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vs-redemption · 4 years ago

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Crime is Common. Logic is Rare. (Ch.25)

Chapter Twenty-Five: Lazy Morning (HawksxGN!Reader)

From Cindy: I’ve decided to continue this story to go through the war arc in the manga. Because of this, I’ve had to rethink some plot points and story lines which takes time. Thank you for your patience and enjoy the chapter. It is really fluffy!

Plot summary: As a quirk geneticist, you never really imagined yourself getting involved in hero work. Of course, you never imagined catching the eye of a pro hero either. What starts as a great career opportunity turns into a relationship built upon mutual secrets and trust.

Warnings:

⚠️This story contains spoilers from the manga.

⚠️Some events and plot points have been altered from the original manga

⚠️ Fluff!!!

Tag List: @gayforkeigo @marshmallow-witch @redflannel @toyo-shiro @elsasshole @astronomyturtle @iambashfulperson @omiwashere

Next Chapter : Chapter Guide

Waking up next to Hawks was a whole new experience when there wasn’t a rush to head to work or an imminent looming crisis about the secrets you both were currently keeping. With your arms securely wrapped around his body, you unbury your face from his chest and look up to admire his features which looked completely relaxed for one of the very few times since you’d met him. A smile tugs at your lips as your eyes scan over his feathery eyebrows, the black markings around his eyes, his cute little nose, those kissable lips, and finally to the few small hairs growing on his chin. He was gorgeous and you can’t stop yourself from stretching up to place one small kiss on the exposed column of his throat before tucking you head back into the warmth of his chest.

A few twitches from your boyfriend’s wings and a small groan told you that even such a small movement had been enough to disturb him from his sleep. You glance up at his eyes again which remain closed even though one of his strong arms slides over your waist to pull you closer.

“Good morning,” you say quietly.

“Mmm morning,” Hawks’ voice was a bit gravelly as his eyelids finally flutter open to reveal his beautiful golden eyes. “Throat’s dry…” he mumbles.

“Well, nobody told you to go that hard during karaoke,” you laugh softly as memories from the night before resurface in your mind. You wouldn’t mind if life was that relaxed and carefree for you both more often. Seeing Hawks acting open and goofy had reminded you what had drawn you to him in the first place.

“Don’t be mean,” Hawks pouts. “I had to impress your friends, didn’t I?”

“You impress them just by existing,” You assure him before humming contently at the soothing circles he starts rubbing on your back with his thumb.

“That’s right,” he sighs dramatically. “The only person immune to my magic face is you.”

“I’m not immune,” you correct him with a smile. “It’s just that there’s plenty more to like about you besides that.” A mischievous glint blooms in Hawks’ eyes and he raises his eyebrows curiously.

“Oh really?” He asks, “Care to elaborate?” You let out a dry laugh while slipping one of your arms free to reach up and run your fingers through his hair and then cup his cheek in your hand.

“Hmm, nah,” you tell him. “I don’t think so.” Hawks groans at the teasing before dipping his head down to kiss you on the forehead. You close your eyes and enjoy the moment for just a bit longer. As lovely as the morning snuggles were, the thought of the villains intruding in on such an unguarded and intimate time kept you from being able to relax completely. It reminded you of the conversation the night before, when Hawks had admitted to still having some secrets.

It was frustrating because, despite it being scary and stressful at times, you’d really grown to care a lot for the winged hero during your time together, and you wanted to be closer with him and know him completely. Whatever you didn’t know must be very sensitive though, and could probably be used against Hawks if the villains found out. You knew he’d tell you if he could, but until then, you supposed you’d have to bridge the gap between you both as best you could yourself.

“We should get up,” you mumble into his chest and he groans again. “I’ll make you coffee.”

It took a few minutes to convince him to get out of bed, and you had a feeling it was his own inherent need to move that finally motivated him in the end and not your coffee bribe. After all, he could probably send a couple feathers to prepare whatever he needed from the small hotel kitchen anyway.

“So, what’s on the agenda today?” Hawks asks, leaning against the counter in only a t-shirt and a pair of boxers as he waited for the coffee to brew. You did your best not to let your eyes wander, but hey, you were only human.

“I was thinking about what you said last night,” you hum while reading through a pamphlet of the hotel’s services, wondering if it was worth it to order something to the room for breakfast or if you should get dressed and head to a nearby café. “About learning more about each other by getting to know the important people in our lives.” Hawks looks over at you with cautious curiosity and you smile to assure him you knew to be careful about asking questions he couldn’t answer.

“I know you have to fly back to Tokyo today,” you say just as the coffee machine beeps. Even though you had told him you’d make the drink for him, his feathers set to work before you even had the chance to jump in. “But since the holidays are coming up, I thought it might be fun if you came with me to my family’s Christmas party.”

Hawk’s eyes go wide and his feathers falter just a bit, thankfully managing not to spill coffee all over the floor. “Family Christmas Party?”

“Only if we’re both able to get the time off work, obviously,” you shrug while putting the pamphlet down and shuffling over to stand next to him. His feathers deliver a hot mug of coffee into one of his hands while the other goes around your waist to pull you closer. “What do you usually do for the holidays?”

“Uh, not much,” He admits. “Most of time I’m on call at my agency in Kyushu, just in case there’s any trouble.”

“I was afraid of that,” you admit with a frown. “You said before that you don’t have contact with your own parents, or any really close friends either. That’s why I thought it might be nice to share mine with you.”

“That’s very sweet,” he smiles. “I’ve never had anyone want to introduce me to their parents before.” There was a playful tone to his voice, but you could tell the idea made him a little nervous.

“Don’t think of it like that.” you nudge him. “My parents are chill. They’re not like my boss who’s already planning our wedding. If you can handle her, you’ll be fine with my family.” Hawks hums in thought while sipping his coffee. It was hard to tell what he was thinking.

“It was just an idea,” you poke him in the ribs, making him flinch and almost spill his coffee for the second time. “We could always spend the holidays just the two of us. I have more than enough love to smother you with.”

“Smothered in your love,” Hawks grins. “Now that’d be the way to go.”

“Stop,” you try to poke him again but he swings his hips to the side to avoid your finger.

“You must be pretty serious about me,” He teases, “If you’re already wanting to bring me home to your family.” Apparently he was already over the nervousness from before. “Aren’t you worried I’ll embarrass you?”

“No,” you deadpan. “I’ve already told them how weird you are, so they’re prepared.”

“Oh jeez!” He groans dramatically, “You’ve set me up for failure. Am I even going to have a chance of coming off as respectable now?”

“Probably not,” you sigh and shake your head regrettably.

“That wasn’t very nice,” Hawks lets out a laugh. “Didn’t you say everyone in your family is a genius like you?”

“I’m not a genius,” you say modestly. “But yeah, we’re all members of the scientific community in some way. It kind of runs in the family.”

“Shouldn’t you be dating a rocket scientist or something then?” Hawks challenges you with a sly smirk.

“Nope,” you shake your head resolutely. “And even if I wanted to, I wouldn’t be able to because I love you.”

“Aw,” Hawks coos your name while setting his coffee mug down so his hands are free to pull you into his arms. “Come here, babe.” You gladly accept the affection and return the hug. “I love you too,” he mumbles before placing a kiss on your temple. “And I’m sure I’ll love your family too.”

“I knew I could convince you,” You say victoriously. “Now let’s get dressed and go find somewhere to have breakfast.”

Part of you hoped you weren’t rushing things too much with Hawks, but the fact of the matter was that you were serious about him, and wanted him to know that it was okay that there were things he couldn’t tell you right now. Your relationship could still progress, and even if it was a little one sided at the moment, there would be plenty of time later for him to catch up once his mission with the villains was over. You were really looking forward to the day you’d be able to go out with friends or spend a lazy morning with him without any fear of saying or doing the wrong thing. Hawks’ past was still a bit of a mystery to you, but it seemed like he hadn’t been given many opportunities to build close relationships with people. You couldn’t wait to show him all the joys of the things he’d been missing out on.

#hawks x reader #keigo takami x reader #bnha x reader #mha x reader #hawks #keigo takami #bnha #mha #Cindy's Writing

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snkpolls · 4 years ago

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SnK Episode 68 Poll Results (for Manga Readers)

The poll closed with 146 responses. Thank you to everyone who participated!

Please note that these are the results for the Manga Readers’ poll. If you wish to see the results for the Anime Only Watchers’ poll, click here.

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RATE THE EPISODE 140 Responses

The anime continues its positive streak with just over 90% of respondents rating the episode a 4 or 5. MAPPA appears to be blowing this season out of the water for most of us!

Noice

Good!

