#and Shirayuki would be like

[shirayukisredhair]

some transparent lovelies from the art exhibition site 🍎

[nokaru]

My participation for the ANS Gift Exchange Event! the mods have given me a greenlight to post early lets goo

"first meeting" Zenyuki piece for @airahscorner <3 I hope you like it friend! I wasn't sure what exactly you would like cause I know you basically love everything in ANS but I remembered you mentioned really liking the first zenyuki meeting in the anime so this fanart is inspired by it! I provide the lineart in cause you ever feel bored and want to color something small and silly ksdjkajd

thank you for the amazing event @ans-arcade!!

[sangahnomiya]

old old OOOOOOOLD design of obi the goblin king (or as I like to call him, the Oblin King) I did for my AnS x labyrinth AU that is all floating in my mind

I never got around to finishing this (much less POSTING it) bc I was just so critical of my art back then, but now that I look at it, it's nice to see my improvement. I'll try n draw some more of this AU when I can, since it's labyrinth season after all <33

[bubblesthemonsterartist]

THE DAY

IT HAS COME

LIL' RYUU

HE IS

T A L L E R

THAN SHIRAYUKI

just by a hair but like

don't touch me

i am having

The Emotions 😭����

[sabraeal]

Brewed With Intent, Part 2

[Read on AO3]

Obiyukiweek 2023, Day 1: Attraction

“Well, I personally don’t see what the problem is.” There’s more shirt than Suzu when he shrugs; two layers at least that Shirayuki can count, and both of them wrinkle when he folds his arms across his chest. Defensive, like he expects her to grab him by one. Nervous, like she might be able to drag him over the counter that way. Or at least, like someone has tried. “You knew your order was ready, didn’t you?”

“It’s not that it wasn’t effective.” Hard to argue that when she’s already here, standing in Shidan’s shop, eager to avoid whatever he might cook up as a follow-up. “It’s just that the execution is lacking a little, um…”

The rotating display squeaks under Obi’s singular attention. “Soul?”

“Soul?” Suzu scoffs. “What am I supposed to do? I can’t just send a…a cat! They’re way too high a consciousness to take to anything but the most advanced charms. Though” —one long-fingered hand raises, wrapping oh-too thoughtfully around his chin— “if I tweaked a few sigils, maybe a rat…?”

With a piercing squeal, the display’s tortured keens abruptly cease. It may be next to impossible to look at Obi, but by the tilt of his head, she knows his eyebrows must be scraping his hairline. “Bro. Vermin isn’t going to be an improvement on bird.”

“I thought pigeons were already considered—?”

“She’s not complaining about the genus, Suzu,” Yuzuri deadpans, one ear flicking at the precise rhythm Garrack's left eye used to, before— er, well, recent events. “It’s the method.”

“Really?” Suzu frowns, and to her dismay, turns it right on her. “Yuzuri did mention that she found its movements a little uncanny—”

“Gross,” she corrects with relish. “I called them gross.”

“—But I thought that if I tweaked a clause or two, I might be able to make it more bird-like.” He blinks down at her, more curious than concerned. “Do you think that might help?”

“Erm…” Her gaze doesn’t quite skitter over to Obi, but near enough that she can catch the encouraging arch of his eyebrows, the goading wave of his hands. “Maybe?”

Obi clucks his tongue. At her, she knows. It’s just— Suzu might be comfortable doling out cutting critique like her grandma did butter on bread, but ‘it’s an abomination’ is hardly constructive enough to be considered an objective review.  “I don’t think Miss cares about how it moves. It’s that it’s moving at all.”

Suzu scratches absently at where his goggles dig a divot in his curls. “But how else would it get to you?”

Yuzuri sighs, long suffering. “How many times do I have to explain this? It’s dead, Suzu. No one wants it to ‘get to them.’ They want it to go away!”

“What are you talking about? My messengers are a stunning example of highly skilled charm work! Besides,” he adds, confidence leaking from him like helium from a balloon. “It’s the only way to get people to pick up their orders.”

Obi cocks his head, curious, like a cat. “Doordash has an app.”

“Weren’t you just complaining about a lack of soul—?”

“What about the coin?” Shirayuki blurts out, before she can think better of it. “That’s what the shop used to use, right? A coin that was spelled to glow?”

“Well, yeah, at one point. But metal is really more Shidan’s element, you know.” Suzu has all the height he needs to look down his nose at them naturally, but his chin takes a prideful tilt anyway, giving him an extra inch or two. “If I’m taking over order management, I've got to rely on my own talents. That’s what Shidan told me. Work with my own medium.”

Yuzuri cocks her head, ears splayed in annoyance. “And that medium just so happens to be dead stuff?”

“We can’t pick our natural proclivities,” he sniffs. “Besides, everyone always complained about the coin thing anyhow.”

Like most of the words Garrack said this morning, the answer to this is seared in her mind. “Easily lost?”

“See?” Suzu jabs out a hand. “Shirayuki gets it. No one’s going to lose a bird.”

Yuzuri throws up her hands. “A dead bird!”

“Listen, I’ll give you: no one’s gonna lose it.” Obi braces a hip against the counter. “But they are gonna run away.”

“What, why?” Suzu huffs. “It’s a bird, everyone loves birds!”

A strong stance to take in a city where Shirayuki has routinely watched commuters throw their purses at the pigeons perched at the bus stop. “Well, maybe that’s true, but ah…these ones talk.”

“Oh yeah.” Shirayuki doesn’t so much see Obi shiver as the air around him trembles, tracing goosebumps up her own arms. “Talk about nightmare fuel.”

“What’s wrong with the way it talks?” Suzu leans over the counter, all business now, face furrowed with stern curiosity. “Is there some sort of pitch change? Or maybe a slow down effect, or static—?”

“Oh, buddy.” A breath whistles through Obi’s teeth, pitying. “You wish it was something that simple.”

Suzu’s eyebrows disappear beneath the curtain of his curls. “What do you—?”

There’s a rustle and a clatter before the back door swings open, guided by Shidan’s hip before the rest of him bustles through, letting it swing back on its hinges. “All right then. Took a little bit of doing, and a couple of, er, spectacular failures—”

“He set his beard on fire,” Yuzuri mutters, “twice.”

“—But I think I managed to get something that’ll work.” He glances over at Obi, only for his eyes to skitter back over to the much safer harbors. “For your…special circumstances, I mean.”

