#it's about the yearning for the future

[ellie-tarts]

rotating coai in my head. it would be nice if we were older. if we didn’t have to wait so long. and if we lived together in a world where we belonged

[novantinuum]

somewhere up above the stars the wreckage of a Universe floats past

an AU ancient lonely god Steven I have. his moniker is Astra and I am obsessed with him right now.

[sword-dad-fukuzawa]

once again, realizing that near is the yearner in meronia is driving me up the fucking wall. L you gave your son the fucking yearning gene and it's making the yaoi hurt more why did you DO THAT

[innerxsanctum]

[nayruwu]

shinya if being a petty little bitch was a crime:

shinya if being thrown in jail twice in the same manga was a crime:

feat. nii-san

[alexiethymia]

a post trimax headcanon

It’s an ordinary day. There isn’t any chaos for once. Vash is enjoying his donuts, while Meryl is enjoying her ceylon tea. Maybe Milly’s outside fixing the camera.

Milly and Meryl are going back to No Man’s Land Broadcasting’s main office. It might be a while since they’ll next see Vash for their segment.

Right after she finishes her tea, Meryl says: “I’m off to work, Vash.” (“Ittekimasu, Vash-san.”)

And quick as anything, all casual-like, without even thinking about it, Meryl kisses him on the lips. Just a peck, she just plants one on him. Vash freezes. Meryl withdraws and she’s talking normally saying something about how many days it’ll take for them to reach headquarters, until she just…stops. Processes what she just did.

For one long moment, Vash and Meryl just stare at each other, until Meryl lets out an unholy shriek and starts blabbing out apologies for what she did. She’s sorry for taking advantage and she doesn’t know what came over her. She buries her face in her hands because she can’t bear to look at him, and she already said she didn’t want him to think crying was the only thing she could do. But she really can’t help the tiny tears because she doesn’t want to see that soft apologetic look as if not wanting to break her heart. She wishes she had Jessica’s optimism or Luida’s fortitude. Fistbumping him would have been less mortifying.

Because she has her face hidden, she doesn’t see Vash’s face slowly turning crimson, mouth gaping. But seeing how tightly Meryl is bunching her fists together, he grows concerned. Slowly, he approaches her, tries to softly remove her hands so he can see her eyes. At first there’s resistance, but Meryl eventually gives way. His eyes soften at seeing her blushing and embarrassed and holding back tears. He hesitates at first. The moment he moves closer, Meryl instinctively backs away slightly, but he crouches and looks at her imploringly. Even though he’s taller than her, it’s as if he’s looking up at her to ask for something. Again, she gives in. She stands her ground but screws her eyes shut instead. Vash can’t help the soft giggle which makes Meryl open her eyes to narrow them at him. Vash smiles, and hand cradling her face, quick as anything, all casual-like, he pecks her sweetly, just one soft touch, lips to lips.

Vash: “Have a safe trip, Meryl.” (“Itterasshai, Meryl.”)

Meryl releases an awed sigh, before she’s matching Vash’s smile with her own.

(And off to the side, Milly is keeping down her squeals as she tapes everything for posterity. She’s sure senpai and Vash-san will thank her for it later.

Little does she know, she was actually broadcasting live, and thus births NMLB’s most popular program to date, hidden-footage style outtakes where after the official program on Vash the Stampede, TV watchers get to see the aforementioned outlaw and the investigative journalist tailing him being sweet on each other. Meryl doesn’t have a clue. Milly doesn’t have a clue. She just keeps rolling the cam. A particular fave was when she caught them cuddling with Vash’s arms around Meryl as she dozed on his shoulder. The after program does wonders for Vash’s reputation. He’s now the most Wanted by teenage hearts all over No Man’s Land. Parents are suing NMLB since their kids are suddenly saying they want to set off to find their own outlaw sweetheart. Everyone who knows them is livid that this is how they get confirmation of their will-they-won’t-they. Vash, Meryl, and Milly still don’t have a clue.)

[thesunflowerdyke]

✨Daydreaming about taking Polaroids of my future lover.✨

The first few would be of her smiling a sweet toothy grin at me behind the camera. She’s just so damn beautiful, cozied up in my clothes with her hair a little messy. I just have to document the moment.

Somewhere along the way she loses the sweatshirt of mine she was wearing. I’d hesitate, lowering the camera in an attempt to catch a glimpse with my own eyes rather than through a lens.

