#was inspired to put this together because I saw someone say Will’s arc is about independence

[starbylers]

Will + Mike and s5 being their season

[doonalli]

Ranmaru: Doubts in Humanity, and Humanity in Doubts (Ranmaru Character Analysis)

Ranmaru is a character who is already talked about lots in the community so I am not too sure how much I can add to the discussion, but I am sure gonna try.

Ranmaru's character is one that slowly doubts his humanity more and more as the chapter goes on, but even with that he shows an aspect of humanity like all the dummies do. He shows it though his doubts, and his doubt in his own humanity is one major component of that. 

His doubts start off small when we first meet him, not being very confident in his first conversations, and during the obstructor fight he is surprised when his plan ends up working out, and this lack of confidence continues throughout the chapter. When first entering the discussion room Ranmaru asks Sara an important question, he asks

and he adds that

however anyone who has played the game can tell you that this mentality doesn't last for long, because by the time the truth of the consent form is revealed, Ranmaru IS willing to kill. He even says as much 

So what changed? Why is Ranmaru now willing to kill? I'd argue it's because he has had doubts placed in him, since the scene in the discussion room played out it has been proven to Ranmaru that he IS in fact a doll, and he's become aware of the time limit placed on him through his battery and saw Kurumada get heavily injured, causing him to realise he doesn’t want to die.

Beyond that he also has a reason now, a goal, right before the fight with Maple she tells Sara and Ranmaru about the final round rule and Ranmaru finds out that there is a way he can leave alongside Sara, Ranmaru makes it clear that when he is with Sara, he feels more and more of a strive to live,

This moment shows just how much of Ranmaru’s own self value is tied to Sara. Her power to inspire is now put into a negative context, by inspiring Ranmaru, who at first didn’t even care for life, (shown in his victim video,) to want to live, it pushed him into a corner where there is only one way out. A way marked with murder. 

It recontextualises all the previous moments in the game where it was up to Sara to inspire the others like with Kanna or Nao or during the second Main Game by showing how it can just as much affect someone in a much more negative way. In the way Sara can inspire Nao to “overcome any difficulty” she can just as much push someone like Ranmaru into a situation where this want to live can lead to the worst scenario.

and this will to live is shown even before this moment. 

When Kurumada is injured and attached to the charger he tells everyone that the charger would be better used to extend the lives of the dummies, Ranmaru ends up being the only one present who doesn't speak up against it no matter what, Anzu does it by default, Hayasaka takes her place if she is dead and if they both ended up dying its Hinako who steps in, but Ranmaru always stays silent, even literally having a dialogue box in the logic route where he just goes

in place of where Kanna spoke against Kurumada in her route, right after he tries to give up the charger. It makes sense considering just how close we are to the scene where he outright tells Sara he is afraid to die.

When he brings up the idea of winning Sara at first refutes the idea, claiming she wants everyone to escape together, and Ranmaru agrees... until his doubts start to set in again, asking

He cites that the more he is with Sara the more and more he wants to live and the more afraid he gets to die. Sara responds by telling him that everyone feels the same, he says that that's exactly why they need to win, claiming that while he can't imagine killing Sara, he is sure he could kill anyone else pleading Sara to win for him. From this point on Ranmaru's actions and arc are defined by Sara's response. Starting with the Emotion route Sara tells Ranmaru that they are all allies and they overcome hardship together she makes it clear that Reko/Alice Qtaro Kanna and Gin would never do anything like that, and Ranmaru simply responds with

to Ranmaru Sara just compared him to all the humans, to her allies, and told him, while he is still struggling with his sense of humanity, that the HUMANS would never do what he tried to do, and Ranmaru takes it that way, claiming that he has no right to be her "friend", or "ally". while it was definitely not her intention as shown by the scene afterwards where she realizes that she was the one who gave him hope, even after he already gave up, and promises that while she can't make a choice like that, she won't abandon anyone, including Ranmaru, nonetheless the damage was already dealt and the effects of that are shown going forward...

We continue to see Ranmaru's doubts when he is faced with the choice to tag Kurumada, in the end however despite getting permission from Kurumada he decides what he is doing is wrong but that he lost the will to fight back against Midori, still unsure and doubting what he should do Hinako walks in to help.

After beating the charge collar game Ranmaru apologizes to everyone, or at least he tries to before Yabusame steps in and tells him that that's not what he says here, he then thanks everyone instead.

Later when interacting with Keiji's coffin and Sara thinks Keiji might have died Ranmaru is the one to step up in this route and tells Sara to not give up hope, while he isn't sure HOW Keiji got out, he is confident in his assertion that Keiji is alive, shutting down the doubts others have now instead of being the one who doubts.

The next major scene is Ranmaru's confrontation with Keiji. By calling Keiji through a fake announcement using his voice he confronts him in the classroom, hearing he killed Kurumada (or so he thought) he calls Keiji out for supposedly being a part of Asu-naro. He tells him Sara trusted him even signing the form for his sake, and in the end, he still brought Sara into the death game. Keiji calls him out for his jealousy claiming that he just wants to be the one to protect Sara, the one closest to her, even if he isn't in the right, but on this route Ranmaru denies it saying he doesn't matter in this and that he just wants to help Sara. Keiji responds that he can't be that person, and on this route only, specifically saying

Ranmaru responds in shocked silence, before saying of course he knows that and asking him to hand over Midori's head. Again, Ranmaru is told to his face that he is a doll and again he is told that he can't be close to Sara because of that, and he just accepts it now, feeding into that lack of humanity he felt and into his doubts from the previous time he was in the classroom, with Sara instead of Keiji. 

Having all these doubts pile on him, from Keiji, from Sara, from himself, he shocks both Sara and Keiji and takes Keiji away from there, making sure to take the ID card in the process, he makes his way to the AI-ciever and attempts to upload the Joe AI into him. He claims that he couldn't be anything after all, as if this thing, this inherently inhuman thing, was the only value he could give to Sara at this point as a doll. After all, leading up to this point he already has been useful to Sara through the use of his steam spray upgrade part. Throughout the chapter again and again Ranmaru is told that he can’t be Sara’s ally, that he can’t be the one closest to her, all things that Joe is. Ranmaru, in an effort to provide value to Sara and actually become that person, he literally almost loses himself in that process by giving up his own consciousness and replacing it with Joe’s, someone who was Sara’s friend, someone who can be the closest to her.

During the pre-Banquet Sara can ask Ranmaru 3 things, 2 of them directly being related to him as a doll, being his battery and asking him if he wants to change upgrade parts, even afterwards Ranmaru asks a simple question.

No longer really valuing himself as a human, but talking about himself as though he is a tool.

If all the dummies survived and Yabusame starts singing their song Ranmaru will have a moment of true happiness not stuck to his usefulness, He doesn’t feel the need to take something on himself, but instead he just tries to sit back, listening to the others, and he genuinely enjoys it.

However, if all the dummies survived and Yabusame starts singing their song Ranmaru will have a moment of true happiness not stuck to his usefulness, He doesn’t feel the need to take something on himself, but instead he just tries to sit back, listening to the others, and he genuinely enjoys it.

and if Kurumada dies he claims

Resolving himself, and when entering the coffins he either goes in with no complaints or he is actively the one telling everyone to enter, specifically if Kurumada is the only dummy to die he will say

Before going into the Banquet however, I think it's time to talk about the other route. In this route, when Ranmaru asks about winning, Sara instead of denying him like in the Emotion route, incites him into doing it himself, albeit implicitly. She tells Ranmaru SHE could never kill an ally causing Ranmaru to say he could do it himself, acting as a dark mirror to Sara's claim that they are all allies and that they wouldn't ever kill each other, she continues to tell Ranmaru that she wouldn't want to make Ranmaru do such a thing, but at this point Ranmaru has already decided to do it on his "own" so Sara isn't really fighting his remarks, finally Sara tells Ranmaru that she wouldn't want to hurt him, and that he is her precious friend. From the other route we could tell how much Ranmaru places value on his "friendship" and the same goes here, ultimately Sara breaks out of her mindset after Ranmaru brings up Keiji, but the damage is already done and Ranmaru got enough encouragement to start thinking of his plan.

In the way the Emotion Route shows the negative aspects of Sara inspiring everyone the Logic route shows the negative outcome of placing all this pressure on Sara through the overreliance on her, in a moment of weakness where she wants to be relieved of the pressure of her allies she ends up manipulating Ranmaru into taking that responsibility to have the two of them escape together on himself and relieve her of the pressure from her allies.

Until then though, the next time a big split between the routes happens is when Keiji is thought to be killed in his coffin. Instead of comforting Sara here Ranmaru does the exact opposite, despite Sou telling Sara he can't believe Keiji died Ranmaru doubts it, telling Sou that Keiji must be here since the shutter is still closed, using the same excuse he fought against in the other route, and he tells Sou to not give Sara half-hearted hope, Sou asks Ranmaru is he doesn't want Sara to have hope, which he denies before reluctantly agreeing to search for Keiji.

Finally, during his confrontation with Keiji, once he calls him out for wanting to be the one closest to Sara instead of denying it he asks his

which Keiji responds with by simply saying he can't, this time not even calling him a doll, or himself a murderer, just a

Ranmaru tells him to shut up and the rest of the interaction continues as normal with Sara being stunned alongside Keiji (although now Ranmaru claims he is going to save Keiji for last).

When Sara awakes Ranmaru shows up to reveal Kurumada "died" however this is proven false once Kurumada barges in and punches Ranmaru, he shouts at everyone to hurry to the lower floor locker room, and everyone does... Once entering Sara sees something horrible...

Yabusame dead, hanged by the ceiling trap in the room. Kurumada calls Ranmaru out for being the one who killed them, as he heard him over the transceiver saying something about winning, finally Ranmaru drops his facade and outright tells everyone he did it, much to the dismay of all the dummies, Midori enters and Ranmaru gives him back his ID card, asking him to get rid of the dummies in the process, which he obliges to by bringing Maple 2.0 to fight the survivors. After the fight, when Maple tries to kill Midori, Ranmaru will stun her causing her to fall and explode. Seeing how Ranmaru changes makes so much sense when considering things from his point of view, waking up as a doll the first thing he sees is a video of him dying, and in it all he can say to himself is 

something so tired, something so uncaring of whether you lived or died right until the end, having to see something like that coming from yourself would be so horrible to experience, and right after that he is told he can have another chance at life, as long as he can kill Sara. However when he meets Sara she ends up being someone who Ranmaru in his own words, makes him feel more and more like he wants to live, Ranmaru placed and his life's value on Sara but isn't able to live alongside her until Maple gives him an option that lets him escape alongside her and actually live. Sara's answer, whether it's encouragement or rejection, affects Ranmaru so deeply because of how much value he places on Sara.

It sort of plays into his whole speech about "making your own choices'', because despite his words of THAT being what defines a human, when he later takes off his hand, he still takes it as confirmation he isn't human, but even past that he continues to not make his own choices, now the choices are Sara's to make, or when he thinks about tagging Kurumada he never actually makes any choice, he just hesitates and doubts himself. Even going forward his confrontation with Keiji and what he does with the Joe AI is all for Sara's sake, not for his own, and him killing Yabusame, while partially for his own survival as called out by Hinako

is under the notion of protecting Sara and them BOTH escaping together. Even being instigated by Sara in the first place.

This lack of humanity continues into the Banquet where Ranmaru out right states it himself, even reveling in it on the Logic route.

However there is one moment in particular that shows a bit of growth on Ranmaru’s behalf, specifically in the emotion route.

When Anzu’s coffin is about to be picked Ranmaru will ask Midori to change his choice, telling him

and even when the other dummies express their doubts, saying that they could be picked instead, Ranmaru stands firm on his belief, not from a lack of value in himself, but from a belief Keiji’s coffin could be hit instead. Expanding his view from exclusively being about Sara to actually try and protect someone else, making good on his promise to not complain anymore and learning from the determination of the dummies.

Ultimately he still dies, dispelling Sara’s doubts in the emotion route, and asking for someone to save both Sara and Gin, or regretting not being able to get his “happy ending” he believed in during the logic route.

Ranmaru's character ends up so far removed from "humanity", but at the same time so different from where he started. Despite starting off by claiming to not be able to kill anyone, after seeing Kurumada injured, seeing his own battery was running out, and accepting he isn't human, Ranmaru brings up the idea and even possibly goes through with it, all due to his doubts of there being any other way of making it out with Sara. 

Despite this however I still think Ranmaru is human, because it's human to doubt your worth to the others around you, it's human to want more from your life, and it's human to doubt in yourself. Even if time and time again Ranmaru is shown to physically be a doll, and even if he thinks that proves his inhumanity, Ranmaru is still human, and his doubts are the very thing that proves it.

In a way I love how Ranmaru’s relationship with Sara evolves into something romantic, from Maple's words to the symbolism of the red string of fate to the very concept of the final round rule. It acts as an opposite to Joe’s platonic relationship with Sara in how he tries to be who Joe was, being the one closest to her, who protects her, despite never being able to, but I also love it because love is commonly portrayed as the most human emotion, the highest form of connection with someone, or else the best thing that could happen to someone, a “happy ending”.

But that isn’t the case with YTTD and following this “happy ending” ends up sending Ranmaru into a downwards spiral, but in a way that also prove his humanity, because YTTD makes it clear again and again through characters like Q-taro, like Sou, and of course, like Ranmaru, since humanity isn’t just about the best aspects of someone, but also the worst.

================================================

Wow I finally finished this lmao, took long enough. HOPEFULLY Mai and Hinako's will come out quicker but no more promises from me lol.

