#nashi has a PROBLEM

[getvalentined]

Just so everyone understands why I'm losing my goddamn mind over finally getting a clean copy of Veld's character portrait from which to sample colors, I wanna show you a comparison.

Here's the palette I was using, sampled from scans and screenshots and a copy of his character portrait originally sourced sometime before 2007:

Top half is all skintones, while the bottom half is three shades used for hair and three shades used for eyes.

...And here's the new one, sampled from that shockingly clean copy of his character portrait sourced in 2019:

I'm getting over it (I like the updated palette, I really do) but I still kinda want to jump into the sun.

[moxiepoxart]

Nalu Week! Family pt 1 (all head canons below (so you don’t have to read my handwriting))

Natsu

Usually Cooks

Lucy ties his hair and they sometimes wear matching accessories.

Wears Alvarez-styled clothes nowadays

A bit more relaxed

Took to parenting the the worst (surprisingly) his kids are growing and he struggles with change

Desperately wants a closer relationship with Nashi

Still a natural with kids though

Lucy

Has several successful book series

Pregnancy was terrible to her health but she endures despite her family and spirits worries.

Can now summon 5+ spirits at once

Does everything to hide her aging and can be insecure about her appearance

Took to parenting like a duck to water despite her anxiety (her spirits are a huge support)

Is currently trying out shorter hairstyles

Lucy won’t let her kids get guild tattoos until they’re 16 and she will die on this hill

Happy

Best Uncle

Enabler

Started going gray and pretends to have ailments he doesn’t have to get sympathy and more fish.

Eats so much fish

Is closest to Eleanor

Nashi (the trial child)

Middle name is Iris

Has Natsu’s hair that won’t obey the hairbrush

Wants long hair but finds it too hard to maintain

Is a 4th gen dragon slayer

Is incredibly anxious about hurting loved ones with her explosive power

Inherited her anxiety from Lucy

Butts heads with Natsu cause he doesn’t understand it

She trains with Erza (Natsu tries to hide his hurt, struggles with his daughter changing)

Adores Erza

Natsu bombarded her with his hobbies at a young age (fishing, brawling and getting dirty)

Is a tomboy but still total mommy’s girl

Oblivious to Griege’s crush

Her jacket is from Alzack and Bisca

Eleanor (the black sheep) (get it? From the Beatles song?)

Middle name is Layla

Takes after her paternal grandmother, but no one knows this and draws on the obvious similarities to Zeref

She is uncomfortable with this comparison (If Natsu overhears any comments it’s on site)

Insists on carrying Happy everywhere (will get into fights with her brother over it)

Sleeps with Happy

Is friends with everyone but doesn’t have many she’s close to

Goes to Lucy with her problems (another mommy’s girl)

Loves the Strauss siblings (especially Mira and Lisanna)

Not sure what magic she wants to learn

Always asks Lucy to summon Aries to go play

Haru (the accident)

Celestial Wizard

Middle name is Igneel

Has Zeref’s cowlick

Is in a cat phase rn (used to be a dragon phase and Natsu is gutted it’s over)

“Loke is the coolest zodiac!”

Sunglasses are a gift from Loke (Natsu hates it)

Wearing cat ears (Happy loves it)

His leopard print shirt is a gift from Laxus (Lucy hates it)

Is a Natsu clone

Endless energy

Hyper-fixates

Loves to read

“Did you know…”

Tries to follow Natsu on missions

Asks Happy to fly him everywhere (gets into fights with his sister about it)

[gingeredmink]

i don’t know if you’ve posted something like this before, but what are your general headcanons about ynfg protags? like their ages, personalities, etcetera. i really like hearing about other people’s interpretations ^^

thank you for giving me an excuse to use this again hehe

I've probably posted something like this in the past but honestly memory is so bad these days I've completely forgotten and as you said, it's fun hearing others interpretations and stuff!

Sorta umbrella generalization is I think most are quiet, shy, soft spoken people. Outside of a few exceptions [Uro for example, she just comes off as a more loud and vibrant kind of character]. Maybe it's the ambience or lack of dialogue but a lot of the games make me feel like the character has a more somber/quiet personality.

A lot also feel like the outcast, always in their head and not really paying much attention to the world around them [either something happened that made them want to shut outside out or they suffer from ostracization and it's a coping mechanism for loneliness]

More for individual characters under cause long

Mado's kinda the poster child for this. Think she's around 16 or so and she became a shut in due to a mix of depression in general and it being exacerbated by experiencing trauma that caused her to snap or distance herself from her remaining friends [Car accident, loss of a friend, something like that.] She grew up playing weird little collectathon/pixel games and she's more interested in funky sorta characters than usual normie stuff her peers prefer, so she doesn't really connect much to those around her and focuses on fantasy more than reality.

Urotsuki [really young adult, maybe around 23-25?] feels like the, "I don't have much in real life but I can be myself and have lots of friends online." sorta character. People aren't intentionally mean to her per say, but she's weird and often doesn't feel like she fits in. Parents are sort of the same in that their main problem is they were distant and not there for her when she needed them.

Admit I am a sucker for this sorta stuff, but adore the idea that she went through a rough patch of self-value issues [was put off from being herself due to being weird, doesn't fall into the conventionally attractive type and had issues with image due to it, ect] but eventually overcame them and is now one of those loud and proud to be herself and very aggressively supports other weirdos around her because she doesn't want others to go through that type of people. She still has her skeletons, having an on-off issue with substance abuse and tendency to get excited and overstep boundaries.

Fluorette [Young adult?] comes across as a sort of lost child that just wants to feel like she belong somewhere. She has personality and such but doesn't fit in with those around her, and her humor can sometimes make her come off as a delinquent which results in her feeling more out of place.

Sometsuki [16-ish?] feels really similar to Mado in that she doesn't really connect much to those around her and prefers to spend her time alone. Can't explain why but feel like she has a bit more of a pessimistic outlook stemming from anxiety [she's afraid of messing up and being looked down on so she's reluctant to try things due to feeling like she's already failed kinda deal.]

NEVER SEE HER MENTIONED ENOUGH BUT I feel like Yayoi from Nobetsu Maku Nashi would be one of the more chill, sort of calm happy dreamers. [i am so heartbroken that the dev deleted because god i wanted to learn more about her so bad.] Sonoko from -1 is similar, though with a bit more of a depressed undertone. Both also young adults.

[burningdreambanana]

Enraged politicians, bans, angry priests, lawsuits, patriotism and rising divorce rates : how Magnificent Century proved more controversial than one could ever imagine

Turkey : Erdogan’s rant, legal threats, bans, egg throwing, a Suleiman cosplayer and insulted grandparents.

“In late 2012, at the opening of a new provincial airport, he (Erdogan) took a moment to condemn the show’s depiction of Süleyman (as a drinker and womanizer), as well as its directors and broadcasters, hinting at severe judicial repercussions. Soon afterward, an M.P. from Erdoğan’s party declared that “Magnificent Century” would be discontinued. A bill to protect the Sultan’s memory was submitted to parliament. Turkish Airlines excluded “Magnificent Century” from its in-flight programming. Conservative viewers had already objected to the amount of time Süleyman spent in the harem; to a chalice from which he occasionally drank some unknown, potentially alcoholic beverage; and to the low-cut gowns of the harem women. When “Magnificent Century” first aired, Islamist demonstrators marched to the television-station offices and threw eggs at the building, while a man dressed as Süleyman read out an “imperial edict” denouncing the show.”

Source : https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/02/17/ottomania

An Ottoman heir decides to sue the show for “insulting his grandparents”

"Our grandfathers ruled the world for centuries but unfortunately, there are TV series like ‘Magnificent Scandal' [depicting them in a negative light]," he said, referring to "Magnificent Century," a popular drama that was broadcasted on Turkish TV channels from 2011 to 2014. [...]

He also criticized "Kösem Sultan," another drama produced by the team behind "Magnificent Century," about Sultan Ahmed I and his consort Mahpeyker Kösem Sultan, which debuted last week in Turkey. "This show does not depict Ottoman traditions correctly. It offends the public's feelings toward the Ottomans," he said, adding that his family would file lawsuits against all TV shows "insulting" their grandfathers and grandmothers.

Serbia : “Nah, actually the portrayal of Suleiman is TOO positive”

A Serbian radical group has launched a campaign against a Turkish TV series that is currently very popular in Serbia, Anatolia news agency reported.

“Nashi 1389” members have been putting up posters around Belgrade to protest Turkish series in general, but most specifically “Muhteşem Yüzyıl” (The Magnificent Century), which the group claims "shows ruler Süleyman as a positive historic personality."

Bangladesh : Magnificent Century is blamed for “destroying the local TV industry” and rising divorce rates.

“Bangladeshi actors and directors called for a ban Dec. 12 on the steamy Turkish period drama Sultan Süleyman (The Magnificent Century), saying the show’s “rampant sex” was destroying the local TV industry and fueling divorce.”

“It all started with Sultan Suleyman. These serials are destroying our industry which employs thousands of actors and crew,” Gazi Rakayet, said the head of the Bangladeshi Directors’ Guild. “In a survey, we’ve found half of all studios have been shut down due to lack of work. Hundreds of actors have been affected. Even the top actors have lost some 50 percent of their income.” [...]

“He said the programs were also “creating social problems” with their bed-hopping plots pushing up the divorce rate. “It’s because of the extra-marital affairs that these channels show,” he added.”

Greece : Magnificent Century targeted in a bishop’s sermon

Greeks that watch the smash Turkish TV hit “Muhteşem Yüzyıl” (The Magnificent Century) are "surrendering” to the Turks, Thessaloniki Metropolitan Bishop Anthimos has told his followers, according to daily Hürriyet.

"No one should watch ‘Muhteşem Yüzyıl,’" the metropolitan said. "By watching Turkish series we should tell them that we have surrendered."

Anthimos said the series aimed at breaking "the western Thrace union."

The show was also criticized by the far-right party Golden Dawn : https://greekreporter.com/2012/10/13/greeks-tune-in-to-turkish-tv-series-despite-critics/

North Macedonia : Magnificent Century becomes the object of a legislative bill

“Macedonia is currently passing a bill to restrict broadcasts of Turkish TV series during the day and at prime time in order to reduce the Turkish impact on Macedonian society, daily Habertürk has reported.

"Our own programs have started being broadcast after midnight because of Turkish soap operas. On every channel I see a Turkish soap opera like 'Muhteşem Yüzyıl' [The Magnificent Century], 'Ezel,' or 'Binbir Gece' [A Thousand and One Nights]. They're all fascinating, but to stay under Turkish servitude for 500 years is enough," Information and Society Minister Ivo Ivanovski said.

Turkish series will gradually be removed and replaced by national programs, according to the new bill.”

Pakistan : threat to local shows and too much skin

Magnificent Century, as well as other Turkish shows were criticized for being too popular and not covering its women enough

“The popularity of the Turkish shows has sparked concern from Pakistani politicians. The Senate committee responsible for information and broadcasting said at the end of last year that it was worried the shows would harm Pakistan’s TV industry and featured content that ran counter to local cultural norms.” [...] “Some of the Turkish shows feature actresses wearing miniskirts and showing cleavage, a far cry from the billowing shalwar kameez garments worn by most Pakistani women that hardly reveal skin”.

[spot-of-tea]

Woo, so two families down... so many more to go. I'm mostly focusing on the children here as the fic is in a next gen setting and unlike the main cast who we all know and love, I want to flesh the kids out first before going into my headcanons for what happened to the main cast over the last 26 years. I will breifly gloss over it here, but any particular life events (other than who is married to who) won't be in here.

That being said if there is anyone in particular you want to know about I don't mind sharing earlier than planned.

The Scarlet Family

It took almost the entirety of Crime Sorciere to slap some sense into Jellal (It was mostly Meredy) and finally have him confess to Erza. Conversely it took everyone in Fairytail, mostly fuelled by a drunken rant from Cana, to get Erza to admit her own feelings. There were many plans put into place, organised between both groups to force the two into close proximity. A dangerous criminal here, an undercover mission there. It even took Kagura telling the two to just get married already before they finally took the plunge. While Erza was more than happy to become 'Erza Fernandes' Jellal refused to let her part with the name he'd given her all those years ago. So Jellal ended up using the opportunity to close a chapter on his past and become Jellal Scarlet instead.

Simon Scarlet

Caught in the middle, Simon is the youngest of the older children and the oldest of the younger children. This has caused him to become very independent as by the time he joined the guild many of his older peers had already formed teams and other networks whereas his younger peers were still too young to join him on jobs (not that that stopped the likes of Nashi who routinely tried to sneak out). The purple haired wizard Idolises his parents and everything they've managed to accomplish, although his immovable view of the world in black and white has lead him to look down on those he considers 'irredeemable'. Being the son of a current and ex wizard saint had the effect of encouraging Simon to take on leadership roles and strive to be the strongest. His indomitable will comes only second to his mother's.

Rosemary Scarlet

Rosie is her mother's daughter through and through. Assertive, fierce, and terrifying. Where her brother would prefer to use his brains to tackle a problem, Rosemary would prefer to throw herself bodily at the problem and hack away at it until the problem doesn't exist anymore. Carrying the same scarlet hair as her mother, along with many of her old armours, Rose is determined to fill her mother's shoes and very much enjoys emulating her mother and her mannerisms. It was cute and very sweet when she was younger, but now she can hold a sword?... it's less so.

[mothmags]

More Neil Heartfillia because I'm thinking about him and his main ref mainly talks about his magic type.