She would simply smirk at my always eager reaction to her, reaching out to gently nudge the camera back upwards.

She’d whisper, urging me on,

“Keep going, baby.”

Keep snapping photos, these next few undoubtably just for us.

Next thing we know she’s completely bare for me, spurred on by the way I look at her with love, lust and absolute adoration. She’s spread herself out on the mattress now, biting seductively at her lower lip. She looks at me with those eyes, mirroring my own lust-filled gaze.

Eventually I tear my eyes off of her, just long enough to lift the camera back up and take a perfect final shot.

It’s my turn to bite my lip in anticipation as the photo develops painstakingly slowly.

She sits up and reaches forward, taking the photo just as the picture begins to show itself. She saunters across the room, my eyes never leaving her gorgeous body. She makes her way confidently towards the bureau in search of her lipstick, a perfect shade of deep red.

She holds my gaze as she applies a coat before placing the softest kiss against the back of the Polaroid, leaving her lipstick mark behind.

Back at my side now, she hands me the photograph with a Cheshire grin and whispers once more, this time just loud enough to hear as she tucks the photograph into the pocket of my flannel.

“For your eyes only, love.”

[jesuistrestriste]

no like i don’t think u get it like

[protect-namine]

I am about to start a neji route (because I feel that I need at least three playthroughs to fully understand neji and his plays, so I can't leave him for last). so my thoughts on this may change, but for the moment, my thesis is that neji and kisa are the same kind of thespian, just in different fonts.

(I am slightly exaggerating kisa'a character here. there are hints and I do think pushing the envelope of what her character could be is part of what makes kisa... kisa. as I'll explain later, for better and worse, kisa is constrained by the conventions of being an otome heroine.)

anyway. in essence. neji turns Other Persons into stories,

and kisa turns Other Persons into performances,

while they both simultaneously run away from, avoid, or sacrifice Becoming Persons themselves, for the sake of theater

or maybe it's the other way around. something something discovery if not recognition of the self through the other... except they're both unreliable narrators so who's to say if the recognition actually takes hold, really. kisa at least is a little bit self aware. neji, on the other hand, deals with realizations of the self through writing, without actually processing them (e.g. ms robin, domina, etc).

I keep thinking about (novel) kisa closing her eyes and feeling like her sense of self would melt away until tsuki centers her and gives her theater as a way to heal from the grief of losing her mother. it happens again during tsuki's univeil performance: kisa curling in on herself and tsuki pulling her back to theater as way to help kisa move forward with her dreams. pretending to be others is more fun than being herself.

and then there is neji (insert spiderman pointing at spiderman meme). but in his case, he would rather play eccentric roles, caricatures, comic relief, than be a Person With Depth on stage. neji is always either a seer of some kind (a fortune teller, a ghost who sees 10 seconds into the future) or a bit character (employee A), or... whatever he initially planned for domina. he is the mechanic behind the stage, but never the lead actor. his vulnerabilities do not need to "stolen" for the story, though others' are fair game.

kisa does not think about gender as it applies to herself in her daily life (mostly) and only sees it through the lens of acting and theater. how does she act mukai vs maiden, charles vs chicchi? the same way that neji does not think about the motifs and characters he writes as a window to himself, but rather as objects to be put on stage. rukiora is based on a younger neji, mary jane is I Am Death: Revisited (mary jane is to takihime as gashadokuro is to jacob), sissia is always meant to be the foil to I Am Death. but neji doeen't really understand that just like how he didn't understand oh rama havenna. sissia (kisa route, jack jeanne ver) is to kisa as domina is to neji.

literally kisa at her most extreme is just theater thoughts 24/7

kisa "I don't like being me; I'd rather be other people" tachibana 🤝 kokuto "I need to experiment and witness visions I can't create or I'll die" neji: this is a totally sane and Normal way to cope with abandonment and grief 👍

(it is not implied in the game, but since kisa turned to theater to cope with grief as a child, I wonder if the reason she never looks too deeply into tsuki's disappearance is because she's once again using theater as an excuse to conveniently Not Think About It. out of sight, out of mind. tsuki must be doing well, wherever he is, whatever it is he's doing.)