I was worried I wouldn't be able to add too much to the discussion around Ranmaru since he is obviously probably the MOST discussed when it comes to the Dummies or just 3-1 in general ngl (except Midori maybe lol) but I hope I managed to actually do it well in the end. If you did enjoy this though I would recommend checking out my posts on Anzu, Hayasaka, and Kuruamada too! I think I had more to say with them personally.

also you might have noticed a lack of me talking about the whole entire Yabusame death scene and the aftermath of that, I'm planning to make a whole post just about it because ITS SO GOOD ISTG and yet at the same time I see it so slandered, but I want to finish this series of posts first.

I also want to thank Crazy Sunshine for helping me with proof reading!!

and that's all! so thank you for reading!! hope you enjoyed!!!!

[splatixboi]

Hear me out:

Fic idea where shortly after the Black Water arc Xie Lian and Hua Cheng are out helping the Puqi residents with their harvest, when suddenly Xie Lian freezes. His expression suddenly goes from shock to terror because the events of the rest of the novel up until Hua Cheng’s dispersal into butterflies is now playing through his mind.

Every single moment of it, and Xie Lian drops to his knees once it’s over in pure horror. Hua Cheng was instantly by his side the second he froze but now he’s becoming more and more concerned, so he rushes Xie Lian back to Paradise Manor.

Cue Xie Lian having an entire panic attack on the grand divan while Hua Cheng desperately tries to figure out what’s wrong, and the first thing Xie Lian manages to softly croak out is “Jun Wu is the White Clothed Calamity.” Thus petrifying Hua Cheng in shock as well. After a moment Hua Cheng begins gently prodding for answers and Xie Lian lets it all spill, albeit not in proper order as he’s rambling in horror about the worst parts.

He explains that Mt. TongLu will open in one month, and that is when the bad things begin. With Hua Cheng’s gentle coaxing, Xie Lian manages to organize the series of events a bit more and repeats them in order. Though he leaves out some details, those which he has not processed yet due to the terror. He begins fixating on the end, how the way to break his shackles was through Hua Cheng’s spiritual power, but how it would cost him Hua Cheng entirely in the end. (He is unaware that Hua Cheng will come back.)

Hua Cheng tries to pacify him by saying it would be his honor but learns that was not the right answer as Xie Lian began to panic more, but after visibly wracking his brain he pauses. “Feng Xin and Mu Qing…!” Thus begins his plan to change the future. If he could just have Mu Qing, Feng Xin, and Hua Cheng divide out their spiritual powers before TongLu opens, his shackles could be shattered without anyone coming to harm, and they’d have the chance to recover their spiritual energy in time for TongLu’s opening. Then he could suprise Jun Wu in advance, and subdue him before any harm could come to anyone. The only issue would be contacting his former friends without entering the heavens, and getting them to believe him.

Unbeknownst to him, Hua Cheng was also going to drag that pitiful fish back into the waking world, and even if it cost him several years of carefully managed debt, he would make He Xuan put his spiritual energy to use as well. But before they could plan this meeting, the parts of these future memories he skimmed over in his shock over Jun Wu returned to his focus in full force.

Enter: confession scene but early. Xie Lian bursts into tears and grabs Hua Cheng and the poor Ghost King gets to hear all his secrets sobbed out to him followed by “Is it really true?” Honestly, this confession scene would have much less tension than the future memories Xie Lian had implanted in his mind and he is quite happy about it. Hua Cheng proceeds to be so very confused as Xie Lian praises his sculptures and murals despite never seeing them, and it truly sinks in that his Gege definitely saw the future.

Soon they’d hold a meeting at Paradise Manor with He Xuan, Yin Yu, Mu Qing, and Feng Xin, where Hualian try to unite people who hate each other, just enough to break his shackles and possibly work together when things get bad.

Anyways, this is just me rambling because I dreamed this up and had to share in case someone wants to write it. Sorry if it’s a jumbled mess, I hope it’s enough to inspire someone. Might get self conscious and delete later hahaha…

If it does inspire someone PLEASE link me to the fic when it’s posted please please pl-

[weirdmageddon]

long meditation on jade and dave's relationship - part 1

here's a three-part heavy homestuck meta. took me about 3 days to scrobble together and format and everything

part 2 part 3 cooking

i apologize in advance for the disorganization of my thoughts. after writing it i realized this is probably one of the clearest glances into how my mind thinks associatively so everything relates in some way to something else in here. the foundations for my thoughts might be invisible to others because they can’t see the connections ive built upon but you can probably see them here, and that strong foundation is also why i care so much about them and why i chose to lay it all out. sometimes i feel like i have Got to get this tangled associative web out of my head and into some form of writing so other people can be like, “oh so This is why you have so much to say” and can just. see into my head and where it all comes from for me. people have expressed interest and the general opinion tends to be that people like hearing my thoughts a lot so yeah. pov you are in my brainwebs. seatbelts everyone get on the magic school bus in that bitch

some time ago i saw this post i saw as i was going through florals jade tag again. my homestuck hyperfixation flared up again and ive been hyperfocused on dave and jade and particular just absolutely entering these monotropic black holes over them and turning them around at different angles and looking at discussions and what people thought both now and in the past and now that im older i can appreciate them even more. ive always been a fan of dave and jade both, but i cant even lie dave has my whole heart so maybe im biased as well. but i like to believe that regardless of my liking for dave and interest in not even x-ray scanning him just straight up 3D mri scanning him and rotating him in my head that my argument is still very reasonable. i just understand his psychology a lot

i want to preface this by saying i absolutely love floral and im so glad she’s on the hsbc team because i know she can do jade harley justice. one of the best jadesters fr. we all come into media analysis with different personal experiences and perspectives, and i understand this was from her perspective as someone who had run ins with dumb boys and relates a lot to jade which is why she can put so much love into her <3 i just found myself disagreeing with some of the arguments that she presented in that post just as a peer who also read the comic from my own perspective. keep in mind i also love jade to bits and want the best for her

so yea this isn’t a targeted post at all. it just got the juices flowing and inspired me to actually write my pre-existing thoughts down and i used it as a springboard for them

i think it ended up being pretty insightful overall especially because i was stoned as fuck writing it and ive come to realize being stoned amplifies and improves the output of my deeply inwardly associative thought processes tenfold. or maybe weed just changes how significant it feels. maybe a little of both

part 1: on using davesprite as a basis for interpreting jade's relationship with all daves

i love what hussie does with alternate versions of characters and. it’s one of the coolest things about homestuck’s characterization. like floral quoted:

… we see that Jack is a simple man, no matter what name he goes by. He is, if not much else (and he’s not), impatient and violent. We only got the briefest glimpse into these qualities when we were first introduced to him on Derse. But now we get to spend much more time with him, albeit in the form of a completely different character. This is another bit of sneaky utility provided by this intermission tangent. It serves as an arc to help indirectly characterize the villain of the early acts. Having multiple copies of a character operating in totally different circumstances turns out to be a great stealth characterization tactic, and it gets used much more aggressively later in the story. In fact, it proves to be inseparable from one of the story’s most essential themes. (Hussie’s Intermission commentary)

so i agree in principle and think the alt self thing is fucking brilliant

however, i disagree with the argument it’s supporting.

So, not the same character, but if switched, I would go out on a limb and say that Dave would experience all the same issues as Davesprite did, but without the “bird” part acting as an easy explanation. That doesn’t make Dave responsible but it does speak volumes to how their personalities respond to each other, insinuates that a relationship involving any Dave would end badly for Jade and that “Real” Dave indeed has Some Issues To Deal With.

i don't agree that dave and davesprite should be compared in this context. yes they are splinters of the same character and floral is right on the money in that canon deflecting the relationship failing on "bird issues" doesn't really explain anything meaningful, but i do not think its the case that all of jade’s relationships with dave are doomed to fail because of what we saw with jade and davesprite.

yes, if switched, dave strider would be practically identical to davesprite since they were the same exact person until a branch in the timeline

however, it's the unique things davesprite has been through that made him like this. davesprite has baggage that dave doesn't. a timeline where john was tricked into fighting his denizen early and died and jade couldn't get in on time and was presumably wiped out dinosaur style on earth. with alt future dave's year-worth of knowledge, gear, loot, and experience, he rescinded his player status and "realness" as a human person to be a game guide for his naive past self right before the timeline split in order for himself and his friends to continue existing.

that would mess anyone up mentally. it's no wonder he's jaded, no pun intended. he's depressed as shit and bitter and probably has trauma issues unrelated to his bro, though they do compound on it. yes they both experienced bro's abuse but i'm talking about the differences between alpha timeline dave and davesprite; right now im not going to talk about things that are the same about them prior to the timeline split because it applies to them both so it's redundant.

essentially what's setting them apart is their experiences playing sburb, their chronological age (alt future dave/davesprite had been making timeloops over a span of four months and he says that in total the time from his chronological perspective is close to a YEAR in sburb grinding shit out before he goes back), their relationship to their friends and how their friends see them and how they see themselves, their ontological natures as beings, what their purposes are.

davesprite had his ontological status as a person and purpose changed. he assumed he'd be the one playing and doing important main shit in the alpha timeline with all his friends but then it turns out that wasn't the case due to the events that went down in his timeline. and becoming a sprite solidly changed his degree of existence. davesprite's best friend john asking if he can talk to "the real dave" is when i think he realized just how fucked up his existence as a person has become despite him doing pretty much everything for everyone for nearly a YEAR before the alpha timeline was even able to get properly started. if davesprite didn’t exist, nobody would have (john needed to live to do ectobiology). davesprite knew this and weaponized it against john who john treated as a secondary, lesser dave. so of course he’s kind of an asshole. it’s like his efforts and sacrifices meant squat to the people he considered his best friends because they didn’t experience it. to john he just suddenly appeared from the future and became a sprite.

this is heavy shit for davesprite that alpha timeline dave does NOT have to go through and it did change him in ways that cannot be said about alpha timeline dave. this is not a universal dave experience. so while it’s true that dave has the capacity of act like davesprite under those exact circumstances, alpha timeline dave didn’t undergo those that led to davesprite’s more miserable traits. therefore i don’t think it’s fair to conflate jade’s failed relationship with davesprite in particular as informing of how most of jade and dave’s relationships would unfold, because davesprite has been in exceptionally tragic circumstances, coming to terms with the state of his own existence. the last thing davesprite needs is romance. alpha timeline dave does not carry this burden.

Everyone believed that what was creating the dissonance wasn’t a central part to Dave’s character but an aftereffect of Bird Syndrome. Which you can’t blame them for because there’s nothing that would lead them to think differently. Every character besides Dirk is completely in the dark about Bro’s abuse and Dave stated he’d probably never tell any of the Betas. Which is fine, no one’s owed to know somebody’s baggage. But when you don’t give people a means to understand what you’re going through, especially when it leads you to hurt them, its only inevitable everyone’s going to be confused and going to come to conclusions using what they do know.

rebuttal to this: as i said earlier i don’t buy the whole bird issues thing and i get the handwaviness about being fused with a bird being john’s explanation for davesprite’s bullshittery. however i think it’s important to mention that john and jade both question if becoming a sprite might have had something to do with his change.

being fused with a bird never bothered him, as jade says. it was all the other baggage that came with the prototyping.

this includes playing the game for way longer than anyone else and mindlessly grinding from the ground up for about a year, then turning himself into a game construct and having his ontological level of existence as the platonic ideal form of dave strider lowered in the eyes of his friends.

JOHN: like what? JADE: its hard to explain JADE: just some slight differences in personality i guess JOHN: he still raps sometimes. JADE: yes... JADE: so? JOHN: i just thought i would mention that. JADE: ok i will admit i cant really tell if his rapping style has changed JOHN: trust me, it hasn't. JADE: i dont know if the differences are because he is a sprite JADE: or because he lived for a while in a different timeline... (p.4733)

JOHN: why is he such a basket case? he's like regular dave, but like, aloof enigma edition. JOHN: maybe it's because he's part bird? i think becoming a bird and a sprite did something weird to him. JADE: i dont think being a bird ever bothered him JADE: like i said... its all more complicated than that JOHN: normal dave was so much more level headed. JOHN: i have to admit, i spend a lot of time wondering what he and rose are up to. JADE: me too JOHN: ehh... JOHN: maybe it's for the best he broke up with you. JADE: why? JOHN: well, what kind of future do you think you would have with him? JOHN: he's a sprite. like really, what even is a sprite? how long do they live? will he still be around if we win the new game we are allegedly trying to get to? JADE: i dont know (p.5294)

as for the bro abuse thing, i can’t tell if floral’s position here is that davesprite is fucked up and had a failed relationship with jade because of bro’s abuse, and that dave would also necessarily have failed relationships with jade because he had the same experiences and also doesn’t tell anybody? the wording there is kind of vague and can be interpreted in different ways but that’s how i interpreted it.

they are right that bro’s abuse is something dave keeps to himself. but remember that dave has also deluded himself about it to cope. he doesn’t know what to think of it himself. both alpha timeline dave and davesprite have this baggage, but we explore it more with alpha timeline dave.

i know dave said in the post-retcon timeline when having a conversation with dirk that he could never tell karkat all of this or any of the betas about his abuse. but i still find this pesterlog interesting and i want to put a spotlight on it. even while dave was still chugging that copium, jade was the person he was closest to opening up about the nature of his relationship to his bro at this point. remember this is quite early on in the comic and he didn’t have 3 years on the meteor to contemplate it yet when he said this to her, his bro had just died at this point

