#I might read the manga actually when the anime is over lol

[meownotgood]

I love a sign of affection so much but I especially love itsuomi like he does not PLAY

[orcelito]

Man I really hadn't gotten as far in the manga as I thought. I just finished ep 267 of shippuden and it's gearing up for the Gaara vs his dad fight, which I remember being where I dropped off in the manga. Bc I'd been keeping up with new chapters for a while, but with all the war talk... idk it just didn't capture 14 year old me that much. So I stopped keeping up.

Now, though. I find all the war tactics interesting hfkshdk it has me wanting to play a fire emblem game again. Hmmmmmm

[thatdeadaquarius]

GREETINGS! How are you doing? I've been practically gobbling up your posts (there very tasty)

Ok so hear me out- I've seen a couple posts like this but imagine-

The almighty all powerful wise creator isss

✨️A literal child✨️

Thanks for hearing me out! For you ->->❤️

Baby you taking on the world aw

DAMN SORRY FOR TAKING FOREVER!! i started fics before i answered my askbox :/

Aw i fucking love child reader stuff,

Lots of isekai animes/manhwa/manga do it and i eat that shit up everytime-

I also deeply appreciate when its not done creepily, like being turned 8 again, and having crushes on others who are... yknow, actually 8 yrs old or sm fucked up shit, like even if its 16 yr olds that doesnt make it any better, bc the protag will actually be like,, actually 20?!?!💀 the straights r wild man, i feel like it happens either way too, like its usually a male MC but thats just bc theyre more common tbh, like regardless of gender of protag 🥲

☆

Sun: Child God Reader (you/they/them)

Orbit: Short Headcanons

Stars: Mondstadt ppl bc i don't show them i love them enough

Comets & Meteors: Content Warnings: none known & Trigger Warnings: none known.

Please comment any I missed. /gen

Klee has recruited converted you to throwing bombs with her.

You are the only leash on that child too and the only thing standing between Jean and full head of gray hair. 💀

Kaeya doesn’t know whether he’s endlessly worried or endlessly amused that the most powerful god is currently a child

if Jean isnt freaking out over ur whereabouts, Diluc is instead, and worst case scenario, Noelle/Lisa/Albedo is in charge of you

and YES someone has to look out for you, bc ur ass will just start making a hot springs spot like ur in ur teapot or smth in dragonspine (Albedo was fascinated it stayed warm despite the weather so he let you make it/enjoy it before asking u to restore natural order lol)

(Albedo has definitely asked to study you and, unfortunately for Jean, asked u to demonstrate several powers u have)

You do work as a lucky charm for Bennett tho so he does babysit u sometimes

it mostly consists of Fischl, Benny, and Razor “adventuring” by trying to do smth like who can jump on the Anemo slimes and ride them around longest

(the answer is you btw, u managed to get a small fleet of them to bus you around, the teens were simultaneously terrified running around below u to catch you and also amazed)

Noelle is so happy making toddler you all the pancakes you can eat, Sucrose had to stop her from going overboard and not just listening completely to kids when it comes to food

She is now very concerned with making you a balanced diet, tho she will still make u an ungodly tall stack of pancakes every now and then <3

They kind of all equally provide for you, obv ur their god, and ur a literal cutie patootie child, they cant just leave you

(also u might like move a mountain or change the weather or smth if they don't watch you so most are a little paranoid of that too)

Lisa gets u all kinds of cute outfits, still stuff you'd like, but definitely snuck in some sumeru looking clothing lol

Fischl lends you all kinds of books to read, Bennett shows u all the cool views in the city and outside of it (when Jean lets him get away with taking u that far), and Razor…

Razor brings you to Andrius and the wolf pack for a wolf pack party and gives u all kinds of shiny trinkets he’d collected for you

Diluc/Jean/Noelle/Eula nearly had a heart attack when they found out

Amber lets you have all the piggyback rides you want lol

she even managed with her own crafting powers (and your probably editing the game code or smth) she somehow makes a reinforced glider with a small harness on the back for you to glide with her

(Venti has definitely helped for some fun flights by boosting the winds for you two)

SPEAKING OF BARBATOS

ur absolutely spoiled rotten by him (and Dvalin, and Andrius, and the wind sprites)

if this god had money he’d spend it on wine and you lol

takes u flying all the time, any time, would drop everything to go to Mondstadt wilds and use his archon form wings to take you wherever you wanna go

tries to bring u to Angel’s Share but Diluc nearly hits him on the head with a wine bottle and brings you back home after kicking Venti out and giving you grape juice (yes you get all you want, within a healthy amount)

anyway the most important part abt you being a god and child is that you can now fulfill your childhood dreams of riding a dragon whenever you want

(one way to quickly get Mondstadt citizens to trust Dvalin again was just constantly seeing him flying overhead, occasionally seeing a small child on his back also helped lol)

(neither you nor Venti tell Jean you ride Dvalin and keep it an active secret from her.)

☆

srry i took so long! i hope u liked my hot mess of writing (i think its even sloppier than usual bc of all the fic writing full sentences lately)

and if not, I'm sorrryyy 😭😭

I'm focusing on getting thru a haul of asks before getting around to posting that Eldritch AU Part 2 if anyone reads this :)

hope u guys are have a great weekend, thanks for all the birthday wishes!! :D

Safe Travels Anon,

💀♒

If you wanna join a taglist, DM me what for! "Pspspsss, please tag me for [All SAGAU posts, Only SAGAU Language AUs, diff fandom, etc.]!"

(If you ever wanna drop, just DM me! "No more taglists/[specifically this AU/fandom] please!")

♡the beloveds♡

@karmawonders / @0rah-s / @randomnatics / @glxssynarvi / @nexylaza / @genshin-impacts-me / @wholesomey-artist / @thedevioussmirk / @the-dumber-scaramouche / @chocogi / @fallen-starr / @areaderofbooks / @devilangel657 / @esthelily / @justinsomniachild / @nanithefuck / @questionotmystopit

@kiyomi-uchiha777

[certifiedlibraryposts]

Hi! Question for ya. I just got a job at a library in a suburb-rural town. I'm the assistant for adult programing. Most of our patrons are grade school aged or retired. Adult programs are attended almost exclusively by the elderly. I love this for them, but ...how do I get younger adults to come to the library? I'll be 30 soon and all my friends are overworked, busy, and stressed. (up until recently, I myself was too overworked, busy, and stressed to even read, let alone visit the library). So I get it. But libraries are so great and I want everyone to enjoy what we offer and offer things they will enjoy! So what do you think? What will get my peers to the library?

I have a few thoughts as some rando but as always, if any folks with actual library experience have any advice please sound off in replies and reblogs!

Consider some clubs or activities that would appeal to a slightly younger crowd, for example one of my libraries has an anime club strictly for adults! Maybe you could do somethong similar as well as ones for manga, or even other hobbies like video games or TTRPGs? (Please know that my interests skew pretty nerdy, shockingly, so IDK if this is necessarily the kind of stuff that would get a ton folks in the door or not lol) Plllllth, I remember when I was in school during exam weeks there would sometimes be events where you can play with dogs for a little while, somethibg like that might appeal to stressed younger adults? Or it could br some kinda dog adoption even you could collaberate with a local animal shelter for. I am spitballing I do not know what the logistics of some of this would be.

You definitely wanna get the word out about new clubs/activities, maybe you could consider social media posts if you aren't already? Also local coffee shops and grocery stores often have billboards you can hang stuff up on, you could put some advertising in those kinds of places.

And I know that libraries usually have a more limited schedule over the weekends, but speaking as someone in her mid 20s who is also often busy and/or stressed and would love to do more activities in my community but so many of them all line up with when I'm working or have other obligations, pretty pleaaaaaase consider hosting things during the weekend if that's at all a possibility ;A; or at the very least after normal work hours

[waffledforbreakfast]

Roommate - [MUTI! BLLK X F!READER]

Staring: Rin, Shidou, Sae, Niko, Kaiser, Ness, Otoya, Karasu, Reo

[ BLLK Scenario Masterlist ]

TW: heavy ooc (I MEAN HEAVY. forgive me, it gets a bit better later chapts i swear), bad grammar, bad spelling, bad formatting, etc.

 Bllk as your Roomate 

>Rin

It feels like he’s never home. But he is. You two always somehow eat dinner at the same time, so you eat together. He doesn’t mind :> You ask about his day (he’s not used to people caring, is secretly happy) and he’ll tell you about all the stupid things Bachira did that day LOL

He’ll even invite you to watch horror movies with him (he tells himself it’s because he can’t finish his popcorn)

If you have extra tickets to a festival, he’ll gladly come along! (he insists it’s because it’d be a waste of tickets if he didn’t) 

A/N: Imagine if he runs into bachira and isagi there LOL

>Shidou

Y’all know about his morning routine- right??

No need for an alarm, this rat is never late.

Will barge into your room without asking, and rant to you about his day

He’s a great listener though, and he’ll offer to do your makeup! (He will be sad if you say no :c)

Great relationship advice. You have no clue where it comes from

He can and will comment on your outfits

Will draw you (i love artist Shidou)

Brings you left-overs from when he goes out (unless he dragged u along LOL)

>Sae

This man wakes up early. Too early.

He’d wake you up too (accidently) 

Used to order take out like everyday. Until you came along and actually cooked good meals. 

The first time he just eyed your food with a blank expression. You had no idea what he wanted XD

you awkwardly offered him some, he couldn’t resist and tried it

He then said he’d pay you to cook for him

When he goes out and sees smt you might like, he’ll send you a picture and ask for your thoughts. If you take too long he’ll just buy it

Will tell you about his day (after he naps)

>Niko

Will often just knock and peak into your room to see what you’re doing for no particular reason other than wanting to check up

Runs to you after reading a new chapter of his manga

“nOOOOO THEY KILLED HIM😭” sorta vibes yk? If you’re reading the same thing, you’d have to stop him from giving your spoilers, to which he’d wait patiently for you to finish so he can rant to you

Share your theories on animes/mangas together

Can’t cook, but he’ll buy the materials if you need them :3

Please get this boy a plushie, I think he’d love it sm

Man has his earbuds in 24/7 tho ;v;

He’d come into your room to steal manga

>Kaiser

Keeps calling you Ness outta instinct

This lead to you not cooking for him anymore (you’re not too sure when you agreed to cook for him in the first place, but he just kinda expected it-)

Will complain about said food, but then apologize and beg you to keep cooking once he realized you’re serious about stopping

Asks for your opinion on a lot of things “This outfit looks good right?” “Who do you think is the best striker?” “You like milk?!?!” etc. though you’re not sure if he actually cares about your answer

Kaiser would pace, rant, and talk to himself on a (concerningly) normal basis

This man would silently fold anytime you give him a genuine compliment though

He finds your affirmations very comforting, that’s why he asks you to compliment him so often LOL

He’d often give you bread. Just- bread. He’ll come home with a bagged baguette in his hands, and give it to you with a proud smile

>Ness

This man does *everything* 

Ness calls you Kaiser on instinct too

Will get on his knees and apologize when he does so 

Genuinely shocked when you shrug it(the kaiser calling) off

Non-stop talking about Kaiser turns into non-stop talking about you XD 

“Omg you look so pretty today :D” “Let me dry your hair for you :3” “Can I braid it?” etc.

Has no clue what to do when you ask him about his day because no one has ever asked him before

But he’ll start ranting about it, and look over at you every few seconds to see if you’re listening and if you’re ok with him going on :>

Insists on doing all the house chores (except for cooking, he likes your cooking, but’ll still do it if asked)

>Otoya

…Does anyone actually want this man as a roomie??(Me.)

Would leave a mess EVERYWHERE and is genuinely shocked when you don’t offer to clean up

The way he acts has you questioning his upbringing…

Eats all your food, brings people over constantly, probably broke a plate and didn’t bother cleaning it up

The only thing he offers in return is to make out-

His jaw drops when/if you decine 

>Karasu

Watches TV in the living room typa guy (ik that’s what ur supposed to do, but let’s be honest, y’all are prob cooped up in your room reading this)

Whenever you leave your room and enter his line of vision, he just stares 

It’s genuinely unsettling. So like a normal person, you stare back. You’ve now been staring at each other for 2 minutes

Any/all gifts Karasu gives are things he observed from you (ex.Favourite food, scent, show, etc.) and I’m sure you’ll do the same in return 

Will message you random pics he finds funny

 “[Pic of a party hat on a trash can] haha, look at this”

If you cook for him, he’ll order takeout for you

>Reo

He’s either the best roomie, or the worst-

You guys never run out of food or supplies, and always have something fun to do

He’ll take you out on the weekend to do fun stuff, and you two get along pretty well!

As long as you don’t question why he has so many toothbrushes, he’s pretty chill :> 

A/N: no an :3

[aihoshiino]

Rie Takahashi Interview (Oshi no Ko Anime Guidebook: First Report)

In the recently released First Report guidebook, a number of key staff members from the Oshi no Ko anime project were interviewed about their work on the show - so you can imagine my excitement when I saw that not only was Takahashi one of those interviewed, but that she had a lot to say about her performance as Ai and how she interpreted her character. I just had to translate it!