I liked it

WHICH OF THE FOLLOWING MOMENTS WAS YOUR FAVORITE? 144 Responses

We got a pretty mixed pie chart this week. To be expected, given how many moments were in this episode. At a tie with the largest pieces of the pie were Hange’s eccentric attempt to greet the Marleyans and Eren’s gunshot figuratively hitting Sasha. Behind that two more options tied in each with 10.4% of the vote - EMA’s conversation at the shooting range and Sasha appreciating Nicolo’s cooking. This is followed closely by Eren’s mirror scene with 9.7% of the vote. Onyankopon explaining why he looks different when Sasha asks him about it took a solid 9% of the vote.

WHAT WAS THE MOST EMOTIONAL PART OF THE VISIT TO SASHA’S GRAVE? 144 Responses

This was almost too close to call, but Mikasa sitting alone managed to edge out just slightly over Connie’s “I’ve lost half of me” moment at Sasha’s grave. Trailing behind the two were Nicolo’s grief and the agreement between Papa Braus agreeing to a free meal from Nicolo.

AFTER SEVERAL TENSE AND ACTION PACKED EPISODES, HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THE TRANSITION TO SOMETHING MORE CALM? 138 Responses

The larger chunk of respondents are feeling relieved to get a break from the action for a few episodes. 21.7% prefer the action but don’t mind a break here and there, while 21% state that they enjoy the exposition more than the action anyway, so they are content. A small handful don’t care either way.

We needed this for another build-up to more action

I like the action but it’s important to move the story along

These just feel mandatory fillers to me.

I miss the warriors

I feel fine with it. I thought that was going to be some happy-go-me episode, but gladly it still had a serious tones.

This episode felt like a very welcome respite after the absolute shitshow that was spoilers week and....whatever the fuck chapter 137 was.

Nice breather of sorts, I always like seeing characters from action-heavy series in their downtime.

WOULD YOU RATHER GET A SURPRISE GREETING FROM EREN & HANGE, OR ARMIN & LEVI? 141 Responses

The vast majority of respondents would prefer the slightly less lethal greeting given by Hange and Eren at the beginning of the episode. We’re not sure if the other 29.1% are masochists or just really love Levi and/or Armin that much more. Or perhaps they’re intrigued by the pig piss from the filthy island devils.

ON A SCALE OF 1-5, HOW HAPPY ARE YOU TO BE BACK ON PARADIS? 139 Responses

Overall, fans are happy to be back in familiar territory and put into the perspective of the Survey Corps again. Let’s get ready to rumble!

MAPPA HAS SPRINKLED IN ANIME-ONLY ADDITIONS THROUGHOUT THE EPISODE. AS A WHOLE, HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THEM? 139 Responses

Though subtle, MAPPA did include some anime filler (such as Eren’s, erm, mouth breathing). 51.1% enjoyed the noticeable additions, while 37.4% are completely confused by the question and didn’t realize there were any. A handful generally don’t prefer additions but enjoyed what little ones we had this episode. A small sliver didn’t care for them.

HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THE SCENES FROM CHAPTER 107 THAT WERE PEPPERED IN BETWEEN THE MOMENTS FROM CHAPTER 106? 139 Responses

MAPPA is shuffling things around to pick up the pacing of this arc, and 48.2% of respondents are feeling very positively about it. 38.8% also feel that both the order of events in the original manga and the anime work out just fine regardless. A couple of smaller groups either felt that things were a bit off from the manga, or didn’t really care either way.

I think it's great because it allows an episode to start and end on the same chapter if mappa ever wanted it, allowing the right twists or cliffhangers to be in the right episodes, all WITHOUT having to slow down, which I wholly appreciate.

I'm fine with the changes. Mappa is doing good job.

WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT THE CHANGE OF GABI BITING HER NAIL AND ANGRILY SAYING EREN’S NAME IN HER JAIL CELL? 142 Responses

Nearly half of voters feel that both MAPPA’s take and Isayama’s original take work just fine for Gabi’s character. 28.9% prefer the anime’s take on Gabi’s reaction to all that happened, while 14.8% feel that her more defeated posture in the manga makes more sense for her character.

I'm a mix of both? Her defeated posture implies that she's not happy with the way things worked out with them in jail and Zeke betraying them. On the other hand, her angry face is realistic to the scene too because it implies she really blames Eren for their current predicament.

She looks like some female version of young, angry Tarzan. This time Mappa should have kept the original postures, because the defeated Gabi feels to be more realistic, than the crazy anime one.

I think they both work but the anime's take might be the anime team beating us over the head that she's just like Eren when he was young.

Makes it clear to the anime-onlies that she really is psychotic

Gabi sucks

HOW WELL DO YOU THINK MAPPA NAILED THE TRANSITION OF EREN SHOOTING THE GUN, TO SASHA TAKING THE HIT? 141 Responses

The response to MAPPA’s take on Eren’s shot inadvertently hitting Sasha was overwhelmingly positive, with only a few people saying that they could have done better with it.

Eren shot linked to Sasha's death was awesome. Mappa is nailing it!

THE PART WHERE JEAN, SASHA AND CONNIE ARE TRYING TO GUESS WHAT A PORT IS WAS CUT OUT, WITH ARMIN’S NARRATION INSTEAD CUTTING INTO THE SCENE. WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT IT? 140 Responses

Exactly 50% felt that while having that JSC characterization would have been very much welcome, they’re okay with that small detail missing from the manga (granted, it was at least acknowledged by one panel being animated). 25.7% have a more nonchalant response, stating that if it helps with the pacing, they’re fine with small cuts like this. 10.7% are just let down by JSC’s lack of characterization in the anime overall and didn’t appreciate even more being taken from their characterization in this episode.

I was more so interested in our Paradis Peeps talking about newly discovered technology but I’m happy with what we got.

Not dissappointed since I understand you can't show everything but I love them so sad

Why was it animated then?! I’m so confused

Normally I don't like it when they cut corners like this, but I wasn't fond of that scene in the first place so it's okay.

If by "anime" you mean the entirety of it including the past 3 seasons, then option 3. I'm always going to be salty about how much they took out or changed for these three during the uprising arc. So far mappa has done okay with them, I guess.

Would have been a funny JSC moment, but it was really absolutely pointless. In manga format it works as just background words on a panel. Animating it takes seconds of an episode that could be used elsewhere. So I'm fine with it being cut out.

SOME HAVE COMPLAINED THAT THE ENDING SCENE OF EREN REPEATING HIS MANTRA INTO THE MIRROR LACKED THE IMPACT IT HAD IN THE MANGA. HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THAT? 138 Responses

43.5% were receptive of the anime only shots, but favor the way the scene was portrayed in the manga more. 34.1% felt that both versions were done well, with only 9.4% feeling that the impact was largely the same (if not better). Based on the write-ins, the main complaint seems to be the lighting/color scheme of the scene not quite meeting expectations, or that MAPPA made Eren’s back look weird.

theyll make up for it when eren screeches at hange next ep

Impact was there, art just felt a bit wonky and toned down the scene overall. 9/11

This goes into my criticism of the color palette and shading style mappa uses, which is far more subdued. The contrast is lowered and the scene is very dark, and there is little rim lighting, so while the actual lineart has far more detail, the detail in the lighting is reduced. Damn I really am writing a wall text aren't I? I prefer Wit Studio's art style a lot but Mappa has honestly been doing great so I couldn't care less, manbun Eren is hot.

I prefer the manga version. I think the anime version have weirds shadows in eren's back. Plus the mirror don't have the same energy, less impactful

Cool scene in the anime, an unforgettable blow to the brains in the manga

Idk

Most of the time seeing things for the first time is what's really impactful. Feel this way towards Armin's transformation in the boat as well. It was definitely less impactful than when you first read it in the manga.

I understand the fandom because this moment was very popular when the chapter was out. I think that in the anime Eren lacks the anger he had in the manga. His voice was too calm while repeating his mantra. .

WHY DOES HIS BACK LOOK LIKE THAT

I didn't care for it in the anime, it was really underwhelming.

I think most people are annoyed about the lighting than the impact. It’s a bit too dim and the lamp hides Eren’s new hair.

Didn't like the anime version at all

The animation wasn't good and they totally fucked his hair, face, and body up. Although the added shots were definitely welcome.

Eren could've been sexier/animated better, I hope they do better next ep 😭

WE WILL ASK YOU AGAIN. HOW WILL THE ANIME DEAL WITH MIKASA’S HIZURU TATTOO/SYMBOL? 135 Responses

With Mikasa meeting Kiyomi presumably being inevitable in episode 69, we wondered if any opinions had changed on this. 34.1% feel hopeful that the tattoo will be retconned into the anime and that we will see this scene faithful to the manga. 28.9% think that Mikasa will happen to have some kind of embroidery on hand already. 25.9% don’t want to make a call either way, and a small handful think Mikasa’s going to just pull out an embroidery kit and go with it, lol.

The embroidery will be on the inside of her bandage.

Japanese are very taboo about tattoos because of the Yazuka... it will 100% be the embroidery.