He would 100% have a tik tok account where they have a slideshow and just say wrong information on black and white photos and put a creepy audio

He also has a fake "certified" Twitter account where he pretends to be a flat earther journalist

Half of his following can see it's very obviously fake and is amused and the other half 100% believes him

He is THE band kid of fairy tail

I said this before, but he's mainly a loner that has a solid 1 close friend

Nashi is a little shit to people on a personal level. Neil is just chronically online teenage boy with too much time on his hands

Lumi convinces him to post some of his music on spotify and he has absolutely no branding

His name is something stupid like "gaylord9000" and has somehow over a million streams

His only advertising is that lumi will use him as background music sometimes, and literally, that's it

Each album so far is a different genre and they vary WILDLY

He would also make like the most profound music that frequently brings people to tears over how personal and heartwrenching it is, and he would name it "Sierra mist was better than Starry and you can fight me about it", "Anime tits on a tuesday" or "stream this I want to buy a new bass"

No one knows it's him tho exept for a select few (Nashi, Lumi, and his friend that I didnt give a name to yet)

Most of his income is from this account and his occasional jobs

He lives with his parents still so he doesn't pay rent or bills or anything. All of his money goes to another instrument he doesn't need but wants very bad or to his savings

He might be a little shit but he cares a lot about the people around him

When someone is upset he notices and beckons them over to his little music corner of the guildhall

He doesn't ask them about said problem, nono he doesn't like being in people's business but he will play them music that he knows they like and make an illusion that he knows will calm them down

Sometimes they tell him what's wrong but he barely gives them advice

Hes just there to listen and make sure they are ok and they appreciate that

His love language is gift giving and will occasionally gives the people he likes a little trinket

He will just take their hand, put the gift in it and walk away

That's how you know he likes you

He gave gajeel a metal gutar pick he found on the ground when he was like 4 and he put it on a chain and still wears it under his shirt to this day

[tealoverdrawssomething]

As a reader of both yaoi and danmei, what always bothers me is that danmei fans get REALLY mad when somebody calls them fujoshi, like fujoshi is some kind of nasty monster whose name we shall not pronounce.

But the fact is that... Danmei fans aren't that much different from fujoshi/fudanshi/fujin🤷‍♀️

Danmei was HUGELY inspired by early shounen-ai/yaoi manga back in the 70s, so pretending that danmei has NO relations to yaoi is like a child who has a sibling that they don't like and in public they pretend they aren't in any way related to their sibling, and they both are just strangers.

Danmei, despite later developing independently from yaoi, often has very popular and questionable tropes similar to yaoi, like:

1. gong-shou/seme-uke stereotypes (what I mean is even if gong and shou look equal and even have equal power positions, shou, more often that not, is portrayed as more illogical, immature, overemotional, embarrassed and even dependent on gong. While gong is usually portrayed as more mature, logical, stoic, independent and emotionally cold or at least knows how to hold his emotions in right time. There are only few authors like MXTX who try to subvert or to parody such stereotypes)

2. sexual consent issues

3. rape phantasy

4. shotacon

5. incest (be it biological or through adoption)

6. big age gaps

7. lack or absence of safe-sex practices

8. omegaverse

And what's funny is that many danmei fans, especially Western ones, act like danmei is "pure", "wholesome", "actual good gay representation", unlike "dirty", "too sexual" and "fetishistic" yaoi.

Okay, danmei is focused more on story and lore than on sex, but how does damn sex make something "dirty"? Sex is a natural thing that people of all sexualities do or don't do. Real life homosexual relationship isn't about unicorns and rainbows, not every gay encounter has to be deep (however it sounds). And many sexual scenes in danmei can be even more messy and atrocious than in yaoi, considering points I listed above.

Yaoi by its origin is "yama nashi, ochi nashi, imi nashi" (山[場]なし、落ちなし、意味なし) , which means "no climax, no point, no meaning". Yaoi wasn't supposed to be treated as serious or as "wholesome".And danmei wasn't supposed to be "god-honoring gay representation" either, because, as yaoi, the genre was made BY "mostly" straight women FOR "mostly" straight women. Even more, queer fans like me weren't a thing in Asian BL until late 90s, when East Asian media got more popularity abroad due to rapid developing and access of PCs and internet + more access to language translations.

So, attacking yaoi and fujoshi/fudanshi/fujin because they "romanticize shit" and "fetishize gays", while at the same time consuming genre that had similar origins, has similar problems and is still mostly written and consumed by straight cis women gooning at conventionally attractive guys banging each other - It's hypocrisy at best and stupidity at worst.

Either consume both genres, find good stories in each of them and be happy, or just don't be a fucking hypocrite.

And no, it's not "homophobic" or "misogynistic" or "anti" to give valid points about problems in BL/slash/yaoi/danmei communities, especially when you yourself consume and produce their content.

[nashi-brie]

Hi!

I'm Nashi Brie

Current event:

(Yuusona)

(Closeted bigender)

Used for rping twisted wonderland characters

All rps belong to their respective universe(s)

Gore, angst, and horror elements allowed in rp

Nothing nsfw because she is a minor. Dirty jokes are fine in moderation

No political debates. Have fun.

#Nashi Brie - oc speaks/rp

#Mod rambles- Mod yapping about character lore or something

#mod speaks- not oc related stuff

About character

Ramshackle student

has a grip on the use of magic. Though very weak, she does fine using magic in classes

She's relatively outgoing and friendly, loves hugs! But can get annoyed easily

She's paranoid and an overthinker. She'll greet you, be friendly, but wonder if she's coming off as annoying

A perfectionist that can never see value in her own work regardless of how hard she tries

More of a ambivert. She just wants to find a place to belong to. The ramshackle dormitory is fine, no problems with the ghost. She just wishes to have like a sporting buddy or someone to play games with her and then go fishing

A bit more rugged. She grew up with only brothers and a tomboy mother. She doesn't mind being in the NRC she's a little confused about how she's allowed to just attend there, but hey, Crowley is just "so kind."

She does hate getting the princess treatment. She doesn't want to be coddled, she wants the same challenge as everyone else. She wants to prove her worth goddammit

Don't ask about the marks... She hates them. Just don't okay?

Mod isn't an artist and only draws for fun

[jplupine]

Name: Sin Nashi

Birthday: May 20 | Age: 18+

Gender: Man | Orientation: Homosexual

Species: Forge Demon | Alliance: Nashi Family/Host Club

Info: Having quickly discovered that Haruhi wasn't a boy, Sin was forced to join the Host Club to make sure he didn't tell anyone else. The problem is, once being promoted to a Host, Sin has no idea how to flirt. In a panic, he somehow created a persona that works but makes him cringe inside each time he coos and calls the guests his lambs. Sin becomes the Beast Type Host in reference to his persona fitting the Beauty and the Beast trope. Given his bad boy looks and Beast persona, the guests love the new addition to the Host Club even if Sin is secretly embarrassed by it all. Regardless, the compliments he receives are still stroking his ego and boosting his confidence.

Love Interest: Takashi

Fic: The Transfer Student Theme: AMERICAN HORROR SHOW by SNOW WIFE

[mariacallous]

A week after a Moscow court added another 19 years to Alexey Navalny’s prison time (for various supposed “extremist” crimes), his associates published an essay written in his name titled “My Fear and Loathing.” In the manifesto, as it soon became known in the news media and on social networks, Navalny argued that the root of many of Russia’s most fundamental problems today can be found in the 1990s — specifically in the compromises and expediencies liberals then embraced at the expense of democracy. Navalny also criticized multiple individuals by name and warned that figures in Russia’s contemporary opposition are repeating their predecessors’ mistakes. The text sparked a discussion among Russian liberals about the legacy of the 1990s and whether Navalny has the right to castigate that era’s politicians and public figures when his allies today have sometimes exhibited questionable judgment. Many even question whether Navalny even wrote the essay. Meduza collected some of the reactions to the 1990s Manifesto.

Responses from individuals named in Navalny’s essay

Kirill Martynov

Novaya Gazeta Europe editor-in-chief

I never participated in the NASHI movement. The editor-in-chief of Novaya Gazeta is Dmitry Muratov. And I also never defended anyone at the center of one of the Anti-Corruption Foundation’s investigations. I ask the authors of “Alexey Navalny’s Letters” to be a bit more careful with their fact-checking. Writing letters from political prisoners isn’t Twitter.

Maxim Katz

Politician

Navalny issued an appeal yesterday, the details of which I will not address, although I’m named there, among others, as one of the people Alexey hates. I refuse to get into an argument like this with someone in prison who’s actually enduring torturous conditions and is completely isolated from the outside world.

Alexey and I will argue when he’s free. I hope he’ll be okay.

However, regarding the discussion that arose yesterday, I want to talk about one idea that I think is dangerous — an idea that occupies the minds of Russian oppositionists and their supporters. This is the idea that our main task now is not to repeat the mistakes of the democrats of the 1990s and to prevent a new Putin from coming to power when we get our chance to influence the situation.

There are several problems with this approach. First, democrats were in power for just a year and a half back in the infamous 90s, and they had no chance. Second, we won’t face what they did because the changes will follow a completely different scenario. And third, a living, breathing Putin still exists right now in Russia, and it would be nice to oppose him now however we can — preferably together in coordination. 

Alexey Venediktov

Journalist and former editor-in-chief of the radio station Echo of Moscow

Dear Mr. Alexey Navalny! None of your letters change my opinion that the investigation against you was conducted unfairly, that the trial against you was unjust, and that the sentence was wrongful. And that it would be just to close your case and release you (and the other political prisoners).

Mikhail Khodorkovsky

Exiled businessman and former oil tycoon

I’m disappointed that another article published in Navalny’s name contains a blatant lie. (I say “in his name” because I’m not convinced that it’s possible to write such articles while in punitive confinement. They never allowed me to do it, anyway.) The lie is of a fundamental nature: a call to “join Prigozhin’s ranks” is very different from a call to help Prigozhin square off with Putin and stockpile weapons so they can take power themselves.

It’s the difference between wanting to shift concern for one’s destiny onto some other “hero” (who isn’t a hero at all) and the desire to determine your fate yourself. To become a force yourself that will lead the country to democracy and prosperity. It’s a shame if this went misunderstood, and it’s even worse if it was, in fact, understood, but…

P.S. I don’t want to comment on the article in more detail — it’s too frustrating. Russia needs Navalny as a talented politician (we don’t have many of them). And making him out to be a poison-spitting hater is a job for the presidential administration, not for his own teammates. 

Other noteworthy reactions

Grigory Golosov

Political Science Department dean at the European University at St. Petersburg

I agree that democratization’s failure was largely due to the anti-democratic attitudes of the 1990s political class; that these same attitudes were partly connected to the fear of losing power and, with it, the opportunity for quick personal enrichment; and that the result of these attitudes was a foundation for reforms that lacked the necessary legal (especially constitutional) basis. And what does all this tell us? That such mistakes must be avoided in the future. What doesn’t it tell us? That the exact same people as in the 90s are certain to make these mistakes again, and that entirely new people (or, put another way, the same old people who didn’t reach the top of the mountain in the 90s) will enjoy immunity against such errors.

Tatyana Malkina

Journalist who covered the attempted coup in Moscow August 1991 and later reported in President Yeltsin’s press pool

I pulled myself together and didn’t limit myself to just the excerpts. I sat down and read the entirety of this confession/rebuke by my homeland’s main political prisoner. This is his first public message to the city and the world since the announcement of an insane sentence that’s tantamount to murdering this prisoner. I’m not a destructologist, but I can’t remain silent. I don’t think he wrote this text. Or, if he did write it, then all his previous texts belong to someone else. I’m not talking about the context at all, by the way. I’m better off saying nothing there — let [the one-time chief KGB ideologist] Filipp Bobkov conduct a thorough examination. I urgently demand freedom for all political prisoners.

Vladimir Gelman

Political scientist

Navalny’s post today, dedicated to the failure of democratization in Russia in the 1990s (I agree with him for the most part), looks like an afterword to the preface for my book “Authoritarian Russia.” [...]:

One pleasant sunny summer day in 1990, I was sitting in the waiting room at the Mariinsky Palace in Leningrad. I was a 24-year-old activist in a pro-democracy movement that had recently won a city-council election. [...] I faced a difficult choice between a position as a junior researcher at the Institute of Sociology of the Academy of Sciences and a mid-level job in the city council’s newly formed administration. The latter option seemed more attractive, and after a series of conversations, I came for an interview with the council’s chairman, Anatoly Sobchak…

Sobchak finally showed up, and we entered his enormous, luxurious office. Without asking me a word and seemingly not even noticing me at all, my potential boss started a long and passionate speech as if he were addressing an audience of hundreds, even though there was nobody else in his office except us. […] After what seemed like an endless monologue, he paused, and I managed to ask the question that I thought was key to my future work: “Mr. Sobchak, how do you see the system of power in this city that you want to create?” 

Sobchak finally turned to me, as if descending from Heaven to Earth, and changed his tone to something more candid: “We have a lot of city-council deputies. They’re loud and poorly organized: they should be working mainly in the districts, meeting with citizens and responding to public complaints. We have a city executive committee: it should be dealing with municipal services, roads, greenspaces, and water leaks, but it shouldn’t overstep these limits. And I (he said, looking widely around the office), with the help of my team (now staring at me), will set policy.” I was shocked to hear such cynical statements from someone who many people saw as a symbol of democracy. “But isn’t that almost the same thing as under the communists…? What about democracy?”

Sobchak was probably very surprised that someone who supposedly might join his new team had asked him such a question. When he answered, he spoke firmly, with the same intonation that university professors sometimes use when informing a freshman about fundamental truths: “We’re in power now, and that is democracy.”

This statement shocked me. All my great hopes for a new democratic politics collapsed in an instant.

Alfred Kokh

Former deputy prime minister of the Russian Federation

I hope that Navalny understands that plenty of similar allegations against him can also be crammed into this style — stuff just as vulgarly primitive and tailored for the uncritical view of fans. […]

What’s happened, unfortunately, is what had to happen: Navalny, locked away in prison, has lost touch with the context of current events, with the news of the day, with the pulse of the times. He’s still living with the same pre-war ideas about the scale of certain processes. It’s perfectly natural, and it’s pointless to blame him for this.

He ceases to be relevant. Regrettably, even his courtroom and prison saga, as well as his monstrous prison sentence, are events that have become more important and interesting than what he now says and thinks. Because he’s recycling all the same talking points from Putin’s propaganda as 10 years ago, thus repeating the fate of [Yabloko party founder Grigory] Yavlinsky. And with the same ending, I fear.

But most important is something else. The most important thing is what he doesn’t understand (or his lawyers or those paying them don’t explain to him): there’s no longer any electoral maneuvering inside Russia. There’s no clearing to consolidate supporters, no means of unleashing this protest, and no chance to turn people’s silent support into public action.

Everything is crushed under Putin’s boot, and it’s not even close. Put simply, it’s 1937 all over again. [...] The truth is that the window of opportunity for building a free and democratic Russia depends directly on Ukraine’s victory in this war. And no amount of exposing the “young reformers” from the 1990s will affect this at all. It’s just a shot into nothingness. 

