#and yyh again because why not

[randomreadingtimewithtsuki]

Hello pufavo you could headcanon in yu yu hakusho your girlfriend (reader) using your blouses 👕 staying one dress in her please I I would appreciate it ❤️❤️

Hello!

Thank you for requesting and i am sorry for taking so long!

From what i got from your request, you wish a scenario/ HC about reader wearing they boys shirt right? As you did not mention which character i will write for the main four!

Also, gender neutral, for inclusion :3 A bit short, though.

Reminder that YYH is not on the current list. I am writing this because idk, i felt like it, Please check the Rules page before requesting.

I hope this is of your liking please let me know what you think!

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Yusuke

Most of the time Yusuke is wearing a white T-shirt, so it might take him a little awhile to figure out that is his shirt you are wearing,

Boy has tons of them, might even go unnoticed.

Now, if you try to wear one of his jackets, then, for sure he will notice.

At first he would be slightly confused. Why are you wearing his clothes?

But then he would get a cocky grin on his face and tease you about missing him so much you stole his clothes.

Be prepared for the teasing hell!

If you get too embarrassed and try to return it, he will turn it down.

Saying you look better than him on that jacket, but also complain you could have asked for it instead of just taking it.

Yusuke is lowkey very happy.

When you eventually return it, he will take a note of how it smells of you. He loves it!

From now he will tease you asking if you stole another clothes of his.

Kuwabara

Unlike Yusuke he has a bit more color range from his shirts, but still mostly white or black.

But Kuwabara will quickly noticed you are wearing his shirt.

How? It doesn't quite fit you. Whether is because is too big or too large? He can't explain, it just not fit you right.

Will get shy af and very confused too.

If you offer to return it, he will stumble on his words, but turn it down.

He will say ( or try to) that you look cute! He loves seeing you wearing his shirt!

Boy is beyond happy doesn't even try to hide it.

When you eventually return it, he will cherish that shirt - it smells like you. A bit weird? yeah, but you have no idea how happy he was!

Lowkey hopes you steal other shirts in the future!

He will be ready to lend you his jacket, at anytime too!

Hiei

Well, Hiei owns only black clothes that are tank top like.

But he will notice right away that you are wearing something that is his.

He will make a snarky remark asking if you have no clothes of your own to wear.

He doesn't mean to be rude or mean, it's just, an unexpected behaviour.

He doesn't know how to feel. What is this warm feeling?

If you try to return it, he will turn it down.

Saying that if you got, you probably need it. Will also tell you to shop for more clothes.

When you eventually return it, he will just stare at you and the shirt before taking it - doing a little hmpf.

Will ask you if you finally bought new clothes too.

But deep now, he did not mind that you took it.

If he sees you are cold, he will toss his shirt ( or cape!) at you. No words, just tossing it.

Lowkey hopes you do it again, will never admit it, but he adored your smell on his stuff.

Kurama

Probably the one of the most clothing choice.

Will also notice right away that you are wearing his clothes. Oh he knows just by one look.

At first Kurama won't say anything, just smile.

He finds it beyond adorable to see you wearing his clothes.

But he will eventually ask you " is that mine?" in the most random time possible to catch you off guard.

His goal? Make you embarrassed.

If you offer to return it, he will turn it down and say it looks a lot better in you.

He absolutely loves how embarrassed you got!

When you eventually return it, he will smile at you and thank you.

You can't tell by his expression but he is very very happy.

Because now his shirt smells like you, his favourite scent.

Like Kuwabara he will offer you his jacket anytime and/or he will gently place it on your shoulders and just smile.

He is dying to tease you about it again, he lives for your embarrassed face!

So be prepared for more random questions or answers if someone's asks why you are wearing his clothes!

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Thank you for requsting! i hope this was of your liking!

[koalatysleep]

Large ripples from small stones, or Why my Yusuke is different from yours - the HUGE difference that translations & cultural context make to YYH canon!

I recently became aware of how much different dubs/translations of YYH changed the original Japanese dialogue/meaning when I stumbled across a great post by another fan who watched the anime in both the original Japanese dialogue and the American English dub, and that post highlighted some of the dialogue/meaning that the American English dub changed so that the characters / dialogue fit the American cultural expectations / way of speaking better, and that actually changes interpersonal dynamics between characters as well as the characters themselves, thus changing how we interpret them! I can't find that tumblr post now, so if anyone knows the tumblr post I'm referring to, please comment with the link! (It used Hiei and Kuwabara's interactions as its example).

That post lit a lightbulb in my head - because it explains just how different "canon" can be depending on which language & culture you consumed canon in, and why some headcanons / interpretations can seem quite OOC to some while appearing perfectly in-character to others! It's because we're basing our headcanons & interpretations on different canons & cultural contexts! (or we could be playing in sandboxes that are totally removed from canon, which is a perfectly legitimate way to enjoy art too!)

As an example of how different "canon" can be depending on the translation/cultural context, in this scene in Anime Episode 5 when Koenma asks what Yusuke plans to do if Keiko doesn't make it in time to resuscitate his body:

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The Japanese original dialogue is: "I can't make Keiko wait 50 years. If that happens, I'll give up with dignity."

(I google-translated the Japanese CC script below, if anyone reads Japanese, let me know if the Google translation is accurate!)

Coupled with the official Chinese Manga translations of the equivalent scene which has very similar dialogue to the Japanese CC dialogue from the anime, Yusuke is referring to how he'd give up on trying to come back to life, and just die cleanly now.

At this point in time we have to dive a little into the subtext of previous episodes in order to understand the meaning of this Japanese dialogue, because Japanese culture/verbal communication is VERY VERY SUBTLE, with A LOT of meaning left unsaid between words. Yup, Japanese verbal communication is itself very subtextual, same as YYH canon! So let's peel back the layers!

We saw in Anime Episode 1 itself how Yusuke had such a low self-esteem due to his distorted view of himself as a "good-for-nothing-fuck-up" which he internalized from the external world's treatment and view of him, that he genuinely believed his life was worthless, that he wouldn't amount to anything good even if he came back to life, and that it'd be better for everyone around him if he stayed dead! 😭

Which is why he was ready to stay dead even when Botan gave him the choice to come back to life!

At this scene in Anime Episode 5, while Yusuke is no longer as ready to give up on his own life as he was in Episode 1 (because he saw how much he meant to his mom, Kuwabara, Keiko, Takenaka, and the kid he saved during his wake), when he saw how his mom was still more preoccupied with getting drunk than care about him in this episode, and how Kuwabara wasn't receptive to kissing Yusuke*, Yusuke again felt like he doesn't mean much to the people around him, which is why Yusuke thinks if he still wants to return to life, he can only rely on Keiko to wait around another 50 years to resuscitate him, which obviously wouldn't work, thus Yusuke feels he can only give up on coming back to life and die cleanly now.

While this is indeed a very Yusuke thing to do - he doesn't do anything by halves! - this is still driven by Yusuke's emotional wound of feeling unwanted, unloved and worthless to the people he cares about! 😭 It's very true to life, because emotional wounds like Yusuke's doesn't just get resolved when you see people crying at your wake one time! Yusuke is likely thinking - they may be sad he's dead coz well he's dead, but they don't really care enough to want him to come back to life! 😭

*(I also think Yusuke saw Kuwabara screaming awake in terror after the romantic kiss that Yusuke projected into Kuwabara's dream.. The fact that Yusuke went to the arcade to tell Kuwa a second time to kiss him tells me that Yusuke saw Kuwa scream, and even before this arcade scene Yusuke already said he can't rely on Kuwa or his mom to resuscitate him so he already knew Kuwa wouldn't show based on his scream 😭😭 that must have hurt Yusuke too, because Yusuke obviously had subconscious romantic hopes with Kuwa as evident from the Freudian-slip of a romantic kiss he projected into Kuwa's mind, where Yusuke literally pictured himself as Sleeping Beauty and Kuwa as the Prince Charming who kissed him back to life! 🤣 But instead of reciprocating, Kuwa screamed in terror, denied the dream, and refused to acknowledge it even after spirit Yusuke tried to tell him a second time at the arcade 😭 This must have been romantically disappointing to say the least or felt like rejection at the worst, even if Yusuke's romantic hopes at this point in time with Kuwa were just nebulous subconscious desires! Thus this again makes Yusuke feel unwanted!)

But I digress! The point is - based on the Japanese original dialogue, we get the above interpretation of what's going on with Yusuke as a character - his emotional wound of feeling unwanted/unloved/worthless is not yet resolved, it's triggered when 2 out of the 3 people closest to him doesn't do anything to bring him back to life, and Yusuke feels that if Keiko is the only one who wants him to come back to life enough to do something about it, he's still ready to give up on his own life and just die cleanly now, rather than drag it out another 50 years.

In other words, this is not a romantic scene that confirms Yusuke's in love with Keiko, if anything it's a scene that confirms Yusuke is NOT in love with Keiko, because if she's the only one who wants him to come back to life, he would still give up on living! This scene is about who Yusuke is as a person, and what makes life worth living to him!

This scene in its original dialogue tells us VERY IMPORTANT things about Yusuke's character -- he only feels life is worth living if he has people he cares about in his life + he's loved by the people he cares about! Which is why in the episode when Keiko rushes into the house fire to save his body, he told Sayaka that it would be pointless for him to return to life if she dies, because for someone who's as made out of Love as Yusuke, there really is no point in him returning to life if it costs the life of one of the few people he cares about! I've been shouting to anyone who'd listen that Yusuke is actually entirely made out of Love, and this is more proof points of that!

Yusuke's emotional wound of feeling unwanted / unloved / worthless / and thus alone is also FUNDAMENTAL to his character arc in the rest of canon, especially during the Dark Tournament!!!! Without this scene and its meaning intact, it would totally change our interpretation of the rest of canon, especially the Dark Tournament which is ALL ABOUT Yusuke overcoming this emotional wound!!!

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If you watch the anime in the original Japanese audio track but with English subtitles, the dialogue and meaning becomes different in seemingly subtle but significant ways:

"I can't very well make Keiko wait 50 years. If that happens, I'll give her up like a man."

This seemingly small change makes a world of difference, because this phrasing "I'll give her up like a man" implies Yusuke is in love with Keiko, which the original Japanese dialogue doesn't!

If I were watching canon purely in this English subtitles, I would think Yusuke is revealing that he's in love with Keiko, which totally changes what this scene is about, as well as what the rest of canon means!

Based on this dialogue/meaning, I would think that Yusuke really is in love with Keiko, and my interpretation of Yusuke in the rest of canon would go from the Japanese original "Gay and in love with Kuwa, but whose found family sibling Keiko complicates matters coz she's in love with him", to this version's "Bi and falls in love with Kuwa, but was previously sorta in love with Keiko"!

When I first watched the anime in this English subtitles, I was hella confused by the rest of canon after the revival arc was done 🤣, because I was blinded by my heteronormative expectations into thinking Yusuke really is in love with Keiko, and that wasn't helped by translations like this which changed the meaning of the original scene, which made this scene incongruent / inconsistent with the rest of canon which shows us Yusuke is in love with Kuwa!