Obi’s lips tug at a corner. “No explosions?”

“No.” Shidan attempts to meet his eyes, but only makes it to his shoulder before he shudders, retreating straight back to the counter. “None of that.”

Shirayuki can’t tell if Obi’s raising his eyebrows or furrowing them, but his whole body curves into a question over the counter, so— he’s curious. Maybe even impatient. “Well, hope it goes with my fit.”

A wooden box settles on the counter, a different grain than the polished oak it sits on. Shidan’s the one to slide the lid open, revealing a plush green cushion beneath, and on it—

“Oh,” she hums, surprised. “A necklace?”

It’s not anything fancy; no precious gems or rare metals. Just a thin slate of clear quartz a little smaller than her thumb hanging from a cord. Not Obi’s usual style— he’s more into leather wristbands and collars that look like they could come straight from the pet section of Fred Meyer, but  there’s a quiver in his shoulders when he looks down, an expectant stillness in his casual lean. He likes it.

“I don’t often work with jewelry.” Shidan shuffles, almost nervous as she lifts it off its cushion, letting the crystal dangle from her fist. “Clockwork is really my wheelhouse, really. But after Suzu explained the lengths you all went through so Obi could use a smartphone…”

Shidan’s hardly closed his teeth around that last syllable before Obi’s whipped it out, a smooth screen wrapped in a thick rubber case. Lines bite deep into the silicone, straight rays and curving spirals, a sigil so complex it’d taken Suzu nearly five days to complete it. According to Yuzuri, he’d slept for nearly two straight days after, only rousing to shuffle to the bathroom before throwing himself back into mattress.

“I can drop this baby down the stairs and there’s not a scratch on it,” he informs Shidan proudly. “Just last week a genius loci tried to swallow it and I didn’t even lose service.”

By the way Shidan’s gaze cuts to her, he doesn’t miss the implication that Obi was inside it at the time. “It was in a sewer,” she adds, although she doubts context will take the concern out of his eyes. “Obi wasn’t to its, er, taste.”

“Ah, well,” he murmurs, faint. “Good thing I thought cogs and gears might not be very compatible with his…biological peculiarities. I see that might not have been a good fit lifestyle-wise either.”

“No,” she agrees, thinking of the last kelp forest he’d had to extract her from. That couldn’t have been more than a month ago, maybe two. And certainly not the first. Nor the last. “Our work doesn’t tend to be, ah…”

“Dry?” he offers, a twitch at the corner of his mouth.

“Definitely not.” Shirayuki tilts her hand, crystal tumbling against her knuckles, and ah— the light splits over it, a thousand tiny etchings shining gold. Air hisses through her teeth. “This is amazing, Shidan. We can’t have possibly paid you enough for this amount of—”

Care. Attention. A hundred thousands words that evaporate the moment he rubs at his neck, and she remembers Garrack doing the same. Garrack who had mouth marks all the way down past her collar and—

Ah, she’s just not going to think about what Shidan might be keeping beneath his. “Um, never mind.” Her cheeks heat as she drops it back in the box. “Just…thank you.”

“No need to stand around thanking me.” He lifts his chin, encouraging, “Try it out.”

Shirayuki blinks. “Oh! Are you, um…sure?”

Both his eyebrows lift. “No point being so grateful if you get all the way home and find out it doesn’t even work.”

“Or worse.” Yuzuri’s ears give a playful flick. “It turns him into a frog of something.”

Shidan glares at his apprentice. “It’s not going to turn him into a frog.”

“Yeah, yeah, and I’m sure the Emerald Lady didn’t think that nice scarf of hers would turn into a fireball either.” The chair she’s in isn’t built for lounging, but Yuzuri lifts her legs up over the arm of it anyway, somehow casual even though she can’t possibly fit. “Who knows what Obi’s body chemistry is gonna do to this thing.”

“No one is going to get turned into a frog. Or a fireball,” Shidan assures her. “It’s just…best to try it out in the shop, where I can work out the kinks, if there are any.”

“And where we have a fire extinguisher.” At Shidan’s glare, Suzu offers, “Just in case.”

“Thanks,” Obi says dryly. “Real vote of confidence, there.”

Suzu shrugs, nearly lost under the labyrinth of shirts. “Forewarned is forearmed. And also keeps our insurance premiums down.”

There’s a pause where Shirayuki waits for him to pick it up, to make some crack about fashion or disaster or both as he hooks it over his own head, but—

But instead Obi just stands there, shoulders half-hunched and…awkward. It might be hard for her to look directly at him, to overcome the overwhelming instinct to not see, but the problem has never been mutual— oh, no, he insists on keeping at least one eye on her at all times; just in case you get any ideas about windows, he’d say, too-sharp teeth flashing at the corner of her vision. But now he’s got his head turned, looking anywhere but at her, and she— she doesn’t like it. Not one bit. “Obi—?”

“Shirayuki,” Yuzuri hisses, ears pulling back. “Don’t be rude. You know that Obi can’t take what he’s not given.”

That’s not…strictly true. There’s been more than a few times she’s had to traipse back to the service counter at the store to return the contents of his pockets. Can’t help it, he’d sigh, still looking too proud of himself, I’m trickster-blooded. Can’t help causing a little chaos. Ryuu had once tried to tease out the logic of it, to try to understand how a little petty thievery wasn’t against even infernal rules, only to find himself in a quagmire of loopholes within loopholes, buried in fine print. Certainly a looser definition of ownership than she’d thought the Lower Courts would take.

But still, he wouldn’t steal anything from her. And not just because of who holds his contract.

“It’s yours,” she reminds him, staring at where the edge of his pockets cut across his wrists. “I had it made for you.”

Still, he doesn’t move. Nothing more than one of his too-many-eyelid blinks.

“Ah, that…” Shidan clears his throat. “I believe that by the ruling of the Lower Courts, a gift is the property of the giver until it is physically given. There might even be, er, formalities involved.”

It’s habit to glance at him, to meet his eyes and find the answer there, but—

They skitter away, like they always do, dread churning in her stomach and bile licking at the back of her throat. But not before she sees the tension in his hunched shoulders, in the contorted way he’s twisted his neck, baring it like a dog expecting a kick. “O-oh.”

Her fingers are numb, clumsy when she fumbles the cord from the box. Still, she manages to hook it around the first set of her knuckles, thrusting it out in the space between them. A smaller gap than she’d perceived, she realizes, when her hands have to haul up short to keep from crashing into his chest.

