#i know tama basically adopts her

[socksandbuttons]

Eventually ill remember to share my traditional doodles from my sketchbook again cause um

I just wfound the cutest lunar in there

[tamaruaart]

Hi :)

₊✩‧₊˚౨ৎ˚₊✩‧₊

Questions:

About me ★ :

I mostly go by Tam or Rua but I also go by a LOT of other nicknames! (Tamarua, Tamari, Tama, Tamachi, Ruma, Tammy, Tamithy, etc... I'm on par with Mr Jalapeño fr 😼) I'm a digital & traditional artist and I mostly draw my OCs or characters I like.

I'm in A LOT of fandoms (LMK, JTTW, The Great Comet, Blood Meridian, Greek Myth, EPIC, Hamilton...). This blog respects and supports the LGBTQ+ community :> (WHERE ALL MY ACE BUDDIES AT??).

My preferred pronouns are She/They but I don't mind if you refer to me as a they/them or he/him. I'd say I don't usually get mad, and my humor is very... Uh, what's the word? Questionable? Yea, very questionable- I speak English and Croatian (🇭🇷)!

What art program do I use? ⁠★ :

I use Clip Studio Paint and Ibis Paint (If you want to know what brushes I use feel free to ask!)

Socials ⁠★ :

-Twitter: (@TamaRuaArt)

-Pixiv: (@Tamachi)

-Reddit: (@TamaRuaArt "Tam & Rua✩")

-tiktok: (@/tamaruaart "Tam✩")

(but I literally don't post anywhere else so- 💀)

Rules? ⁠★ :

-No offensive comments on certain groups

-No NSFW in my asks or replies

-No politics

-Keep your comments relative to the post

-No heavy-religion based topics (Unless that's what the post is about)

-No racism

-No sexism/misogyny/misandry (This is not a safe space for radical feminists who hate men)

-No homophobia or transphobia (nor hate to any other sexuality), this is a safe space for LGBT!!

If you don't follow these I'm just going to block you :D

What is this blog mostly about? ⁠★ :

OCs!! Well, I mostly use it to talk about my JTTW/LMK OC Zhaoyan (or just Zhao).

Zhao is a Celestial Witch who was brought along to the journey (against her will) as a healer for Tripitaka. Basically, she has the power to heal any wound, illness, disease etc. And general sorcery.

Besides that it's just whatever this stupif mind of mine is currently hyperfixating on

Notes on your OC's story? ⁠★ :

For now my tumblr blog is the only place where you can find out about her.

I do 100% plan to write an AO3 fanfic regards her one day (because she honestly has so much lore that isn't even jttw/lmk related). But not any time soon, I'm very busy with school and I still have to work her whole character out before I start writing. When I do publish the story I'll announce it here :D

Is this blog R18?⁠ ★ :

Not really, I'd say more 13-14+

Suggestions/requests? ⁠★ :

Sometimes? But only for close moots

Do I do coms? ⁠★ :

no

wewooweoweewowweee

yes

My Playlists:

Zhaoyan but as a ⁠★ Playlist ★ :

Quanshuǐ but as a ⁠★ Playlist★ :

Concept Cabin:

The Vengeance AU ⁠★ :

Fandoms:

-Greek Mythology (Hades/Hades II, The Odyssey and The Iliad, Paris: The Musical, EPIC: The Musical)

-Lego Monkie Kid

-The Prince of Egypt

-Wolfwalkers

-Hamilton

-The Great Comet of 1812

-Blood Meridian (I'm adopting kid idc)

If any of these things sound right up your alley, feel free to stay! :D

I mostly post about Greek Mythology, Blood Meridian and LMK on here though-

OC related things:

-OC introduction (Outdated, currently working on a new one!)★ :

-OC chibies ★ :

-OC (Zhao's) family tree ★ :

-OC ages ★ :

Free chibi OC commissions (closed):

TAGS:

OCs ⁠★ :

#lmk oc; Zhao- Any posts about Zhao

#lmk oc; Yueliang- Posts about Yue

#lmk oc; Quanshuǐ- Quanshuǐ posts

#lmk oc; Yuǎn'ān- Yuǎn'ān posts

Miscellaneous ★ :

#tam rambles- Pretty self-explanatory. Just me rambling~

#tam answers- Answering asks

#my art- Art made by me! :D

#Polly & Olivia- Posts about my cats!

ALT account: @tam-and-her-bullcraps (beware for it's a mess there-)

And that's basically all you need to know about me

buh-bYEEEEE 👋

[tiziri-art]

Gonna be critiquing a bit one piece, but don't mind it,

it's very long but it's light minded, it bother me, sure, but it's not like it gonna make me drop or whatever, it just bother me and i have thought about it as to why.

It's mostly long cause i lose myself in my point and end up repeating a lot

THERE IS SPOILERS FOR UP TO WANO

Tldr : it's basically to relation/familly and the theme of freedom

The thing that, according to me, may make pre-time skip more special than post ts,

Is the people making the group.

Pre-timeskip it's honestly just a bunch of random people, sure, luffy is Hero Of The Marine Garp's grandson and usopp is yassop's son

But usopp also is just anyone, he's known to also be who "we would all be" if we were in op, no special power, no amazing and incredible talent that one in a million would have, he's a creative boy who trained his skills because he had a dream and his father was his idol

Other than that, nami is a random kid, sanji was a random kid, cook who was a pirate adopted child , chopper is a reindeer who got excluded for difformity*2, robin sure, she's a bit special but like anyone that would have survived in her stead in ohara, franky is a amazing carpenter's and mermaid adopted child

None of them got really very special connection and family other than luffy and usopp, and maybe robin, brook already had multiple connection to Roger with laboon and straight up having met him

The' post time skip arrive,

Sanji is a king's son and a genetically modified human, alright, fine,

Franky knew roger and all and was straight up invited on the crew, amazing, fun, alright

Zoro is ryuma's descendant ("god of swords") ??? (Not even revealed in story but sbs plz 💀)

Already, the whole "strawhat heads" are full of big name who got strenght in their blood and high name, he's not a big name in the crew, but i remind again usopp is "emperor's (shanks) official sniper" son's

And it's not even limited to in-crew,

O-tama, which other than momo was a big attachement for Luffy to wano (and for his brother too) turns out to be a kurozumi, (half crew) vivi who's already a princess of the people who were there when the wg was founded turns out to be a D.

It honestly makes me afraid for character such as franky /and especially nami/ because "we don't know who their parents are" (and i refuse to think it's not tom and bell-mere. Whoever anyone else are their genitors it don't matter, they are not relevent to them)

The whole first half of one piece was all about liberty, building your own life, "following wills" instead of having a destiny, the whole bond is not blood,

(and it still follow post-ts for a bit with doffy and cora having the exact same origins but having two entirely different life and way of seeing and doing things, and cora and law considering each other as brothers, when corazon doesn't consider doffy his brother but doffy hold very long onto him being his brother and law being his familly still, family is a choice)

Then the second half- just- put everyone in a place that all make them seems it's fated, it's in their blood,

Where does the freedom appear in being the best swordmaster when your grandpa was "the god of swordmaster", the best sniper when your father is also the best sniper, etc etc

I don't know if that's the case, i hope not, but it looks to me that oda did it for sanji, then saw how many fans liked their favorite character having more to their title please their fan, and just, kept going

I'd argue being a random guy and being super high level is more impressive

Anyway, it's fanservice.

I have nothing against character having high relations and thing under their name right from the beggining (especially if that ties with what they're doing/why they join) (vivi princess, robin, Franky w pluto, yams being kaido (emperor) son, brook is albeit a bit unnecessary but logic nonetheless)

But giving them when it does nothing but make them less "special" because they were in fact Special From Somebody Else, is shitty to do in excessiveness, especially when it bring nothing (why does zoro being ryuma descendant is important ??? Especially since that undervalue ryuma giving him shusui ! It could have been a bit better if like, someone saw zoro's face, recognized the damyo who "was known as ryuma's descendant" (even if none of that is said/shown) traits in him and decided to let him keep the shusui it would have been still disappointing but at least it would have built something ! )

Again, the possibility of him going "oh yeah ! Nami has celestian blood that's why she's so good at detecting climate changes and atmosphere in general ! It's also why she can hit luffy (as we were shown innate haki there) !" And then, idk, turning out to be birkan (originaly moon people, same as ener) and in fact it wasn't pirate it was the governement who faked an attack to get rid of her family and bell-mere suspected that a bit and she had in fact illegally run away from the marine and that's also why she lived far from the village and didn't get marine-retirement money and was so poor) is possible.

And in fact it's also possible he doesn't even include it properly in the story but just drop the whole lore in a data book, just like he could bring back ener to give a reason for it.

And all that "family lore bring so much" feel so much, muuuuch saltier considering his answer in an sbs of someone asking why nearly all the mother are killed or unknown being "mother are the antonym of adventure"

Anyway, i feel like oda forgot a lot about freedom as he advanced in one piece

[hi2chan]

Hiroki Reviews! Tengoku Struggle Strayside [Common route]

Some minor disclaimers before continuing.

There WILL be spoilers

Most of these are of Hiroki's personal opinion and preference, if you think differently, it is OK.

All CGs rightfully belongs to the production company and are not of Hiroki's property.

You can jump to 'Read more' for the summarised review.

｀、ヽ｀ヽ｀、ヽ(ノ＞＜)ノ ｀、ヽ｀☂ヽ｀、ヽ

Game Title: Tengoku Struggle Strayside Game port: Nintendo Switch Language: English Gameplay status: 2/5 routes completed [Sharaku & Kiku] Started on: June 2024 Game Plot/Premises: Rin Enma, adopted daughter of the king of the underworld, has been tasked with tracking down and recapturing a group of escaped sinners. Accompanying her on her journey are four sinners hand-picked by her father. Will Rin succeed in her mission… and will she discover love?

♫•¨•.¸¸♪ Common Route ♪¸¸.•¨•♫

The opening shows Goemon at his execution ground, and then the scene with the MC appears with a narration about her loving some guy. With how they literally put Goemon before this scene… It felt as though Goemon is the said person and while it could be a very obvious plot line, I didn't want to jump the gun. It is certainly nice that there were some slight animated scene as an opening to the game!

After the OP video (which was sung by one of my fav utaite-), the game shows Rin with a friend called Oshichi. The nickname did catch me off guard since they didn't really explain it right off the bat…(if I am remembering correctly) This scene with Oshichi kind of sets the pace where the focus and setting of the game is about Hell, punishments and even 'rewards' for those in Hell for redemption etc. The premises about a 'model prisoner' is allowed to work outside of Hell is interesting. Even more interesting that there are humans in that specific section just chilling with all these 'model prisoners'. The part where Goemon suddenly pops up near Rin at the sanzu river… His personality certainly feels more hmmm how do I put it… He obviously knows who she is, more than an average Hell prisoner… he acts really nice, and then poofs off after helping her. I honestly didn't know what to make of that scene until I remembered the whole "crossing sanzu river" legend.

So basically, almost everyone in Hell kinda has a 'soft spot'(?) for Rin and also looks up to her as not just King Enma's daughter, but also because she is like a model student of sorts. Then there is a Hell Cat…kek, I mean Tamao (whom they shorten to call as just Tama throughout the series). Certainly cute, but definitely has a blind devotion to Rin// There was a tiny segment of Sensei Tama's Lecture where Tama teaches the terms used for Hell etc and I really wanted more of it but… sighhhhh I really wondered if there was a need to talk about the realms since there wasn't much exposure for the other 3. (Human, Heavenly, Starving, Asura, Hell, Beast realm) I was more interested in the different types of hell!

The first scene with King Enma made me jump because of how LOUD he is. It doesn't help with his way of speaking… ESPECIALLY WITH THE "MY SWEETIE" LEMME ROTTTT I don't completely dislike his voice, it is just… the premises and.. I was playing this game at past midnight// Sir was literally booming in my speakers while everyone else was soft- Anyways. The scene with the 4 dudes entering made me chuckle a little since it felt like a fight entry scene. The thing that stood out the most was… Goemon… no, not him but his clothes. I really wondered why was he the only one wearing that// (I STILL DO) The nicknames King Enma gave each of them made only half sense to me at the start. (Taro = Goemon, Aka = Yona, Shiro = Sharaku, Pochi = Kikunosuke) They all seemed way too obedient and Goemon was clearly acting like it was his first time EVER meeting Rin. It was heck freaky with all the guys answering so unitedly…

Nono-sensei (whose full name is Ono no Takamura) gives off the super sus vibes but not in a bad way which is later shown that he is exactly like that. I love his Angyu and Ungyu though! Remember how I said the 4 dudes was being weird? Yea, it's because it is a facade. They have also been to the human realm a few times, even as a prisoner. Which explained why they were more adapted to the things in the house etc. At this point, Rin gives off a "super sheltered ojousama" vibe, with a good moral compass(?). There are some important facts that keeps getting brought up with is Rin being a transient (a soul with no memories when they were alive, usually disappears quickly) and 'desire' (a type of..power?). These 2 feature becomes quite important in different ways in each route. As I am currently still on my 3rd route, I have to say that it is interesting how each route uses that 2 details differently from each other.

So the main mission in this game is to recapture/surveillance on some 'escapees' from Hell. (The actual person behind this is an idiot btw. Dude so cute but dumb.) After getting the explanations and some details from Nono-sensei, the 4 guys start showing their real attitude towards Rin. As much as Rin doesn't trust men, these men don't trust women either. Hence, there is a huge conflict from the start. However, it is quite interesting to note that Rin's 'hatred' is mostly due to crappy male prisoners who kept wooing her in Hell and what she has seen in Hell, but that means she herself has not experience what it is like being around men. As a transient, she doesn't even remember such feelings etc. Which is why I personally felt that she would likely drop her guard really quickly with the group. She just had some biased views without having her own experiences.