Valery Solovey

Political scientist and former Moscow State Institute of International Relations professor

At last, the Kremlin and the opposition finally see the past the same way: the damned 1990s are to blame for everything! At the same time, the designated “culprits” readily communicated with those same oppositionists during the 2000s, hoping for their political and financial support. And sometimes they got it, by the way.

Alexander Plushev

Journalist, former longtime Echo of Moscow radio host

It turns out that Russia’s main enemies aren’t Putin (who’s the Moon’s enemy after all) and his gang, but the late Yeltsin, [Yeltsin’s younger daughter Tatyana] Dyachenko, [Valentin] Yumashev, [Vladimir] Gusinsky, the reformists, the “independent media” and “democratic society,” Russia’s leadership from 1991 to 1993, [Alexey] Venediktov, [Ksenia] Sobchak, [Maxim] Katz, and [Kirill] Martynov.

Tatiana Felgenhauer

Journalist, former longtime Echo of Moscow radio host

My position in a nutshell (with all the reservations about the fact that Navalny is in prison and just got another 19 years and that debating somebody behind bars is the last thing anybody needs) is that I think Navalny is right that you shouldn’t applaud those actions that you consider to be unacceptable and help the regime. And you can criticize them — why not.

On the other hand, I don’t think that criticizing the Anti-Corruption Foundation’s investigations (or even the foundation itself) marks someone as an enemy of democracy or as a secret assistant to Vladimir Putin. Especially since, as it was recently revealed [likely a reference to Leonid Volkov stepping down as chairman amid a scandal involving his private lobbying on behalf of billionaire Mikhail Fridman] that the principled people there every now and again “make mistakes.” But the main thing is that Vladimir Putin’s opponents have so many political allies today that it’s the right time to draw red lines and decide who’s genuine and who isn’t.

Maria Phillimore-Slonim

Soviet, British, and Russian journalist

I tip my hat! I don’t agree with everything — I’m still not convinced that Venediktov took money for supporting electronic voting, but I agree completely with everything Navalny writes about the compromises of the 1990s, about how they pissed away a great chance that might never appear again in our century.

Marat Gelman

Gallerist

Whatever happens later with Russia, the most important thing is that we need to help Ukraine win the war. What we’ve seen is that the mistakes are ours, but it’s Ukrainians paying for them with their lives. That’s why I don’t really care who wins in distant future elections. What I need today is to weaken Putin’s power, I need more sabotage, more of a “split in the elites,” and so on. […]

A split in the nomenklatura is the only scenario that can remove [Putin] relatively soon. And instead of this, we split the camp of his opponents… Just imagine people answering [Navalny] by recalling how the 2011 protest movement was “drained.” [This is a reference to debates last decade about whether it was acceptable to negotiate with city authorities for demonstration permits.] Or they recall the idiotic (it’s clear today that it was a mistake) “Smart Voting.” And it’s off to the races from there.

Boris Pastukhov

Political scientist

In his long article from the dungeons, Alexey Navalny asks the rhetorical question: “Who are we really? And why are we needed?” Alexey considers this question to be rhetorical, but answers abound, for example:

“We” are Leonid Volkov, and we’re needed to get sanctions lifted from the right oligarchs.

“We” are Georgy Alburov, and we’re needed to fight corruption in the army during the war with Ukraine.

“We” are Maria Pevchikh, and we’re needed so the opposition, even in exile, knows that the most important fight of all is against other opposition groups.

“We” are Alexey Navalny, and we’re needed so any Russian intelligence officer or criminal caught in the West has someone to be exchanged for.

It seems that, for more than a year and a half now, the Anti-Corruption Foundation has preferred to fight for the purity of ranks over fighting for peace (or at least for power). It’s certainly an important issue, but it would be nice to know: in the context of one of the greatest catastrophes in Russian history, are we fighting to stop the monster or to avoid dirtying our hands with an accidental handshake in the process? 

Vladislav Inozemtsev

Economist, political scientist

I confess that I always respected Alexey Navalny as a political warrior but without any reverence for him as an analyst and thinker. Today’s text changes everything. He’s emotionally said all that I’ve been writing, at least since the mid-2010s in both Russia and the West. […] I still believe that the scale of stupidity, shortsightedness, and selfishness of Russian democrats of the 1990s simply defies rational explanation (even if you reason that their main motive was their rabid appetite for grabbing whatever they could). And I really don’t understand how there can be silence from the honorable Russian emigre opposition, which is from that time and from that class entirely, with only minimal exceptions. It’s simply inconceivable — as inconceivable as the reasons our emigrants still hope to return to power. Apparently, only the adversities that befell Mr. Navalny can switch on the brains of many in our intelligentsia.

Abbas Gallyamov

Political consultant

I think the author [of the Navalny essay] is wrong to lump together corrupt officials from the 1990s with today’s politicians and journalists. When Navalny accuses the former of failing to create a system of normal democratic institutions, the claim looks perfectly justified. But that hardly means that the current radical opposition should refuse to interact with the moderate opposition.

In a situation where you’re in power and you’re building democratic institutions, you might consider it unacceptable to adopt an approach of “the ends justify the means.” But in a situation when you’re fighting for that power — when you haven’t yet achieved it — it’s an unaffordable luxury to reject potential allies just because they once entertained such an approach. […]

To overthrow the regime and come to power, you need the widest possible coalition. As the saying goes, there’s strength in numbers. 

[getvalentined]

Hi Nashi! For the Ship It/Don't Ship It ask game, I'd like to know your thoughts on (of course) Vin/Veld for the Ship It portion, and Valenwind for the Don't Ship It portion. :)

VinVeld: I ship it

1. What made you ship it?

I'mma be real, VinVeld was initially a crackship within the fandom when I was 18-19, when BC first dropped, based strictly on the fact that Veld had been stated to have known Vincent before his death. It's easy to ship Turks with Turks, but there was no support for it at the time, so I was just kinda like "sure y'all do that."

Then they actually met up in-game and that basically made me go "oh. oh." because Veld recognizes Vincent instantly even when Lucrecia didn't. Vincent recognizes Veld after thirty years. They refer to each other with no honorifics at all. Vincent then doesn't hesitate to get up and fight to make sure that Veld and his attending Turk are safe, and immediately gives him the information he needs to get closer to his goal. Whatever they were to each other before Project S, they were close, and learning that completely changed my brain chemistry.

2. What are your favorite things about the ship?

It's actual Old Man Yaoi. They have a history, they have an extant character dynamic that literally doesn't exist for Vincent with anyone else. They know each other, but they don't know each other anymore—and them getting to know each other again in the little time Veld has left is just one of the most beautiful concepts.

3. Is there an unpopular opinion you have on your ship?

Uhhhh is VinVeld popular enough to have unpopular opinions? I dunno. Apparently shipping it at all is a problem to a lot of people, so there's that.

—

Val*nwind: I don't ship it

Censored to keep it out of the search. I don't care if you ship it it's just not for me.

1. Why don’t you ship it?

Cɪd abused Shera for five years straight and she stayed with him anyway. They are married postcanon. Vincent knows better than to be homewrecker to another Fucked Up Shinra Scientist Couple, even if they're in aeronautics rather than biology and regardless of whether or not Cɪd is his type.

2. What would have made you like it?

If Cɪd were not in a long-term relationship with someone he abused for half a decade who stuck with him anyway and married him after Meteorfall, then I'd probably be down. Cɪd is my Vincent's type 100 percent—and so is Shera, actually! So if they wanted to bring Vincent in as a third that would be super cool to me, but nobody does that. Also if everyone stopped calling it "Old Man Yaoi" when Cɪd is thirty-two years old I'd have less of a kneejerk reaction, I think.

(It also would be cool if the people who ship it would tag things properly, not tag every reblog they make that features Vincent with this ship, not pretend Shera doesn't exist, and/or not literally say that she deserved to be abused because nobody likes her or that what Cɪd did to her doesn't count as abuse because she never left him. I know this is not everyone, most people who ship this are very normal for the most part, but I've seen this discussion many times over the years and it has soured the ship for me forever. Do better, y'all.)

3. Despite not shipping it, do you have anything positive to say about it?

There is some really good fanart out there. My favorite FF7 doujin artist actually does Val*nwind, I have a lot of their stuff because the way they portray it is actually really solid. It can absolutely be done well. This is one of my biggest NOTPs almost entirely because of the fandom around it, but there are plenty of good renditions out there.

[ to ship or not to ship ask game ]

[cyberbenb]

Ukraine war latest: Ukraine hits 2 oil depots in Russia overnight; Zelensky sanctions top pro-Russian politicians

Key developments on Jan. 19:

Ukraine hits 2 oil depots in Russia overnight

Zelensky slaps sanctions on Ukraine’s top pro-Russian politicians

Lack of medical treatment, problems with unit transfers most common causes of appeals, new military ombudsman says

Ukrainian troops withdraw from, launch attack on Chasiv Yar refractory plant

SBU detains metro engineer who allegedly directed Russian missile strikes on Kyiv, Kharkiv

Ukrainian forces attacked oil depots in Russia’s Tula and Kaluga oblasts overnight on Jan. 18, according to the General Staff and the Kyiv Independent’s source in Ukraine’s military intelligence (HUR).

The attack came amid an uptick in Ukraine’s drone attacks on Russia, as Kyiv aims at damaging Russia’s oil industry, crucial for sustaining Moscow’s war effort.

The drones operated by Ukraine’s military intelligence (HUR) hit the oil depot in Tula Oblast at least 10 times in this attack, a HUR source claimed.

Tula Oblast, located south of Moscow, has regularly come under attack by Ukrainian drones.

Tula Oblast Governor Dmitry Milyaev said that a fuel storage tank caught fire at “one of the enterprises in the region.” No casualties were reported.

Videos posted on social media and shared by residents appear to show a large fire at an oil depot in the town of Uzlovaya in the region.

Ukrainian soldiers also hit an oil depot in the Russian town of Lyudinovo in Kaluga Oblast overnight, causing a fire, Ukraine’s General Staff reported.

Lyudinovo lies around 200 kilometers (124 miles) north of the Ukrainian border.

The oil depot is owned by Kaluganefteprodukt, a subsidiary of Russia’s state-controlled oil company Rosneft, according to the statement.

"(This is) a logistics center that supplies units of the Russian armed forces directly involved in the war against Ukraine," the military said.

The Kyiv Independent could not verify these claims.

‘It’s not enough’ — Ukrainians react to Biden’s farewell speech

In his farewell speech from the White House on Jan.15, outgoing U.S. President Joe Biden took the opportunity to highlight his achievements in office in an attempt to help cement his legacy. Yet, despite being one of the world’s biggest international crises that spanned much of Biden’s term

The Kyiv IndependentOleksiy Sorokin

Zelensky slaps sanctions on Ukraine’s top pro-Russian politicians

President Volodymyr Zelensky signed a decree imposing new sanctions on pro-Russian politicians and propagandists, he announced on Jan. 19.

“We are blocking propagandists working for Russia, people who have gone over to the enemy’s side, and those who help Russia continue the war,” Zelensky said in a video address posted on Facebook.

The decree puts into effect a decision made earlier by Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council.

Eighteen people were listed on the formal decree. Among them are prominent pro-Russian politicians Yuriy Boyko, Nestor Shufrych, and Yevhen Muraiev.

Boyko previously led the former pro-Russian political party Opposition Platform — For Life, which was banned by the Supreme Court following Russia’s full-scale invasion.

Shufrych was arrested last year on charges of subversive activities against Ukraine and financing Russia’s National Guard in occupied Crimea. According to the investigation, Shufrych paid Russia’s National Guard to guard his elite real estate in Crimea, illegally annexed by Russia in 2014.

Muraiev, former leader of the now-banned pro-Russian Nashi party, was charged with treason in 2023. The Security Service noted that Muraiev used his media empire, including the Nash TV channel, to disseminate pro-Russian narratives.

Shortly before the start of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, the U.K. Foreign Office warnedthat the Kremlin intends to install Muraiev as the head of the Russian puppet regime in Kyiv. Media reports have stated that Muraiev left Ukraine in 2022.

Zelensky also noted that the country is working to deprive pro-Russian figures of state awards, specifically mentioning the Hero of Ukraine title.

Last month, Ukraine’s parliament voted to request that Zelensky strip the Hero of Ukraine award from Boyko. Boyko had days earlier repeated Russian propaganda talking points on social media about “radicals” controlling the streets in Ukraine.

He was awarded the title Hero of Ukraine in 2004 during his tenure as head of Ukraine’s state-owned oil and gas company Naftogaz.

How Trump could use sanctions in negotiations with Russia

In the run-up to his departure from the White House, President Joe Biden has slapped a number of major new sanctions on Russia’s financial systems and energy sector. The U.S. originally threatened Russia with “the mother of all sanctions” as Moscow prepared to invade Ukraine in February 2022.

The Kyiv IndependentDominic Culverwell

Lack of medical treatment, problems with unit transfers are most common causes of appeals, new military ombudsman says

Twenty days into her new post as Ukraine’s new military rights commissioner, Olha Reshetylova said that she had already received 3,876 appeals.

In what she described as a preliminary assessment in a Facebook post about her first days on the job, Reshetylova said that lack of treatment and referrals to military medical commissions and problems moving between military units are the two leading causes for the appeals she received.

More than 3,500 of the appeals have been relevant to her post and concern protecting the rights of soldiers. A portion of these concerning advice or clarification, which she referred to lawyers working “almost around the clock."

“The rest of the appeals are substantive. Although each of them has its own individual problems, in general, of course, you can already see trends and separate blocks of problematic issues,” Reshetylova wrote.

While acknowledging that requests for medical treatment can be abused and that commanders face a “catastrophic” personnel shortage, she noted cases where commanders had denied referrals for treatment of injuries, urgent and planned operations, acute PTSD or panic attacks, and symptoms of severe concussions.

Regarding military unit transfers, servicemembers were promised in November a more efficient way for transfering between units using the Army+ app. However, she wrote, “very often commanders do not carry out the transfer order or specifically transfer servicemen against their will to other positions, which complicates the execution of the order."

“Now we’re also solving these issues manually, where we have time. But it’s obvious that we need to look for a systemic solution,” Reshetylova wrote.

Ukraine’s Defense Ministry announced in April that it would create the new military ombudsman position to ensure soldiers had a way to report violations of their rights.