“Obi,” she breathes, watching the pendant tremble with the same rhythm as her fingertips. That’s how some divination works, she remembers. Sympathetic nerve twitches. “You…I mean, I think…you’ll have to bend down…?”

She can’t look at him, not directly, but even she can see the way his eyes blink wide. “Haah…right.”

He stoops, head jutting out awkwardly from his shoulders, baring the long, tanned column of his neck. Without his eyes on her, the soft animal that is her fear only quivers in her belly, letting her lean close enough to count vertebrae. It’s strange to see this much of his skin, for him to let himself be so…vulnerable. A strange heat gathers beneath her belly, scintillating like magic before a charm, and she swallows to keep her hands steady, to keep them from brushing through the bristle of his hair just to see what it feels like.

“I…” There’s no reason for her mouth to be so dry, or her cheeks to be this warm. “I…ah…bequeath this to you.”

The cord settles against the knob on his spine, shifting as he straightens, all six-foot-even of him. The crystal spins helplessly on its cord, settling against his chest. His skin, she realizes, his collar open just enough to let it lay flat against that smooth sliver of copper. His eyes settle on her again, and she feels that flutter of the soft animal in her, the one that feels his attention and longs to flee—

And then, suddenly, it doesn’t. Her fear curls right in on itself, and like a mouse in winter, settles in for a long nap.

Which leaves Obi right there in front of her. Visible, for once.

She hesitates. Why, she can’t say. It’s only—

“Miss?” Obi’s never sounded any less confident than cocky, and yet now his voice trembles, and she…she looks.

Even without being able to see him, there were things about Obi she knew. He was tall for one— taller than her, at least, even if he never thought that much of an achievement. Lean, but in the way gymnasts were, or the kids who played at doing parkour in the park. Skin that wouldn’t fit in even the broadest definition of white. Dark haired enough that she couldn’t tell if it was him using her brush or Ryuu. But now—

“Is the Asian thing because like, BTS is hot right now?” Suzu asks, never one to be constrained by social niceties. “Or is that…?”

“My dad.” His hand snakes up to his shoulder, squeezing. “At least, I think. The Lower Courts keep records, but…”

He shrugs. One shoulder, matching the slant of his mouth, casual and wry. Devil-may-care, some would say. It fits him the way his leather jacket does, clinging in all the right places, molding to his shape. Well-worn. Familiar.

Yuzuri gives him one good glance, boots to bristle, and hooks her hands around her hips. “Oh my god,” she groans, utterly dismayed. “You’re hot.”

There’s a shift when she says that, Obi’s stiff spine melting away so that he can slink up to the counter. Each vertebrae articulates like a cat prowling in the grass, pulling his proportions impossibly long, incredibly lean. “What’s the problem? I thought you liked eye candy.”

“Yeah, but I know you. Hot guys are like Monets” — Yuzuri holds up her hand, keeping him at a distance— “they only look good if you don’t know about all the mess.”

“I always thought that was sort of neat,” Suzu says. “The technique is part of the appreciation, you know.”

“Suzu, we already know you’re a good person or whatever,” she informs him, bored. “You don’t have to tell us.”

“What about you, Miss?” Obi arches back against the counter, languid as his grin. “What do you think?”

Her mouth works, trying to explain that she— that he—

His eyes crease, right at the corner, watching her with a fondness she’s always felt but never saw, and—

“I…” They’re gold. His eyes. So striking it’s an effort to look away. “I think we might need to get you a pair of sunglasses.”

[clickabletale]

Late Night Brainstorming— 😪✨

So I’m planning to update Shizu’s reference sheet for a more polished one, as well as introducing more characters relevant to Shizu’s story.

Aside from her adoptive family with the baroness, I’m picturing Shizu would get her own fellow group of engineers in Clarines to learn from and train with to sharpen her skills. 👀

Now, it’s not an easy start for her especially considering the location she grew up in, Erith, was practically isolated and more old school than Clarines. Shizu is practically just starting pretty fresh as an adult and keeping close to the people who helped her first (Shirayuki and Obi.)

Not to mention Lady Bashira, you’ll see soon but with her horrible methods she wouldn’t be encouraging to progressive living/actively against it— 💀

So I’m planning to challenge myself with it, Shizu not being accepted for her skills so easily or deemed “amateur” as she trains to make it up there with them and sometimes be able to call the shots in this line of work. 😤

[redmemoirs]

gee zen, sensei lets you have TWO doting siblings?

[stampstamp]

Rishe is so competent and cool! Her 7th loop isn't as carefree as the title suggests though lol.

[hello-vampire-kitty]

Servamp chapter 135 translation "Gold, silver and iron"

The chapter is available on Mangadex!

Translation notes under the cut.

This chapter took me a long time to finish because I had to deal with stuff but it's finally done! Still have a few more chapters, so please be patient! Alright, so here are a few notes.

At first, I wasn't sure if I should have written "silver" but given that Hugh's name is written in katakana because, I would have written "silver" if it said シルバー　but since it was the kanji 銀 I left the romanization of the word and made the translation note.

Grandpuppy Gear wants to be a grandpa to his friends' children xD Speaking of the grandkids, it's curious if Gear met the older Tsukimitsu siblings. They used the spell "Gatekeeper of Bifrost" to send Mahiru and Kuro to London, Iori telling them to look for the werewolf (Gear)

So, it seems obvious they knew him, but we don't know if they ever met face to face and only know him if C3 had a file on him or perhaps they knew him through their mother. It's plausible that maybe if the siblings would be in trouble, Shirayuki told them to seek help from him.

Just speculating!

Alright moving on, we have our literary reference which I made a post about when the chapter was published.

Also...My God, Hugh looks so handsome!

*Ahem* Okay so the reference we have is mostly likely based on "Flowers for Algernon", because the name of Hugh's ability (the regular reading not the intended one in furigana) says まだ見ぬ友に花束を and the reason I bolded some of the words is because they are the same as the one in the Japanese title of "Flowers for Algernon" アルジャーノンに花束を I don't know if まだ見ぬ友 could be related to the book or something else;; Perhaps some of you might know!