The not so mystery of the sandwich placed at her door was initially something I thought would be the trigger to choosing a route. Like maybe, I pick a dude who I think gave me that sandwich as a route LOL IT TURNED OUT TO NOT BE TRUE SINCE THE COMMON ROUTE WOULD BE TOO SHORT IF SO// What's surprising despite Rin and the men saying they don't like men/women… is that they are still very civil… Goemon with Coffee… Kiku with onigiri… Sharaku cleaning… Yona…….. Yona with……………what does he do? Anyways, they also each briefly reveal bits and pieces of their past life, except Goemon. It is clear that eventhough it SEEMED like he was also sharing something about himself, there are mostly things that others had already known/open and public information since he was famous. There are also times where he is clearly helping out Rin with voicing out things in a way that the other guys would understand etc. Man legit made me so confused on whether he is a good guy or not… but his face is…

Moving on, finding out that Kamuro, the being with the highest position in the Heaven realm was the reason why/how some prisoners were able to escape Hell…….. Dude deserves a punch tbh, the main charas are being way too civil about this. I mean, they did kinda verbally abuse Kamuro at every chance LOL We then get a bit more information about the situation etc and stumbled upon a male kiddo (Fujimori Shin) who was about to be mugged and the gang saves him lol. I guess this the scene where Rin seeing them in a slightly better light. I MEAN, JUST BECAUSE THEY ARE IN HELL DOESNT NECESSARILY MEAN THEY ARE BAD, RIGHT RIGHT RIGHT- ……

I'll be honest, I'm getting a little lazy to continue with talking about the common route ヾ(´〇`)ﾉ

Oh! Gotta talk about the AMAZING ONSEN (yes, that means some naked torso for sure-) The fabulous onsen that can heal any injury if it is within 24hrs! I want one too… (￣▽￣) To showcase the wonders of this miraculous onsen, they have their first battle against uhhh Asaemon who is quite literally the guard for Shinobikuni. Ofc, the team lost! This was all in play for them to use the Hell onsen in their house backyard to heal~ Although their injuries were healed, their bruised ego and pride did not… so Kiku and Yona kinda decided to slack off lol Then they got scolded badly by Sharaku since they put sand in the living room. I actually like the scene of them doing grocery shopping and having a barbeque at the rooftop. They may not fully trust each other yet, but it definitely seem like they are taking the first step! THE CG IS GORGEOUS IN THIS SCENE. The following part where they all start to actually buy things to decorate their own rooms is pretty cute. Despite saying they wouldn't listen to Rin, they started getting stuff when she told them they could.

Around ch.6? is when the plot thickens! Root Joudo mobile app, an application that will allow you to be pardoned from going to hell! AS LONG AS YOU PAY A FORTUNE! Damn, this is scamming on a whole other level… I was going to say it sounded so stupidly crazy until I realised that the premises of this game is that those living in Asakusa knows of Hell's existence and also 'model prisoners'. I have to say that the thing that caught me off guard was that Azamin is Kiku's sister… cause I thought they just happened to look similar… We also get the naked torso scene………………….. NO BUT WHY DOES SHARAKU HAVE SUCH TONED ABS TOO??? Anyways, Rin slowly gains a bit of her memory from her past? It's quite vague, but it's something. Nono-sensei and King Enma also begins to reveal what Rin's 'desire' is, where it is located and how she can utilise it for combat against the escapees. …yea, her's is on the tongue. I was sincerely wondering where she gotta lick to use it- Moving on, the gym room in the house was hilarious to me. IT FELT SO MODERN XD The onsen scene of Rin with the other guys were…..ummmmmm IDC how to say it, but it was…ok……….? Not too bad since they all conversed and teased each other. It's the part with Hari - a spirit in Rin's phone - who keeps track of their 'blood bond' aka trust between each guy and Rin. Pretty interesting set up since it really only shows the trust bond, not really the 'affection' rate. It's not very linear, but a good gauge of how close Rin is to the love interest.

✺◟( • ω • )◞✺ LONG STORY SHORT! I love the pacing! It didn't feel that long despite having 7 chapters. There's quite enough data/info to move on with a route, and each characters have their distinct traits which makes them distinguishable. Even the side characters such as Azamin, Shinobikuni, Asaemon, Fujimori, etc. Plot and setting of the game is quite interesting as it is a full mixture of fantasy, lore, modern, etc.

Regarding the characters… Rin: Maybe due to her being a transient, she definitely seem super clueless with some basic stuff lol. Her obsession of saying she hates men definitely stemmed from only what she has heard and seen in Hell, with 0 self experience to back it. However, despite this, I like that she does admit when she is in the wrong and wants to be better.

Goemon: …THE ONLY THING I CAN TALK ABOUT IS HIS CLOTHES? LIKE BRUH? YOU ARENT COLD? YOU DON'T HAVE CLOTHES? WHY? Like… his super casual shirt at home looks good, but he mostly wears that…garb with little cloth… Besides talking about his clothes, as I've mentioned, Goemon subtly helps Rin when she is unable to properly convey something to the other three. He is also quite elusive when talking about himself. He knows he is famous and he goes along with it, but without revealing anything too personal. He does occasionally let slip some stuff later on// I'm just pissed the game had that very last scene of him saying he loves Rin. GDI STOP TOYING WITH ME.

Yona: uh…. hmmmm Ok, I initially did kinda characterised him as muscle brained Mineo (CxM). Yona's personality felt really close to Kiku's at the beginning since they are both quite vocally straightforward. However, he just has a lot of pride. I'm genuinely interested in knowing who exactly he was when he was still alive, since I am not well versed with his story basis.

Sharaku: I DISLIKE HIMMMM- was my first thought since I generally do not like 'sexually foul mouth' characters. Although he seem as though he speaks straightforwardly, his words always sound like sarcasm or laced with some hidden meaning. Basically, he feels like someone I gotta peel all the layers to understand even if the bulb inside is essentially similar/close to the outer layer.

Kikunosuke: My first thought was "why does this VA somehow always voice charas of this type…" Anyways, Kiku and Yona are quite similar, but I thought Kiku would be the 'quieter' version. However, he isn't LOL Maybe it is because he died really young? That's why he still has that child innocence, especially when it comes to things he likes. Adorable but aint my type-

Pacing of the common route was great, it kept me intrigued and invested that I went on to play a route right after.

✿Hiroki's rating: 8.5/10✿

Thank you for reading! ☆’.･.･:★’.･.･:☆’.･.･:★’.･.･:☆’.･.･:★’.･.･:☆

[hiro-gari]

In the meantime of me running out of new ideas to write for, I'm gonna share this older headcanon that I have in my draft to you:

Do we have an AU where Garou and Badd are neighbours who hated eachother but eventually become friends or more because their pets are bonded first? Despite their houses are practically side-by-side, they're always get into petty fights over something silly. Zenko guessed it was just them having secret crush on eachother but totally in denial over their feelings.

Until each of their respective pet start getting along with eachother first.

Badd has a second cat, one of Tama's kitten which Badd still keep while the others had already adopted by his classmates, a tuxedo cat who likes to intrude into Garou's house through his window and steal his breakfast or napping on top of Garou's dog.

Garou has a big white fluffy malamute dog, a puppy he got from his father Bang as a birthday gift years ago so Garou wont feels lonely in his new home, who likes to jump over Badd's -unfortunately short- fence and playing with Badd's cat on his front porch.

Although the tuxedo cat somehow really looks alike and acting just like Badd, and the giant white malamute is basically Garou's doppelganger in a dog form, they're affectionate to eachother everytime they play together.

The tuxedo cat almost never shown his adorable side of him except for Badd's family, as he would be the crankiest cat ever with any strangers. But the kitty strangely becomes attached with the fluffy dog since their first met. He always trying to get outside to see his favorite puppy friend and spend more time with the doggo, no matter what and how. The kitty just likes to be near the warm presence of that fluffy and charming dog, 3rd place after Zenko's and Badd's. Thus the tuxedo cat often caught on loitering around Garou's house, making Badd must come to his -hated- neighbour to collect the cat back.

On the other hand, at the first time coming into Garou's house, the white malamute felt a bit lonely. He was happy to have such caring hooman butler who adores him, but he wanted more friend to play with. Until the dog saw an adorable tuxedo cat chilling out in the middle of small garden on the next house across the fence. He fell in love instantly and wanna knows more about this little kitty. Cue the malamute often caught on peeking from the fence or even jumping over it, ruining Badd's small garden after it got trampled on by the dog's big paws.

Surprisingly, the cat and the dog are becomes bestfurrends much faster than their hooman butlers, putting Garou and Badd in a big shame, courtesy by the exasperated Zenko. How come two animals who are supposed to be sworn enemies, cat and dog, could be more friendly to eachother than them??

If only Garou and Badd could be more honest for their hidden feelings, maybe their relationship would improved alot. Ironically, it was their pets who helped them out.

Since their look-alike animal counterparts love eachother so much, sometimes Garou and Badd went for a play date for them on the local park, or visiting eachother's house when their pets are playing in one's house. After many friendly interactions, slowly they developed new feelings and realizing they're not frenemies anymore.

On several occasions when Garou let Badd's tuxedo cat have sleepover on his house, he was witnessing how affectionate the "so-called crankiest cat in the world" towards his malamute dog could be.

The cat always grooming the dog's fluffy fur or his head not caring about their size difference, snuggling with the dog and trying to fit himself into the dog's space as close as possible asking for a cuddle time together, letting out those rare sweet meows everytime he tried to get attention from the dog, giving those slow-blinks kitty kisses whenever they're gazing on eachother or gentle headbutts whenever the dog feels sad, etc.

Garou often wished if it was Badd and him in those positions, feeling pathetic for getting so envious for their pets' lovey dovey moments. He admitted to himself that secretly he fell in love with Badd, especially after they're finally get along after spending more time with him nowadays.

But Garou still couldn't confess his feeling he has for Badd since he doesn't know if Badd likes him enough or not. It would be very awkward moment if Badd rejected him and they ended up back into square one, ruining whatever friendship they have built together before.

Unbeknown by Garou, Badd was also experiencing the same thing. Everytime Badd pet-sitting Garou's dog for awhile whenever Garou wasn't home to visit his father's house, or watching over his cat playing with the big white malamute at his front yard, he couldn't deny that the relationship their pets were having together was very sweet, actually.

The malamute always so playful and becomes such an attention seeker around his cat, also being all goof and adorkable despite most of the time the dog was just like his owner: chaotic cocky bastard (at least in Badd's eyes). Successfully turning his own grumpy cranky cat into a cuddly soft kitty.

Especially when they both were chilling out on the front porch, Badd would find them curling up together with his cat buried himself into the malamute's fluffy fur, sleeping between the dog's front paws, or peacefully loafing on his back.

One time the malamute also protecting his cat from a gang of neighbourhood feral cats, Badd totally didn't expect that goofy cloud of fur could be looking so terrifying like a wolf when he was in protective mode. Fortunately there's no actual fight happening between them and those feral cats, though. But Badd could see his kitty becomes much more affectionate than before towards Garou's dog as an appreciation.

Badd knows he shouldn't be envious for his own pet because the kitty has a better relationship than himself, yet he couldn't help but longing for Garou's love.

At that time, they have already managed to form a good friendship and Badd was glad they're not fighting out of pettiness anymore. It was just, Badd starting to see Garou as more than a friend. Since they become closer, he has discovered Garou's softer side and Badd was fallen so hard for him because of it.

The problem is only how to confess to Garou without ended up being awkward. He didn't want to misinterpreted Garou's flirty acts towards him during those "play date" time. Did Garou really means his flirtateous attempts as a serious thing or just a joke? If he misinterpret it, Badd was afraid he would be a laughing stock for Garou while he suffered a broken heart alone.

So, in the end, Garou and Badd were still being so oblivious to the other's very OBVIOUS feeling. Everyone around them could see the former hating neighbours slowly falling in love with eachother, yet never make a move. Very frustating to watch, honestly.

But at one night, when the exhausted-from-working Badd visiting Garou's house to retrieve his cat back home, he decided to take a brief nap on the living room. Garou asked if he wanna have sleepover over there since it was weekend, and he would let Zenko knows that her big brother was staying overnight at his home. Badd just nodded weakly, already feels the sleepiness coming for him.

Looking at how uncomfortable Badd's sleeping position on the couch, Garou carefully lifted Badd up in bridal style, before walking towards his bedroom so Badd could sleep on his cozy bed while Garou sleeps on the couch. But before he could leave, Badd grabbed Garou's hand to prevent him from leaving him alone. He told Garou that they could sleep together on the bed, since it was Garou's own bed and it's big enough for two people.

At first, Garou was hesitated because what if Badd just sleep-talking in half-sleep and would regret any of his words in the morning? But seeing Badd's reddened face yet still persistent on making Garou stay based on the strong grip of Badd's hand on his wrist, Garou was grinning happily. That means Badd was fully conscious of what he had said and taking it serious.

Hence Garou immediately scooting over beside Badd on the bed, taking a warm blanket and covered their bodies with it. Then Badd shifted closer until he was practically curling up against Garou's body like a cat, seeking warmth from the wolfy man. Even purring and snuggling on Garou's chest when Garou put his arm on Badd's back, embracing the smaller man which made Badd gets comfortable sleep. Soon enough Garou also followed Badd to the dreamland.