GG: anyway dave im really sorry about your bro/dad GG: you were pretty close with him right? TG: meh it was a pretty bizarre relationship by any standard TG: fightin off wave after wave of face pumicing puppet ass every day TG: always being on guard for stealth attacks in the middle of the night while getting up to go to the fucking bathroom GG: heheh TG: but i guess it all sorta amounted to some vague unspoken semblance of kinship TG: if thats a thing TG: like if honor among thieves is something then lets call it camaraderie among ironic rapping roof ninjas TG: but thanks GG: sure TG: i thought about taking his sword TG: when i was there TG: but i couldnt TG: couldnt really bring myself to try to pull it out it was too weird GG: dave we have to stop him!!!!! TG: what GG: jack! GG: he shouldnt get away with this TG: you think (p.3204)

even if he’s in denial about it, deciding to point out the positivity he can rationalize about it to avoid spending too much time thinking deeply about it (it makes him uncomfortable), he’s getting closer to acknowledging the truth here that shit wasn’t normal, about it being “bizarre” and you can tell hes being genuine here when he thanks jade for her concern about his loss

dave then continues talking about his thoughts/feelings on the situation after jade says “sure”, as if he took her concern as an invite to open up about his thoughts even when it’s something vulnerable for him that he tried putting on false bravado in front of terezi about. jade then abruptly changes topic to what’s to be practically done about these tragedies—dave was still on the topic of his bro and she changed the topic to jack noir without clarifying, hence he goes “what”

this is interesting because terezi tried to get something out of him about this and was met by riddly puzzlecock and false bravado but he’s pretty straight up about his current feelings with jade. basically it really depends on the person dave is talking to.

in this specific argument, floral approaches grimbark jade solely from the position of her being uninhibited which is true in many ways, but grimbark jade is also quite nefarious and not in her right mind. i think that even if jade were unihibited and spoke her mind, she wouldn’t have it in her push the mayor into lava to get dave to fight her. thats the evil. floral does acknowledge this in a separate post though, but it’s not really touched on in her argument im discussing. i also want to reiterate that even though it might seem like im violently ripping this post limb from limb its really just something to bounce my pre-existing thoughts off of. this is all written with civility towards and respect for floral

even roxy says something about this—that the schtick doesnt suit her. like it doesnt feel like something she’d have the natural capacity to really be without some external influence

ROXY: so alt grannydaughter english ROXY: whyre u part dog + evil lookin JADE: DO NOT CALL ME THAT!!! ROXY: what JADE: my surname is harley not english JADE: but you may refer to me as jade, or ma'am if you are feeling especially nervous and deferential JADE: which as it turns out is the way you should be feeling about me, ALWAYS >:B ROXY: LOL!!! JADE: lol WHAT ROXY: jade i am in no way buying that ur normally this pompous and tyrannical ROXY: the shtick rly doesnt suit you its so obvious (p.6291)

so i don’t think everything jade says here should be taken to heart about her real feelings or how she would express them if she was being genuine as her normal self. we know jade can get mad but i think we’re giving her evil possession a little too much credit

that’s why i was personally disappointed in grimbark jade when homestuck was ongoing, is it felt like it didnt really give us anything? it was like empty calories while just waiting for the regular jade to come back which she never did. it is interesting to look at in retrospect to see if there’s anything there but…grimbark jade isn't exactly a reliable narrator. i guess none of them are but like, especially not grimbark jade. if i can’t separate what’s genuinely jade under this mess from what isn’t then what’s the point?

like for example this was left out of floral’s argument when showing this part, but in the comic grimbark jade tells dave that he’s “more messed up inside than davesprite” …. right after dave wouldnt comply with her demands to fight her and doesnt want to fight lord english. that’s…not really telling about anything at all for either of them. jade is evil and if things dont go the way she’s programmed to get them to go she’s gonna flip her lid. this is what i mean about her not being in her right mind

JADE: the fact is youre going to have to rely on those powers if you want to stand any chance against a lord of time JADE: it is safe to expect he can only be challenged by someone with a similar command over the aspect DAVE: why is that safe to expect DAVE: where are all these presumptions coming from DAVE: if you can use swords why dont you take the welsh cueball sword and fight him yourself DAVE: i bet you could fuck him up DAVE: youre probably even more extra strong now that youve succumbed to the bark side DAVE: did you ever think about that JADE: dave i am perfectly aware of the awesome powers granted to me by the bark side JADE: it does not matter JADE: i cant be the one to wield your sword against english JADE: it has to be you JADE: it is the will of the empress, and thats final DAVE: the empress can suck it DAVE: i have no intention of fighting him DAVE: and this isnt even me pulling more lame self aware reluctant hero junk DAVE: i am just straight up not going to do it DAVE: see thats not reluctance its just petulant refusal on my part DAVE: reluctant hero shit is when the guys like aw shucks i dunno if i wanna but deep down we all know he really does DAVE: but i really dont DAVE: why should i DAVE: i dont give a damn about lord english or his nebulous atrocities out in nowherespace DAVE: what kind of villain is someone you never met who hardly did anything evil to you or your friends directly DAVE: or even to anyone in your universe for that matter other than through some vague insidious influence DAVE: who even is this guy and why should i hate him DAVE: am i really supposed to be pissed off at a green muscle monster i never met DAVE: cause i aint pissed off at no muscle monster DAVE: hell wasnt he in some ass backwards way responsible for us existing in the first place? DAVE: or all of humanity for that matter?? DAVE: maybe i should thank him before chopping him up via welshscalibur JADE: jeez you sure have some issues JADE: honestly it has become very tiresome listening to this sort of thing JADE: i thought davesprite had problems JADE: his issues i could kind of understand JADE: i thought you might be different, being the alpha dave and all JADE: but no JADE: you might be even more messed up inside than he was! DAVE: what DAVE: why are you dragging that guy into this (p.6385 / 6386)

part 2

[arcielee]

Interview With a Writer

Time for another installment of my series Interview With a Writer with the talented, the wonderful @inthedayswhenlandswerefew. Thank you as always for your time and allowing this self-indulgent series to continue!

Dividers by @saradika 💜

Name: inthedayswhenlandswerefew

Story: Comet Donati

Paring: modern Aemond Targaryen x female!reader

Warnings: 18+ mature themes. Sex, drugs, boy bands. Be mindful of chapter warnings.

What inspired the plot for Comet Donati?

I think it will surprise absolutely no one when I say that Comet was born out of my love for One Direction. While I’m at work (I’m a high school teacher), I’ll often put on a Spotify playlist for me and the students to listen to. I like to change it up…for a few days we’ll listen to 80s rock, and then Beyoncé Radio, and then classical music, it’s always something different. At the very end of last school year in June, I got in the mood to revisit my love of One Direction. As I was listening to and falling in love with those songs all over again—History, No Control, Heart Attack, etc.—the idea of the HOTD characters being a boy band occurred to me, first as something ludicrous but then as a weird but potentially viable fic plot.

My long-time readers know that the first specific scene I envision is always one of the last scenes of a story, and while I was listening to that One Direction playlist one afternoon I saw the very end of Comet Donati: a girl on a farm looking out a kitchen window and watching Aemond return to her after a very fraught, magical, horrible, amazing summer touring with the band together. The very first sentence I wrote in my Word Doc was the last sentence of Chapter 10.

And thus, Comet arrived on Earth! :)

So the scene that inspired the rest of Comet Donati…

It was Aemond on that damn Gold Star motorcycle, which is another astronomy reference!

Are you always aware of how your stories will end? Or have you ever balked and changed something?

I always know the ending from the very start, and I’ve never changed one. Because I start writing with the end so clearly in mind, changing it would undermine a lot of the foreshadowing, themes, and character arcs that were present throughout the story, and would honestly feel totally disorienting to me. With that said, there are occasions when unexpected details pop up (ex. in Comet, Aemond clicking so well with Stargirl’s parents wasn’t something that I foresaw or really thought about before writing Chapter 9), but generally I have it all set it stone before the first chapter is ever posted.

Can you give us some insight on your interpretation of Aemond and Aegon?

Aegon and Aemond both have a lot of trauma (clearly), but they have adapted to survive it in completely different ways. Aemond is a brooding, perfectionist, desperately insecure person who lashes out like a wounded animal when he feels wronged. Aegon is the opposite. He directs his anxiety and self-loathing inwards harming only himself, and rarely shares it with anyone else (Stargirl of course is a massive exception).

While Aemond wants to be taken seriously, Aegon dives headfirst into his lackadaisical nature and exacerbates it, largely out of spite for Viserys and to a lesser extent Alicent and Otto. He is lazy, bombastic, rootless, chaotic, an unrepentant addict…and, in perhaps his greatest act of rebellion, someone who is genuinely affectionate and nonjudgmental. Aemond is fangs and claws and storms and wreckage; Aegon has this warm, contagious glow that distracts from his profound inner darkness.

Aemond is someone who always felt uncool, unloved, and unremarkable. At home he was mostly ignored by Viserys (despite Aemond’s attempts to bond with him). Alicent, while well-intentioned, was often distracted by her own marital unhappiness, and furthermore was emotionally closer to Helaena and Daeron than Aemond. At school, he didn’t make friends or get girls in the same effortless way that Aegon or Daeron did.

Like Aegon said in Chapter 3: “I had friends. He had grudges.” But when Aemond masterminded Comet and became an international popstar, he finally got the camaraderie and recognition he always craved, and for the first time in his life felt worthy of love. Losing all of that after the accident at the Budokan was psychologically devastating for him.

When he meets Stargirl, Aemond wants her in a way that is immediate, overpowering, and completely unlike anything he’s ever experienced before…but his fear of losing her—and his lifelong, intense phobia of rejection—sabotages their relationship over and over again.

Was there anything in specific that inspired Stargirl?

Stargirl is, and I say this with nothing but love, the most Hot Mess Express reader insert that I’ve written so far. She is very smart and intuitive, a natural therapist, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t routinely make questionable decisions while touring with the band.

She’s able to help others but struggles when it comes to protecting herself. I think that’s extremely relatable. I also love psychology as a discipline. I’m definitely not a professional; I’ve taken college-level psychology courses and taught it as a high school class, but I would never consider myself to be an expert. However, my interest in psychology (and in redeeming Sigmund Freud!) certainly bled into this fic.

As far as Stargirl’s backstory… I think that unfortunately, most women have had experiences when we were made to feel ashamed, unworthy, unlovable, immoral, etc. because of something related to our sexuality. It’s incredibly frustrating to see this repeat generation after generation. Stargirl has put a lot of time and effort into reprogramming herself from her fundamentalist Christian upbringing/community, and shedding that heartbreak and cynicism as much as possible. I think she’s an inspirational character, and a manifestation of my hope for our society’s future.

How does Stargirl complement Aemond? How does this compare to her relationship with Aegon?

Therapists have to be natural optimists, I believe. They have to be able to look at someone who is struggling and see the best in them, to envision a better path forward. When Stargirl meets Aemond in Rome, she genuinely—from the very first moment—cannot fathom thinking that he is unattractive or pitiful. She thinks he is fascinating, intelligent, talented, charming, and of course fine af (and we all agree!).

Her very first act is to put him at ease by addressing his scar/blindness immediately and in a way that is lighthearted and teasing without being cruel. Aemond is used to people either ignoring the accident entirely (awkward) or outright pitying him (even worse). Stargirl does neither.

Aemond is a source of strength for Stargirl; he is protective of her in a way that can override his own paranoia and resentment (ex. when he notices that she is crying on the jet in Chapter 5 or when he banishes Shelby in Chapter 8).

They share an organic chemistry and respect for each other that—over and over again—they have to fight their way back to. Both Stargirl and Aemond want to make the world a better place, albeit in entirely different ways, and I definitely see them turning into a bit of a power couple in that respect.

Stargirl’s relationship with Aegon is easier (as his demons present differently than Aemond’s), but also isn’t something that could ever become a stable, marriage-like partnership. Stargirl doesn’t desire Aegon in that way, nor is he equipped to be in a committed relationship with anybody (not even Selena Gomez!).

Yet fundamentally—no matter how many years or miles are between them—Aegon and Stargirl feel safe with each other. Aegon knows that Stargirl can see that he’s wounded and yet loves him unconditionally anyway. Stargirl knows that Aegon would never think less of her because of her sexuality or any other choices she might make in life. I think of them as platonic soulmates, which is a little bit inaccurate because they aren’t literally platonic. But they love each other in a way that is entirely separate from if/when/how they have sex and without ownership or expectations.

In the past, you created OCs that might prickle underneath our skin but we ended up loving them. Except for fucking Shelby. What inspired her?

I’ve had a few experiences recently that got me thinking about influencer culture and social media obsession. I think we all know people who put a ton of effort into crafting an online narrative that is radically different from their real life. Shelby is someone who rode the early influencer wave to stardom and now is kind of stuck. She doesn’t know how to create authentic experiences because she’s trained herself to manufacture them for years; similarly, she doesn’t know how to nurture genuine relationships. But Shelby also doesn’t know what comes next in her life. Aemond’s accident gives her a valuable rebranding opportunity: she can shift from “early-twenties hottie” to “self-sacrificing caretaker,” eventually evolving into wife and mommy blogging content. She clings to that so fiercely because she honestly, horrifyingly does not know who she is without a label her millions of subscribers/followers agree upon. And Shelby is willing to do some pretty deplorable things to try to keep Aemond away from Stargirl.

I think my own understanding of Shelby is actually a lot more compassionate than Comet readers might suspect. I don’t feel that she has any desire to harm Aemond, and on the contrary does care for him in the way that she knows how to. She’s definitely wrong for him, and she unintentionally massacres his mental health on a daily basis. But she really, truly thinks that she’s helping him by hiding his “humiliating” disability. She is so engrained in the shallow, deceptive, trope-conforming influencer lifestyle that whoever she was before has been entirely forgotten.

Were there any other characters in your story that you enjoyed writing?

Obviously, I adore the dynamics of the whole band. It was a nice change to write Team Black characters as good guys for the first time: Luke admiring and supporting Aemond in that worshipful sort of way, Rhaena being gentle and intuitive but also increasingly brave, Baela figuring out how to harness her natural assertiveness into advocating for her own ambitions.