I was like "hmmm?? Why the inconsistencies between what he says and what he actually feels? Why does he seem to be crystal clear he's not in love with Keiko, but he says something else? Even though he obviously knows he's in love with Kuwa?" And thus my interpretation of this version of canon can change to "bi- or gay-struggle to accept his own sexual orientation", which is very different from the Japanese original canon where Yusuke has always been crystal clear about his romantic feelings and didn't actually have issues accepting that internally, he just wasn't sure whether it was reciprocated by Kuwa or not!!

And thus the headcanons and fanworks we create would be completely different depending on which canon we got!

Of course, Japanese canon also had to keep the dialogue ambiguous enough that heteronormative audiences can read Yusuke as in love with Keiko easily, coz canon had to hide the Kuwameshi love story under the misdirection of Keiko as the romantic love interest, which is why even the original Japanese dialogue is deliberately vague so it can play into mainstream audience's heteronormative assumptions, but still, it doesn't imply Yusuke is in love with Keiko like this "give her up like a man" phrasing does, because the scene in its original Japanese meaning is about Yusuke's emotional wound, not his romantic love interest.

This English subtitles also doesn't tell us anything about Yusuke's fundamental emotional wound, which is what's driving his character arc in the rest of canon, especially the Dark Tournament!!

Like, it took me SO LONG before I figured out what the Dark Tournament was actually about in terms of Yusuke's character arc okay! 🤣🤣 I had to re-watch the entire anime before I got it! 🤣🤣

We begin to see what a world of difference subtle changes in translations & cultural context makes! Large ripples from small stones!

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Now if you watch the anime in the American English dub, the dialogue/meaning becomes even more different:

"The only thing I can do. Wait around another fifty years. Then I'll go see Keiko when she's an old hag."

Okay first of all, I love how the American English Dub doesn't change the scene to a romantic one that implies Yusuke is in love with Keiko! I also love the way Yusuke refers to Keiko as "an old hag" 🤣🤣, which is thoroughly sibling-coded rather than romantically-coded 🤣🤣🤣. Which can explain why a lot of my fellow fans who watched canon in this dub read Keiko as Yusuke's sibling way earlier than I did! Thank goodness I eventually caught on though! Giggle!!!

While I love that the American English dub doesn't change the meaning of this scene to a romantic one, it nonetheless changes Yusuke's character in significant ways -- in this version, Yusuke doesn't have the emotional wound of feeling unwanted/unloved/worthless anymore, he's suddenly so over this fundamental emotional wound that he will hold onto his life even if he has to wait 50 years as a spirit in a pretty meaningless existence, even though it seemed to him like nobody apart from Keiko cares enough about him returning to life! 😅

And thus based on this version of canon, my read of Yusuke would again completely change from the Japanese original of "Appears confident and uncomplicated on the surface, but actually has a deep inner self that's very different from his external facade and has a tender aching heart that he hides from the world", to this version of Yusuke who seems to be "Really as uncomplicated as he appears on the surface, no hidden emotional wounds or tender achy feelings inside" 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

And thus we see how the headcanons and fanworks we create would again be completely different, depending on which version of canon we're basing it on!!

Like I said, large ripples from small stones!

And while I'm more than happy if Yusuke really has overcome this fundamental emotional wound in just a few short episodes that didn't actually give him enough learning opportunities to overcome this wound, it makes this scene incongruent with the rest of canon (especially the Dark Tournament), which is ALL ABOUT Yusuke overcoming this emotional wound!!!

Having said that, perhaps the rest of the American English dub in other scenes/episodes down the line establish Yusuke's emotional wound in other ways, which would bring his character arc back in sync with what the Dark Tournament's all about!

ANYWAY, the point of this post isn't to compare "canons" to see which one is "better". The point is - we've already seen for ourselves how even "canon" itself can be totally different (or even internally inconsistent with itself) depending on which translation/cultural context we consume it in, so if you come across another fan's headcanon/interpretation which seems OOC to you, it might just be that their canon was in a different language/cultural context from yours, OR their canon contains subtext that your canon doesn't, OR they noticed subtext you didn't, OR their canon's translations contained inconsistencies, OR it might be that they're playing in a different sandbox that's quite far removed from canon itself, which is still a perfectly legitimate way to enjoy art too!

We're lucky that the YYH fandom is by and large a very nice tolerant fandom which gives people space to interpret canon however they want even if there's supposedly "no canon evidence" for it, because this is art, art is supposed to give us the space to imagine and create, it doesn't have to be so serious, and we can all play in our respective sandboxes even if it really is totally removed from canon!

So I guess what I'm saying is - if you get your kicks by basing your enjoyment on canon like I do, there're plenty of "canons" to geek out over ❤️❤️, and if you get your kicks by playing around with the characters in ways that are totally removed from canon, that's perfectly fine as well! We can all still get along, because that's what ART IS ALL ABOUT, it gives us space to enjoy it in whatever ways float our boats! :D

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As for why this post is tagged Kuwameshi, well that's coz I personally get my kicks from deciphering canon's subtext, and I'm so obsessive about it I'm even considering learning Japanese language so I can read/watch canon in its purest form without the risk of anything getting lost in translation🤣🤣, coz deciphering canon to me is an exciting fun adventure where I get to unearth buried treasures that have been hidden in plain sight more than 30 years ago by Togashi and Anime Studio Pierrot, and every time I discover something new I jump and scream like a mad person with SHEER UNADULTERATED EXCITEMENT AND JOY, and since the Kuwameshi Love Story is at the HEART OF EVERYTHING IN YYH, I literally cannot talk about YYH without screaming about Kuwameshi!!!

As I've mentioned before in metas / replies to comments of various fellow fans, on my first watch of the anime, I was still shipping Yusuke with Keiko coz I was blinded by heteronormative expectations (& also confused by translations which were not consistent with what canon shows), but I was SO DISSATISFIED shipping Yusuke with Keiko coz I could sense all the ways in which Yusuke is actually not romantically interested in Keiko, just that I couldn't explicitly put my finger on it at that point in time, so much so that I watched the whole anime again looking for clues and found Kuwameshi instead! GIGGLE! 

I kid you not, canon's subtext is guaranteed to blow your mind, to paraphrase a Dua Lipa song ;P

Come scream about them with me on my Kuwameshi Meta series on AO3 if you wanna see what I mean!!! 🥹🥹🌈🌈🐦🐦👌👌

SPECIAL SHOUT OUT TO @sadique-angel coz the buried treasure analogy is a chef's kiss analogy from you!!!! I HAVE SO MUCH FUN gushing about canon and discovering hidden treasures with you that honestly I might just tag you in all my meta about YYH in future!!!! 🤣🤣🙌🙌📸🤿🤠🤩😍

[emeraldspiral]

My hot take on YYH Netflix is that normally condensing a story this drastically would not work at all, but YYH is kind of a special case because Togashi very obviously was making things up as he went along and it takes quite a while for YYH to settle on what the story actually is.

Like, if you just saw the first episode you'd probably think the show is about Yusuke's ghost shenanigans and the story's over when he comes back to life. They spent a whole four episodes on it in the anime, and that's after cutting out a lot more issues from the manga. But there's not a lot that happened while Yusuke was a ghost that's of any consequence to the rest of the story, and anything that was, like Kuwabara becoming a good student, didn't need Yusuke to be a ghost in order to happen. Like, while he's a ghost he learns ghost abilities like being able to possess people or talk to them in their dreams, but when he comes back to life he doesn't retain any ghost powers like Danny Phantom, he gets completely different abilities that he only learns about after coming back to life.

So it really doesn't feel like we missed out on anything by having Yusuke get resurrected right away and establishing the threat of demons invading the world from the beginning and having that be the reason Koenma wanted to resurrect him, rather than introducing all of that only after Yusuke came back to life. It doesn't feel rushed, it just feels like it knows what the point is and gets to it.

The story also doesn't really dally around with the idea of Yusuke doing actual detective work, which also gets abandoned pretty quicky in the managa/series. He doesn't get any gadgets or get assigned a bunch of different cases that all just end up being a gauntlet for him to fight through, he pretty much just has the one big case. I think combining the Three Thieves arc with the Rescue Yukina arc is actually a significant improvement for the story. Cause like, originally the Thieves arc was just a vehicle to introduce Kurama, but then Hiei ended up becoming a regular character too and his appearance in that arc was totally inconsistent with everything established about him later. It makes so much more sense for his motive for participating in the heist to be his sister, rather than wanting to take over the world with an army of demon slaves. It also doesn't feel like we lost anything of value by cutting out the 4 Saint Beasts arc when helping Hiei rescue his sister is a much better motive for him to cooperate and bond with the others than Hiei just being forced to do community service. It also eliminates that awkwardness of Hiei kidnapping Yusuke's girlfriend and trying to turn her into his demon slave and then being instantly forgiven by Yusuke the next time they meet and never addressing it again.

Where I feel like it went too far was bringing in the Dark Tournament stuff. Having Yusuke drop everything to go train with Genkai for a whole month in the middle of a case while Hiei apparently makes no progress toward finding his sister just didn't make any sense. We didn't get to know Yusuke well enough to really understand how much growth he had to go through to earn Genkai's spirit wave or what emotional barriers he needed to overcome to beat Toguro. We didn't get to know Genkai long enough for her death to hit as hard as it should. We didn't get to see enough of Yusuke and Kuwabara's bond to understand why it made more sense to kill him instead of Keiko in order to motivate Yusuke. We didn't get as much build-up for the opponents the fab four would be facing and things like Kurama's fox form and Hiei's dragon are just there and not things that that were built up as their only desperate options to have even the slimmest chance of survival.

It really feels like a shame that they didn't go with the original ending of the Rescue Yukina arc where the Toguros took a dive on Sakyo's orders. Like, if they were worried about not getting a second season, the story already had a perfectly satisfying conclusion that you can just accept as an ending as long as nothing else comes afterward to tell you the bad guys are still alive. But Toguro, Bui, and Karasu are all clearly unambiguously dead by the end of the Netflix series and all the important plot points about Toguro and Genkai's past has already been put out there, so there's no way to go back on that and do the Dark Tournament proper with a more fleshed out story and fan-favorite characters now.

Hypothetically, if there were more seasons though, because the vast majority of the series is already covered and there's really only two arcs left that are too distinctly separated to be combined I could see a season 2 and a season 3 that adapt Chapter Black and the Makai arcs in a way that's more satisfying.

Like, S2E1 could cover just the House of 4 Dimensions, ending with the reveal that Genkai has been brought back to life, or at least can contact the living world in order to continue Yusuke's training and prepare him for what's coming.

S2E2 would be Yusuke and the gang looking for Sensui and his goons and we'd get the battle with Doctor in the A plot and Kuwabara's battle with Seaman in the B plot.

S2E3 would be Seaman's backstory and revelations about who Sensui is and what he's trying to accomplish. Kuroko could maybe be introduced here to fill in some of the exposition gaps. The episode would end with Sensui finally appearing and kidnapping Kuwabara, with Sniper foiling Yusuke's attempt to rescue him.

S2E4 would be Seaman taking the gang into the tunnel, Game Master would be skipped over and we'd get straight into Yusuke vs Sensui, ending with Yusuke's death.