I don't know but I hope it gets retconned. Never liked the embroidery thing.

It won't be included

Let’s just... ignore it..

I really really hope MAPPA retcons Mikasa's tattoo next episode. This will be the one retcon I will absolutely celebrate. Plus, it's not really a retcon if they're just amending Wit's changes.

WE WILL ASK YOU AGAIN, AGAIN. WITH THE PACING CURRENTLY UTILIZED BY MAPPA, WHERE WILL EPISODE 16 END? 137 Responses

Uncertainty continues to loom over exactly how far MAPPA will get into this (first half of the?) season. Nearly 40% don’t want to make predictions one way or another, while 23.4% feel that it won’t make it quite to chapter 122. The rest believe it will make it to chapter 122, with 17.5% feeling there will only be minor cuts, if any, and the remaining 13.1% feeling that there will be major cuts to make the feat to chapter 122.

116 (?) when the allied force attack paradis

122 with the amount of cuts being somewhere in between. They can cut a lot of the Gabi and Falco plotline and still have the story remain intact.

See, I'm not sure buy I'm also worried and curious about it all. It brings up the question of will the story continue in a possible second half of the season? With the manga ending very soon now, it makes sense to have the story wrap up in its anime medium as well. Fees like there's some kind of uncertainty surrounding this, it's unnerving tbh.

119 with Eren's head being blown off.

gabi no scoping eren, ending creds is eren entering paths and we see ymir standing behind him, s4p2 starts w the ymir backstory

121

No idea and I don't think about it. I just enjoy the show.

Your guess is as good as mine, I'm still fearing major cuts.

119

HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT NICOLO’S PORTRAYAL? 138 Responses

With Nicolo now formally introduced in the anime, we were curious how you felt about his portrayal. Overall the reaction was positive, with 48.6% agreeing that he’s a “cutie pie chef”, and another 45.7% feeling that his design and seiyuu are absolutely great! A small handful were less happy with the voice, but happy with the design, and a sliver went in the opposite direction, preferring voice over animation.

HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THE ADDED DETAIL OF THE FLOWER BOQUETS AND THEIR SYMBOLISM ON SASHA’S GRAVE? 140 Responses

Respondents vastly appreciated the flower symbolism from MAPPA with 82.9% of the pie. 12.9% aren’t really sure what symbolism there even was, and a small amount either don’t care or felt the effort could have been spent on something other than flowers for Sasha.

WHICH SCENE FROM THE PREVIEW ARE YOU MOST LOOKING FORWARD TO? 143 Responses

This pie chart wound up being almost eerily even. 42.7% are most looking forward to the 104th discussing Eren (hopeful for the train flashback?). 39.9% instead are looking more forward to Hange and Eren’s tense conversation at his jail cell. The remaining three preview moments were pretty evenly split as well.

DO YOU THINK WE’LL GET BLUSHING!104TH NEXT EPISODE? 130 Responses

71.5% feel that there is a chance we will get the train flashback of the 104th in this episode, but don’t want to say for absolutely certain. 18.5% feel that it is a guarantee based on what we saw in the preview. 10% feel it is instead guaranteed that we will NOT get the scene in 69.

WE WILL LIKELY SEE PREGNANT HISTORIA NEXT EPISODE. THOUGHTS? 140 Responses

The plotline that continues to be a frustrating mystery in the manga - Historia’s pregnancy. 34.3% aren’t particularly looking forward to seeing her in the rocking chair and aren’t very stoked about having to relive this plotline all over again. 33.6% mainly just care about seeing how the anime only fans react to the scene. 17.9% just miss Historia altogether and will take any scraps they can get. And a small handful, at 9.3%, are actually looking forward to seeing anime!Historia with a baby bump.

Don't really care about historia

It's in MAPPA's hands now. I just hope they can add a little more of her screentime somehow.

I hope so. I want to see the design of her adult self.

I honestly wouldn't mind if Historia's entire arc, which consists of equal parts pregnancy, irrelevance and uselessness, is just completely cut in the anime lol

not interest

I'm not interested

I've hated this fucking plot line with all my being and what it's done to Historia since the leaks for this chapter were revealed years ago. So I'm not looking forward to anime-only people jumping in with their hot takes too. 🤮🤮

ADDITIONAL THOUGHTS ON THE EPISODE?

mikasa was shown in sasha's grave in the morning/afternoon and then she was shown again at dusk. SHE SPENT THE WHOLE DAY THERE. and annie... what a queen. and hisu's few scenes? so pretty.

Really glad the pacing was well done

nicosasha ship just flew in and took the spotlight

fantastic!! maybe it's just because this isn't my first time going through this arc anymore, but i feel like the anime feels chronologically less confusing than the manga—I remember being very confused my first time reading these chapters.

The lack of score by Hiroyuki Sawamo is negatively impacting my relationship with the anime. The depth of the emotion that could have been evoked was not present. I also did not get the sense that Nicolo and Sasha were in love, which was a major disappoinment. There were other aspects that weren't so bad, though; specifically, Levi's portrayal and Onyankopon's philosophy.

It felt a bit all over the place, but just seeing things from the manga being animated, I ain’t even mad.

I think that the scene between Sasha and Nicolo was made better in the anime. Isayama has problems with writing romantic moments, so in the manga the whole moment looked like it was taken from some light romance. Mappa made this scene more serene. I liked it.

I think MAPPA is doing so great tbh! I just need them to hurry up and explain if there will be a part two to this final season or what?! I need to know if we get more anime or they'll diverge into movies or.... just tell us! Lol!

How DAREEEE they not give Levi his black steed!!!! .....Although knowing what happens ummm yeah maybe his pony gets to live another day this way lol

Here comes the train wreck, choo choo!

I'm really sad I didn't get to hear Sasha call Jean a perv. I was really looking forward to that. LOL I love them. When EMA were at the shooting range, it looked too much like Mikasa wasn't wearing any pants.

VERY solid. Not the biggest fan of the War for Paradis arc but I'm here for the ride.

WHERE DO YOU PRIMARILY DISCUSS THE SERIES? 128 Responses

Thanks again to everyone who participated!

#snk poll #snk polls #snk spoilers #snk s4 #shingeki no kyojin #attack on titan #snk #aot

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gunnerpalace · 5 years ago

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hey there! so i used to be a huge fan of bleach, and loved ichiruki, and i was reminded of them today but i haven't been involved with the fandom since the series ended. however, i've heard of different variations of why the series ended/ships happened the way they did, and was wondering if you knew or could direct to me a post that explains that? i apologize if i'm bringing up bitter feelings, but i've always been curious if bleach's ending was a big FU from kubo or if he always intended rr/ih

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a post that really goes over it structurally in that kind of way (from a shipping perspective). I’ll get back to what you actually asked me after some asides, because it’s not so simple to just analyze the ships in a vacuum.

I’ve had my own post about why the ending was a fuck you moment, thematically, because it failed to resolve any of the themes and momentum of the series in a way that would be appropriate (either internally or in the context of the supposed genre of shounen.)

I would also say that the ending was a fuck you moment in terms of lore, backstory, and mystery, because all of the historical and political dimensions (i.e., things involving the Soul King and Great Houses) were unceremoniously shuffled off to Can’t Fear Your Own World. Not that any of those things were ever brought up properly in the manga to begin with; the proper and natural time for that would’ve been at the conclusion of the Soul Society arc, when Ichigo and co. spent a week there, which we saw none of. So I would say that everything in CFYOW is basically retconned bullshit hung off prior convenient plot hooks, and that the same was true of TYBW and LSS/TLA/Xcution as well. There may have been some notes and forethought, but it’s about as “valid” as Kevin J. Anderson and Brian Herbert’s Dune works are compared to the original Frank Herbert ones; it’s second-hand, at best.

(This is setting aside that Bleach was clearly made up as it went along. For example: Noriaki literally admitted that he didn’t know who had killed Aizen in Soul Society until he realized that Aizen not being dead was the most shocking answer; the clear baiting and abandonment of Kisuke as the villain hinted at through various means such as his unclear and later retconned reasons for being exiled, and so on. Bleach was very much a J. J. Abrams-style mystery box work that was made as it went with, at best, rough notes, which is why its themes and focus change, for the worse. I also have a post about why it stopped being special, which is part of a running series I intend to write on how to rewrite it to fix and preserve that)

The best recent thing to compare it to is, really, HBO’s adaptation of Game of Thrones, wherein D. B. Weiss and David Benioff openly admitted to removing or deemphasizing story elements, and ignoring themes in adapting the work. The difference is that Bleach was not being adapted from anything; it degraded due to its own creator not understanding what he had created.