The flaws in Ukraine’s new brigades and foreign training programs

Newly formed brigades within the Ukrainian military face critical challenges on the front lines. Poor management, lack of experience, and inadequate training have resulted in territorial losses, damaged equipment, and tragic casualties. NATO’s training methods often fail to align with the realities…

The Kyiv IndependentSerhii Filimonov

Ukrainian troops withdraw from, launch attack on Chasiv Yar refractory plant

Ukrainian forces launched an aerial attack against a Russian-occupied refractory plant in the embattled city of Chasiv Yar, Lieutenant Colonel Dmytro Zaporozhets, spokesperson for the Operational Tactical Group Luhansk, said on Jan. 18.

The attack confirms earlier reports that Ukrainian troops had withdrawn from the plant.

“On the territory of the refractory plant, the enemy tried to gain a foothold, attacking in small and medium groups,” Zaporozhets said during a television broadcast.

“Thanks to coordinated actions … (occupying Russian troops) were discovered in one of the premises on the territory of the refractory plant and an air strike was carried out. The enemy suffered losses."

The Ukrainian news outlet Ukrainska Pravda posted a video, obtained from the Operational Tactical Group Luhansk, depicting the strike against the plant.

In the past week, Russian military bloggers alleged that Russian forces had pushed Ukrainian troops out of the refractory plant in Chasiv Yar. The crowd-sourced monitoring website Deep State also reported on Jan. 12 that Russia had occupied the site.

The plant served as reliable fortification for Ukrainian forces, who must now shelter in residential buildings weakened by constant shelling.

SBU detains metro engineer who allegedly directed Russian missile strikes on Kyiv, Kharkiv

A Kyiv Metro engineer allegedly let a network of agents who helped direct Russian missile and drone attacks against the capital and Kharkiv Oblast, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) announced on Jan. 18.

The announcement coincides with multiple reports from Ukrainian law enforcement agencies on Jan. 18 exposing alleged instances of treason and plots to aid Russia’s war against Ukraine.

The agents tracked the movement and positions of Ukrainian troops in order to coordinate Russian aerial attacks, the SBU said.

Russia’s Federal Security Service recruited the network leader, a Kyiv Metro engineer, during a meeting in Moscow in 2015, according to the SBU. After the full-scale invasion in 2022, he was instructed to create a network of agents who would monitor the activitiy of Ukrainian troops and cargo.

The leader also personally directed Russian missile strikes on Kyiv, according to intercepted conversations.

SBU officers have detained the alleged leader in Kyiv and another suspected agent in Kharkiv. During the investigation, officers seized cell phones that they said contain evidence of collaboration with Russia, along with four firearms.

Both suspects have been charged with high treason in conjunction with the Prosecutor General’s Office. A third suspect, currently in hiding abroad, may also be charged.

As Trump prepares to take office, Kyiv awaits his team’s next moves

As U.S. President-elect Donald Trump is set to take office on Jan. 20, Ukraine’s fate hangs in the balance. While some potential details of Trump’s future peace proposals have been leaked, the overall plan still remains unclear. Since the Nov. 5 presidential election, Trump and his team have sent

The Kyiv IndependentOleksiy Sorokin

[fallynleaf]

(This is an afterword for Fate Unknown, my fic about the limited distribution short film 正体不明 that was produced for 行方不明展 "A Missing Exhibition". Contains full spoilers!)

"人間には 行方不明の時間が必要です" , roughly "People need time to be unaccounted for" is a line from a poem by Noriko Ibaragi that has come up repeatedly in Nashi's interviews as an inspiration for A Missing Exhibition. Here's an interview (in Japanese, sorry) where he talks about it.

He says that when most people hear the word "行方不明" (going missing/disappearing/unaccounted for/whereabouts unknown), they tend to think of missing persons, kidnappings, crimes, etc.

But there is also another side to it, which is "社会的な文脈からの解放" (liberation from societal context). This is the concept that A Missing Exhibition is built around.

I think the reasons Kashima and Tsunaka had for wanting to, well, "liberate themselves from societal context" in the original film were intentionally left open-ended so that the viewer could project whatever you wanted onto them.

I think, though, that the interpretation of the characters as gay is included in that, maybe even deliberately, and that it is maybe the most straightforward interpretation, considering how the big twist in the 正体不明 film reframes the whole exhibition as basically one big desperate labor of love that Kashima spends nine years putting together just for the mere chance that he'll be able to see Tsunaka again.

Nashi also talks about how there is either hope or despair in the concept of “行方不明” that the exhibition expresses.

Personally, I feel like rather than an either/or, it’s almost a simultaneous hope/despair, like there’s a despair that drives people to want to disappear from the world, but also a hope that there is somehow a better world out there for them that they can escape to instead. If there wasn’t despair, there wouldn’t be a reason to disappear to somewhere else, but if there wasn’t hope, there wouldn’t be a reason to try for a new world rather than just dying in this one.

With the 正体不明 film specifically, I think the ending sort of lets you choose whether the feeling it leaves you with is hope or despair depending on how you interpret what happens. Like, I choose to believe the characters get their happy ending, and that Tsunaka is able to come back and stay in this world and that he and Kashima can be together and get a second chance at happiness.

I dunno if I’ve ever talked about this here before, but I personally really dislike the isekai genre. I don’t like the concept of death being the only way to solve all your problems and let you live in a world you actually want to live in, rather than having to fight to change the world you’re already in so that it becomes livable.

I didn’t think of A Missing Exhibition in terms of isekai until I saw Nashi bring it up, but the thought that kind of stuck with me is that in some ways, A Missing Exhibition is about the world left behind rather than the world people go to. I realized that concept was just infinitely more compelling to me than the isekai premise. How do the people in the real world deal with the loss of the person who got suddenly isekai’d away? How do you find a way to continue to live in this world?

I love the fact that on the surface, A Missing Exhibition is about a whole bunch of people disappearing to other worlds, but the story in 正体不明 is actually about bringing one person back to this world. That’s just beautiful to me.

I refer to A Missing Exhibition as "horror" because it's a project made by a bunch of creators who are active in the modern horror scene in Japan, but what's fascinating to me about it is that 正体不明 actually isn't really horror (Nashi calls it speculative fiction instead). The story is much more gentle than that, and it's far kinder to the characters than horror tends to be.

I don't know why I find that so fascinating. Maybe it's just that there's something kind of neat about seeing the tools of horror storytelling applied in such a different way. Maybe horror creators, too, need some time where they can liberate themselves from the societal context of being a horror creator.

(Incidentally, Tokio Omori's immediate next project after A Missing Exhibition was producing a BL drama. Well, it was still very much an Omori work...)

I had some amount of trouble titling this fic. I won't go too deep into it because it gets a bit lost in translation, but the whole exhibition has a themed naming pattern around words which end in 不明 ("unknown"), with the two most important ones being of course 行方不明 (literally "whereabouts unknown"), which the exhibition focuses on, and 正体不明 (literally "identity unknown"), the name of the short film.

The actual exhibition was divided into four sections, dealing with missing people, places, things, and memories, respectively:

「ひと」の行方不明 was 身元不明 「場所」の行方不明 was 所在不明 「もの」の行方不明 was 出所不明 「記憶」の行方不明 was 真偽不明

In the interview linked above, they talk about the film 正体不明 as being basically a fifth part of the exhibition.

Seeing that, I thought, "well, my fic is the secret sixth part, then!" So of course I had to choose another 不明 word to fit into the naming scheme. I settled on 安否不明 (literally "fate unknown") because the story I wanted to tell is about what happened to the characters afterward.

Something I kept thinking about as I wrote the fic was about how you can survive a disaster without fully surviving it. There is of course that idea of people going to another world where their fate is uncertain, but I think, too, there is an uncertainty with coming back, like Tsunaka does.

The original 正体不明 film never defines exactly what was so hellish about the world Tsunaka came from, so I decided that his hell was basically a world with even more extreme capitalism and oppressive heteronormative norms than our world.

So then the story becomes, how do you recover from extreme heteronormative capitalist burnout? Can you ever truly recover from that?

I had some trouble writing this part because the short film really doesn't give us a whole lot of context about who these people even are outside of the exhibition. Like, what kinds of hobbies do they have outside of an obsession with disappearing to another world as teenagers? They're both probably extremely done with that concept now after everything they went through, haha.

I came up with birdwatching as a hobby for Tsunaka through kind of a roundabout way.

One of my Japanese study buddies had written about a book called How to Do Nothing by Jenny Odell, which had helped get him into birdwatching. I thought maybe having Tsunaka get into birdwatching would be a way to give him something to do while also maybe offering a bit of a balm to the harms inflicted on him by capitalism, so I actually paused working on my fic to read How to Do Nothing to see if that would give me some ideas, and it ended up being way more thematically appropriate than I had even considered.

The book actually literally addressed basically the same impulse that drives A Missing Exhibition: the whole desire to leave the world.

Here's an excerpt from the book:

One reaction to all of this is to head for the hills—permanently. In the second chapter, I look at a few different people and groups who took this approach. The countercultural communes of the 1960s in particular have much to teach us about the challenges inherent in trying to extricate oneself completely from the fabric of a capitalist reality, as well as what was sometimes an ill-fated attempt to escape politics altogether. This is the beginning of an ongoing distinction I’ll make between 1) escaping “the world” (or even just other people) entirely and 2) remaining in place while escaping the framework of the attention economy and an over-reliance on a filtered public opinion.

So the birdwatching in the fic is basically literally a replacement for disappearing to another world. It both offers the characters a way to heal and also helps treat the root cause of their pain and help them live in this world.

On a more technical writing level, it was also a great boon to me because I realized I could use it to create settings that closely parallel settings relating to people disappearing (an abandoned house, the beach, etc.) but give the characters a different reason to be there.

Also, this is a VERY subtle/fine-grained point that I don't expect anyone else to pick up on, but Kashima and Tsunaka actually have fundamentally different understandings of/approaches to birdwatching. Tsunaka sort of has Jenny Odell's approach (he actually gets into it in a very similar way to her: she started out observing crows at her house), and Kashima is stuck in basically "pokemon collecting" mode, haha. I think it's tied to the fixation on collecting he had to develop when making the exhibition. So he still has a ways to go before he's able to find the kind of peace in it that Tsunaka has found.

I had planned from the start for Tsunaka's PTSD to be a big part of the story, but something I actually didn't realize while planning but realized during the process of writing was that Kashima actually has some secondhand PTSD/survivor's guilt as well from all those years he spent researching people's disappearances. And just as the birds help ground Tsunaka, they also help ground Kashima a bit in those moments.

I had to spend some time researching birds in Japan in order to write this, and because this fic has a very specific timeframe, I also had to make sure the birds would be actually viewable in the places the characters were during the months that the fic takes place, so I spent some time browsing databases and also looking at Japan in iNaturalist. I found out about the short-tailed albatross and immediately knew that I was going to have to feature it in some way.

At this point, the fic started to veer more ecology/conservation focused, but I asked myself "what would Omori do?" and concluded the answer was "put more politics in" fgkdjhg so I ended up just embracing it. Sure, I'll turn A Missing Exhibition into a gay romance with overt anti-capitalist/ecological themes, why not?

Regarding the actual creators of the actual exhibition, I had a bit of trouble trying to reconcile the canon of the kayfabe creator of the exhibition (Kashima) with the actual creators (primarily Nashi and Omori, though Kondo was involved as well), who were themselves sort of part of the kayfabe.

Nashi, for instance, shows up as an onscreen character (as himself) in the first video for A Missing Exhibition, and he even got mentioned at the beginning of 正体不明 and was thus intended to be canon in some way in that work. I don't think Omori ever showed up onscreen for this project, though he has appeared in his own works in the past and clearly doesn't mind reality and fiction being mixed in this manner.

Even still, I actually didn't plan on them showing up in the fic, haha. It happened for a few reasons, one being that there really are not very many characters in this work, so I needed someone else for Kashima to interact with, and also this was another moment where I asked myself "what would Omori do?" and the answer was obviously "put himself in the work".

In any case, I'm grateful to the real creators for making A Missing Exhibition, and for them being extremely kind and welcoming to me when I reached out as a random LGBTQ fan overseas for whom their work resonated with.

I'm glad I started to become familiar with their work through this project, and I hope one day that more of their stuff makes it into a format that's accessible to an English-speaking audience.

Oh, by the way, there will be a book (in Japanese) coming out soon for A Missing Exhibition, though no word yet on whether or not it'll contain any new canon for Kashima and Tsunaka, or if its focus will just be on the actual physical exhibition.

I think I'd actually prefer it if the book was just the 5k characters of text from the actual exhibition, plus photographs of all the exhibits, and if it mostly left the canon from 正体不明 untouched. At most, I think I'd like just a small easter egg, like a photo of Kashima and Tsunaka together in middle school or something like that.

Though it would be nice to get proper full names for them...

[getvalentined]

You hit the nail on the head with this, honestly, this is like 99.999% identical to my feelings on the guy. I'm gonna babble a bit under the cut—warning to any Angeal fans that I'm not going to be kind either. (You do you, though.)

I have an added issue, standing outside the entire FF7 storyline: so Angeal forces his own death (which he won't even do himself, presumably because his morals necessitate that his death is only honorable if he falls in battle) because he can't handle being a monster, right?

Uh. Fun fact, we have another character in the same series, who we know significantly better, who is just as much of a literal monster as Angeal—if not more—and who has never even implied that option came to mind at any point. Vincent may be a bit of a wet blanket about it, but in spite of being close friends with a literal godhand (Cloud) who has killed at least one manmade immortal demigod already (Sephiroth), the Hewley route is never on the table. Ever.

I just don't get how anyone can genuinely believe that Angeal was a good man with only the purest and most righteous of intentions, a man who did the only thing he could have done (and therefore the right thing), when we've literally seen a very similar story play out already in the same series that didn't end with Vincent intentionally traumatizing anyone else for the sake of his own ego.

It's not bad writing, mind you, I think it's a great juxtaposition between the bookends of the Compilation timeline, but I don't understand how anyone can step back and look at the entire story as we've seen it and come out with "Angeal was a pure and flawless hero who was given no other option."

We've had a monster in the main cast since 1997 and he's managed to not emotionally ruin the people that rely on him most. Angeal is a self-important, virtue-signaling trash bag with absolutely no regard for the feelings of anyone around him at any point in his storyline, and I wish people would stop acting like he's not.