S2E5 would be Kuwabara, Kurama, and Hiei breaking out of containment to avenge Yusuke and Yusuke awakening to defeat Sensui, only for Spirit World to suddenly turn on him once they realize he's related to Raizen. The season would end on a cliffhanger with Yusuke being forced to go on the run into demon world.

S3E1 would then open with Yusuke already in Demon World, wandering around until he eventually finds Raizen. Meanwhile back in the human and Spirit Worlds everyone is dealing with the fallout and the episode ends with Hiei and Kurama being summoned/deported to Demon World.

S3E2 would be Hiei and Mukuro's stories.

S3E2 would be Kurama and Yomi's stories, with Kuronue from the movie thrown in there as well.

S3E3 since we skipped the Dark Tournament we can't have Kurama recruiting old opponents under the guise that they'd be serving Yomi only to turn the tables and reveal that they're all loyal to Yusuke. And besides, it was kind of a waste in the original series to set Kurama, Hiei, and Yusuke up on opposing sides and then just instantly resolve the conflict by having Yusuke propose a free-for-all that everyone gets on board with. This could be a great opportunity to have some actual conflict between the three with Yusuke fearing what the other two Kings would do with total control of Demon World, Kurama not wanting to work for Yomi but having to pretend like he does, and Hiei not knowing what he wants.

S3E4 would see the three kingdoms go to war, until Yusuke and his friends learn about Spirit World's plot to pit them all against each other to further their own control of Demon World and convince the kings to set aside their differences and unite to battle Spirit World.

S3E5 would see Spirit World defeated and King Enma overthrown and replaced with Koenma. New policies would be put in place respecting the Demon World's right to self-govern and allow its citizens to travel between worlds. Yusuke and Kurama would finally be able to return home to their loved ones while Hiei would stay in Demon World to be with Mukuro.

[glowingbadger]

My favs of my work let's go

Okay this might be weird but while I'm so busy with other projects and sort of letting my writing battery recharge (getting small things done here and there but not stressing about it overly), I wanted to reshare some of my personal favs of my own work, just to like, idk... hype myself up and congratulate myself for once lmao. We creatives need to be a bit self-indulgent from time to time.

So yeah, if you're bored while I get my shit together and write again, maybe take a peak at these, or wander around my masterlists in my pinned post for something I might have done in the past for a fav of yours.

FE3H

Lorenz & Ignatz & Reader threesome - starting with what I suspect will be a trend with these because I'm a contrarian at heart, so when I realize a character I love isn't popular, I double and triple down and become determined to write them the hot, hot smut they deserve

Claude - Arranged Marriage - I really enjoyed doing an AU, and I'd def love to do more of them in the future. Plus Claude is the most fun and interesting of the main lords fight me about it.

Lorenz - Arranged Marriage - okay last Lorenz one but........ I'm just saying, he's a good boy y'all just can't acknowledge a glow-up when you see one.

Felix & Sylvain & Reader threesome - this is a short one but I just love the vibe and the dynamic between these lads it was so fun to write.

Seteth - Guilty Masturbation - I'm just such a sucker for repressed men dealing with their persistent lusts sorry not sorry

Seteth - Reader gets Aphrodesiac'd - okay I'm happy with this piece but also it holds a special place in my heart because for some reason, the porn bots are CONSTANTLY liking this thing specifically and I have no earthly idea why, they're just drawn to it.

Okay just one more Seteth thing it's the Priest x Succubus one - which I'm super happy with and I still sometimes think about writing a continuation for it because priest kink goes brrrrrrrrr

Things other than FE3H

Volke (FE 9/10) messy hookup - Volke is such an absolute man and it was such a joy to have an excuse to write him. Fandoms as a whole need to thirst for more sexy grown ass adults.

Reyson (FE 9/10) in heat - though this is kind of tied with the in heat one I did about Tibarn, which I also love. Bird men in heat..... that's what's up.

Kaeya (Genshin) w/ praise kink - Kaeya def remains my Genshin fav, and no amount of "Hoyo finally figuring out how to model an adult male body years into the game's run" will change that.

Luxord (Kingdom Heart) consensual non-con - it's just so rare that I get to write for my Org XIII lovelies and it's just so fun to write sex dialogue for such a resolutely sexless series lmao

Kurama (YYH) giving oral - I've written quite a lot for Kurama at this point (on here, mostly shorter drabbles and headcanons) and it's still always a pleasure, and I'm particularly fond of the subtle playfulness in this piece.

OCs! Shaeliegh and Terry - angsty hookup - I had SO much fun writing OC stuff for once and it's totally fine that others aren't as inclined to be into it, but I personally think it's some of my best work and enjoy rereading it frequently~

[tackyink]

Convention haul! There wasn't barely any BG3 merch and the only thing I was interested in was gone before I found the artist's table. Still, my poor wallet...

First is the last volume of a very cute fanzine I've been reading for years, two Ace Attorney prints and a DS charm with the least heterosexual lawyers ever, all by the Wonderpun folks, Paula and Diego, who I barely see once a year for five minutes but are really lovely and funny people. They are exquisite pun artists and regale us with fanzines solely dedicated to them, not to mention the constant stream Diego posts on Twitter. They also make assorted merch for Pokémon, Ace Attorney, Yakuza, Resident Evil... There's a ton, check them out yourselves. Here's their online shop. All the JJK stuff is from an artist that didn't include any kind of business card and now I can't send you to his social media. OTL The print and Geto charm are for a friend.

As if this were exonerating at all, I feel I should stress that the fanzine and all its extras were already paid for because I joined the crowdfunding campaign this summer.

I also picked up a cheap set of dice and Fire Emblem cipher cards because you know, it's been a long time since I spent any real money at a convention. Prices are inflated, you can buy everything off the internet nowadays, and I had left the Artist Alley pretty unscathed, so I knew I wasn't going to spend much more.

Then I found a retro videogames stand with Japanese imports. They had Vita games. Japanese otome Vita games.

THEY HAD THE ONE HAKOUKI GAME I'VE WANTED TO GET FOR 10 YEARS WHAT THE HELL

They also had Amnesia World for the same price and I thought about going back for it if I didn't spend a lot the following three days.

One shop had a bunch of YYH figures, including two I'd never seen of Hiei and Kurama that put together replicate the cover page of the Two Shots chapter, and sent a video to a friend who's a huge Hiei fan but couldn't make it to the con to ask if I should get it for her. She took three days to make a decision. More on this later.

After this, we found a place that sold vintage haori and I kind of fell in love at first sight with one. The sign said they were 30€ and up, but I have a vintage silk haori with some damage on the sleeves and that one was already 50€. I'd never seen one in good condition for less than 60€. Knowing that the price would be way out my budget, I asked anyway.

It was just 30€.

Excuse the shitty picture, but !!!! Those cranes!!! The lining!!!!!

And remember the lady who ran out of her stand to do my hair? This below was the result. 10/10 marketing tactic.

At this point I'm repeating over and over inside my head "This is fine" like the dog from the meme. I'm getting extra pay this month, no harm done, it's not like I spend money the rest of the year. This is it, I've already seen the entire venue, I'm immune to temptation, I'm probably not getting that second game. <-this is not foreshadowing

Before calling it a day, I asked my friends to try and find again the retro games shop to remember exactly where it was in case I wanted to go back, because the next days were going to be much busier and it's always difficult to move with so many people.

Turns out on the way there there was another import shop I had glossed over because it sold mostly trading cards and CDs, but I went to look at the table anyway because haha what's the harm you already know where this is going. (⊙x⊙;)

The harm was basically half the recent group discography of Quartet Night. ಥ_ಥ They were pretty cheap, but I painted over the price because I'm still embarrassed and pissed, why the hell did I have to look. I am now the not so proud owner of the Quartet Night single where they dressed the idols as bullfighters without shirts and I can't even be angry about it because the song was good. Look at this. The second hand embarrassment is killing me. Anyway! Not getting the game for sure.

The next two days passed without any further damages to my wallet, which were admittedly quickly forgotten as soon as I got tackled by the girl I totally don't have a crush on when she saw me dressed as Hancock and whose dinner I paid for only because she treated us to a lot of places when we visited her city this summer. That night, before the last day, I had to insist to my home-bound friend to make up her mind already because I couldn't be glued to the phone while wearing cosplay, pushing a wheelchair and socializing with people I only see twice a year.

I'd decided the first day I'd get the Kurama figure only if she told me to get her a Hiei as well. She sent me a text past 12 AM saying she wanted it. In the morning I receive a message from the friends I was arriving to the venue with every day saying that after three days they cannot fucking move and are tapped out. I cannot fucking move either because Hancock's shoes destroyed my feet, but I go anyway, as soon as I can, because I'm a woman on a mission to retrieve a friend's husbando.

I went straight to the shop before joining up with anybody else and the Hiei figure was gone from the display case, along with another Hiei, the only Kuwabara and one Kurama. Mission failed. I asked one of the sellers about the Kurama one and she told me all except the one on display were sold out, so there was no box, and it was for the best because I was able to store him inside my bag. Here he is. I'm jealous of his sweater.

After that, I joined my totally-not-a-crush for the rest of the morning and went to a panel where they gave us a bit of sake and Kobe beef while we waited for our other friends. The rest of the day went well, we saw a lot of people and said goodbye to everyone, and instead of going to the Korean BBQ place we had planned, the remaining four of us moved the dinner to the sandwich/pizza/crepe place across the street from our incapacitated friends.

I am now taking a vow of poverty until April.

[maiji]

[images: First three pages of a comic drawn in a digital ink-brush style with greyscaleshading.]

fight / flight: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 Alt text, full transcript and commentary continue below the cut.

A YYH North Bound story. This takes place after I Heard A Cicada Cry and Survive.

Content warning: Violence, people fighting with swords. Blood and injuries in future parts.

[images: Remaining five pages of comic.]

[page 1] *Text reads: "fight / flight - a North Bound story by Maiji." Opening panel depicts a moonlit site in a forest. Hokushin is grooming a horse. He detects a new presence. The horse grows nervous.* Hokushin: (It’s not one of the new recruits.) ?: Don’t waste time pretending. I know what you are.

[page 2] *Otake, as he appears at the end of I Heard A Cicada Cry, leans against a tree, arms folded.* Otake: You’ve killed many humans. Devoured many more. *Hokushin turns his head, but says nothing. The horse nervously skitters off.* Otake: Not going to defend yourself? ‘“I did only as my master bid! I must eat humans to survive!”

[page 3] Hokushin: You’re not human either. Why do you care? Otake: Very perceptive. What gave me away? Hokushin: Nothing. Thank you for confirming. *Otake twitches*

[page 4] Otake: Unlike you, I serve a greater power. A power commanding life and death itself, that watches over this sinful, lost human world. A power a pitiful demon like yourself has the rare opportunity to serve, *he holds something up to show Hokushin, causing Hokushin's eyes to widen in shock* if you answer my questions about this Mirror. Hokushin: How did you convince the monks to unseal the Mirror? Otake: Convince? So many are casualties of war these days. Hokushin: …What do you want to know? Otake: Certain conditions must be fulfilled in order to access its powers. I must know what they are so that I can inform my master.

