, and I could give him the benefit of the doubt that this might have not been intentional, but it's something I want to bring up regardless. I'll be the first to say that Keiji wasn't wrong here. Prying into everyone's votes is a very bad move, especially since no one knew that Mishima would actually die (it was introduced as a practice round, after all). I agree with him, Joe was being rash, but instead of leaving the conversation there, he decided to throw Sara into it to pick a side. Which is... not good. He already won the argument and already had Reko on his side. Bringing in Sara could not only make Joe feel worse and potentially strain their relationship (especially if she rightfully chooses Keiji's side like he was expecting and hoping for), but just puts Sara in the spotlight during something she doesn't want to be part of. While there's a chance he might've done this because he know Joe is more likely to listen to her than him, he should've known better than that. It again makes her take the responsibility of giving the final verdict that would've otherwise gone to him.

*Asking Sara to take responsibility for his life

I've got nothing other that the grown adult swearing his life to the grieving, unstable teenager to take responsibility for while asking her if she'd die along with him is weird as heck. Keiji's said weirder things prior to this, but this one is a different weird. I think Beanieman's post mostly echoes my thoughts on this on, so I'll link it here for this point. This part kinda bothers me:

He shouldn't be encouraging her taking on anymore responsibility than she already is. He knows that the deaths that happened under her leadership haunt her. He knows that she's very much unstable enough already, to the point where he takes baby-steps to avoid triggering her trauma over Joe. He positioned himself as her reliable partner, her rock to lean on (quite literally sometimes). We see first hand how emotionally dependent she is on him. If he died, it would destroy her-- she'd destroy herself over it. He knows this (or should) but he still does it. His disappointment and dismissiveness when she understandably rejects him makes it worse. The guilt of potentially not living up to his expectations is not what she needs.

*Potentially working for Asunaro

This is more ambiguous than everything else here and more a theory than anything but it's been on my mind for a long time that Ranmaru might actually be onto something here. We know that Asunaro has a strong hold on the police. Midori was able to infiltrate the force, and they were able to get rid of Mr. Policeman for looking into the corruption going on, first having Megumi fire him and secondly getting Keiji to kill him by planting false info about the suspect having a gun. Megumi was also able to get Keiji off the hook for murder, which I believe Asunaro had a hand in too (I theorize this might've been her wish). There's also Alice, who was arrested and sent to prison despite the fact that he (legally) didn't kill anyone since Midori was a doll. The police are connected to Asunaro-- by extension Megumi and extending further potentially Keiji.

Something I've seen someone rightfully point out is that neither of the options you're given to say in response to the accusation... actually deny it? Both choices dance around answering directly, which is suspect as fuck. If Keiji truly wasn't with Asunaro, why not shut that theory down immediately? There's no benefit to answering anything but "no" when he's innocent, and he's lied straight to people's faces for less. So why not just debunk it? I think it's cuz there might be some truth to what Ranmaru was saying here. The biggest reason I think this is because despite the fact that Keiji quit the force, he and Megumi were still associating with each other years later. They were kidnapped together and partnered up for their first trial. One missable piece of dialogue is Keiji admitting that he was with his partner-- or rather a "coworker"-- before getting knocked out.

That slip of the tongue and backtracking makes me believe this part to be true. Him switching from "my partner" to "a coworker", which is a lot more distant and impersonal, makes me think it's got to be Megumi. However, I don't believe that Keiji would wanna keep in touch with her after what happened willingly, so I can only imagine that it's due to that debt he has to her. My little game theory here is that after the shooting, the debt he owed her was a forced recruitment into Asunaro. It's the only thing I can imagine he meant by "the worst kind of debt", a debt he'd literally let her die for to get out of. And if this is true, then it could also explain away his instant attachment to Sara, since he'd know beforehand that she's someone he can depend on due to her having the highest chance at survival. Maybe he already knew about her beforehand, one way or the other. We know Hayasaka did (which I think we as a fandom moved on from way too fast btw). Kai and Sou did too. There's always a chance. And unlike Sou's victory rate and Midori's favourite number, it's not zero. One person made a comic about this idea I recommend checking it out, it's tastefully unsettling. But still very much unsetling and uncomfortale. Be warned that it's also Keisara-centred, so if that makes you even more uncomfortable they did the job right you can ignore it. Proceed with caution or don't read if you don't like.