Cregan’s dysfunctional childhood hits home for me in a lot of ways, and I absolutely loved him coming into his own as a good father both literally and as a father figure for Comet (especially with Aemond as he prepares for his own fatherhood journey!). Poor Criston definitely needs Cregan’s help parenting this boy band of feral raccoons. Criston is TIRED! Let the man rest!

Finally, I would like to shock everyone by announcing that Jace was one of my favorite parts of writing this fic. He’s a tool, but he also has lines that he won’t cross; way down deep somewhere, he has a fundamental and irrevocable love for Comet. Jace will taunt someone until they hit him, but he rarely hits back. Jace will poke fun at Aemond, but he is also sincerely disturbed by Shelby making Aemond so miserable. Jace body shames Aegon constantly, and yet he’s the one outside the hotel room in Chapter 8 frantically asking if Aegon is okay. Additionally, Jace is really into Stargirl in a way that is completely shameless, sometimes creepy, but also randomly insightful.

There are a lot of little moments of him being concerned about Aemond/Aegon/Stargirl throughout the fic if you look for them. Like, he breaks the awkward silence for Stargirl at the Vegas buffet. Jace is only 90% evil 🥰

I’ve also never gotten to write Jace like this before and I might never get to again, but I really enjoyed it.

As a writer, I think it is safe to say we constantly daydream. How do you know what stories need to be told?

I’ll use Comet as an example. So when I first started kicking around the HOTD boy band idea while listening to One Direction songs, I fully intended to save the potential fic for when Season 2 airs next summer. There was an essence of a story, a general vibe…touring, comets, drinks, smoke…yet it wasn’t urgent or tangible. But as soon as that last scene hit me out of nowhere—Aemond returning to the farm as a better man, riding his motorcycle with displaced snow billowing out behind him—Comet Donati as a story became vivid and real and all-consuming.

As soon as I see a scene like that, I know I have to write the story, and I usually begin immediately planning out chapters that same day. Ideas and vibes flit in and out of my mind all the time, but scenes demand to be written.

Would you ever want to revisit a story for an epilogue?

I won’t say I’ll never write an epilogue, because I suppose inspiration could strike unexpectedly. However, for me, where a story ends is truly the ending. I might have vague ideas about what happens next for certain characters, but I don’t usually see scenes or hear dialogue beyond the last chapter, so trying to write an epilogue would feel forced to me. If anything, I’m usually already in the mental headspace of a new story by the time I’m finishing up the current one! With that said, it’s super heartwarming when readers ask about epilogues, because I know that means they’ve grown to love these characters and aren’t ready to say goodbye yet.

If a reader has a question about what comes next for a character, they’re always welcome to send it my way, and I’ll answer to the best of my ability. 🥰

What is next for the wonderful Miss Maggie?

So, as usual, too many things to possibly keep up with! I have a few original novel projects floating around. But… most relevant to Tumblr… I also have two (yes, TWO!!!) new House Of The Dragon fic ideas that I’m really excited about.

Just last week, one of these ideas turned into a must-write-immediately type of story when I saw the final scene while driving home from work and listening to Fall Out Boy’s second album, From Under The Cork Tree. I’ve had that album on repeat ever since!

It’s always daunting to start a new series; the time commitment is stressful, and there’s a fear of rejection as well. I remember being absolutely terrified to post the first chapter of Comet Donati because I felt like it was so different in tone from NICIY, and I worried that my readers wouldn’t connect with it. But Comet ended up working out in the long run, so I’m trying to use that lesson to talk myself out of any self-doubt.

This new series is going to be very different from Comet in both setting and tone. It’s going to be long, around 15 chapters.

And for more details, you’ll have to check back on Sunday, September 10th! :)

[yourqueenb]

Saw someone say that Nia keeping secret was validated by Tyrils whole dilemma and shit behavior about it and yeah soooo true but also I think that. It shouldn't have been part of MCs plot. Like what if it wasn't MC who was told to keep her shadow secret but MAL.... like they have spent most of the year together they worked closely on the ophranage so plenty of time to build more trust between each other and Mal acting weird and closed off would be at least somewhat justified... as well as his sort of immunity to shadow attack like what if Nia had the ability to shield him bc he knew about her powers and didn't need explanation. Like I'm actually so pissed off that they created unnecessary drama for MC when the set up was already there that would have had deepened two LIs arcs and test their bonds with the group and MC.. but no its always annoying variation of liar reveal

I read this ask yesterday I think and have really been contemplating how I want to respond to it because I have so many thoughts and don’t want this to turn into a lengthy, disorganized mess 🤦🏽‍♀️ But anyway, from an objective standpoint this does make sense. And I do hate that MC was held responsible instead of Nia. (Although it wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be. I thought everyone would be angry with us, which would’ve put me off Mal specifically even more considering his behavior so far — more on that later though. But it was really just Tyril if you picked one option and Nia herself if you picked the other based on some screenshots I saw. Which bitch, how is MC betraying your confidence when you’re literally standing in front of everyone looking like lit charcoal on a damn grill??? The secret’s already out! But I digress…). However, I know that Nia being coddled is a part of her arc and is contributing to her current shadow state and overall growth regardless of how annoying it is.

Back to your main point though, on a personal level I don’t think I would want Mal to be the one hiding Nia’s secret because I feel that would create a lot of potential for romantic undertones and he’s already been showing less genuine concern for MCs who are romancing him than he should anyway imo. He keeps saying he thought we were dead/going to die, he’s happy we’re back, things were so hard without us, etc., yet his actions don’t actually align with that. He wants to protect everyone so much to the point he’s willing to “sacrifice himself”, but he barely reacts to MC continuously being placed in near death situations? Idk it just feel like we’re priority #974127 on his list.

And then there’s the whole “you slept through it” situation, which I know I keep bringing up but is so serious in my eyes! He gets to diminish and dismiss what MC went through — something we don’t get to do when he’s crying about how hard it was throughout that year and us being ripped from the group was what caused the hardship in the first place! Like imagine if we were like “You didn’t have it that hard, Mal. You got to move on, continue to rob the rich, and open an orphanage while I was strapped down getting my blood drained and no one came to save me” 😐 And the sad thing is that I know it will never be addressed because it was something they used as a throwaway line to punish people who didn’t have the Inspire skill. (Which why you would make a character say something that damn cruel to the MC who is his friend or love interest as a throwaway line is beyond me, but whatever). Either way, my point is that it’s already bad enough that MC still feels like an outsider in the group (to me at least). So Mal being so closed off because he and Nia were keeping secrets on top of everything I just mentioned would be even worse imo

[surely-galena]

Through the Looking Glass, and What Vyn Found There -- Writer's Commentary and Reflection

[WC: 1.6K]

I heavily underestimated how long TtLG was going to turn out.

It was meant to follow In the end, all I long for is to be a bit of warmth for you and Despite All Odds, It Seems I've Met My Match in the sense that it's a wacky adventure centering around one NXX member and following a mini character arc.

And yeah, Through the Looking Glass still fits that. But with a tentative estimate of 20K at the beginning (like Despite All Odds), I definitely did not expect to end up writing an additional 30K.

There are certain ideas that didn't make it into the final draft, branching points and other things I had to cut or switch into something else. But with no other place to put those ideas, I figured I might as well chat about them for those who might be interested! Or in case you wanted to know all the other ways Through the Looking Glass might have turned out.

Spoilers galore!

Oh no I forgot about that

Since I wrote TtLG over a year and wrote other fics in between, it was tricky keeping track of all the tiny details.

A main example of this is Vyn's crown. He gets the crown around ch11/12, and then I completely forgot about it for the rest of the chapters. I only realized when I was writing ch19 and hurriedly went back to ch13 just to sneak in one line of "OH AND ALSO HE DOES NOT HAVE THE CROWN ANY LONGER." For continuity purposes.

Foreshadowing is a thing

The Snow White twist didn't come to me until later in the story. I decided I liked the idea, and then had to go back and grab details I could twist into something relevant and present it all as HA, FORESHADOWING!!

It just worked out really well, especially when you realize that the queen and the huntsman are both vaguely alluded to in the first couple of paragraphs.

I'm quite happy with the way I tied things together considering I was writing and posting the fic chapter by chapter, but it's definitely made me consider planning a fic better or at least writing a little more ahead before I post a chapter XD

In a similar way, the climax was really hard for me to figure out. That was actually the main reason I ran into a roadblock around March-Sept, when I stopped writing the fic for a bit. I didn't really want to lead the characters around in circles when I had no clue where the story was gonna go.

And then I read back, landed in Luke's chapter, and saw his "home is where the heart is" line.

And I was like, oh. Because that's it, that's the answer! It was RIGHT THERE for the taking, and then I snatched it and ran with it for the second half of the fic.

Stuff I wanted to implement but couldn't for pacing / thematic / other reasons, and other cut lines

I thought a lot about how I wanted the climax to go. Some of these ideas I still find pretty fun, they just didn't really fit in the way I wanted them to.

So one thing I thought about was leaning into the whole sleight of hand thing we get in SR Lingering Warmth, like:

Wonderland character: “You’re mad.”

Vyn: “Ah, but there is a method to my madness, is there not?”

So instead of following fairy tale magic logic, maybe Vyn takes some inspiration from Carl and goes screw it, I’m making my own magic with Trickery and Deceit

-

Another thing I thought about was having the looking glass in the throne room be more of an overt threat when we first see it?

“It’s a looking glass,” the queen says. “It tells me I’m pretty.”

“It’s a looking glass,” the beast says. “It tells me I’m human.”

(Oh yeah, and the huntsman was first just outright referred to as the Beast! I still kept that idea, just changed him to the huntsman to better reflect the Snow White story)

-

I also played around with the concept of checkmate for the longest time. I thought about Vyn saying "checkmate" mistakenly, Vyn saying "checkmate" not mistakenly, and someone else saying "checkmate" to Vyn when he makes a bad judgement.

In the end, no one says "checkmate" HAHA

-

I was going to make Marius have more song references. That's it, that's the cut concept (and single line)

“You know the rules, and so do I.” Marius grunts as he ducks to avoid the incoming barrage of cards.

-

Zangr was originally planned to make some meta comments about fanfic, just because it's Zangr. I decided to make him marginally more helpful instead. Cryptic, but still helpful!

And oh, remember this bit?

Zangr shrugs, and his cloak shifts with the movement. He closes his eyes, as if trying to recall something. “One for knowledge, two for understanding. Three for answers, four for more. Five for strife. Shadows unfold.”

Zangr is actually referring to the squares Vyn had previously traveled! First Square for getting a hold on what's actually happening (knowledge), Second Square for Carl and understanding the cards and the end goal, Third Square for MC to break through some of Vyn's walls (internal answers), Fourth Square for more answers (as in "home is where the heart is"), and the Fifth Square is in reference to Marius and Vyn's tense relationship (strife).

-

More climax ideas!

I briefly played around with Vyn actually having to go to Svart, but discarded it pretty quickly. I didn't wanna delve too much into canon Svart, haha

Chapter 12 (where we meet the Queen of Hearts for the first time) was originally going to be the climax chapter, but as I got closer to that point, I realized that was not the right stopping point. Vyn hadn't had his whole arc yet, hadn't properly resolved things with Artem, and also the rest of the NXX hadn't really had the chance to do much as a team. Which meant it became a halfway point instead, and we got to go to the Underland, huzzah

Lastly, I think the climax idea I was saddest about dropping had to do with the calling cards, mostly because it meant I couldn't write in this line:

Vyn spreads his arms. "I have achieved subdivision."

I managed to sneak in the fact that the calling cards still worked in the final chapter as a small nod to this, but essentially I had thought about having Vyn's dark moment be by himself (instead of in the lift thing with Artem). After a while, he would draw something on the cards -- either the original symbols to recall MC, Marius, Luke, and Marius again, OR:

He'd draw a psi symbol. And the idea was to have that drawing result in a sort of clone Vyn (where original Vyn is the hivemind and the card Vyns are decoys). And then have Vyn repeat the process until he had five different Vyns to take on the Queen of Hearts.

It's pretty easy to see why I ended up going a different route, but I still find the subdivision quote to be pretty fun.

-

Finally, this is a section I cut out of the last chapter. It's a little rough, but I thought I would include it here, anyway. As much as I liked the circular writing, it didn't really fit into the chapter as well as I wanted it to.

They say Stellis is a place where dreams are made real.

A young woman studies furiously so she can uphold justice where there is none.

A man enters the city in search of a place to call home.

These tales all have one thing in common: they have had to work for their dreams. For Stellis has areas that are both dark and light.

There are people in Stellis who never fulfill their dreams nor achieve their happily-ever-afters. After all, it is a place like any other.

So who is it who fights for these happy ever afters? Who are the people who stand up for the common folk and swear to defend justice and hope and dreams?

A determined maiden, a rising attorney, a star detective, a young heir, and a psychiatrist with a hidden past.

There are other unsung heroes, of course. There always are.

But it is because of these five that Stellis continues to be a place where dreams can be upheld.

They do not have magic spells or looking glasses to draw from, but they have boldness and courage and resilience. And they have each other.

Unacknowledged by the majority of the people around them, they continue to work for the good of their home.

Final Thoughts

I quite like the way Through the Looking Glass turned out! It may not be my favorite fic I've ever written, but for all the problems I ran into along the way, I'm fairly satisfied with it. There are things I could have done better, sure, but all things considered, I completed it and that's cool! It'll be a little sad to say goodbye, but it'll also be very exciting to open up a blank document and draft something new :D

What's next?

Okay, so we had the monster plant fic for Luke, a genderbent/parallel universes AU for Artem, and a Wonderland excursion for Vyn. It's kinda obvious who's next in the lineup XD

I do have some Marius fic concepts in mind, but before I really go down the road of "what multichapter to write next", I'm gonna take a nice break haha. But maybe someday Marius is going to finally, finally have a fic that's centered on just him :')

[skelezomperman]

Ranking my fanfics in a tier list

Why am I doing this when nobody will read this? No special occasion, I just have been feeling it for some time.