[page 5] Hokushin: And if I tell you, you’ll spare my life or something like that? Otake: It will be considered. Hokushin: Fair enough. I will tell you all I know. *The two of them stare at each other in silence* Otake: I am waiting. Hokushin: *smiling and shrugging* Alas, I have no idea what the conditions are. Why don’t you ask the Mirror yourself? *Multiple veins pulse on Otake’s forehead*

[page 6] Otake: *draws his sword as he speaks; Hokushin’s face reflected in the blade* No matter. The power I serve sees no future for vermin that terrify and corrupt the vulnerable creatures of this realm. Your head will be good enough to show my master.

[page 7] Otake: *raises his sword over his head* I am Otake and I serve Enma Daioh!

[page 8] *The perspective flips to Hokushin also rapidly drawing his sword* Otake: Now stand your ground and fight for your life, demon!!

...

And now we shall enjoy a nice indeterminate break until I figure out how to choreograph the rest of this fight!! Action sequences will be the death of me. At least there’s no suspense in the end result, since we know they both must survive this encounter in order to be able to appear in Yu Yu Hakusho!!

Otake has finally caught up with Hokushin, after picking up the Mirror of Darkness from the temple that Hokushin left it in at the end of Mirror Most Dark. I estimate here they’re both around 100 years in age, and neither of them are anything close to the powerhouses they’ll be by the modern era.

I’ve been plotting fight / flight for a long time because I wanted an opportunity to draw a cool fight sequence for Hokushin. (He has one with Raizen in the first North Bound comic I ever drew, First Meeting, but it wasn't much of a fight. Also, it's been a few years; hopefully I have developed my skills somewhat, so now is the time to try again!) It turned into “well why don’t I have him fight Otake” after I managed to work Otake into the story, then I had to actually make proper narrative connections and give it consequences for the trajectory of North Bound. I kept intimidating myself while trying to work on it, periodically doing some script work and test drawings to try to psych myself up. You might recall the drawing tests I posted a while back here. I mentioned in that post that at one point I debated making this a visual novel (possibly interactive fiction) format, but also felt that was a copout to my shounen manga roots. The title is actually a tide-over from when I was considering that.

Aside from the actual still-to-come fight sequence, I struggled with resolving some pretty big considerations like, uh, where this encounter actually takes place?? And how to end it without one of them dying?? But in early October 2022 I went for a walk and then took a shower and an inkling transformed into a fleshed-out solution. Go walks and showers and subconsciousness magic!!! Then I continued to struggle on and off for months being too scared to deal with the action. Finally over the holidays I figured I might as well just flesh out the first part to light a fire under my own butt and inch along to the next part! This took about three days to thumbnail, sketch, draw and clean up on the computer, but there was a lot of time... months, years of behind-the-scenes work to make these three days possible...

I have some photos of the thumbnails and wip saves of the page sketches, so I’ll make a separate post with those. But one last thing I wanted to note is that I am really really proud of the speed lines on the last page with Hokushin! They’re far from perfect but I think they’re my best radiating speed lines to date! I manually eyeballed and drew them all individually because that’s all I know how to do, hahaha. The vertical/horizontal ones are easier since I know to hit Shift to force them to stay straight, lol.

Update: A post showing the thumbnails and page sketches for part 1 is available here! https://www.tumblr.com/maiji/705344009349005312/fight-flight-part-1-thumbnails-and-page

[uozlulu]

I watched episodes 3 and 4 tonight. I'd watch 5 too but alas it is almost midnight. Anyway, here are some thoughts and spoilers

Knowing that this is kind of a speed run where almost all the arcs are happening simultaneously, I really liked how episode 3 got Kuwabara to the training arc and I liked how it decided to take Yusuke vs. Hiei in a different direction than what happens in canon

I liked that Keiko got to do things in episode 4 and also got to bond with Yukina. I also loved Kuwabara gazing at Yukina the first time he saw her like a weirdo but luckily for all involved an endearing weirdo (that's my boi).

I totally knew Kuwabara was going ot have to fight one of those CGI monsters because it was making noises that made me think of Byakko. It's a shame that we're skipping the Four Symbols entirely but I can see why they're unnecessary to this version of the story.

I also like how episodes 3 and 4 carried the threads from episodes 1 and 2 since this is a speed run and sometimes speed runs speed so fast they forget to set up the narrative they're trying to tell properly.

That said, I think episodes 3 and 4 suffered from the weaknesses of episodes 1 and 2 more than 1 and 2 did.

It makes me sad that Botan never gets to kick any ass or be properly goofy. There's apparently no time for either.

It also makes me sad to see Team Toguro vs. Team Urameshi outside of the Dark Tournament and for Genkai to last only a single episode. Not that I'd necessarily want to sit through a full length live action Dark Tournament, but we're going so fast that character arcs are falling by the wayside. Also it gives the audience who might be new to YYH no time to bond with Genkai before she's killed off. Part of what makes Togashi one of the top mangaka is what he gives his characters to do and how he transforms his characters. By lumping everything together and having it take place over what seems to be a few months, we're cutting out a lot of what makes YYH an enduring story even almost thirty years after it ended its manga and anime runs. Again, I wish they'd gotten ten instead of five episodes to give everything some breathing room and let us care about the characters and situations more, but alas.

All in all I'm still enjoying myself even if I wish that this adaptation had been allowed to have as much breathing room as that 11 episode Death Note drama from 2015. It'll be interesting to see how they wrap all of this up in the final episode when I watch it tomorrow night.

[fruiteggsaladit]

Brain going brrr a yyh fan may speak at length on how Keiko and Kuwabara are parallels of a close and romantically coded bond with Yusuke and from there speak on how the two may mirror each other with Yusuke as the plane of glass and metal, but who will speak on how Yusuke and Yukina are parallels of a romantically coded bond with Kuwabara?? And could therefore be parallels too!

Something something about needing to take care of yourself when you're at your most vulnerable and need to forgive yourself for having vulnerabilities with Yusuke needing to accept Puu, only for Toguro to pull Yusuke two steps back from that huge leap in self-acceptance because he doesn't want Yusuke at his personal best, he wants an executioner that mirrors his own past self, overlaid over the scene of Yukina's birds being crushed* before her own eyes when she had decided she wasn't going to "allow" Tarukane to benefit from her pain anymore and then she was forced into doing so anyway. And Toguro tells her to train herself to cry**

Something something Yusuke speaking with Kuroko the first SD and when she expresses that humans are inherently good, Yusuke thinks out loud that he thinks some humans are fine to kill and Kuroko interprets that in the most bad faith way possible, and Yukina telling Hiei she thinks that if a society is made up of cold-hearted people then those people should die only to seemingly give up when he tells her that she shouldn't rely on her brother when it might be more likely that she was exaggerating for the sake of hearing his opinion (you think a character can lie in a narrative without the narrator stating that they are lying? No, not possible, surely...)

Something something Yukina apparently leaving Hyouga to seek her brother for greater understanding and/or assistance of power... when this was a story initially told by Koenma, who we know by the end of canon has lied and omitted significant information from Yusuke and the others before, why wouldn't he now? And it's some time before we see Yukina again, having apparently returned to Hyouga after the rescue, surely enough time for Yukina to potentially have heard what "the official story" from the Spirit Office is and adjusting her story from there when she tells it to Shizuru, Botan, and Keiko. ... And Yusuke, who is forced to leave Earth because of his new status as a Mazoku distantly related to one of the Demon Kings, and chooses to leave before he strictly needs to be escorted from there in the hope that he'll return sooner if he does.

* Yukina's birds being crushed: Interesting, because Toguro comes across as someone who knows how to torture someone? He has a whole company of individual people who want him dead because he seeks someone "who will give him a worthy fight" (fucking liar if he meant that he would have settled for forcing Genkai to fight him or if it had to be Yusuke, he could have issued an invitation when Yusuke was an adult and not fourteen years old! This man pisses me off! I digress!); at many points he's fought a person and then left them alive so they'll return to him in the hope of revenge, even inviting them into this silly company so he can keep easier track of them and they of him.

I said I digress and then I lost my tangent!! My point was that if this man seems well-versed in torture and using a person's loved ones against them for a goal he has in mind, why kill all the available birds at once? The anime sticks to two birds, the manga has three and may be implied to be more than that, but I feel like he could have said "kill one" or "leave the other/rest alive" to use them again. By murdering the birds all at once, this was just one instance of getting Yukina to cry, when Tarukane has asked for a way to make her cry again, implicitly not just once.

** And Toguro tells her to train herself to cry: Where are the yyh-fans w daddy issues on this topic, one would think they'd eat this part up! An initial first-time reading of this could be that he's telling her to harden her heart because he feels for her and the only advice he knows is to turn oneself into a killing machine as a response to grief. This is annoying to me bc that's far more sympathy for Toguro than I feel he deserves (I hate this man! He's an effective antagonist in that way). Also, it just makes Yukina yet again into a reactive subject?

Idk, all I know is that I had the thought the other day that Toguro hadn't seen or fought Yusuke yet at that point, and had the following thought of "What if Toguro intended to have Yukina join his stupid evil lackey company bc he saw something in her that reminded him of himself" (namely: the determination not to let herself be harmed; the inability to protect her loved ones in spite of that determination; finally, the despair that washed over her following it). Also notable, is that Tarukane stole Yukina from Sakyo. One can wonder what would have happened if Yusuke and the others hadn't arrived when they did: I think the original plan in-narrative by Sakyo was to re-capture Yukina from Tarukane. And I think Toguro considered Yukina for being an executioner candidate. Aaah this might not be a very radical theory out there but I see so few speculations about canon that isn't "who would win" or "whats the best ship" or "kurama: demon and human but mostly demon" or "hiei my comfort gremlin".

[the-blind-geisha]

Questions about OCs and stuff

You can find the original file here! I reblogged it super late at night.

Gonna fill this one out myself, because it looked fun!

OC questions:

* Who was your first ever OC? Do you still “use” them? How have they evolved over time?

Oreana was my first ever OC, and yes I do! She evolved from me wanting to write myself in with my favorite fixations to becoming her own actual character.

I could tell as a character she wanted to have the princess title removed, but I refused since I wanted that to be another obstacle for her. XD

2. Who is your newest OC? Why did you make them?

Asther Thyme, my goat OC was one I bought on toyhouse, but newest one made by me is Demiurge turned into a jackal.

I bought the goat because I am trying to rethink about this old idea of mine I wrote years ago as a kid that had more furries in it than humans. Demiurge turning into a jackal was just originally for fun but he stayed after awhile.

3. Biggest self-insert OC?

Oreana. XD; While she's come a long ass way since then, I still feel the parts of me that are in her.

4.What kind of music do your OCs listen to?

There's too many to list. Oreana just likes anything with a good beat, and Ignatius and Demiurge prefer instrumental.

5. What are some of your OCs biggest fears?

Oreana: being used again Ignatius: enduring loss again Demiurge: the loss of himself

Demona: never returning home

Cheshire: Demiurge ever getting his Creator's love when he feels he doesn't deserve it.