*Being a predator

I have been waiting so long for this one XD For context: a while ago I made a longpost discussing the sanitisation of soushin and this kind of toxic attitudes in fandoms regarding "problematic content" (ships, characters, shows, you name it). In it, I mentioned that it's not only soushin that receives this treatment but a certain other dynamic too. It's not a rainy day, however this has been way overdue and if I don't get this done now I never will.

Something I've seen a lot, and I mean a LOT-LOT is this notion that Keiji acts "like a father" to Sara and that their relationship is a completely platonic father-daughter bond and that he's the resident dad of the group? Like, it's cute, but that's not at all what their relationship is. At all. Not even a little bit. We called Sou and Kanna siblings before the Greenblings reveal. The difference is that not only does half the fandom think this man is gay, but he's only ever been protective and caring and loving without any romantic intentions towards Kanna ever. His title as her brother was deserved, based on the genuine affection and platonic protectiveness similar to that of Alice's. Keiji has made advances tho, on many occasions, and his flirting is repeatedly acknowledged by other characters. Namely Sou and Reko.

(Sou grills him for being a creep every chance he gets I love him XD) But yeah, these are not the type of reactions and comments you receive when being a "father-figure" to the teenager. You get all this when you hit on the teenager. Which he does all the time by calling her "cute" every time she asks something and his "cute little detective", swearing himself to her by saying that "he's always on her side" or something like that, asking her if she'd die alongside him, repeatedly claiming or insinuating that they're on a date, or ""having a moment"" and going to ""take the next step"" when in private (*cough* groomer *cough*)-- you name it, he likely said it. He's a walking-talking ladykiller machine and teenage girls aren't safe, apparently.

(Quick note: The dialogue for the Russian Roulette one is a tad different now. In the new translation he says "cause you're so darn cute" now. I dunno if that makes it sound any less weird, but I felt like putting that out there. What I'm also putting out there is that according to the trivia he calls her cute 8 times throughout the game so. Yeah. *Cough* groomer *COUGH COUGH*)

Like, who tf says this?? Especially that last part 💀 Even if you wanna die on the hill that these are supposed to be "jokes" not to be taken seriously, we should all be able to agree that the (ex)police officer in his late 20s jokingly hitting on the high schooler he follows around is still weirdo behaviour at best and down right despicable at worst. The fandom seeing lowkey predatory/inappropriate behaviour from a figure of authority persistent for almost three entire chapters and dismissing it as "fatherly" and "platonic" is, well, concerning. It's very concerning. If your dad acts like Keiji, you should probably call the police. Unfortunately for Sara, Keiji is the police. And considering this guy got away with manslaughter, I don't think said police would do anything anywho. But yeah-- he uses flattery and flirting to distract her from prodding to much at him while simultaneously aiming to gain favour in her eyes. He showers her with reassurance of his loyalty and affirmation of his deeper attachment towards her and her alone every chance he gets to cement his position as her closest and most trustworthy ally. He insinuates a romantic partnership between them to others to mostly keep her to himself or the two of them alone (he always does that when they're investigating or going to investigate by themselves). There's such an obvious romantic undertone to their relationship and his actions that it going almost completely ignored in the fandom feels weird to me.

I want to make clear that there's nothing wrong with headcanoning Keiji as a father figure to Sara. It's cute. Keiji didn't have a dad himself, and the closest thing to a father figure he had was the man he shot dead. He's a damaged and hardened guy. But Sara's dad is involved with Asunaro and Gin's is an alcoholic, and in a situation where they both need guidence and protection he tries his best to grow and change, fumbling to become that decent father none of them got to have. It's nice, and a wholesome dynamic for our "characters with memorandum counterparts and only non-determined deaths" trio. But that's obviously not what their dynamic is. There's a difference between headcanoning something and erasing canon and the Yttd fandom leans heavily into the latter. Keiji's a creep, he always has been, yet 90% of people I see always portray him as a Mr. Dad Guy or completely sanitise him to hell when him being creepy and unnerving to be around is what made him such a fascinating character. Just like I said with Soushin, the sanitisation to make canon more digestible is one thing: harassing or insulting the people that explore canon is another. I'm gonna take a bullet, derail this rant and say it-- Keisara shippers get so much shit for literally being right it's so infuriating. Keiji does hit on Sara, a lot. He's creepy and weird like that. Him flirting with her isn't a "mistranslation" or a joke or anything like that; his dubious wording and antics are very much intentional. Yet the only people I see actually addressing and acknowledging that without adding fluff is keisara shippers and other ""proshippers"" only for them to get fucking sniped for it I cannot 💀💀 I have yet to meet a single eastern fan who calls this cop "fatherly". This really feels like such a western issue cuz the majority of the japanese fandom agrees that this man's a predator (correct me if i'm wrong but keisara is the most popular ship in the japanese side of the fandom, right?). Then again, eastern fandoms are more chill over there when it comes to separating fiction and reality in general anywho.