Meanwhile..

Both were oblivious that two pairs of eyes were watching them from the opened door. The kitty and the dog felt happy that their butlers finally having sweet moment of their own, too. They wished the hoomans would keep being lovey-dovey so the four of them could have double date together soon. Like, a real date and not the "play date" anymore.

It was so tiring to see the butlers' mutual pining, in which it took forever to make them realized their own feelings. But now that the mutual pining era was over, they feel relieved.

The malamute dog entered Garou's bedroom, then laid on a fluffy carpet beside the bed while staring at the cat, as if he was inviting the cat to join him. The tuxedo cat quietly following him and plopped on the dog's belly, curling up into a small ball of fur before closing his eyes.

The cat was purring in joy when the dog gave kisses to him (or more like muzzle nudging), before putting his front paw around kitty's body in a protective manner. The fluffy duo then also following their butlers into dreamland, too.

Now, both of the sleeping couples looked the same: Badd and the kitty were sleeping in their respective lover's warm embrace..

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----- THE END ----

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Notes:

Aaaah finally I can finish this! I was almost getting writer's block again but still struggling to fight against it, and here we are we got one writing finished so yayyy 😅💦

I hope this silly headcanon could entertain you all, but I apologized if this looks very low quality as always I'm so sorry please forgive me 🙇

@hiro-gari @the-goddessfighter @garous-nipple

Thank you so much for willing to write this lowly writing of mine, I always grateful for you.. 😭🙏💕💖 Have a nice weekend, everyone! 😉👍🌸🌺🌼🌻💐

-Little1993lamb-

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THIS IS SO CUTE I CAN’T- 💗💕

First of all, I love their respective animal counterparts, they fit so well for both of them 🥰 Angery tuxedo cat for Badd, and a giant floofy malamute for Garou omggg

I love how, of all things, they gotta have their PETS lay it out for them before they finally start to Get It™️. Like everyone around them sees it but nope 😤 they’re wrong, they’re meant to hate each other.

But when their pets become bff’s despite the obvious size difference and being entirely different SPECIES... Oh ok maybe we can get along 🤦🏻‍♀️😂

Ghhhhsksk the END SCENE is so sweeet I have cavities 😩💗 I rlly liked how Garou was like, oh no, he’s delusional :’) That’s so him oh my god, I love them sm, this is so precious!!

Thank you for putting so much work into writing these for us, it is so appreciated, we love to see it!! 😘💗

[afairytalestray]

The Dawn of the Age of Skimblegus

One of the most underrated ships in all of Cats.

Part 9 of my Cats pre-canon headcanon series (masterpost here), coming at you after delay caused by me taking forever to write this rather long instalment basically from scratch! But anyway it’s here now, and we’re back on character backstories, this time: Skimbleshanks, Asparagus, and a wee bit of Tumblebrutus being a mischievous sunshine smol. This one is maybe the longest one I’ve done yet; this was entirely unintentional and unplanned - it literally came to me as I was writing it. There is far too little Skimblegus content out there so I am creating the content I want to see! Just a content warning to start with: this one gets a bit dark - there’s a character death. Nothing too gruesome, but it is there. However, due to who I am as a person, it does have a happy ending. Without further ado, please enjoy!

Skimbleshanks, despite having god-tier dad skills, never actually has any biological kittens of his own. He’s something of an uncle figure to many of the Cats in the Junkyard (and the future adopted father of Mungojerrie and Rumpleteazer - coming in a future post), and is perfectly happy with his lot. In his youth, he was very much a free spirit. He had itchy paws, and when he discovered the trains he became obsessed with travelling up and down the country on them. His time on the trains became a delight to the human rail workers and regular passengers, and he became quite well-known as the Railway Cat - the workers even set him up his own little office (like Tama!). At first, he split his time fairly evenly between the trains and the Junkyard - as much as he loved to travel, there was one thing he loved more: his best friend Asparagus (Jr.).

Skimbleshanks and Asparagus grew up together and were nigh inseparable from each other for most of their kittenhood. Skimble couldn’t tell you when exactly his feelings shifted from platonic to romantic, it was a very gradual thing. Asparagus can - the first time Skimble went away on the trains for more than a day, he realised he missed him more than a normal amount and it quickly clicked into place. It was normal for Skimble to set off in the morning and bounce back in the evening, but this time felt like forever. Never being a shy one, Asparagus resolves to tell Skimble when he returns. Even though he doubts Skimble feels the same way (Y’ALL), he hates keeping secrets from his best pal, and he’s confident their friendship is strong enough to survive it.

But when Skimble came back the next day, he just couldn’t do it. Skimble was high as a kite; he went on for an age about all the things he saw, how amazing the trip was, how amazing all the trips were, how the longer ones were so exciting, how he wants to go here, there, and everywhere etc…. And all Asparagus can think about is that they seem fundamentally incompatible. Asparagus has always been a homebody. He’s quiet, likes the comfort of his own den, always being close to his family, and has never had that adventurous streak that fuels Skimble’s every move. And the thought that even if Skimble did feel the same it wouldn’t work, that is far too painful to entertain. He would want to be close to Skimble, but knows he could never be happy constantly flitting from place to place. He also could never ask Skimble to give it up knowing how happy it makes him. So, Asparagus makes the call to swallow it all down for now, and then let it go. This choice, unfortunately and unintentionally, causes a bit of a gap to grow between them, as Asparagus struggles to act normal around him and needs a bit of space to get over the feelings.

At this point, Skimbleshanks is aware of his own feelings, but for the life of him can’t work out how to express them. He desperately wants to, and is constantly thinking of new ways to do it, but keeps binning them when they’re not totally perfect. It has to be perfect! He also notices that Asparagus has been acting weird around him, but can’t get him to talk about it. It worries him, but he doesn’t want to push the issue, and he has his trains to distract him after all. A week or so later, he sets off on a multi-day trip, resolving that if Asparagus is still off when he gets back, he’s going to trap them both in the old wardrobe so they can hash it out properly, Skimble can confess and then they’ll all live happily ever after. 

There was nothing that could’ve prepared him for what he came back to.

Asparagus was right back to normal, albeit with the small caveat that he had met someone. A queen, a pretty ragdoll queen who was calm, clever and cautious, a little shy and reserved. When Asparagus excitedly introduced them Skimble felt his heart break, but he plastered a smile on his face and let Asparagus tell him all about how they met and how crazy their instant connection was. Asparagus had never meant to meet someone else, but he thought the best way to get over Skimble was to try and make some new friends, so despite his dislike of interacting with the general public and talking to strangers, he trotted on over to one of Bustopher’s clubs where he met Caorann. They both had a lot in common and hit it off right away, both of them bonding over trying to hide in the same corner since neither of them were comfortable in a room full of unknowns. Genuinely, the only other Cat Asparagus had had such a fast and strong connection with was Skimble, and since he had resolved to let his feelings for him go, he thought it would be a good thing to see where this might lead. The two of them fell in love quickly.

Skimble wanted to be furious, he really did, but he couldn’t. Caorann was nervous around him but always very sweet. Although she never knew about Skimbleshanks’ old feelings for Asparagus, she knew he was very important to him, and always strived to make a good impression. He was miserable and wanted to hate her, and at first couldn’t see how the two were a good match. But he could never bring himself to even dislike her, because it became very obvious very quickly that the two were more than a good match. Skimble, bless him, had never really considered the long term ramifications of being in a relationship with Asparagus, and was abruptly slapped in the face by all the same things that had occurred to Asparagus before: that the two were very different, and that their lifestyles just weren’t all that compatible. Caorann was a good match for Asparagus: neither of them were particularly adventurous, their idea of a perfect day involved little more than basking in a quiet patch of sunlight, and they shared the same lack of concern for the bustle and goings on of life outside their little happy bubble and the same desire to be comfortably settled. Fundamentally, at that time, Caorann was the better choice. Despite that, Skimble can’t help but think he might have given it all up for a chance to be with Asparagus.

But that hurt too much to think about, so Skimble went back to his trains, unable and unwilling to break Asparagus out of a happy relationship with someone else, but it never quite brought him the same joy as before. But it was a whole lot better than constantly seeing the Cat he loved in love with someone else, so he spent more and more time away from the Junkyard. The hurt lessened, after a while. It never really went away, but he found he was able to genuinely be happy when Caorann became pregnant, and vowed through joyful tears to be the best uncle in the world for little kitten Tumblebrutus when he was born.

On the day it happened, Skimbleshanks had recently gotten back to the Junkyard when a loud screech and a wail shattered the calm of the evening. Running towards the sound, the source was a sight that still gives him nightmares to the present day: baby Tumble screaming and crying as he lay trapped under the motionless bodies of his parents. It came out later that the three of them had gone on a family walk together, and on their way back as they crossed the road to the Junkyard, a car suddenly skidded round the corner and hurtled towards them as fast as lightning. Without thinking, Caorann and Asparagus threw themselves in front of their son. It worked. Little Tumble was almost completely unharmed, but Caorann was killed instantly, and they thought Asparagus had been too. However, as they were moved off of the road, they noticed Asparagus was breathing. It was extremely weak and laboured, but he was breathing.

Skimble can barely remember the weeks that followed. He only has flashes of burying Caorann, mostly remembering how it was wrong that Asparagus wasn’t there. All he can really remember was that everything hurt and was awful, and that he did whatever he could to help Jennyanydots, who took sole charge of Asparagus’ care (she and Jellylorum were already fully trained healers then, but Asparagus is Jelly’s little brother, and it was very difficult for her). He also tried to help look after Tumblebrutus, who was too young to understand what was going on. It took Asparagus a fortnight to wake up properly, and several more weeks to be able to move about independently again. When he woke up, he was deeply altered. He was in terrible physical pain, but also became emotionally despondent when he learned about Caorann. Skimble stayed by his side the whole time, trying to coax him into talking, maybe even smiling, and very gradually they made progress. Asparagus mourned his partner deeply, and was only able to pull himself out of it when he realised that Tumble needed him. It took a long time, but eventually Asparagus came back to himself.

To most other Cats, at least. Skimble was probably the only one who saw that Asparagus still had moments of deep sadness. To the others it just looked like he had zoned out for a moment, but Skimble knew those were the times when he was thinking about Caorann. These moments got easier for Asparagus to deal with over time, and although at times he missed her, it became pleasant for him to talk about her with Tumble, and he could remember their time with happiness instead of sadness, and eventually even realised that he was ready to try being with someone else.

The problem with that though, was that the accident had greatly damaged his body. He has chronic pain; he can no longer really dance like he used to, and can’t move around very far - leaving the Junkyard is no longer really an option for him. To his surprise, his old feelings for Skimble started to resurface. Although, he shouldn’t really have been surprised. Skimble had hardly left his side at all since the accident happened (the trains are in CHAOS), he’d been there through all the setbacks and progress, his meticulous nature shining through in his diligent care. He was such a constant in his life to the extent that Tumblebrutus was genuinely shocked when he learned that Skimble actually wasn’t related to him in any way (he basically sees Skimble as a second dad). However, Asparagus is more decided than ever that they wouldn’t work as a couple, seeing as how now he couldn’t join Skimble’s journeys even if he did want to. Skimble, though, is the deepest romantic at heart. He never stopped loving Asparagus, but knew he was needed as a friend first and foremost, so that’s what he was. He always says to himself that if they were ever to be more, he would never want to replace Caorann, so it would only be when Asparagus asked. So naturally, nothing ever happens.

Until Tumble puts his paw down. As he gets older, he struggles to understand why his two dads aren’t together. He knows about his mother, of course, but believes with his whole heart (correctly) that she would want them to be happy. He begins to plot ways to get them together, but doesn’t make much progress with the two stubbornly resistant Cats until Mistoffelees helps him. 

When Misto arrives in the Junkyard he’s looked after by Skimble, who introduces him to Tumble. Misto is painfully shy and quiet, but with Asparagus as his dad Tumble is very used to quiet Cats, and Misto becomes a tentative friend. By the time Misto is mated, more confident and moving out from Skimble’s care, he wants to thank him for everything he’s done and how kind he’s been, and asks Tumble for help. Tumble immediately tells all about how grossly in love his dads are, but that they aren’t together for some reason despite his best efforts. The two of them decide that the dawn of the age of Skimblegus is nigh, and come up with a plan.

The next day the two of them separately lure Skimble and Asparagus to a secret location under the guise of “it’s a surprise”, which works despite its simplicity as Skimble is very fond of Misto and Asparagus is Tumble’s loving father. The secret location is revealed to be a nice picnic setup, and the boys each leave their respective parent figure with the cryptic message of “do yourself a favour and tell him.” Skimble and Asparagus decide to play along, but all mystery is very quickly dropped, as the picnic is very clearly romantic and intended to be a date. Things are a bit awkward at first, but the two soon fall into their usual easy rhythm. That is, until Asparagus jokes about this being Tumble’s idea of a date (“I mean, it’s not like it’s bad or anything, but like, yeah…” “Haha, yeah, as far as romantic gestures go it’s pretty good.” “It is kinda romantic, isn’t it?” “It is a bit, but like, that’s not a bad thing of course!” “Of course! I can think of far worse dates to be on!” “And Cats to be with!” “Is this… I mean, are we, you know, on a date right now?” and so on).