1. Because I can. 2. Because it’s fun. (Also I think later this month marks three years since I first started on a draft for the first time...)

I think I’ve also mentioned every non-substitute FE4 character at least once in a fanfic of mine...I think Amid, Laylea, Asaello, and Daisy are the ones that are left, so hopefully one day. Enough rambling - on to the tier list.

---

S-Tier - A fic which, while not perfect, is still not something that I can compare to anything else I’ve done.

A Tale of Star-Crossed Knights - Jugdral, relatively speaking, doesn’t have that many fics. The amount of fics that are long enough to be novel-length are very few - probably a couple dozen, if that. As of this post, this fic is the ninth longest FE4-specific fanfiction on AO3. It takes a unique stance though by focusing on this rarepair between Finn and Erinys which I dreamed of one day because of a random Reddit comment. I can see errors in it which I’ll probably correct in the future but overall this was well-received. Writing this really did change me and it improved my skill. I can say many more words about this but I’ll keep it brief: I hope that this one takes a place among the most memorable fics produced for that game.

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A-Tier - The ones that I would show to people first if they asked.

And Life Went On - This was based on a prompt list which was passed onto me about pairings. I decided that I wanted the challenge of writing about more Jugdral pairings so I did one 100-word drabble for each prompt with a completely different couple. People really loved it and I liked writing this slice-of-life interspersed with Jugdral’s canon. There’s even a couple chapters which eventually turned into standalone pieces and I’m sure more chapters will turn into standalone pieces in the future.

Taking Stock - If you asked me which story I think was the best composed, I would point to this one. Catria isn’t even my favorite Whitewing but she has so much potential and many good fanfic authors have already explored this potential. While neither of her sisters play prominent roles, I think this piece shows the complicated feelings that Catria has towards them. She’s a bit jealous of Palla being a tad more successful even though Catria is better at feelings and she feels grief over Est’s departure and still somewhat blames herself for it. And the Marth scene too - it’s a good portrayal of it without going in an immature direction.

Yearning - My favorite Finn/Lach piece is not even one where they get together. This was meant as a spiritual successor to the true ending of A Knight’s Weak Feelings, the idea being “what if Finn became friends with Lachesis but never completely moved past his feelings for her?” All the feelings in Finn’s mind feel so real to me. This is almost my preferred version of him and Lachesis. Almost.

A Knight’s Weak Feelings - I had a very vivid image of this scene one day, where Finn is very guilty for feeling attracted to Lachesis and tries to hide it from her. The emotions were more vivid than nearly any of my other inspirations. My only regret was pulling a punch and not immediately going with the “they became friends” ending. I still love this one though.

---

B-Tier - These ones are good but not necessarily my favorites.

Divine Wind, Earth Lance - The Ced/Altena fanfic, basically, for the five people who really like that ship. I think I did this relationship much better in A Tale of Star-Crossed Knights though their arc ripped off this fic anyways. Still, it was my first real attempt at a longer romance piece and I think it prepared me for my later fics.

Goodbye, Velthomer - To my surprise, I saw a month ago or so that someone actually recommended this piece. It was very heartwarming that people liked this one. The idea isn’t original but my spin was putting it in the canon of A Tale of Star-Crossed Knights especially with Arthur being born immediately before the Battle of Belhalla. The grief that these two feel when departing Grannvale, I think I did a good job with that. Grief is a strength in my writing anyways.

Bond - This is a Seliph/Muirne scene from And Life Went On which I really liked. The biggest thing I like about this relationship is how Muirne feels inadequate because of the class difference. I think I did a great job here!

A Heartfelt Conversation - The Finn and Jeanne father/daughter relationship is something that is barely explored, if ever. One similarity that you can draw here is that both lack holy blood. I think I could have wrote that in.

A Frigid Night - Spinoff of A Tale of Star-Crossed Knights though the idea predates that. This was an idea which is harder to execute because “characters sleeping together” could, in the wrong hands, turn into something which isn’t that innocent. But instead, the piece turned out well and it showcases the dynamic in this relationship. And it was cute too.

Mistaken Identity - Based on an art piece showing Erinys, Palla, and a few other green-haired ladies working in a diner. Surprisingly, I think this one was written fairly well. I liked making backstories for those two characters and a couple others like Minerva in a modern AU. I probably won’t pursue expanding it but I won’t rule it out.

Snow Day - Eldigan/Grahnye fluff with some Ares/Lene fluff at the end. Two of my favorite ships. I like the interaction between the scenes.

Tears - Glade/Selphina, a ship that I like but which I haven’t written well about. This one does the job, I think, but I do like how I showed their relationship.

Leif’s Nightmare - Originally a crackfic idea but somehow it turned out well. Though I ended up liking Seliph/Nanna for real eventually...

Observing a Legacy - Recent one about an OC from A Tale of Star-Crossed Knights. I think it’s pretty good for my first attempt at writing from an OC’s perspective.

---

C-Tier - I’m ambivalent on them. They’re neither good nor bad.

Divergent Perspectives of the Lady of Nordion - Wordy title aside, my first ever fanfic still holds up decently well. I still think it does a good job of showing different ways the Beo/Finn/Lach triangle could have gone. Definitely some awkwardness from being a novice but I like it for what it is.

Glare - Finn/Lach goodness, can’t resist.

Wise Words - This one is actually funny, the one where Shannan almost swears. 

Kind Emperor - Based on a commission by a friend. I love Seliph/Muirne but I did do a better rendition once.

A Mother’s Protection - Mainly to try to show the relationship between Julia and her mother. It’s good enough though I lament that it was influenced by Her Shadowy Protector by LaughingX-Naut. Not that anything is wrong with that fic but I prefer original ideas.

Promise - Longer version of an entry from As Life Went On for Julia Week, it was decent enough.

Her Destiny - I like the Julia/Lewyn dynamic and I think this is a decent retelling of it.

---

D-Tier - Not my favorites, something about them bothers me.

Counting Down to Christmas - Tried to do As Life Went On with more pairings, just didn’t end up turning out well. Didn’t get received as well either. I should probably try to do Roy/Lilina or whatever on its own instead.

The Luminous Rider’s Promise - An earlier fanfic exploring the sibling relationship between Leif/Altena. I would definitely want to rewrite it to make it longer if I got the chance.

Flowers - Generic one-shot of Eliwood grieving over Ninian. It’s just bland.

Dew’s Moment - I’m grateful that this one gave me a chance to get in form for writing again back in 2022, but there’s nothing special about it.

A Life for a Life - There was no need to rip off the (catholic) Rosary and use that as a storytelling device. Minerva could have reflected on Michalis’ life some other way. 

Restoring Color to a Forget-me-not - I attempted to write a counterpart to the Finn/Lachesis scene with the Earth Sword in the Oosawa manga adaptation. Unfortunately, I don’t think it really provided much unique content. But surprisingly it got 19 kudos as of March 2023 probably because people like Finn/Lach.

Servant of the Wind - In retrospect, I feel like this one goes through the same motions that most fanfics about Gen 2 Lewyn do. It’s honestly boring and I especially hate that I put a “happy ending” where he reunites with Erinys in the afterlife. I wouldn’t do that again.

Warmth in the Freezing Rain - So, the idea here was basically to go down the same road as A Frigid Night but with Minerva/Palla instead. Unfortunately, I can’t say I like how it turned out. It has a weird aura to it where it’s not really “cute” and I don’t like that vibe from my writing. Probably my least favorite fanfic which is unfortunate because I love Minpalla as a pairing.

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F-Tier - Literally unfinished.

A Troubadour and a Princess - This one was my first attempt at an epistolary format. I released it to celebrate the first anniversary of the FEH To Stay Dreaming banner which to this day is still my favorite seasonal in that game. Unfortunately, real life happened and I never got ideas to continue after Chapter 1. I think this one will stay on hold forever.

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So there we have it, thirty fics all tiered. (I excluded the four “draft fics” for A Tale of Star-Crossed Knights and Under the Setting Sun wasn’t included either since it’s still in progress.) It was nice to get to review my thoughts about them and get them on paper. I don’t know who’s actually going to read this but if you read this, thank you. Maybe in the future I’ll write more meta posts like this.

[eialyne]

Hello again! Your Secret Santa is back.

Sorry that I’m late, it’s been a busy week.

( ´ ▽ ` )

I’m a big fan of “The Scarlet (insert all episode titles of that arc here)” because you get to see how insanely smart Conan is AND Akai finally officially comes back. So the “Jet-Black Mystery Train” is also high on my list because of the big Subaru hints.

“Clash of Red and Black” is a fantastic arc, first time I watched it I was so stressed! I didn’t trust anything I saw.

That arc also has one of the best openings in my opinion! Which leads to the question:

Do you have a top 10 (or 5) opening list?

And of course I needed to read the survey details! (ﾟ∀ﾟ)

Was super fun to get someone that loves Akai! Would you believe me if I said I have a tattoo of him? (And one of Conan)

I’m also currently in the process of making your gift! So if you have any last minute new requests/ideas or prompts this is your chance!!

Have a nice day!!! _(┐「ε:)_

You are speaking my language, Secret Santa, as I hold the firm opinion that Conan has some of the best openings out there in the anime music world. Admitidly the series has a bit of a leg up just due to how many there are to choose from, but a number of those are regulars in my spotify playlists. So, in no particular order (as actual favorite can very depending on my mood):

Growing of my Heart - An utter classic

Ai wa Kurayami no Naka de - Because yes, this opening is fantastic because the song and animation just work so well together! It's also one of the very few things in life that make me excited to drive which is a....really bizzare side effect of listening to it in my car.

Revive - Is a JAM (even if there's this background noise in it that grates on my ears, so unfortunately I don't listen to it nearly as much as I would like T_T)

Truth - Two Mix is great and it's a shame we didn't get more openings from them, even without the added meta hilarity of Conan singing his own theme song.

Koi wa Thrill, Shock, Suspense - The Detective Conan anime doing iconic dance sequences in their openings before Haruhi and Lucky Star's went viral (also on SO MANY burned mix CDs back in high school).

Puzzle - Ok yes this is a movie opening but I love it ">>

Kaze no Lalala - Such a chill song and half the time I forget it's even an opening rather than a closing

Nazo - Specificaly the La PomPon cover though, because even though the OG Nazo isn't a top fave of mine, I do love a good callback and this one was very well done

Answer - Gotta love a good ominous opening, especialy when still admist the "What exactly is your deal???" character plots

Sekai wa Anata no Iro ni Naru - I wouldn't say is one of my favorite music-wise, but I just really enjoy how just about every main character gets a fun action scene.

Also honorable mention to that amazing jazz peice we got as an opening in the first episode of Magic Kaito specials (the randomly appearing ones before the proper series came out). I was always bummed we never got more of that and they went with more generic openings when they decided to do more of them.

I would absolutely love to see this tattoo of yours, if it's something you don't mind sharing, once you're able to reveal yourself! I'm not a tattoo person (I barely tolorate needles at the doctors office ">>) but Akai definately makes up the vast majority of my aquired Conan merch.

I can't wait to see what you come up with! I'm so terrible at prompts (for myself at least; the gift I'm doing for my own giftee came with such a sudden spark of inspiration I was almost physicaly reeling when it hit) so I put my faith entirely in you!

[ktinastrikesback]

Alright, here it is: The meta post about Eddie Diaz and mother figures and how it all leads to Buddie (I think). Thanks to @yramesoruniverse for your help with this, and @kitkatpancakestack and @evanbucklies for inspiring it! I really have been thinking about this nonstop and had to get it all down. This got quite long, so I'll include a cut in order to spare everyone who doesn't want to continue reading!

We first get an idea of Eddie's complicated thoughts surrounding mother figures throughout his whole storyline with Shannon in season 2 when he romantically reconnects with her for Christopher's benefit. I do want to keep the focus here trained on Eddie in season 4, but I want to point out a season 2 line that is pretty fitting. As much as I don't want to use a Shannon quote as a starting point for a meta, I think this one is actually pretty useful: "...Eddie always knows what's best for everyone...God forbid you stop for a second and actually ask them what they need." While it's harsh and spoken out of spite, Shannon does make a point here which becomes relevant at the end of season 4.

We don't know a whole lot about season 4 Eddie (thanks writers) aside from the fact that he's working on being a single father (he tells Marjan in the crossover that he's "doing the whole single dad thing") and being a support system for Buck and the rest of the 118. Eddie's "arc" this season is moving on from Shannon and beginning to date again (a very small and limited arc, which hopefully season 5 will remedy). Of course, because it's Eddie, the core of this arc is him wanting what is best for Christopher. And it seems pretty clear that what Eddie thinks Chris needs is a complete family with a mother figure (note how he asks Bobby if he's "happy now, with Athena and the kids" and just assumes that Bobby is talking about Ana Flores), but the universe pushes against this idea throughout the whole season. There are a lot of examples in season 4 of unreliable mother figures (for example, the alcoholic mother who causes the wreck in Blindsided), but in order to save some space here, I'll list and discuss those in another post. The main thing I want to point out is that we've seen that mother figures aren't always perfect, and they aren't the end all be all that Eddie thinks. And canonically, the show suggests several times throughout the season that the partner that Eddie needs/wants and who is best for Chris is actually Buck.