I will say up front that I have no intention of translating the other interviews in the book - this one took me long enough as it was and I fully admit it was pure blorbo bias that kept me going the whole time lol. Given that an English release of Glare x Sparkle is already in the works at YenPress, I imagine an English version of First Report might not be far behind so be sure to support it when it comes out. I'm just impatient lol.

As usual, this TL is a combo of my own comprehension, various online dictionaries such as Jisho.org, some MTL and me collapsing, weeping into smarter people's DMs to beg for their help. If you catch any mistakes, please let me know!

Anyway, enough rambling. Check out the interview behind the cut!

Please tell us about your favourite scene and line from episode 1.

Since Ai only appears in the first episode, I really wanted to make every moment count, so each and every one of her lines are special in their own way. It's hard to choose just one, but as a fan of the original work, the line "lies are an exceptional form of love" was one I was especially particular about. Since it's the line that truly encapsulates everything about Ai, I wanted to make sure that one stuck in people's minds.

You've said in the past you were an 'Oshi no Ko' fan even before being involved in the project.

While I was reading the original work, I actually admired Akane-chan the most. Obviously, I loved Ai as well, but being a voice actress myself, I was particularly interested in how a genius actress like Akane-chan prepared for her roles and what performances she'd go on to give. The chapters where she rises above all the online harassment especially left a huge impression on me. Anyone who's worked as a creative or even just in the public eye probably knows what a pulse-pounding experience it can be when you see slanderous comments about yourself - feeling like all of society has turned its back on you and you have nowhere to belong, and not being able to talk to your parents about it. It was depicted with such care and detail that I ached with her as I read it. But then, seeing her rise back up and declare "I don't want to quit like this" gave me a lot of strength. I wanted to become an actress like Akane-chan, who could come back to acting no matter what struggles I went through.

Since I loved Akane-chan so much, when I heard there were auditions for 'Oshi no Ko', I thought "I want to play her!". I even had the thought of 'Since the original work touches so deeply on what it means to be an actor, if they don't get a good actor for this, I might end up hating Oshi no Ko!' (laughs)

As a result, when I was cast as Ai, I knew I had to step up my game. I told myself, "If I'm going to play Ai, I need to give it my everything. Anything less won't do." I gave it my all with that in mind.

Did you audition for the role of Ai?

Yes, I did. But I couldn't get Akane-chan out of my mind, so I gave her a shot at the table audition. When I was preparing, I went over the manga at home and tried voicing each character and scene and there's a part in episode seven where Akane-chan mimicks Ai as she says "I sure am sleepy. We record way too early". When I tried that scene, I went "Hold on, maybe I really am the best fit for Ai?"

I guess my hunch was right because I didn't even make it through the first screening for Akane (laughs). Because of that experience, I'm deeply grateful to (Iwami) Manaka-chan for playing my beloved Akane-chan. I love both her work and her approach as an actress, so I'm thrilled to be working alongside her. I started off as a troublesome hardcore fan thinking "If they don't cast good actors for 'Oshi no Ko,' I might end up hating it!" but now I'm just like "thank you, voice actors!!" (laughs)

Were there any scenes you thought would be particularly difficult to perform based on the script or the original work?

So, I prepared for the role by going over volume 1 of the manga, the scenes where Akane-chan channels Ai and the short story, but there wasn't much more material at the time (laughs). So just preparing for the role was tough.  During recording, I sometimes checked in with (Akasaka) Aka-sensei about Ai. Now the story has progressed and Ai's character has become more defined, I secretly get a little nervous every time I read a new chapter. "I hope my performance in episode 1 wasn't off... I hope...!" (laughs) Obviously, Aka-sensei and the team were present during recordings, so my portrayal was probably fine but a revelation about her could still catch me out (laughs)

What sort of things did you hear from Akasaka-sensei?

There's a scene where Ai talks to her ex on a public payphone. I had to make sure there was the right amount of distance between them, and whether or not Ai still had any attachment to or fondness for him. I'm the sort of fan who enjoys analyzing the original work so I had mixed feelings about getting told the answer (laughs). But because I knew all the ins and outs of her backstory, I could contextualize her behaviour and the things she says and does.

Another scene was when Ai was scouted off the street and talked about her past, mentioning being abused by her mom. She wasn't saying it with the sense of "it hurts, I can't take it, I want to die" but instead she weaponizes it like "look at what I've been through, poor little me, right?". I tried to make my performance a balance of resilience with her vulnerability.

Also, I was directed to keep the monologue before Ai gets stabbed "emotionless", so I ended up giving a much more detached and matter of fact performance than I'd initially planned.

Were you mindful of the differences between Ai in her private life and Ai on stage when performing?

The tricky part of portraying Idol Ai is that if I make her too distinct, she'll stop being Ai. For example, if I play her as an innocent, optimistic idol, she'd be Ruby, not Ai. I focused less on "what to do as Ai" and more on "what not to do". In "Viewpoint B," Ai says, "The "idol" Ai is pretty much the complete opposite of who I really am, but she's the person I'd like to be." so that was the feeling I used as my reference when portraying Idol Ai. Incidentally, in my work as a performer, I purposely try to avoid drawing a line between my public and private self. So for Ai as well, the switches between the real Ai and the idol Ai feel surprisingly seamless to me. It's not that there are two distinct faces, but that Idol Ai exists inside the real Ai so it's more a question of which side of herself she shows at any given moment.

Ai’s fans in the original story only know the Idol Ai. What do you think draws them to her?

Like in the lyrics of YOASOBI's song "Idol," she's nonchalant, carefree, and easygoing. I could've portrayed Idol Ai as more cutesy, bubbly and flirtatious, but I felt that wouldn't have a convincing appeal to characters in the story like Gorou-sensei and the otaku who support her. I wanted to make sure it was believable that idol otakus in this world end up falling for her. I think it's her more laid back vibe, not the hyper energetic or "look at me!" type, that charms people.

So what would you say is the appeal to fans in the real world who know her full backstory?

Firstly, Ai-chan's overwhelming visual appeal. When you think of shocking pink and purple, you think of Ai! (Yokoyari) Mengo-sensei’s art is so powerful, and the glittering animation is also fantastic. I also find Ai's professionalism in her work really appealing. While she has the cuteness of an idol, she's not just cute—she works with an incredible level of dedication and professionalism. I admire and love her for everything, including her behind-the-scenes efforts. It's impressive, she’s really cool! 

I’ve ended up with a lot more respect for the word ‘idol’ as a result. In the past, when my voice acting involved singing, dancing, and participating in unit activities, being described as an "idol voice actress" didn't quite sit right with me. But now, I realize how honorable and responsible that title is. Idols work hard behind the scenes, constantly smiling while singing and dancing, and performing so brilliantly. If there are moments when I'm called by the same title as those incredible idols, I feel I need to make an effort to match their quality, or it would be disrespectful. It really motivates me to do my best.

There’s a line in Ai's monologue where she says "I wanted to love someone, I wanted someone to love." Why do you think Ai wanted to give love rather than receive it?

It could be that she's looking for somewhere to belong, hoping that "if I can love, I might be loved in return". Ai's history of abuse and mistreatment likely made the love she received feel very different from the love most people experience. I think it all stems from Ai thinking of herself as an abnormal person - she might have believed that to be loved, she needed to become someone who could genuinely love others. It’s a bit of a chicken and egg situation with a lot of complex feelings. That’s just how I interpret it, though.

And in the end, she realizes her love for the twins is not a lie.

I think that Ai loved the twins all along, not just in that last moment. But the word “love” was like a curse for her, so she couldn't actually say it. That feeling only intensified after I watched the anime. There's an anime original bit where Ai kisses the twins on the foreheads and says, “I'm off,” when she leaves for work. That's the kind of thing you can only do with love - she was just too scared to actually put it into words. Though she was able to express her love fully in her final moments, it’s still sad it took such an extremely situation for her to be able to say it. If it’d never happened, or if she’d simply put the door chain on, she might never have said it. She might have always struggled to say those words. But it’s thanks to the twins she learned how to love. Even the love she has for her fans, that she derided as a lie, was always true. And when she told Ryosuke-kun, “I want to love you,” I think she was already loving him even then.

In the audio commentary included on the Blu-ray & DVD bonus disc, I was struck by the mention of Ai being so nervous before she says “I love you” to Ruby and Aqua, that she takes a deep breath. What sort of direction were you given for that line?

There wasn’t any direction, actually. During the recording, my focus was entirely on expressing Ai’s breathing after being stabbed, how much blood she was losing, and the urgency of conveying her final words. It was an intense experience. It’s a rare moment as a voice actor to feel like me and the character I'm playing have our hearts beating in sync, but this was one of those times. I think I was genuinely nervous myself as well. I could feel my heart pounding and my chest clenching like when you’re about to make a confession. That feeling still hasn’t left me.

Additionally, in the last monologue of episode 11, where Aqua reflects on Ai's words after she was stabbed, we couldn't use the original recording from the first episode. The recording from the first episode captured a raw and genuine emotion, as Ai was gasping for breath. So we re-recorded it with the intention that the more it resonated warmly within Aqua, the more unforgettable those words would become for him. I wanted to make sure that Ai’s final words would leave a lasting impact, something Aqua would revisit in his mind over and over again. Personally, I approached the recording with a deep sense of love, like passing the baton and saying, “Thank you, everyone, for your hard work in the first season.” There was a lot of warmth during that session, not just towards the twins, but towards the entire cast, staff, and the "Oshi no Ko" project itself.

What were your thoughts upon reading 45510?

I got to the end and I was like “Don’t delete the blog! I want to know more!” (laughs) The entire story felt like a box that really shouldn't be opened. Everything from the meaning behind the password numbers to the fact that Ai left behind a blog wanting to reconcile made it feel like Ai really, truly wanted to love the other girls in B-Komachi even when they were jealous of her.

In the anime, we only get a brief moment of interaction between Ai and the other members - that moment during dance practice, when one of them says, "You look kinda down, Ai-chan" and Ai replies with a smile, "That’s not it. I didn’t get to eat lunch!" So I was careful that Ai’s response didn't feel sour at all. If the sigh she let out before they spoke to her had even a hint of annoyance, it would’ve been a reason the other girls took offense with her. I felt like Ai’s invincibility should’ve been the main factor for their issues with her.

It’s just a brief interaction in the anime, but ‘45510’ really fleshed out that distance between Ai and the B-Komachi members. I based my understanding of these boundaries in her relationships on ‘45510’ and ‘Viewpoint B’ and I also read ‘Oshi no Ko: Spica, the First Star’ to get a fuller picture. The more I read, the more I understood - Kana Arima’s got the right idea!

YOASOBI’s song ‘IDOL’ closes out episode one.

The music itself was impactful, but the music video that was released after the first episode aired was something else altogether. We watched the first episode together with the cast, and then, after seeing the music video, I felt overcome by Ai’s presence all over again - I was left speechless by how powerful the experience was. "Oshi no Ko" really is an immersive experience. I mean, you willingly open YouTube and relive Ai's death yourself. Even after everything was conveyed in the main story, the music video introduced new layers of emotions and concepts. Seeing how YOASOBI's song "Idol," which was about Ai, resonated with so many people really made me realize all over again just how significant Ai's impact was!

And then you yourself sang IDOL at the Strawberry Productions☆Fan Thanksgiving Festival 2023 (FanFest).

For me, "Idol" is a challenging song to sing even at karaoke. So, when they asked me to sing it at the FanFest my initial reaction was, "Oh, that might be too much!" (laughs). It’s not a song that you can easily perform live (laughs). It's a song that only an incredible artist can pull off, so when I thought about singing it live on stage, I was like, "Really? Me?" But when I saw the setlist for the live part of the FanFest, I started feeling like, "Actually, I think I should give it a shot." As a performer, I had some reservations about whether I could deliver the quality it deserved, but the "Oshi no Ko" fan in me couldn't resist. I was like, "Everyone wants to see Ai's voice actress sing 'Idol'" (laughs). After a lot of back-and-forth, I decided to go for it. I understood how Kana Arima felt when she joined the new B-Komachi. The joy of being relied upon by the team and the desire to meet the expectations of the work won out in the end.

Between “Our Sign is B”, “HEART's♡KISS” and “STAR☆T☆RAIN”, which is your favourite B-Komachi song?

That’s a tough one since they’re all A-side quality! (laughs) It was like, "Wow, B-Komachi is seriously awesome!" You can really feel the passion from the music team, like they were determined to bring the world of "Oshi no Ko" to life through these songs. It was also surprising to see how the series expanded from the manga into this whole new realm of music.

Was there anything specific you focused on while recording the project’s songs?

I tried not to change my tone just because it was a song. My focus was on making sure that when people listened, they could immediately recognize it as Ai's voice. At first, it was really hard to come up with a solid idea of what "Ai singing” sounded like. Usually, she's a pretty laid back and carefree, but she can’t exactly sing like that during a live performance. Ai’s a pro when it comes to entertaining the audience and enjoying the moment with them so I was constantly trying to find the right balance between Ai’s characteristic nonchalance and the high energy of a live idol performance. The first recording I did was for "HEART's♡KISS," and honestly, I ended up putting too much force into the opening line, "I'll send you a cheer." Since the song's theme is about sending everyone good vibes, I got too intense with my delivery. I got an ‘OK’ on that take but when I listened back to it, I felt that it wasn’t quite right, so I asked to redo just that part. If people didn’t immediately sense Ai at the very start, I worried that they wouldn't feel her presence throughout the entire song.