*Yeah, I think I'm done with the Keiji slander. Yay. Time to unceremoniously end this.

There's more to say about that, but this is a Keiji post, not another shipping discourse post (although it's hard discussing Keiji's predatory behaviour without bringing it up too). Before I do spiral from the original point, I'm going to try and reach some sort of conclusion here. While I did spent the majority of this post just reading Keiji to filth, and am very salty towards him in particular, this was not just to rake him through mud for my own sanity (tho it's part of it XD). Keiji's character is that he started off as someone who wanted to do the right thing, someone who wanted to be good and moral and protect others by joining the force only to kill all the progress he made along with the person who inspired him to become an officer in the first place. It heavily contrasts the Keiji we have now, a sleazy, unreliable and corrupt ex detective who flirts with underage girls and is willing to resort to the most bankrupt of decisions to save himself. A man that has long lost hope of his wounds healing that he lets them fester and his rot spread onto others. And while I headcanon Keiji to just inherently be a piece of shit, his former self tried his best to be genuinely good before he became so convinced he can never be better that he made peace with his shittiness in the end.

With all this I wanted to highlight some the shadier and bankrupt things he's done that I haven't seen much discussion around and refresh myself on them before the final part. Both so no matter how emotionally dependent and therefore rose-tinted Sara is about the man I don't forget what he's actually like and what he's done while also being able to appreciate how much he's changed for the better. Some of my favourite examples about how he's changed are these:

Before the second Main Game Keiji was willing to let Sara and Kanna die because it was the most beneficial option for him, but in Chapter 3 he takes the on the role of "it" from Kanna and refuses to tag Sara when he thought he was gonna die after failing to beat Midori.

Actually showing more sympathy towards Sou after the Main Game. He was very mean about dismantling his pretence of a cold front to Kanna's death, don't get me wrong, but he showed a lot more consideration and understanding for Sou's feelings and acknowledgement about his active role in it than he ever had beforehand.

He was genuinely fighting for everyone to survive the game, not just himself. While Keiji would prefer everyone making it out safely, he has a tendency to guarantee his own survival first through any means necessary. His plan to corner Midori in the banquet could've cost him his life if it weren't for Q-taro's final stunt, yet he still reassured Sara to save Gin even tho it could've resulted in his execution from Meister potentially finding him guilty of violating the rules.

Him hugging Mai and trying to be more cheerful was cute as heck. I'm sorry but him showing more vulnerability around his allies and being less closed off in a way he hasn't been before is something I'm very head empty about. That he was hugging and interacting with Mai without making any unwanted advances or ladykiller jokes and generally just having a more friendly vibe was nice. It makes his creeping on Sara more unfortunate, but I'll take what I can for now. The bar is in hell.

And that's it, I think. Overall, I hope they do address some of his actions here in the final part or make them have an impact on his and Sara's relationship. Especially that Asunaro part. The person who wished for Sara to join the death game is still unknown and so is Keiji's consent form wish (same goes for the Dummies, Hinako and Megumi), so I'm curious if they're related or not. If he's going to go down an even darker path or redeem himself as much as he can we'll see when the final part drops. He has the potential to go both ways. This is going to be kinda awkward if the next part reveals him to have been a decent guy all along, so hopefully that doesn't happen. Please be morally bankrupt, man. This post didn't end up the way I wanted it to, nor bring up as many points as I would've liked, but I know I won't finish it if I went full perfectionist on it (I already spent months on this writer's block do be a bitch) and it's looking kinda long already. Hopefully it's still decent enough as is right now. I'd like to say that this is my apology for the last longpost I made, but I brought up one of the most controversial and hated ships and traits of Keiji's character and defended them, so maybe I shouldn't 🙃 Anywho, hope you enjoyed and cheerio.