6. Do you have any OCs without stories? Will you ever create one for them?

Yuna, Asther, Elasha, and Haruka. Their Toyhouse bios aren't even filled in yet, because I don't know what to do. XD;

And yes, they will! I just have to get my ideas all together first.

7. What are your favourite relationships between your OCs? (romantic or platonic!)

Romantic, mainly because of the lack of love in my life. XD;

8. Do you have any OC family trees?

Oreana does have parents and 2 brothers—as well as an ancestor I can't get into because that's spoilery, and Ignatius has a twin brother.

9. Favourite OC?

It bounces from Oreana, Ignatius, to Demiurge.

10. OC you most struggled to make?

Ignatius. In fact, he went through a redesign about a year—er two years—ago. He originally was just going to look very much like a guy from YYH I loved but a naga, till I decided to make him more like an amalgamation of characters and ideas I loved. Doing that was so much so for the better. As I don't have to feel fixated on the one canon character to be fixated on him.

Fanfic questions:

11. * Sum up one or more of your wips!

Werewolf professor in a fantasy styled Victorian London looks to try and quell the fear over the werewolf curse. It's a commission so I can't really plop too much of it down.

12. Which story took the most research?

Anything from Assassin's Creed. Especially the Victorian London ones regarding brothels, tuberculosis, opium dens, and factories.

Don't get me started on the sex stuff... since that was considered 'prudish', it feels nearly lost to time.

13. Which story has the most lore?

Uuuh... A Love Most Profound and or The Demon King of the Desert, depending what you mean. Both spoke of their beliefs and even had rough outlines of their worlds.

14. Current word count of all your main wips?

I don't think I have any active yet since I'm on vacation.

15. How many projects do you have going on right now? Are there any that you doubt you’ll ever finish?

I have my private journal

A private personal story

In Another Life, We Could Have Been Lovers

Amnesia: A Dreamer's Requiem

An Empty Heart Full of Memories

The Devil After Midnight

The Devil's Tome

Within the Dream Temptation

The Princess and the Dove

I am not sure. I would like to get through all of these, but it's doubtful.

16. What was you first major project? How far along is it?

I guess The Devil's Contract would be considered that. And it's done now at 50 chapters. I was quite happy to have it finished.

17. What are some tropes and character dynamics found in your wips?

Slow burn, soulmates, and just romantic stuff.

18. Describe the setting of one or more of your wips

Horror fantasy of who is doing what and what is happening under the OC's nose, Victorian werewolf fantasy, and murder fantasy with a bit of reincarnation? I guess we'll say.

19. What are some things that inspired your stories? Real events? Maybe a dream?

Dreams more than anything, and if not those, anything I play or watch. Even The Demon King had elements of LOZ in it.

20. What story are you the proudest of? Why?

The Demon King of the Desert. It helped me come to terms with a bit more online trauma, and it seemed to touch a few folks. So I'm happy with it.

About me questions:

21. * When did you start considering yourself a writer/artist?

Artist, I always felt I was one. In fact, I was quite upset when I got online and people preferred my writing over my art. XD But I came to terms with it after awhile. Heck, I realize when I blend the two, people enjoy both.

Writing started to happen the more I wrote stories on websites, and folks came to love them or use them as a means to shoulder through a tough time in their life.

22. What are all the “kinds” of writing/art you do? (short stories, poetry, screenplays, digital, painting, clay, etc.)

I do short stories, poetry, digital art, traditional art too at some points—and sing as well as (kind of) play the piano.

23. Are you in any writer/artist groups? (Ex: discord server!)

Sadly, not really. I get nervous to spread my works to places I'm not comfortable in. But I've heard joining discord servers is a good idea.

24. Do you have/want a career in your medium? If not, what do you do/want to do instead? I would love to publish a book or do a comic of some sort. How I'll go about that, I have zero clue.

25. What’s your favourite genre to write? Is it also your favourite genre to read?

Fantasy and or romance. I prefer to read fantasy over reading romance. I only write romance because of the trauma in my life.

26. What are your favourite books?

The Maze Runner and The Last Unicorn.

27. What are your favourite movies?

The Last Unicorn,Watership Down, and now The Super Mario Brothers Movie (I've watched it like 4 times since I bought it lol).

28. Favourite songs at the moment?

Moonlight Shadow (original artist Mike Oldfield but any artist will do), The Secret of Monkey Island intro melody, and Tombi from Trigun.

29. What was your first fandom you were in? Did you make any art/fanfic for it?

Ronin Warriors, and yes, I wrote and drew for it but ALL that stuff is now archived and lost to time. Lol Well, only gone from the net, really. I still have it offline.

[aizenat]

I’m kinda in a pissy mood because 1) my period is coming and I’m annoyingly horny (hormones, make more sense) but mostly because 2) I had to Uber to and from work today because of idiots being stupid, and my boss (who said Friday she’d be in today) didn’t come in and the other girl who is in Mondays only because its the only days she can get care for her baby (had a year now to set up childcare for your son but go off Becky) also wasn’t in.

Becky did come in later, making me remember I did see a note on the schedule that she was working half a day but would be coming in late, and when she comes in, she doesn’t even say hi or anything. She scared the shit out of me suddenly appearing at the copy machine near my desk and still doesn’t even just give a simple “oh hey didn’t see you over here” (the way our desks are set up, she wouldn’t have seen me and I wouldn’t have seen her, thus why I didn’t know she came in; at least she saw me when I left for a break/bathroom), and THEN I hear the bitch pack up and leave at fucking three thirty! Bitch wasn’t even here a fucking full 4 hours! Like why even come in for all that? Should have just done your day at home what????

And this pisses me off mainly because she (and the coworker who is the reason I had to Uber today) are the two biggest people who are mad every single day that my one coworker, WHO WAS IN A CAR ACCIDENT ON HER WAY HOME FROM WORK YEARS AGO AND ALMOST DIED AND HAD TO LEARN HOW TO WALK AGAIN, is remote full time and somehow that’s so unfair. Meanwhile between these two, the one cant go go two weeks without some bs reason as to why she had to work remote on her scheduled days in and the other leaves almost two hours early every day she’s scheduled in.

Like what are you mugs complaining about when yall barely show up as it is? Meanwhile, the ones who come in when scheduled with no complaints don’t care that someone who, again, ALMOST DIED, doesn’t come in because of obvious PTSD,

Like I’m so annoyed lol. I need food and a warm bath and more yyh to fix my bad mood lol.

[maguro13-2]

Shattered Hero ~ Origins of the Ink Demon : Episode Maka Pt.25

Usagi : So...I killed you all of a sudden. And then I realized that someone has given you the device was probably Dark Nebula. I don't understand that why do you want work with Dark Nebula and take over the planet?

Darkside (Shingo Tsukino) : Because you and Yusuke Urameshi, b*tch! You killed me, you stabbed me in the heart and now I became heartless forerver and it's all because of you and those guys! I would've risked my life on stop Urameshi, but he and his pals beating me into sense like I'm some kind of jerkwad, so when Dark Nebula gave me a device that will easily turn you into Shotacon slaves, I was caught by the Toguro brothers and made them free you from my control! I wanted to become the nasty supervillain of my dreams! You would've stopped me if you ever see YYH crew thinking that they gave me justice to me! And now Usagi, prepare for the moment of your that I shall destroy with my bare hands for vengeance!

Usagi : W-What!?

Daroach : (with Dark Nebula's voice) Vengeance you say? Sorry, but you don't take orders to Sailor Moon and her Sailor friends. Only I, Dark Nebula will make them eternal slaves.

*DBZ SFX : ENERGY BLAST*

Darkside (Shingo Tsukino) : What the-!?

[Dark World ~ Hope and Despair - Takahito Eguchi]

Darkside (Shingo Tsukino) : No! Not you! You...You betrayed me!

Dark Daroach : I, Dark Daroach, is a combination of both Daroach and Dark Nebula himself! We are together as one, we are...POWERFUL! Farewell brother of Sailor Moon!

Darkside (Shingo Tsukino) : Curse you, Nebula! CURSE YOUUUUUUU!

*DBZ SFX : ENERGY EXPLOSION*

Rei : Unbelievable! Dark Nebula killed Shingo twice! Not a single light would restore your dead brother.

Minako : I...don't understand! What kind of villains kill their own partners!?

Makoto : Ask Vegeta, he will know about that!

Ami : Umm...Your welcome?

Rei : Whatever you are, we thank you for killing Usagi's brother that attempted to get his revenge. But please come out of that mice's body now!

Dark Daroach : Never! I will open the gate to the underworld and I become ruler once again! (laughs evilly and teleports away)

Makoto : Hey, wait!

Usagi : Dark Nebula, he finally showed himself to us for the first time.

(scene cuts to the girls naked at headquarters where they walking up to Ikuko)

[Lucia - Sota Fujimori]

Usagi : Mom.

Ikuko : Usagi. I heard about everything about your brother. Sweetie, I'm afraid that your brother is having a farewell to the family.

Usagi : What?

Ikuko : Yeah, that's what I heard. Can't believe that your little brother has done such a terrible thing that hid did to you and people are going to tell that they are gonna burn him for what he did to you. But now, he's gone, I guess you're the only one left in the family that I ever have. So that is why I am having a yard sale to sell all of your brother's belongings.

Usagi : All his belongings. You mean, he's not gonna be here in that house forever. So does this mean he'll never come back?

Ikuko : That's what I thought. Although, these incidents of dragging the Sailor Scouts like you are always a trap for thugs that men has committed a sin and I dearly paid my respects to Urameshi. With Shingo passed away, Guess I am the only one that will ever look after you and I will look after the house. I...I'm sorry.

Usagi : Oh, Mom. I understand now. But we gotta move on forward and live life to fullest, mom. (bows to greet) Thank you for looking after me. (hugs Ikuko and then they both began to shed a tear)

"Shingo Tsukino, brother of Usagi Tsukino...has died."

"Meanwhile back in the future of Sonic's world..."

Homura Akemi : No sign of Mephiles either. He just gotta be somewhere. But Silver did manage to beat the son of Amaterasu in it's first phase? I wonder what does his second form look like?

Maka Albarn : Hey, guys! I found another Emerald! I gotta give this to Sonic immediately!

Homura Akemi : Hey, do you remember what Shadow said before?

Maka Albarn : Yeah,right. What did he said about touching an emerald?

Homura Akemi : He said...(shadow appears behind them along with Sonic and his friends)

Shadow : Don't touch it!

Maka Albarn : *MGS EXCLAMATION MARK!* WAAAH!!!

[Confrontation with Iblis - Hideaki Kobayashi]

Homura Akemi : Hmph! So this is Amaterasu's son. Iblis.

Sonic : What? Iblis? This is Amaterasu's son!?

Homura Akemi : Just as I expected!

[Iblis (Phase 1 & 2) - Hideaki Kobayashi]

"IBLIS : THE FLAMES OF DISATER"

Homura Akemi : This is the creature that burned down your world. So I understand that the great cataclysm in shinra's world was only an attempt to give birth this giant flame creature that brought devastation to your world and Mephiles as well. Demon Vibe couldn't take his creation no any longer, so he ordered Shinra destroyed and made Amaterasu give birth to his son.

