#letters live 2024

[elennemigo]

Benedict backstage at Letters live (March 2024)

📷 Source / Via

[sherlollycounts]

BEN AT LETTERS LIVE TODAY !!

Looking stunning as always 😍😍😍

I mean look at those curls, that hairstyle, that outfit, that stubble 🥰🥰🥰

March.6.2024

[autumnslance]

Pre-Dawntrail Schedule

End of April, all of May and June, to the beginning of July and release.

FF16 Crossover ends May 8

Yo-kai Watch Returns (with a new Framer Kit!) April 24 through June 25.

Moogle Tomes of Genesis Part 2 from May 14 through June 24.

Make It Rain goes from May 15 through May 31.

Producer Live Letter 81 is on or around May 16.

Dragon Quest X returns from June 5 through June 20.

Producer Live Letter 82 is on or around June 14.

48 Hour Maintenance June 26th through 28th; the expansion shouldn't take too much longer than normal, but they want to give folks plenty of time to download.

Early Access begins on June 29th.

Official Launch July 2nd.

[toadeyes-miqote]

Events and Dawntrail schedule

I was kinda looking forward to my end of sub break. Will have to see what's in Make it Rain campaign for me.

[suzilight]

Benedict Cumberbatch reads one of Alexei Navalny's final letters

Last month Vladimir Putin’s most prominent critic, Alexei Navalny, paid the ultimate price for his beliefs, dying in a West Siberian prison after years of relentless campaigning against corruption and a near-fatal poisoning. By the time of his death, Navalny had been imprisoned for more than two years, during which time he wrote to his supporters and the wider world through letters shared on his social media accounts.

This is one of the last messages he wrote.

[sheliesshattered]

My window to order was starting to narrow, so I finally pulled the trigger on the Captain Accreditation License prop I'd been eyeing for my Batuu Bound birthday outing coming up. It's such a silly little detail, but the reviews are filled with people talking about getting to use it in Galaxy's Edge when the Stormtroopers stop them to ask to see some identification, which sounds like a fun interaction. And like, I can make a great deal of soft kit, I can even put together my own greebles out of foam -- but laser engraving is way outside my wheelhouse and tool access.

But before I could order it, I had to come up with a bunch of info to go on it, like name, home planet, ship type, that sort of thing. I had a basic idea of what sort of character I wanted to portray with my outfit for Batuu, but filling out the info for the pilot's license really made me lock down a bunch of details, which eventually evolved into full on original character creation.

It also got me started in learning to read Aurebesh, the Star Wars transliteration alphabet, but that's a whole other rabbit hole, lol.

Character wise, I started with my absolute love of piloting the Falcon in Smuggler's Run (my desire to do so again was one of the major reasons for deciding to do this for my birthday) and my fav in the sequel movies, Benicio Del Toro's "D.J." character. (The very brief political commentary about weapons manufacturers profiting off both sides of the war, and his little "live free, don't join" axiom are just so amazing, I still cannot believe we got that in a Star Wars movie.)

I also took into account that the timeframe for Galaxy's Edge is between Ep 8 and Ep 9, in roughly 34 or 35 ABY (years after the Battle of Yavin, at the end of Ep 4), and that I want to do the lightsaber building activity at Savi's Workshop the day we visit. The Etsy listing for the license also had an interesting little note about choosing a homeworld, calling out that 'because of well-known galactic events' Alderaan would only be an option for characters over the age of 40 or so. That comment got my mental gears turning, and sent me down the path of researching the year that Disney's Batuu is set in, etc.

At that same time, I was trying out different potential hairstyles for keeping my waist-length hair controlled during a day at Disneyland while still looking Star Wars-y. I tried a couple of Rey inspired hair styles, but eventually settled on something much more like Leia's looks in Ep 5 and Ep 6, with multiple braids wrapped around the crown to form a full circle. It's easy and comfortable and will keep my hair from tangling and works well with my hooded wrap thing, so I decided that hairstyle would be part of my look, and part of my character building.

So at that point I had: pilot, politically unaffiliated, soon to own a lightsaber, emulating Princess Leia and/or Alderaanian hairstyles, and grew up mostly after the fall of the Empire and probably wouldn't remember (or only just barely remember) the destruction of Alderaan. On that last point I was splitting the difference slightly -- if I translated my real age now into the Star Wars timeline (and Galaxy's Edge being set in ~35 ABY), then I would have been roughly 8 years old when Alderaan was destroyed. But in reality, I was born shortly after Ep 5 came out, and my earliest memories of Star Wars are knowing all about the movies, playing Star Wars make-believe with other kids in the neighborhood, and being excited that Ep 4 was going to be airing on TV.