(To put it very simply, because this would be the point of Hyperchlorate Part II and would take a whole post to explain: the ending of the Soul Society arc did not properly establish and flesh out Soul Society as a place with a history, space, and purpose. Instead, the Arrancar and Hueco Mundo arcs decided to be a thematic inversion and deconstruction of the Karakura and Soul Society arcs. This again had an ending that did not establish or flesh anything out after Aizen’s defeat, with an even greater diffusion of focus onto ancillary characters. The Xcution arc tripled down on this by addressing something entirely new and retconned in, only to abandon it midway through in favor of going back to invoking Soul Society. And Thousand-Year Blood War took all of these problems to 11. tl;dr: Noriaki tried themes, people hated it, and so he just shoved in more and more dumb sword fights between people nobody cared about, half of whom hadn’t previously existed.)

So, let’s get back to your question. Let’s talk about ships. I’ve clicked a lot of keys and spilled a lot of ink on this subject over the years, but I no longer particularly feel like searching my own archives (really ought to go back through and organize them better) beyond this post and my own follow-up to it about the chronology of IR interactions, so I’m just going to repeat myself.

First, let’s say that Bleach was not ever a manga about ships.

I’m not disavowing that what Rukia and Ichigo had was special. That was called out multiple times through the focus of the art, the dialogue, and by the characters themselves. (Directly by, for example, Orihime’s outright statement to the effect in Soul Society, and her later jealousy regarding it. Indirectly by, say, Uryuu’s acknowledgement that him saving Rukia first would piss Ichigo off. In fact, the biggest indirect indicator doesn’t even involve Ichigo and Rukia; Shunsui asks Chad why he’s there and Chad says he wants to save Rukia, Shunsui calls bullshit that two months isn’t enough time to risk your life for that, and Chad agrees and says he’s there because Ichigo wants to do it. Shunsui moves on, but his argument is left hanging: why was two months enough for Ichigo? Because, as Orihime will later say out loud, Rukia is special.)

What I’m saying is that that was never the focus. It was explicitly constructed that way.

How do I know? The Grand Fisher fight. The Grand Fisher fight is emotionally charged, bringing up both Ichigo and Rukia’s greatest traumas, and is their one real moment of not understanding each other for a time. It was a triumphant moment that made them truly glad to know one another, and you can see it in their reactions afterward (Rukia thanking Ichigo for not dying, Ichigo asking Rukia if he can keep being a Shinigami). There was a lot to unpack there, and you can see it in the way they look at each other.

What happened immediately after the Grand Fisher fight? Noriaki skipped a whole month. We go from June 18th of 2001 to July 17th of 2001. He deliberately skipped all of the emotional impact of that event, and Rukia being around for Ichigo’s 16th birthday. Just never happened. We never hear about it. Wasn’t his focus as a writer.

Now, I’m convinced that was because he was scared of what he had on his hands. He wasn’t willing to commit to either a couple’s battle shoujo or a shounen with male and female seemingly-heterosexual co-equal deuteragonists who clearly had a strong emotional bond. More specifically, he wasn’t willing to make Rukia a centerpiece of the manga despite having designed her first, having made her the moral and philosophical core of his manga, and having based Ichigo entirely around completing and complementing her. But hey, that’s just my opinion, right? Except it kept happening.

From the Grand Fisher fight onward, the name of the game in the manga, structurally, became keeping Ichigo and Rukia apart.

The moment she was taken back to Soul Society, her prominence dropped. We got emotionally charged scenes of them regardless. Right at the conclusion, after yet another emotionally heavy set of Ichigo and Rukia interactions, we again skip almost a month, from the end of the first week in August of 2001 to September 1, 2001. (Due to some completely unnecessary timey-wimey bullshit with the Precipice World.)

In the Arrancar and Hueco Mundo arcs, they have roughly a day together over the course of three months. What happens after every meeting? They’re shuffled apart and split up, and we cut away. This time, for over a year!

Ichigo and Rukia again have a very emotionally charged meeting in the Xcution arc. And what happens at the end of that arc? We skip ahead another month to TYBW. (Xcution ended sometime in May of 2003, TYBW starts June 11, 2003.)

And in TYBW, Rukia and Ichigo barely meet up at all. Indeed, the focus is scarcely upon them.

In CFYOW, neither of them even appear, let alone have any relevance to the plot.

The implication, in my opinion, is pretty obvious: Noriaki was deathly afraid of dealing with the outcomes of their interactions, and that ultimately became him being deathly afraid of allowing them to interact at all to begin with. Why? Well, as I said in one of the last linked posts:

As an author, sometimes you will find your characters will do things you didn’t anticipate or plan for, and you’ve got two choices: you can go with the flow and do what’s natural and deal, or you can fight it and try and impose your vision anyway.

He refused to let his art take the direction it needed to go in.

Now, some people might say he got bored of them, or of having them together. I say that’s bullshit. And the reason I say is down to three things:

He didn’t ignore them, he did his best to keep them apart. I outlined this above.

He did not emphasize anything or anyone else instead. His focus was all over the place. While, admittedly, Ichigo’s prominence also declined, so did everyone else’s.

It would have served him well to focus on their interactions to expand his universe and explore its lore. The things that were detailed in the databooks and CFYOW could’ve been presented naturally and easily if they were together. But that came with a cost of shifting the focus. A cost he refused to pay.

Let’s talk more about (2) and (3) now.

Regarding (2), Chad and Orihime are inextricably linked in Bleach, because they essentially have the same relationship to Ichigo. “But Orihime loves Ichigo, and Chad is his no-homo bro!” someone proclaims. So what? They’re presented as equal and parallel at every step.

They both gain their powers at approximately the same time.

We are told they gained their powers due to the Hogyouku (in Rukia at the time) interpreting their wishes (and no one else’s, such as Tatsuki, Keigo, or Mizuiro), meaning they probably had the same strength of desire.

They both go to Soul Society “for Ichigo.”

They both utterly fail against Yammy and Ulquiorra.

They both spend most of the Hueco Mundo arc doing nothing.

They are both featured prominently in the Xcution arc, and both fail to see through Tsukishima’s powers despite their love for Ichigo. (Meanwhile, Byakuya coolly tries to murder someone who he thinks is his mentor, in Ichigo’s name.)

They both get sidelined in Hueco Mundo with Kisuke in TYBW, doing little to nothing.

They both are utterly ineffectual in the final fight in TYBW.

They are often portrayed together, they are often as effective as one another, and they are equally as developed in their relationship to Ichigo going forward, which is to say: not at all. The loss of focus on IR did not come with an attendant rise of focus on IH, any more than it did with the sudden rise of IchiChad. Nothing was built in IR’s place. There was no emotional or human content which filled its gap.

This is where the IH ending coming “out of nowhere” stems from: it indeed came out of nowhere, because Ichigo was never shown to have any interest in Orihime in all this time, nor an especially close relationship with her. He never hangs out with Chad or shows a bond with him either. He never hangs out with anyone, in fact. (Indeed, “friends” in Bleach do not do any of the things that friends actually do in real life. Nor do parents. You might say that interpersonal relationships and communication largely don’t exist in Bleach. But that’s its whole own topic.)

I would honestly say that more time and emphasis was given on Ichigo’s pseudo-surrogate mother relationship with Ikumi than was spent on him interacting with Orihime. (I would say Noriaki has serious hangups about relationships of any kind, be they romantic, familial, or friendly, and also has some severe hangups regarding mothers and fathers, but that is also its whole own topic.)

Regarding (3), Noriaki apparently wanted this big, Game of Thrones-style world with a long history and political machinations and so on. This is the whole point of TYBW and CFYOW. Trouble is, early Bleach was successful because of its small-scale intimacy. So how do you go from one to the other? You have to lay the foundations at every step. And Noriaki steadfastly refused to do so at every step. Having Ichigo and Rukia interact, and focusing on Rukia while Ichigo was sidelined without powers, would’ve permitted that organically. Indeed, if RR was the endgame, it would have given time to establish that, were it his desire. (Because Rukia never showed any interest in Renji, and frankly Renji always seemed way more preoccupied with Byakuya.) It didn’t serve his goals, but he did it anyway.

It’s much simpler to say he lost focus, and that he started to hate the manga as a whole. Why else would you have Mayuri fighting a giant hand when that achieved nothing, and Kenpachi fighting Thor when that achieved nothing? It became empty. Hollow, you might say.

But that takes us back to the question you posed: where did the ships come from? Nowhere. IH, RR, and fucking TatsuKeigo weren’t established anywhere. They just appeared. Why?

Well, why did every single character wind up doing the exact opposite of their intended and stated goals in the end?

Why did Soul Society revert to its previous attitude and rebuild the Sokyouku?

Why did nothing get resolved?

Why did nothing change?

Why was it all revealed to have been completely and utterly pointless?

In my view, it’s because that ending was a giant fuck you to the readership and Shueisha. There is no other way to interpret an author pulling a 180° and completely nullifying their characters’ arcs, and their work’s themes. Aizen’s little speech at the end is the cherry on top. I read it as Noriaki saying that he’s showing “courage” in telling us all to fuck off.