Shadow : Wait. Demon Vibe ordered Shinra to destroy his creation. He must've set Shinra set up to make it look like he defeated god. But to tell truth by that, there were no gods in the Ohkuboverse. They were all make believes in one's story, a story that is false to the real world.

Sonic : And I'm pretty sure that Time Whatchamacallit destroyed 50% of the Ohkuboverse and exterminated everyone including Shinra and lover Iris.

Homura Akemi : Don't worry! I got this! Alright, tough guy. You wanna play rough? I'll play it rough!

Sonic : You sure you got this? But is there somewhere to draw him in? We're only on foothoolds so this is a dangerous battle!

Homura Akemi : Nonsense! I got this! You'll see that a fire monster can't eve beat a singular girl like me and time there's no way he'll never stop me.

(Scene flips)

Homura Akemi : Yep. I had to beat him down! Told you I can do it! Well the name is very Islamic so I intended to do so. Not to mention it, Islam is not my cup of tea for Iblis to be in it.

Shadow : Don't get me on the wrong. So that was the First pillar's son, ain't it?

Maka Albarn : Amaterasu, the first pillar? Who could that be...?

*Heartbeat echoing+images flashing*

Maka Albarn : AAAH! (holds head in pain)

*Heartbeating+images flashing*

Maka Albarn : (responds) So, Amaterasu created a son after she was banished to Blaze's world and then suddenly, Blaze was born after the first pillar was sealed away.

Sonic : What!? So that's how Blaze got her Pyrokinetic powers? I remember seeing the first time of meeting blaze after the Black Arms invasion.

"Back in 2005..."

Dr.Eggman : You'll regret this! (leaving after being defeated in his Egg Mega Hammer)

Sonic : Hey, Eggman! *snaps fingers* Drat! Huh?

Blaze : That emerald belongs to me!

[Enemy or Friend/Leaf Storm Beta - Teruhiko Nakagawa]

Sonic : Woah! Who are you?

Blaze : Just an average princess from another dimension! (dashes off)

Sonic : Hey, wait a minute! What kind of powers do you have!?

(cuts to Blaze running through the forest)

Blaze : So, Amaterasu. Now that my plans are in motion, I wonder what should I become a use of you that might be?

Amaterasu/First Pillar : First of all, seal my son after you sealed me away. That's an order.

Blaze : Not too shabby. But if I would even talk to you, You would harly regret that Eggman Nega is nothing more to be ever put him behind bars once I eliminated him for stealing the emeralds. If I am facing Eggman in Sonic's world and if he is facing Eggman Nega in my world, I just believe that I got our archenemeis mixed up. So whatever, I will eventually meet Silver one day in the future 200 years. This should be interesting! (runs faster)

"Only the flames I can control are the Sol Emeralds I used."

"There will be nothing left for you once I seal your son away."

"You'll be wrong for Shinra once he sees you again!"

"In his dreams of course!"

~ Act 25 : Princess of the Flames ~

[natsunoomoi]

Firstly, the reason I'm so obsessed with the child comment because it fits the yyh timeline and two because I'm not into the kuwabara x yukina ship. like u said let's assume that hiei and yukina are like 60 years old by the end of the series, hiei achieved A class when he's like 5 okay so are you trying to imply that hiei stayed at the same place for 40 - 50 years before he move to a different place? He still stayed a A class demon for 50 years instead of moving up to S class with his potential? Hiei who always wants to pick a fight was able to take care of his tear gem for 50 fucking years ?! No fucking way! It's hiei we're talking about he's bound to lose one way or the other. I agree with the fact yukina has better social skills than hiei I just said she only seem to have one close friend i.e. kuwabara because togashi was too busy with the main characters, if you read the final chapter you can see yukina was the only one who didn't laugh when kuwabara was teasing Keiko about yusuke's goddess comment. Now, I'm not sure if yukina stayed silent because she "read the room" it only means yukina didn't understand the joke and she's not really close with Keiko. Unlike hiei who is rude as fuck, yukina is really polite so it's much easier for her to interact with people make connections , rely on them and without those connections yukina wouldn't able to survive in the human world. I never said yukina have no skills or try to undermine her with the child comment. I said yukina can be just as young and mature as hiei, she doesn't have to be a 50 years yokai to achieve maturity. If you're trying to say yukina is smarter than hiei, I agree with you yukina was smart enough to hide her tear gem from tarukane for 5 years by hiding in her stomach an idea that hiei never bothered to come up with. She hid the fact about her family by saying that they gave her "permission to search for her brother" even though there was no reason for her to lie to new friends who are friends with kuwabara. Just to be clear even if yukina and hiei are not 14 years old, I wouldn't mind, if togashi said they're 50 years old I will believe him and not change a thing about it.

I'm not implying anything about their age, but it's just that it's not confirmed about their age outside of a range through context clues.

Also, Hiei reached A class by the age of 5, but after he got his jagan he got shot back down to D. He had to learn to survive and rise back up again and how long he spent doing that is kind of up in the air. As much as I'd like him to be the same age as everyone else, he's still a youkai and their age development stages can be different. How long for him to become functional again after falling down to D is unknown and we don't know how low into D he fell. Kurama also was in D at the start because he was born into the body of a human, but as other people elsewhere have commented about the both of them, they're not true D, but very high D. How far Hiei fell into D we don't know, and when he had his surgery we also don't have any idea as well as no clue how long it took him to fight back up again and get his body to cooperate the way he's used to.

Further, Hiei's desire for strong opponents and fighting was a thing when he was still the prodigy thief that he was, but he was also maybe a bit more chill about it and just wandering around. The Hiei we know from the series more actively tries to find challenges, and that could be a habit/symptom of the difficulty he felt from falling down power levels to get his jagan and the struggle to come back up again from the dregs. Being drained or "failing" in that way, would create that kind of neurosis and it'd be especially pronounced in someone who experienced it a long time. If it took him 50-60 years to get up to the point where he felt good enough to start searching in Ningenkai, that'd really frustrate him, but it'd also be part of the reason why he kind of has an obsession with power and getting stronger if he had to live that way for so long. Living through that frustration would do that to you and makes that just as feasible as if he did it in a shorter amount of time. There's a lot of wiggle room with this before we see him in the series.

Additionally, Makai is straight up another dimension. We don't even know if time flows the same there as it does in the human world. In the Japanese, when Mukuro comments on his age as a prodigy, she says "by your 5th year" which is a weird way to say that, and could imply that Makai time or even Youkai time could also be different. Their years could be longer or shorter. We have no actual idea of the equation. They're likely very similar, even passing through the portal if there's a way to adjust time too we can't be sure.

For me this is a thing I suspect could also be a noted difference because Reikai is an actual place in East Asian mythology and Enma Daiou is an actual deity in East Asian mythology -- particularly Chinese and Japanese, and in ancient Chinese tales there is absolutely time dilation between the Human World and places like Reikai. I can't remember the actual equation, but there's a time scale mentioned in the Journey to the West novel for when Sun Wukung goes up to Heaven to ask for help. The Chinese Heaven isn't a place where dead people go, but is a place where deities live and it is on the same time scale as Reikai/the Underworld because when Wukung was messing stuff up King Yama/Enma Daiou went to Heaven to complain about him to the Jade Emperor. Journey to the West is one of the 4 Classics of Chinese literature and is arguably the most famous of the 4 stories in all of East Asia, so it has a very significant impact on the depictions of Enma Daiou and Reikai. Enma in Dragonball is even similar looking, and that's no coincidence because they look very similar to classical Chinese depictions in art. For Asian people that know this mythology, it's kind of like, oh yeah of course because people know about King Enma from mythology and classic literature, but it's not obvious to people from outside of Asia who don't read it as part of their culture. Mythologically, I think the time dilation/difference accounted for how King Enma and his attendants and even Heaven could track so many souls and oversee so many things, and the explanation of ancient people is that something funky with time was going on.

I add this point not to confuse you, but to just point out and say that you probably shouldn't focus too hard on the timeline of events and get too hung up on those semantics especially with events that took place before they were in the Human World. Yu Yu Hakusho is an original work, but it is a work that derives some things from actual mythology. Youkai and human conflicts were even a thing in those ancient Chinese novels like Journey to the West. It's not new. The idea of youkai coming to the Human World and eating people is also not new. So many different creatures including youkai wanted to eat the monk in Journey to the West, and further back in time there's my favorite novel Feng Shen Yan Yi/Creation of the Gods that is a fictionalized account of the end of the Shang/Yin Dynasty and the start of the Zhou where each side had Heavenly help from different sects of Taoism. The Zhou had human Immortals on their side, whereas the Shang supposedly was getting help from the sect that accepted youkai. This lore is ancient. And honestly, Togashi is probably vague about their actual ages because he is aware that youkai lore is ancient, so he doesn't want to mess with it. There are actual people who study mythological youkai and that is their life, so time is probably going to stay vague on events prior to the series.

Ancient lore for a lot of kinds of youkai development though imply that for some species, there's rapid early development from baby to childhood and then their growth can slow to normal and then when they reach adulthood seem to stop because of a longer lifespan. It's mythology and it's real unclear, and there's multiple kinds of species. So I really understand if that whole part on time and how old anyone is is real hand wavy because the lore across the board is going to vary a lot significantly because it's ancient beliefs of different villages and regions and so on and it's best to just not address it and make it too complicated.

Yukina's reactions to things I don't think you should think so hard into. That isn't necessarily a sign that she isn't close to anyone or of her social skills or how close to anyone she is. Even if she understood the joke, it doesn't even necessarily mean she's "not close to Keiko". She could just not laugh so as not to offend anyone at all. That is a real omotenashi Japanese thing to do too, and is also another way of being polite. Even myself as a teacher I have to try to not show laughter or amusement at the stuff the kids do because I need them to behave. I can laugh about it later when they've gone home safely and I've stopped them from turning the classroom into a zoo.

Regardless of any of that though, she's a youkai that spent most of her life in Makai and might not understand the joke because it involves human culture. She's from a different world. There's any number of reasons why she might not understand a joke the gang makes about anyone or anything if it involves context that she has no experience with. Like if you watched a Manzai act in Japan, even if it's translated for you, there's jokes you're not going to laugh at or get because you're not Japanese and you lack the context.

For the tear gem, that's a strategy that Yukina did so that Tarukane didn't get an item that was precious to her. Hiei didn't have the mindset to think of it. It doesn't make him less smart than Yukina or imply anything like that at all. Hiei specifically says in his flashbacks he wore it in the open on purpose because other youkai wanted to take it from him so it would bring fights to him. He didn't really know what it was or how precious it was to him until he lost it because he was using it as bait. Nothing about our conversation even implies how smart either of them are even and there's different kinds of intelligence, and intelligence is different from ignorance. Ignorance is not your fault. You have no control over not knowing something before. Lacking the intelligence to know that you should strive to not be ignorant, is a different story and is a sign of someone not being smart. Similarly being ignorant, knowing your ignorant, and continuing to make uninformed poor choices, decisions, or draw conclusions based on that ignorance is also a sign of not being smart and is the area that Kuwabara tends to be in, which is why Hiei gives him shit. Neither Hiei nor Yukina have a lack of intelligence problem and aren't really smarter than the other. The things they don't know don't make them stupid. They are just a product of a lack of experience and not being in a situation to learn that thing. This hole in their knowledge has also been subject of fics and doujinshi and even the drama CDs for the last 30 years because it's funny when Hiei learns about a new human thing and it's hilarious watch the silly way the gang tries to teach it to him. Like the fics back in the day, I think one popular trope was Kurama introducing Hiei to strawberry ice cream and that creating an obsession in Hiei where he always wanted strawberry ice cream. The anime team used Hiei's ignorance a lot to make jokes even on merch. Like there's one pic with Yusuke shoving a firework sparkler in Hiei's face with a huge grin on his face and Hiei has a relatively happy looking face, but is also pushing Yusuke out of his personal space. It's just funny.