After a lot of noodling on this, while sewing or driving or trying to fall asleep, the character started to come together in my head. Her mother was born and raised on Alderaan, but around age 20 (in 2 or 3 BBY, roughly) met a dashing young pilot on a freighter passing through, fell in love, and left Alderaan to be with him. They got married and lived mostly in the hyperspace lanes for a couple years, jumping from place to place. When she found out she was pregnant, she temporarily went back to Alderaan to be with her family and have her baby there. In the last year before the Battle of Yavin, she had a baby girl she named Samæni Ray, and after a few weeks she and the baby left Alderaan to meet up with her husband again.

So none of them were on Alderaan when the Death Star targeted and destroyed the planet. In the wake of the tragedy, the Alderaanian diaspora would have pulled together all across the galaxy, trying to get word of anyone who might have survived. And then, a miracle: Princess Leia somehow survived! The princess that Samæni's mother had grown up idolizing from afar, someone similar to her in age and physical appearance (pictures of my real mother from the 1970s bear a striking resemblance to Carrie Fisher in the same time period) -- the princess that Samæni's mother had loved for as long as she could remember, she not only survived but she stepped up to lead the Resistance against the Empire!

You know those people in real life who like, collected merchandise about Princess Diana? Yeah, that's Samæni's mom, but with Princess Leia, lol.

The war to overthrow the Empire only lasted for another 5 years or so, ending with the Battle of Jakuu in 5 ABY. So I figure Samæni might have vague early childhood memories of her parents celebrating the end of the war. They weren't actively members of the Resistance, and Samæni's father was much more politically neutral, preferring to focus on his work as a freighter pilot, but as far as Samæni's mother was concerned, anything Princess Leia did was a blessing on the galaxy, so it would have been a big deal for her, both during the war and in the years after as the New Republic was established.

During those early years of the New Republic, Samæni's father's freight business continued to do well, and she mostly grew up in her family's Gozanti-class cruiser, as they moved things from one planet to the next. She learned to pilot at her father's side, eventually sat for a pilot's license exam as a young adult, and then struck out on her own. Samæni's first job as a pilot was for a company that operated light freighters as party ships, allowing those with modest disposable income to see the galaxy in style but without the expense of a yacht cruiser. (The company probably had a ridiculous tagline like: "From here to thar with an open bar!")

Since those early jobs-for-hire, Samæni saved up enough money to buy her own little light freighter and start an inport/export business in which she (and her partner Jack) go to outer rim worlds to buy antiquities, oddities, and rare objects and bring them back to an upper-middle class clientele in the core worlds and inner rim. Their current ship is a bit of an antique itself, a Kazellis-class light freighter that is flashy enough to fit in in the nicer areas of Coruscant, but hard-working and easily repairable enough to take Samæni and Jack to all those far-flung worlds with treasures to acquire. Their ship has room for some larger pieces, but most of the cargo area has been converted into full-time living quarters, since they rarely stay planet-side for very long.

Their home-port is the ecumenoplis planet of Denon, an inner-rim world that sits at the intersection of two major hyperspeed trade routes. Denon was the closest thing to a homeworld that Samæni had growing up, and her parents have since retired to the equatorial area of the planet, in a community with a lot of other retired pilots and haulers and ship mechanics. (Her father's favorite local cantina is named for the CEC catalog part number for a replacement hyperdrive lever. He and all his old pilot buddies think it is hilarious.)

Samæni's mother continues to talk about Princess Leia like they are close friends (despite never actually having met her), and keeps informed on the rise of the First Order and the resistance to it mostly because she has set up HoloNet news alerts for General Organa. But Samæni takes more after her father in that regard, doesn't particularly care about politics or taking sides in any civil war, other than how it impacts business. The destruction of the Hosnian system by the First Order's Starkiller Base is enough to push Samæni towards siding against the First Order, but she still isn't about to rush out to join the Resistance, either.

Her pilot's license lists Denon as her homeworld, and it would take some dedicated digging to find that her planet of birth is actually Alderaan. She only lived there for the first few weeks of her life, and her only memory of it is how sad it's always made her mother. The traditional hairstyles and the stories about Princess Leia are really the only parts of the culture that she inherited. Samæni has never wanted to talk about being from Alderaan with anyone, and as the Empire's successor has come to power in the last few years, it's seemed even more dangerous to let anyone outside of close friends and family know that she is technically a survivor of the last time a galactic power was going around destroying planets.