And then finally, finally, it all comes out. Skimble finally reveals that he’s been in love with Asparagus his whole life, but never got the chance to tell him before, then didn’t know if he could or should after everything; and Asparagus says that he loved him before and again now, but just doesn’t know that it would work. It all gets very sappy and mushy, but they ultimately decide to give it a go. And it works! The two of them have always gotten along like a house on fire, but now it’s more, and better! Tumble is ecstatic, and of course takes all the credit for himself (with the exception of the 20% he grants Misto). Skimble does go back to the trains, he’s missed them, but now he spends maybe only ⅓ of his time there, and the other ⅔ in the Junkyard with his beloved Asparagus. They’re both extremely happy with the balance, and always spend hours catching each other up when Skimble returns. Although Skimble is very much still an adventure-seeker, now that he’s a bit older and more mature he definitely enjoys a long nap curled up with his partner! They’re a happy, healthy couple who support each other, make each other laugh, and make the worst dad jokes you can possibly imagine.

[cienie-isengardu]

The Development of Law and Zoro relationship: Wano, Luffy & Zoro Means Troubles…

<Part I: Before Meeting>> <<Part II: Sabaody Archipelago, The First Meeting>> <<Part III: Punk Hazard: The Alliance (A)__(B)>>  <<Part IV: Dressrosa, The Breaking Point (The Plan Failed)__ (Saving Law)__(Protecting Law)__ (Birdcage, Pica and Doflamingo)__ (Aftermath)>> <<Part V: Zou, The Kindred Spirits (Traveling Together)__(Searching for Nakama)__ (Reunion)__ (Ninja-Pirate-Mink-Samurai Alliance)__(The Last Moments before War)>>  Part VI: Wano, Against Emperors (The Untold Journey)__(Luffy & Zoro Means Troubles…)__(...and Law Is Not Happy About That) 

Somehow the alliance got into Wano without enemy notice. There, Kinemon separated his allies into smaller teams, all with their own task at hand. Surprising, during the little flashback of that moment (chapter 909), Law was not seen when the samurai explained situation to Straw Hats:

Kinemon warned Straw Hats they “must pass yourselves off as locals and quietly, quietly go about your duties”. He gave pirates an individual roles:

➣ Zoro, as ronin, Usopp as street salesman and Robin, as geisha, were supposed to infiltrate capital and gather either informations or allies there

➣ Franky, as an apprentice, worked under carpenter who built Kaido’s mansion, in hopes to gain plans of enemy fortress, so the alliance could learn its arrangement before the raid.

➣ Law and Heart Pirates (as far as we were shown at that moment) stayed with samurais in the ruins of the Oden Castle in Kuri region and were stealing food and water from the enemy.

Chapter 918 notes Law was aware about Zoro’s role, however when and how he was informed is not clear. The lack of one of alliance leaders during the meeting between Kinemon and Straw Hats raises questions such as why Trafalgar wasn’t present and did samurai decide to keep knowledge about Zoro, Robin, Franky and Usopp and their tasks to themselves? On one hand, it makes sense. Secrecy was important to secure their plan as best as possible - a matter that will play a bigger role in the upcoming chapters; the less people knew what Straw Hats would be doing, the better chance to avoid information leak. But at the same time, if Law was informed about at least Zoro’s job, why not let him take part in the meeting? Unless he did learn about Zoro’s task after Pirate Hunter became an infamous wanted man, but about that more in a moment.

We may only wonder why Kinemon decided to keep Heart Pirates with himself, instead of sending them straight away undercover like Straw Hats. There are few reasons that could have influenced his decision:

➣ Law’s powers were useful for stealth and stealing. 

➣ The two Supernovas serving Kaido - Hawkins Basil and X-Drake - actually came from North Blue, the same as Trafalgar. How well they knew each other is up to debate, but since all three went to the Grand Line at the same time, it makes sense they at least had some basic knowledge about each other. Which may be a reason why Law stayed with Kinemon instead of playing a similar role to Zoro. 

➣ Another possibility is that Straw Hats could be simply better at pretending to be locals and/or had needed skills. In case of Zoro, the little details presented in manga and SBS suggest he grew up influenced by samurai culture due to his (still not explored) connection to the Shimetsuki clan.

Unfortunately, Zoro - working under the name of Zorojuurou - couldn’t continue his mission, because he killed a corrupt magistrate and most likely other samurais present at that time, thus became an outlaw. Since the knowledge about “murderous ronin” was spread in the whole country, it may explain why (how) Law learned about Zoro’s secret mission. 

Wandering through the wasteland, Zoro met Luffy who finally arrived in Wano.

Luffy barely got to Kaido’s country and he already befriended a local little girl, Tama, who due to poisoned water, fell ill. Straw Hat decided to take her to the nearest village, to seek help. On his way, he met Zoro who at the same time just saved Tsuru (another native person) from bad guys. Soon after that both got into a fight with Basil Hawkins and the Beast Pirates.

Once they managed to run away from pursuit and got into the relatively safe Okobore Town, Straw Hats were noticed by Bepo, Sachi and Penguin, who observed the area from a nearby mountain on which Oden Castle was built.The mentioned Heart Pirates were worried that Straw Hats could start some troubles (chapter 913).

In the end, Heart Pirates decided to not interfere… at least until they saw that Zoro and Luffy were heading into Bakura Town controlled by Kaido’s men and immediately notified Law (chapter 914).

↪ Law was chilling out lying on the ground. It seems he likes resting (or maybe napping?) in his free time, what was already seen before time-skip, when Trafalgar lied on Polar Tang’s deck, using Bepo as a pillow. Maybe Law has problems with irregular sleep (or lack therefore) and/or using Ope Ope no Mi exhausted him so much that, like Zoro, he needs to regenerate his energy by napping/lying down? 

↪ The same as Zoro, Law was surprised by Luffy’s presence in Wano but the similarity ends there. Zoro was delighted when he met Luffy and although he passed on the Kinemon’s warning, he wasn’t much bothered by how they together caused new trouble for the alliance. In contrast, Law wasn’t happy at all. He literally switched from chilling out into full stress/angry mode in less than a few seconds. 

↪ Law immediately and correctly assumed Luffy was going to wreck the havoc. It seems the previous experiences gained in Dressrosa have already borne fruit: Luffy and Zoro together, in enemy land, were bad news. 

↪ The most surprising thing about Law’s reaction is how he called both Luffy and Zoro as “those idiots”. Mainly because at first he was solely angry at Luffy and the prospect of him ruining the plan and then included Zoro as the potential danger. Which in perspective wasn't an irrational reaction and again, Dressrosa proved these two can’t be trusted with following any plan or common sense. Yet at the same time this sharp reaction gives the vibe that Law was for some reason angry at Roronoa (about that more soon). What contrasts with the good relationship they had during the previous arc. 

Law wanted to minimize potential damage done by Luffy and Zoro but was delayed by Bepo, who suddenly felt sick due to eating fish from a poisoned river (chapter 916).

↪ Law here was fully aware of poisoned food and water, he even warned his crew about it. Surprising, Zoro didn’t have any idea about the ecological situation of Wano and both men spent the same amount of time in this country. Either Zoro did not listen to the warning of others OR that matter comes after he left Kinemon’s hideout. In case of latter, it may suggest there was little to no contact between Zoro and other members of the alliance once he became a wanted man. To be fair, Kinemon himself got sick after eating poisoned food, so the revelation about poison could not be known before Straw Hats went undercover.

↪ Another little detail, Bepo felt sick after eating poisoned fish. Zoro, who ate poisoned meat most likely for days, got only some stomach ache, but nothing to stop him from fighting. Law’s tolerance for such poison is unknown, mainly because Ope Ope no Mi would help him remove the toxin from body and, in contrast to Zoro and Bepo, he has knowledge and common sense to not eat poisoned things.

↪ Also, apparently Law has a soft spot for Bepo, the only animal crewmember - another trait he shares with Zoro who himself has a soft spot for Chopper. Trafalgar let Bepo’s sickness delay him when the situation was dire, knowing full well leaving Luffy and Zoro unsupervised for too long was asking for big trouble.

Once his crew member noted that Basil Hawkins was heading to Bakura Town and there already was a fire, Law was pretty shocked by the disturbing change of events.

Despite the pledging of Bepo(?) to not leave him behind, Law finally rushed into town. He didn’t have a clue what was really happening there but attacked the just arrived Hawkins in order to eliminate the threat. As in, eliminate anyone who could recognize him or Straw Hats (chapter 917).

➽ Law actually tried to be sneaky and covered his head with special headgear/straw hat to hide his identity. What suggests he was aware that Basil may recognize him and Straw Hat Supernovas. At the same time, Law is, well, really bad at playing undercover. On Dressrosa he wore jacked with CORAZON on his back alluding to late Donquixote Rosinante but that fight was personal matter and most likely wanted Doffy to know what the fight was all about.  In Wano, he didn’t have that excuse; the fight with Kaido wasn’t his personal quest for vendetta. And yet Law’s idea of hiding his own identity was wearing a kimono with his Jolly Roger on it. Very smart. What may support the theory why Kinemon kept him with himself rather than sending undercover. Law is just bad at this gig and thinking more about it, I don’t remember any time when Trafalgar even bothered to try speak like people of Wano - something that Zoro and Luffy actually have adopted to some extent.  

To take down another Supernova, Law needed using Ope Ope no Mi. The characteristic power and tattoos very soon betrayed his true identity. Law planned to take down Basil, so the man couldn’t report to Kaido about the Heart-Straw Hat pirate alliance. At the same time, Law put faith in Roronoa who knew the plan that he “wouldn’t be stupid enough to let Holdem get crushed” (chapter 918). What implies that despite referring to Zoro as the “idiot” and general pessimistic attitude, Law still assumed Zoro’s presence would be enough to stop Luffy before the worst could happen.

➽ Once again, Law was addressing Zoro as “Roronoa”,instead by his name. Which departs from information published in SBS vol. 72 explaining what Law calls the various members of Straw Hat crew. Back then, Zoro and Nami were the only two allies he called by first name instead of surname or nickname:

In the case of Nami (whose surname was never revealed), it makes sense to use her given name yet Zoro was the only one male ally Law addressed in such a way. Even Luffy, who from a narrative standpoint is the closest person to Trafalgar, is constantly called Straw Hat-ya. Why the special approach to Zoro and why change it right now? The most likely reason for the switch of speaking pattern was Law’s anger (but about that more in next chapter). Anyway, an interesting detail, how Law’s way to call Zoro is related to his mood and/or stress level.

➽ Law proved to be good tactician, but at the same it seems he always assume the worst scenario to happen. Which I guess is one of the main reasons Trafalgar is always so stressed? In contrast, Zoro usually takes bad news calmly - he doesn’t like them, but he has a habit of leaving things to luck/fate instead of overthinking all possible solutions and outcomes. The difference in planning (or lack therefore) could make Zoro and Law clash with each other albeit so far, we saw little to nothing in that regard.

Sadly for Law, Zoro did not stop Luffy from beating Holdem. He wasn’t happy that Luffy did it, but didn’t regret it either. Law, on other hand, was angry and/or stressed by the situation, especially when Basil admitted he already met Straw Hats.

➽ Again, Law thought about Luffy and Zoro as “those idiots”. To be fair, he had a good reason to be angry because of course, Straw Hats wrecked havoc that was reported to Jack - the Beast Pirate responsible for poisoning Mink on Zou - and in result, exposed alliance presence in Wano.

The fight between Law and Basil was then unexpectedly stopped by a speeding cart of stolen food. Stolen by no one other than Zoro and befriended samurai Kiku. Roronoa was nice enough to call the fighting men to get out of their way… once again, Law was shocked by the turn of events. 

The fight between Law and Hawkins was stopped; Law didn’t manage to eliminate the enemy nor prevent information leakage about alliance presence in Wano. He almost was run over by a speeding cart with stolen food (another “crime” against Orochi & Kaido, which Straw Hats committed in his absence). No wonder why Law was so pissed of at Zoro.

About that more in next chapter: ...and Law Is Not Happy About That

[duratrans]

Satoshi Mizukami Q&A, 2/3

Satoshi Mizukami recently took questions from the editor's desk, and publicly from write-ins, for an interview to celebrate the first volume of Solte going on sale (Jan 9th!). So I translated them all! It’s in three parts, so I’ll post them one by one.

Here is the second section, revolving around Sengoku Youko and his other works.

Q: In Sengoku Youko, we were wondering about the history between Tama and Kuzunoha that led to their mother-daughter relationship. We know Tama was actually born from the ancient fox spirit Tamamo-no-Mae, so Kuzunoha must have adopted her, right? A: When Tamamo-no-Mae transformed into the Sessho-seki stone, which killed anyone who came near, a monk called Gennou Shinsho destroyed the rock, sending fragments of Tamamo's being flying near and far. (that's the actual legend from wikipedia. As for my plan to tie it to the story...) Kuzunoha found the fragmented portion that became Tama, and decided to take it in basically to kill time. I couldn't find a spot to fit that part of their history in, and eventually just left it.

Q: What happened to Kuzunoha after Yazen's death? Does she leave in search of a new love? Personally, I would find it more poetic for Yazen to have been the last man she ever embraced, seeing how she was willing to die for him! A: She would take on a disguise, probably a female monk, and nurse her broken heart for many years. Of course, being an unaging youkai, she could never stay in one place too long, and would move around, until one day she meets someone new. Just the way she's always done. That's how it is for a youkai. You do what you've always done.

Q: You did judo in high school and kenpo in college, and we know you liked the matches and sparring but hated working out, so you've coined your own nickname as "the limp-armed berserker" on twitter before. Did Douren and Thousand-Tale Jinka's love of battle come from a familiar place? A: Insofar as the feeling of "yeah, fighting is fun!" might be rooted somewhere in there, I guess so. The idea of a real fight still makes me nervous, though.