[zenjestrr]

finished watching the Yu Yu Hakusho live action yesterday and I have opinions

I went into this with an open mind. I knew they weren't going to be able to do everything and it's literally impossible to translate everything from an anime into live action but I disagree with some of the choices they made. Actually, let me start with the positives: Kuwabara's actor put his whole pussy into that role. He was certainly a highlight for me. I feel like all of the villains (especially Elder Toguro and Tarukane) did an excellent job. Yusuke did good, too, although he was less...aggressive in this show but my reference is the dub maybe he was more subdued in the original Japanese. the set pieces, the fight scenes, all cool. Now on to my grievances. I DO NOT LIKE how they merged season 1 and season 2 into 5 episodes. I don't like how they did Keiko in the show. Granted, it's been a very hot minute since I've seen YYH so I could be misremembering (and again, I saw the dub so maybe shit was changed in localization) but I anime Keiko was a fucking domestic abuser (even as a kid I never understood why Yusuke and Keiko got together considering how many times she'd slap the shit out of him). In the live action she gets polite angry at him ONE time in the entire show and throughout the rest of it she's a delicate flower. idk again this could be my warped memory but I expected more spice from Keiko but whatever. same with Botan. I remember....more to her but my child brain might be merging her with Bulma from Dragon Ball since they had similar character designs. I'm gonna have to rewatch YYH so I can better compare the two but I remember Botan being more than a timid cutesy girl. Kurama's wig was terrible lmao. Hiei's hair was also weird but whatever. idk I wish they didn't merge s1 and s2. that's my biggest gripe. Genkai's death had no impact because she was literally killed off mere minutes after Yusuke's first training session with her. they probably did it this way because (lbr) the best part of YYH is the Dark Tournament and they probably didn't know if they were going to be able to get a 2nd season so they chose to do a speedrun to "the good parts" of s2's Toguro story but like....the Toguro plot and the Spirit Wave Orb stuff only hit because of the build up before it. You can't cut up all the ingredience that made that impactful especially since the background around those stories (aka the ACTUAL dark tournament) helped drive the stakes up. Genkai's death in the anime was tragic, yes, and it impacted Yusuke and Kuwabara but on a more practical level it also increased the tension since she was fucking carrying them in the Tournament so with her gone they were (seemingly) screwed. Now Genkai (who is a lot less bitchy unfort) dies immediately and the show expects us to believe Yusuke would give a shit enough to unlock that "Ultra Instinct at home" power he got at the end of s2 when he barely knows her or had any attachment to her. idk. it's not a baaaad show. if you never saw YYH before I can see why someone would like it but idk man. the choices they made kind of ruined it if you know how the story is "supposed" to go.

[fortressofserenity]

Yu Yu Hakusho

That’s a popular anime series adapted from a comics story of the same name, it used to be really popular in not just Japan but also the Philippines where it’s known as Ghost Fighter (complete with altered names). Urameshi Yusuke gets resurrected by Koenma to better take on supernatural cases, though eventually it became better known for battles and stuff. He is eventually joined by Kurama, Kuwabara Kazama, Genkai and Hiei. They take on a variety of foes ranging from the four celestial beasts to the Toguro brothers and more, well as far as I can recall and know from watching clips on YouTube and Tiktok.

It is getting a live action remake on Netflix and having started filming in 2021, it’s likely some of the clips shown in the trailer may have filmed sometime between 2021 and 2022. This would explain why two years later, Kuwabara’s actor no longer sports blond hair and the reverse is true for Yusuke’s actor. As to why Koenma (one of the other YYH characters) shows up as an adult in the spirit world in the live action version, despite only using this whenever he ventures into the spirit world in the cartoons has to do with child labour laws. Recall how Claudia got aged up to her teens in the Interview with a Vampire telly series.

This is no different with him to an extent (since he can make himself look older), but I think the adaptation’s makers haven’t forgotten the other side of him. If Kid Koenma were to show up in the live action adaptation, he would most likely be an Easter egg and would be shown in flashbacks. I actually think the Netflix YYH adaptation holds up better than other live action adaptations, including the Netflix version where it created an Americanised version of Death Note. Because YYH explicitly takes place in Japan and due to the backlash Ghost in the Shell got for having a white actress play an ostensibly Japanese character, it’s wiser to have Japanese actors play the characters instead.

Another is how fairly close some of the characters look regarding their animated counterparts as compared to whatever goes on with the CW adaptations, given how Kurama still has his bright red hair and pink clothing in the Netflix series while Barry Allen’s no longer blond in the CW series. It also helps that the way the characters dress isn’t so ridiculous compared to their DC and Marvel counterparts, to the point where it’s easy to keep them as they are relative to those at the latter two. Admittedly, there are embellishments and I realised how Kurama’s clothes are made out of brocade.

That Genkai’s outfit has a print pattern makes me think the live action adaptation takes advantage of those little details that would be hard to pull off consistently in 2D animation, though the same thing can be said of DC and Marvel’s live adaptations but then again I’m not a fan of the faux armoured look. Perhaps we should be thankful that characters like Botan and Genkai get to keep their sweets-coloured hair as they do in the anime, as opposed to what both Golden Glider and Elongated Man got. No doubt Botan never sported bangs in the comics, but even then it holds up better than what people give credit to.

It’s not that bad really, the live action series has yet to show up. Who knows if it’s either worse or better than people’s expectations, it could possibly be the latter and I still don’t think it’s that bad.

[maiji]

images: First two pages of part 2 of fight / flight - a comic drawn in a digital ink-brush style with greyscale shading.]

fight / flight: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 Alt text, full transcript and commentary continue below the cut.

A YYH North Bound story. This takes place after I Heard A Cicada Cry and Survive.

Content warning: Violence, blood, people fighting with swords.

[images: Remaining five pages of comic.]

[page 9] *Hokushin and Otake clash swords. After a while of dueling, they split apart, both panting.* Otake: How pointless to fight like a common human. *He clasps his sword wrist with his opposite hand. Hokushin cautiously takes note of the movement. The area around the gauntlet/bracer Otake is clasping glows*

[page 10] *Otake releases his grip on his wrist* Hokushin: (Some kind of Spirit World artifact?) *unexpectedly, a sudden blast of organically shaped energy spikes slice through Hokushin*

[page 11] *Hokushin coughs up blood and is slammed and pinned against a tree by the spikes* Hokushin: Ugh... Otake: *charging and slicing at Hokushin's neck* Your head is mine!! *Otake’s blade comes bearing down on Hokushin’s neck. At the last second, Hokushin's entire head stretches into a long ribbon and whips out of the way*

[page 12] Otake: ?! *Hokushin's head/neck whips towards Otake and around his torso and arms*

[page 13] *Otake’s hands are bound tightly, causing him to drop his sword. Wrapped up in Hokushin's neck, he's tossed through the air and his head is rammed against a tree. Meanwhile, Hokushin pulls the spikes out and slides down to the ground, trails of blood against the tree trunk*

[page 14] *Otake continues to get his head slammed against trees. He struggles and manages to grip his bracer again. It glows. It sends a shocking sensation through Hokushin's neck, and Hokushin unwraps and withdraws. Sweating and bedraggled, he covers his neck with both hands gingerly, then lowers his arms, revealing a series of burn marks around his neck. Otake, blood running down both sides of his face and one eye bruised, braces one hand against his knee and slowly gets up.* Hokushin: !! Otake: …A male rokurokubi. That must’ve been why the old man was so intent on not revealing your whereabouts. Not that it did him - or you - any good.

[page 15] Hokushin: *with a shocked expression* Old man? Otake: *eyes him* The blind biwa player of Ausaka Barrier. Hokushin: …What happened to him? Otake: He earned a one-way trip to Enma Daioh. *As Otake speaks, Hokushin stares at him in shocked silence. A flashback of a smiling bearded man holding out a flower plays in his mind.* Otake: He wasn’t long for this world anyways. That is the fate of humans as overseen by my master.

...

Cliffhanger! How should the next part start? I haven’t decided yet but right now my top candidate is Hokushin screaming his head off. (But not literally his head off.) But I’m also debating whether or not this is too stereotypical or if something else will work better for his character.

Some thoughts!

My sis said “You’re really trying to make people hate Otake.” I was like, he’s already revealed to be a bad guy in canon! Everyone knows he’s a bad guy!! That’s why he made it into North Bound in the first place, because he was a perfect fit for this role I needed.

My sis also asked, “Is Hokushin going to get to kick butt?” And I was like, hmm. Yes? I guess? But he needs to get knocked around a bit first, because it is the shounen manga way. Also remember Otake can’t die here.

In my mind, at this point in history Hokushin and Otake are pretty evenly matched powerwise, except Otake has the element of surprise. A.k.a. random Spirit World gadgets, the precursor to all the stuff Yusuke gets in his Spirit Detective kit. This one is a bracer that something something. I’m just making stuff up to be able to progress the fight in the ways I need it to; I hope it seems to make sense.

Otake was tracking Hokushin and knew he was dealing with a demon, but not the details. This is mainly because it’s super fun to draw a fight for Hokushin when the opponent has no idea what his special skillset is. Alternatively, in my mind Otake prescribes to the horses not zebras school of thought (“when you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras”), so it didn’t occur to him/he didn’t think it was anywhere near likely that Hokushin would be a rokurokubi. Male rokurokubi are extremely rare in both traditional youkai mythology and in North Bound. I explain this in this post, and A House That Holds Long Limbs also uses this same idea.

The blind biwa player of Ausaka Barrier is, of course, the legendary Semimaru, who appears in I Heard A Cicada Cry. I talk more about his historical/cultural impact in the notes throughout that story. The memory of him holding a flower is from when he gives Hokushin a flower during their travels.

In the Hokushin VS Yusuke fight in the manga, Hokushin says that in S class at full strength, he would’ve been able to throttle Yusuke after wrapping him up with his neck - we can imagine like a boa constrictor. Limited to D class, the most he could do was stretch his neck continuously and confuse/ freak the heck out of Yusuke. Here, ~700+ years ago, Hokushin would be closer to D class. I imagine he can still constrict things, but it depends on the size and strength of the target. He’s also not at full strength at this point, so that’s why he’s trying to give Otake a flying concussion. Also he’s trying to pull those spiky energy arrow shard things out of himself/the tree and multitasking is hard. In First Meeting’s Hokushin VS Raizen encounter, Hokushin has gotten a bit stronger and is trying to constrict Raizen, but that doesn’t work for obvious reasons because it’s like an ant (a very long ant, I guess) trying to constrict god..