Angeal always bothers me and idk how to word it!! Not sure your take on why or what you see with his character in general but I'd love to know bc this has been bothering me forever

so this got. a little more heated than i thought it would. sorry anon lmao

angeal stans this is your warning!! nice things are not said under the cut

so angeal exists in the narrative to be the dead mentor figure so we feel bad for zack and to infodump a little about his and genesis's pasts in the beginning so genesis gets a modicum of development as well. he also does some obligatory passing on of his legacy of soldier honor and morals to zack so zack has a clear model to follow and we as the audience can see his growth from somewhat careless and cocky to a little more serious and driven after angeal's death. on a deeper level, angeal also exists as a counterpoint to genesis's and sephiroth's respective models of heroism, where (simply put) angeal's is staying true to a code of honor to protect the people, genesis's is being recognized by the public for heroic deeds, and sephiroth's is manufactured success and perfection in performance

and like, crisis core shows that each of these models doesn't work. in the case of angeal, his rigid adherence to a code of honor to remain morally pure leads to his downfall. especially with the circumstances of his death-- like, death before dishonor is an incredibly strong concept in japanese culture, but it's pretty clear in cc that what angeal does in forcing zack's hand is somewhat backwards in logic. like, where was this revelation that he was hurting people back in the middle of the war with wutai where he was literally destroying people’s villages and livelihoods vs. now when the war is literally over and he isn’t actively hurting people?? but. whatever. sure, let's assume this was the turning point that finally made him realize what he’s done in the past

but even then he doesn't solve anything, he doesn't try to help anyone despite that being basically his motto, he just gives up because he himself doesn't fit into his strict worldview-- if he isn't the hero he thought he was, then he must be a monster, and he can't be tolerated to exist. angeal quite literally shatters under the weight of his morals

there's also the issue of the story from his childhood, which is supposed to show his character as honorable à la "honor can exist in unconventional ways" but. it fails to establish him as such imo. it's like, you're too proud to accept help so you're gonna steal from people instead? and not even the rich people because one of them is your friend?? like there's a difference between being honorable and being too proud, especially if part of your motto is to protect others. it feels like a weird blend of capitalist work ethic + robin hood-esque imagery while missing the part where robin hood didn't actually steal solely because he was poor, he stole because fuck rich people and so he could help other poor people. you know. by giving them the handouts angeal is apparently too proud to accept

he's just a huge hypocrite, which makes his lectures on honor and pride feel all the more sanctimonious. he tries so hard to keep the moral high ground that the moment he comes up against something that actually tests his self-perception, he just shrugs and goes "guess i'll die". i feel like that was the entire point of how crisis core wrote him, especially given the role the buster sword plays in symbolizing his honor (aka use it or lose it), but the overall fandom tends to treat him as objectively the best of the firsts, like this bitch didn't just nosedive into drama queen territory just as quickly as the other two. i think @ladylokiofmidgard put it best when she said he has the moral backbone of a chocolate éclair

like angeal is as bland as white bread but somehow manages to singlehandedly piss me off more than any other character in the compilation. i could go on more but this post is already too long as it is

anyways. angeal was wrong. the buster sword is a metaphor for his failure to uphold his own philosophies relative to the people who inherited it. fight me

[fairydares]

fuck it, new fic. let's do this.

(there's a 'keep reading' line so don't worry, this isn't too long.)

Title: Chasing Tails (AO3 Link) (Chapter 2) (Chapter 3)

Fandom: Fairy Tail

Rating: E (Explicit) because I'm almost positive there will be eventual smut. I'll be clearer about this as I actually decide what I'm going to write lol. Overarching Warning for Graphic Depictions of Violence.

Categories: 2nd gen fic; adventure, humor, romance, fluff, and angst in approximately that order. i guess.

Pairings: Nalu, Gruvia, Gajevy, Jerza, Miraxus+Fried (don't know what that ship's called sorry), Chendy, Sting/Yukino, Baccana-- next gen has pairings, too, but I don't want to reveal those yet.

Tags/TW's: The first chapter contains UFC/MMA-esque violence as well as some implied street violence. There may be more TW's I need to add later, but I honestly haven't written the whole story or decided everything, so that's all I can give you for now. I'll do my best to tag appropriately as I go.

Summary: It’s been almost 12 years since 17-year-old Layla O'Neil was found living alone on the streets and put in foster care, and she likes to think she’s done a pretty good job of forgetting the past. She doesn’t remember her birth family, the name “Nashi [*1] Dragneel,” or where she heard the absurd stories she told the police who found her. Stories about Wizard Guilds, flying cats, and–most cringey of all–her self-proclaimed status as a “Fire Dragon Slayer.”

But the past becomes pretty impossible to ignore when it confronts her in the form of some middle-aged, pink-haired stalker who won’t stop calling her the ridiculous name she’d nearly forgotten, and trying to convince her to come back to “Fairy Tale.”

Oh, and claiming to be her dad.

Like Layla doesn’t have enough problems! The last thing she needs is some delusional freak following around. Especially one who’s starting to make her want to take his hand…

Yep, this is a Second Gen (and therefore post-canon) fic. The idea took root and just would not let go. I’ll warn you ahead of time that the premise is somewhat dark. That said, I’m the kind of writer who likes (and tries to write) stories with sad beginnings, hopeful middles, and triumphant ends. I don't want to give too much away, but you shouldn't expect major character deaths or anything like that, though their may be some forms of lightly implied abuse.

Feel free to reblog, make your own additions with commentary, whatever. I'm quite lax with stuff like that. Hope this was comprehensive enough, and that you enjoy!

Chapter 1: Dragon-Slaying Aliens

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“That’s correct…a world that exists independently from the one we know. And, unfortunately, a world that’s begun losing its Magic…unlike here, in Edolas, Magic is a finite resource. Without limits on its use, it will one day disappear forever.” -from Episode 78, “Edolas”, (English dub, ~00:09), Carla’s line [*1]

------------------------------------------------------------------------------To say this mission had gone sideways was a big-ass understatement, and even Natsu had to admit it. 

It had started well enough. A relatively small mission. Not even S-Class! Puny wannabe Dark Guilds like the one Shirotsume needed dealt with–what was it called? Bony Jewel or something? Anyways, they were a dime a dozen, these days. Hell, Natsu was pretty sure he and Happy took out, like, a billion of them in the past seven years by pure accident. So how the hell was he supposed to know that this time, he’d get blasted to another world–one even Team Natsu hadn’t wound up in? 

And he was positive they’d never been here. He may have had a bad memory (something he’d begrudgingly been forced to actively acknowledge as he grew into a man) but he was sure he’d have remembered somewhere that made him feel this bad. It wasn’t just that he couldn’t use his Magic. If it had just been that, this might have been fun. Hell, a lot of the worlds Team Natsu had visited–even Edolas–had been fun.

This one sucked. 

If he hadn’t known better, he’d have thought he’d been transported to the future–one where FACE had been activated and all the Magic had been dissipated. Because it had felt, truly, like all the Magic was being sucked out of him. When he’d woken up on the forest floor, he’d felt as if he was dying. His lungs had burned with each breath (and not in the good way). His limbs had felt like lead when he tried to rise. 

He’d quickly realized that couldn’t be the case, though. Even if the Dragons hadn’t destroyed FACE, if all the Magic had been sucked from Earthland he’d have Magical Deficiency Syndrome. He’d either be down or in forced into his END form. 

He’d wandered around the small forest he’d woken up in alone, trying to focus through the stink and noise he was only capable of perceiving through what felt like about a hundred layers of thick blanket, and calling for his best friend as long as he could. It hadn’t been long before he gave up and left; Happy had never shouted back (something he considered fortunate, at this point; hopefully Happy was back in Earthland) his stomach was trying to eat itself, it was dark–and, worst of all–he still couldn’t use his Magic. At all.

Actually, scratch that: the absolute worst part was when a glance at his (as usual) bare shoulder showed him that his guild mark had vanished. It was just gone. So was his scarf, and so was his Mini Communication Lacrima. Obviously, his guild mark and scarf were bigger deals personally, but the Mini Comm was a bigger loss in immediate, practical terms. After That Day, seven years ago, Laxus–now Fairy Tail’s Master–had started putting Navigation Enchantments on everyone’s Comms so that anyone who went missing could be traced. There was a 3D map of Earthland and Edolas visually tracking everyone’s movements in the Master’s Office. It could even find them in Edolas. 

Now, Natsu’s was nowhere to be found. No one would be able to find him, wherever he was, and any hopes of contacting them were obviously dead in the water, too. 

He was gonna have to find his own way back, somehow. He only prayed his scarf was somehow back in Earthland, and that Happy had grabbed it for him. 

As he hobbled down the weird, too-neat walkway he’d found, he had to believe that whatever was preventing him from using his Magic was what kept him from sensing anything beyond the general–the stink, the sound, the pain, the hunger. Normally, with his better-than-normal resilience and enhanced strength, his pain would have mostly taken care of itself by now. Usually, making himself move helped. Now, it seemed to be making things worse. 

After finding the pathway, he’d kept shouting for his little buddy a whole bunch of times, but all he’d gotten were several loud verbal confrontations and one physical one. He’d expected to beat the massive brute towering next to the smaller woman beside him–and he had. But it hadn’t been as easy as he’d expected. His movements had been slower than normal. His limbs had felt like lead. His strength had been lesser. Every time he tried to call up his Magic, a wave of dizziness and lethargy had overcome him. It was like he’d feel the rushing up inside of him only to sputter to coldness at the last second; he hadn’t seen so much as a spark since he’d woken up. 

In the end, it was only experience and determination which had allowed him to level the much larger man, and hard-earned wisdom which had seen him running from the screeching woman and the gun-wielding, uniform-wearing soldiers her screeching had drawn. Yet the punch he’d taken to the nose had made it bleed and the kick to the thigh had made him limp. 

It wasn’t just that his Dragon senses had vanished, making him woozy, making it difficult to stand and excruciating to move. His strength was gone as well. Not even sealstone would have weakened him this much.

He’d wandered, now, for what felt like several hours. The number of Magical Vehicles around were astounding–astounding, and nauseating; just looking at them made Natsu want to vomit. The one good part of having an empty stomach was that he had nothing to give up. He meandered in a stupor, through unbelievably thick crowds, dodging Magic Vehicles and their honking, and glaring down anyone who yelled at him for not understanding something, occasionally barking back to scare them off.

He’d never been so disoriented, and the worst part was that deep down, he knew that there was no one to blame but himself. 

Lucy and Happy had asked him, point-blank, if the Quest he’d chosen had anything to do with his search for their long-lost daughter and kitten. 

It had. Of course it had. 

However, Natsu had denied it. Because if he hadn’t, he and Happy wouldn’t have been able to leave right then. Lucy would have forced him to bring someone else along; she was busy taking care of their son, Luke; the Perve-sicle was already out on his own mission/search for Juvia, and Erza was away, which meant he’d have had to ask someone outside Team Natsu. 

No thanks, he’d decided, covering up the fine print on the mission request with his fingers before holding it up to Lucy’s nose. 

Now, as he snarled at yet another person yelling at him for being in the way, Natsu was starting to consider the possibility that he just maybe should’ve been more upfront, and even that he should–perhaps–have waited for the stripper to get back before taking on Bony Jewel or whatever alone.

But how the hell was he supposed to have known it would end up like this?! It had been going fine–in fact, it had been going great! A couple opponents had offered a real challenge before their Master had shown up. Natsu had been laying down brick in that fight, too. Yet when the guy had been on his last legs, he’d whipped some creepy, sparkly rainbow skull from nowhere (now that he thought about it…that might have been what the Guild was named for!) and shot one last attack. One so big, Natsu had been unable to dodge–though, of course, he’d made to both block and finish the fight with an enormously powerful Fire Dragon Wing Attack. 

Based on his current predicament–he had to assume it hadn’t worked. Even though the skull had shattered in the heat of his flames at the last second, the blast had still hit him. His one consolation was that he was pretty sure his little buddy had heeded his final warning to get back. So he was almost definitely still back in Earthland.  

It had taken Natsu several pathetic attempts to stand. Getting here felt like a blur. Now, he had no idea what he was doing. What he should do. Their money had been in Happy’s knapsack, and without his precious nose, finding food was basically impossible anway. 

Man…Lucy’s gonna kill me, he grumbled internally, grunting at another group who shouted at him for bumping into him. 

Okay, yeah, maybe he should’ve been honest. Maybe he should’ve waited. But how could he do that when the lead was so good? When there was even the smallest chance he might finally find Nashi [*]? 

At the thought, his footsteps halted temporarily. He ducked his head, bangs shadowing his eyes. He balled his fists at his sides. The thought of the missing daughter he’d never stopped searching for never got easier to bear. 

It was the worst thing that could happen to a parent, to lose their child. Something he wouldn’t have wished on Fairy Tail’s most vicious, evil enemy. He and Lucy understood that too intimately. Still, he didn’t let himself get bogged down, not when it might hold him back, not when it might keep him from finding her. Seven years, she’d been gone. Her, Wendy–so many of their nakama and allies. Time had neither hindered nor halted his search for any of his missing comrades, but especially his little girl. She’d be twelve, now. He’d gotten better with birthdays and anniversaries when he married Lucy. He’d woken up and started crying on April 14th this year, the same as his wife. 

Still, even on that day, he’d spoken of her. When he was with Luke, Lucy, and Happy, he talked about it. He talked about how he’d find her and Harley–Happy and Carla’s kitten–how they’d be a family again. He spoke of the future to give it power, just like Igneel had taught him. Just like he’d taught his own kids. Wherever Nashi was, he was sure she must be doing the same; speaking of how she’d find them again, the same as he strove to find her. 

But he couldn’t continue his search (covert or not) until he got home. So getting home was definitely at the top of the to-do list. Right after eating. 

He kept walking.

Wherever he’d wound up was seedy, dark, yet strewn with lights that made paths across his newly-sucky eyes when he looked at them directly. Gross and smelly, too. The people he’d just bumped into started shouting back at him, something about bumping into someone’s girlfriend, and he huffed irritably. Normally, he’d never back down from a challenge like this, but believe it or not, he was too lost, confused, hungry, and tired to deal with another fight–not when the injuries he’d sustained from the previous one were still hurting this much. 