Q: Senya and Tsukiko's village is protected by the barrier that makes it invisible, which has kept it relatively isolated from the larger world. Did they also manage to stay independent from the sweeping administrative changes that changed Japan, like Toyotomi Hideyoshi's restriction of arms to the samurai caste or the land census, or the Edo period's capitol attendance policy, isolationism, and welfare laws, just to name a few? A: All of it. Passed 'em right by.

Q: In the story, we learn Mudo took up a number of hobbies like go, shogi, haiku, bonsai, etc. If Mudo was living today, what  kind of pastimes would he be into? I get the impression he'd be sinking cash into mobile games and Gacha. A: Mudo is a fighting game/FPS gamer. I don't think he'd be as interested in stuff like mobile games that don't take player skill into account as much.

Q: After Jinka and Tama married, did Jinka change how he addressed her? As in, did he start to have a pet name or something like that for her? I'd love to know! (I'm guessing Tama still just calls him "Jinka," but if that changed I'd love to know, too!) -Negurano A: This didn't really change for them, no.

Q: What kind of person is Mudo's sister? -Weekend A: Didn't really plan her out.

Q: So many characters in Sengoku Youko had incredibly impactful, memorable death scenes. If Senya or any of the rest of the cast that were around when the story ended had to go, how would you envision it? -Namamono A: How would I kill off the characters that didn't die? That's a weird one. I was never going to create scenes that aren't part of the the story, so I got nothing for that.

Q: Did you have any additional self-contained stories from the Youko universe that you wanted to draw? For instance, maybe something with Tama and Senya and their life together as lovers, and how that's going! -Neko A: If I had too much free time on my hands, or it was for work, I might come up with something but I don't really have any ideas at the moment.

Q: Did you have a favorite part or arc of Sengoku Youko? -Kokoronohito A: I like the ending.

Q: I wish Ufotable could do an anime adaption of Youko. Although, I also think Kyoani would do a very nice Tama... -Akane A: Is there a question in there?

Q: Can you give us your top three characters, and your favorite three parts of the story? -Akane A: For characters, it'd be Yazen, Tago, and Hanatora. I guess for the scenes I like best, there's the ending, Senya and Mudo's showdown in volume 9, and the final battle between Senya and Jinka.

Q: How did you come up with the nonsense dialog for the mad gods? Was there any reference or inspiration behind the dog, the whale, the rabbit, or the others? ­-Gen A: Nothing in particular. I just tried to string things together that would make absolutely no sense. I did want to hide some hints or foreshadowing in the babble, but it didn't really work.

(note: back to editorial for one question) Q: When The Man of Legend was published in Geko Geko back in 2004, you said Yamanaka was probably the most powerful out of all your characters. Does he still wear the crown here in the year 2021? A: I'd have to say at this point he's been dethroned.

Q: I really liked Soon Ken and Penta in Sanjin Sadou, so I was wondering where the idea of a sake-loving penguin came from. ­-Leviah A: I can't remember in the least.

Q: Akitani Inachika (Swordfish knight from Biscuit Hammer) obtained knowledge of all things, and Hakke Neko has the all-seeing eye. They existed at very different times, but is there any connection between the two? -Abuson A: There's no connection.

[bbq-hawks-wings]

I read your tags— please talk about your OC, I'm curious :D

So! Tell me about " the oc of yours!" - @mintgreencase

You all are so sweet! Thank you! I can finally word vomit out her wiki-styled bio!

There's a lot but also some content warnings for neglect, physical assault, depression, and smoking below the cut.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

PERSONAL DESCRIPTION

BIRTHDAY

February 12

AGE

22 (Current)

GENDER

Female

HEIGHT

159 cm (5'3")

HAIR COLOR

Champagne Pink - Dark Purple

EYE COLOR

Pale grey

BLOOD TYPE

AB

QUIRK

Cephalopod

STATUS

Alive

BIRTHPLACE

Fukuoka

FAMILY

Adopted father (alive)

Mother (alive)

Half-sister [27] (alive)

Half-brother [18] (alive)

Half-brother [16] (alive)

Father (alive)

Keigo Takami - Husband (alive)

OCCUPATION

Business consultant

Part-time model

Pop Idol (former)

AFFILIATION

Civilian

Summary

Tamakado was born out of an extramarital affair between an unknown man and her mother who was discontent with her marriage to an overbearing, insecure, and quietly misogynistic husband. Once she discovered she was pregnant, her mother broke all contact with Tamakado's birth father and attempted to pass the baby off as her husband's. He was already suspicious before the baby was born, but the truth became obvious when her subtle heteromorph quirk and appearance were unexplainably different from her mother's innocuous quirk while her husband was quirkless. The issue was never discussed, and her parents remained emotionally disconnected from her for the rest of her upbringing, choosing instead to shower their other children in attention - particularly the first son they had after her.

She was named Tamakado, spelled only with the kanji 圭 which alone can be read as "Tama" as in a round gem or "Kado" as in a sharp corner or rough edge. She was only referred to as "Kado" by her family.

She spent most of her childhood hiding her presence and avoiding making an impact in attempts to earn her parents affection. In her second year of middle school a classmate told her she was quite pretty behind her unflattering haircut and ill-fitting hand-me-downs and wondered why she didn't focus on her appearance more. When Tamakado brought it up in hopes of pleasing her parents, her father in a tired, drunken frustration effectively told her that the only thing she and her beauty was good for was seducing and ruining men the way her birth father had done to her mother and that drawing attention to herself would continue to bring disgrace on him and their family.

Though it was initially crushing to hear, she remembered the word "mermaid" in her classmate's description and discovered the myth of mermaids who lured men to their doom to steal their jewels or eat the flesh off their bones. She decided that if the only thing she was good for was ruining others, she might as well do it on her own terms. Over her last year of middle school she began reaching out and forging connections as well as began to learn how to utilize her appearance and charisma to garner popularity; and using her sister's high school graduation and younger brother's upcoming middle school graduation as cover, she also studied hard and got accepted on a scholarship into a high school known for being connected in the entertainment industry and producing several noteworthy young stars without her parents' knowledge.

Her first year was fairly innocuous as she learned about the social dynamics and groups of the school and made connections through mutually beneficial favors, even reclaiming the nickname "Kado" as a personal brand. In her second year, she and two of her heteromorph friends created an amateur pop idol band using a motif of "cute, man-eating monster" as its selling gimmick with an emphasis on fleshing out each girl's character independently should they choose to branch off individually or add more members - of which hers was the gorgeous, "liberated," man-slaying mermaid that had originally inspired her. By the start of their third year, they were slowly getting attention and a small, dedicated following.

Tamakado had made a mistake in her naivety, though, and underestimated the cutthroat nature of the industry and, by extension, the school. In the middle of her third year of high school she was lured alone into a meeting with a rival classmate under the pretense of setting up a business favor for her band mate. She was physically assaulted and had revealing, incriminating photos of her taken for blackmail. When she attempted to defend herself to the school authorities, the school sided with her well-connected classmate, citing her blunt and "lascivious" persona as likely having caused it and offered to "help" her under NDA and contract.

Without a support network at home to limp back to, being shut out of the only industry she had connections in, not wanting to drag her friends into her problem, and without any negotiating power - she signed a celebrity marriage agreement that detailed how she was to conduct herself, when and how this relationship would be revealed to the public, when and how many children they would have, and that she basically existed to boost his image in exchange for a comfortable life. It shouldn't have been a legal or enforceable contract by any means, but she was in no position to refuse or fight back.

She didn't even know who she would be married to until she met him face to face after signing her contract alone, and even then she initially only got the name "Hawks" - an up and coming 18 year old soaring up the hero charts and on his way to being one of the best heroes Japan had ever seen.

Over the first few months of the relationship, despite not consummating the marriage and attempting to give her her own space in his home and her life on Hawks' part, she rapidly deteriorated until he worried she might actually die in her room from self-neglect. He offered to expedite a passport to allow her to escape as much as possible under the guise of "higher education" in lieu of a more permanent solution to her problem, and she spent the next several years bouncing back and forth between America and Japan before permanently returning, determined to make the best of the hand she was dealt, including finding her old friends, reclaiming and transforming her personal brand and image, and attempting to at least be friends with the man she was slated to spend the rest of her life with.

Appearance

Tamakado is a short, hourglass-figured, freckled woman with fair skin, pale grey eyes, and pinkish purple hair. She doesn't typically wear makeup, and tends to prefer a toned-down, natural fashion style.

Her Cephalopod quirk gives her several attributes of many squid, cuttlefish, and octopuses including chromatophores that can change the pigment of her skin and hair, increased flexibility and fine muscle control, and mild venom in her saliva. Her hair has the ability to curl and relax at will - from perfectly straight to tight coils. When relaxed her hair is pale champagne pink, and when constricted it's a dark purple. While she can voluntarily control this, her overall mood and level of stress can subconsciously effect it. Her chromatiphores glow under blacklight, and she blushes a soft purple instead of pink.

Personality

Tamakado takes the "kado" (rough in manner) impression and runs with it, attempting to appear confidently brash, intimidating, and abrasive to those who stand opposed to her. Among friends, this persona lifts a bit to show a much more vulnerable and unsure person who is constantly second-guessing herself. She struggles with explicit declarations of affection and speaking plainly about her own feelings. Doing this with extra attention and eyes on her is especially difficult.

Her history has given her a soft spot for underdogs and tries to use her abilities and resources to offer them a chance to earn notoriety and respect - in which she is firm but fair. She believes in leveraging connections and rewarding good performance. She doesn't like being idle and prefers to have a problem to solve or a goal to work towards whenever possible. She's shrewd and pays attention to small details like word choice and past conversation when interacting with others.

Trivia

Her favorite food is shellfish.

Because her hair has more connective tissue to allow it to curl and relax at will, her scalp is extremely sensitive and she hates getting haircuts which means she keeps her hair long even though she'd prefer the maintenance of shorter hair.

She also won't tie her hair back in any way unless it's loose, otherwise she gets a massive headache.

She has a bad smoking habit she picked up after high school and has been trying to quit for years.

She speaks English moderately well thanks to her visits to America but swears fluently.

[hua-fei-hua]

mmmm 002 for either tamaki or nejire, 001 for kamijirou :3

002 | Give me a character & I will tell you

How I feel about this character:

tbh i tend to be a bit lukewarm abt the big three in general; for the most part i don’t start really caring abt side characters until i write them into my fanfics. nejire i know i think abt sometimes in particular bc her quirk is almost exactly like this one idea i had for a superpower, oh about five-ish years ago now? when i was in eighth grade. basically you take someone’s life energy/vitality and you turn it into a physical form that you can then use at the expense of just not being energetic anymore.

All the people I ship romantically with this character: 

hmm i don’t really have opinions on big three shipping, but yuyu is definitely a lesbian who is very in love w/nejire and i don’t make the rules on that one. as for tamaki, i can see the appeal of miri/tama, but idk man i’m just not currently particularly compelled toward it.

My non-romantic OTP for this character: 

the big three as a unit are a good brotp. otherwise, i like the idea of nejire being a fun senpai to ochako n tsuyu (like i can totally see nejire giving unsolicited love advice to ochako lmao), but we unfortunately don’t see enough of them in canon for it to be smth i would actively think and remember to put into fic. for tamaki tho like i love seeing the fanart of him, fatgum, and kirishima just doing their intern work, y’know???? that’s some good stuff man

My unpopular opinion about this character: 

*walks up to the mic* *makes eye contact with everyone* i think tamaki would forget to shower and then when he remembers it’s really late so he gets anxious and just decides to “wait until the next day,” wherein there’s at least a 33% chance the exact same thing will happen again. 

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon:

man i wish that nejire kinda just wasn’t regulated to being the pretty one at times in canon, and have we actually seen tamaki do anything important since the overhaul arc? checkmate horikoshi

my OTP: 

eh, i’m not that particular abt shipping these guys

my cross over ship:

eh, i’m not really into the idea of crossover shipping in general

a headcanon fact:  

i think the big three just as a trio didn’t even think to make a group chat until after they were revealed to the first years as “the big three” and then suddenly all thes little kouhai were like “wow look it’s the big three” and mentally putting them in a box set and they were like “huh looks like we need a group chat now” and they probably expected it to be awkward at first bc obvs miri/tama are childhood friends so they can talk about whatever, but nejire takes to it like a fish in water lol

001 | send me a ship and I will tell you:

when I started shipping it if I did:

hmm i know that i didn’t really pick up any ships aside from tdmm and izch when watching the anime, that’s for sure, so i’m gonna say kamijirou is one of those ships i just picked up and adopted from reading tdmm fic and seeing them in the background. i specifically remember when i first started reading fic that i was surprised to see mmjr frequently portrayed as close friends bc i hadn’t noticed their subtle friendship when binge watching canon. ao3 is down as i’m typing this, so i can’t say for sure what fic exactly it was that lured me into kmjr, but i know i didn’t get, like, really into it until i was writing orchid and suddenly they had this amazing, wonderfully appealing chemistry and i was like “oh no i love them??”

my thoughts:

i think that both of them have just this bisexual disaster energy to them, like it would be a miracle if they somehow got all that sorted out enough to get together. i also think that they would have a great roast : genuine compliment ratio, although i’m pretty sure jirou’s love language is just roasting people, so that ratio might be skewed when you look at them as individuals lol. i also think they’d settle into using first names pretty quickly, mostly bc kaminari’s the type to use it as a casual, flirtatious joke, and then jirou would get back at him by using his first name and it just sticks.