If you were to send a message to Ai, what would you say?

There’s so much I’d love to say to her, it’s hard to pick just one thing. Still, I think Ai was really happy in her life because she got to say "I love you" in the end. Even though her life might seem tragic to others, the feeling that stuck with me from playing her was a sense of incredible contentment. So, I’d probably just want to have a casual chat with her and watch over everyone together. Oh, but I’d definitely tell her to keep that door chain locked!

[sacchiri]

I recently bought the jp volumes of Hellsing along with the guidebook, and since I'm reading the series in its native language for the first time I might as well share some random things that stood out to me in no particular order.

This isn't meant to be an analysis of translation differences, I'm too lazy for that. Also it's been 12 years since I've watched the anime and read the low quality fan scans of the manga so some of these comments are just "Lol, forgot this was a thing"

Volume 1

... I really want to know who this guy is at the beginning, yelling at Alucard in overly familiar language to "Get your shit together!" and "You're the only one we can count on!!". We know from the style of speech that it's a dude, probably just some Hellsing rando, and maybe it's not all that strange since he has probably been working with the same soldiers for years--but it's still funny.

"I know, it's just so nice out :("

..The way "HELLSING Organization" is spelled out like this reminds me that apparently the name is supposed to be an acronym. No really.

...

God they're so silly.

Now that I think about it, the only thing Seras has done this chapter since being turned into a vampire is say "I'm sorry" over and over.... girl you got shot in the lung, why are you apologizing

Not a huge difference, but what Integra actually says here is "Leaving a corpse here for 20 years... You're a terrible person too, Father" and not "What were you thinking, Father?" as the Dark Horse translation suggests (note the lack of question mark in the raw version). I thought that might be of interest to some.

Something else I thought was interesting is the first line Alucard ever says to Integra, and how uncharacteristically polite he sounds.

O-kega wa gozaimasenka- That's two honorific 御's back to back! (He even said them in kanji, even Walter isn’t that straightlaced and he’s literally the butler.) This is also the only time Alucard uses this overly flowery gentlemanly language with her, and good thing too because it would be so annoying if he spent the whole manga ending his sentences with ~gozaimasu.

What I'm trying to get at is, after seeing this sentence in the Japanese version, I'm like 100% sure he actually heard her when she was mumbling to herself about hoping to find a knight in shining armor, and he was totally going the extra mile in playing into that role for their first encounter. Which is kind of sweet.

Lol they misspelled Alucard on the top left... or rather, they incorrectly spelled it right?

One would normally expect Alucard to be written アルカード, and indeed pixiv dict lists アーカード as a misspelling (the u sound is weak in Japanese, so it's easy to mishear arukādo as ākādo). Hirano was definitely aware of the correct spelling though, since he used it in the pilot chapter and in his old character sheets. It was only when the manga officially began that he switched to the アーカード spelling. I doubt it was because of copyright issues because there is already a long precedent of vampire characters named アルカード in various old manga, OVA, and games in Japan that have coexisted without issue (like this guy Hirano mentions in volume 1's afterword).

Most likely Hirano simply thought it looked better, or was a means of differentiating his character from the others somehow. It certainly makes life easier for Japanese fans searching for fanart since アーカード is only going to bring up Hellsing and not the Castlevania character.

Jan Valentine even pokes fun at the spelling discrepancy later in volume 2, but since there wasn't a good way of expressing this in English it was left untranslated.

(Speaking of spelling inconsistencies, there's a lot of minor details I'm noticing now, like half the time the furigana for 吸血鬼 is written バンパイア and the other half it's ヴァンパイア... anyway)

Um, just noticed literally everyone's wearing glasses What should I do

Hirano's habit of jotting random comments underneath his panels is one of the underrated perks of reading the manga

The Dark Horse translation almost makes it sound like she's looking forward to seeing this battle play out, while in the Japanese she simply sounds apprehensive. Almost as if she's worried about them? And she's going out on the field personally to make sure nothing bad happens? Aww

Ok this is a weird tangent, but I just noticed the scans of the Dark Horse version I've been looking at use a slightly larger image range than the Japanese version does. It was only noticeable when I got to this part:

The second image is what the Japanese version of the scan looks like and I can confirm that this is what it looks like in my physical volume as well. You shouldn't be seeing the messy borders of the inking on the bottom like that.

Manga manuscripts are set up so that there are a few millimeters of bleed border around each page. You're supposed to color and line all the way up to (4) while keeping in mind that printing and paper cutting may result in the image being trimmed up to (3).

Either Hirano didn't color his lines all the way to (4) (this man has been drawing manga for years but this is Hirano we're talking about so it's very possible), or Dark Horse didn't honor the original bleed borders of the manuscript. I'm kind of leaning towards the former since there was a Hellsing exhibit in Japan a few years back where you could look at Hirano's original manuscripts and there's one where you can clearly see that he spilled a mug of tea or coffee across the entire page

Anyway, it's weird, and I'm curious to see if someone that owns a physical copy in English can confirm whether theirs actually looks like that. It's volume 1, page 141.

[shineonyoucrazyyandere]

Hello, I hope you don't mind if I share a weird headcanon of mine 👉👈

I normally see people talking about Kakyoin make drawing about you but what if Jotaro does that too? The reason I have this headcanon because I remember the scene when Jotaro using Star Platinum drawing the fly he saw in the picture, and he draw it so well. It makes me think that maybe Jotaro has talent in art too. Jotaro's style will be realistic style while Kakyoin will be more like cartoon/anime style.

Imagine their sketchbook filling with so many drawing of you 💕 Jotaro will watching you from afar, sketching you with your cute smile, your beautiful eyes, he captured it all. For Kakyoin, I think he will even make up characters (oc) that look like you and him and ship them together lol (this headcanon inspried by my friend, she actually do that with her crush).

Thank you for reading my ramble, glad to talk with you :D I would love to hear your thoughts about my weird headcanon

P/s: Love you writing so muchhhh 💝

This is fun stuff, I could eat it up all day. Thanks for sending it in, so I can blabber my mouth about it

This always internally bugged me so I’m very thrilled that someone brought up how well Star Platinum drew that fly. I suppose it’s kind of easy to gloss over for a lot of people compared to Kakyoin’s scene of painting on that canvas. (Then again that fly was kind of important to identify to figure out where Dio was so then again it’s “???” for an explanation)

Anywho, I’d say signs point to Jotaro being able to draw, and I think it’s a hobby he prefers keeping to himself. Like you said of him having a sketchbook, almost no one sees what he draws in it and he doesn’t want anyone else to see it especially if it’s various sketches of you. So more than likely when he does do so, he’s somewhere where he won’t be pestered by school girls, or whatever punk tries to start a fight with him.

I’d also like to think he goes back and lingers on prior stuff, just staring at it for a little while. This applies usually when you’re out of school sick (which he’ll probably stop by later anyway with or without your knowledge). But there’s something comforting about seeing every piece of your visage in his sketchbook. Literally no one else knows about this sketchbook aside from maybe Kakyoin (Holly has her suspicions he takes a sketchbook around but she smiles not pestering her son on his hobbies as she thinks it’s adorable).

For the most part art wise I think Jotaro sticks to traditional art, maybe a dabble of charcoal but he prefers pencils. Maybe watercolor if he ever went beyond, but traditional with pencil/pen is the easiest way for him to pull something out at his leisure. Would he let you see? Maybe eventually when he gets you where he wants you, or if the cat is out of the bag early and you see it and you’re not quite with him yet. Let’s just say seeing that may speed up him taking you.

Kakyoin I could definitely see diving into the oc type of thing, he’d certainly reference an artstyle of a manga you like. (Don’t ask how he figured that out so quickly). Though he definitely loves putting some passion into his artwork and occasionally shamelessly make sultry artwork of you and himself. He loves painting the most as he spreads colors, mixing them into the wondrous hues that is your skin tone. Or splashing watercolors in a notebook, that looks something out of a fairytale. Soft and warm lighting….oops he’s getting a tad bit excited.

He definitely presents pieces that are obviously meant to be stand ins for the two of you. That no one else would ever be wiser too, yeah you might have this odd feeling something’s not quite right, but there’s nothing there you could really prove other than observe just how pretty the composition is. If you compliment it, that just fuels this man’s desire further.

Biggest takeaway here is Jotaro and Kakyoin very blatantly have their own styles whether sticking with black/white/grey, or full on color. Both would be pretty in their own right, and their style choices speak of their personalities without saying a single word.

[swiggity-swexual-i-am-asexual]

I'm not opposed to hear your rambling of DP in dungeon meshi

Ayyy someone asked! 

Oh, you’ve activated my trap card.

So, naturally, I cannot find the post because Tumblr ate it off my blog, BUT what they’re referring to is a post about how the Fenton parents could have TOTALLY ended up overshooting when trying to get to the Ghost Zone and ended up in different worlds instead… and thus decided ‘hey free children!’ And surprise adopted (read: kidnapped) both Jazz and Danny from two different realms. 

I actually had a LOT of ideas on how you could do this. But, I ultimately decided that a post-canon approach was best for this little exercise. Not that you COULDN’T add Jazz and Danny, I suppose, but the timeline and the character movements are, for lack of better terms of it, EXTREMELY tight. You can wiggle an OC in there, sure, but for a fully developed character from ANOTHER media, especially one as OP as Danny, it’s far more difficult. 

That’s my way of saying, this absolutely has Dungeon Meshi spoilers if you’ve never read the manga and don’t know how it ends. That’s my only warning. 

So here’s the ideas and eventual story (there’s elements that are general and some that are specific to whatever storyline I ended up with) that I have doubts I will ever write but someone might as well enjoy them. I technically wrote a few scenes in my notes app, but these aren’t those, this is—kind of the whole roadmap? It’s a little funky still though, haha. 

Here goes!

As with the post, Jazz is Barbara Gordon’s twin, and Danny was actually a half foot. And now he’s a halfa halffoot. Lmao. Lol even. 

Before I chose to do a post-canon approach, I considered having the Fentons as a party. Jazz and Danny are basically playing babysitter to their FAR too enthusiastic parents who keep almost or actually dying because they’re exploring the whole immortal dungeon thing. While that is scrapped, some of the ideas I did have came from this, er, phase of development? So I felt it was worth a shoutout. 

Marcille describes magic (well, mana) as coming from ‘The Infinite’, which is also where demons come from. And these demons can do things like grant wishes, ‘feed’ off of emotion, and change people. They also, once sealed into dungeons, do various things inside these dungeons, including making animals that cannot exist without magic for very long but also seem to still require a sort of internal logic. This sounds a LOT like how ghosts work in Danny Phantom, if you take maybe a hint of liberty and a dose of speculation about how lairs likely work. 

Basically, The Infinite = the Ghost Zone, also known as the Infinite Realms. Demons = Ghosts. Dungeons = Lairs. And, most importantly… Ectoplasm = Magic. 

For my own sanity and also for a successful meshing of these two very different universes, I’ve decided to go with the semi-fanon idea that the influences of the people in the living world can create things in the Infinite Realms. Belief creates reality, basically. For example, perhaps Pandora was never alive in the first place, but because people heard and believed her story so much, she became a ghost (realms being, demon, what have you). So, while those in Amity Park might not have initially believed much in ghosts, they saw them, and because people saw Phantom as powerful and either villain or hero-like, Danny and the rest of the ghosts became more like comic book characters than spooky ghosts (somewhat explains how things are still a LITTLE spooky, but seem a bit more heavy on the probably dead people thing at the beginning of the series). 

Similarly, demons became what they are over time as the people of the world influenced them. You could call what demons started as, as ‘proto ghosts’, and that every world that HAS ghosts has them, and the beliefs change them into whatever form and binds them to whatever rules the dimension now holds. 

There should still be some universal ‘laws’, though. For example, ghosts exist in both stories, and so do magic, as do spaces that operate at least SLIGHTLY outside the usual laws that govern the area outside of it (again, lairs and the Ghost Zone, dungeons in general). 

All this to say—when Danny ends up in the Dungeon Meshi world, he ends up being a very unorthodox and extremely powerful mage, but might lose a good percentage of his usual ghost powers. He is not salty about this, no, really, ITS FINE JAZZ.  

This would be less of a problem if there wasn’t a SLIGHT issue about halffoots being known as not being magically inclined… and those that might have had an interest in the past sorta-kinda got taken by the elves. 

Another note is that this isn’t going to be a particularly Fenton parents friendly sort of story, because the whole thing STARTS with them KIDNAPPING CHILDREN and passing them off as their own. I’m sure there are ways to spin it as a happy tale, but uhhhhhhhhhhh. I’m not. 

An additional point that you do NOT have to take from this if you make your own story is, if you’re a big fan of halffoots having tails (which, to fit with the humans-all-have-the-same-bones thing, are made of cartilage), you can have Danny have been docked as a baby by the Fentons. Adjust angst regarding that to your own tastes, but I imagine its probably something that HAD been done in the past for not-great-reasons, and so the social stigma for the parents doing that to their child is messed up—but due to the dangers of dungeoneering, some halffoots may have lost their tails in accidents or just because they were THAT serious. Point is, it’s at minimum a gossip point. 