And that's it for this chapter. Please be patient for the other ones :)

[xshirobi]

Do you know what I need probably as much as my next breath? To know Obi’s past. Like, I WANT to see his parents. Where he was born, if he knows. His childhood, how he became an assassin. The hardships he had to endure, and that final battle that made him disappear for 3 years (the one Treau mentioned). I need to know how Obi was employed by Lord Haruka, and finalizing how he met Shirayuki. I NEED THIS. Sorata Akiduki-sensei, please!

It would be even better if Shirayuki and Zen find out as well.

I do love that Obi always seems to “live in the now”, but I want to know all of Obi <3

[ashourii-a]

LoveBerry Shortcake

Finally finishing my Contemporary Fashion Tokyo Mew Mew pieces with Berry Shirayuki! I thought cottagecore would look so good on berry and I went with her cafe mew mew hairstyle because its so stinking cute! Hope you guys like her! (also psst yes I drew ringo she is coming up next)

[meefy]

Diverse Autistic Characters in Akagami no Shirayukihime

I could go on for hours about my dislike of how autism is, for the most part, portrayed in popular media - the butt of a cruel joke; autism representation by a non-Autistic actor; or centered around the plot of the story itself, where it boils down to the Autistic person "overcoming" their autism or some outside force "fixing" it (or, semi related, an Autistic character being shoehorned in as a token minority).

I think that's one of the reason I love Akagami no Shirayukihime so much. While none of the characters are confirmed as Autistic, the ones that are quite blatantly Autistic-coded are so diverse and so welcomed by the cast that it's both sweet and refreshing to see.

I have talked at length about Ryuu and why I love his character so much, so I don't want to get into it too much here because I've said most of what I want to say. He is, at first glance, the "typical" popular culture depiction of autism: the male child savant who has no friends, can't socialize, and has the niche restricted interests in science that seem to characterize every big Autistic character in media. But it doesn't take long to see he is so much more than that! His interests in poisons has granted him a field of study and work where he thrives and does what he loves day in and day out. His mentor, Garak, supports him and treats him as an equal, and looks for opportunities for him to grow - as does everyone around him, including Shirayuki.

Ryuu's time in Lilias was so beautifully depicted. The years he spends studying and working there are not him masking his Autistic traits or "beating" them; they are years of him feeling safe and supported enough to test his comfort levels and branch out because he knows he won't be mocked or scorned for it. He has found an environment where he thrives because of his Autistic traits, not in spite of them. And so, as of most recently, we see that he wants to remain in Lilias to continue his studies there because of this. His growth is not reduced to finally acting neurotypical; Ryuu being Autistic has not changed. But he has found others who share his passions, who support him, and who encourage him without changing who he is.

I also want to touch on Kirito specifically, because he is one of the few people Ryuu's own age who interacts with him. Kirito is too young to hold back his questions about Ryuu's behaviour. Why is he running away from a crowd of people? Why has he never had a snowball fight? But Kirito doesn't dwell on Ryuu's quirks; he accepts them, moves on, and focuses on what the two have in common - which is what I would hope for any Autistic person, myself included.

What is particularly special to me about how Autistic characters are depicted in AnS is the diversity. Too often I see Autistic characters depicted in the same way, like the author read a WebMD checklist and created a character around said list. Autism is a spectrum, and with that comes two ends of the spectrum.

Which brings me to Lata.

Although I haven't explicitly mentioned at length Lata + autism the same way I've discussed it about Ryuu (and although I could write a whole essay on it), I do want to go in a bit more depth because his overlap and contrast with Ryuu is exactly the kind of Autistic representation I live for. Ryuu actively wants to work to help people; Lata seeks to work in solitude. Ryuu is open and generally friendly with others, Lata is blunt and evasive. Ryuu's expressions are generally flat (and his voice monotone in the anime); Lata is quite expressive (even if he doesn't smile often, and neither does Ryuu). Yet we see certain similarities between the two; for instance, both have their own niche hyperfixations that they absolutely live for, and neither is totally at ease in crowds.

But leaving Ryuu out of the equation, one of my favourite things about Lata's character is that none of the Lyrias crew seemed genuinely bothered by how he acts. Like, even Obi's teasing is, by and large, in good faith. They're just like "Oh, that’s just how Lata is..." and move past it. Most recently in Chapter 133, Shirayuki is visibly happy to see him. And related to that, the other scholars always go out of their way to include and invite him to their outings - to their banquet celebrating the successful germination of the phostyrias, or to see them blooming in their lab. Even if he always declines, and they probably know he will always decline, they ask. Speaking on a personal note, I am like Lata and really, really hate parties or any large gathering; so people (understandably) stopped inviting me. And that hurt; even if I knew I'd say no, and wouldn't go, people actually thinking of me meant a lot more than they likely realized.

So, seeing representation of people actively trying to invite and include their Autistic comrade means so much to me.

Lastly, I want to talk about Shirayuki. It's not terribly often that Autistic representation in media is a female character, let alone the lead character. I know I am not alone in thinking Shirayuki is Autistic, but I do love its subtlety unless you know what to look for. The long running theory that there is a "girl" autism (versus the stereotypical "male" autism that is most commonly diagnosed and seen in popular culture) is absurd; autism is a spectrum, and just where some Autistics are reclusive, have a flat affect, and exhibit quirky behaviours and interests, there are plenty that are the complete opposite, or somewhere else along the spectrum. In many respects, this describes Shirayuki; she seems to have no trouble making friends, attending parties, or showing emotion.

And yet, she has the intense focus in herbalism and pharmacology that mirrors Ryuu's in many respects; she just does not express that interest in the same, "typical" Autistic way. She reads her textbooks to relax and spends time in a garden (the latter of which is, stereotypically, a perfectly expected behaviour for someone of her gender). It's easy to forget that, much like how Ryuu ran away from the crowd on his first day in Lyrias (a depiction of an Autistic shutdown), Shirayuki ran away from Zen when her feelings for him became too overwhelming. She asks Zen for a comfort object of his when she leaves for Tanbarun, much like how many Autistic people have a particular tangible object that gives them comfort. Shirayuki is also blunt; she tells Prince Raji to act more like a leader she can be proud of, and rebuffs the knight who insults Ryuu at the beginning of the story - her low rank does not deter her. Autistic people are sometimes known for apparently "not understanding" power dynamics and rules (which I doubt, as do most Autistic people - I think it's more likely that the rules and dynamics are simply unfair, and created and upheld by neurotypical people) - Shirayuki's behaviour certainly seems to fit this. She is not rude by any means...but where it might intimidate many others, a person's title does not keep her from speaking her mind. In many respects she reminds me of myself!