What makes me happy about them:

i love that they’re both such major dweebs?? like just look at them. 100% pure dweeb that doesn’t know what the fuck to do with themself when they actually like a person more than as a casual, passing, “haha they’re cute.”and like, this is gonna dive more into my own personal headcanon stuffs rather than canon (although stuff that makes me happy abt them in canon is like, everything?? the “YOU SHOULD MAKE MUSIC BC IT’S COOL!!” moment where he just sHOVES HIS FACE INTO HER PERSONAL BUBBLE and the “don’t give up chargebolt” bit of last chapter MMMMMM), but i like the way i imagine they’d deal with this realization. jirou by being excessively tsundere (bc wow that’s just me) and kaminari by being excessively open about it (bc wow that’s what i wanna be), and it becomes kind of this dynamic of “HEY I LIKE YOU” “LOL WHAT GO AWAY WAIT NO I DIDN’T ACTUALLY MEAN THAT. BUT IT’S NOT BC I LIKE YOU OR ANYTHING” “THAT’S OKAY BC I JUST LIKE BEING WITH YOU”i think you can see why i tend to hc them as being major disasters in this relationship lol

What makes me sad about them:

the concept,, ,, , , of traitor kaminari..................... :C

things done in fanfic that annoys me:

they get tagged in a lot of fics, but they’re usually second string or background to some other ship and i’m like, “no?? please, some longer kamijirou fics actually focused on them???” (this is among the reasons why i hold very high standards for tagging pairings in fics.)

things I look for in fanfic:

hmmm. i know i just complained abt them being side ships in other ships’ stories and that still stands, but like, i like to see kmjr fic w/like tdmm or krbk on the side bc i just love the possible double date dynamic of kmjr/tdmm and then fun squad outing feel of kmjr/krbk w/the rest of the bakusquad. i haven’t really gone looking for fic in a really long time (esp. since i want to catch up on all the good tdmm fics i missed out on in these last almost-two-years before i start looking for other ships in fic), so i can’t really tell you what kinds of tropes or characterization i look for in fic other than what i use and write myself lol

Who I’d be comfortable them ending up with, if not each other:

i said so before that i need my platonic mmjr just as badly as i need my romantic tdmm, but honestly if mmjr became romantically canon i’d be okay with that. they deserve good things. as for kaminari, i seriously think one of the funniest things about him is the joke that his type is just purple emo, so shin/kami is also acceptable to me

My happily ever after for them:

okay strap in bc i have like the entire post-schooling lives for most of my major ships mapped out, though i guess that focuses more on what their kid(s) would be like but it’s whatever anyway, shotgun wedding first of all. they have this huge “will they won’t they” after graduating, but jirou is very very stubborn and so this goes on until their late twenties when idk stuff happens and they have a shotgun wedding. they have one lesbian daughter named miku, who looks a lot like jirou except for the fact that she has a faint birthmark over her right eye that makes it look like she has a permanent black eye if you look closely. anyway, they have a huge argument over who takes whose last name (since in japan couples legally have to have the same surname, though it doesn’t matter who takes whose or if they combine somehow), so they compromise and end up w/上郎, which i think would be pronounced kamirou. anyway yeah and then they live happily every after man

who is the big spoon/little spoon:

i’m pretty sure kaminari would straight-up sneak up behind jirou just to get a chance at being the big spoon

what is their favorite non-sexual activity:

this is definitely a thing i picked up from a fanfic a long time ago, but part of the reason i hc them both as bi is bc i think they’d totally be the type to go out on dates and check people out together. like they’re at dinner and one would be like “what did you think of the waitress” “[insert some comment here]” “mmm i see what you’re talking about, but consider: [other aspect].” i think with the way i write them, this would probably be months after they get together and they become comfortable in a relationship w/one another

[the-beastslayers-queen]

A Dangerous Game: Chapter 2

Chapter 2 as promised. Tagging: @queenofthearchitect @biforbecky2belts @writtingrose and @mrsambroserollinsacklesmgk If anyone wishes to be added to the taglist for this beauty, hit my inbox or chat.

I was left alone at the bar of the club, Seth having not returned since he left. I was sipping on my cocktail, glancing down at the napkin he gave me. I sighed and tucked it into my purse before working on finishing my drink so I could order another one. I was going to get drunk tonight. I mean, I never asked to be set up with McIntyre and I wasn’t looking forward to what was coming for me. With meeting Seth, I saw that this marriage is not right for me.

“There ye are,” I turned to find Becky coming up to stand next to me, “Finn and Drew asked me to look after ye while ye have some drinks.”

“Oh so Drew can make sure I don’t get wooed by someone else and break off everything,” I replied with heavy sarcasm, “He doesn’t need to worry about me. He just met me and I doubt he’d care if I let loose and get tipsy tonight.”

Seth

I finally made it over to the VIP section where my “dad” was sitting with Bayley, Charlotte, and Paige close by. Sasha stood close by with Ruby, Liv, and Sarah on watch over the girls. At the closest emergency exit Mandy and Sonya stood watch. Dean, Roman, and I circled around to stand behind Hunter, our adoptive father.

“Finn,” Hunter stood up and reached over to shake hands with the shorter Irishman as he came walking up with two guards on his flank, “Thanks for meeting with us. I’m sure your sister is pleased to be matched with McIntyre and I’m honored to be here at the engagement party you’re hosting for her.”

“Hunter,” Finn’s accent was very thick as he greeted Hunter, “I know that alignin myself with McIntyre ruffled yer feathers a little and I wanted to make sure we stay on good terms.”

“I’m sure you do,” Hunter sat back down as Finn sat across from him, “Now I know you are looking for a bride for yourself. I have daughters I am willing to match you with. So pick your bride.”

“I was hoping to have Bayley as my bride,” he replied, “But I am not inna rush to put a ring on her finger. Wit’ your blessing, I’d like to get know all of the daughters ye have to offer for me and get a chance to know t’em before I make my choice.”

“That’s fair,” Hunter nodded, “I’ll allow it. I’m sure my girls will be alright with that. Right girls?”

“Yes dad,” Bayley replied first.

“Yeah sure,” Paige added second.

“Well of course Hunter,” Charlotte replied, “But you’ll also have to meet my dad, Ric, too Finn.”

“I am at yer mercy, lasses,” Finn smiled at my sisters, certainly charming the trio, “Now if ye’ll excuse me, I need to go find my sister. I’ll be in touch.”

With that last remark, Finn left the VIP section and went in the direction of the bar. I went over the couch he was previously sat and took a seat. I had my doubts about this. I had to.

My role in The Authority as The Architect meant I was the go-to hacker for the family business. I had to protect our assets on the internet. I also served as an enforcer with my two brothers, Dean and Roman, as The Shield. We’re tasked with being top security for Hunter whenever he has to go out to conduct family business. Between the three of us, I’m the most level-headed under pressure. I also have the best control on my temper. But the moment you piss me off, I will not hesitate to put a couple bullets into you. Hunter won’t confess it, but I’m his favorite among the three of us because of my talents behind a keyboard for creating my two most famous programs. My first is able to wipe out your bank account and record of your existence from the internet without leaving a trace, which I nicknamed Oracle. My second is a defensive program that will stop any foreign programs that try to get into our servers to steal our money or secrets, which is called Cerberus. I am also the only one with access to either program so I made sure I was too valuable to be disposed of.

“So are we going to maintain alliance with Bálor Club,” I asked Hunter, “Or do I need to send the word out to stay on guard if they decide to start a war with us with McIntyre backing them?”

“We’re going to keep things as they are,” Hunter warned me, “We’re not going to encourage them to start a war after all the help they gave us a couple years ago. For now, we’ll play this out and see if Finn is going to follow through on making our partnership more solid with a marriage to one of your sisters. If McIntyre starts anything, we’ll see if Finn is willing to consider a new match for his sister.”

“Who would you match up with her,” I asked.

“More than likely I’d match up Cesaro or Roman to the girl,” he replied, “As for you, Seth, I’m not ready to match you up with anyone for the sake of an alliance. I’d rather have you find a girl of your own outside the business. Maybe eventually get out of the business.”

“Anyway,” I stood up from my seat, “I’m going to go outside, maybe get a cab home. I’ll see you in the morning for the meeting with the rest of the family.”

I walked out of the club, happy to now be able to hear myself think. As I came out I looked over to find Cat leaning against the wall of the club, typing away on an iPad. I smirked to myself and decided to go talk to her again.

Cat

“What are you done partying already,” Seth smirked as he leaned on the wall next to her, “What are you working on?”

“Just fine tuning a program I’ve been working on,” I replied as I put away my iPad, “I’m not done partying, but I’m heading out to a different bar that is more my speed. You are welcome to join me, if you’d like. After all, you still owe me a couple rounds since we were interrupted earlier.”

“Alright you got me there,” Seth chuckled as he got out his phone, “I’ll get us a cab and you can tell the driver where we’re going.”

“Okay, you can tag along,” I agreed, “But just stick close to me when we get to where we’re going. It’s going to be in a rough neighborhood.”

Seth and I waited for the cab he called to come pick us up. I talked about how growing up in Ireland and the US and he was intrigued by the fact that I’m self-taught in programing and electrical engineering despite majoring in criminal psychology and minoring in accounting. Once the cab finally arrived I climbed in first and gave the cabbie the address of where we were going before Seth could get in and hear where we were going.

“So I don’t get to know where we’re going,” he asked as the cab pulled away from Bullet Club and started heading out of the nice neighborhood we were in.

“Nope,” I replied with emphasis on the “p.”

“Since I’m not knowing where we’re going,” Seth started, “Can I get your number since you have mine?”

“Sure,” I replied as I held out my hand, “Hand me your phone and I’ll add it to your contacts.”

Seth dug his phone out of his back pocket of his jeans and unlocked it before putting it in my hand. I looked down at his phone and saw the background of his home screen was of him and a really pretty girl draped on his arm.

“Is this you and your girlfriend,” I asked him as I opened his contacts.

“My ex actually,” he replied sadly, “I haven’t gotten around to changing it yet. We were going to get married.”

“What happened,” I asked him, hoping I wasn’t hurting him with asking about her.

“She found out about what I did for a living and left me,” he replied, “She didn’t want to be involved in what I did and called it quits.”

“That’s a bummer,” I sighed and grabbed his hand, “I’m sorry she left you. Surely you’ll find ‘the one’ again.”

“Maybe,” he sighed and looked down at our hands, “For now, I just want to go out with you to this surprise place and have a few drinks.”

When we finally pulled up to our stop, Seth paid the cabbie for the fare and climbed out of the cab. He turned around and helped me out of the cab and I led the way inside of my favorite place, The Coup De Grace. I smiled as I saw my favorite member of the Club, Tama Tonga, helping out the bartenders behind the bar. He draped his hand towel over his shoulder and smiled at me as he saw me come in.

“If it isn’t my favorite patron,” Tama laughed as he came around the bar to give me a big old bear hug, “And you brought a date, how cute.”

“Tama,” I smiled and hugged him, “This is Seth.”

“So I take it your brother has no idea you snuck away from your party,” he asked as he led us over to the bar.

“You know for a fact that this old place is more my speed than Bullet Club is,” I told him as I sat down with Seth at the bar, “Besides, I like seeing my favorite Tongan.”

“You’re damn right I’m your favorite,” Tama laughed as he got a glass out from under the bar, “Do you want your usual tonight or do you want me to surprise you.”

“I’ll take my usual,” I replied, “What’s your poison, Seth?”

“I’ll have a whiskey straight on the rocks,” he replied, “If that’s cool with you Tama.”

“You got it brother,” Tama got to work on my drink and on Seth’s whiskey.

“So I got to ask how the hell you found this place,” Seth asked, turning towards me.

“Find it,” I chuckled at his question, “I run the joint. This is basically my bar. I just happen to own it with my brother. He also owns the Bullet Club.”

“Well who’s your brother,” he asked.

“Seth Rollins,” I placed my hand on my chest as Tama placed my drink down in front of me, “You are just full of questions. How about I ask about you first. Maybe the next time we have drinks I’ll answer your question.”

“Then ask away,” he replied before taking a sip of his whiskey.

“So I have to ask you,” I thought it over for a minute, “What do you do for a living your fiancé left you?”

“I’m the IT guy for The Authority,” he replied, “I also keep tabs on the money. I’m Hunters youngest adopted son. I’m also an enforcer and I primarily serve as a guard for Hunter when he’s out on business. I sometimes tag along with my brothers as part of the Shield to be the muscle for Hunter.”

“I can see why she wouldn’t want to mixed up with you,” I took another sip of my drink, “Have you killed anyone.”

“I haven’t yet,” he replied, “But I’ve had to erase people that were taken out by my brothers though. Dean and Roman are more than willing to pull the trigger than I am.”

“I can admire a man with a disciplined trigger finger,” I placed my hand over his, “And I can admire a guy I can talk code and algorithms with.”

“I will not trade secrets with you though Cat,” he replied, “I’m not letting anyone figure out how to trick Cerberus, my defensive program I built for The Authority. That is my pride and joy and I will die before I share its code.”

“That’s fair,” I replied, “I would never ask for the code to the programs you use for The Authority. If I ask about code, it would be suggestions to help me bolster the strength of my programs or to help me build new programs.”

“Now making new programs would be fun,” Seth replied as he finished his drink, “I think I should head home for the night. I’ll text you when I get home. Please text me when you get home, Cat. Maybe we can do this again sometime. I think I’m going to have to hit you up for more drinks. Maybe dinner sometime too.”

“Have a good night, Seth,” I walked him outside and waited until his cab came to pick him up. Once he was on his way, I went back in to continue talking to Tama.

“So does he know about you being in the Club and engaged to McIntyre,” Tama asked as he cleaned some glasses.