Samæni and Jack are heading to the outer rim world of Batuu to visit Dok Ondar's Den of Antiquities, and follow up on a tip about Savi's crew of 'scrap metal' gatherers, in case there's something there that might sell well on a core world. Arriving to find that both the Resistance and the First Order have a presence in Black Spire Outpost will be less than ideal, but Samæni and Jack have been to enough rough ports across the galaxy that they know how to keep their heads down and stay out of trouble.

And hey, if First Order troopers stop to ask them for ID, Samæni will have a genuine pilot's license to show them. ;)

[dadaonice]

Louis Vuitton Men's Fall-Winter 2024 cartel.

[ampleappleamble]

haven't seen this on here yet so:

in case you don't want to slog through the shitscape that is the bird/letter website, take a peek beneath the cut (shamelessly copied from the something awful forums dungeon meshi thread)

- Her first memory of video games was watching her father playing Wizardry on Famicom, also Dragon Quest, Ultima, and Fire Emblem among others.

- She was a difficult child so her parents didn't let her play. Wizardry is a boring game to watch, but the monster illustrations on the walkthrough evoked her imagination and made her keep watching.

- She only started becoming a serious gamer after the serialization of Dungeon Meshi was locked, for research purposes. Before that, she read fantasy novels such as The Neverending Story (Michael Ende) and The Lord of the Rings (JRR Tolkien).

- The international title for Dungeon Meshi: Delicious in Dungeons was decided by her editor.

- D&D popped up a lot when she researched the history of video games, so she read the rule books, replay novels, and games inspired by D&D.

- One of the first games she studied was the Legend of Grimrock (game's 80% off on Steam atm). Originally, she wanted Dungeon Master (FTL Games) which was famous for "RPG with meals" but hunting down the game and machine was too much.

- She didn't like games other than turn-based RPGs at first, but she decided to stop being picky and play anything that piqued her interest.

- She played Zelda: BotW and TotK on a borrowed Switch from her editor due to the console's scarcity at the time.

- She enjoyed Red Dead Redemption 2 and God of War for their stories. RDR2's incredible attention to detail had Kui engrossed so much that she asked her editor and other mangaka to play it so she could discuss it with them.

- Kui praised The Witcher 3 localization as something only possible with full support from the developer. Cyberpunk 2077 is one of her all-time favorites.

- Papers, Please was her first taste of indie games.

- Disco Elysium is the perfect game for her due to the lack of fighting, intriguing story, charming character interaction, and top-down perspective. She tried playing it in English at first due to an unlikely chance for JP loc, but it was out of her ability. Thus she is forever grateful to Spike Chunsoft for localizing it.

- Kui played Baldur's Gate 3 from the time it was in Early Access. Again, she's grateful for Spike Chunsoft's JP loc. She hoped BG3's success would bring the possibility of JP loc for other titles too, such as Pathfinder: wotr

- She likes games with top-down perspective because they have narration text for monologues and scenery description. Even if the graphic is lacking, the texts show the atmosphere and each character's behavior and psyche. Also, characters that react to your choices.

- She praised Unpacking and House Flipper for being able to tell what kind of person lives there only through their belongings, and that there's no right or wrong for the placements; she would make the best arrangement and then enjoy her hard work while sipping tea.

- The biggest inspiration for Dungeon Meshi was the Cosmic Forge pen from Wizardry VI. With improved graphics from its predecessor, now it could show broken farming tools in the background and many more details that made exploration so much fun.

- At the time of the interview (Dec '23) she still hadn't watched DunMeshi anime, but she attended the recording sessions. She's embarrassed that the dialog she wrote now acted passionately by professionals. Marcille's screaming was wonderful but also made her want to flee.

- Kui was anxious about the CP2077 anime adaptation, but she was relieved it was the Night City she knows and loves.

- Other than minor adjustments, she left it to TRIGGER as to how to adapt

- She's happy that Mitsuda Yasunori was chosen as the anime composer, as she used to play Chrono Cross and rewatched the opening many times.

- Her anticipated games in 2024 are Cloudpunk, Nivalis, and Avowed.

- DunMeshi would be hard to adapt into a game because in the first place, what Kui depicted in the manga are parts that are omitted in games for the sake of brevity.