As to why? That’s an open question. His relationship with Shueisha was contentious, so maybe he was mad at them. (They gave him a deadline once he was dragging his feet, and reclassified Bleach as a joke manga.) His readership was on the decline after the Soul Society arc ended, so maybe he was mad at the audience. I don’t know. I also don’t really care. What I am convinced of is he decided to blow up his franchise and to not leave a single stone unturned when he did so.

That’s where that “ending” comes from, which is why despite it featuring IH and RR, both are thoroughly unsatisfying and without setup: it was the only way to piss absolutely everyone off, including people who wanted that outcome.

In a way, it was his greatest success since the early days of the manga.

Anyway, this was messy, but it’s not a simple topic to address. The tl;dr is that Bleach was a trainwreck from the very beginning that only succeeded on the merits of its characters, and that Noriaki deliberately avoided the promise it had to be something unique and grand. The ships are just a part of that, and cannot be understood in isolation from it.

#Asks #Bleach

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ryqoshay · 5 years ago

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What are your favorite NicoMaki doujins? (Totally not asking for recommendations)

Oh dear, where to start? ... Uhm... all of them? Well, I suppose there are a few with plots I’m not particularly crazy about and some with art styles that do little for me, but I suppose I can make a quick list here.

I’ll divide up the list based on (N)SFW status for those wishing to avoid such stuff.

And it apparently got really long. I was originally just going to put the NSFW stuff under the cut, but there’s just so much awesome NicoMaki stuff out there, and I’ve even been skipping stuff, and only sticking to what can be found on Dynasty Reader... so I guess the whole thing needs to go under the cut now.

Safe (and probably quite fluffy)

- Happy Family - Easily earns its “Moe up the butt” tag. Set in the manga’s universe where Nico only has sisters, no brother. - You Can’t Escape the Yazawas!! - Another by the same author. Flustered Maki is always adorable. - Never Let Me Go - A short, cute taste of angst. - NICONICO MAXIMUM double happiness - Created before the anime and deals with the couple’s use of honorifics back then. - NicoMaki Dating Life: 1 Week, 2 Weeks, 3 Months - Tiny glimpses into the early dating life of NicoMaki. (4 months is NSFW and will be linked below) - Colorful Shuffle - An interesting take on events from S2 E06. I will never have enough NicoMaki as portrayed by RinPana - Scandal - tmfly draws adorable NicoMaki (same author as above) - Let Us Stay For Longer - So of course I need to include more tmfly - Don't Accept Unpardonable Acts at a Public Place! - and still more tmfly - Blanket - More moe up the butt - 365 - A nice collection of adorableness - NicoMaki Manga - Feels like a chapter left out of the collection above - Home Sweet Home - More adorableness with the twins - Oblivious Nishikino Maki - Three chapters of Kou’s utter adorableness - Kou - Honestly all of Kou’s work is awesome, so I’ll just link it all - Your Ring Finger - Maki got a ring from...? - Drill - Another artist who’s NicoMaki work is amazing. I think their portrayal of Nico is a bit more dense than I personally headcanon - I see Maki as being slower on the emotional uptake - but all of the NicoMaki tags on this page are worth checking out, as well as this image in particular, as it was what inspired part of my scene Reconstructed Reunion. - NicoMaki Relaxed Manga - I doubt I will ever tire of casual, slice of life, domestic NicoMaki - NicoMaki An Easygoing Birthday - More of the same. Murata has three other on Dynasty Reader, but I’m not quite as crazy about them as I am about these two, so I’ll leave them off this list. Fair warning that two are NSFW - Maki-chan Kawaii Ka Ki Ku Ke Ko - Flustered Maki is Adorable Maki - Nico Maki Maki - Probably the best gift one could give to Maki - NicoMaki Interdict - By the gods do I love this one. The fact that Umi, of all people, is picking up on the NicoMaki vibes, is enough to make me laugh. A lot. And I believe I’ve mentioned that at least once in HtHaN. - Magnetic Box - An adorable collection from the same author as the last two - No, 1 - Three long chapters filled with amazing art, a pinch of angst, a sprinkle of spiritual power and many wonderful NicoMaki moments. - Karuha - I cannot tell you how many times I’ve reread this author’s works. Even the NSFW entries are “porn with plot” and are the kind of thing I would want to emulate should I include such a scene in HtHaN. Honestly, just having linked these here makes me want to reread them all again. - NicoMaki!! - Tsundere’ish Maki is adorable - Not a Lover NicoMaki - Never enough cute domestic NicoMaki. I have a handful of notes for future scenes in HtHaN because of this doujin. And someday I may even write them. - NicoMaki Kiss - A cute depiction of the couple’s first kiss - NicoMaki Kiss (part 2) - One is never enough - Springtime Chocolate Day - Honesty may be the best policy, but that doesn’t make it any easier - NicoMaki Days - A wonderful collection of 4-koma that takes us from Friends, to Dating to Living Together and finally to Married. Always worth a reread. - Adult NicoMaki - An interesting take on the couple grown up - My Idol, My Star - I’m not crying, it’s just raining - Happy Wedding Vacation - Probably the safest Ooshima Tomo work there is. And among my favorite, though Honeymoon Baby down in the Mostly Safe’ish section holds strong in first place for me. - Nico Senpai Was Hypnotized - Another amazingly safe Tomo work.

Canon Works

- Love Live! School Idol Diary ch06: The Seven Mysteries of Otonokizaka Academy - Maki is afraid of ghosts. And someone else might be as well... - Love Live! School Idol Diary ch02: Work, Summer Girl - Nico sells softserve and Maki visits. Adorableness ensues. - Love Live! School Idol Diary ch04: On The Night Of The Fireworks - NicoMaki wearing yukatas, watching fireworks and being cute together.

Mostly Safe’ish:

- Sotto Okoshite Yume Misete - Cute short little dream thing. In this set due to a couple camera angles. - Itsumo Doori ni Dekinai - Is technically SFW, but I put it here because it’s a direct sequel to the one above. - NicoMaki Had a Baby With iPS Cell Technology - Maternal NicoMaki is always welcome, imho - NicoMaki Had a Baby With iPS Cell Technology 2 - Thankfully, Tomo feels the same way I do about more maternal NicoMaki - Honeymoon Baby - One of my all time favorite NicoMaki doujins, so much so that it’s directly influenced many of my headcanons as well as plot points in HtHaN. Also, this is about as SFW as Ooshima Tomo gets. - Back-and-Forth Initiative - Perhaps could be placed on the Safe list, but just in case I’ll put it here. I’ll probably be borrowing some of the ideas here for HtHaN. - NicoMaki Medical Check - I love the premise and the plot, but one line from Maki makes my eye twitch a bit and thus it ends up in this section of the list. - Pickle Love - Safer than the inuendo implies. Only dirty minds make it necessary to put in this part of the list - Nico-chan Wants to Push You Down Too!! - Pretty safe Tomo work.

NSFW

- NicoMaki Dating Life: 4 Months - The conclusion of the clips from above. - Rabbit-like Girlfriend - Nico knows how to get what she wants from Maki - Want Me! - Awkward first time. I’ll likely draw a bit from this should I ever write such a scene for HtHaN. - Udon - Udon’s work is a mixed bag of Safe and NSFW, but pretty much all cute. I linked my favorite Safe work up above. My favorite NSFW is Good Morning, Good Night. - Of Course I know How to Use the Public Bath! - Ecchi rather than hentai, but still probably belongs in this section. - Ooshima Tomo - Most of her doujins are NSFW, but I like the characterizations presented in them. I’m not particularly fond of Offering a Poem of Love to the Upside Down Sun as the tone feels off to me and Limited Edition Yuri Book is futanari, which has never really been a kink of mine. Also, many of her works seem to share a timeline, but she did a team project with EERR which is the next entry - Crystal Sugar and Machine Gun - A multi-chapter introspective angst fest with a NSFW ending. I hesitate to call this work one of my favorites, but I’ve reread it multiple times nonetheless. Each time it makes me think about the directions I’m taking HtHaN and makes me wonder if I shouldn’t include more angst from time to time. And even if I don’t include it directly, I might reference it via Nico or Maki being introspective and considering less-than-desirable alternatives to how their lives are.

So, yeah... there you have it; what was intended to be a quick and dirty little list of my favorite NicoMaki doujin. And I didn’t even get around to linking to stuff I’ve found on other sites, though some I’m not sure I’d want to link directly to anyway; I’m hoping that stuff will end up on better sites eventually. And for every translated NicoMaki, there are at least half a dozen that remain untranslated; enough that I’m seriously considering learning Japanese just to read them.