there is also the meta perspective of how kisa in-game inhabits a role where the player can (and is expected to) self-insert. otome dictates that protagonist kisa must be malleable to the player (who can choose to focus on a variety of relationships in her stead), and the plot dictates that actor kisa must be malleable to her stage roles (jack or jeanne, maiden or hero, flower or vessel), and novel kisa dictates that kisa must malleable to pretending to be other people because it's more preferable to being herself.

every thought she has about herself must be tied to acting, somehow. kisa's personhood is defined through stagecraft. she is the maiden, and mukai, and charles, and chicchi, and sissia. she can romance anyone in the school, of the player's choosing. she can be jack, and jeanne, and jack jeanne. don't get me wrong; kisa is her own character and has a strongly defined personality, but the story also demands for her to be malleable. a painting and a blank canvass at the same time.

neji externalizes where kisa internalizes. where kisa Must Perform™ to function and to avoid herself, neji Must Create™ to function and to avoid himself. scriptwriter neji dictates that neji must use everything at his disposal — his memories, his classmates, his obscure knowledge — as inspiration for stories. director neji dictates that he must use everything he knows about his actors — their complexes, their relationships, their weaknesses and strengths — as inspiration for stories. from the cook (mitsuki) needing apricots for a recipe and wanting to harvest honey from a beehive, to mary jane (fumi) being good at sewing and wanting an equal in jacob. suzu and sou fighting and developing a rivalry leads to jire and fugio fighting over chicchi. kai limits himself as a vessel in hasekura, and kai learns to embrace his desires as the priest. from the water/ocean/drowning themes, to rukiora being based on neji's younger self, and her family life and relationship with domina.

every thought neji has must be tied to stories, somehow. neji's personhood is scattered through stagecraft. the more you read his plays and lyrics, the more you get a glimpse of who he is. it is to the point that neji himself doesn't... really see how his stories reflect himself. ms robin being a "random" song the jazz lounge singer sings thay hasekura and ando can dance to, oh rama havenna being a so-so throwaway play that neji doesn't understand why it's entertaining. lmao. neji, please.

and this is why when problems arise, neji becomes a demanding director and kisa becomes a chameleon actor with a shaky sense of self (we don't really see this a lot because jack jeanne is not that dark of a story and kisa is still an otome heroine of an uplifting game, but it's a reasonable conclusion if you push hard on the kisa from neji's "good morning" exercise, or kisa going ham on method acting as charles. kinda wish the game explored more of that. I think a very stressed kisa can get lost in method acting, just as a very stressed neji is almost paralyzed by the fear of the death of talent).

idk where I was going with this. just. them. they have the same issues, just in different fonts. and I think that's actually what first attracts neji to kisa. kisa "steals" (to borrow neji's own words) just like him. kisa is a fountain of inspiration, an ever changing muse. and neji provides kisa with an endless amount of prompts and characters for her to inhabit. kisa does like to play pretend a lot. that's why she's in theater!

kisa and neji: Art Imitates Life people stuck in a Life Imitates Art video game

ANYWAY usual disclaimer that I'm jotting down livebloghing thoughts and I know some spoilers to neji's route but I'm only just about to actualy start his playthrough so. yeah. this was drafted all the way back in may lol, opinions may change and all that

[queerplatonicdiaries]

squish ramble

this probably isn't gonna make much sense bc I'm kinda sleepy but I just. I love them so fucking much. we just called for like an hour an a half and for those moments everything else disappeared. all the stress, all the worries, it all seems so much lighter just because I know I have them in my life and we can talk about anything. that feeling of complete ease and comfort when we're together, even if it's over a patchy phone signal, there's nothing else in the world that could replace it. the feeling of being seen and heard and understood entirely, the knowledge that we have each other and we're going to be okay. I know we're still young, but I hope we have this for the rest of our lives. I think as long as I have them, everything else will be alright. I love them and I love loving them, it's the best feeling in the world <3

[oranjeleeuw]

Enchanted is so Toro Rosso Versainz coded

[death-envoy]

i think I’m going a little bananas (in a good way)

[technicalthinker]

august | sastiel (+destiel)

August sipped away like a bottle of wine, 'Cause you were never mine

[thatswhatsushesaid]

listen do y'all think I'm happy that cql chengqing has me by the throat with almost the same ferocity as xiyao

do y'all think I'm happy that I'm this invested in straight* people drama

/merrill voice from act 3 of dragon age 2, I never wanted this

*allegedly

[bangcakes]

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[camellia-thea]

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