- If DunMeshi game was Wizardry-like, it'd be told through Laios' perspective and eating was essential not to die

[feytouched]

2024

DO NOT BE AFRAID OF GAUDINESS

SELF-PROTECTION TAKEN TO THE EXTREME BECOMES SELF-DESTRUCTION

SEND LETTERS TO YOUR FRIENDS

LOOKING AFTER YOUR BELONGINGS IS MORE SATISFYING THAN BUYING NEW THINGS

FIND NEW WAYS TO LIVE DELICIOUSLY

EXERCISE YOUR ATTENTION SPAN SO IT CAN STRENGTHEN

LEARN NEW POEMS BY HEART

KILL THE PURITANICAL JUDGEMENT IN YOUR BRAIN

REACH OUT FIRST

[anantaru]

⊹ ‧₊˚ ᰔ rich boy aventurine headcanons that live rentfree in my head ꒰ᐢ⸝⸝⸝⸝ᐢ꒱ ♡ // cw. [ex]plicit, fem! reader ˚୨୧⋆

rich boy aventurine buys you panties that when he flips you over, show a stripe of diamond letters webbed into the flimsy waistband— his name had to be somewhere around you, correct? so this is certainly heaven to him. how gorgeous you look to him as well, with your ass perked up all nicely so he could squeeze and rub it, stroke and touch it— how your back was looking like an art piece, flowingly bend to present a show for him.

rich boy aventurine wants you to name it all, in fact, you should always be honest with him— because, hey, what do you need? shoes, perhaps a new bag or do you need him to go far beyond that? because the man certainly doesn't find it difficult to make your dreams come true.

as long as he gets to play with your body and sopping cunt, and call you beautiful whenever you sucked him off, he's utterly pleased. it's intense when his strong arms cradle you and you feel how your breath hitches when he slowly turns from your pussy to your perky tits, sucking one nipple with just the right amount of pressure.

smiling wickedly as he drags your moans from deep inside of you.

rich boy aventurine marvels in the smoothness of your skin and wants nothing more than to pleasure you in all the right ways imaginable once he finally pops his shaft through your hole— his tongue searches for yours to sway back and forth between mouths as he fucks you, filling you, roughly and completely as he touches something special in your soft walls.

rich boy aventurine gets hard, painfully so, when you're being a fucking brat to him, the meaner you are, the better. precisely when you do it on purpose too. you take over every square in his mind and logic— and well, what's best about that situation is that after you believe you've managed to wrap him around your finger for once, he smiles through heart-shaped glasses before pulling up your shirt to expose your chest to him.

he rubs against your saliva-slicked tits as you notice his hard cock judding against your thigh, rocking against you as you follow his lead— although, thoroughly, more so intently, rich boy aventurine twists one hand downwards to press a little harder on your clit as your body sparks in euphoria, body rocking and fighting the pleasure shocked twitches.

©2024 anantaru do not repost, copy, translate, modify, claim as your own

[elennemigo]

BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH joined in a very special International Women’s Day Letters Live themed show, in aid of @WomensPrize. (Royal Albert Hall | London March 6, 2024)

Source: fierce_unicorn on Twitter.

[heritageposts]

[...] In an open letter to Habermas, distinguished Iranian sociologist Asef Bayat said he “contradicts his own ideas” when it comes to the situation in Gaza. With all due respect, I beg to differ. I believe Habermas’s disregard for Palestinian lives is entirely consistent with his Zionism. It is perfectly consistent with the worldview in which non-Europeans are not completely human, or are “human animals”, as Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant has openly declared. This utter disregard for Palestinians is deeply rooted in the German and European philosophical imagination. The common wisdom is that out of the guilt of the Holocaust, Germans have developed a solid commitment to Israel. But to the rest of the world, as now evidenced by the magnificent document that South Africa has presented to the International Court of Justice, there is a perfect consistency between what Germany did during its Nazi era and what it is now doing during its Zionist era. I believe that Habermas’s position is in line with the German state policy of partaking in the Zionist slaughter of Palestinians. It is also in line with what passes for the “German left”, with their equally racist, Islamophobic and xenophobic hatred of Arabs and Muslims, and their wholesale support for the genocidal actions of the Israeli settler colony. We must be forgiven if we thought what Germany had today was not Holocaust guilt, but genocide nostalgia, as it has vicariously indulged in Israel’s slaughter of Palestinians over the past century (not just the past 100 days).