In Breaking Point, while Eddie is on his date, it's Buck who is at home taking care of Christopher and getting him through his nighttime routine (which establishes that he knows the routine and has gotten Chris ready for bed before, hence the reference to his "cautionary tale"). On the date, when Ana says that no one has been in his life since Shannon passed away, Eddie noticeably looks uncomfortable (the will reveal makes this scene and that particular comment and Eddie's subsequent reaction so rich. Eddie knows that what Ana is saying is completely untrue, because the person he trusts most with his son is with him at that exact moment). Later, when Eddie tells Christopher about his new 'friend', he says "it's a woman." And...to be honest, what the hell was that? He could have said, "I'm dating someone" or "I have a girlfriend." But he says it like this? And it's weird...right? Christopher is the one who has to say "girlfriend." Also his tone of voice when he says it...it's suspicious to me. Anyways...Eddie talks with Ana about Christopher's reaction and her first instinct is to take a break and wait for Christopher to warm up to the idea so as to not cause him more pain. Meanwhile, Chris is out the door, in an Uber, and on his way to Buck, the person who actually gets Chris to talk about his feelings and who fixes the whole mess. So while Eddie is talking with Ana, Buck is playing a parental role AND promising Chris he isn't going anywhere, completely juxtaposing everything Ana has said and done in this episode (throwback to Fools, anyone?). Just like we see in 4x14, the perfect partner that Eddie is looking for is already putting in the work, no questions asked (and this is all before Buck knows about the will!). Yet Eddie is still trying to force it with Ana.

We see this again very briefly in Parenthood. Eddie and Buck are seen agreeing on parenting ideals on a call, similar to how we saw them work together in Future Tense to talk Chris out of playing video games. At the end of the episode however, when Chris asks to join the movie, Ana just jumps ahead and lets him in, not consulting with Eddie. Of course, this isn't a serious issue and Eddie is happy to have Chris join them, but it still carries on with juxtaposing Ana with Buck. It's also a bit interesting that Chris sits between them, parallel to the video game scene from season 3. But again, it's a very brief scene, so I don't know how much value it has overall.

We see all of this come to a head in 4x13 when Eddie becomes invested in the single mother and her son from the balcony call. Interestingly, this call happens after Eddie's conversation with Carla ("make sure you're following your heart"). On the call, Eddie flirts with the mom. This is interesting because we've seen many times in the past that Eddie...doesn't like flirting, especially on the job. Eddie openly flirting with the mom here may be his way of fighting against what his instincts are telling him Carla's comment was about (him liking Buck/a man). Eddie quickly becomes invested in Charlie (the son) and takes a liking to his mother because he relates to her. You can kind of see the gears working in Eddie's head when he's at their apartment...he's admiring her and perhaps maybe fantasizing about having a partner who gets it. And he sees a mother taking care of her son...reinforcing his love for the mother figure. But of course, we all learn by the end of the episode that this mother figure is extremely warped and not at all what her child needs.

The best part about this plot is the way it plays into the shooting scene at the end of the episode. Just before he gets shot, we see Eddie in an interesting framing choice (I am genuinely serious when I say that I want to sit down with Brenna Malloy and ask her about her directing choices for this whole scene):

The mother and son are placed into separate ambulances, and Eddie stands between the two vehicles. Visually, Eddie is literally placed between the mother figure and the son, and Buck is standing in front of him (at a slight distance). As (thank you to @kitkatpancakestack for pointing this out!) the ambulance with the mother drives away, Eddie says "shoulda gotten here sooner" to Buck (who replies, "That kid is just lucky he met you." He knows how to reassure Eddie and recognizes what is good for the child). Then of course, Eddie gets shot. But let's focus instead on why this framing before the shooting is important: the universe does scream, and it sure as hell was screaming at Eddie this whole episode. Carla calls him out for not following his heart, he idolizes this mother only for her to end up being horrid, then he gets shot with his partner standing right in front of him (you know, the same person who takes care of his son for the entirety of the next episode).

This can be read so plainly: Eddie has been fighting hard for what he thinks is best for his son, and he's stuck in this relationship with Ana because he thinks she is what will make Christopher happy. Meanwhile, Buck is in front of him and has been there the entire time putting in the work with Chris and making him feel heard, loved, and important. This ties right back to that Shannon line: if Eddie had simply asked Christopher what he needs/wants, it's very possible that his answer would be "Buck." Eddie doesn't need to be stuck in the middle of this relationship he doesn't care about because Chris' happiness is not dependent on having a mother figure.

Of course, we didn't see very much of Eddie in 4x14 so we don't really know what is going through his head regarding the shooting or Carla's comment just yet, but I'm hoping we see a lot of him working through all of the events that took place in 4x13/14 throughout next season. Because of the way the mother/son storyline ended up and the way they framed Eddie in the shooting scene, I'm willing to bet that he's going to be reevaluating just what Christopher needs and what he already has (with his Buck).

(Also side note--the welcome home party scene...when Buck is watching Eddie greet Christopher, notice the framing there too. The photo of Chris and Shannon is on the right side of the frame, Eddie and Chris in the middle, and Buck to the left. You already know what I'm going to say, so I'll leave it at that...)

Anyways. Edmundo Diaz is confused about what he and Christopher need, and it's actually a brilliant way to dive into a storyline about his sexuality and his feelings for Buck. Remember that post-finale interview with Tim where he said Eddie is always concerned with what's best for Christopher? That there will be a lot to explore with Eddie? I take everything Tim says with a grain of salt, but looking at all of this, there's quite a bit here pointing in the direction of pining Eddie. It's not wishful thinking, it's in the text.

I'm literally just applying basic film analysis to these scenes...and everything is adding up to a larger picture. I'm really excited to see what Eddie's arc in season 5 will be because there's so much set in place for it to be really great.

[rrandomtthings]

Why Bkdk is NOT toxic:

A look through their relationship throughout the series

Cw// MAJOR bnha manga spoilers

As bakudekus, we experience that “bkdk is toxic!1!” argument on a daily. It’s something that we have all just.. let sit next to us knowing that it’s always going to be there. Of course, and understandably, it bothers most of us. What many see, especially non-manga readers, isn’t what we see.

Let’s start off with what they see. In the first episode/chapter, we start off with Bakugous infamous “Swan dive off the roof” line.

Of course, no matter how you look at it, this was a terrible thing that Bakugou said to Izuku. There is no excuse. Telling someones to kts, no matter how you may disagree and not see eye to eye, is always inexcusable (this applies to real life too!!)

Later in the chapter, Bakugou carries around a can that says “Lip Service,” which, pretty much means being all talk and not meaning actions behind the words that are being said (usually said with a negative connotation.)

Once again, does this excuse what he said to Izuku? Absolutely not. However, this does give us insight on the future and when we find out about how Bakugou feels for Deku.

Note: As for the bullying prior to this scene, there is no proof that Bakugou continuously bullied Deku as of when this has been written.

Then, the sludge incident happened. At first glance, Deku looked horrified at the attack. However, he didn’t make any moves as he assumed that the heroes will come in and save the person. Once it was revealed to him that it was Bakugou, Izuku had his “My body moved on its own” moment and did not even hesitate to save Kacchan.

After the sludge villain attack, it was explicitly stated that Bakugou had not bullied Deku since then.

Now, the two are in UA and it is revealed that Deku has a quirk to Bakugou. A quirk that he was told to keep its origins of a secret. However, Deku told Bkg about OFA, ignoring All Mights warnings because he felt like he could not lie to Kacchan. Despite them still having a very rocky relationship at this point in the series, Deku still felt the need to tell Kacchan about OFA. He could not lie to him. He could lie to his mom, all of UA, everyone in the world, but not to Kacchan.

Fast forward to DVK2 and they are fighting out their emotions. Here, Deku talks about how, although he hated those small parts of Bakugou that bullied him, he never let the bad outshine the good. He always looked up to Bakugou and wanted to be just like him.

Deku compares how he sees Kacchan to All Might. His literal hero. The man who he idolizes like crazy. He felt closer and more inspired by Kacchan than All Might. Because Kacchan was always there next to him. In Dekus eyes, despite the bullying and all, he saw Kacchan as more than All Might.

Izuku expresses how he is the only one who can accept Bakugous feelings. Not because it is explicitly about the two of them, rather it’s because he is the only one willing to listen and understand where he is coming from. And Bakugou knows this too. He could have easily asked anyone else, but instead he chose Izuku. He trusted Deku enough to be vulnerable around him.

During this fight, Bakugou expresses how he always thought that Deku continuously looked down on him. And it’s because he has never seen such genuine kindness from anyone. He was always expected to get up on his own. All because of his quirk and how he was praised for being gifted with such. He always thought that Izuku had an “attitude” that he was so unfamiliar with.

Deku, during their fight, although he does not say it out loud because he thinks that it “sounds stupid,” talks about how he sees Kacchan and his image of victory. To him, when he thinks of victory, Kacchan is who comes to mind.

After this fight, they are able to start to see eye to eye and start to understand each other’s perspectives. Now that Bakugou knows about OFA, they start to work and grow together. Win to save and Save to win.

In the JT arc there are very fun moments between the two as they start becoming more and more friendly with each other. They continue to try and one up each other, but it is much different than before. There is a lighter undertone to their words and actions. They start hanging out in the meeting room with All Might as there is also a lot of banter between the two—this is when their relationship has started to mend. Not to mention, during this arc Deku unlocks black whip all because Monoma insulted Kacchan.

Now, after the two spend so much time together with the JT and Endeavor agency arcs, the two has become much closer than they were at the beginning of the series. The two have started to mend their bond and continue to do so.

Then, the war arc.

After realizing that Shigaraki is after OFA, Deku makes the decision to follow after him. Throughout these panels, he looks absolutely terrified. Of course, why wouldn’t he be? He is about to run into a battle field all on his own, without any support and with no one knowing what he plans to do.

However, Kacchan does.

Kacchan follows Deku to Shigaraki. He claims that it’s because he has “unfinished business” with him, but, while that may be partly true, that’s not the full truth (I.e. he wants to protect Deku.)

Now, the two have reached Shigaraki and Deku is fighting against him. Bakugou tells Deku to get away from him and that he should be the last person near him. The response Bakugou gets is that no one else can defeat Shigaraki as Kacchan watches Deku in absolute fear that he will end up being terribly hurt.

Side note: look at the terror in his eyes.. I’m gonna sob

Within this specific fight with Shigaraki, there are many heroes with the two. Some of which are Endeavor, Shouto, Rock Lock, Aizawa (injured), etc. Despite knowing that this is a child up in the air fighting Shigaraki, some (not Rock Lock, he had the right idea with questioning why children are on the battle field) look in amazement as Deku continuously breaks himself so he can try and get Shigaraki down.

However, Kacchan sees past this as he yells at the other heroes about how this is not helping Deku in the slightest and that he is going to get himself killed at the rate that he was going.

Bakugou devises a plan to try and help Deku and to get Shigaraki down as the heroes look in awe at Deku. He uses Shouto and Endeavor as they try and get up to where the two were and have Endeavor use his Prominence Burn on Shigaraki in hopes that would bring him down.

While Bakugou is flying them up to Deku, he has a flashback to a conversation with All Might.

They were training Deku with black whip. They were playing a game called “Catch a Kacchan” (I will never get over how cute this name is 😭) and they called in others to help Deku practice with quirks similar to the ones that he will eventually or has either unlocked (Uraraka for Float, Tsu for black whip, etc.)

As All Might and Bakugou watch on as Deku trains, they have a conversation.

Bakugou asks All Might why he is hiding information about the fourth user from Deku. No, he doesn’t ask, he confronts him. He confronts his childhood hero for the sake of Deku. He straight up tells All Might to stop keeping information from, knowing that this could potentially harm him.

Bakugou is upset at that point. He wishes for All Might to stop keeping secrets from them, more specifically Deku.

Then, as the two continue to talk, All Might brings up the fact that he is worried for Izuku. And Bakugou is too, to which he does not deny in any sort of way.

Note: once again, even when they’re not on the battle field, Bakugou looks so worried for Deku. Many have speculated that him looking tired throughout this chapter (ch. 284) has to do with him continuously worrying about Izuku and thinking about their past together.

Bakugou continues the conversation as he talks about how Deku does not understand how special he is. All Might brings up the idea of atonement and questions Bakugou as to whether that is what he is doing with Deku as a way to make up for their past, to which Bakugou does not disagree upon. The conversation then ends with All Might talking about how the two will eventually get to talk this out together and allow for Bakugou to express his worries for Deku to him.

Then, the scene changes back to the battle field as Endeavor uses his Prominence Burn onto Shigaraki, only for it to fail as he got right back up due to his regeneration.

The battle continues between Deku and Shigaraki (who at this point is AFO) as he releases Quirk Activation spikes in Izukus direction.

Kacchan, seeing as Deku is about to get hurt, rushes to him in an instant.

Throughout this scene, we see Bakugous inner monologue. Here, we are shown all his regrets with his and Dekus relationship. How he completely regrets bullying him in the past. Deku are his final thoughts in a moment where he thinks he is about to die.

Kacchan had his “my body moved on its own” moment as he rushed in to save Deku.

After Bakugou was hit, his first words to Deku were to try and calm him down and to tell him to not win this on his own.

Upon seeing Kacchan hurt, to even say that Deku went bat shit crazy would be an understatement. He was absolutely livid as we see him fight like never before.

As Deku continues to fight against Shigaraki, Shouto flies up with his fire quirk to catch Bakugou as he is falling, to which he eventually grabs Deku after him and Shigaraki separate and Izuku starts to fall.

After putting them on the ground, Shouto goes back and fight with Nejire.

As Iida had arrived at the battle field by this point, he tries to help an injured Bakugou get out of the battle field. However, Bakugou refuses as he continues to fight.

Here, it is revealed that Bakugou, just by seeing Deku almost die, has never felt so close to death in his lifetime. Not when Bakugou got kidnapped. Not when class 1A was attack at the USJ, not after he was stabbed. It was the thought of Deku dying that made him feel like he was about to die.

The need to get to Deku caused for a quirk evolution as he had to advance his quirk in that moment to be able to reach Deku.

After the battle is done, Bakugou falls into a 2 day coma. When he wakes up, the first thing he asks is how Deku, Todoroki, Aizawa, etc. are doing.