I could go on and on about this topic - and how different Autistic traits are present in different characters - but I'm comfortable stopping at Ryuu, Lata, and Shirayuki (at least for now), and reiterating that media like AnS proves that diverse Autistic characters can exist without being a punchline, can grow throughout the story without shedding their Autistic traits, and can be accepted, supported, and loved by others for who they are. This series is dear to my heart, and this is but one (albeit huge) reason why!

[stargazer-sims]

Victor & Yuri appreciation post ♥

My beautiful boys have aged well, and in my opinion this is the best they've ever looked. I will never not appreciate these two. Writing their "journey of discovery" story took me over two years, and I'm glad I saw it through, because these characters deserve it.

They were characters of mine long before I ever made sim avatars for them, but I've had fun with them as their sim avatars as well. A lot of the CC i've made over the years and a handful of builds have all been for them. Whenever I want to quit The Sims, I always come back to playing with these two, and whenever I'm discouraged with the writing process, I look at what I've done with these characters.

A lot of people ask if Yuri and Victor are that Yuri and Victor (from YOI). The answer is no; they are not fan fiction characters. If you're curious, Victor and Yuri's origin story is here.

__________

A little about Victor & Yuri...

Victor Thomas Edward Okamoto-Nelson birthday: 2 December gender: male pronouns: he/him occupation: paediatric nurse spouse: Yuri Okamoto-Nelson child: Caroline Lily May Okamoto-Nelson (adopted)

random facts about Victor

Victor is a former competitive snowboarder. He retired from competition to attend nursing school. He's still obsessed with snowboarding though.

When he was six, his father Thomas and baby sister Caroline were killed by an impaired driver driving through a crosswalk

He is terrified of thunderstorms and has been ever since he was a child

He has a hereditary genetic abnormality which caused his hair to turn prematurely silver. His hair was completely silver by the time he was thirteen, and by eighteen, his eyebrows, eyelashes, body hair and facial hair were also completely silver.

He always thought he had a mild learning disability, but it turned out that he actually had a correctable eye condition that made reading difficult for him

He and Yuri met online, on a forum for snowboarding enthusiasts. They had a long distance relationship for three years, during which time Victor threw himself into learning to speak Japanese in preparation for going to join Yuri in Japan.

He loves dogs and has a gift for dog training

His pain tolerance is very low and he doesn't do well with being sick. Yuri teases him about it, but would move the earth to take care of him and make sure he's as comfortable as possible whenever he's sick or hurt.

He cries easily, which is one of the things he likes least about himself

His favourite colour is red

Yuri Okamoto-Nelson birthday: 20 September gender: male pronouns: he/him occupation: communications professional spouse: Victor Okamoto-Nelson child: Caroline Lily May Okamoto-Nelson (adopted)

random facts

Yuri was born prematurely, at thirty weeks. Initially, he wasn't expected to survive the first forty-eight hours of his life, but he defied all the odds and survived. He loves his birthdays and always wants to make a big deal of them because he sees them as a celebration of another year of being alive rather than just being another year older.

He has a lot of health issues, but despite being chronically ill, he's determined to live the best life possible. He's physically active when he feels well, and loves snowboarding, yoga, swimming and dancing.

He's the oldest of three children. He's closest with his youngest sister Shirayuki and is estranged from his other younger sister Hana

He owns his own business, BRAVE Communications, which is a PR and communications firm. He runs it alongside his friend and business partner, James Fairchild, who is also disabled

Yuri is a survivor of intimate partner violence, from his one and only relationship before meeting Victor

He once made 1,000 paper cranes, and wished for happiness. Shortly thereafter, he and Victor met online.

He loves animals, but was never allowed to have a pet growing up. He was overjoyed when Victor agreed that he could adopt a dog, and he adopted a rescued Pomeranian whom he named Sango. Over the years since then, he's had a lot of pets

He likes to write, and has published three children's books so far, along with his friend Fox Abbottsford, who did the illustrations.

His favourite food is strawberries. He will eat just about anything that's strawberry-flavoured, but for him, nothing is better than fresh strawberries.

His favouite colous are yellow and pink

__________

*** Their married surname is Okamoto-Nelson. Victor's original surname was Nelson and Yuri's was Okamoto, but they couldn't decide who should take who's name when they got married, so they decided to combine them.

[gabriella0807]

Ans manga spoilers ahead:

Obi's expression when it seemed like he would be separated from his Lady made me tear up and broke my heart. 😢💔 and later how he stood his ground before Shinsu, amazing. Then Shirayuki's desperate running at the end... *chef's kiss*

Oh man this chapter was intense!!

#ans chapter 135

Big thanks to everyone who's working on these translations! 💕

Fellow Obiyuki girlies, how are we doing?

[sabraeal]

Get Up Eight, Chapter 10

[Read on AO3]

There is little in his life of which Obi can be proud, and fewer still that he could call accomplishments, but he will admit: getting ojou-san so flustered is both.

“Here?” Her skin is already sun-flushed, blossom pink where it should be paper pale, but it’s hardly his imagination that licks crimson trails up her neck, pooling in the apples of her cheeks. “R-right now?”

Small toes curl into the sand, weight shifting as she scours the Sakawa’s shoreline, searching some reason to keep them planted instead of dangling over his shoulders. Obi hides his grin in the bend of his neck. “No place better, ojou-san.”

“But how would I, er...?” Stripped to her juban, she is not bare, but here, in the retreat of the sun, it is no trick to see that the skin beneath it flushes to a deeper shade. “Do I...? I mean, should I...?”

“Just throw your leg over my neck,” he suggests, bowing his head low in invitation. “There’s so little of you the rest will just sort itself out. If you trust me.”

She hesitates. Haah, of course she does; ojou-san may speak all the sweet words a mouth can make, but it was only three days ago that she whistled to him a man might to a cur and bade him follow. Three days since she sat across from him in a tea house and offered him a small fortune, and he fondled her for her troubles. He is less than a stranger to her, and she carries enough coin on her back to make even a monk feel the pull of worldly desires. It can come as no surprise that she would rather let time turn her to statue than let him--

“Just...over your neck?” The sand splashes over his hands as she steps toward him, even her ankles uncertain. “Ah, how...?”

Her feet dance just beyond his fingertips, so close he could reach out at grab one if he wanted to hear her shriek. “Like a samurai astride his war horse.”