It was humiliating. He’d always been the type of person who refused to back down from a fight, no matter how outmatched he was. These days, a lot of fights were honestly pretty boring for him. Erza would always be scary, and Gray was admittedly pretty strong (if not badass enough to stand up to him, or so he would always insist). He could proudly admit to having achieved (at least) Gildarts-level strength without the clumsiness to make him dangerous. 

Now, he was balking out of fights with people who weren’t even using Magic. 

There was something viscerally terrifying about how much his injuries were troubling him. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t limp without worsening whatever injury that asshole had doled out on his knee. His nose felt bigger than his head. 

He stumbled on, brooding. 

The guy whose girlfriend he’d bumped into got louder, closer. Obviously, the freak wasn’t gonna let it go. Cursing, he started hobbling more quickly, turning the next corner. To his relief and curiosity, bright lights, loud voices, and a huge crowd–littered with food stands he might be able to beg food from–appeared. He made his way into the thick of it, ignoring the shouts behind him, and ducked and wove between people. It took him several seconds to realize he was still trying to find food by his nose, which barely even freaking worked. Frustrated, he turned his attention to the source of the light, which seemed to focus down on whatever sat in the middle of the crowd. 

Curiosity shoving past the numbness and hunger, Natsu pushed his way towards it. 

“Ow!” 

“Hey!” 

“Watch it, freak!” 

“Yeah, yeah,” Natsu grumbled. “Watch your damn selves!”

He still felt like shit, but the crowd was oddly invigorating. As he crashed through the thickest (front) lines of the crowd, more lights came on while the darkness behind him fell deeper. Natsu winced, blinking. It took him a few moments to register what he’d stumbled upon: a roundish sort of stage, elevated a few feet off the ground and bordered by some kind of chain-link cage thing. Two corners were open to be entered, but fended off  by some big dudes in black suits, holding back the crowd. 

“WELCOME, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN!” boomed a voice that came from everywhere and nowhere at once, making Natsu flinch again and the crowd start chattering loudly. 

Match? Natsu wondered despite his disorientation and exhaustion, thinking of the Grand Magic Games. He shoved aside every stranger who tried to take his place at the front of the audience, looking around with wide, curious eyes, shoving his gnawing stomach to the backburner.

“FIGHT FANS! ARE YOU REAAAADDDDYYYYY??!!! ” 

Fight? Natsu thought, perking up, conveniently forgetting his injuries in a burst of excitement. Several people started chattering at the crack of the loud voice that was everywhere and nowhere, making Natsu look around even more fervently. 

“BECAUSE THIS LONG-WAITED MATCH-UP IS… ABOUT…TO…BEGINNNN!!!”

The cheering got louder, the shoving got more aggressive, and Natsu got more aggressive right along with it. He’d be damned if he was going to miss a good fight. Besides. He needed to see what the Magic here was like. He was being smart. So ha! How about that, Lucy?!

“INTRODUCING: OUR FIRST FIGHTER!” the voice shouted while Natsu continued to elbow and shove, anticipation rising. Music rang out, a dude’s loud, snarly voice backed up by a bunch of deep bangs and booms which had Natsu trying to decide if what he was listening to was awesome or fucking awful–nope, definitely fucking awful. For the first time, he was glad he couldn’t hear properly since he got here. 

A light flashed at one corner, drawing his eye. “UNLIKE HIS OPPONENT, THIS FIGHTER IS WELL-ESTABLISHED IN THE SEMI-UNDERGROUND OCTAGON! HAD HIS PERFORMANCES BEEN FORMALLY JUDGED WHILE THE UNDERGROUND WAS STILL ACTIVE, HE WOULD LIKELY HAVE LONG-BEEN PERMANENTLY DISQUALIFIED! YET, IN SPITE OF A CONTROVERSIAL CAREER, HE HAS REMAINED A STAPLE OF THE SEMI-OCTAGON FIGHTING WORLD FOR TWO YEARS!”

“Er, feels kinda harsh?” Natsu muttered to himself, sweating slightly. Though he didn’t really get what “controversial career” meant. 

“WHILE THIS IS NOT FOR THE CHAMPIONSHIP TITLE, DUE TO HIS HISTORY, MANY WILL NO DOUBT VIEW HIM AS REIGNING CHAMP AND DEFENDER! INNNNTTRRROOODUUUCCCINNNG… ‘MAD BULL’ MATTHEW BRON!” 

A door Natsu hadn’t even seen was slammed open as if it had been kicked, and an enormous man–even bigger than the one that had managed to tag Natsu just a little bit ago, a man built like that potato head guy from Lamia Scale, and actually bearing a similar-shaped bald head–appeared, yanking off headphones and chucking them over his massive shoulder one of the lackeys who’d followed him out. The much shorter guy jumped, barely catching them and fumbling a lot once he had. “Mad Cow” or whatever grinned maniacally as he stormed for the ring, dark eyes wild.

The response from the crowd was mixed but mostly positive, Natsu quickly noticed as he glanced around. His eyes skated quickly over the group next to him (which was booing, unlike most of the crowd) then returned his focus to the stage-circle thing. He could see well enough, he was glad to note, even if his vision was nowhere near as sharp as it was back on Earthland. Big Guy took his place at the corner of the ring and immediately started pacing, lifting tree-like arms and roaring as he did so. Meanwhile his lackey scurried for the bit of protected corner behind him, trying to shout for his attention and getting nowhere as he continued to pace. 

Natsu quickly decided he didn’t like the looks of this guy, intro aside. He was the type of asshole Natsu lived to knock down a peg, and despite his injuries and exhaustion, Natsu found himself appraising the big bastard, hands twitching. Sure, he wasn’t in the best shape, but since when had he been one to turn down the chance to kick some ass? It was more a reflex than anything. For about the billionth time since he’d landed here, he tried conjuring up some fire only to curse internally as all he got for his efforts was a wave of dizziness and a wash of helplessness. 

“NOW FOR OUR CONTENDER,” the voice boomed. “SHE’D ONLY BARELY ENTERED THE UNDERGROUND BEFORE IT BECAME THE SEMI-UNDER, BUT WAS ALREADY MAKING WAVES! THIS FIGHTER HAS SPARKED INTENSE DEBATE ABOUT WHETHER WOMEN SHOULD BE ALLOWED TO FIGHT MEN–IN ANY OCTAGON!” More mixed din. Natsu frowned in confusion. Was it for the other fighters’ safety or something? Because someone should ban Erza from contributing to the guild hall violence. Oh, yes. That was a great idea. He’d have to bring the idea up to Gray when he got home. 

“BUT IT’S DIFFICULT TO ARGUE WITH HER HANDY VICTORIES!” the voice boomed. “THANKS TO HER NEARLY-UNBROKEN STREAK OF INSANE WINS, SHE HAS BEEN NICKNAMED THE THE ‘PHOENIX’, ‘UNDERDOG’, ‘TENMEN’...AND HER PREFERRED NICKNAME…” 

A new song started, and this one was undeniably cool, in Natsu’s opinion. Something hard, fast, and catchy, punctuated by an angry-sounding woman singing something about “not giving a damn” about something or other. The door at the opposite end of the ring swung open. A girl came swaggering out, and Natsu froze.

“THE DRAGONESS, LAYLAAAAA O'NEEEILLLLL!!!!”  

It wasn’t his daughter. It couldn’t be. Her name wasn’t Layla. Her name was Nashi. His Nashi would be twelve, and this girl was in her late teens–maybe even her early twenties. The fact that her fighting nickname was “The Dragoness” was a nasty coincidence, but that’s all it was. This couldn’t be Earthland’s Nashi.

But it was this world’s Nashi. Of that, there was no doubt. And Natsu couldn’t make himself take his eyes off her, couldn’t even make himself blink as he stared, ignoring the cheering and booing all around him. 

A couple strands of unruly pink hair at her bangs had broken free of their tight braids, as adorable and predictably unpredictable as his little girl’s. They clung to her forehead, bouncing as she strutted towards the monster still pacing, practically frothing at the mouth, and Natsu vaguely registered the sound of several peoples’ alarmed murmuring. If he hadn’t been so distracted, he’d have understood; she was about half the guy’s size and about -50% as insane-looking.

Not scared, though. 

And…she looked like Lucy. She looked so much like Lucy that it hurt. He could still remember times when he’d call his little girl’s name, she’d turn around, and he’d gasp–because it really was like an adorable, wild little pink-haired Lucy turning to look up at him, her whole face lighting up like he was the greatest thing in Earthland. The memory choked him up, a feeling he’d gotten used to over the past seven years. He swallowed hard.

But that wasn’t Lucy’s smile. Natsu felt like he had seen that smile somewhere but he wasn’t particularly interested in thinking about it all that deeply, because what mattered was that it was her smile, his little girl’s, big and toothy and unmistakable–a little lopsided, the corners of her lips characteristically curling. 

It hit his chest like a shot from Zeref, making him briefly clutch at his waistcoat’s dirtied fabric. 

Natsu knew, firsthand, just how similar other worlds’ versions of his loved ones could be to his. Hell, Edolas Lucy had chopped off her hair to make it a little easier to distinguish herself from Earthland Lucy. 

That didn’t make it hurt any less to suddenly see another world’s Nashi– Layla, this one was called. That was Nashi’s middle name. It made sense, when you thought about it. Names were one thing that seemed to sometimes differ slightly between worlds, as he’d learned on the 100-Year-Quest [*3]. Her canines were sorta sharp, maybe, but they weren’t Dragon Slayer sharp, like his and daughter’s. Besides. Edo Nashi and Fireball’s canines were a tiny bit sharper than normal, too. 

It couldn’t be her. It couldn’t be. Looking at her still felt like being punched in the chest by Erza. Yet he couldn’t stop watching as the music, cheers, and boos faded, she stripped off her sweats (to much catcalling and whistling) to reveal a black sports bra/shorts getup sort of like “Mad Bull’s” shorts, revealing a body packed with much more muscle than any of Fairy Tail’s women would’ve allowed themselves to accumulate. She looked pretty badass, he decided. 

The voice that was everywhere and nowhere boomed on:

“NOT ONLY A CHANCE AT THE UPCOMING TITLE ON THE LINE, BUT–POTENTIALLY–THE FUTURE OF MIXED SEMI-UNDERS. TWO CHALLENGERS, SQUARING OFF FOR A CHANCE AT THE SEMI-FINALS. THIS IS A GIGANTIC CULTURAL MOMENT IN THE HISTORY OF THIS SPORT… ‘MAD BULL’ MATTHEW BRON VS. THE ‘DRAGONESS’ LAYLA O'NEIL!” 

“‘Dragoness’ is fucking right!” Mad Cow or whatever roared while he hugged one arm across his chest, grinning ferally at his much smaller opponent. “Here hoping some man will look at you, fugly?!” 

Several people in the audience laughed. Even the announcer chuckled. Meanwhile, Natsu’s blood boiled. On some level, he knew he needed to separate himself from this. From this fight, from this “Nashi.” Especially when he was this powerless to do anything about any of it. But it was impossible to listen to someone say that to another version of his daughter and not have every protective instinct in his body flare, especially when the spectators apparently thought it was fucking hilarious.

However, her grin didn’t even flicker. “Like you’re one to talk!” she cackled. “You look like Popeye fucked Bigfoot!”

Natsu didn’t flinch at the language like many people in the audience seemed to. In fact, he found the disapproving murmurs confusing. The other guy hadn’t exactly been polite, but he hadn’t gotten the same reaction. Still, a solid number of people were laughing their asses off, including the group next to him which had booed Mad Cow. 

He also had no clue what the hell she’d just said even meant, but the way Mad Cow’s smile dropped off his face, a handful of people started howling with laughter, and the commentator’s chuckles cut off abruptly was enough to make Natsu grin. 

Some random guy in some sort of black, collared uniform entered the arena, signaling to the loud, annoying commentator. Unlike her opponent, no one had followed This Nashi into the arena; she was all alone. So she ran back to her own bit of protected yet empty corner and threw her clothes and a water bottle over the chainlink fence, then ran back towards the middle of the arena. There, she  hopped up and down, shaking out her arms. Stretched them above her head. 

“OUCH!” The commentator finally seemed to recover, though he sounded somewhat vexed. “WELL, ONE THING’S FOR SURE, THE CHALLENGER CAN TALK GAME…WHETHER SHE CAN LIVE UP TO IT IS ANOTHER QUESTION.” 

“God, I fucking hate when Hansis commentates,” the guy next to Natsu muttered, his friends snorting in agreement. Then he glanced at Natsu–only to double take. “Oi, are you related to the Dragoness or something?!” he asked, eyes on his hair. 

“Uhhh…” Natsu chuckled nervously, feeling himself start to sweat. He may have been what Erza would (and frequently did ) call an “impulsive idiot”, but he had no clue how to explain that he was the father of her other self. “Something like that.”

“Whoa, seriously?!” The guy’s friend leaned around him to look at Natsu with wide, shining eyes, then continued, “I won’t ask anymore, ‘cause obviously you’re trying to protect your identities or something, but that’s so cool! We’re huge fans!” 

“Hmm…” Natsu said, scanning their apparel–t-shirts and hats emblazoned with her face and silhouette–and what looked like homemade signs of her name, written in fiery letters. “I can see that…what is this, exactly?” He asked this while looking around at the lights, spectators, an unfamiliar kind of money being exchanged and counted between several people.

Natsu tilted his head, blinking. “No?” he said. 

“The semi-underground tournament?” the only girl in the group said, eyes almost as wide as her friend’s. When Natsu only continued to look confused, she said, “What, do you live under a rock?! You’ve at least heard of MMA, right? Mixed Martial Arts?” 

He perked up at this. “Like a fight?! Hell, yeah! How do I get in on this?!” He grinned, cracking his knuckles, his earlier scuffles and empty stomach completely forgotten. 

“YOU DON’T!” the entire group shouted, eyes bugging. 

The dude who’d first started talking to him huffed, sweating slightly. “The ‘semi-underground’ octagon used to just be called ‘the underground fights,’” he explained loudly, Natsu still having to lean in to catch what he said with his new, bad ears over the increasingly excited din. “It was illegal, but, like, illegal in the ‘everyone knows but won’t squeal’ way, you know?” 