Anyways, as halffoots are very short, and Danny is one, by age fourteen his teachers are probably going to go ‘uuuuhhhh, I think there’s a problem here?’ But the Fenton parents are oddly reluctant to arrange a doctor’s visit to check for various possible causes of potential dwarfism. Like, they’re already dodgy about doctor visits, but this seems particularly avoidant. 

Both Jazz and Danny might know that they’re adopted, but even if they don’t, they know where all their papers are. So they snoop through them to see if there’s any leads or anything. 

There’s various ways to for them to figure it out—realizing there’s no paper trail about their adoptions or about how delayed the at-home-birth paperwork was—but one that I did contemplate was that the Fentons KEPT the tail they cut off Danny as a baby, claiming it was a ‘lower spine surgery and don’t worry about it champ!’. 

As you might imagine, he’s worried about it. But also, you can nix that plot point if you’re not a fan. (Well, I mean it technically my own story developing here, but—part of this exercise is to see what other people would take away from what I’ve got too.)

More searching through papers and likely a conversation if not confrontation with the parents later, Jazz and Danny learn about the different realms and such. 

Jazz is still worried about Danny’s health. They SEEMED human, but what if they weren’t and they were just lucky to not have gotten super sick? Or what if they’ll live thousands of years or something?? 

Danny is, understandably, a little upset about everything too. So they both pack what they might need, basing their travel kits on what notes they DID have about the world they were heading to (minimal technology, so laptops were a bad idea, but Jazz did pack a bunch of instructional books on How To Make Things), and got the dimensional coordinates to where they needed to go. Or, if you don’t wanna explain HOW those dimensional coordinates are still accurate or how that system might work now that the Ghost Zone was there, because who knew how to navigate that place on a GOOD day, Danny could just ask Frostbite or Clockwork for a quick favor. On that note, Danny should probably have a way home—personally, I gave him the starting ability to make portals, although they’re not YET powerful to get through, which is why he’s concerned that he might actually be unwell on his human side. 

POINT IS. Jazz and Danny arrive, taking the name Nightingale just in case their parents went around calling themselves as Fenton and pissing people off by, oh say, kidnapping their child. 

A quick survey around tells them a bit about the world, with Danny probably very used to being very adaptable on the fly. And also we’ll let him keep invisibility. As a treat. Though it may now be a bit more difficult to do. Jazz is tasked to either help Danny to let him hide behind her presence when needing to actually be invisible, read through the travel journal from the Fentons to find clues to Danny’s birth family, and her own self imposed mission to reinvent running water and water filtration systems. She is not about this no-indoor-plumbing life. 

As it so happens, with the Golden Kingdom beginning to pop up, there’s plenty of spaces and houses in various states of repair that they’re currently REALLY trying to fill up. Jazz files some paperwork about being refugees, and they take a house that’s pretty far into the woods for most of the people looking for a place. The two need the space, as they are keeping literal dimensional secrets. Other than the lengthy walk to town, it’s fine. Plus, it lets Jazz do her plumbing project. 

Once they both have a pretty good grasp on things, Danny C-student Nightingale realizes OH. WHAT IF I’M A HALFFOOT— wait no I’m not going by that. Call me a hobbit instead. In Jazz’s defense, she spent most of her time grasping everything else about the world, or otherwise spent most of her time they spent either camping in the woods or making their new house LIVEABLE that the whole ‘different races’ thing completely sped by her. Plus, where they live might be more Tallman heavy. 

Good to know he’s healthy though! But they’re already here, and they do actually want to find Danny’s family, and… it’s just… been very nice and not stressful. The ghosts hadn’t been bothering Danny nearly as much back home, to the point where he felt pretty comfortable leaving it in Valerie’s capable hands, but this is the most relaxed he’s been in a while. It’s amazing what not living with people who would skin you semi-alive will do for mental health. 

They also realize they maybe need to like… make money. 

Good news is, when they switched dimensions, they automatically became able to speak Common. And, as a compensation for losing some of his other abilities, Danny can have omnilingualism. He also keeps his ice powers, mostly, and he’s pretty sure he kept his Ghostly Wail. 

There ARE reasons why he keeps the powers he does. In short, he’s still part ghost (or, part demon here, but words are just words and in this case, both just mean ‘realms being’), so turning invisible is fine. So is making things cold—and, as he’s also human and able to use magic, he can create ice like other mages do. He also has limited intangibility, but for reasons involving ‘I don’t recall any mages doing it’, he has more trouble with it than usual. As for the Ghostly Wail, its similar to the mandrake cry, and thus something that likely involves magic to do—as a veritable wellspring of magic, as he’s kinda sorta a dungeon master ruled by HIMSELF now, he has plenty to spare. Plus, banshee legends might still exist in Dungeon Meshi. As for the languages thing… it’s me throwing him a bone for taking away his ability to use lasers. I might let him overshadow people, but seeing as that just kills people in Dungeon Meshi, I might not. 

The two siblings begin taking odd jobs in town. The people think it’s a LITTLE odd that a Tallman (Jazz) and a Halffoot (HOBBIT, Danny) are siblings, but they usually just explain that they were both taken in by the same couple. If anyone even slightly insinuates it’s something else, the two both start gagging before they begin lecturing the gossiper. 

While Danny’s skills as an interpreter ARE extremely valuable, they find that with so many new people in this town that, apparently, JUST rose out of the gotdang sea, that there are many people looking for all sorts of odd things, and THAT is something Jazz is more suited for than translating, seeing as the only language that she knows from THIS world is Common. 

In short, she finds out about potions. You know, that thing mentioned like ONCE at the beginning of the Dungeon Meshi series and NEVER MENTIONED AGAIN (afaik). 

Ingredients are a liiiittle hard to come by in markets, but most of them just need magic to grow, right? And Danny can make magic ice that turns into magic water. 

Jazz starts a farm. When Danny starts taking home books and such to translate on a commission basis, mostly in order to avoid another close call about knowing ancient elvish languages that they may or may not be incredibly suspicious about him being able to know, he takes care of a lot of the gardening. 

It’s at this point that Danny finds out he can just take a mandrake that’s in a pot, dunk it in a barrel of water, and harvest that way. It’s still a bit LOUD, but it won’t harm or kill anyone. And, the water now has magic toxins or whatever, which could have uses of their own that Jazz is now experimenting with. 

So, basically, Jazz is out here doing the Dungeon Meshi Cooking Montages except its potions and it’s mildly terrifying. 

Danny is just glad that he’s ALSO legally a halffoot adult and can just go to town to a tavern whenever she’s being too weird. Good news: he can drink alcohol now! Bad news, sort of: it does nothing for him. I mean, go him for never getting drunk, but like, rude. 

Both Danny and Jazz are learning magic, mostly because Danny needs to offset some magic every now and again so it doesn’t build up (ie, his ice) and should at least look like he knows what he’s doing so he doesn’t get caught, and Jazz is learning so they can occasionally depend on her to claim that Danny’s magical whatever is actually HER doing. Plus, it helps with the potions. Most involve magical ingredients, so the maker doesn’t need to be a mage, but still. 

Danny gets a bit homesick about Sam and Tucker, so he makes a magic mirror in an afternoon and contacts them through one of Sam’s compact cases. It had some unique design she made on the back of it, so he’s able to hone in on it. Sam is EXTREMELY jealous that they’re living some kind of cottage witch fantasy, meanwhile Tucker is like ‘they have wHAT kind of meat? And you left me here?!’. 

Yeah. Tucker and Laois would get along, although Senshi would definitely have some words to say about his nutritional needs. 

SPEAKING OF the Dungeon Meshi characters. What, you think I wasn’t going to add them?

Falin likes to take walks through the area. As it so happens, the Nightingale House is about two hours of very casual strolling from the castle. She discovers them one day when she noticed Danny tending to the mandrake farm (there’s likely other magical plants, but I imagine Danny is wary of the more monster-like ones). 

Danny just can NOT keep her name in his head. He keeps calling her Bird Lady. Falin is not upset by this. She’s actually pretty glad to make somewhat friends with Danny and later Jazz, because they’re both pretty nonchalant about the feathers thing. Most are fine, but some are still… Off about her. Also they didn’t participate in the whole eating her thing, which she didn’t MIND but some people avoid her because they think she WOULD be upset. 

Falin is also glad to find that Danny can see ghosts like she can. She promised to keep his little magic secret, though she likely has no idea how powerful he actually IS, and she visits like twice a week. 

At some point, Itsuzumi claimed their front porch as one of her napping spots. Jazz thought they should maybe not have a cat girl sleeping on the doorstep. Danny agreed… by making a hammock. Jazz just accepted her fate and occasionally feeds her. That said, Itsuzumi doesn’t stay in one place as her ‘home’, so it’s a toss up if she’s there. Still, she somehow convinced the postmasters to only deliver mail to the Nightingales, seeing as they don’t mess with her letters and are out of the way enough that she has privacy when she does read them. If she’s there while it’s raining, she’ll take over the couch. 

Like, Itsuzumi doesn’t have keys to the house or anything, and Danny and Jazz are both a bit secretive, but that translates really well to respecting Itsuzumi’s privacy as long as she isn’t bringing huge problems to their doorstep. Danny did once offer to see about making up a guest room that was more or less hers—the house did need repairs, so some of the rooms weren’t quite habitable even if the house itself was fine to live in. Itsuzumi was not a fan of this, as I imagine her the type to not like feeling so tied down, but she did accept a compromise of having a closet space for her to store things. It’s where Danny and Jazz will put her letters when she DOES get them. 

Danny’s need to help people isn’t an obsession, but he IS quite fond of it, so as he does his work but also studies magic Just In Case, he finds a certain affinity for sensing magic, monsters, and breaking curses. The first one he broke was entirely by accident—the client had no idea that the book passages he gave to Danny were cursed. 

It worked out, it was fiiiine, stop worrying so much Jazz. 

While Danny certainly wasn’t advertising the curse breaking part, his previous client was told about it, and suddenly everyone knew that the Nightingales knew a little about curse breaking. They assume it’s Jazz, and Jazz has to learn on the fly how to break simple curses and protect herself until Danny can come actually work his literal magic. Jazz, oddly enough, is the one to figure out how to make protective charms. 

Also, she’s successfully made the first section of her water filtration system. 

Listen, they are very busy. But they’re hoping if they branch out enough, get a big enough system, they can find Danny’s parents. Because all they REALLY had to go on was One—They were halffoots, Two—Danny’s hair came from his mother, and Three—in both Jazz AND Danny’s cases, the Fentons kidnapped a twin. 

It’s this work as a cursebreaker and Jazz’s work as a near miracle worker at potions—her little mad scientist experiments were bearing fruit after all—that Falin brings Laios over to work with. Long story short, Danny’s general attitude about it is ‘fuck that lion guy’ because he recognizes the work of a ghost—er, demon—when he sees it. Sure, the Toudens don’t TELL Danny it was a winged lion, saying after a really long pause that the cursers name was Leo or whatever. But Danny isn’t completely stupid, especially not about something he can PLAINLY see. 

Also, a good note here is that neither Jazz nor Danny have ANY idea who Laios is. Sure, they’d HEARD of the King, but either Danny gave him a nickname, they think Laios is one of those cases where there’s an uptick of people named after a famous person, or it’s just a super common name. Or, heck, it’s entirely possible that Laios has a king monicker and that’s ALL that Jazz and Danny have heard, and they don’t know that the king’s name is Laios. 

Anyways, Danny is like ‘you have two curses from your frankly very petty curser’. And they’re like ‘yeah we know’. 

For the monster repellent curse, Falin points out (possibly on her own but also possibly remembering something Kabru said once) that it’s a pretty useful curse, but that it upsets Laios to have on him. So, Danny thinks ‘What Would Sam Do’ and makes a creepy doll. The idea is to attach the curse to the doll, but for various reasons involving having the curse NEED an amount of magic to stay going, it needs to be, well… fed. As you MIGHT recall from Dungeon Meshi, blood is pretty potent as a magic tool. 

So, anyways, blood sacrifice for the repellent doll curse, preferably either by Laios or someone of his blood. I’m sure this won’t become a plot point for a b rated adventure story several generations later where they need to find the One True Heir to help save the kingdom or whatever. 

As for the hunger curse, it’s a pretty tricky one. Most curses, Danny can kind of just. Push it out using his own magic, or trick it into thinking its done whatever the curse maker wanted it to do. But this curse is very ingrained, as hunger is something very basic to literally everyone, and it’s goal is basically ‘then SUFFER’ and that’s hard to make it understand when Laios is, technically, already and constantly suffering from it. 

So, it needs to be magically purged. Starve out the magic in Laios’s body, starve out the curse. Issue being that it’s EXCEPTIONALLY hard to do that when magic is LITERALLY in the air. 

With a bit of thinking, Danny comes up with a solution, and tells them to set up their creepy doll shrine and see him in three days. Also maybe haggles the price because while he DOES have a way to do this, it’s a bit risky to not only Laios but to the makers of Danny’s curse-breaking method. 