There is just so much out there; 9 pages on Dynasty Reader. Compare that to the 5 for NozoEli, 2 for KotoUmi and RinPana. We’re pretty lucky as NicoMaki fans when it comes to quantity of awesome fanworks. I’d highly encourage exploring the rest of the works on Dynasty Reader to see if there is a diamond in the rough that I missed or appeals more to your tastes or whatever.

#Ryqo's Q&A #NicoMaki

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murasaki-murasame · 5 years ago

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Thoughts on Fruits Basket 2019 Episode 8: “See You When You Get Back”

And with this episode, we’re officially 2 out of 23 volumes into the story, which at this point really spells out that we’re in for the long haul with this reboot, lol.

This episode was a bit more low-key than some of the other ones, but it did a wonderful job of showing how things have developed since the first episode, and it’s just warm and cozy from start to finish.

Thoughts under the cut [plus spoilers for the whole manga]

After how the last episode shuffled things about a bit in order to adapt chapters 10 and 12 together, this one finishes off volume 2 by adapting chapter 11.

This is another interesting situation where the reboot is technically doing the same thing as the 2001 anime, which also spent a whole episode on chapter 11, but both adaptations do it in notably different ways.

It’s been a while since I actually watched the 2001 anime so I might be forgetting stuff, but I vaguely remember that almost the first half of that adaptation’s episode was spent on entirely original material, before they got around to doing a fairly 1:1 adaptation of chapter 11. I’m pretty sure it involved a whole extended sequence of Uo and Hana coming over to help clean Shigure’s house, while we also get comedy stuff happening with Shigure’s editor [has she even been mentioned in the reboot yet? I can’t even remember when exactly she’s first mentioned in the manga, honestly].

On the flip side, the reboot version sticks much more strictly to the events of chapter 11 from start to finish, and instead of making up entirely new material to fill out the episode, it just individually adds little bits and pieces to every scene from chapter 11 so that it takes up the whole episode. It might be a bit divisive for some people, but in contrast to how the 2001 anime opted to have it’s original material be as comedy-oriented as possible, I really prefer how the reboot takes the opportunity to flesh out existing material from the manga.

Right from the start of the episode, the pre-OP scene with Tohru, Hana, and Uo is basically just elaborating on and actually showing what was hinted at in the manga, with Tohru deciding not to burden her friends over the holidays by staying with them. There was also more emphasis early on with Tohru being peppy in a really forced way to hide her underlying sadness, and we actually get to see her asking Shigure if she can stay at his house over the holidays, whereas in the manga it’s just casually mentioned as something she asked him off-screen. We also get a whole scene after Yuki and Kyo go back home where they’re watching TV with Tohru and being all protective and making sure she’s eating properly, and Uo calls her to see how she’s doing.

I just really like how all of those sorts of original scenes and details they add just flesh out what was already in the manga, and just make the whole flow of events more fleshed out. In particular I like how this episode drives home Uo and Hana’s concern and protectiveness of Tohru home even more than the manga did. We also got some little glimpses of both of their families, which was really cool [especially since, as I’ll talk about later, it looks like both of their backstory parts will get adapted later in this first season]

I was hoping we’d see more of the whole zodiac banquet and the dance, but oh well. At least we got a look at the room it takes place in, with all the chairs arranged in a circle.

We at least got to see Haru for the first time properly. Which was also in the manga so it’s not exactly noteworthy, but still. It’s nice that we’re getting a look at him right before his intro episode.

They didn’t really add any new scenes or anything with him, but I did like how they had Hatori point out that it’s really confusing that Shigure calls him ‘Haa-san’ while also calling Haru ‘Haa-kun’. I looked back to check, and they don’t acknowledge how confusing that is in the manga, so it was a neat little detail.

I feel like I’ve been saying this about every episode, but the reboot’s still doing an amazing job at having all of the backgrounds and environments look super detailed, atmospheric, and spacious. One thing I really like is that they’re not shying away from more complicated layouts and camera angles, especially when characters are walking up stairs. The sheer variety in shot composition and the consistency of detail in the art design really make this feel a bit closer to a movie than a TV anime, if that makes sense. I feel like the music’s also getting better and more emotional as the episodes go on, although they used the same insert song they did in ep5, which felt a bit odd, but it worked.

There’s not really a whole lot to say about what actually happens in this episode, story-wise, since it’s a pretty chill and low-key chapter even in the manga, but it’s nice to get even more focus on how much Yuki and Kyo are coming to care for Tohru, and how they’re getting more and more aware of her feelings and how she tends to suppress things.

In a lot of ways this episode feel vaguely recap-y, with all the short flashback montages and stuff, but it’s not to the point of feeling drawn out or unnecessary. It feels more like a way to wrap up this whole first chunk of the story before we move onto a whole new round of character introductions and plot developments and stuff.

And on that note, the next episode is gonna be Haru’s intro episode, which I’ve been impatiently waiting for. It doesn’t help that I initially thought the pacing of the reboot would be a fair bit faster, so it’s been taking longer to get to this part than I thought, lol. I do appreciate that the reboot’s taking it’s time and going slowly but surely, even if it does make me a bit impatient to get to certain later parts.

In the back of my head I’d been a bit irrationally anxious about if they might downplay or outright erase the fact that Haru has a crush on Yuki, but right off the bat they’re literally titling the next episode ‘Yuki Was My First Love’, lol. It almost feels like a spoiler, for new fans at least, since it’s meant to be a bit of a surprise, but I can’t complain.

This is getting into more long-term spoiler territory, but I’m very curious to see if they add in any references or teases to Rin in the next episode, or if like in the manga she won’t get brought up until a fair bit after this. I think it’d make sense to bring up her and her relationship with Haru in the next episode, especially since it’s also gonna include talking about how Haru first had a crush on Yuki. But we’ll see how they choose to do it. I have a feeling it’s going to be the sort of episode that actually feels almost exactly the same as the 2001 anime version of it, since it’s a very straight-forward arc that the original series didn’t cut anything out of.

Also, before I forget, I said that it looks like Uo and Hana’s backstory chapters will get included in season 1, and that’s because it looks like in the video Funi posted where they explain the reasoning behind Momiji’s dub voice-acting, you can see what seems to be some notes of the season 1 episode list on some sticky-notes in the background, which seem to basically spell out what a good chunk of season 1 will cover, episode by episode, which seems to include both Uo and Hana’s backstory parts. So I think it was nice that we got some small teasers at what their families and homes are like, since we’ll be seeing more of them later in the season.

Anyway, this was a super warm and fuzzy episode to help shift us away from the emotional intensity of the last episode. With how shockingly consistent and good the reboot’s been thus far, I have high hopes for what’ll come next.

#murasaki rambles #fruits basket

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kuldren · 7 years ago

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Levi x Dying! Reader |Angst|

BEFORE YOU START READING:

This is an old fic I wrote on my old deviantart (AnonymousAesthetic). It’s outdated and doesn’t really follow the plot. Keep in mind I wrote this before I read the manga. I also changed a few things from my original fic such as the dialog since I used “Brat” and “Tch” every 5 seconds.

Anyway hope you enjoy or cry cause I certainly did

Scuffed books littered the floor, while important documents were thrown carelessly across the large room. The once tidy office of the clean freak corporal had now become a pig sty, but he didn't give a fuck. How could he? His bright ray of sunshine, the one person he truely loved was no longer by his side. He shouldered the burden. Although he knew he couldn't save her, that he couldn't decide her fate, he still carried the weight of her death.

It had only been a few hours after she had fallen into the arms of heaven, but to him it felt like centuries. He missed the way her (H/l) (H/c) hair blew behind her as she flew with her 3Dm gear, or how her bubbly personality could even make the usual stoic man smile, but he would never show it.

Levi sat in a corner of his office, empty bottles of alcohol surrounded him as he hugged his knees. Dry tears stained his pale cheeks. It was in moment such as this he longed for her embrace, but he knew very well that his wish couldn’t be granted.

"You brat." He whimpered as he tilted his head back, trying his best to hold back the tears threatening to spill out of his puffy red eyes. "Breaking our promise like that. You promised you'd come back alive!" Levi grabs an empty bottle in his right hand and throws is across the room, watching it smash against the opposite wall with a satisfying crack. The glass quickly falls to the ground with a loud cluster of noise. Sighing, Levi let the tears run down his cheeks as he buried his head in his knees as he remembered the events before her death.

~12 Hours Ago~

"Are you sure you checked everything?" Levi glared down at the short woman before him as she let out a big sigh. Her arms folded below her chest and her eyes rolled upwards in annoyance.

"I told you, yes!" She snaps back, crossing her arms as she stared back into the mans steel grey eyes. "I don’t understand why you pester me all the time, you have other members to be concerned about too. But not only that, you should be checking your own gear too. We can’t have our Oh mighty corporal struggle with his gear can we?" The raven haired man just sighed.

"I'm just making sure my squad members are safe."