“Not yet,” I replied as I continued drinking, “And he doesn’t need to know that yet. I don’t want to push him away yet. I don’t even think I’m going to push him away. He’s charming and we have a lot in common.”

“You are playing with fire, homegirl,” Tama warned, “If Finn or McIntyre find out you’re playing around with Seth, it could start a war.”

“Then I’ll be careful,” I replied, “You forget I can create alibis without breaking a sweat. I’m one of the best hackers in the city.”

“Uh hun,” Tama hummed, “The instant this blows up in your face, don’t come crying to me when Finn kicks your ass for starting a war between us and The Authority and Clan McIntyre.”

[kondo-hijikata]

not reblogging the meme since my answers are gonna be about...

THEM!

General, in a canon setting:

Rate the Ship -   Awful | Ew | No pics pls | I’m not comfortable | Alright | I like it! | Got Pics? | Let’s do it! | Why is this not getting more attention?! | The OTP to rule all other OTPs

How long will they last? - FOREVER. even after nagareyama. they’re chillin in space rn wondering why a bunch of foreigner kids are running blogs about them

How quickly did/will they fall in love? - the attraction was immediate. kat-chan was visiting toshi’s brother-in-law when they met, and toshi was so taken with the tennen rishin ryu (and its master) that he decided to train seriously. they got on really well but it wasn’t until that day they were sitting by the lake when toshi realized he was actually falling in love with kat-chan. and who wouldn’t, honestly? kat-chan told him it was okay to be himself, instead of what the world wanted of him. 20/10 marriage material

How was their first kiss? - soft. almost shy. they both pined quietly and toshi was content with that instead of confessing and potentially ruining everything...until kat-chan was just so radiant by candlelight and the moment was perfect.

Wedding, in a modern au setting:

Who proposed? - kat-chan. despite that they already discussed getting married multiple times, being officially asked came as a surprise to toshi. they picked out wedding rings together but lo and behold, kat-chan went on his own to buy pair set engagement rings. when they were visiting their families in tama, they took a walk one night and went back to their spot by the lake...and that’s when kat-chan officially asked him. whAT A FLUFFY DORK.

Who is the best man/men? - souji for kat-chan and the sait for toshi

Who is the bride’s maid(s)? - tbh, the whole shieikan crew is in the wedding party. they told chizuru to pick her dress but she ended up wearing a suit like the rest of everyone else because #shieikan solidarity. (consequently, i was there and i fell in love with her.)

Who did the most planning? - yall know toshi would be a groomzilla lmao

Who stressed the most? - toshi. kat-chan kept trying to help...even if toshi kept yelling. eventually, he gave in tho. lol like kat-chan would totally try to delegate tasks to their sword sons and take toshi out to attempt alleviating his stress. he’s Good

How fancy was the ceremony? - it was neither over the top or overly simple: a venue large enough to host their guests for the actual ceremony and reception. there’s often an after-party in modern japanese weddings, so they went to an upscale bar type of place for theirs

Who was specifically not invited to the wedding? - kat-chan wrestled with the idea of inviting serizawa out of courtesy...until toshi (softly) hit him on the head with a magazine

Sex, in a canon and/or au setting:

Who is on top? - consider this: toshi is a bottom whether he’s penetrated or penetrating 👀

Who is the one to instigate things? - both do

How healthy is their sex life? - it’s healthy...as in it’s never expected or taken for granted. they fuck as much or as little as they want and neither is left feeling like something is missing

How kinky are they? - i mean...lmao. kinky is such a subjective word. whatever they do is 10000% consensual and with the other’s respect and comfort in mind at all times

How long do they normally last? - however long they want???

Do they make sure each person gets an equal amount of orgasms? - nah. i mean, i get this question is probably asking if one is more selfish than the other and just takes and takes without ever giving. but also consider one getting the other off when he’s had a rough day. 👀 👀 👀 or under-the-desk head at work lmao

How rough are they in bed? - however rough they wanna be at that particular time. again, it’s always about respect and comfort.

How much cuddling/snuggling do they do? - they’re not into PDA but when they’re alone, they like to be in contact with each other...reading together, spooning at night (until it gets too hot or toshi is annoyed by the breathing on his neck lmao), hella kisses when the door is closed

Children, in a canon setting :

How many children will they have naturally? - 0. loophole ftw

How many children will they adopt? - add up the amount of people younger than them who were in the shin//sengumi and there’s your answer

Who is the stricter parent? - oh, that’s hijimama for sure lol

Who stops the kid(s) from doing dangerous stunts? - i mean...they’re here to kill cho//shu trash so... they’re both particularly protective over souji (since they basically raised him). kat-chan also is very fond of heisuke, while toshi is fond of yamazaki and the sait

Who remembers to pack the lunch(es)? - pSHHH the only cooking either might do is making something small for the other. the sword kids will have to rely on the kitchen staff. ...though kat-chan does show up with sweets every now and then ;D

Who is the more loved parent? - depends on who you’re asking... lol Favored Dads™ is a legit thing

Who is more likely to attend the PTA meetings with matsudaira? kat-chan...though if it’s important enough, toshi will accompany him

Who cried the most at graduation serizawa’s funeral? - i heard someone saying how toshi got all teary-eyed LMAOOOOO give him an edo-era oscar

Who is more likely to bail the child(ren) out of trouble with the law? - they ARE the law...with their own laws...which include seppuku...so their kids best not fuck up.

Cooking, in a modern au setting :

Who does the most cooking? - it depends but it’s mostly equal or a joint effort

Who is the most picky in their food choice? - neither. even in a present day au, kat-chan is still hella adamant about appreciating meals and it rubbed off on toshi

Who does the grocery shopping? - they go together

How often do they bake desserts? - nah lmao

Are they more of a meat lover or a salad eater? - depends on the mood. here’s to everyone being able to eat whatever they want. do so in my honor.

Who is more likely to surprise the other(s) with an anniversary dinner? - probably kat-chan lmao

Who is more likely to suggest going out? - either one but i can see them skipping fancy and expensive places for cheap and yummy

Who is more likely to burn the house down accidentally while cooking? - neither lol

Chores, in a modern au setting:

Who cleans the room? - both because this relationship is fair

Who is really against chores? - neither

Who cleans up after the pets? - both

Who is more likely to sweep everything under the rug? - if it’s an emergency, kat-chan...but he’ll go back to clean it up later XD

Who stresses the most when guests are coming over? - toshi. that’s why souji just shows up at random lmao

Who found100 yen between the couch cushions while cleaning? - kat-chan...he slipped it under the elastic of toshi’s briefs and called it a tip, to which he got a half sigh, half smile

Misc, in a modern au setting:

Who takes the longer showers/baths? - they both do so quickly but kat-chan will try to indulge toshi when they wash together

Who takes the dog out for a walk? - they’ll walk together

How often do they decorate the room/house for the holidays? - pSHT nah

What are their goals for the relationship? - kat-chan just wants toshi to be happy and healthy. toshi wants the same...and he’s also hellbent on making kat-chan prime minister one day lmao

Who is most likely to sleep till noon? - neither...unless it’s a mutual decision to not get out of bed

Who plays the most pranks? - kat-chan...but they’re just cute and silly versus souji who actively wants to create chaos in toshi’s life lol

[spirits-and-scales]

Are all Tama's other mates honorary parents to these kids too, like with the crablings?

((I’m gonna have to say no to that one for a few reasons. As far as the crablings are concerned, the other mates being “honorary parents” kind of makes sense because those who were his mates at the time were a lot more involved with both Tamatoa and Hemo and basically had interlinking relationships.

For Katali, she doesn’t really think like that. She’s accepted that the crablings see her as a mother of sorts and she basically considers them to be ‘adopted’ where she’s concerned, which is just as well. (I also think I remember something about her and Lian being their godparents anyway, though it’s been long enough that I’m not quite sure what the final discussion was.) However, she doesn’t consider Tamatoa’s other mates to also be hers. Most of them she hardly knows -if at all- and the others she only considers acquaintances or friends. Also, having spent time being raised by wolves, she grew up with the mindset of only having one mate for life, and that’s how she wants to keep things for herself even though Tamatoa thinks differently.

Now, as far as the cubs, Katali fully expects to raise her cubs in much the same way as wolves raise their young because that’s her heritage as a shapeshifter as well as her choice. And while other wolves do help care for the cubs of any given pair within the pack when it’s necessary, they don’t claim the cubs to be theirs when the parents are still present in their children’s lives. And it’s generally the same with humans as well.

That being said, I don’t see Katali being okay with her cubs calling someone else “mom” or such either. She’s highly loving, protective, rightfully possessive as a mother. The idea of “sharing” her biological kids with anyone other than Tamatoa would only hurt her. ))

[thegloober]

A New York Story: Tamara Jenkins on Private Life

by Tomris Laffly

October 5, 2018   |  

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“I’m good. I just came from doing my Terry Gross interview and now I’m wandering the block in front of my house, so my husband doesn’t have to listen to me talk about myself.” This is what Tamara Jenkins, the writer/director of Netflix’s pitch-perfect “Private Life,” playfully tells me on the phone, the day after her film’s rapturous New York Film Festival screening, months after it opened the 2018 Sundance Film Festival to unanimous praise. Luckily however, we will get to hear her talk about herself this season, as the filmmaker has liberally poured a lot of her personal reality into her latest. A deeply generous and specific New York film about a 40-something husband and wife battling with fertility and IVF treatments, “Private Life” publicly honors a whispered-about emotional struggle middle-aged couples, who have delayed having children due to various contemporary social and economic factors, weather in their marriage. 

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Starring Kathryn Hahn and Paul Giamatti as an arty East Village couple, and Kayli Carter as their helpful and intellectually curious step-niece, “Private Life” is Jenkins’ first film since “Savages” in 2007—another familial story anchored in relatable, heartbreaking truths. And she was busy during that decade, dividing her time between writing for hire, teaching and being a new mother, the successful outcome of her own experience with fertility treatments. She spent four years of that time, as she explained during the post-screening Q&A at NYFF, working on the film she was meant to make. She wrote and perfected her script in a remote office she had to rent, having transformed her second bedroom from a home-office to her daughter’s room. “Virginia Woolf was right,” she remarked after the screening. “You have to get a room of your own. Out of the house, so you don’t drift into domesticity and distractions from all the things you’re supposed to be doing in your office.”

Below, we delved deep into Jenkins’ process in making a timeless New York movie about a marriage, both hilarious and profoundly emotional at equal measure.

This movie comes from a deeply personal place for you, as you went through your own experience with fertility treatments. 

Yeah, my husband and I went through our own fertility saga. At the time, I certainly wasn’t cataloging it [as] great material. Although I think that there’s a part of writers and artists [that is] collecting things all the time even if they don’t know it. There’s a third eye keeping track of things that might be viable at some future date. When I was in the thick of it myself, I had a friend, Rebecca—she’s a filmmaker, a documentarian, and she was my confidant. When I would relay to her what was going on in all of the trials of either IVF or adoption or whatever things we were pursuing (we were pursuing international adoption as opposed to domestic adoption, which is what happened in the movie), she would say to me, “This is really good material. You should be writing this down.” And I was horrified. I’m not making a movie about this stuff. But, here I am and I have a movie about it. 

I think time went by and one thing that happened was that I started [hearing] a lot of people in my circle (including my friend Rebecca), who started having their own fertility drama. Many people I know, because of the nature of their lives, delayed having kids because of work and the kind of careers they had. Then [they] found themselves later pursuing parenthood. So I realized that it wasn’t my singular problem. You go to those waiting rooms and you look around and you’re definitely not the only one. I just started thinking that there was something I was being given permission to explore the subject beyond the things that the story of my own. 

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tama

It was a successful procedure for you, yet your film is about a couple that doesn’t succeed, which, I thought, is really a generous way of honoring and sympathizing with people who went through the same battles as you did, but weren’t as fortunate as you. 

I feel like there are [already] a lot of these stories and then at the end there’s the happy baby ending. Even though the movie is about trying to have a kid, [about] that pursuit, to me it was always a story about a marriage and the existential crisis that this couple goes through and a mutual mid-life crisis story. That’s always the way I thought of it. The ending of the movie is about them and how they weathered this. And that, to me, was more important from a narrative point of view. And then, on another hand, I just felt like when I read other stories or memoirs and at the end it was like, “Hello! We got it!” I just found it fucked up. 

Most of the time, it doesn’t work. Statistically most of IVF, as we’d have to look at the numbers, doesn’t always work. And also, they’d had as many tries as they had. Who knows what happens in the future with the couple? We just leave them at Applebee’s, sitting there waiting for a potential birth mother. So we don’t really know what happens. For sure, many cycles fail. In the course of the movie, we see two failed cycles: one with one IVF cycle with their own eggs, and then a donor egg IVF cycle. And I think that was realistic. And then adoption isn’t simple and easy. Basically, if you’re not getting a baby the old fashion way, it’s hard. 

I can’t remember the last time I went from crying to laughing and back to crying in a movie this sharply and frequently. You struck a wonderful balance between comedy and drama and tragedy. Can you talk about your writing process, ping-ponging between the two?

That’s a high honor to think that I succeeded in doing that. I think it’s something that I’m just naturally [after]; that is my place of where I want to go. There’s an in-between place between the comedy and drama that shimmers. That’s where I strive to go, because I believe that it’s a more authentic landscape for talking with experience. I don’t think that anything is truly dramatic or truly kinetic. That’s what I’m attracted to in literature or movies or art.