Upon hearing that Deku is still asleep, Kacchan rushes out of bed to get to his room despite still being heavily injured. At this moment, Bakugou knew that he would not be able to talk to Deku. He just wanted to know if he was okay. He just wanted to see him.

After having to tie him up with Tsuyus tongue, knowing that that if they tie him up with anything else he would explode it, Bakugou yells “Why am I awake while you’re still asleep?” towards Dekus room as he is being dragged away by the class.

Many have taken that line as a way of showing that Bakugou fully expected to die for Deku at that moment. And he was willing to. Seeing that his effort to protect him failed and led to Deku being in a coma only greatly upset Kacchan.

At the moment that this has been written, Deku still hasn’t woken up and Kacchan was forced back to his room.

If after reading this post you still think that bkdk is toxic because of their past, I do want you to understand that people change. We all have a past, a present, and a future. You are not who you were in your past. You are who you are in the present, and you will be someone different in the future.

Bakugou clearly regrets how he treated Deku. This is not an opinion, this is a fact. He is trying to change and mend their relationship. They are living in the present right now, not the past.

Izuku does not hold any grudge against him and even admits that he feels blessed to be able to have conversations with Kacchan.

When it comes to Bakudeku, so many only look at the first episode. Even if you’re just an anime-only, the anime has DVK2. The episode where a lot of their progression comes from.

At this point, if you still think that their relationship is toxic, then im really not sure what to tell you. If your argument is still “in the first episode...” The no. Stop. We are 300+ chapters in. These two are the main protagonists and the show literally revolves around them. They are obviously going to grow. You can’t completely ignore this growth because of what happened in the first episode. You can’t only look at the things you want to and ignore the big picture.

[marshmallowdonutsprinkles]

I was laughing at this yesterday because I found it kinda hilarious they gave a redemption arc to an alien dragon from space hell, but thinking about the SS Leon and Eternatus sync pair, their decision to redeem/make this unlikely pair makes a lot of sense to me now after seeing this quote

They are different. Leon's this strong champion who Galarians admire and aspire to be, while Eternatus is a beast from this unknown, vast, mainly unexplored region called space that almost killed Galarians twice (SS Leon and Eternatus are Pokemon's beauty and the beast). One inspires hope, the other incites fear. Nobody I know expected this pair to happen-and honestly neither did I- because they're just that different from each other, which I think makes this sync pair all that better.

What brought them together was understanding. The event story tells you Eternatus is in pain because it can't feed off the energy from Pasio (how did it leave galar anyway???). Neither Hop, Gloria, or Leon held grudges (or trauma apparently) from Eternatus back in Galar. Once they understood the situation, their first reaction was to agree to help Eternatus, the same Pokemon they once clashed with.

..Which is better than me, tbh, cuz I hold grudges and would've whooped eternatus. But that's why I'm not in a Pokemon game teaching kids important life lessons. Anyway

They end up facing eternatus near the end of the story and Leon personally asks if eternatus wants to be his partner like he's about to adopt a puppy. Eternatus disagrees at first but it was because of the pain it was dealing with caused it to thrash about and not really pay attention to what's going on. And instead of asserting dominance or something Leon just says he'll prove to Eternatus it can trust him to help him (and he does). He does what he needs to do and lets Eternatus decide instead of forcing himself on it. Eternatus didn't have to team up with Leon. It could've teamed up with someone else, or fly off. It chose to pair with Leon because it acknowledged him and was able to discern that Leon wasn't out to get it.

Like, at least he asked permission first but I think that puts a significant difference between Leon and Rose, too. Rose forcefully awoke Eternatus to harvest energy, Leon specifically asks for permission to help Eternatus. Their approaches regarding this pokemon that will definitely be distrustful and hostile of humans because it never saw them before arriving on Earth could explain why Eternatus helped one and not the other. Eternatus was pretty much just misunderstood all this time(lmao) because after finding something in common with a human (Leon and his love for battling) Eternatus is now making an effort to understand all humans because it's aware that "hey, not all humans are bad!"

Shiid, maybe when Eternatus notices the Galarian energy dissipating in a 1000 years it'll just simply shoot a laser beam and power it up again for free because by then it'll then have a good relationships with humans, all because it became besties with Leon here.

Despite differences, you can still find common ground and coexist with someone, and that seems to be why they put Leon with Eternatus. And with all the racism, sexism, homophobia, etc. that's prevalent in the real world and specifically Pokemon fandom, it's a nice and important reminder to have.

[xiaomoxu]

Lucien - Leisure Light Date

⚠️ SPOILER ALERT!! ⚠️

A date from CN server which hasn’t been released on EN server yet.

It turned out I have some time for translating this date before I have a date with some works later~ please enjoy a sweet moment on their leisure time ^^

Translations under the cuts~

In the middle of the autumn, the sun willingly spilled into the living room, and the fragrance of sweet-scented osmanthus was lingering on the tip of my nose. I took a deep breath and opened the long-awaited book.

MC: Where did I read it last time..."The psychological effects that should be avoided in business management" seems to be here.

Before I read a few lines, the news of the company group suddenly jumped out, I was a little confused and opened it.

Kiki: Guys! I found the most unbeatable challenge on the entire network!

Kiki: It's the actor who worked with us last time! We sincerely invite everyone to try it!

Kiki said and sent a link to the video, with the title saying "no temptation challenge, 100% failure."

MC: 100% failure is too exaggerated...

I was about to open it when Lucien sat beside me at some point and put two glasses of juice with lemon slices on the coffee table.

Lucien: Looking at what?

MC: Kiki posted a video just now, it's very popular recently, called "no temptation challenge."

I put the phone between us and Lucien glanced at the screen, showing a thoughtful expression.

Lucien: Several young interns in the Institute also watch this type of video recently.

MC: Hahaha I didn't expect this craze has spread to the group of scientific researchers.

Thinking that the interns in the institute are all boys, I blinked, took Lucien's arm, and looked at him meaningfully.

MC: Did Professor Lucien also watch it? Don’t you wanna share it with me?

Lucien was amused by my look, his eyes curled up, and there was a hint of cunning in his eyes.

Lucien: Would you be angry if I said I had seen it?

MC: Not to that extent, it's just a little bit concerned.

Lucien: Really? Then why your mouth is pouting.

MC: It isn't.

Hearing this, I pursed my mouth deliberately, but saw the smile on Lucien's face wider.

Lucien: Your "a little bit of concerned" makes me very happy.

Lucien: But what I just said is just a hypothesis. The actual situation is...I haven't seen it.

MC: I guess so, after all, a busy person like Professor Lucien would not kill time in this way like me.

Lucien: Oh? It seems that MC have seen it a lot?

Lucien: I am a little curious, from the perspective of a big producer, what would it look like.

MC: In fact, I watched it mostly when I was looking for inspiration for new programs with my colleagues, and now I don’t see much impression.

Now that I think about it, I have never faced this "no temptation challenge" with the mentality of an audience.

Seeing the lemon stuck in the mouth of the juice glass, an idea came to my mind.

MC: Since we have never played, how about playing together once?

Lucien: With you, of course.

Lucien: However, I didn't know much about the specific rules.

Lucien: Is it literally? As long as there is no temptation in the moment of the challenge, it is considered successful?

MC: That's right.

MC: As for the punishment if we failed, let use these two lemons.

Lucien: So how can we judge whether a person is being tempted?

MC: Mostly in this situation, people's temptation will show on their faces.

As soon as the voice fell, I found Lucien's gaze was looking at me, as if he was thinking about some episodes of the past.

It was confirmed that something was normal, and his eyes were stained with a smile.

Lucien: Well, this statement can indeed be proved by you.

My cheeks were a little hot unconsciously, and as expected, before this person, my mind had never been able to hide.

MC: Suddenly I feel that this challenge is too easy for you. After all, Professor Lucien is very good at hiding his mind...

Lucien reached out and squeezed my palm.

Lucien: Isn't the "no temptation challenge" that is the easiest way for me to fail, right in front of my eyes?

Looking at Lucien's serious face, I blinked.

MC: Really, let me demonstrate the reaction of Professor Lucien's heart this time!

Lucien: This classmate seems very certain that I will fail, have you forgotten...You need to work hard for your challenge first?

MC: Humph, my challenge is just watching the video. I must be expressionless all the time.

Lucien: Then I will study by the side, your excellent demonstration.

MC: I must take the lead~

I responded to his ridicule with a smile, moved closer to him, picked up the phone and clicked on the link.

Unlike ordinary challenge materials, many roles that the actor has played are edited in this video.

There are gentle scholars in white shirts, chic and dusty knights, mysterious and mad assassins, cute and considerate neighbor....

There are many types, and it seems that no matter what the audience’s aesthetic orientation is, they can always find something that suits their minds in this video.

Although I knew the technique very well, my mood was gradually aroused by the slow jazz music and the right lens flare.

The finale was a cold-faced agent wearing a dark trench coat and holding a black technological cane.

Seeing the back of the character walking calmly in the smoke of gunpowder and hunting wind, another person suddenly appeared in my mind.

Dangerous, mysterious, and people want to follow and approach.

He must be very suitable for this appearance...

Thinking of this, I couldn't help but look up at Lucien, but I was falling into his gaze.

I was reflected in his eyes, and the corners of his mouth were curled up unconsciously because of my own cranky thoughts.

MC: You, don't look at me first!

I rubbed my face eagerly, trying to drive away the clearer image in my mind.

Under the slowly stirring music, the video has been replayed a second time, and my sight was blocked by a glass of juice.

Lucien: It turns out that our well-informed big producers will also be defeated by this challenge.

I was speechless for a while, and turned my face up to Lucien, blinking and pursing my cheeks to quibble.

MC: This challenge video is really cunning, the character is different from the real person, and there is a lot of room for people to associate...

Lucien's gaze fell on me faintly, which made me unconsciously think of the other side of him again.

With a guilty conscience, I averted my eyes and squeezed the lemon slice in front of me.

MC: Well, I am willing to accept punishment!

The sour lemon scent exploded in my mouth. I frowned and covered my mouth, curling up my toes.

MC: It's... sour!

Lucien looked at my sour expression so that I couldn't speak clearly, and smiled for a while before putting the glass in my hand.

Lucien: Drink slowly, don't choke.

The taste of orange and mango dilutes the sourness. I put down the bottomed glass and took a long breath.

MC: I shouldn't be curious about Kiki's stuff...

Lucien: But a certain classmate was very happy just now, and she didn't blinked her eyes.

Lucien: Speaking of which, since it is the actor you have worked with, then I am very curious.....

Lucien: At the scene, are you taking that seriously too?

The implications of this question are self-evident.

I held Lucien's arm and leaned in front of him, looking into his eyes

MC: At the scene, I have to coordinate the shooting and control the progress. How can I look at someone so seriously?

MC: For Professor Lucien who is a program consultant, isn't it very clear?

MC: In fact, when I was watching the video, I smiled because I thought of you.

I talked more softly as I speak, while watching his expression.

Lucien: Well, I guessed it, because at the end of the broadcast, you looked up at me.

Guessed it? Thinking of Lucien's words and deeds just now, I blinked in a daze.

MC: That… but you still....

The person before me seemed to finally couldn't help but smile, and the corners of his lips pulled out a beautiful arc.

Lucien: I am just like you, only "a little bit concerned".

Lucien: Of course, I also want to see how you concerned about me.

Lucien's coquettish tone inadvertently made me want to coax him again.

MC: I always concerned about you.

With that said, I looked at him pretentiously.

MC: Hmm...I found that our Professor Lucien still looks the best, without any make up and filters!

Seeing my eyes brightly pleased, Lucien raised his index finger and tapped my forehead with his knuckles, looking helpless.

Lucien: Judging from the range of people you have contact with, such an evaluation seems too exaggerated.

MC: This is the truth.

Lucien: You....

MC: After all, "the beauty is in the eyes of the lover".

Lucien: For this point, I can feel the same.

He spoke bluntly and sincerely, as if he didn't feel embarrassing what he said at all.

I looked away unnaturally, trying to hide my blushing cheeks, and inadvertently saw the book on the table that I was holding upside down.

MC: Puff—it’s also a coincidence that I just read the phrase "beautiful in the eyes of a lover" in a book.

Lucien moved his gaze to the book in my hand and raised his eyebrows.

Lucien: "Business Management and Psychology"? This is mentioned in this book, which is a bit surprising.

Seeing that he was interested, I simply picked up the book and shared it with Lucien.

MC: Well, when I read about the "halo effect", a short example in the book mentioned "beauty in the eyes of a lover".

MC: In fact, people are not only easy to perceive the heart from the outside, but also generalize from the inner character traits to the appearance evaluation.

MC: Therefore, what we often say "beauty in the eyes of lovers" is also a manifestation of the halo effect.

Lucien: Using this example to explain the "halo effect" is indeed small and easy to understand.

Lucien: However, it is placed in the whole module of "The psychological effects that should be avoided in business management", which seems to be too rational.

MC: I don't know if I, with the blessing of "halo effect", can I let Professor Lucien challenge and fail?

Lucien smiled and picked up the glass and took a sip of juice.

Lucien: Do MC want to see how I eat lemons?

I looked at the piece of lemon on the mouth of his glass that had lost some moisture, and shook my head.

MC: No need, this slice of lemon is a bit dry.

MC: How about changing the penalty for failure to... before the end of the fall, how about taking time to accompany me on an autumn outing in the suburbs?

Lucien: Well, we really haven't been to the suburbs for a long time.

I turned around and hugged him with joy.

Lucien encircled me and stroked my hair which hanging behind my shoulders with his warm palms.

MC: What to do, this failure punishment is very tempting to me.

Lucien gave a low laugh, pressed against my chest and shook lightly.