Danny contacts Sam, who contacts Frostbite, who is VERY against this but ultimately agrees so long as Danny is careful. Danny technically has Jazz do most of the next part, so he’s being cautious. 

The Toudens come back, with Laios happily chattering about a small monster he noticed just before they got to the Nightingales—good to know what the range of that is then, though it may have become smaller with the smaller vessel and the lesser amount of regenerating magic supplying it. I’m not looking up the one panel that sorta shows how big the field is right now. 

Danny is like, bundled up and covering his mouth, while Jazz is very careful with the prepared potions. 

Blood blossoms. Basically anti magic, which do not grow in this world naturally and should never do so, and involved Sam needing to travel back in time to grab a few. They explain their caution as Danny being extremely allergic to one of the ingredients and the effects of the potions being dangerous to mages in general by DESIGN. 

In short, Laios has to take these potions for three days—one bottle for each day—and to light a candle anointed with the potion in the forth bottle in a closed space he needs to stay in for the duration and at least an extra two days. There’s also a fifth bottle that he needs to sprinkle into any food or drink he has for that time until after the fifth day. Remember, magic is everywhere in Dungeon Meshi. This is basically him going into a sterile bubble field for a while, but also needing to include sterilizing the things he eats and drinks as well. 

“Don’t keep even a drop,” Danny warns them both very, very seriously. “This stuff shouldn’t exist here, but that is one NASTY curse you’ve got. Anything you’ve got leftover, including the bottles, bring back here.” 

He also tells them that its possible that Laios might never regain magical ability he had previous, or if he DID he had to relearn it. Laios accepts this risk. He wasn’t much for magic anyways. Danny also tells him to maybe make sure the room(s) he uses isn’t his usual bedroom, and again that he needs to stay in them as MUCH AS POSSIBLE, preferably not leaving at ALL, until after his treatment. 

They take his warnings seriously, at least, and they head off, carefully with the contents they just got. 

They actually do as instructed! Kabru did manage to take a drop, though, just to see what would happen. Holm’s undine DISSOLVED is what happened. Kabru did not take any more risks about that because WHAT the hell, WHAT. Laios and Falin also won’t tell him WHERE THEY GOT THIS FROM. At least, not until after they finish the treatment and see if it works. 

It does work though! He gets his normal hunger cues back after a couple of weeks, and Falin happily tells the Nightingales that it worked. Great! Never tell anyone what they did. Also give back the bottles please and thanks (handed off to Sam very carefully—although blood blossoms ARE a magic-and-ecto disruptor, they can be put through portals, such as the mirror phone things that technically also act as portals). 

A little late for total secrecy, but no one that the Toudens didn’t already trust with the numerous secrets they already had, including but not limited to Marcille’s fun necromancy habit. 

… Listen, I know that the curses Laios gets are like, consequences or something, but I didn’t like the hunger curse because of my own traumas and didn’t like the monster avoidance curse cause that just seemed cruel. Which I get was the point but I have OPINIONS on the whole thing, and it ultimately equals up to “Laios didn’t ask for this, and I’m not sure he’s actually happy in the end”. Anyways. 

Because they literally helped heal the king, Laios does invite them over to dinner in the castle. 

“That guy was a KING?!” Danny shouts. 

Jazz is just like. Yeah that fucking tracks. But hey we can ask his help about the parentage thing! 

So, now they’re going to dinner. That’s fun! Maybe! 

Side note, Jazz has now invented showers and indoor baths. She’s still working on a heating and cooling mechanism but at least all the water is clean. She’s still working on getting faucets for sinks, such as in the kitchen. 

Don’t ask how they have time for this, by the way. The gardening, their actual jobs of potion making and translations, Jazz’s plumbing project, Danny’s (and slightly Jazz’s) magic training, and the biological family search. To be fair, they probably have very few leads on that last one, so extending their social net is kind of their only plan. 

They get dressed up fairly nicely and go to the king’s castle for dinner because apparently Danny just cannot stop impressing royalty both dead AND ALIVE as it turns out. 

There, they meet the whole Touden party. Itsuzumi is there. Both parties are very surprised, but good to know, but also what. W h a t. 

Senshi likes hearing about how similar potion making and cooking is, and he and Jazz seem to be getting along pretty well! Chilchuck, meanwhile, is like. Why does this kid—sorry, young halffoot adult—look so gotdang familiar. Regardless, he offers to help teach him a few things about halffoot culture, seeing as Danny was apparently raised as a Tallman. 

“Yeah, we didn’t even know about other races! We just thought Danny was a little weird,” Jazz said. 

“That must have been really isolated,” Marcille replied. 

Oh, she didn’t even know the half of it. 

Of course, someone questions how Danny was so good with languages if their ‘isolated little village’ never said that any race other than Tallmen existed, to which Danny just kind of says he had a knack for it and was bored, so. Languages. They kind of just start following patterns after a certain point. And he and Jazz HAD been traveling for a while. 

Dinner goes well, with just one odd report about scratching in one of the mirror halls by the guards that Danny juuuust manages to hear before he and Jazz go out the doors. 

That’s probably nothing! 

A bit more time passes, with Senshi visiting Jazz and helping her learn ACTUAL cooking in exchange for those sweet sweet mandrakes and the water harvesting method while Danny gets lessons from Chilchuck and, ironically, another halffoot named Dandan about Halffoot culture. Luckily, Danny just so happened to know the halffoot language equivalent of Common, but they teach him a bit more about the language anyways. 

This is also when he learns that Halffoots tend to have twins, but also that it’s not terribly uncommon for one of the twins to die. Happened to both Dandan’s ex wife and to Chilchuck and also so, so many other halffoots. That just made Danny’s search even harder. Yikes. 

By week two, Danny is very tired of CONSTANTLY hearing the term halffoot, and so has requested Tucker get him a copy of the Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings trilogy to send through mirror-mail so that Danny can then translate THAT into Common and go publish. Maybe if he has a book or two to sell, he can make a passive income so he can concentrate on things other than translating YET ANOTHER tax form because the local government all wants Common—understandable—but not everyone can READ Common. 

This may be a time to give Danny a misadventure with some orcs that paint him as a fucking weirdo but ultimately friendly. 

Jazz gets the idea that hey, if the whole halffoots have lots of twins thing is true,  meaning that she and Danny are going to have a TIME of it trying to find HIS parents, maybe she and Danny should invent, like genetic testing with magic and or potions or whatever. It’s not like they don’t have an understanding of genetics, if what Kabru’s (adopted) mother teaches him is any indicator, but genetic testing it relatively modern by our own standards. 

So they start developing that. Falin still visits, mentioning how there seems to be a scratching that just won’t stop in the castle, but its always in the same hall of mirrors so at least its localized. Just, really weird. Everyone else thinks its ghosts, but Falin has checked so many times now and there just isn’t one. But Laios is doing fine, he’s very thankful, and Danny is like hahaha don’t mention it! No really, don’t! You already paid me! We had dinner! We’re friends now! Ahaha!

Should it be the case that Halffoots (-HOBBITS!) have tails, Chilchuck still has his, though it’s a liiiittle shorter than it should be, and he’s the sort thats proud about how long his wife and daughters’ tails are. He’s reconnecting with his family! Slowly but surely! In case you CAN’T tell, I actually like happy endings here. Despite the everything else I put in a story, ha. Anyways, as such, he’s a little offput by Danny’s parents since Danny admitted that they’re the ones who cut it off of him, and that even then they never told Danny that he wasn’t a Tallman despite having to have had at LEAST a clue that he wasn’t one. Shouldn’t the orphanage or however they got their kids from know? Don’t tell him that both Jazz AND Danny were just left on their doorsteps. 

“Definitely not that one, aha…” Danny quickly changes the topic. “So I wrote this story—or, well, its like this story that was SUPER popular where we’re from—“

Chilchuck also explains how Danny’s name is just SO weird to most of the other halffoots. Like, it’s not OUT there, per se, but definitely reads as Tallman. Even admitting its fully Daniel does not help. This is also when Chilchuck explains that part of the infant mortality rate, halffoots don’t get their names until their fourth month of life. 

Jazz made some liberties and changes to the Hobbit to fit in a little better with Dungeon Meshi and it’s whole world, but otherwise it’s mostly the same story. Chilchuck and Dandan get free copies as they’re helping Danny so much, especially with getting Danny used to other people like him (mostly). They’re both pretty impressed with it, though Danny insists that it wasn’t exactly his own writing. But, hey, the actual author was dead and he doubts any copies are going to come from his old hometown any time soon so like, might as well! 

Also, copyright law is probably far different in Dungeon Meshi than here, ha. I declare it—legally in the clear! 

Danny has a mission with this and that’s getting people to use the word Hobbit dammit! 

Surprisingly, despite not showing up in it, the gnomish community quite like it. And so do dwarves, and elves, and halffoots, and it becomes pretty popular. 

It’s The Hobbit. This is not an unexpected result. Thank you Chilchuck for helping with the printing rights and contracts for getting the book published. (And we can guess that the printing press DOES exist in Dungeon Meshi, since we can see the books they have—though there may be other obstacles about getting your hands on a book, we can see by the amount they have and how gimmicky Laios’ monster book is that printing a book itself is likely a done and solved issue in some way or another). 

Danny is extremely glad he did not put his own name as the pen name for that mess. 

While all that drama is happening, including the fact that Chilchuck’s wife—I have named her Brightmerry—is now a very avid fan and would love to meet Danny, Danny and Jazz have just about perfected their genetics test. Laios and Falin know about the test, although not WHY they’re doing it. Despite some concerns that the magic and chimeraism that probably STILL affects both, though Laios’s maybe got purged during the magic curse breaking thing, it certainly was unpleasant enough for him that he’d BELIEVE that he got part of him ripped out, they still seem to test just fine as siblings. Still, they need more tests. 

But it’s not like they know an entire family, do they? 

Danny complains about this issue to Dandan, in part to see if Dandan knew anyone that MIGHT be willing to help. 

As it so happens, Dandan volunteers Chilchuck. Chilchuck only agrees to drag his family into it because he generally trusts Danny and Jazz even if they ARE kind of weird and make incidental inventions at their house that they should REALLY sell, because WHAT do you MEAN you have a hot water shower?! He also knows that both Brightmerry and Fullertom would like to meet Danny because of the book he totally did not steal from another dimension to make a profit. Might as well drag the rest. Plus, they assure that the test itself won’t hurt, and will even demonstrate with themselves and with the Toudens what a false and what a positive result will look like. 

So, they arrange a date to do so at the castle. Kabru is pretty interested in the experiment, truthfully, because it seems neat! Not at all because of his own issues with his hometown involving his eye color! Why do you ask! 

Off they go, and the best space to do this in due to some preparation and magic circle nonsense is the same room Laios did his whole magic purge, which was the mirror hall. It’s small but open, with no windows except for a small one in an attached restroom area. Sure, there’s some creepy scratching going on from time to time, but no one has gotten hurt or recorded anything else odd. 

The magic genetics test involves having the participants positioned equally around a magic circle in little circles of their own, having a small cup of a potion that gives off a lot of steam or vapor—entirely harmless-, and pricking a drop of blood into the potion. What happens with a positive is that the vapor takes on a color and follows a trail through the magic circle, and the colors and how strong the connection between the vapor trails between two people tell how related they are. In a negative or, when two parents are in the circle, the vapor trails will not have ‘matching’ or similar colors, and the trails will not actually meet up with each other. 

It’s still a work in progress, but it should tell at least siblings. Luckily, Chilchuck did manage to get all three of his daughters and his wife along, with Dandan being invited as another variable to test with. 

Danny and Jazz go first, showing how their trails don’t meet up. And there’s not a particular meaning to what color a vapor trail is to a person—it can change and vary for each test, it’s only consistent when it’s a ‘positive’. 

Than Laios and Falin. Fittingly enough, their trails are fairly strong, with just a few different trails fraying off, and slightly different shades of green-ish yellow coming from their potion cups. 

The Chilchuck Family then take a turn, and they can observe the trails. Sure enough, Chilchuck and Brightmerry don’t have any connection, but seem to match and meet with each of their daughters’ trails, who also connect to each other in a web of vapor. They decide that maybe more than three is hard to read. 

They agree to do a couple of combinations and tests, which Jazz and Danny are like ‘sorry for all the finger pricks!’ But they DID bring a bunch of sterilized needles at least. And Falin is happy to heal them in the meantime—using the space as an anti magic purge room seems to not have left an affect on the magic now in the space. 

Dandan joins a few times so they can record how he doesn’t match at all. Laios then mentions why Danny isn’t doing that when they explain he’s adopted and therefore for all he knows, he’s distantly related. 

Which prompts them to have him test with Dandan and Chilchuck. 

He doesn’t match Dandan. 

But he does match Chilchuck. 

This does not change when he repeats the experiment. 

They then switch out Chilchuck for Brightmerry. 

… And he matches to Brightmerry. 

SEVERAL different trials later involving all the halffoots there confirms it. 

Somehow. Someway. 

He is Chilchuck and Brightmerry’s child. 