[azulaoi]

Sakuverse what ifs pt 1: Dontis edition

What IF Dontis makes it out alive in the end and hunter comes visit him? And if Hunter hadn't need to intervene in the war.

(For us Dontis simpies on copium 🥹)

Imagine this:

Hunter comes rushing to Dontis' place after hearing from their hunter comrades that war is over. Hunter eagerly waits for Dontis outside his door, praying in high hopes he would answer. After a few moments or so, somebody eventually opens the door; revealing a tall well dressed man with beautifully long dark brown hair and two long horns.

He then proceeds to greet you with a smile curved on his face, "ah, look what we have here. The hunter of the hour! Didn't expect you to come this early". You couldn't believe your eyes! He's alive! Your eyes began to grow teary at the sight of his existence. You dearly missed him. So much that you could just break down and sob right now. Parting your lips, you asked worriedly, "you're alive?! Are you okay? Were you severely injured?? Did they hurt you??". Dontis laughs at your response, " haha, I'm fine! Just a few scratches here and there, nothing too special.". You sigh in relief, "that's good... Could've sworn to their lives if they hurt you in any way, I would have gone to seek them.". He looks at you in shock but laughs once more, "you missed me that much, didn't you?". You sighed, nodding your head in agreement. Followed by a soft chuckle, he gestures you inside his penthouse; closing the door behind you.

You both walked and sat in the living room as Dontis discussed what happened in the war. You were just happy and in relief that Dontis is still alive and well. He asks you, "But you don't need to worry about all of that. Let's talk about you. What have you been doing when I was away?". You looked down and pondered for a moment. Other than doing you daily duties, you spent most of the times longing and missing Dontis. Laying in such a solace bed, yet the thought of his whereabouts kept you up at night. You were stressed the hell out about him. "Well, not much? Also nothing special?". He responds back, "didn't think of me?". You look at him with weary eyes, wanting him to get the message that you did indeed miss him. " haha! I'm teasing! I'm sure you had other important duties to attend to".

You really didn't have anything to do, except worry about the fact that Dontis was in a life or death situation. Hiding your sadness, you smiled and joked "I'll be honest, I did miss you. A lot, in that matter. I couldn't even sleep.". Dontis' eyes fill with worry as he moves close to you, "couldn't... Sleep?". He puts his arm around your shoulder as you sigh in response, "safe to say, yeah. I kept glancing at my phone every minute to see if you sent a message or just any form of contact from you. I kept thinking about the worst what ifs and how horribly the outcome would be. I...", you stopped yourself and held your words back. You didn't want to over dump your worries on Dontis, especially after a dangerous situation between his kind and the Trimidian

Dontis tilts his head, gazing at you with concern, "lend me your worries, dear. You don't need to hide your scars from me anymore.". That was it. Just by his comforting words, was the cherry on top to your dessert of sorrows. As he caresses your cheek, you let a few tears roll down from your tired eyes. "That's right, just let it all go.", he says in a gentle tone. You couldn't help but bury your face into his chest, letting your sadness consume your being. He then brings you close against him, embracing you into his strong arms as he runs his fingers through your hair.

Knowing that those nights of endless worries, and the longing of being in one's arms are over... You felt at peace once more.

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I hope you guys enjoy this small piece. Writings like this, will be raw with no grammar checks lol. Mainly a thought writing. I was lowkey thinking of writing this piece into a whole 'Dontis comforts you to sleep' fic, but I wanna know what y'all think? 🤔