“Oh!” The hand brushing his shoulder recoils, as if he burns. “I don’t think...”

He dares a glance up at her. “Though I hope you’ll use me more gently, ojou-san.”

She huffs, her jaw taking its most stubborn set. “Don’t be so-- so--!”

“Charming?” he offers, unable to keep his mouth from slanting into a smirk. “Tempting?”

They have only known each other three days, but it is long enough to know that ojou-san’s sunniness rarely gives want to storms. Still, there’s certainly one brewing in the scowl she sends his way. “Incorrigible.”

It is the perfect opening; it would be all too easy to let this grin of his hook into a leer, to inform her that reform required repentance, but instead--

Instead she presses both hands onto his shoulders, forcing his head down and his heart into a gallop as she swings one leg up and over. Or at least, that’s what she would have done, if her juban didn’t tangle around his head; she trips rather than sits on him, coming down hard-- and askew-- enough to knock the air from his lungs.

“Ojou-san,” he wheezes, hands raising up to hook over her knees. His calluses barely brush the silk of her skin before she gasps, fingers knotting tight in his hair. “Haah...”

“Oh!” The pleasant shiver trembling down his spine quickly turns to pain. “My-- my bag! I have to--”

Even with two working feet and a functional relationship with balance, this sort of dismount would have amounted to little more than disaster. But ojou-san has neither; as soon as she slips too far to her left, leaving only one leg to hold her upright, that traitorous ankle buckles and spills her off his back.

Her knee hits the sand hard, a whimper hiccuping up from the depths of her chest. The other leg threatens to take him with her, hooking around his neck and squeezing with all the strength panic and pain can provide. It’s only reflex that gets a hand up in time to shift all that to his shoulder instead, grimacing as he unwinds the mess of his mistress from around him.

“Ojou-san,” he pants, staring down into the wide depths of her eyes, two jade pools that know no bottom. “I would have gotten it for you!”

Her mouth slackens, the slightest furrow bridging the gap between the narrow arches of her brows. Frustration wells up on his belly; not the cold anger he’s used to, but something wilder, warmer, hands clenching in the sand so that they do not grasp at her.

You are paying me, he does not say, do you even know what for?

“It’s...” Without the distraction of her hair, he can see every muscle tremble as she murmurs, “It’s mine--”

“To carry, I know, I know.” Sand scatters as he sits back on his heels, the long fingers of one hand working at the endless ache in his shoulder. He wouldn’t trust him with his money either in her place, but still, still. “Let’s try this again.”

Defying all expectation, her next attempt is worse.

The weight of her wealth sits heavy on her back, enough that even the most graceful of the emperor’s concubines would stagger beneath it. Ojou-san is hardly that; with both feet injured and only the skittish sands of the Sakawa to support her, there is but one possible outcome.

Still, it surprises him. Even as he watches her, one foot rising to swing over his neck, disaster never occurs to him. Not until the leg collapses beneath her, and she’s sent, squealing, into the scrub.

“Ojou-san.” It’s a miracle he keeps his voice so even, that none of his laugh escapes the tight clench of his chest. “I think it’s time we try something else.”

She is shy when he leads her to the water’s edge, just dipping her toes into the river’s cool current before she scurries back, a gasp caught between her teeth.

“I thought you grew up on the water, ojou-san?” he hums, crouching in the shallows. It’s pleasant enough at first, refreshing after a day’s walk in this heat, but there’s a chill eddying through it, one that says he’ll be longing for sweat and sun soon enough. “And you swam the Kawasaki...”

Her mouth purses into a temptation, a pout that just begs to be poked. “You know I only said that because...because...”

Because for all her pretty protests, there’s a part of her that knows the monkey and his men have only circled around them for the scent of coin. That they’ve only kept their sticky thief fingers out of her purse since there is the promise of a husband with a bigger one.

It’s always been Obi who tongues have been clucked at, who has always been on the short end of a scolding, but looking at her now, stripped to her juban and toes flirting with the water’s edge, well-- he understands why they did. Oh, what would her cousin think, seeing what his mistress has made of him?

“Come on,” he says instead, jerking his chin toward his shoulders. “Over here.”

“W-why?” For once, it’s not him that a young woman eyes askance, but the water. Ojou-san shuffles in the sand, wincing at each wave that laps at her toes. “Wouldn’t it be easier to do this on the shore...?”

“We’ve tried that. I like my neck at this angle.” Ojou-san is too kind to scowl, but the hint of it lingering around her lips only spurs him to add, “Come in, I don’t bite.”

Both her brows lift, the furrow between them as faint as her flush. “That’s not quite what I remember.”

“Ah...” His breath catches, and oh, how fortunate he is to be submerged to his shoulders so she cannot see how parts of him twitch at the thought of her in his arms, of the noise she made when he-- “You’ll find me much tamed now, ojou-san.”

There’s a playfulness to the way her chin lifts, to the dubious curl of her mouth. “Will I?”

“So long as you hold my lead tight,” he promises, smiling a wolf’s smile. “Which is hard, if you’re all the way over there.”

That gets a sigh out of those sweet lips, drawing her deep enough to soak the hem of her juban, even with it tucked up into the cord at her waist. “What do I do now?”

“Nothing.” He sinks lower still, moving like an eel in the shallows. “Just stay where you are...”

There is some yelping when he ducks between her legs, and a satisfying gasp when he rises from the water, but in the end, his ojou-san sits steady across his shoulders. There’s not much for her to grab onto, but she makes do with what she has, her slender fingers buried right to the root.

“Am I hurting you?” she murmurs, thighs squeezing tight at his neck as they sink further beneath the Sakawa’s waters. “Your head, I mean. I could...”

“Don’t worry yourself.” It’s a far better thing to say than, keep going. “It might be nice if you, er, eased up just a little.”

Or less distracting, he doesn’t add; this crossing will be hard enough without his mistress’s self-conscious squirming.

“Oh!” Her fingers flatten against his scalp, though her nails still scrape deliciously with every step. “Are you sure I’m not too heavy?”

“Heavy?” She could hardly weigh twelve kan soaking wet. “You think you’re too heavy for me?”

It takes a shrug of his shoulders to hike her further up, so close the cotton of her juban presses against his neck. Ojou-san squeals, curling around his head like a cat escaping a bath.