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I’m also wondering if you set out to make a timeless New York movie—“Private Life” immediately feels like one. As predictable as this might be, the marriage of an intellectual, slightly neurotic New York couple inevitably draws Woody Allen comparisons. 

I felt that these characters grew out of the soil of the way that they live [in New York]. I totally see what you’re saying with the Woody Allen comparison, although its view of economic reality is different than a lot of his portraits. This is [an] East Village version. They’re holding on to their apartment by their rent-stabilized lease. The economic realities brought them to this place where they are when the movie starts; informed the choices that they made in their life. Leading the kind of lives that they have, by living hot book contract or a theater company, is so unstable economically that it probably informed why they delayed pursuing having a kid in the first place. They had a small apartment. What are they gonna do? They didn’t have health insurance. To me, that was really important to help inform who these people were. They’re freelance New York people, [they are] artists.

Every New York freelancer knows a thing or two about that, yes.

It might be a familiar world. It’s an unstable place.

I love the line in the movie Rachel and Richard are looking through the profiles of potential donors, they say, “Oh, she’s a film and journalism major. That’s why she’s probably selling her eggs.”

[Laughs] “She majored in film and journalism, with like a minor in cinema studies. Or a double major cinema studies and journalism. No wonder she’s selling her eggs, she can’t get a job.”

That New York-ness you’re talking about—the best description of it I can think of is lived-in. I just loved that messy, chaotic, but kind of organized/chaotic apartment that they had. Kathryn Hahn’s beautifully messy hair, those bulky sweaters and layered clothes … 

That makes me really happy that you felt that way, especially as a New Yorker and feeling that it was an authentic portrait. The language that you just used, lived-in, that was the language that me and the Production Designer and the Costume Designer and the Cinematographer [used]. That’s how we talked about getting the feel and the look that we wanted for the movie. The production designer Ford Wheeler [and I] (we had a limited budget) poured so much of our attention into that apartment and getting that apartment right, because it was such an extension of their character. All their history is kind of evident in the books on the windowsills, and the exposed radiator. All that was so important to tell the story without words.

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And your cast had a special kind of chemistry that achieved that lived-in feel. Did you do any rehearsals to prepare them appear as a family?

We had a very limited rehearsal period, but I got Paul and Kathryn together once. Once, several months before, we shot by accident. Kathryn was arriving in New York to do press for “Bad Moms,” and Paul was about to fly out to Eastern Europe to do a movie. There was one night that they were in the city at the same time, so I got to get them in advance of the production schedule kicking in. That was fantastic and it was the first time they’d ever met in their life. They got to go through the script and I made dinner. I gave them a couple of acting exercises. One of them was washing dishes, which I thought was a good marital acting exercise. It’s that truly domestic cap that echoes in marriages all the time. And we read through the script. Oh, I had them go on a donor egg website and select an egg donor. Then so many months later, we had three days of rehearsals and Kayli entered the picture at that point. I think we were lucky that there was a really natural connection between everybody. Then there was something also really great about Kayli. She is a relatively unknown actor. So her relationship to Paul and Kathryn as actors really reflected her relationship to Paul and Kathryn’s characters in the story, the way that she admired them. There was something about that that just kind of worked on two different levels that was pretty nice. 

There’s such innocence and wisdom in her performance. 

She’s so incredibly open. There’re moments where I remember doing her close up, like the scene where they ask her point-blank if she would like to be their egg donor and she’s eating the burrito and sitting on the floor, and feeling like it was catching lightning in a bottle. She was so alive and we were just capturing this beautiful lightning buzz. She was pretty astonishing. 

I also responded to the fact that her relationship with her mother was a part of the story. Then it became not only about different generations of women, but about women from different socio-economic realities, too. The intellectual New Yorkers versus a suburban mom, who might not be the most sympathetic at first, but we understand where she’s coming from.

I remember being worried about that with the Cynthia character. A friend of mine read the script and she was like, “Oh my god, I love Cynthia, she’s such a bitch.” And I thought, “Oh shit, like she can’t just be a bitch.” I think that she’s dimensional and I don’t want her to just be this brittle, super bitchy mom. So when the idea of Molly Shannon came to my mind, which was really like great burst (I saw her in “Other People,” where she plays a cancer mom), I thought, “Molly Shannon, Molly Shannon, she’d be perfect because she is so likable and approachable.” It was around the time that she had won a Spirit Award I think. I felt that she would help find the humanity in that character and she really did.

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For what it’s worth, I never viewed Cynthia as a villainous character. Her concerns are valid. And she’s trying to protect her daughter.

They’re totally valid. My goal as a writer, which I guess is every writer and actor’s goal, is putting myself in each person’s shoes and believing their truth. And I just feel like I’m all three of those women easily. They’re all different. From each one of their perspectives, I can see why they feel the way they do about what’s happening. 

Slightly off trail, but I’m thrilled about the way you weaved in Bach, especially The French Suites, in your film’s soundtrack. I felt they perfectly aligned with the rhythms of that couple’s relationship. 

Well, I love The French Suites. I’m really ignorant about classical music, but those, performed by Glenn Gould, are so beautiful. I don’t even know how I came upon them before this movie; I liked them for years. I didn’t think in advance, “Oh, I’m gonna use all this Bach.” But then I said to my nephew, the kid who plays the piano in [the] Thanksgiving [scene], “I want you to be part of the Thanksgiving scene, we’ll have you come and you’ll play the piano just like you would do if you were visiting my apartment.” (Although my piano is much smaller. But this is a suburban house.) And my nephew is really good. And now he composes music. I said to my nephew Nate, “Give me a list of songs that you could play. We want to make sure that they’re in the clear [so] we wouldn’t have to pay for them if we ended up using them in the movie. So he gave me a list of songs and one of them was the Bach piece, Invention 4. 

And so it was not part of The French Suites. But it’s a beautiful piece and I loved it, so I looked at all the pieces he suggested. And that’s what he ended up playing when we shot the scene. When I was in the editing room, I think that must have set off the Bach frenzy and I just said to my editor, “Oh, you know, there’s these beautiful French Suites, why don’t we start popping them in various places?” And it was really informed by my nephew. He did it. He started the whole Bach thing. There’s just something that feels so right about that rhythm. When we were finishing the movie, there was concern about the fact that because they’re [performed by] Glenn Gould, they’re much more expensive than if they’re by somebody else. So there was a discussion about having different renditions. And I just couldn’t bare it. His interpretation is iconic. The attachment I have to it is like … [imagine] having somebody do covers of a Beatles song. So we ended up being able to work it out financially.

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Source: https://bloghyped.com/a-new-york-story-tamara-jenkins-on-private-life/

[yuzuria]

whatever points u havent done yet, if it's fandom then gntm

heeey nice, thank u bio-chan :*

under the cut because this is gonna be long, i know you want only gntm but i took the liberty to add my dr opinions bc i won’t prob have this opportunity to voice them out prompted (not rly) in the future

a - ships that you currently like a lot. (they don’t have to be otps because not everyone has otps.) friendships, pairings, threesomes, etc. are allowed.

the otp atm is obviously komahina, it’s incomparable for me, i’ve been in rare otp fandoms for years so it’s like being enveloped by a fresh sea breeze when i got into it, it’s the most popular ship in dr, has the most fan content where the good ones outweighs the bad ones, and their relationship was fulfilling, it’s also the closest otp of mine that has reached canon.

other ones i love a lot right now are:

dr ships: hinata/servant (it’s komahina but i’m so invested in this dynamic in particular and there’s almost no content for it), kamukura/komaeda, kaede/miu, tenko/mikan, kirigiri/sayaka, touko/komaru, sonia/akane, lowkey shinguuji/amami and pekoyama/koizumi

dr friendships i’m invested and want to see more: komaeda/sonia, komaeda/kirigiri, komaeda/any girls tbh let him have platonic relationships with girls, familial komaeda/monaka, amami/kaede, hinata/natsumi, tsumiki/asahina, sakura/asahina, dr1 girls

gintama ships: tae/sacchan, kagura/nobume, takasugi/zura, kyuubei/tsukuyo (guess which ones are your influence)

hnk ships: diamond/bortz, ghost quartz/lapis lazuli, rutile/padparadscha, cairgorm/phos, cinnabar/phos

c - a ship you have never liked and probably never will.

dr: all het ships minus celesgami but i also grew out of it eventually, they’re all mediocre at best and i dislike the popular hetero ones-- namely, naegiri, hinanami, kamunami, kuzupeko, sondam, souda/sonia, akanidai, saimatsu, kaimaki.. also i never saw the appeal of chishimondo and the pairs involving the three. mahiyoko is forced in my opinion and their “moment” which gained them an alternate title “soapies” was distasteful. soudam is simply boring while i dislike hinadam out of spite. nobody asked but my most hated ships are komaegi, komamiki, hinaegi, kamuegi, and komahinaegi (stay those out of my sight)

gintama: shinsengumi centric ships, joui centric ships minus sakagin and takazura (i entertained the idea of the former but never beyond platonic), gintoki/every girls minus tae, sakamutsu, hijimitsu, tsukisachi, mutsumata, bantaka, takahiji, konzura, the gross pedophilic ones, okikagu, kamusoyo, sabunobu, ginshin, etc

d - a pairing you wish you liked but just can’t.

i don’t really have pairings i “wish” i liked because i know what i love and what i don’t tho the hnk one is an exception, i think i have the need to say that,, but i guess i feel envious with the content victuuri is getting i wished i i liked it so i have a lot of merch to buy whenever i go to cons but nah... im happy with my own otp

e - have you added anything cracky/hilarious to your fandom? if so, what?

i don’t even know if they’re considered hilarious, probably annoying which are a lot in my twitter, this one is my fav wholesome headcanon though

this one is my first dr post which somehow has the most notes i have ever gotten

i don’t think i have one in gntm

f - what’s the longest you’ve ever been in a fandom?

i’m not active in atla but it’s basically my first fandom and i still love and enjoy the fandom content so yeeep

g - have you ever had an otp? if so, do you remember your first one? who was in it?

embarrassing but toph/aang

h - what is your favorite source text for fandom stuff (e.g., tv shows, movies, books, anime, western animation, etc.)?

anime but most of the time it’s just a way for me to get into a fandom and i usually like the source material (manga, games, etc) more

m - name a character that you’d like to have for a friend.

anego

n - name three things you wish you saw more or in your main fandom (or a fandom of choice).

gintama: tae fighting and an arc of her own, gags with nobume or takasugi, in general less of that blue pubes and more about girls without their respective dudes’ influences which suck because the girls are amazing yet the arcs they’re centered in still revolves around dudes i am so tired

dr: more focus on asahina :/, kirizono and kaemiu content pleaaase, and komaeda making friends other than his boyfriend??? 

o - choose a song at random. which ship or character does it remind you of?

I got Lucky Stars by Lana Del Rey, yeeep, komahina

p - invent a random au for any fandom (we always need more ideas).

i’ve always wanted spies/mafia au with best gintam girls, guns and aesthetic black or white clothing or military clothing whatev keeps me going 

q - a fandom you’ve abandoned and why.

sports anime fandom, i used to be in multiple sports anime fandom but after getting into gintama i dropped all of them and lost interest,, give me sports anime girls you coward... other than basketball or volleyball idk moe catastrophe or the most “feminist” game of the century that is keijo

r - which friendship/platonic relationship is your favorite in fandom?

sasaki/nobume, kagura/tae, and gint*ki/tama in gintama

komaeda/monaka in dr

s - show us an example of your personal headcanon (prompts optional but encouraged)

my default headcanon is all my fav girls are lesbians

after sasaki’s death, rather than going with the shinsengumi or military in general i want nobume to stay with the yorozuya

nobume becomes a transfer student in 3Z and wears a black sailor uniform with long skirts, sports a nailed bat, and an honor student. sasaki adopted her from young age and is the most doting father ever during the festivals and always cheering for her, “yes that’s my elite daughter, nobume-san” i teared up. kagura, on the other hand, had a growth spurt in the middle of their third year so she looks like her yorozuya movie design with her glasses up and taller than nobume.

i have a hc how komaeda/hinata/kamukura would look like as girls too

komaeda: has a long messy hair, wears the same clothing as the regular one (pants and not those sexy short shorts with thigh highs and garter belt, regular komaeda would wear that though ;) ), petite and still 180 cm

hinata: same hair, around 165 cm, regular bust size and has strong arms that can carry her tall gf, pretty packed, wears skirts with suspenders

kamukura: same features as hinata but her long hair is tied in a low ponytail, then same clothing

t - do you have any hard and fast headcanons that you will die defending? 

kagura never had interests with boys and when she grows up that’s where she realizes she’s a big lesbian and in love with nobutasu ;;

komaeda feels EXTREME distaste towards memes and puns, he doesn’t like them at all, he leans in a poetic side when he speaks, make him a pretentious john green character than a meme fuck (remember when he said if the sunflower is the symbol of hope then he’s the ground where the roots cling on?? and also one of his few hated gifts is a ring with a bad pun??)

w - a trope which you are virtually certain to hate in any fandom.

girls who only serve as a plot device especially a manpain, bonus point if she’s pining on the said dude but ends up being sacrificed for the dude

MC dude whose dick wants to be sucked by almost everyone, it’s tiring and gross

pedophilic themes

moe slash fantasy slash harem slash romantic comedy slash ecchi

pretentious characters with god complex

y - what are your secondhand fandoms (i.e., fandoms you aren’t in personally but are tangentially familiar with because your friends/people on your dash are in them)?

v*ltron unfortunately

saiyuuki a bit bc of you and emilia

fire emblem/persona (i played some games but never finished it so i mostly don’t feel too attached with them)

some other video games

kpop