Natsu nodded, fully getting this. After all, how many times had soldiers arrested him only for Queen Hisui to let him off with a finger-wag. Of course, his luck on that front had run out seven years ago…

“The feds finally cracked down on it,” the guy continued, “but didn’t prosecute any of the fighters. Now, it’s called the ‘Semi-Underground’...it’s got no weight-classes (which is why the Dragoness can fight big dudes like Mad Bull). All genders are free to compete and fight each other. It’s a bit more for entertainment than pure fighting prowess– that was different, before,” the guy added with a wistful tone. “But still! You can’t just go waltzing into the octagon, you know? Back in the basement where this used to happen, you could’ve gotten away with that, but now you’ve gotta work for it, you know? Seriously, do you live under a rock or something?” 

Irritated, Natsu opened his mouth, but his response was cut off when a loud voice–not as loud as the announcer, but still–redrew all their attention to the ring. “Alright, fighters,” the black-collar guy said into a microphone which was smaller and not as loud as the commentator’s, quieting the audience. “We’ve been over the rules. Protect yourself at all times. Follow my instructions. We’re going to have a clean fight, you hear me?” He glared at Mad Bull, but This Nashi was the only one who dipped her chin in recognition. Natsu’s eyes narrowed along with hers when her opponent refused to acknowledge the guy’s words. “Now, touch gloves at this time, and come out ready to do this!” 

Both fighters instantly danced away from each other. Black collar guy scowled. Both the commentator and the audience made sounds like “ OOOOOOOH!” 

“NO TOUCH!” came the commentator’s gleeful voice, “I REPEAT, NEITHER FIGHTER TOUCHED GLOVES, AND SO FAR, NEITHER ARE REALLY MOVING FOR EACH OTHER–” 

“SAY YOU’RE PRAYERS, BITCH!” Mad Cow roared. “YOU’RE DEAD MEAT!” 

“BRING IT!” This Nashi roared back, and Mad Cow lunged, swinging in immediately with a big, dramatic overhand hook that would have knocked her out immediately if she hadn’t skated out of its way. It took about three similar exchanges for Natsu to sag in disappointment. 

“Oi!” he shouted, utterly let down, “Where the hell’s the magic?!” 

“Geez!” the guy next to him laughed. “The fight’s only just started: give them a minute to warm up! Then we’ll get to see the cool stuff.”

“What, they’re not allowed to use it at first or something?” Natsu asked, still staring as This Nashi fended off huge, devastating blows raining down from above and leapt back from the powerful kicks, eyes narrowed and expression tight. 

“...Er, what?” the guy asked. 

“Magic–duh!” Natsu huffed, flickering wide eyes between the guy and This Nashi, who was now darting backwards around the round-ish ring, still fending Mad Cow off, weaving and ducking with a speed few could hope to match. “You know?! Fire, Ice, Celestial Magic…?

The guy stared at him for a second along with his companions, all of whom were also sweating. It was then that Natsu knew: 

Something more was going on here. Something he didn’t understand. This place…wherever he was, it was like Edolas. Not now, but back when he, Lucy, and the others had gone there. Magic didn’t just not exist, here; was some kind of… taboo on it.

“Oh, sorry,” he chuckled, rubbing the back of his head. Trying to keep his voice as quiet as he could over the crowd, he continued, “I didn’t mean to say something that would get you in trouble...” 

The group’s only response was to sidle away from him surreptitiously, glancing at him and sharing looks with wide eyes. Natsu was thrown for a loop once more. Ooo- kay, talk about overly-suspicious. Were there guards listening in on their conversation or something? As discreetly as possible, with his hand still at the back of his head, he looked around, eyes narrowed. 

Yet…he saw nothing to warrant their suspicion. An unruly crowd…and an astonishing lack of guards. At the Grand Magic Games, there’d always been a ton of guards. Way more than he wanted to be there, honestly. Did this have something to do with the whole “underground” thing? 

He looked at the group again, then realized something important: it was him they were looking at nervously. Nervously, and like…he was crazy or something. 

It had taken time, but the years had made Natsu wiser–cooler–about situations like this. Even as his stomach sank with the realization that getting home was going to be a much harder task than he’d initially realized, he acknowledged that he’d need to be careful about mentioning Magic here. Dropping his hand, he forced a small smile at them then turned his attention back to the arena, where Mad Cow continued to chase This Nashi around the edge of the arena. Meanwhile, his mind continued to reel, loud to himself and no one else. 

“–IT’S ONLY A MATTER OF TIME BEFORE SHE’S CAUGHT IN A CLINCH, HERE, AND THEN OUR NIGHT WILL BE OVER!” the commentator was blaring. It was sort of surprising, how easily he’d been able to tune out when Natsu’s ears were registering so little. “I HATE TO SAY IT–” (Based on the glee in his tone, Natsu doubted that.) “–BUT HOWEVER MUCH OF AN EXTRAORDINARY FIGHTER SHE IS, SHE’S STILL A FEMALE FIGHTER. HER OPPONENT HAS WELL OVER A HUNDRED POUNDS ON HER [*4]. AND, AGAIN, I HATE TO SAY THIS–BUT THERE ARE JUST PHYSICAL BARRIERS NO CHICK FIGHTER WILL EVER BE ABLE TO OVERCOME! RIGHT NOW, THIS IS A DOG FIGHT, AND NOT ONE SHE CAN KEEP SCRAPPING IN! SHE’S NOT GOING TO COME OUT AS THE ‘UNDERDOG,’ THIS TIME–”

“Man, she’s getting her ass beat!” someone from the group broke the awkward silence as This Nashi was swept aside by a blow that caught the guard at her ear. 

“Maybe she’ll make a comeback!” another guy said, tremulous but hopeful, as a log-like shin crashed into her stomach. 

“She definitely will!” the guy who’d first spoken to Natsu said, though there was a distant note of doubt in his voice as she barely reeled from an arrow-fast straight right. 

Despite the awkwardness of their last interaction, Natsu couldn’t help appreciating these people, who were so devoted to this world’s Nashi. He decided to end their night more positively. “Is that what you think?” he asked in a somewhat bored tone, eyes on the girl still gliding backwards, dancing away from the hits and kicks or else blocking them. He felt, rather than saw, the group’s eyes jumping to him, some of them quickly leaping away only to dart back. 

“What do you mean?” the first guy ventured when he said nothing else, edging a little closer once more.

Natsu crossed his arms over his broad chest, eyes thinning as Big Boy brought down a hailstorm of fists on This Nashi’s head. His eyes tracked the way a particularly big hit caught her forearm–but only barely, seeing as she’d slid out of the enormous range even as she blocked. Just like he’d thought…

His stomach churned uncomfortably. It was eerie and cruel, how much her movements and the memories aligned–

“OUCH! That hurt, Daddy!” After the exclamation, Nashi began grumbling, vigorously rubbing her forearm where his fist had just him. 

“Woops!” Natsu chuckled sheepishly, “My bad!” 

Despite the fact that she was still rubbing the arm he’d tapped with a light hit, the little girl who barely came up above his knees scowled. 

It was midday, now. In their front lawn; his and Happy’s house, now much larger with the rooms he’d added for Lucy and their kids. 

“But–” He grew serious. “–you think your enemies will take it easy on you, Nashi? You think they’ll give you a break because you say ‘ouch’?” 

She dropped her arms to her sides and scowled–pouted, really. She was so cute, he couldn’t have kept his lips from quirking into a grin if he tried. Strutting forward, he planted a hand on top of her head, rubbing the unruly locks. He only grinned wider when she turned her scowl/pout up to him. “Sorry, kiddo, but they won’t!” 

Lucy would have lost her mind, if she saw the interaction. Natsu could just hear her now: “NATSU, WHAT’S WRONG WITH YOU?! SHE’S FIVE! BE CAREFUL, WOULD YOU? BLAH BLAH BLURGH BLAH– !” 

He never really got Lucy, when she acted like that. Nashi was a Dragon Slayer, like him. She could take much more than a normal human, but would never learn that she could if he didn’t show her! Not to mention that Igneel had been way tougher on him, when he was five. Besides, he didn’t want his kid to be some weakling! What father did want that? 

Not any good ones, that was for sure. Especially not when their kids had Nashi’s determination and drive. 

“I’m sorry I hurt you,” he apologized again, still rubbing her head affectionately. “But you’ve got to understand…if I hurt you, it’s because I know your enemies will hurt you the same way…I don’t want it to surprise you. I want you to be able to fight back, still. You do still want to be a big-time Dragon Slayer, don’t you?” 

She stared up at him dubiously, but the smile caught on quick. She’d never been able to resist smiling back at him. 

“...Yeah,” she admitted finally, feigning reluctance. 

He lifted his hand off her head, cupping it around his ear and leaning down towards her. “What was that?!” he shouted. “I couldn’t hear you…what was it you want?!” 

“I–pfft–I WANT–” Her small smile turned to a grin–the big, corner-curled grin only his daughter ever could or would achieve. The one that always melted his heart. 

“I WANNA BE A DRAGON SLAYER!” she managed to roar through her grin. “NO–I MEAN, I WANNA BE THE STRONGEST DRAGON SLAYER EVER!” 

“HELL YEAH, YOU DO!” he roared back, the pride managing to make his chest burst even as he squared up again, preparing for more training. An adrenaline only teaching one’s prodigy could spark electrocuted his system. “IF THAT’S REALLY TRUE, THEN COME ON, NASHI! YOU’VE GOT MORE IN YOU! I KNOW YOU DO!” 

“OH YEAH? WELL I DO! I GOT WAY MORE IN ME!” She dropped into the stance he’d taught her, grinning for everything she was worth. The sun illuminated her smile. 

He somehow managed to grin even more widely. “Right, then listen up!” he commanded. “When Dragon Slayers fight, they got one big advantage: they can take a whole bunch of hits–then still get up. So that’s exactly what you’re gonna do.” 

“...Huh?!” The little girl’s eyes bulged out of her head. “You’re sayin’ I’m gonna let myself get hit?!” 

“Well, not too hard,” he elaborated. “And not too much…you’re just gonna play defense for a while, see?” He moved for her, throwing a fist much more slowly than he normally would have. Automatically, she wove away, eyes wide on his face. His right fist was followed by his left, then a kick–all too sluggish to be real. She easily moved around and blocked all of them. “This way,” he continued, throwing another kick. “You can learn the guy you’re fighting, how step, how they breathe…” 

“How they step…how they breathe…” she repeated to herself in a murmur, eyes flickering all over his body as he continued to pantomime a real fight. Natsu couldn’t help but grin. Nashi was a distractible kid, but when it came to fighting, she was always on the ball.

Natsu didn’t mind one bit when Lucy blamed him for that. 

“...how they fight,” he finished. 

“...how they fight!” she whispered. 

He started speeding up his movements. Let her orient before he lit up his fists. She mirrored him, flames igniting her much smaller fists. Their dance became even faster “That’s it, Nashi!” he praised as she leapt back from a kick, only letting it clip her shoulder. “Get into the flow of it! Read my movements! Remember, breathe, and–” 

“She’s reading him,” he murmured, voice softer than he’d meant it to be. “Fending him off and waiting for the right moment; his hits are only clipping her.” His hunger was catching up with him again, as was his pain. He ached. He wanted to sleep. And…

…It hurt. It hurt too much. Knowing it wasn’t his Nashi…that just made it hurt more. Each hit, each block, each flash of those brown eyes…they felt like shards of glass piercing his heart.

I can’t stay here, he realized. 

“What was that?” the girl in the group asked, venturing closer to him. 

His heart was heavy, sinking as he watched the girl. Embarrassment washed over him as he realized that had been a stupid thing to say in the first place. This wasn’t his Nashi. She wasn’t using what he’d taught her because he hadn’t been the one to train her. Hell, she probably wasn’t even gauging her opponents’ movements; she was probably fighting for her life, here. 

She would lose. 

“Nothin’,” he replied thickly, dropping his arms even as he watched the girl roll away from a rather impressive and extremely long-ranged crescent kick, not even the man’s big toe catching her at all. “I was wrong…enjoy the rest of the fight, guys.” He used the ensuing beat of silence to stare–for just one more second–at the girl. This world’s version of his girl. 

Without thinking, he went to heft up his backpack, only to sigh in quiet defeat–the exhale almost visible even in the warm air–as he remembered it wasn’t there; he was just a weakling in this world. That’s why his back (and whole body) felt so heavy. 

“Oh, you’re leaving?” the first guy who’d spoken to him said as he turned away, pushing back through the crowd. His tone was an odd mixture of relieved and disappointed. Natsu said nothing, merely waving. 

Overhead, the booming voice–which he’d tuned out during the competition–continued to sound off. “–AN ADMITTEDLY UNBELIEVABLE DODGE, BY ,” it said, clearly shocked, as Natsu pushed past a woman who was obviously excited to be moving closer to the arena. “BUT THE NEXT FLURRY OF BLOWS LANDS, ALTHOUGH IT APPEARS SHE’S BLOCKED MOST OF THEM–” 

“YOU’RE DONE, BITCH!” roared Mad Cow, so loud that he managed to drown out the commentator–who went silent, anyway. This made Natsu pause, his brows knitting with fury. 

It doesn’t matter, he reminded himself. She’s not your daughter. He refused to look back, forced himself to take another step, then another. She’s just some fighter from another world who’s, apparently, out of her league. She’s not–

A loud slam, like a body falling on a mat. “SHE’S DOWN! I REPEAT, ’S DOWN!” 

Natsu smirked. “See, dumbass?” he murmured to himself. 

“IT’S ALL OVER, FOLKS! SHE’S–” 

All of a sudden, a fleshy CRACK rang through the air, followed by an enormous chorus of gasps and cries of surprise from the crowd. A deafening silence ensued. 

“... HOLY– UNBELIEVABLE!” the commentator managed. “A KICK FROM THE GROUND–AND O’NEIL'S BACK ON HER FEET! THEY’VE GAINED GROUND FROM EACH OTHER, AND MAD BULL–MAD BULL IS NOW TRYING TO RECOVER!”  

Despite himself, Natsu slowed even as he urged himself to keep walking. Even as he continued to force himself not to turn back. Looking back is only a distraction. It’s not Nashi. That is not Nashi. It’s not–

“Man, I really hate guys like you, you know that?” 

The seething voice was what made him stop, closing his eyes. There was just…something about it. A growl. A fire. Something that punched right back into his memories:

“Remember, breathe, and keep your eyes on my chest! That way, you can see my whole body at the corners of your eyes!” A combo, one which he pumped more speed and power to than before–throwing her off on purpose. 