He parts her sleeves like curtains, peering up to ask, “Does it seem like you’re too much for me to handle, ojou-san?”

He’s paid good coin to see the smile a geisha hid behind her fan, but still, it pales in comparison to the frown this girl gives him, free of charge. “I only wanted to make sure...”

A laugh huffs out from his lips, too quick to catch. “I think that bag of yours weighs more than you do, ojou-san.”

This close, he can feel how her thighs tense, how every muscle from the tips of her toes to the set of her shoulders turns rigid as her mouth thins, gaze skittering away from his. “Maybe.”

“Either way.” His fingers wrap around the soft skin of her shins, fine hairs tickling his palms. “It’s not a problem for me.”

She doesn’t so much answer as hum, grip tightening as he takes his first step deeper. “You’ll let me know if it becomes one?”

The heat nestled between her legs radiates through the cotton at his neck, but still he smiles, giving one calf a reassuring squeeze as he sighs, “Oh, ojou-san, if there’s a problem, it won’t be your weight.”

For all their bullying and bluster, Obi has to admit: the porters had not exaggerated the Sakawa’s depth or the treacherous shifting of its shoals. The coarse sand gives way to finer stuff only a few shaku from shore, sucking stubbornly at him with every step. Still, he’s trudged through worse, though the current and the sudden shallows given him pause more than once. The real trial is, well--

“Ah, what’s that?” Ojou-san’s thighs flex around the slack muscles of his throat, straining to sit her higher, as if she could gain inches from will alone. “In the distance, that tower...?”

Her legs hook tighter around his shoulders, feet tucking against his sides to steady the shift of her body, and-- and Obi takes in a strained breath, readjusting his grip on her calves. If he pictures slipping them up, holding her steady as he sinks them into her thigh, well, the frigid waters of the Sakawa go a long way in helping him...not.

“Odawara-jō.” From here it’s no more than a flourish at the foot of the mountain, a brief hint of white above the squat roofs of the village. “The seat of Kaga no Kami.”

Unless this was his season to arrive at Edo on his knees, satisfying the shogun and his sankin-kōtai. He’d never kept track of things like that, only gawked at the spectacle like every other set of eyes on the road, watching as the daimyos and their hundred retainers crawled to the capital to kiss the tatami at Tokugawa’s feet. Maybe he should have, now that it’s the difference between a loyal daimyo paying homage to his lord, and well--

Well, it’d be something else entirely, if one of the fudai threw in with the emperor. Especially one with as prosperous a domain as Odawara. Ah, if only Ojou-san would allow him to pry this monkey from their back; then he might be able to spare a few hours learning what only a generous application of time and sake can turn over.

“It’s so...” Her small hands flex, as if she might find the words scrawled across his scalp, hidden beneath her palms. “Big.”

“Big?” It hiccups out of him, a laugh chasing its heels. “Surely Edo filled with a hundred more wonders than some tower.”

“I wouldn’t know.”

His head is half-turned, a question on his lips that dissolves as her thighs tense, skin close enough to skim the edges of them. A more telling twitch than any tight smile or tic of the cheek-- and more distracting one too. There’s no room for other thoughts when his only one is how easy it would be to open his mouth, to sink his teeth right into her soft flesh and smell just what that might do to--

His foot catches on the slight incline, not just sand but stone, the first shelf of a shoal, its start hidden beneath the Sakawa’s turbulent water. He stumbles, disoriented, nearly tipping both of them into the current.

“Oh!” The way she grips at him hardly helps; pleasure skipping down his spine as her hands clutch tight around his skull. “I’m sorry! Are you sure that I’m not too heavy for you?”

It only takes a laugh to get his feet beneath him, shaking his head loose from her grip. “I already told you, the bag’s heavier than you are. How you carry it without tipping straight over, I’ll never know.”

Ojou-san does not so much stiffen as still, her hands hovering uncertainly beside his ears. “I could...I could get down and carry it myself. If that would be--”

“Ojou-san.” It is a trial to smother his snickers, swallowing down each hint that tries to sneak past his throat. “You would never touch the bottom.”

“That’s not...! I’m sure...” Her fingers stretch down, skimming at the water on her shins, and he can tell the precise moment she takes its measure. “Ah...oh...”

“There is no issue with your weight.” He shrugs his shoulders, earning a strangle shriek and the hard strike of gold against his back. “Either of you. But if you are worried, we can go back to shore, and I can carry--”

“No!”

Even used when used to a strike, the hit still stings. A laugh expels itself from his chest, straining through the grit teeth of his smile.

“You know, ojou-san,” he lilts, the melody of it stilted even to his own ears. “If we continue on together, some day you will have to let me bear some of your burden, too.”

It’s impossible for silence to fall between them, not when the river rushes pasts and bird’s cries break through the winds as often as those of the porters, but still--

He knows a denial when he hears it. Or when he doesn’t. It’s written in the slack of her fingers and the curl of her toes. In the way her breath catches between her teeth, none of her sweet words to follow.

“Ah, I can’t blame you, ojou-san.” It’s easy to play this part, to be the easy-going yojimbo, the man who expects little and gets less but plays it off with no more than a shrug. “I wouldn’t trust a face like mine either.”

The sun clings stubbornly to the horizon when his toes finally curl on the solid shores of Odawara, crouching down so that his mistress might dismount with more ease than she stumbled on. A fine intention quickly spoiled by reality; she no more than gets her sore feet under her than she shivers, knees nearly dropping her back into the much chillier shallows of the Sakawa until he catches her hands, laying them flat upon his shoulders.

“Ojou-san,” he huffs, mouth twitching. “Do I need to carry you to the hatago as well?”

“N-no!” There it is, that delicate flush blooming across her cheeks, a more delectable bite than mochi beneath the sakura. “I can make it just fine, so long as I have my, er...”

Her gaze skims over the Sakawa, scintillating in the sunset, and squints into the glare.

“Ah...” Obi scrubs a hand over the smirk that threatens to curl over his lips. “Right. We gave all your clothes to that mon-- er, Mihaya-dono.”

“They haven’t made it across yet.” She frowns, a worried crease bridging the gap between her brows. “Can you see them out there? I can’t...”

She pushes to up to the tips of her toes-- toes that are too swollen to hold her weight, even slight as it is. Ojou-san teeters, a gasp catching between her teeth, and she reaches out, grasping at his elbow as if she might catch his sleeve--

Only there is none, just the bare flesh of his arm.