. . . continues on MEE (18 Jan, 2024)

[azullumi]

"orion" ; aventurine

summary : he has lived through many lives, has met many people, has gone through many places, but the shadow of your soul follows him wherever he goes and his eyes would search for a glimpse of your smile everywhere. he continues to look for the light that touches him, not the sun, not the moon, but you.

tags : star-crossed 2024, reincarnation concept, established relationship but also not established in some parts, usage of metaphors, fluff with angst and comfort, crumbs of insecure aventurine, snippets of his lifetimes and how he finds you in each one of them, not proofread sorry, 2.9k words ; one-shot

tagging : @toorurs (hi boo)

notes : i had two ideas in mind but the other was too complicated and would be lengthy so i decided to have this one instead. anwss, i hope you'll like this one!!

Aventurine has recurring dreams of you.

(It was a blessing.)

Ones that feel like fleeting moments in the wind destined to be taken away from him as soon as he tries to hold it. It crumbles into dust and falls to the ground he stands on, and he’ll try to pick up your pieces but it doesn’t stay in his hands for long. Perhaps it was meant to leave, not to last, and perhaps, he’ll hold on to what little is left of the particles in his palms.

In his dreams, you’ll kiss the scars on his skin and he’ll adore you, clear vivid eyes painted with vibrant hues that capture all his affection for you in his soft gaze (they say the eyes are the windows to the soul and you’ll see your reflection in his). You’ll tell him of all the worries that plague your mind, of all the thoughts that bothers you, of everything that you’ll think of.

“If you have 3 lifetimes, what would you do in each one of them?” You speak softly, a soft murmur to the night as you look at him with your eyes wide with curiosity. Aventurine will find himself baffled over your question, eyebrows knitted as he falls into his thoughts—he wouldn’t know what to say.

“It’s not that hard to answer, is it?”

“How about you answer first? I’m a little curious about what you’ll say.”

You hum, lips pursed into a smile as if you already know what to say, as if you’ve been waiting for the moment that someone will ask you that question; You recount your desires to him on how you want to be a bookstore owner but also a florist, on how you wish to soar the skies but also travel across the seas, on how you want to be everything and nothing all at once. 3 lifetimes would simply not be enough for your wishes.

He likes listening to your voice as you speak, adores the way the corners of your eyes wrinkle when you think of something you like. But somewhere in the back of his head, turmoil creeps into the cracks of his mind and settles on the sharp edges.

“Your turn.” You say, beaming a warm smile at him yet he falls into silence once more. He feels ashamed, humiliation seeping into the gaps of his fingers and traces the lines of his palms—you were so full of light, embodying solace in your being, you are what is adored and seeked yet he stands beside you, seemingly like a shadow that haunts your steps, hesitation lingers and tugs at his hand even when he’ll try to touch you. He’s unsure of what he wants in this life even more for the ones that will supposedly come. He finds it unfair—perhaps for you—for him. 

“Still no answer?” Your voice sounds reassuring, soft as you lightly graze your finger on his skin, your ghosting touch making his lips shudder. It was comforting, the way that you’ll speak to him, the way that you’ll touch him, the way that you’ll love him—it was all warm and comforting. You brush your hand on his cheek, tucking away stray strands of hair behind his ear; “It’s alright, it was a sudden question anyways. Also, something stupid to ask.”

“No, it’s not—it’s not stupid.” He stumbles over his words; he rarely stutters, rarely finds himself tripping on the bumps of the letters that fall out of his mouth but he finds himself staggering on the line of vulnerability and uncertainty. You hum, nodding, seemingly encouraging him to spill out whatever he wishes to say because you’ll listen, no matter how ridiculous it can be.

“I just haven’t thought about it.” Aventurine, though he may not say it, doesn’t like thinking of the future. It just reminds him how everything ahead of him is just empty and narrow, it’s as if he has to walk alone.

“But I…” His voice trails off and yet a thought lingers inside his head, making its way down his throat and clawing the walls of his mouth; the more he’ll keep it in, the more he’ll taste the blood of his perished words on his tongue.

“I’ll look for you in each one of them.”

The wind blows against his and your form and he feels your lips all over his face, pressing delicate kisses all over the lines and wrinkles of his features as if a brush to a canvas. The light would become too bright for him so he closes his eyes, relishing in this moment where you hold his face in your hands as if he was made out of broken pieces carved out of people’s miseries, as if he was something fragile, and the dirt that stains the waters of his mind seemingly dissipates like it never existed.

“Another stupid question, did you know how much I love you?” You’ll whisper against his lips, a smile tugging on the corners of your mouth. Your breath tickles his skin and he can’t hide the smile that draws on his face.

“How much?”

“I’ll give the world to you.”

And he’ll wake up.

(Or perhaps, a curse.)