Are you surprised? Probably not that was a twist coming a mile away not going to lie. 

Anyways, the story THEY give is that he’s Puckpatti’s twin. They’d been napping outside while with one of Chilchuck’s brothers, when something or another distracted said brother for, at most, two minutes. But then Puckpatti’s twin was gone. He was stolen, although they hadn’t actually KNOWN what had happened, when he was three months. It’s why Puckpatti’s name was, well. Puckpatti. Puck was supposed to be her twin’s name, and they considering having her be Pattipuck, but Puckpatti worked better. It wasn’t particularly odd for twins where only one survived to carry the other twin’s name as either their first or second name. This is also why her usually nickname is Patti instead of Puck. 

Danny and Jazz explain that… yeah, they were taken in. As in kidnapped. Hadn’t wanted the pity points but saying they were adopted felt kiiiiinda wrong. 

Now, this would be a very touching family reunion scene. 

Except now that mirror scratching has started up. 

And its loud. 

And—Oh would you look at that. 

Mirror portal. 

Can you guess who pop through? 

It’s the Fentons! Say Hello to Jack and Maddie. 

It’s a whole confrontation scene, which BASICALLY goes with Maddie and Jack absolutely NOT realizing anything they did wrong, insisting they SAVED Danny, that there were two and it was fine, and BESIDES, JAZZ wanted a little sibling and when ASKED she asked for a brother, so really, its her fault. 

Jazz gets a guilt complex! Chilchuck tells the Fentons that thats NOT HOW THIS SITUATION WORKED, SHE WAS TWO! 

Jazz also has a horrifying memory of when she was four and Danny was two, and asking if they’d like a younger sibling, and that they’d have to agree, but Jazz said yes and Danny said NO and was this why there were only two of them?!?

Danny disowns them, pointedly saying that cutting off a baby’s tail is kind of MESSED UP DON’T YOU THINK.  And they go, well if you’re going to be ungrateful—and he gets like, hella hurt. 

More arguing and fighting, and Danny just kind of lays there and lets himself heal before propping himself back up like. Did. Did you think that would work. You have a magic science workshop that I regularly cleaned did you NOT THINk. THAT WOULD NOT HAVE AN AFFECT. 

The Fentons go ‘oh, he’s a ghost’ and disown him right back, though not in so many words. Whichever members of the Dungeon Meshi group you imagine are there right now take it as ‘he’s a MAGE?!’ 

Danny tricks the Fentons back through the mirror portal and shatter it. From what he guesses, the magic purging done to Laios let there be a slight thinning in the natural magical-ecto-whatever barrier that protected this world from another one. The Fentons didn’t know where the kids went, but might have figured out they went to another world, but couldn’t locate the notes to locate the Dungeon Meshi world. So, instead, they tracked Danny and Jazz themselves. With all the blood testing Danny did in the same room with a thinning veil, that meant they were finally able to break through by using him as an ‘anchor’ to follow through the mirrors. 

Universal constants, remember? Both magic mirrors AND portals are things in both worlds. 

Danny takes this time to go ‘well, they already know anyways’, and uses the opportunity and also all his blood now on the floor to make some quick magic barrier things with Jazz’s help. She’s better at protection sigils, after all, but he’s the more magically powerful. Together, they sort of ‘lock’ the dungeon meshi world. Or, more accurately, they lock out a certain scientific couple. And, because three is a stronger number for magic, they also block out Vlad. Three birds, one stone. 

THEN Danny passes out, you know, like a champion. 

Once awake and reunited with everyone, things begin to simmer down. Sure, Danny was just exposed as a powerful mage to the King, but the king is just like ‘Eh, won’t mention it, I don’t know anything I’m barely sure how I became king most days and I was THERE’. Marcille probably finds out, either because she was there or she’s just really good at finding out things she absolutely should not, also possible interest from a long time over Jazz and Danny and their whole deal. But she’s also just like NEAT. Translate these texts for me and we’re even. 

Danny is not convinced about her smile but goes with it regardless. 

Chilchuck and family are cautiously open to Danny. Of course they’re glad to have him home, but also—he’s lived his entire life ELSEWHERE, so while Chilchuck knows the most about him, he’s still a stranger. 

A few cute fluffy bits about learning about his siblings and his mother and father. Notably—Chilchuck is APPALLED that any child of his doesn’t know how to properly lock pick. Even Fullertom, the MOST disinterested in his line of work, is well aware of how to do it. Brightmerry is fond of reading, and Danny has lots of stories she’s never heard of going through his head. He insists they’re just local stories he’s heard of here and there, but she’s like. Suspicious of it. Not enough to cause him to stop telling her them, though. He also learns of the interests of his sisters, and is also like WHAT. WHAT DO YOU MEAN I’M STILL THE BABY. 

The three girls are also fond of Jazz, surprisingly enough. Like, I’d hardly call them besties, but they get along pretty well. Especially when teasing Danny. Jazz tells them of the occasions she’d dress Danny up as a princess when they were little, and next thing Chilchuck knows, he’s walking in to see his son—not resisting being dolled up, because he loves his sisters already, but also very clearly hoping for an out. 

“Have fun,” he says and leaves immediately before his daughters can drag him into it too. 

Jazz has completed her indoor plumbing project! They no longer have a latrine and cesspit! They have proper toilets AND a filtration system for both incoming AND outgoing water, and along the way she’s made a waterwheel for electricity to power the filtration system AND the heating and cooling systems. They’re ALMOST modern at the Nightingale house! 

From here, things are a bit more loose. 

Danny makes gifts for his family for some kind of festive holiday. For Chilchuck, he gets a wood carving for the night each of his children were born, as well as his own birthday and Brightmerry’s. Since Meijack and Fullertom are twins, as are Puckpatti and Danny, this means four carvings. Each carving is technically a thin piece of darkly painted wood with holes drilled through, but when a light is shined onto the correct side, such as a candle or Jazz’s next project involving lightbulbs, it projects out the night sky. 

Danny consulted a LOT of astrological charts for this thing, but due to how close their dimensions are, the stars were mostly the same between the two. It’s not a universal constant, but the closer two dimensions are, the more similarities there are. 

After all, the Fentons were trying to slip BETWEEN dimensions, which is kind of like sewing but only going through to BETWEEN two pieces of fabric, even if the fabrics are already rubbing against each other. In other words, precision was needed, and there was no point in aiming for a FAR dimension for this, that was more likely to end in failure. 

An alternate for Chilchuck is that Danny finds alcohol in the Infinite Realms to give him, if you want Danny to have more free access to the Realms. Just warns him to only drink it if he WANTS to be completely sloshed, and to maybe not do that at home, haha. 

Anyways, for Brightmerry, he gives her not the next one, but the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy, translated and edited for the Dungeon Meshi world. He assures his father they’ll get a copy for print later, but this was the first edition and it was for Brightmerry. 

Meijack got an armband for easily hold and quick access to her most common picklock tools. Kind of like a bracer or that sliding blade thing from Assassins Creed. 

Fullertom, Danny gave her a bunch of blue ribbons and accessories. Jazz had to point out for him that this meant he was supportive of her desire for marriage—Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue. Usually a tradition reserved for the marriage, but anyways. 

As for Puckpatti, he makes her a magic compass. No matter where she is, she can always ask her to point it where she wants to go. North, South, the next town, home, to a specific person, so on. The first thing she has it point to is to Danny. It’s a much more touching moment than I am capable of writing right this second. 

Uhhhh a plot point I hadn’t integrated yet was that Danny absolutely cannot cook with meat. It was started in the ‘they met during canon dungeon adventure times’ but I hadn’t translated it fully yet. Basically, when Danny tries to cook with meat, it comes alive—like the turkey or the hot dogs in canon, and SOMEWHAT like the familiars do. Of course, it’d be really weird to be able to do that without even trying, and possibly mildly illegal, so they just have Danny not cook meat. Then a draft came to be where Danny was like ‘fine I’ll just SHOW YOU’ to Senshi, and if it was in the dungeon, then he’d use them against a monster, and if it was during post canon, it’d be against his parents. Then the point of WHY all or most of them were together during the Fenton’s break in changed from the dinner party to the genetics test, and there was no reason for Danny to have been cooking. 

Danny finds and introduces Fullertom to a dwarf that she starts dating. Chilchuck isn’t sure if he should be concerned or impressed with the portfolio Danny pulls out when Chilchuck asks about the dwarf and what Danny knows about him. 

Another plot point for why Jazz and Danny were staying so long, outside of finding Danny’s birth family since we have now figured out he WAS developing normally and the whole portal thing was just sorta because of how tricky that power is, is that Princess Dora wanted Danny to find a good host for the Necklace of Aragon so that her brother could no longer claim it. It would, predictably, eventually go to Laios. Also, I am starting to realize I am more partial to Laios than the other characters, whoops. Anyways, I hadn’t figured out if I could or even SHOULD integrate that into the plot. 

Payment for the blood blossoms were going to include five of Fallin’s feathers. They’re magically powerful, and three of them were going to be used for each name that was ‘blocked’ from the Dungeon Meshi world. So one feather for Jack, one for Maddie, and one for Vlad. I haven’t decided if I’d keep that or not, but I also wasn’t sure what to do with the other two feathers, and just asking for three and that HAPPENS to work out, the number being considered magic aside, felt a bit off and too convenient. 

Danny would eventually take on a new name in honor of his birth family. Danbright Chils. Dan is him, obviously, and since he’d be taking Chils for Chilchuck, he decided to take Bright for Brightmerry. (I actually debated between Bright or Bridge. So either Brightmerry and Danbright or Bridgemerry and Danbridge. This is directly because of Danny’s ‘be the bridge’ thing.)

Things are just starting to settle… 

Then, Sidney of all people shows up in Danny’s magic communication mirror. And we get information that due to Jazz and Danny’s mild meddling with the magic-ecto-whatever barriers, that Jazz’s twin has become aware of the fact she once had a twin—basically, Inspector Gordon kind of ‘felt reminded of [Jazz]’ and told Barbara about it. And since Barbara is part of the superheroes club, she was able to find out that not only was her twin alive, but in an entirely different dimension entirely. 

Annnnd that’s all I got. 

It’s a lot! Don’t expect me to publish it! Have a nice day! 

[candyskiez]

i would love to hear more of ur thoughts about ???%… specifically surrounding teru cause it’s been on my mind lately

OHOHOHOHO you've awoken the beast. I am so sorry. I will specify. I love Teru. I love Teru so much. This makes it sound like I don't like Teru. I really like Teru. I am writing about ???%'s thoughts. I am studying him under a microscope. None of this is how I personally feel about Teru. Do not kill me. Please do not kill me.

I'm admittedly biased towards plural mob because. System. But I did write this with both plural mob and ???% as the repressed parts of Mob, so feel free to read it as metaphorical or Guy In Mobs Brain.

So. I've been thinking a lot lately about how Teru strangling Mob could've easily been the first time he almost died. Like. I don't think he almost died in that incident when they were kids, and I think Reigen would not be nearly as relaxed on jobs if he thought Mob would die. We've seen how he is when Mob's in any amount of what he considers to be serious danger. So I feel like it's very, very important to remember that when talking about how ???% reacts to Teru. ???% does not react to the literal terrorists as much as he reacts to Teru, because Teru was the first and one of the most personal.

I say most personal because well. For the others it wasn't about him, it was about a goal. Teru was just...fighting him, in Mobs eyes. Teru was operating on his own insecurities. It wasn't some big conflict, it wasn't some epic anime fight, it was just about Teru's insecurities and need for Mob to not be a threat to him and to be Better than everyone else. It was just two kids fighting. I think a lot about why ???% holds onto this so so hard, and a few reasons I think he has are

1. The shit listed above

2. The fact that Mob wasn't doing anything to instigate, was in fact actively asking him to stop, doing ALL the "do not stick out, do no harm" shit that made Mob repress ???% so hard in the first place, and Teru still hurt him. Mob repressed him for no fucking reason because people would still hurt him anyway.

3. This very well could've been one of the few times ???% has came out at all in a long time. I'm not sure how often ???% would've gotten to come out since it seems for a while he just came out when Mob needed it/when Mob wasn't around to stop it. So like. First memory in years and it's this guy strangling you. Would leave a pretty big impression.

4. Teru never actually apologized. Like. WE know he's sorry. But Mob and ???%...didn't? Mob was willing to let it slide. But like...those repressed emotions are gonna go somewhere. Mob might not want to think about it, but that event was traumatic for everyone involved. They almost died and Teru had his entire world view torn apart, got thrown into the SKY, and had to piece everything together lol over again. Like. ???% depending on your view point is Mobs repressed emotions or someone that literally formed to hold his repressed memories (save me plural mob, save me). ???% admits in the manga he doesn't trust anyone. How many times did he feel unsafe around him and wasn't able to do anything, because Mob liked him? Because mob cared about him and knew he changed, so it'd be unfair to bring it up, and besides HES the one who really hurt Teru, so it's fine! It's fine. <- Boy who isn't fine. How much was ???% just waiting for Teru to turn around and attack them again?