“Oof!” she grunted as she landed on her butt. 

“There, when you fall– that’s when you make your comeback! Now that you’ve watched your opponent, and tricked him into thinking you’re down– now is when you get back up and blow them away! That’s how a Dragon Slayer fights! That’s how a Fairy Tail Wizard fights!” She stared up at him with huge eyes, shining with admiration, and flushed cheeks. 

He grinned. 

“So?! Get up! Always get back up, Nashi! I’m not asking the impossible of you–you can do this! I know you can!” 

“I–I will!” she scrambled to her feet, fists blazing with gold heat as she lunged for him. “I’ll always get back up! No matter what, I’ll–” 

His chest seized. He clenched his jaw, knowing he needed to make himself keep walking, but unable to do it. Even as people churned around him, trying to push past him, he found himself shoving them off, refusing to move from exactly where he was. One foot planted in front of the other. Half-hovering. Eyes still closed. 

Whatever just happened had quieted the crowd, an anticipatory sort of silence that made him clench his fists, eyes still closed. 

And then, Natsu’s world flipped upside down: 

“You didn’t even bother to study my previous fights, did you?” Her growl carried across the hushed crowd. “Tch, typical…if you had, you’d know: You’d know I always get back up!” 

His eyes flew open. 

He whirled back around and watched, wide-eyed and world rocking, as the pink haired girl rose. Rolled her shoulders against her ears, one at a time. The grin was gone, a heavy, intimidating scowl having taken its place as she recovered, getting her feet back underneath herself, her stance back in place. Her nose was wrinkled in fury. Her eyes burned. 

Natsu’s lips parted on a gasp as he stared. 

Mad Cow scoffed, hunched and rubbing his chin with a hand like a mitt. Natsu guessed that This Nashi must’ve caught him there–probably with a kick, given the size difference. That must have been what made the crowd react with shock. They were recovering now, though, getting louder.

“And why the fuck would I bother to do that?!” Mad Cow shouted, dropping his hand. “I don’t need to! Every guy you’ve faced could’ve beaten you easily if they’d quit acting like even more of a little bitch than you! You shouldn’t fucking be here anyway…fucking birds, knowing dudes will take it easy on you so you can take advantage of it and collect the reward…well I’M NOT ONE OF THEM!” He roared the last part. The bitter fury in his voice was a kind Natsu was familiar with. 

“Studying what you can find of your opponent’s fighting style–that’s basic! And you wanna sit here and bitch about how I don’t deserve to be here, you lumpy-headed fuck?! ” 

“The FUCK you just call me?!” McCow snarled back. 

“YOU HEARD ME, SHITWIT!” 

“THAT’S IT!” the man shouted. “I’ve had it! I was gonna take it easy on you, but–” 

“THAT’S MY LINE!” 

It seemed that was both their limit. 

They flew at each other. But now, everything was different, and Natsu doubted that anyone without a trained eye and fighting experience like him could recognize it. 

Apparently, the commentator was one such person: “THIS IS–THIS IS INCREDIBLE!” the voice boomed, full of disbelief, as the girl caught the fist rocketing towards her face with a hard elbow, making Mad Cow let out a roar of pain. She kicked away an arm flying towards her head, and launched a sidekick at his now-uncovered stomach–one that landed hard. She built on the damage, bearing down on him as he stumbled backwards, tripping over his own heels. A right roundhouse followed by a left to his head. Despite the fact he was obviously disorientated, he caught the first one– blocked it and tried, unsuccessfully to catch her foot–but not the second, which cracked into his ear and made him stagger, her chasing him and hammering him with surprisingly powerful blows. Each one of her hits accumulated speed and strength.

The commentator picked up again, saying something or other about “striking machines”, but Natsu didn’t hear. His eyes were wide, now, and glued to the girl cracking her shin into her opponent’s nose, teeth bared. The expression on her face…the fire in her eyes…the speed of her hits…her fighting style…it was like he’d begun watching the fight currently happening through one eye and a stream of memories through the other, his breath going still in his lungs–

“–No matter what, I’ll always get back up!” screamed the little girl, running forward and hammering him with fiery strikes, kicks, and even elbows. They’d only just started elbow work. Natsu staggered back with each good combo she landed. He put in the effort to make it look convincing, pride swelling within his chest. 

“That’s it! Build on it! Faster…harder! C’mon!”  

This Nashi slipped underneath and into one of Mad Cow’s big overhand hooks, the corrected trajectory of his fist barely skidding over her shoulder as her right fist tore up, slamming into his chin. Even as his eyes rolled and he staggered backwards, her expression was so mutinous it was almost funny. 

But as good as the uppercut was, it turned out to be a set-up: 

“LOOK AT THIS COMBO…CROSS, HOOK–WHOA! AN ABSOLUTELY DEVASTATING LEG KICK! CLASSIC MUAY THAI-INSPIRED COMBO FROM TURNING–” 

“FUCKING BITCH–!” Mad Cow roared, but his opponent cut him off with a voice like thunder. 

“I’M THE BADDEST BITCH YOU’VE EVER MET!” 

“I’LL ALWAYS GET BACK UP! I WILL! I’M GONNA BE A GREAT DRAGON SLAYER, JUST LIKE YOU! NO–I’LL EVEN BEAT YOU, ONE DAY!” Nashi took a deep breath, and Natsu grinned, allowing the pause in the fight, because he knew what was coming. The catchphrase both like his and not. Inspired by him, but all her own. 

Her fists blazed brighter than ever. The sun illuminated her grin.“JUST WATCH ME, DADDY! DON’T EVEN BLINK! BECAUSE I’VE–” 

“–GOT A FIRE IN ME THAT YOU’LL NEVER PUT OUT!”

Mad Cow’s eyes were wild with fear as he desperately swung for another, big lead cross–one which spelled his downfall. The Dragoness leapt off her left leg–her back leg. Her right shin cracked into his already dipping head. 

He fell forward and bounced off the mat, limp as a ragdoll, while the audience screamed all around him. 

Even as the giant fell still, she made for his prone form, fist raised, but didn’t fight at all when the black-collared man appeared seemingly from nowhere, grabbed her around the waist, and practically threw her away. Instead, This Nashi– The Nashi skipped backwards, smirking, and raised a wrapped fist. 

And that was the realization which thundered through Natsu, now gaping up at the victorious, pink-haired fighter stalking towards the edge of the cage: not This Nashi. The Nashi. 

After seven, grief-filled years, Natsu Dragneel was absolutely sure he had just found his daughter.

*1. Yes, there will be quotes from the original series (the anime dub, sub, or the manga depending on whichever version I like best) at the beginning of each chapter. HOWEVER. The quotes are not spoilers and are often only tangentially related to my plotline. The one for this chapter, for instance, is specifically about Edolas, but is not actually true of the world where Natsu has landed.

*2. Yes, I know the canon Edolas Nalu child is “Nasha.” I decided on “Nashi”, instead, for reasons which will be explained later.

*3. Sorry in advance, but I pretty much kept what little I remembered/liked from 100YQ and ditched everything I didn’t. Same with the original story, but way more with 100YQ. Idk what it is but even though I’ve read the whole thing, 100YQ has this unique quality where a lot of what happens slips straight out of my mind as soon as I’ve read it. In one eye, out the other. So you’ll just have to roll with me, sorry.

*4. Real-life inspiration for Layla (/Nashi) comes mostly from Ronda Rousey, whose biography I read and happen to have on hand, along with Kaoklai Kaennorsing (especially his fighting style). Those are the two main ones. If you’ve read My Fight, Your Fight, you’ll understand how Layla (/Nashi’s) personality is inspired by her–especially as you go on. I highly recommend looking up the Thai kickboxer/Muay Thai fighter Kaoklai Kaennorsing. He has been called the Giant-Slayer because he did, in fact, defeat opponents who had over 100 pounds on him. Watching his fights is just an incredible experience. Other inspirations include Rose Namajunas, Connor McGregor, and some others. There are also several fictional inspirations including and outside Fairy Tail which I won’t bore you with (some of them I’m sure fellow anime fans will be able to guess lol).

[xhusu]

Fairy Tail next-gen hcs since everyone is doing it – big four and crime sorcière only because I have no ideas for the others 

> Born the first year

Gajevy twins

They got along as kids but started to "hate" each other around 10

Lily is like their 3rd parent because he did raise Mystogan and he raised him well, so he's babysitter number 1

Shutora loves singing and playing music, she does concerts once in a while

She uses iron dragon slaying magic (Gajeel taught her)

Sassy and bitter

Her girlfriend is Achlys

Loves to bully Greige (affectionally)

Loves to bully Yajeh (derogatory)

Can't stand Nashi

Has her own team

Unison raids with Achlys

Yajeh is pretty chill and rather calm

He's also nerdy

Transformation magic and some solid script 

Refuses to learn dragon slayer magic because of Shutora (they're pretty stubborn) and because transports are pretty useful

Team Nashi

The serious one of the group even if they're all pretty dumb (they are smart, they just never use their brain)

Kinabra's daughter

Achlys uses both of her father's magic even if hearing everything can be a pain

Girlfriend of Shutora

Doesn't hate team Nashi and even spends time with them sometimes

Bullies Greige with Shutora

Bullies everyone ngl (hearing ppl thoughts has its perks)

Great sister and cousin, she gives incredible advice

Tends to avoid crowds

Likes to sing with Shutora

> A year after them

Nalu's first daughter

Nashi is loud and hyperactive

Loves the stars, she wanted to use the same magic as her mom but Lucy can't give her her keys so she only has like 2 silver ones

Uses Heavenly Body Magic because she really wanted something linked to the stars

Mostly uses fire spells and meteor tho

The first kid to ever use grand chariot (yes even before the Fernandes)

Has a unison raid with Robert and Sami called Summer Lights, she represents Vega

Had a crush on Greige as a young girl but he rejected her, she then hated him, and thus began their team rivalry

Can't stand Shutora

Smart!! She looks dumb but she! is! not!

Lucy's spirits are her babysitters

Always pulls pranks with Happy

Bff with Yajeh and Robert

Gruvia's son

Greige is a pretty boy and a cold one

 (He's shy but he pretends he's just mean)

Water magic is his main but can do some ice makes

Mama's boy

Carries an umbrella and dresses more like his mom

Has a crush on Nashi but he rejected her by fear as a kid, still regrets and tries not to be heartbroken

Achlys bullies him for that (it's their secret)

Prefers women's company for some reason

Not very talkative but when he talks, it's always useful and relevant

 Caring and sweet big brother

Sorano's daughter

Fatherless and couldn't care less

 Bitchy and sassy

 Not in Magnolia since she's from Sabertooth but appreciates Achlys and Shutora

The kind of cousin that's always on her communicating lacrima during family dinners

Always as chewing gum in her mouth

> A year after them

Jerza's first son

You could think that jerza would make serious kids but you're wrong

Robert had a great childhood and got spoiled because his parents, uncles, and aunts were ✨traumatized✨

Kind, smiling, and fun

Everyone calls him Robbie

Uses Requip magic (archery) and Heavenly Body Magic + some enchantments for his arrows

Had a baby crush on Greige when he was like 5

Very close to Nashi since Jellal taught them magic at the same time, so yeah team Nashi

 Apples > strawberries almost got disowned by Erza

 Encounters some problems with the council because of his last name (it happens to every Crime Sorcière's kid tbh)

 Unison raid with Nashi and Sami, he represents Deneb

> 2 to 3 years after him

Lyredy's daughter

Ur is a troublemaker but a discreet one

Sami is her partner in crime

Ice make magic taught by her father

Isn't always in Magnolia since her parents aren't in the same guilds, she's there 1/2 weeks

Considers the CS kids and the Fullbusters as her cousins

Loves to annoy them

Thinks before acting

Jerza's second son

Sami is a troublemaker and NOT discreet about it

My boy is getting arrested in the future

Ur is his partner in crimes

Acts before thinking

Encounters tons of problems with the council already

Very curious about his parents' families and past

Uses Requip Magic (swords) and Heavenly Body magic

Has a celestial sword, he called "her" Nova. Once he got it when he was 12, he used it in every fight even tho it's pretty destructive

Unison raid with Nashi and Robert, he represents Altair

Is the kind of kid that could use Altairis even tho his father made him promise not to

Sami is not the clown he is the entire circus

Milianna's favorite

Is probably the cause of his parents' first gray hair

> One year after them

Nalu's second daughter

Unsure about her name, probably Layla

Just a little princess really

Doesn't understand her sister's rivalries

Bff with Sylvia

Is interested in various kinds of magic, she isn't so sure about what to choose but Natsu taught her dragon slaying magic

If Happy isn't with nalu, he's with her

Sometimes acts more like the older sibling than Nashi because she seems more serious

Daddy's girl

Loke always treated her like a princess and it ended up making her feel like one

She feels too entitled sometimes

Gruvia's daughter

Sylvia is also a daddy's girl

Shy but more talkative than her brother

Dreams of a knight in shining armor saving her and marrying her one day

Learning Meredy's magic

Loves hot chocolate

Protective of her brother

Follows him a lot even if he asks her not to

Loves to wear pretty dresses

She and Layla are always together

 > One year after them

Lyredy's son

Not much to say about him

Is a sweet kid that loves spending time with Sylvia and Layla

Not always there, just like his sister

> 1 to 2 years after him

Kinabra's son

Baby boy, baby

Not talkative at all

Shy but that's not the reason, he just doesn't talk much

Also glued to his sister when he can or his parents

Was unexpected but not unwanted

Doesn't like change and unknown people

Jerza's daughter

Jellal wished for a scarlet haired princess, well at least she does have scarlet hair

Seems cute but is brutal

 Can and will fistfight you

Takes too much after Sami, a troublemaker in the making

People don't feel much magic energy coming from her and she may not be able to use magic at all

Parent's baby girl leading to her hating the council the moment she understood they didn't like her dad or Fairy Tail

Ngl every Fernandes kid despises the council

Bonus point to :

Husui's son, the Prince of Fiore – whom Sami accidentally hit once

Gajevy's maybe second girl, still unsure about her

Anna and Ichiya's could-have-existed-daughter, because it would have been funny

Bisca and Alzack's second child that I need to think of

And every other kid but since I'm not sure of which ship I want to be in this timeline 🤷🏻‍♀️