Aventurine stands before the colorful blossoms displayed in pots and buckets of different sizes and colors. The essence of spring dances in the air, filling the place with the scent of blooming flowers and the sight of receding snow that unveils the land below; the sight of it is not unfamiliar to him. He has seen thousands of it—the different seasons that weave its life in his surroundings and has lived through many of them.

He has had many lives and he has been everyone but also no one. He has been a puppet, a poet, a prince, a musician, a gambler. Little pieces of himself merge into the likeness that he sees in front of the mirror everyday. His form is battered, bruised, broken all over, patched and affixed together with nonviscid tape, sewed with delicate threads of fate—there are days that he doesn’t recognize the person standing in front of the reflective glass. Even if has retained most of his features, most especially his eyes, and nothing drastic has changed from what he once was; yet he struggles in seeing himself in the mirror.

“Are you looking to buy a bouquet?” A voice breaks him out of his trance, pulling him back to reality. It must have been weird seeing a man just standing for minutes in front of the displays and staring into space.

“No, not re—” His sentence breaks off abruptly when he turns his head to the sound of the voice and his eyes meet a pair that causes memories to surge like a harsh tide that pulls everything into the depths; it sweeps him under like a fierce undertow as it drags him back to the profundity of what haunts him. His thoughts that seem like old, faded photographs flicker in his mind, and the sound of buzzing fills his ears as the world comes to a still.

It feels as though the ground beneath him has crumbled away. There you are.

“Sir?” It’s you, it’s you that calls out to him and not a random person that he meets somewhere he can’t remember, not a stranger that would approach him and ask for his name, not someone that he thought was you.

“Nothing,” Aventurine shakes his head and composes himself, “I would like to get a bouquet.”

“Of course, which flowers would you like to have?”

“I’m not entirely sure. What do you recommend?” If this was his attempt of making a conversation, he lies between the line of failing and succeeding. He’s not even here with the plans of bringing home a bouquet to give nor decorate his house and he’s not even sure if he has his wallet with him.

You hum as you fall into deep thought and you begin to count tales of different flowers and paint the meanings behind them with your voice, and you come to mention one that made his heart skip like stone in a pond, and his breath hitch. You speak of a certain flower with such tender affection and all he can think of is how you used to adore this very one even back then, and how your home used to be adorned with it.

“Is that your favorite?” The golden-haired man asks, curiosity wrapping around his tone as he speaks despite the fact that he already knows your answer and you smile at him, warmly—and oh, how much he missed seeing it. It’s like he has fallen in love all over again and the colors paint all over his once bleak and mellow life. Even after all this time, all these years, all these lifetimes, he still has you carved in his soul, every part of you etched on the bumps of his skin. As if you’re engraved like a scar on his body, persisting, lingering.

“It’s a lovely flower, how could I not?” The sound of laughter forms in your throat and spills out of your lips. It’s a lovely sound that he has inscribed in the very depths of his mind, one that would muddle his sleep or disturb him in the moments of silence he would revel in, trying to find the wind to ground himself.

You’re still the same as he remembers.

Memories lie dormant like fragile butterflies trapped within glass jars, fluttering and flickering, casting shadows upon the vulnerable walls of his conscience. Remembering, a troublesome thing that weighs heavy in his mind, tugging on his thoughts, and having a tight embrace on his heart. Sometimes he thinks it’s just a dream, one meaningless and lengthy dream that is meant to harrow him every time that he wakes up. But it was real, all of it is real—the laughter, the kisses, the touches, the smiles, you. How could he ever deny your existence?

Aventurine is in his nth life, not knowing how many times he has experienced death and the feeling of waking up to a strange and unfamiliar place, while his memories would flow to him like water in a stream. It comes in slow, steady, he’ll pick up broken shards of it and keep his fingers close—it will stab and make his hand bleed.

His hand, it was yours once. Clasped, held, weaved into the small gaps of your own. You held him as if he was yours to have—and he really is. He’ll walk through the busy streets with a gaze that roams everywhere, holding the anticipation, hope, that he’ll catch you amidst the crowds of people whose face appears to be nonexistent to him. 

(He’ll look for you everywhere he goes, in museums, flower shops, bookstores, in the rivers, in fields, on the ground, everywhere.)

“Oh no, I’m sorry!”

Books came falling, papers scattered all over the pavement, and he saw someone in front of him, seemingly panicking as they gather all of their things; Aventurine wasn’t a heartless man nor was he cruel so he knelt to the ground and picked up all the remaining papers before handing it to them—lifting his gaze, to be met by a pair of eyes that he looks for everywhere.

(And he’ll find you.)

There was once a moment where you remember him.