- love y'all Crumpets

Azulaoi 💙

[atopvisenyashill]

i’m gonna be so obnoxious with this wall of text ajsjdjd BUT

@whitegownsandflowercrowns said: Lowkey highkey agree with pretty much all of this, and if I can add (sorry for all of the past 30some minutes, but it turns out that staying up late to watch a livestream of a concert convinces your brain that the world needs to hear every possible take you have on the dragon show): - I honestly cannot even judge them for the pacing because HBO should be consistently giving them 12-13 episodes but imo it was the biggest issue with Season 2 - I cannot tell if my gut is right or if I'm just snorting copium 24/7 but I honestly think we're getting Nettles in Season 3; even if we do though, it is obvious that the original plan was to cut her, and I Do Not Get It. Hugh is a trillion times more expendable. - Your thing with Alys is the same as my thing with Helaena: I think Phia is fantastic and perfect for the role, but I also kind of wish we'd gotten a chubbier Helaena (I can lowkey understand why they didn't do it for Rhaenyra or Aegon because in-text their fatness is very much supposed to be A Bad Thing That Reflects Their Rotten Moral Character but it's absolutely not for Helaena. Also think it would weirdly make sense for her. - Also agree that you can tell what the makeup of the writer's room is: I think people over exaggerate HOW imperfect the feminism is but there are very much moments where you can very much tell that the showrunner is a white man. - All of the "not problems" stuff...SING IT FROM THE ROOFTOPS it's just very refreshing to see good faith criticism of this series as well as acknowledging the good stuff

ya the pacing is tricky because i think if like, sara & ryan (idk if miguel read the books) treated f&b as well as the main series with a bit more respect, instead of (imo) clearly going in with the idea they were going to Fix Canon rather than Elaborate On Canon, they would have approached season one’s pacing waaaaay different, probably starting the story much earlier or having a more extended flashback. so i think the combination of them feeling like “i can fix this mess” and hbo very obviously being on their ASS about doing this as quickly as possible (TEN EPISODES IS CRAZY) it was really lethal for the pacing of the show. it’s definitely not solely their fault or even predominantly their fault - when you have like 10 hours to work with, there’s just only so much you can do 😭😭

YEAH i do think from some of what ryan has said that they’re going to add nettles in (could be copium!) but it’s very obvious they originally intended to cut her and it’s CRAZY. BONKERS. HOW DO U MISS THE POINT LIKE THIS.

VERY good point re: weight, that’s another criticism i’ve pushed back on - not only is the weight of rhaenyra used to make her seem evil, but the art itself is pretty inconsistent with depicting her. sometimes she’s skinny, sometimes she’s fat, it varies a LOT so the focus on emma d’arcy being skinny always pissed me off. and same for aegon - again, similar to like, aegon iv, the weight is used to show his unworthiness. i get wanting to drift apart from that. esp bc, as i’ve pointed out, book aegon is aesthetically very similar to robert, and i can understand wanting to give him an aesthetic makeover while keeping the underlying issues aegon has. HELAENA however, doesn’t have her weight commented on weirdly - it’s just like, a thing she seemed to inherit from viserys, that she’s just a lil plump (i believe that’s the word they use - plump and pleasant) and she’s like that for most of her life, so i can definitely see the argument there for sure! esp bc like you say, it’s a very good comparison to alys; just this hollywood thing of cutting fat characters, aging down women but letting men age visibly, and it’s very obnoxious to be a ~feminist show and not meet this very low bar of having size and age diversity amongst your female cast!

AND THE WRITERS ROOM. i think an outlander comparison is good - there’s some points where they do good and some points where you can tell who Isn’t in that room. interestingly enough, both shows take a “far east” type character that is horrifically stereotyped and, due to imo having an asian writer in that room, really expand upon them in meaningful ways (yi tien cho for outlander & mysaria). it’s just crazy to have such a clear example of what Having Diversity In The Room Can Help & then like…..not include any idk dark skinned black writers? trans writers? would having a consultant for north african characters help with dorne? idk but it’s clear they didn’t think about that and it’s a shame bc sometimes it’s like ryan….what ARE you cookin here

like some of the criticism i see……sometimes it’s just naked bigotry (the girls face a LOT of this in particular), but also oftentimes it’s just people like. complaining about nothing. “why doesn’t baela hate jacaerys” why would she. that’s such a stupid bad faith critique. “the dragon fight was bad” according to whOMST???? “they betrayed the entire concept of the dance by making rhaenicent a thing/making rhaenyra complex/trying to give alicent more to do” like i’m TIRED of it, most deeply tired of this “softening MY side is fine the other side should be ontologically evil though” i’m sorry that they’re trying to write a GOOD story and not getting on a soap box like everyone clearly wants them to but this constant “they hate my side” makes me feel like no one in this fandom actually passed english class in high school & just cheated off the smart kid!!!!

i can elaborate if anyone wants, i’m not joking when i say i will be stuck in this car for like four hours 😭 why is urban sprawl so bad (it’s white flight i know this, not the point).