I'm making sure you don't die you idiot

"If that’s so, why haven't you checked on Titan boy and the others?"

She asks as she raises an eyebrow. "I've checked on them already"

You're all I really care about

Levi would never tell (Y/n) about his feelings toward her. It would be very unprofessional of him and he had to keep up appearances. But also, there was always that fear of rejection. The fear that she would look him in the eyes and laugh at his face, scrunching up his heart and throwing it back right at him.

"Such short answers. Nothing changes with you ey? Well, I can’t force you to make decisions, but I suggest you check on the rest. Trust me... they need it more that I do." She muses. "Brat." "Yeah?"

"Promise me something." Staring her dead straight in the eyes, he quickly looks away and stares at a tree in the distance. She hums, as curiosity fills her voice. "Just, make sure you don't die out there tomorrow. You're the only one I can actually handle in this dumb ass squad of mine, you got that brat?" She stares blankly at him for few seconds before stifling a giggle behind her small hand.

"You really don’t have much faith in me hey? Of course I’ll make it back alive." She lightly punches his arm and gives him her trade mark smile. "What the hell would you do without me?"

What would he do with out her? The two bid each other good night and part ways as they make their way to their own sleeping quarters. Tomorrow, a very important mission was going to be put underway. The task was to get the Eren's basement. As simple as it sounds, everyone knew just how dangerous And big the risk really was. The man quickly changed into his night a tire and decided to get some decent sleep before the next day came rolling 'round the corner.

~~~

The soft orange light of the rising sun outside glowed through the Curtains of Levi's window, waking him up from his uneasy slumber. Groaning, Levi slowly pushes himself up off his chair and stretched his arms. He knew very well that today they were going to loose a heck of a lot of lives, but it wasn't anything he had never seen before. As sickening as it may sound, it was as if Levi grew accustom to watching people drop dead around him, but being in the military kinda does that to you. He swiftly changes into his uniform and adjusted the straps of his 3Dm gear to his liking before waking out his quarters and out into the stables.

"Up bright and early as usual I see." A voice softly chirpped from behind him, making him spin around. "Good morning, Cadet (L/n)."

"Good morning" (Y/n)’s bubbly voice masked to pain behind it, but not enough for it to fool Levi. To anyone else it’d seem as if she was unfazed by today’s mission, but Levi could see it all. From the subtle shake of her legs to the way she fidgeted with her Gear was enough for him to tell she was scared. She turned her attention back to her horse and starts grooming it gently. "Are you ready for today? I think you are!" Levi hears the woman ask in a childish matter. Confused, He spun around to see (Y/n) talking to her horse. In response, her horse nuzzled up to her neck making her giggle. Oh how Levi envied that horse. As stupid as it sounds, it was true. The horse always had all of her attention, and she would spend most of her time in a day taking care of her stallion.

"You know the dumb horse can't understand you, right?" Levi mutters under his breath as he starts to saddle up his own horse. "What's that? I think the asshole next to me is grumpy" She continues to talk to her horse as she saddles it up. "You really need to grow up."

"You really need to shut up" She snaps back as she finishes up with her horse and walks towards Levi. "But...About That promise you made me make. You need to promise me something to" The man lifts his hands of the saddle and turned towards the (H/c) haired woman.

"Ok?" "Promise me... Promise me you won't die either." She shuffled her feet along the ground as her eyes followed her own movements. "Of course I will." She looked up and gave the man a wide toothy grin, almost making Levi smile. Brushing some hair off her face, Levi looked her in her (E/c) eyes and said. "I promise." He let go of the strand of hair and walked towards the mess hall, leaving (Y/n) with a crimson red face.

“Thank you, Levi."

~~~

"Sir, two abnormal Titans coming from the right!" Eren shouts as the Levi Squad frantically ride their horses towards their destination. "Alright, (Y/n), help me out." Levi shouts in the (H/c) haired woman's direction. "Yes sir!" The two lifted into the air and headed towards the Abnormals.

"Hideous." She mutters under her breath as she cut into the Titans nape in one swift motion. She watch as Levi also does the same, whipping though the air, distracting it before cutting a clean line in the nape of its neck. "Alright let's go." Levi calls. She nods and flies back towards the rest of the Squad.

The plans for today were simple. Everyone stays in formation, only killing Titans when necessary. As soon as everyone gets to The Jeäger's home, Eren will transform into his Titan form to lift off any rubble from the ground so we have clean access to the Basement. As Eren is busy lifting, we all protect him from any other Titans near by.

A solid hour of running around, killing Titans and watching comrades die had flown by as they approached what was left of Eren's Old home. "This is it!" Eren yells to the rest. (Y/n)'s heart started beating faster as they approached the rubble that Eren used to call home. "Ok people, protect Eren at all costs!" Levi instructed as we all rose into the air and start searching for Titans. "Good luck Eren!" (Y/n) shouts before she flies off.

"You to (Y/n)!" And with that Eren bit into his hand and transformed into his Titan form. The squad split up, but stayed close enough to keep an eye out for each other. It hadn't been long till (Y/n) spotted a Titan. Without hesitation, she flew towards it, her two hands gripping her swords ready to fight. She landed on the Titans neck and cut into its nape without any second thoughts. The Titian fell to its death as she rose once again in the air to search for more Titans.

"Your kidding me right?" She said as she spotted three Titans heading towards Eren, one of them being abnormal. She turned around to see if any of her comrades could help, but they were either fighting their own Titans or no where to be seen. She sighed as she remembered Levi's words. 'Protect Eren at all costs'

"Let's see what happens." She says to herself as she lunges towards the Titans. One of them caught sight of her and grinned wickedly, taking large steps towards her. She flew towards the beast, returning that same grin before killing the giant. "One down, two to go." And again, she zipped into the air with her 3Dm gear towards another Titan getting closer to Eren. "Oi Ugly, Over here!" Eren in Titan form stopped what he was going and looked at the female. "Uh, not you Eren, I'm talking about the other Titan." Eren nods and continues his work of lifting the rubble. She lets out a sigh of relief before trying to gain the Titans attention. Finally, the Titan catches sight of her and starts to chase her instead. She strikes the Titans eyes, blinding it before making her way to its neck, cutting into its nape, making the Titan fall to the hard ground below. "Ok, one more." She looks around, but the Abnormal was no where to be seen. "Well shit."

"(Y/n) look out!" A familiar voice shouts. Confused, she turns around, face to face with an abnormal. "(Y/n)!" But before she could do anything the Titan grabbed her in its tight grasp, crushing her rib cage in the process. 'Just, make sure you don't die out there tomorrow. You're the only one I can actually handle in this dumb ass squad of mine, you got that brat?' "Sorry Levi, guess I broke our promise." She whimpers, a tear rolling down her cheek. The Titan places her in its moist mouth (ew...) and starts closing it, its teeth crush a few of her bones, causing her to scream. The Titan suddenly stops chewing and the jaw drops open, causing the female to roll out of its mouth.

"(Y/n)! (Y/n) wake up you brat!" The girl slowly opens her (E/c) eyes to be greeted by a familiar pair of eyes.. "Levi? Are you crying?" She manages to say as she gives him another of her trade mark smiles. "Idiot! How could you be smiling when you like this?" She lifts up a hand and cups his cheek. "I'm sorry I broke our promise."

"You haven't broken it yet” Levi’s voice was low and soft. It was a tone (Y/n) wasn’t used to hearing from him. “Your gonna live (Y/n). Hanji can fix you, I know she can. We will take you back to-" "Levi." "We will Bandage you up and get you back in your feet in no time. You can-" "Levi." "You can’t go yet, there’s still so much more we have to do-“ "Levi!" He stops rambling on and stares back down at her.

"You know Hanji can't fix me, I'm dying, there's nothing you can do about that. Bandaging me up won't do much but make me look like a mummy. But a least I won't be there to annoy the shit out of you at unnecessary times.” She weakly smiled. “Just tell me one thing. Tell me my death wasn’t for nothing.”

He cupped her face in his hand and smiled softly. “Today brave solider, you have not only risked your life to save the ones you love, but you risked your life to save many others. Your name will not die in vein but forever live in the hearts of many you have saved. Your efforts have not been for nothing and I promise you your sacrifice was been of great benefit. Thank you... thank you (Y/n). You’ve taught me many things and made me a better man. And though I know my timing is horrible I...” he stopped. The words he wanted to speak caught in his throat, holding back a wave of sobs threatening to spill.

"Go ahead Levi, I’m listening." The young woman’s voice was fading fast, her time was running out and they both knew it. Taking one last deep breath, he spoke "(Y/n) (L/n), I love you." The woman's eyes soften. "I love you to Levi." Tears ran down Levi's cheeks like a waterfall as he laid his head next to hers. "Can you do something for me?" Levi softly hummed. "can you smile?" Her voice getting weaker. "You usually never cry, smile, laugh, frown. This is probably the first time I've seen you have any emotion. But I don't want the last emotion I see you make is cry. Please." Was she crazy? How was he supposed to smile with her looking the way she was? But he did anyway.