It wasn’t just a, “I passed by you on the streets and you caught my attention since and I think of you everyday,” but it was, “I know you because you existed in my life before this.” It was something he had never expected, a moment where he had to pinch himself on the thigh to see if this was one of his messy dreams but it hurt and his heart ached.

(In this life, you were lost, alone, not knowing what to do nor what you wished to do—you simply stood still as you watched the strangers passing by, as everything before you crumbled. In this life, you were nothing but his friend and he was nothing but yours.)

“I’m sorry?” He says, still in disbelief on what he is hearing. Maybe it was just his ears playing tricks on him, his mind playing illusions for him due to how much he misses you. Oh, if only you knew how tight your grasp is on him; it troubles him with the way he’ll catch you in the corner of his eye but there’s nothing there but dust, he’ll feel your presence everywhere even when you’re nowhere to be found.

“You’re him. The one that is always in my dreams.” Aventurine will open his mouth to speak but nothing would come out; he remains silent, unable to find the words to say.

“Rine.” His breath hitched. Everything faded into white noise and there was only you in his eyes—there was only you and him. He has long abandoned that name, taking on different ones in each passing life but even if he has left it behind, he always remembers how you used to call him so sweetly and gently as if he was the only one that matters to you. “I missed you.”

Your voice breaks and he swears, it felt like something inside him had shattered. How long has he waited for this moment? How much has he dreamt of the day that you’ll remember him? He didn’t think it was possible but he holds on to the thin thread of hope that you will.

“Do you… Do you not remember me?” You look hurt at that thought, your gaze wavering as you look at him with tear-stained eyes.

“I do.” He whispers, broken. “I do remember you.” He always remembers you. It’s a burden that he carries for so long but he will never let go—he wishes he could, he wishes he wanted to. Your voice, your touch, your laugh, your embrace, your eyes, everything about you will always come to haunt him; you are too entertwined with his soul, threads bound and tangled together in knots that can never be undone.

The two of you talk about everything on this night as the stars above you listen, as the moon will become a witness to the words and caresses. You’ll tell him of all the dreams that you had, memories that will haunt you the same way it haunted him.

“I’ll remember you tomorrow and even the days after. I’ll remember you, always, even in the next lifetimes.” You say, certainty and assurance seeps into the tone of his voice and a part of Aventurine feels relieved and broken at the same time.

He smiles, “You will.” (You don’t know it but this too will be buried in the grave of the past and he will come to mourn it in every moment he wakes.)

“Kiss me, please?” You didn’t have to beg for anything, you will never have to beg for anything. He has looked for the shadow of your form, for the sound of your footsteps and laughter, for the feeling of your hand in his. You will never have to beg him for anything—he’ll give you the world if you ask.

“I’ll see you tomorrow?” He whispers against your lips, his warm breath fanning your skin—a contrast to the cold night breeze that brushes against you.

“You’ll hear me tomorrow. I’ll call you, I promise. So please don’t keep your phone on silent.”

“I don’t. You’re the only person on my phone.”

You laugh at that, short and sweet. “Really?”

He kisses you once more, a fleeting one but the taste of his lips lingered on yours. “I only have you.”

The night draws to a close and Aventurine waits for the sun with bated breath but you weren’t able to fulfill your promise, for on the morning when the sun’s embrace caressed your skin, you remained in slumber’s hold.

It’s his second life, the life where he first remembers everything and when he is still not tormented by the burden (a curse) that he will hold all of the memories and you will remain in each one of them.

“I have a question.”

You lay your head on his shoulder, all the while your hand plays with his own. Your fingers softly dance across his palm and mindlessly sketches invisible patterns and traces the lines etched on it, while he watches, captivated by the ballet of your touch. There’s the fresh smell of shampoo and soap in the air around him, and the warmth of his hands provides a refreshing contrast to the coolness of your skin, still tingling from your recent bath.

In this life, you own a bookstore just like you wish and he’s simply just your lover.

“What is it?” He answers, watching you as you draw what seems to be a flower on his palm. He finds it endearing, every moment that he spends with you is all too sweet and dear for him, no matter how small and mundane it can be. He adores seeing you under this light, cherishes the way you melt into his embrace and how you hold him in your arms (he wishes everything would be this simple).

“How would you know if it was me?” The movement of your fingers comes to a halt as you look up to him to meet his gaze; eyes wide with curiosity and affection, he meets your gaze. Aventurine thinks for a moment before he answers:

“I’ll know if it’s you, always.”

You let out a short laugh, your expression breaking out into a soft one. “What if I was a worm then?”