PROBLEMS

uneven as FUCK pacing - maybe there’s no getting around this but i do think this ties back to the idea that they do not care about the source material the way they should. so they just like, rush past the parts they clearly don’t think are interesting to get to what they DO like, because they only have 10 (and EIGHT) episodes to do it in. that’s not enough time!!!! 13 episodes MINIMUM!!!!!!!!!!!!!! SLOW IT DOWN LET IT SIMMER

in season 1, i think the younger generation suffer from this writing choice the most, but so did the strongs & the velaryons most acutely. i also think older rhaenyra is often too busy with Plot to have good Character Moments while older alicent gets a much more even hand. viserys dominates screentime, & we all know i want to top that old man but now he’s dead and the characters that are alive need so much more work.

in season 2, i think the velaryons once again suffer from this, and around idk rooks rest the greens very suddenly drop off. rhaenyra becomes much more balanced and alicent spends too much time being sadly silent instead of doing serious character work w other characters + they completely cut off aliotto & alilarys (and arguably aligon) for That Other One and i just don’t get why u would focus on the worst ship out of those three.

criston should have spent more time w aemond & gwayne should have been daeron. daemon gets too much fuckijg focus in harrenhal and only half of it is interesting. alys & simon you’ve done nothing wrong ever in your lives and i love you.

which tbc i don’t think they have SIDES they love i think there are EVENTS they find interesting & they prioritize getting to those events quickly (bc they don’t have enough episodes).

Alicent should have been older than Rhaenyra. you can make her a child bride, you can make her friends with Rhaenyra, you can make her homoerotic relationship with Rhaenyra the beating heart of your show and still have her be several years older than Rhaenyra, if you’re not a fucking coward.

Tullys - if i thought they did this because they felt it was too many characters to juggle, i’d get it. but you know damn well they did it bc they don’t think the muppet names fit their serious business aesthetic and they are fake fans for that shit.

The Lads - where is Black Aly. Where is Benjicot. Where is Sabitha. Where is Red Robb Rivers. what the fuck. why do the riverlands always get the shaft even when they’re technically getting focus.

the north - i’m sorry did we find it enjoyable when bran disappeared for a season. did u know that this doesn’t have to feel like nostalgia bait if you don’t TREAT IT like nostalgia bait??

nettles - cutting nettles defeats like, at least 33% of the reason you even adapt the dance. even if they backtrack, it is a mind boggling decision to attempt to do the dance without nettles. if u wanted to cut a dragonseed, i’m sorry, i kno i got ulfhusbands following me but cut one of those dudes. “oh but what about their dragon” vermithor & silverwing are the two most boring dragons and you can quote me.

Sunfyre & Dreamfyre - LIKE YOU KEPT VERMITHOR & SILVERWING, WHEN VERMITHOR IS THE UGLIEST DRAGON & SILVERWING IS JUST A LESS COOL DREAMFYRE BUT U CUT 90% OF THE SUNFYRE & DREAMFYRE CONTENT??? ARE YOU SILLY????

Velaryons - where do i even begin. it’s bad to racebend a family and then completely rework their characters so they’re less prevalent. idk how many times this has to be said, but idc if u think rhaenicent is the better ship, there was no reason to write laena the way they did. what was the point of having laenor live if they were just gonna kill him offscreen. what did THEY think they were cookin with vaemond huh. why do rhaenys & jacaerys never fucking interact on their own. can we get corlys talking to any of his grandkids except that one time with luke. pls.

the strongs - every day matthew needlham comes onto set and slays and they go “you know what. let’s have daemon do carpentry instead.” harwin’s entire character was either cut or implied. i like the alys stuff but hollywood has a problem with refusing to cast milfs and i won’t let it stand bc why can we have paddy AND rhys the dilfs but not alys. why is daemon played by a 40 year old but alys can’t be??

rhaenyra’s hair - it’s TWO BRAIDS do NOT piss me the fuck OFF. have the nerve to be RISKY instead of redoing dany’s fifty little braid big braid thing!!!

daeron - let me stop here.

honestly so many of the character troubles can be traced to “needs more time” - the kids in the back half of s1, corlys, rhaenyra in the back half of s1, the strongs, the riverlands, the north.