Feel free to question my judgement on anything. Choreographing logical fight scenes is really hard, haha.

I haven’t worked out all the details yet, but right now it looks like fight / flight will likely net out at 4-6 parts (I’m thinking 5 most likely...?). I really feel like I leveled up in a tiny fashion while working on this, and it was a lot of fun after I got through the actual thumbnails and panel compositions. A sequence like this is something I would never have been able to compose years ago when I first started working on North Bound. I’ll make a separate post about the technical comicking aspects, along with the thumbnails and the sketches for each page!

Update: Here’s the behind the scenes! https://www.tumblr.com/maiji/705387259973730304/fight-flight-part-2-thumbnails-and-page-sketches

[casliveblog]

Custom Toonami Block Week 120 Rundown

Inuyasha: The big fight between Inuyasha and Bankotsu starts off and they kinda have perfectly symmetrical violence for a while which is pretty cool because Inuyasha rarely gets mirror matches since his skillset is pretty rare in the story, most of the time he’s just Wind Scarring a giant demon into oblivion. The anime really loves Bankotsu so there’s a ton of extra backstory for him and extra scenes of him being a badass and just throwing hands with Inuyasha and admittedly Bankotsu is one of the coolest characters in the show so it’s not like it’s not appreciated. Everyone outside gets their chance to show their attacks against the demons coming out of Mt. Hakurei and it’s like that scene in modern anime movies where it’s like ‘well we have to show off all the most popular characters but we don’t have anything for them to actually do so here’s so fodder so they get some attack scenes for the trailer’. Meanwhile inside Miroku and Sango actually fucking find Naraku but he’s not quite fully baked yet so Kagura intercepts them and sends them falling down again. Inuyasha manages to do a pretty smart feint on Bankotsu and get a couple of jewel shards out of his arm and knock his sword away until Bankotsu’s just like ‘you think having a big sword is all I got?’ and just fucking decks him so we get the rare chance to show Inuyasha just having a fistfight. Honestly Inuyasha vs Bankotsu is probably one of my favorite fights in the series behind maybe the last Inuyasha vs Sesshomaru fight. I remember as a kid the preview for the next episode is all like “Bankotsu has a demonic aura sword!? How can I beat that!?” and absolutely no one was fooled since Inuyasha mentions the Backlash Wave in this episode so everyone kinda immediately knew how this fight was gonna end in the anime but it’s still fun.  

Yu Yu Hakusho: So it’s the standard post-arc cooldown episode and I really kinda like these where the protagonists that have been through five apocalypse level threats have to come back and be teenagers again. Like after being punched with the force of a nuclear explosion, Algebra just doesn’t seem to do it anymore. Yusuke’s kinda riding that wave of ennui and Kuwabara rightly points out that if they never have to go through something that challenging again he’ll welcome the boredom. It’s just funny to watch random kids try to pick on Yusuke and him to give them the glare of like ten Vietnam vets combined and have them piss themselves. Anyway Botan’s getting reports of humans emitting weird energy all over the city so that’s kinda fucked and Yusuke gets challenged by some kids and kicks their asses but they still make off with him and send the message to the rest of the group sans Genkai to come after them because Genkai isn’t marketable enough I guess, glad we resurrected her.  But yeah, new arc time and we got Stand Users because Bleach wasn’t ripping off YYH enough we find out they took the ‘throw basic humans with obscure powers at the team after their most high-octane adventure’ from here too.

Fate/Apocrypha: So Astolfo and Sieg are still processing all the crazy shit that happened in the past ten minutes and suddenly Yggy TitsMcgee aka Astolfo’s Master comes out of fucking nowhere and is like ‘time to be crazy and kill the main character and I’m all out of crazy’ and just like BURNS through Command Spells to try to get Astolfo to kill Sieg like all the other Grail Wars has Masters sitting there like using one seal was like cutting off a limb and for this one they’re like ‘nah we got fourteen masters so might as well just use five seals to do one thing why not’ also Sieg has Command Spells too not because you’re not gonna tell the Bigger Cup how to do its job and it always knows who the new main character/new villain orgin story is and is ready to pass some of those things out. Anyway Mordred comes by and decapitates Tits Mcgee so Astolfo can go be gay with Sieg and is like ‘hey if you guys are gonna be morons and kill each other do it quietly’ and then she fucking teleports or some shit because in the next scene she’s just at the middle of the Hanging Gardens to break up Shiro’s ‘I’m the Ruler now’ speech. Karna’s just like ‘don’t really trust you but gonna need more context’ and Avicebron’s looking for his kid so he’s just fine with switching sides. And honestly at this point I wish we had one of those cover pages manga volumes do so I can keep track of who’s on what team now and who’s still alive because so many people exploded last episode and now the teams are basically non-functional and I need a flowchart damnit. Anyway Sieg’s back at Castle Yggy and is organizing the Homunculus Underground Railroad movement because apparently Team Yggy didn’t program the homunculi very well because Sieg’s just like ‘hey guys aren’t you tired of being nice, don’t you just wanna go apeshit?’ and all the homunculi are just like ‘yeah sure, didn’t really like the whole being a human murder battery thing anyway’ like I thought Sieg was a glitch in the matrix or something but apparently Team Yggy just did a really shitty job conditioning their murder battery dolls for a life of being murder battery dolls and none of them are down for it. So yeah Sieg’s a Master and a Servant now which I’m no Mana Physicist but that seems like really bad fuel economy but there’s no explanation for how he does any of the shit he does anyway so why not.

Speed Grapher: Picking up where we left off, Kagura is now in Suitengu’s custody and he whispers something to her that makes her docile enough to go along with the whole marriage plan for now and Suitengu just has the balls to alter all of Kagura’s records to make her legal like no one would notice she’s only in high school. Meanwhile Ginza’s done boning comatose Saiga’s brains out so he’s awake and in a jail cell but that doesn’t last long given they fucking let him keep his camera, like I know they don’t know he can use that thing as a miniature rocket launcher and he’s not technically a traditional prisoner but that seems like a dangerous thing to let him just keep in prison. So he busts himself out and Ginza follows him because time’s up and the doctor’s results on the Euphoric Virus are ready. They basically establish it’s a virus that alters the DNA of its users based on subconscious desire which makes sense why Euphorics have a healing factor since ‘stay alive’ is a subconscious desire of most people, and then it throws in some kinky shit as a bonus based on how fucked up the Euphoric’s morality is. Apparently Kagura doesn’t actually have the virus herself but is a catalyst for it so anyone that has contracted a strain of it and carried it in their DNA has it reproduce when introduced to her saliva. Saiga muses he must’ve gotten it while as a war photographer from some kind of biological weapon or something but we don’t get confirmation on that. The doctor goes on to say it affects Euphorics’ brain chemistry somehow and Saiga gets him off but fr I wanna know what he was gonna say, he says something about it inhibiting serotonin so their dopamine runs wild and I don’t know enough about biology to really make an informed conclusion from that but what I’m guessing he means is it makes Euphorics more impulsive and have more addictive personalities than they otherwise would which is true for all the Euphorics we’ve seen except Saiga (though his impulse control may be mostly in the form of protecting Kagura single-mindedly no matter what who knows) but he ends by saying overuse of the virus to change the cells damages them so the more Euphorics use their powers the more it destroys the affected parts, which we’ve seen with Suitengu having problems controlling his body though that may be more due to the stitched-together nature of his body we alluded to last episode because none of the other enemy Euphorics have displayed this despite some of them having implied to be at this for a long time so I’m guessing it takes a while for it to kick in but maybe since Saiga’s is so intensely focused on just his eye it does more damage more quickly. Anyway long story short if Saiga keeps blowing shit up with photography he’s gonna go blind or possibly die. Ginza takes this news badly and wants him to just give up on Kagura, assuming he’s just a weird guy with a thing for underage schoolgirls. It’s kinda funny how absolutely no one believes Saiga isn’t banging Kagura like it just shows how fucked this city’s morals are that no one thinks he wants to save her for any other reason. Like to me his dedication would back up that he’s not sleeping with her because honestly no one is worth taking on a city full of psychotic superpowered rich people just for sex. Anyway the spider tattoo guy from last time attacks again and Ginza wrecks her car to get rid of him but he just shrugs it off and activates the spider tattoo he put on her last time to take control of her gun arm and shoot Saiga. Ginza’s been not wanting Saiga to use his camera this whole time out of fear it’ll kill him but she finally asks him to use it to end her and that tattoo so she doesn’t kill him. Given this episode title is Ginza’s name it looks like this may be her swan song after all… BUT FUCK THAT she is able to alter her aim just enough to shoot spider dude in the fucking head and lets Saiga finish him off by blowing up the top half of his body without hurting Ginza, fuck yeah.

Durararax2: We now continue with the city of Ikebukuro fucking melting already in progress. The Blue Squares faction of the Dollars have arrived at the Saika zombie hoard in front of Russia Sushi and Takashi’s plan gets their scout infected and draws them into the hoard while Masaomi and Chikage are on a roof scouting the joint but the Blue Squares have their shark hoodies on and they’re disguising which one is Mikado which makes sense why Masaomi can’t just rush down there and has to send Chikage down but how come Takashi isn’t just infecting them all with Saika since he probably knows Mikado’s one of them, like I get he’s trying to lure Masaomi in too but it’s not like they gotta fight them just graze against each one individually like they did with the scout and boom you have control of Mikado assuming he is one of the group and if not you still have half a dozen new Blue Squares agents but I guess Takashi’s not exactly the smartest. Meanwhile Izaya reasons that while you can’t cut Shizuo up or crush him with fucking industrial equipment, dude’s still gotta fucking breathe so he just lets a bunch of carbon dioxide flood where Shizuo is to try and choke him and throws a match in for good measure. Celty mysteriously helps contain the explosion for some reason despite no longer having any memory of the main cast and apparently Shizuo just punched through the floor to escape the gas and the explosion and fucking bats Izaya through a window with a steel girder. Akabayashi confirms that Anri has Saika thanks to Namie’s texting spree and Chikage warns the Orihara twins to not go into the city on account of all the zombies. Meanwhile Manami goes over to Kasane’s hideout to give her all of Izaya’s data because fuck Izaya but turns out she’s not there and they kinda left Shinra alone and his Saika influence is kinda flickering because he saw Celty and the power of boners is just that strong I guess. So Manami is helping Shinra while pumping him for info to hurt Izaya and there’s a really funny scene where it looks like she’s about to stab Shinra until he says Izaya sucks and she puts away the knife. But yeah Shinra’s kinda at the center of both Izaya and Shizuo’s flashbacks and tells Manami that Izaya is pretty stoic when it comes to other people because he figures if he can predict and accept any human reaction he’ll never be hurt by others, the whole ‘bend so you don’t break’ mentality so he can take anything without being hurt because he’s learned to accept everything which is also why Shizuo’s inhuman mentality is at odds to him, it’s probably the only thing that can really hurt him because he can’t accept it. As far as Shinra guesses though the only thing that can hurt Izaya is something inside himself or his personal pain as opposed to trying to harm him with relationships or blackmail.