“You’ll be the first worm to make my heart flutter.” There was no need for such questions—Aventurine will recognize you everywhere, in different forms, in different light.

“What if I was a stone?”

He chuckles, “I’ll know.”

© azullumi — do not plagiarize, copy, repost, nor translate any of my works.

[yangjeongin]

HYUNJIN BIRTHDAY COUNTDOWN (2024): hyunjin in every letter... ↘ D-19 | LIVES

[vashtijoy]

shido's palace: those posters

And you know the ones I mean:

Shido, we can see right up your nose. But let's talk about the text on these. First, the really big bit on the left:

獅童正義 shidou masayoshi

Look at the kanji there. His given name is twice the size of his family name. Plus, his given name doesn't have the furigana (tiny text to tell you how to read it) that you can see against his family name—despite it being easily misread as a common noun.

Because, as eny fule kno, Shido's given name is spelled the same way as 正義 seigi, meaning "justice". This will be important later. The game lampshades this, by the way, in gossip chats around the election:

"Shido-san really lives up to what his name means. He's like justice personified." Okay, gossiping person, you do you.

united future

At the bottom, in tinytext next to his spooky Illuminati-esque Whole World In His Hands logo that isn't megalomaniacal at all, we have the name of his new splinter party:

未来連合 mirai rengou United Future

未来 mirai means future; 連合 rengou means a bloc, a coalition, an alliance or union. 連合ヨーロッパ rengou yooroppa, "a federal Europe"; 連合国 rengoukoku, "the Allied powers". So we get "United Future", perhaps less catchily "The Alliance for the Future", which is very much the sort of name new Japanese political parties tend to have.

what about that other bit

Hahaha, you mean this little thing?

This is Shadow Shido's slogan. This sums up his mission, his motive, the whole reason he wants power. And what does it say?

私のために、民衆は尽くす watashi no tame ni, minshuu wa tsukusu The people will serve me.

What a nice thing to say! What an excellent sentiment, befitting of a public servant in a democracy! And what an unashamed piece of shit, eh? You can see why Japan is underwater in his head.

Constructions of the form X no tame ni tsukusu are quite common; my dictionary lists several. So this little phrase is a play on words in at least two ways:

First of all, it's an adaptation of a well-known phrase, 民衆のために尽くす minshuu no tame ni tsukusu, "to serve the people". Shido has taken this and inverted it: the people will serve him.

But second—remember how Shido's given name, Masayoshi, is written the same way as seigi, meaning "justice"? One of those common little example phrases in my dictionary, under tsukusu, is the following:

正義のために尽くす seigi no tame ni tsukusu to work for justice

This is why his given name is in massive letters on the poster: because this play on words is deliberate on his part: Shido is justice, as his name should tell you; he defines what is good and right and true—and what's good and right and true is what is in his interests. And so the people will serve him. The same way they'd serve the nation, or society, or the public good.

It's a really interesting line. And, of course, it calls to mind Akechi—supposedly a detective, in the service of justice, and yet in reality....

BTW, don't forget this is Shido's Shadow talking. How much does Shido himself, the guy walking about upstairs, delude himself about all this? That's an exercise for the reader.

revision history

Click here for the latest version.

v1.0 (2024/01/14)—first published.

[harteus]

THE LOVE LETTER: FEBRUARY 2024

Hellooo! All January Love Letters have been sent out yesterday, and today I'm coming to you with the February Love Letter! This pack is Valentine's themed, with lots of warm reds and pinks to fit. I'm super happy about the print! I decided to paint Cupid this month, and I'm so happy with this piece. I hope you'll enjoy this one as much as I do!

As for the stickers; we did a little poll a couple of weeks ago, and last time I looked Cupid's head is the definite winner, with "cat with bow" as the runner up. Of course, today when I looked, the black swan sticker beat the cat sticker, but I've decided we're still doing cat with bow! Maybe black swan sticker next month?

I wanted to tell you a little something about the cat with bow as well. The sticker is modeled after my much loved and sadly, quite recently passed, cat Alba. I really wanted to make her immortal by drawing her, and it makes my heart so happy to know that she will live on in art form. I hope you'll like her!

This pack will contain two stickers with transparent backgrounds and one A6 print.

The dimensions for the items in this package are:

Print - Cupid: A6

Sticker - Cupid's head: 9 x 7,5 cm

Sticker - Alba: 5,6 x 6 cm 

To get the February send out, you'll have to join or stick around the The Love Letter tier during the month of February.

Link to my Patreon!