OR “i need u to acknowledge your limitations as writers” - alicent, the velaryons, the twins, some of the gender stuff, imo this comes from not having a diverse enough writers room & not having anyone writing that’s darker than a paper bag Does affect this.

listen. does brienne become plot relevant right away? no, she’s just kinda following catelyn around after some weird shit happened to her. but we still get to MEET her and CARE about her before stuff gets crazy. oberyn is introduced so we have an emotional tie to dorne in affc. hugh & ulf & the hull boys felt a bit randomly added but imo this is bc they narrowed the scope so much w everyone else.

NOT PROBLEMS

the yuri is INTEGRAL to the plot dont pmo

i have never seen a rhaenyra criticism that didn’t annoy tf out of me

“oh she’s too perfect” no “oh they favor her” no “um excuse you but rhaenyra is FEMININE” im mailing my dog’s shit to your house as we speak

they don’t have a favorite side stop saying that

the concept of black velaryons/dragon twins. i literally did that graphic and it would be so easy to have corlys explain this in his monologue to daemon but i actually think that In This Day And Age, it’s fine to look at a vey white source and go “now where can i maybe race or gender swap some stuff to add to the narrative” pls see iwtv & anne with an e for examples. what they did was maybe perplexing (well no it’s not, it’s a common trope) but still workable and tbh Corlys as a Black man is simply canon to me, eat shit.

“oh they softened this character i hate but they wrote the characters i love badly” it’s bc the writing is incredibly uneven across the board i need everyone to get over themselves. i’m a rhaenyra apologist and even then, they just clearly miss the mark in a few spots bc this series is sloppily written bc it’s on a time crunch. the vision they were going for in their softening of every single character makes sense & are often changes they made to deal with a source material that is VAGUE and PURPOSEFULLY CONFUSING. it’s fine.

the abigail thorne cameo. should tyland & her have done jack shit for like a third of the runtime? no. but like, just casting a funny lady in this part is fine?

i’m sorry i think the hairstyles can be whack but the wigs are great?? why is everyone always shittalking the wigs?? well okay the aegon s2 & jacaerys s1 wigs were p bad but i don’t think any of the rest of them are particularly egregious. everyone shits on the daemon wigs specifically but i think he looks very good??!

the cgi is good i think some of u are too picky

Alicent - listen. obviously i think some of the complaints about her writing has merit. but some of the shit i see is just the the stupidest shit. making alicent a child bride was a good choice, bc we don’t see aemma’s child brideness. also, she’s 17 when they start fucking around, viserys is not like Meaningfully better in the books about her. making alicent a young mom IS the correct choice! keeping alicent as a main character in s2 IS the correct choice. “this is a story about the fight between rhaenyra & aegon” your brain is the size of a pea.

Visaemon is the correct choice (imo they should have leaned in slightly harder to the Viserys/Rhaenyra angle to really bring it home, but everything they did regarding the characterization of this triangle is good.)

and for that matter, bringing aegon, helaena, and aemond closer in age to jacaerys, lucerys, and the twins is also the correct choice. the helaena visions, aegon sadboy, jacaerys classism allegations, baela not gaf abt the bastard allegations, these were all good choices. leo hurt! aemond save me, same me leo hurt! aemond.

helaena and viserys being dreamers is genuinely inspired

criston being dornish is also a good move, all the people who complain about this are just like. so clearly racist aksjdjd and i think they do a good job with Criston As The Lone Dornishman (though they fail a LOT with What Does Being Dornish Mean To Criston but again, this goes back to the writer’s room)

the prophecy stuff is GOOD i’m stealing from kingcunny here but if u don’t like the idea of rhaenyra getting fixated on the same prophetic magic that drove her father to murder her mother, and driving her son away, then maybe targaryen madness isn’t for you!! “well i don’t like the targaryens” i also wish they’d do a show about literally anyone else & i think these overhyped lizard fuckers are obnoxious but like, the main series is FULL of prophecies, you can’t SPIT without landing on another prophecy, wanting LESS MAGIC in the MAGIC SHOW is exactly why we have the dumpster fire that is the main show. be serious!!!!!