Her grip is purposeful, meant to pinch cloth between her thumb and finger, but instead-- instead sparks zip up from his elbow, like flint on stone, setting him alight where she grips him, just above the crook. His skin tingles, both numb and too much at once, but there’s nothing he can do but just bear it, grinning down at her as he says, “Don’t hurt yourself, ojou-san.”

It’s too breathless, too much, but she only flushes, ducking her chin against her shoulder. “I just thought I might see them if...ah...”

Ah, right, the monkey and his merry band. He lifts a hand-- his other hand, the one attached to an arm that comes when he calls it, shading his eyes against the glare.

“There.” Two rafts float across the river, carried by four porters each, every last inch filled with scowling ronin.  All that time, and that idiot still couldn’t haggle himself out of a glorified crate. Obi stifles a smirk. Couldn’t have happened to a better ape. “Looks like he couldn’t talk his way around those naked worms after all.”

“Oh!” Ojou-san’s fingers shift, no longer pinching but wrapping gently around the bend of his arm. “Are they close? Should we...?”

Wait, he’s sure she means to say. He can’t think of a worse idea.

“No.” In all the time it took them to cross, the monkey is hardly at the first shoal. “It’ll be a while yet.”

Her mouth rumples, the way it does right before she says something stubborn, but-- but instead, she shivers, the pale shoots of her legs trembling where they’ve taken root in the sand.

“Plenty of time to take in the sights,” he tells her, voice pitched too loud and grin too wide. “It’s a bit of a walk, so if ojou-san needs me to carry her--”

“See...?” Her fingers slips from him, boneless. “I can’t possibly-- my clothes--”

With a quick flick at her waistline, the hem of her juban floats to her ankles, rumpled and wet, but serviceable. “Come now, ojou-san. A white yukata might be rare, but woven as finely as this...”

Her frown bows into a forbidding curve. “I’ll look as if I’m in mourning.”

“Ah, let’s not get ahead of ourselves!” His grin widens as the skeptical bent to her brows deepens. “At this time of day, they’ll think you’re a spirit, a pretty girl drowned in the river, and--”

A small hand claps over his mouth. “That’s quite enough.”

It’s with delicate fingers that he plucks his mistress’s palm from his lips, clucking, “Now, now, where’s your sense of fun?”

Her lips pull into a forbidding line. “I would prefer not to draw the wrong sort of attention.”

“Fine, fine, have it your way.” He shrugs, putting his back to her. “No hungry ghosts. But we should still go to town. That kimono of yours is fine enough, ojou-san, but when it comes to catching eyes...”

“Ah...” Her feet shuffle beneath the hem of her juban. “Yes, I suppose it would be better if I, er...found something less...um...”

“Expensive?” he offers.

“Elaborate,” she says instead. “More...everyday.”

“Oh, ojou-san,” he sighs, “there’s nothing everyday about you.”

This time, the silence is more complete, a hundred sentences smothered in their cradles.

“I know.” It’s barely more than a breath, more wish than reply. “But I can try.”

[bubblesthemonsterartist]

i told the stars about you

The wide expanse of stars twinkle outside her window, glittering like goldstone. Shirayuki wonders if it’s her imagination or if the skies in the North truly are more arresting. The nights of Wistal were beautiful, yes, but fogged by firelight, paler perhaps than the shades of blue and purple she can make out here. Or was she just not looking? Her impressions could be shaded by the rarity of a clear evening in the North, or perhaps the memory of those early years in Clarines have faded. And yet-

And yet something about this night sky in particular strikes her.

She hugs herself, the heat of another body still soaked into hers long after they’ve returned to their respective rooms. Long after she has changed into her nightgown and set aside all the accoutrements of professionalism, brushing her hair until it crackled with static. Long after she stationed herself at this window, looking up to once familiar stars for answers.

Emotionally exhausted, but... happy. So, so happy.

It must be her imagination how she can still smell the wool and leather and wild that never quite left him. Can still feel his broad hand alighted upon her back, tentative as if anything more might break him. Can still feel the shape of his words murmured against her ear.

“Keep this?”

Shirayuki’s eyes squeeze shut, tight as the fist in her chest. Always, always, she would never think to do otherwise. She would keep it, treasure it, honor the bravery it took him to offer it.

Her grip tightens on herself, but it’s- not the same, not enough.

She can bear it no longer.

Shirayuki spins on her heels, flying towards the door connecting their rooms. Without a moments pause, she flings it open and there—

There are two wide eyes, staring into hers, hand hovering in the space between them.

“Oh. Miss. I—”

“Obi! I- Earlier. We were interrupted and I just thought—”

…that our hug wasn’t finished.

Embarrassment starts to creep up her neck, disbelief at her own reasoning. Hands flutter helplessly in that too large of an expanse between them, and she grasps at nothing for words, hoping to catch a more rational thought. But then she looks up at him, helpless. Between the two of them, he was always the better one at reading her meaning when she didn’t know what to say, and—

His eyes are red at the corners, glossy in the dim light.

The air pulls out of her lungs. He hugged her before. Just an hour ago. Held her, even. So she doesn’t think, she just… flings herself forward, arms wrapping themselves around his middle. He must’ve taken his night gown from Eisetsu’s place, the silk feels familiar. Far better than either of them could afford. She’s half a mind to scold him for stealing from their host, but—

But his ribs collapse under her hold, spine rounding as his body curls over hers. He pulls her closer. So, so gingerly. She doesn’t know how to tell him that her body can take his strength, too. That he can- that he can hold her the way his body needs.

He sucks a breath next to her ear as if in pain and alarm spikes up her spine. Did she hurt him??? Shirayuki braces her palms against his arms, arching backwards to take a look—

His hand tangles in her hair, pressing her face tight to his chest.

“Obi?” Her voice is muffled against his collarbone, sight blocked by the dark fabric of his clothes.

“Miss,” he breathes, voice hoarse, and it’s only now that she feels how he shakes, how he trembles, and—

Wetness spills onto her cheek. It’s not hers.

Not yet at least.

“I thought--” she chokes, wrapping her arms around him once more-- “that we weren’t done hugging it out yet.”

Laughter rattles out of him, his thumb stroking a line along the nape of her neck. “No, Miss.” Obi sniffs, his cheek resting against the crown of her head, and her eyes well. He can’t cry because that means she has to cry, too. “I don’t think we were.”