5. This also leads into my next thought: lack of agency. Some of these points will be less applicable if you don't view him as plural, but I think some of them still definitely work if you think of him as Mob but to the left: he feels like he didn't get a say in whether not they'd be close with Teru, he feels like Teru just Decided they were friends and didn't even acknowledge what happened and now he can't mention it or ask if he's actually changed or if he's even sorry because then he'll be an asshole so he just HAS to be quiet regardless of how he feels about it. He feels like everyone just decided Teru was SO good now and didn't even ask him how HE felt about it. He feels like Teru's moved on and just FINE, like he didn't almost fucking die. Actually I think almost all of this works if you don't view him as plural. Yippee I'm not accidentally alienating anyone here.

6. No seriously. Teru didn't apologize. Did ???% almost come out a few times at being around Teru. Did Mob get scared by Teru reaching towards him and ???% started to surface. How many times.

Okay okay. Now onto confession arc. I'm thinking about why he acted the way he did and like. He wanted to hurt him so bad. And it's so damn raw. Like. Teru is repeating the lesson Mob taught him, genuinely trying to help, but from ???%'s perspective it feels like a fucking joke. Teru almost killed him. Teru acted not even that different for YEARS, and he gets a slap on the wrist. But ???% messes up once and he's punished, for years? But Teru doesn't even have to apologize? Teru doesn't even have to try to get forgiven? But ???% was dutifully silent for four years. And he's still hated. I feel like that was kind of the point where ???% became WAY more destructive which. Very interesting. He went from "I need to see Tsumobi" to "I want to hurt this person." Also I'm thinking about how strongly he reacted to being told it was for his own good, that Tsumobi shouldn't see him like this, to calm down like. Okay. There's no way he hasn't heard all of that a million times. Like obviously I love it from a plural perspective but I'm gonna go into ???% is an allegory for a sec. Being told that you need to mask for your own good, that they just totally have your best interests at heart and that's why they never want to hear you complain or look upset or even slightly lose control of yourself or act even slightly abnormal. Let alone the fact ???% believes HES the real Shigeo. In his eyes being told to calm down and act like Mob again is being told to stop existing. He's being told to calm down the first time in YEARS he's let any of this out. And like. Tsumobi shouldn't see you like this. In his mind that's being told "Tsumobi shouldn't see YOU. People shouldn't see you. You're not desirable. People don't want to look at you. Just go away. Just be normal. Just be quiet. Calm down. Stop making such a scene. Get a clue." And that's obviously not how Teru meant it and ???% is doing serious damage, but like. He's having a breakdown. He seems calm in the mind scape, but he is Not Fucking Calm. He's having a breakdown. He feels so goddamn rejected by everyone and he's chasing the one good memory he got to make as ???%, not Mob. Which like. God from an autism or a plural perspective hits me so fucking hard. I remember being a kid and clinging on way too hard to my only friend because she didn't mind me acting autistic and getting so so terrified when she started drifting away from me. Watching it just feels like watching kid me panic because the only person who doesn't hate him isn't hanging out with him anymore. Being plural and autistic means this show will kill you. Anyways. What I'm saying is Teru basically took a mallet to every single one of ???%'s buttons and he took that Personally.

I'm gonna can it here because if I don't I'll never shut up. But I love Teru and ???%'s dynamic. So much. I love it. I have so many more thoughts on it, plural and non plural. You have no idea how much it's paining me to can it here. This fucking show, man.

[whywoulditho]

hq movie review!!!

(not spoiler-free)

went to see the haikyuu movie: dumpster battle today and i wanted to share my thoughts!!

first of all the movie had better animation than season 4 of the series! even though it stuck with the same animation style and character designs this was a much more neatly done project for sure. it felt like they had finally adapted into the style and managed to bring out the best version of it. in that sense i feel like season four was their experimental phase, if that makes sense? the movie's animation was so much smoother than i expected. i still prefer the first three seasons' style, but this wasn't bad at all in my book.

they used the same OSTs from the series as far as i've noticed, and they did make the match dramatic enough in most parts, (-we'll get to those other parts) and the voice cast did a good job as always.

they cut the arc a little shorter, trying to fit it into a 1h 30m runtime. it's a three set match so it was bound to be shorter than the five set matches like the shiratorizawa and the inarizaki matches, but it still deserved a good two hours in my opinion. you might think, well obviously they weren't going to animate every single point but honestly? furudate drew almost every single point and people READ that, on paper. we would have eaten up a two hour long movie. but well, since it's all done let's talk about what we had, and what we didn't.

the movie opened with a redrawn version of the season one scene where hinata meets kenma for the first time. it was a nice, nostalgic touch. they kept focusing on the random crow and cat they added to the background of the scene for peak symbolism and frankly i kinda loved that. i don't care that it's overdone it's still good okay? 😤

oh and even though they reanimated that first scene, there were still many instances in the movie where they cut to flashbacks from earlier seasons taken straight from the original version with the older animation style.

the first half of the movie was weaker than the second. they skipped a bunch of points and tried to only show the important lines but without the leading rallies the lines just looked kinda goofy and out of place. this one for example,

when they threw in this line i was kinda thrown off?? because like, the build up just wasn't there? does that make sense? this whole bit about yamaguchi finally catching up to tsukishima and then actually surpassing him was very well done in the manga. and it was a huge thing too, the two of them were the first page art of that volume, but the movie tried to get it over with in like, thirty seconds, i'm not even joking.

this part:

was made into a weird little slideshow type of thing that transitioned into their high five and it looked so goofy to me... i'm sorry. i just wanted them to have this moment so badly. and they did, kind of, but it wasn't all that satisfying.

also, they didn’t give us tsukkiyama having a telepathical conversation, HOW DARE YOU.

tendou and tsutomu watching the match on tsutomu's ipad was also in the movie! i was really happy to see that because that's one of my favorite things from this arc lol. though they didn’t give much of tsutomu's frustration with tendou.

the first half was pretty bland, accurate to the manga but with most inner monologue cut and some parts skipped.

through the middle they gave us the kuroken childhood flashbacks, it was cut shorter than it was in the manga. and get this, i feel like the way they delivered their childhood memories were like they wanted to make them more about kuroo's love for volleyball than exploring kuroken's bond with each other. i feel like the movie tried too hard at focusing on one thing at a time, they cut the tsukkiyama scene short because during that bit they were focusing on kenma. they cut the kuroken memories short because they were trying to focus only on kuroo.

this kept going, honestly. even though this match was ALL about parallels and the bonds these characters have with each other, friendships and rivalries. in the manga, furudate made this match about exploring ALL the dynamics he'd been building up since the beginning. it was more random, yes, but that's what made it natural. kenma and hinata's rivalry/friendship, kenma and kageyama's rivalry, yaku and nishinoya's rivalry, kuroo and daichi's rivalry, tsukishima and kuroo's mentor-student relationship, nishinoya and asahi's trust bond, whatever the fuck yamaguchi and tsukishima had going on. the man took the time to give us crumbs of all these dynamics in the middle while a volleyball game was kind of just playing in the background. i know that sounds like i'm saying playing volleyball wasn't the main point, that's because that is what i'm saying. inarizaki v karasuno was about volleyball. shiratorizawa v karasuno was about volleyball. nekoma v karasuno wasn't. it was about two teams. because furudate made sure that we know every single player in each team, through and through.

this match wasn't just a simple match, it's something that they never shut up about since season one. this match was the end goal of all the relationships and parallels and dynamics they have been building for these characters, and the movie did a half-assed job delivering their fated battle.

it's like they looked at the arc and thought, "this is about hinata defeating kenma. let's focus on that and mention everything else briefly." so it was a whole mess of characters throwing these one liners back and forth and you just sitting there trying to catch up. look, maybe i'm blinded by nostalgia. but i don't remember feeling this way while reading the manga.

(edit: totally forgot to mention this but THEY CUT OFF THE COACHES' BACKSTORY !!! no young nekomata :((( )

okay, moving on, they did give us the birdcage scene:

and better than the manga, if i'm being honest. like i know it's a bad picture but LOOK at that composition. i love it so much.

they also included the one where kenma and shoyo shoved knives up each other's throats (they're such good friends fr 🤧)

they did this scene:

so well i was about to cry. shoyo literally screamed it was kinda overdone but i'll take it. kuroo's laugh was beautiful.

there was also this other scene where kenma is exhausted from running and is just desperately trying to keep playing and they did this amazing 360 degree perspective shot from his pov and IT WAS SO GOODDD. the heavy breathing kept getting louder and intenser and you could literally FEEL his breath and the voice acting in that scene was top notch i had fucking goosebumps. there was this bit where he faced the ground and his sweat was dripping down on the floor and YOU COULD SEE HIS REFLECTION ON THE WATER DROPS?? LIKE???? i'm still shocked this studio pulled that off you guys it was awesome.

and at the end of the match, they took this scene,

and made it 10 TIMES BETTER?? AS IF THAT'S POSSIBLE???

in the movie my boy kenma was fucking FLOORED. he was lying on the ground all sweaty and limbless and he had this beautiful smile on his face as he looked up at kuroo and said this line. I LOVED THAT SO, SO MUCH YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW WARM IT MADE MY HEART. THANK YOU WHOEVER LOOKED AT THIS BEAUTIFUL PANEL AND THOUGHT, "YOU KNOW WHAT, I CAN MAKE THIS EVEN GAYER"

oh, and they also included this for some reason lol:

okay, so, the movie wasn't as bad as we thought it would be.

i was really surprised by the quality of animation. they definitely solved the problem they had in season four where even the smallest movement always looked stiff. i don't think they paid enough mind to what the arc was actually about, to be honest. they tried to make this into just another one of their matches. well, maybe it was and i'm just reading too much into the character dynamics, who knows..

oh, and the bitter sweet news is that in after credits they teased the kamomedai match. since we're getting only one last movie for the finale it was a given that either the kamomedai match or the time skip were going to be cut short or cut off entirely. well, it doesn’t seem to be the kamomedai match... so. yeah. i guess we're kissing our beloved brazil and V league and olympic arcs goodbye. there was no way they did all of them justice anyway.

while the time skip is a high sacrifice i have to say i'll still be pretty happy if they make the kamomedai game full-length. that's my favorite match in the whole series and it definitely deserves more love. i doubt it will receive any if it comes in the expense of the time skip though...

so have you seen the movie? let's chat on the comments!!!

[phoenix-before-the-flame]

not a hc but can you rank lucy's stardresses?

A fit rank huh? Sure I can do that. Just gonna preface n say that obviously this is my opinion and whatevs and that I won't be includin any of the ones introduced in 100yr because I don't care about the sequel :]

Alrightie lets get into it! This gonna get long tho, so imma put it under read more so I don't murder ppl who are scrolling.

Aquarius Stardress

This one honestly might be on the lower tiers for me. Like for the first stardress shown its rather, boring. The colour choice of green and yellow is weird, and visually disconnects it from Aquarius (like seriously? No blue anywhere?). The wrap skirt is cute and I do love how she has Aquarius' collarbone tattoo. That's fire. But the basic bikini top is meh. Overall its serviceable, 6/10 on the Phoenix scale.

Leo Stardress

Honestly can't go wrong with a nice black dress. I really would've preferred a pants suit for this one but the dress regardless is fun. I has a nice shape with the asymmetrical skirt and I like the ruffles all over. I also like how the anime gave her stockings

If I had nitpicks i'd say to get rid of the center line down the middle of the chest, the two under the bust are enough and get rid of the purple hair clip, it feels tacked on and just tosses in a random colour to the palette. I'd also maybe change the yellow to something more orange so it pops more (maybe even make the interior of the dress something eyecatching to add some extra oomph visually when she's kicking.)

But good fit, 8/10

Virgo Stardress

Well, it's about what you'd expect tbh. It's a maid outfit lol. There ain't much here to say cept that its cute. 6/10

Tauros Stardress

Oh hell fuckin yea. HELL YEAH

Unabashedly this one is one of my favourites solely because of the uneven pants. It's so fun and stupid. I also like how she and Tauros have matching belt buckles.

The basic ass bikini top does bring it down though (sorry i'm a bikini top hater. If you're gonna put a character in a bikini top at least make it a different style! There's different types of tops that can be both sexy and interesting!!!!). It also looks wack at certain angles.

My chest hurts lookin at this.

Apart from that I don't think the double buns works best with this dress, I think it'd work better if swapped with the double braids of the capricorn dress. Also I just think it'd be cool if this dress gave her an axe, like how the cancer dress gave her weapons.

but because of how much joy the stupid pants give me, 9/10.

Sagittarius Stardress

Another banger stardress despite a glaringly obvious issue.

This shit's great to me. Good colours, fun patterns, i fuckin love that its backless and the high ponytail is great here. The issue?

That deep ass coochie cut.

On god it just looks so uncomfortable. The anime tried to even it out by giving her tights but that just tossed in another colour to the palette and just unbalances it. A simple fix would've been just to make it white leggings under there. Skin tight, sexy and still practical. Apart from the coochie cut the only nitpick I have is that I think the boob window should've been star shaped and i wish her sleeves also doubled as archery gloves.