He smiled.

"Your smile is beautiful Levi. Promise me you’ll smile more... Thank you"

And with that she closed her eyes. His smile faded and a frown replaced it.

"You're welcome, (Y/n)."

~~~

The mission was a success, but smiles soon faded when the news about (Y/n)'s death spread around the survivors. As much as people celebrated, she was always in the back of their minds. Everyone loved the girl. No matter who you were she would always help in a time of need. But Levi took her death the hardest. He locked himself inside his office/room, telling himself things like. 'Its your fault, you couldn't even look out for her.' Or 'Maybe if you weren't so rapped up about keeping yourself alive she might still be here.' But at least he could say he kept her promise. He stayed in his corner, hugging his knees to his chest as he scanned his room now covered in important document and old books. But what did it matter anyway? She's gone.

—-

Yeah you’re dead now

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murasaki-murasame · 6 years ago

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Thoughts on Fruits Basket 2019 Ep3: “Let’s Play Rich Man-Poor Man!”

There’s a whole lot going on in this episode, and there’s a lot I wanna say about all the neat things it did to tie different scenes from two separate chapters together to make a surprisingly cohesive whole.

I’m also getting more and more unsure of what the pacing and structure of the reboot is gonna be like in the long run, but that’s a whole other post I wanna make. I’ll just talk about this episode in this post for now.

Also, I’m probably gonna put a disclaimer in all of these posts from now on to warn people that I’m not gonna hold back from referencing stuff from the manga that hasn’t been adapted yet, if I ever feel like it.

Anyway, thoughts under the cut.

This episode, and the last day or two leading up to it, sure was one big rollercoaster of me being continuously surprised and confused about how they were gonna handle this episode, in terms of what chapters they’d adapt. Initially I figured it’d just adapt chapters 4 and 5, then I thought that maybe it’d work better to adapt chapters 4 and 8 together, then once I started seeing the preview images for ep3 and the Kagura-centric gifs that I found from Funi I thought maybe it’d adapt chapters 4, 5, and 8, and in actuality it turned out that this episode really did just adapt chapters 4 and 8, and that apparently those gifs I saw are all gonna be in episode 4 next week, lmao.

It’s worth noting that they technically didn’t include the final bit from chapter 8 where Momiji talks to Hatori about having met Tohru, but that might just be in the next episode, and honestly I wouldn’t be surprised if they just cut it out entirely, since at this point it isn’t really necessary. They showed Momiji meeting Tohru, figuring out who she is, and seeing the flyer for the school festival, so there doesn’t really need to be anything else with him between now and the part where he and Hatori show up at the festival later.

And along with that they also didn’t include the part where the girls at school show off the dress that they want Yuki to wear, but that’ll probably just be in the next episode. It’s the sorta thing that I kinda hope they just cut out, but I doubt it.

Since this ended with the part at the end of chapter 4 where Kagura first shows up, that’ll probably be the first half of the next episode, but I don’t think they’re gonna pad it out into an entire episode like the 2001 anime did, so I think they’ll then move into adapting chapter 9 to have the festival start, and then we’ll probably go into the Hatori backstory stuff afterward.

At this point it seems very likely that they’re going to push the events of chapter 6 back a fair bit, which I think is a good choice. It’d work better if they spend more time building up the central group dynamic before getting to that point, so it has more impact. I’m not entirely sure when I think they’re planning on having it actually happen in the reboot, though.

Anyway, as for this episode itself, it was surprisingly great. I was initially worried because I thought they’d be trying to fit the whole Kagura chapter into the events of this episode, but I’m glad they didn’t. Spending the episode just on a combination of chapters 4 and 8 worked REALLY well. I honestly think it flows even better than it did in the manga. The events of these chapters tie together very nicely, since they focus on the two sides of how Yuki and Kyo both resent and envy each other, and like I kinda said just before, I think it works well to have these character development moments happen early on so that stuff like the events of chapter 6 have more weight behind them.

I think it’ll initially throw some people off, but I actually like how they went back and forth between material from the two chapters, and actually started it off with stuff entirely from chapter 8. Framing the entire episode around the festival preparation was a really good choice which helped tie things together nicely. Since a lot of the scenes take place in basically the same locations, they can be tied together surprisingly easily. I also liked how they combined the two different scenes of Yuki picking Tohru up from work into one big scene, so that we went from her meeting Momiji to Yuki talking about his insecurities and stuff, which were two completely different scenes in the manga. At the very least it’s really interesting to see that they’re willing to shuffle scenes about and even combine them when they think it’s necessary. Thankfully it isn’t making the pacing feel rushed or anything, thus far.

And on the note of Momiji, I feel like there’s gonna be so many people who just watched the original anime who are now incredibly confused about why he’s suddenly German, lmao. It’s one of the many details that the 2001 anime decided to completely ignore. And the more I think about it, the more that this specific choice they made in that one baffles me. I get why the 2001 anime cut out stuff that was just there to set up way later plot points, but Momiji being German is just a character trait of his, so I think they just didn’t want to bother finding a voice actress that could even just speak broken German, which seems kinda lazy to me. I also noticed recently while watching someone react to the 2001 anime that it unintentionally set up this awkward situation where they make a big deal out of Kisa’s unnatural blonde hair, but there’s nothing that contextualizes Momiji having blond hair as well, and why nobody seems to mind it with him. Whereas in the manga you can tell that the difference is just that his hair’s naturally blond since he’s German and everyone’s fine with that, but Kisa’s hair is more obviously unnatural and strange.

Anyway, that aside, another thing I liked about that whole scene was how well it got across the sense of space within the building Tohru works at. We never really see too much of it’s interior in the manga, and I remember being a little confused about parts of it’s layout, especially in this scene with Momiji, but it worked really nicely here.

In general the background layouts and scenery and whatnot are still really great. It gives a lot of the scenes a distinctly different feel from the manga, which is often more abstract and floaty, so to say, but I really like it. In particular, the scene with Yuki rejecting that one girl in the library had some really nice camera angles, and the whole sequence of him and Tohru walking through the city and on the bridge was just really pretty [and the part where Yuki talked about being caged by his family while being framed behind the bridge railings was a neat detail].

I also really liked the overall flow of this episode, especially in how it moved back and forth between focusing on Tohru’s different scenes with Kyo and Yuki. It’s the sort of thing that I was worried might feel jarring and choppy, but it all flowed really nicely.

I said before that I’m glad they put the plum scene this early on, and I do indeed think that it works really nicely to have it happen this early on, since it’s such an early major step in Tohru and Kyo’s relationship. It also establishes some central themes the story’s working with, and in general it’s really neat to have it happen right after her whole speech to Yuki about the nature of kindness.

Also, before I forget, I just wanna say that I love how they drew the cats that got drawn to Kyo in this episode. They’re so adorable, I love them.

Which also reminds me that, even though this episode meshed some of the more subdued and emotional parts, there were still a whole lot of really nice comedy moments. In general the reboot is actually a lot more comedic than I thought it might be. They’re keeping like 99% of the jokes from the manga. A lot of people have already complained about not thinking that it’s funny enough, but I think that’s only true if you just compare it to the 2001 anime, which made up a lot of jokes, and often took the jokes that existed in the manga and did them way too many times. So in comparison to that, this might not seem as comedic, but still. I appreciate that they’re not leaning entirely into the drama and emotions, at least not at this point.

One thing I also wanna mention, that’s more about the series as a whole but also kinda about this episode, is that I’ve always liked how this series starts out with a relatively small, tightly-knit cast, and then slowly introduces side characters one after another as time goes on. It just gives the pacing more of a relaxing flow, instead of it being the sort of series that tries to introduce like twenty main characters in one episode and gives half of them like one line of dialogue each, lol. And I think this episode went a bit further with that, by bringing up the events of chapter 8 so that we got a whole episode focused almost entirely on developing the whole main trio, while sowing the seeds for some future characters to come into the story later.

And that’s about it for this episode. Like I said, I have a feeling that the next episode will adapt chapters 5 and 9, but we’ll see. I might end up making a separate post about my more extensive thoughts on how I think the pacing/structure of the entire reboot might go, including the next stretch of episodes, so I’ll leave it at that for now.

Either way, I was a bit worried at first that this episode might mark the beginning of them rushing through the manga more than I’d like, but in fact it ended up feeling even more nicely paced and cohesive than the manga did, so that’s cool. The fact that they’re still sticking to an average of two chapters per episode does make me apprehensive about if this pacing quality will keep up in the long run, but for now I think they’re making some really smart decisions that are at the very least alleviating the rather episodic feeling that the manga had early on.

#murasaki rambles #fruits basket

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