Apart from that and how much the coochie cut haunts me, its a 9/10

Aires Stardress

Now I have no idea why, but I was never exactly big on this one. Like it's not awful, all the stardresses have a baseline cuteness to them. The alternating pink and white tiers on the dress is nice, but the cut under the bust kinda kills the uniform pattern it had goin on. Likewise the leggings don't feel coherent to the rest of the fit. Like still cute, but the stripes and the introduction of black makes the whole thing feel busy and plain all at once. Though ironically when it's in the manga and purely black and white i think it looks better.

But I dunno, i think this one actually might be my least favourite. 4/10

Gemini Stardress

Ok. I like the alternating blue and white all over. That's cool. But, that headdress on top of the already busy outfit feels like its a lil too much on top. Also the random gold baubles on the outfit itself feels sorta thrown on. The belt can stay I suppose but nix the tassels near the collar and trade in the boob window for a deeper neckline.

We can just get rid of the headdress altogether and change her hairstyle to like, crown braid with a hanging blue and white ribbon on either side to keep with the alternating colours and we golden. 5/10

Scorpio Stardress

Gonna start this off to say, not a big fan of the bottom (the leather panty thing with the chain on it? Dawg idk i don't like it lol). and the chain on it looks so silly and not in a fun way. If anything I think she should have a bigger tail, not as big as scorpio's but defs something bigger that what she has currently. And as much as I like backless fits I don't think it works here, the deep cut boob window can stay though. I do like the headband and how her hair frames her face but overall its another 5/10.

Also here's a scorpio stardress redesign that I like. Doesn't fix all my issues with the og but it's still pretty dope.

Cancer Stardress

I like this because it looks cool and gives Lucy weapons. I don't like it because it doesn't connect well with Cancer the spirit visually. But Cancer's design sucks and I like this better than Cancer himself. Truly a design with conundrums for me. 6/10

Capricorn Stardress

I don't like this dress! Not one bit! Why is it a bdsm tit dress! The hair is cute and I like the shades and the horn clips with the bows but the dress!!!!!!!! Why is it so visually disconnected from Capricorn the spirit! Why isn't it a skirt suit with sexy fishnet leggings like in the concept art!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Why isn't this the canon design!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Tragic/10

[plague-of-insomnia]

I'm sorry if this is a silly question but I'm just curious. Do you know how much time Ciel and Sebastian spend in Weston? I haven't read the manga in a while but while watching the anime I just feel like everything is happening too fast??? Luke the whole are was done in 2 weeks max

Hi, anon, I am not someone who pays super close attention to the chronology of canon (as in, exactly what day/date things happen) partly bc I care more about the overall story and themes and the characters than minutiae like that. Not bc I think people who do are dumb but bc I’m more of an AU creator than canon so knowing the details like that to extreme doesn’t really benefit me much so it doesn’t interest me to spend the time doing it. (Though I know at least one person did come up with a timeline through a certain point in the manga years ago, which you may find if you do a google search.)

But what I can tell you is Ciel comes home from the Campania before Easter and arrives at Weston presumably after that holiday, so likely in March or April. (I could probably find out exactly when Easter happened in 1889 but I honestly could care less lol.) We also know from McMillian that he is joining mid-term. It’s actually a clever way for Yana to have the school “begin” in Spring (which is familiar/nostalgic for Japanese audiences, where school years begin in April, usually) while still reconciling with the Western tradition of beginning in the fall.

We also know the cricket tournament takes place on the 4th of June—probably a day Yana picked since it plays with the theme of four (four houses, four prefects) in the arc but also because the number has an association with death in Japanese.

This means that Ciel is not a student at Weston for very long at all—only 2-3 months at most—since the midnight tea party happens after the cricket completes and presumably marks the end (or close to it) of the school year/term.

Honestly, until the last episode I think the anime has been perfectly paced with the manga. They’ve really made only minor shifts and mostly expanded things, so they’re following Yana’s vision fairly closely.

The one major thing is that this episode shoves most of two chapters into one, when it really could have been done in two. But that would mean 12 episodes. and I suspect the team was worried if they didn’t get the cricket part over fast, they might risk losing/boring their core audience.

One huge change they did was take out the explanation of the game itself and its basic rules, which Bard explains in the manga. This was likely done for time/space reasons but also because they may have figured most viewers don’t care and they can communicate enough for people to understand and follow along even if they don’t understand the rules of the game itself.

This is partly perhaps because the cricket part of the arc was not well received in Japan and was one of the least popular chapters, supposedly. It’s why I was shocked they turned it into a musical a couple years ago.

I was a bit disappointed to lose all that not only bc we lost a nice scene with Bard and the servants (they cut a scene with them where they have lunch, though it’s possible that could make it into next episode, but I won’t hold my breath), but also bc I’m like the ONE person who genuinely enjoyed the cricket part of the arc, and it’s one reason this arc is my second favorite in many ways.

I LOVE seeing Ciel and Seb working together in devious ways to get their mission accomplished, and how far Ciel is willing to go to win. Ofc we can still appreciate it anyway, but the fact that he so carefully works within the limits of the rules— and in fact, I learned in commentary on the arc that some of the rules Ciel takes advantage of were actually changed not long after this period of time, which is a fun detail.

So it could be things feel like they’re moving fast because in a sense they are, but it also could be you’re sensing that urgency from how rushed this last episode was. But I suspect when all is said and done, and you watch the entire thing, it probably won’t feel as off. Book of Murder took place over only 3 days, and Seb and Ciel were not at the circus long at all. I can’t be sure but maybe only a week or two? And ofc the campania adventure was also only a few days. In fact, this may actually be the longest mission in the series to this point. So it seems like most missions don’t take too long.

Hope that answers your question! I’ve been looking through the chapters in this arc before every episode to get a sense for the pacing and they’ve generally fallen exactly where I expect. This episode being one exception since they really did condense a lot.

[tainbocuailnge]

the rise in popularity of memes that use datamoshing (like the mom manifesting ketchup in a fridge out of the ether, or a lol player being taken back to their computer when they reach for a shower handle) and making my girlfriend read stay night has made me wonder if that might be a good way of representing gae bolg moving in an impossible direction when striking the heart, and that made me wonder if the number one cú liker has any thoughts about how they would represent that sort of thing in animation. tldr what does it look like in your head when gae bolg is used?

the way this ask started really made me wonder how this was gonna relate to me lol. i think the canon visualisation of a red line suddenly changing angle is probably the best way to do it in a visual novel format where you need to linger on the image a bit while the text is displayed over it and i think ufotable doing a kind of rewind effect over it is not a bad attempt to adapt that particular visual but i think if i were to take a crack at it i'd go for like, you blink and suddenly the spear is already in your chest. like in a manga for example i'd shuffle the panel order so that the "final" panel of getting stabbed in the chest is placed before the panels showing the movement of thrusting, maybe even overlapping those previous panels like it was pasted in there. anime doesn't quite have that kind of framing possibility but i'd do like choppy shaft editing that split second inserts the result before the action or something maybe. actually its tempting to want to show the movement but i think to really represent the feeling of getting hit with gae bolg you have to lean more on how that movement isnt really possible to comprehend because it by design turns the logical progression of causality on its head so maybe i would just not show the movement at all and have a weird choppy skip to the moment where the spear is already in the chest. or you animate him thrusting towards the ground but have a weird jump to him suddenly thrusting perfectly into the heart while saber maintains the same fluid motion throughout to highlight that dissonance. this is a cool question thanks

[mana-jjk]

finally someone who actually understands inuokko and doesn't mischaracterize as an alpha sigma male and Toge as an uwu boy! bestie you don't know how happy I am that you came up on my fyp.

omg hi anon !! 🥺🫶

i love analyzing characters way before any shipping, i could actually read nothing but found family fics because i just feel like they always catch the perfect dynamic. with yuuta and toge specifically, i do feel like you can appreciate aspects of how their dynamic is on an appearance level or how they fit certain popular tropes, but i don’t think it’s the driving force behind what makes them so good together.

i do acknowledge that if we default to the stereotypical gay men tropes without tangible reason, it’s more indicative of getting used to knowing how to write LGBT+ relationships and tending to default to what we might be used to in straight relationships. i say that without any offense intended, it’s just a part of the writing process. especially with toge as a character, who has so much of his characterization sprinkled outside of the manga and anime. a lot of his backstory and characteristics are derived from the fun facts, light novel, and now even the unreleased game has given us so much more content. but i also think that’s why he’s so popular, there’s so much freedom in exploring him, especially if you haven’t discovered the existing content. taking that with yuuta who is honestly a fan favorite of the chad dude straight bros and gets a little too much ‘alpha male’ treatment from them, it can be a little confusing. (it kills me a little to see some one say he’s an alpha male with a bad attitude and smoking guns when manga panels will literally have him looking like this (・・?) 😭)

i do have preferences in how both yuuta and toge are portrayed, but that’s just because i care about them so much as individual characters.

for me, toge is soft and kind, but he was also born as a weapon and has spent his life sacrificing himself over and over. you can still have that softness and kindness, even more so when experiencing certain things, but there’s also a degree of hardening from trauma. i do characterize him to be less overtly an instigator lol, but that’s personal preference in how i see him combined with canon material. i find a lot of his trolling to be slipped in and more of a double take than full on gremlin, but that’s less mischaracterization and more preference. i find his relationship with living and death so, so interesting, especially in how he tries to shield the first-years and yuuta from having any kind of blood on their hands. it implicates him to have done that very thing, and he spends his life silencing himself because of it. i do believe his language barrier is almost a relief, because it acts almost as a self-imposed wall. but despite that wall, he still reaches out because while he himself is okay being alone, the thought of someone like yuuta, someone he sees as exactly like him, suffering by himself is painful to him.

for yuuta, i am a big advocate for the continued acknowledgment of his anxiety, depression, and low key craziness. he had a normal childhood, but that somehow makes the transition to everything with rika so much worse. because he had that normalcy and it was shattered completely. he’s hurt, maimed, and killed people both unintentionally and intentionally. but he sees it as necessary in protecting the people he cares about the most. in a lot of ways, i think his dubious morality and how far he’s willing to go is an expression of his love. for example, killing getou in his eyes is the ultimate act of service to gojo, so he himself would not have to kill him. his character is such a juxtaposition compared to everyone we’ve been introduced to. here you have these child soldiers, ready and willing to sacrifice themselves, where death and suffering is more feasible than ever living their life to entirely. then they give us yuuta, who wants to live so badly in happiness that he’s willing to inflict and do everything for and against their society. it’s almost an unhealthy relationship to a degree, but it’s the only kind of relationship any of them know how to have.

together they work so well, because like i’ve said before, they defy each other’s expectations in what they ever believed they could have or deserve. despite their rough edges, the blood on their hands, the years they’ve lost to fighting battles they never started, they treat each other so gently. as if they are the better half, yet simultaneously knowing exactly how much they have done. yuuta who sees violence almost as a love letter, who absorbs toge’s curse as if it’s something to admire and adore. toge who sees himself as unforgivable in his crimes, who self-enforces isolation and barriers yet took a step out just to comfort yuuta from a mild spell of anxiety, because he couldn’t stand to see him suffer even in a minor degree.

i have so many feelings about them so i’m so glad that they come across the way i want them to !! i love all content, and i’m always willing to share my thoughts, but ty so much for the validation bestie, i’m sure i’m eating up your content as well !! 🥺

[zorobae]

just finished watching opla and I enjoyed it tremendously! I've heard of one piece but never watched or read it, so I went in blind with opla. and it made me a fan! I absolutely love the strawhat crew! luffy is so precious and best boy, zoro got my heart, nami is one hell of girl, usopp grows on you, and sanji just cracked me up! and the bond between luffy and zoro in opla is just *chef's kiss* (I kinda lowkey ship them...). the opla makes me want to dive in the anime next but the number of eps scares me LOL!

Hello there~

This is amazing! ^-^ Easily one of the best things that's coming out of this live action adaptation is that it makes new people become fans of One Piece and even give the anime or manga a try. As a longtime One Piece fan, it just makes me happy to know our fandom is growing. One Piece looks f-cking ridiculous at first sight, I get it, but it actually has so much to say. Its longevity is absolutely earned.

You know, you're talking to someone who ships Zoro and Luffy quite hard xD I'm not exaggerating when I say they have the healthiest, possibly strongest and most meaningful bond that any two characters have in the story. And we get to see so much of it. Their understanding and devotion is just on another level. In fact, there are things that the live action left out which make certain events in the future more meaningful/emotional. Though I'm curious how they're gonna adjust the story to keep a similar effect, so to say...

To be honest, I would recommend the manga rather than the anime anyway. The anime contains a lot of filler material which can range from elongating scenes to entire arcs that aren't canon. You might want to see certain scenes from the manga in anime form but you can just go ahead and do that after you've read it. There are more than 1000 episodes and also more than 1000 chapters but trust me, it doesn't take 20 minutes to read one chapter so you'll be able to catch up with the manga much sooner than with the anime. The number may seem daunting but it really isn't when you're reading it. Plus, seeing Oda-sensei's art improve over the decades is a joy. You can read all available chapters on the official shueisha site here. (Or you can download the mangaplus by shueisha app.) You can only read each chapter once for free, though, so do keep that in mind. If you do decide to read it, I would love to know if your opinion on any of the strawhats will possibly change and what you think of ZoLu's bond in the manga~