Lucien: It's not difficult to make my heart beat faster. Perhaps, this challenger and referee can work hard.

MC: Hm...

The steady and powerful heartbeat hit my auricle, and I suddenly had an inspiration.

By the way.. Accelerated heartbeat is also a way of judging your heartbeat, right?

I lifted my head from his arms and blinked.

MC: I have a way to record the moments of Professor Lucien's heartbeat!

I took off the smart watch in my hand and pulled Lucien's hand.

The internal test of the watch strap also carried the body temperature, and it was tied to his well-defined wrist.

Lucien squinted his eyes, his lips lifted up with a helpless smile.

Lucien: I remember you said that you bought it to supervise your health management. Unexpectedly, entertainment functions could also be developed.

MC: Make the best use of it!

I entered the data on the app and nodded with satisfaction.

MC: I set up a function that sounds when the heart rate is exceeded.

MC: Now even if Professor Lucien controls his expression well, his heartbeat will be exposed.

Lucien: Miss referee is so strict, it seems I have to be careful.

MC: Of course, I have to be strict with a smart person like Professor Lucien. It’s not that easy to make your heart beat.

Lucien: Yes?

Lucien: But you obviously can do it all the time.

Lucien spoke naturally and even took a leisurely sip of juice.

His unsuspecting state seems to be suitable for "raid".

I moved inwardly, pretending to lean towards him inadvertently, and slowly stretched out my hand to touch the corner of his lips.

MC: There seems to be some juice here.

Lucien smiled and cooperated with me and lowered his head, letting my thumb slowly rub his clean lips.

Lucien: It seems to be stained a lot.

The warm breath brushed my fingertips, making a sultry itchy.

My heart was beating like a drum, and I raised my head and moved closer--

Suddenly the cell phone ringing abruptly, breaking the atmosphere at this moment.

I hurried not to show a hot face, grabbed the phone and handed it to him

MC: You, you answer the phone first!

Lucien chuckled and touched my hair naturally after answering the phone.

Lucien: Lectures... My schedule may affect other people's work arrangements, so I need to checked it again.

I turned my head and looked at Lucien's profile quietly. He responded to the phone as usual, with no trace of heartbeat.

Probably my eyes were too straightforward. When the phone was turned off, he looked at me, pursed his lips and raised his eyebrows.

Lucien: Isn't the juice cleaned yet?

I straightened the hair around my cheeks, trying to hide my red cheeks.

MC: No, I want to tell you... the challenge is success.

Seeing that he didn't say anything, I hurriedly changed the subject and asked him about the lecture.

MC: Is the time for new lecture invitations out of schedule?

Lucien: Well, the time of the lecture has collided with the shooting schedule of next weekend. I am about to ask for your suggestions.

I reviewed the shooting arrangements in my mind and got an idea.

MC: How about postponing that part of your shooting until next weekend? So you can go to the lecture!

Lucien: That...Thank you for the "black box operation" of the big producer. Please say my apologies to our colleagues in the program team.

MC: Okay, don't worry about this.

We tacitly stopped the topic of work and continued to enjoy the long time of the holiday.

Lucien leaned back on the sofa in a relaxed manner, the light golden spot flickering under his eyes, and he closed his eyes.

MC: You got up a bit early to make a breakfast, are you sleepy?

Lucien smiled and held my hand, and hooked his fingers like a baby.

Lucien: Maybe because it’s autumn, can you take a nap with me here?

I nodded lightly and leaned against his shoulder.

-

I don't know how long it took, but in a trance, I heard the rustle of leaves blowing in the wind.

I opened my eyes, and the shadow of the tree on the floor danced slightly, and there was nothing beside me, with only a blanket still covering my body.

The breeze blew the white gauze curtains, and there was still the breath of laziness after a nap in the air.

I stretched my waist and heard a small noise from the study, so I got up and walked towards it.

The door of the study was closed. When I opened the door, Lucien was sitting at the table, shrugging his shoulders and listening his mobile phone casually.

His hair is a little messy, and his legs are covered with a blanket. It looks like he just woke up.

But his eyes were serious about looking at the shorthand notebook in his hand, and he had clearly entered the working state.

The cap of the pen was bit between his teeth, and the rustle of writing sounded intermittently, making the room more quiet.

He recorded something enthusiastically, occasionally answering the person on the other end of the receiver briefly.

Lucien: Mm-hm.

Maybe a new proposition is brewing at the tip of his pen, maybe he is calculating one of the thousands of possibilities.

The bright sunshine poured in through the floor-to-ceiling windows and enveloped him in warmth.

Lucien looked up and saw me, took the pen cap in his mouth and the phone on his shoulder, and gently covered the microphone with his wrist.

Lucien: It will be over soon.

I walked over lightly, and got into his arms in his somewhat surprised eyes.

The surprise in his eyes was replaced by a gradually widening smile, and he held a shorthand notebook around me.

I rested on Lucien's shoulders, his collarbone was exposed and he looked extremely white in the sun.

As if bewitched by some sort, I lowered my head and dropped a kiss on the delicate skin.

Suddenly, the smart watch beeps twice.

My cheeks warmed a little, and I wanted to get up helplessly, but the shackles on my waist didn't mean to loosen the slightest.

The person on the other end of the phone finished the report and was saying goodbye to Lucien.

Lucien: Let's do this first, thanks for your hard work.

Lucien hung up the phone, put the shorthand notebook full of calculations aside, and took off his watch by the way.

MC: Am I interrupting your work?

I looked up and saw a warm light and a particularly soft smile in his eyes.

Lucien: I think strictly speaking, work interrupts us.

I glanced at many places on the shorthand notebook with question marks and blinked at him.

MC: There are many remaining issues, no need to deal with it?

Lucien: It doesn't matter, it's too late to wait until the working day. Now I have more important things to deal with.

MC: Is there anything more important than research?

Lucien: Of course there is.

Lucien: I just thought that usually challenge games should have rewards as opposed to punishments, right?

MC: Um... we did not discuss the rewards

Lucien: But when you hugged me just now, I thought of what kind of reward I wanted.

The pupils of Lucien's eyes glowed brightly when he looked at me, and soft ripples fainted under his eyes.

Lucien: Next weekend, I don’t want to miss the time I spent with you like today.

Lucien: So... can I be greedy and let you accompany me on business trips?

Lucien: As compensation, maybe we can realize your autumn outing plan together in a farther place.

--

[a-friendly-fangirl]

My thoughts on Sex Education, season 3.

⚠️⚠️⚠️SPOILERS⚠️⚠️⚠️

First of all, please try to remember that this is just my opinion. I'm nobody to judge whether the season was good or bad and I don't mean to hurt anyone.

With that being said, I'd like to begin by admitting that I liked these 8 episodes overall... but there were so many things that felt wrong to me.

I loved Jean's journey during her pregnancy and the way she tried to take care of everyone at the same time (although I kind of disliked Jakob for some things he said).

I loved Aimee and her desire to heal after the assault. The way she really wants to make her voice be heard was heartwarming and inspiring to me. Plus, her friendship with Maeve is one of the most beautiful I've ever watched (about this, I'll say something later on).

I loved Viv and her ambition that slowly became less important than her peers and their rights. She really wanted them to be happy in the end. I think that she didn't really understand how bad things with Hope were until the trip to France. And she redeemed herself in a great way.

I loved Lily and her journey towards acceptance of herself, even when others thought she was weird and silly. It was empowering seeing her so confident in the end.

I loved Adam's growth. It taught that even the most simple of passions can turn into something meaningful and that, no matter how bad you are, you can change.

Above all, I loved Maeve finally getting the chance to do something amazing for herself for once.

All of these things were wonderful, truly. But so many others I didn't like and I couldn't really understand as narrative choices.

Let me begin with the one I found the most annoying: Isaac's fake redemption arc. I know what you might say: "Of course you hate it! You ship Maeve and Otis!". Well, yes, I do. But it's not all about that. I might be exaggerating... but Isaac deleting Otis' message was beyond disrespectful to me. If you remember, at the beginning of the second season, Isaac was really mean to Maeve... but he had the opportunity to redeem himself. He had the chance to say he was sorry and to be a better person to her, even though he had been around for so little time. However, when it came to Otis to have the same opportunity, he decided that he wasn't worth it. Isaac, who didn't really know Otis, took away from him the chance to at least say that he was truly sorry for being such an ass to Maeve. But, what feels even worse to me is that he took away even Maeve's possibility to decide. We don't know how it would have gone, if Maeve had listen to what Otis had to say. Maybe she would have forgiven him. Maybe she would have still chosen Isaac, because Otis hurt her too much. Who knows what might have been? No one. And why? Because Isaac decided for everyone. And I don't care if he thought he was protecting Maeve or if he was angry. It. Was. Not. His. Choice. To. Make.

Also, I didn't really understand why Maeve wasn't as mad as I was with him. Sure, she stopped talking to him for a couple of days. But the moment she started to speak with him again, they hooked up. Too fast, too soon, in my opinion. He apologised? Sure. But so did Otis. And he didn't get to be so easily forgiven.

But let's move to the another point I have a lot to say about: Otis and Ruby. I really liked them together. I found them cute and funny. But still... Ruby struggled for real to accept Otis for who he is. And Otis acted the way she wanted to keep her close. For example, he shaved off his moustache for her. Now, most of the fandom hated that moustache... but again, Otis seemed to care a great deal for it. He kept repeating that he spent months growing it. But Ruby didn't like it. And he sacrificed something he was proud of for her. But okay, a lot of people would do something like that for their loved ones. But then he had to dress like her friends to fit in. To be fair, Ruby gave up that idea pretty soon... but she just reacted to Otis refusing to do it. If I had to make a comparison between her and another love interest (not Maeve, 'cause I'd be biased), I'd choose Ola, of course. She was putting pressure on him in other ways, but she never wanted him to be any different than who he was. Love, after all, means acceptance. And perhaps Ruby loved Otis for he saw the hardest part of her life, without judging her. I wish it could have been the same for him.

About this, I've noticed many people being disappointed in Otis not saying he loved her too, because it means that he was just using her. Well... no? I mean, he was the first one to admit that, if she was willing to give him more time, he might have learned to love her. Should he have made it clear to her earlier in the relationship? Sure! Can we condemn him for not feeling the same? Absolutely not! Feelings can't be forced. And I'm also sure that he thought he was done for good with Maeve. He suffocated the love he had for her so much that the clinic made him sick and that he admitted his feelings only when pressured by Maeve herself.

In conclusion, I think that Otis and Ruby might have had a wonderful friendship, if they were only given the chance. They have that kind of chemistry.

Talking about people who are better off as friends: in my opinion, that's all Maeve and Aimee will ever be. I honestly can't see anything romantic in them. The purity of their friendship means so much to me and it's, at least for me, so different from the "Friends who are more than friends" energy. We're so lucky to have such wonderful actresses to play these characters... and what I see in their gestures and glances tells me of a great friendship. They're so different from Emily and Sue in Dickinson (they're supposed to be just friends, but they're clearly not) or even Judy and Jen in Dead To Me (another pair of friends that can be ambiguous with each other).

Moving to another couple, whose development I didn't understand: Adam and Eric. I'm not a great fan of their relationship. I like them both as individuals. But the bully-victim dynamic they used to have wasn't the best one to start a relationship with. I could see the appeal though. So much that, I was truly happy for them, when they said their first I love you's. And every step Adam made in the right direction made me smile, since that it took him a long time to grow up. Eric seemed happy with him too. Until he went to Nigeria. I sincerely loved the whole trip... but something felt wrong in him founding what he truly wanted there, where he couldn't even tell his family he had a boyfriend. The scene in the taxi gave me chills. I felt the risk he was taking by going with a stranger to a gay club. A stranger that he kissed almost out of nowhere (whether it was the heat of the moment or Adam not replying to him, I'm not sure). It's the second time he cheats on his boyfriend. And I think Eric deserves far better as a character.

My question about this whole drama is: "How come Eric found out that he wanted to be free in Nigeria and not in England?". If it's true that going to the club made him realise he wanted to be among people like him, it makes the whole situation even more absurd. Because there are plenty of gay bars and clubs in England. Why not go to one of them? My theory is that they wanted to build a good romance with Adam, then build tension between them and in us and end the whole thing with their breakup (probably to make Adam fall in love with Rahim).

I swear I'm almost done. I want to discuss one last topic with you all.

Maeve going to America like that felt so rushed. It's probably another strategy to make us want to see more of the show. And it surely worked. But still, it has, at least for how they developed it, nothing to do with Maeve maturing. The idea itself was amazing. I loved her getting the opportunity of a lifetime. But she literally decides to go the evening before (which is not even realistic. In real life, you have a deadline until which you can pay to go wherever you want. If you don't, your place is given to someone else), after getting the money from her mother. Now, where does that money come from? She might as well have stolen it, since she didn't have it before. In my opinion, this part of the story could have gone differently with little effort and the same outcome. How? Well, since that basically everyone thought she deserved to go to America, why couldn't have her classmates and teachers organised a fundraiser? Even in secret, so that she couldn't get angry for their "charity". It would have been so much better and so wholesome to see everyone in that school give a little sum for her, even to thank her for the help they got from the clinic.

Anyway, I'm so sorry for talking so much, but this season didn't go as expected and I truly needed to vent :P.

Thank you for listening❤

[captnjacksparrow]

Why do I ship SNS?

It is a known fact that when people experience a good media, they like to discuss various things they liked, hated, interpret what the creator trying to say and get something from what they have consumed. Eventually people end up in a shipping war if there are multiple possibilities. 

I started watching Naruto on a whim, hoping to see some ninjas in action with some revenge as a background (after all when you have power, there will always be a revenge). Am a sucker for revenge, btw. I am a person who hates romance in media. Because, every movie, book, novel, series has this same recycled romance plastered into every story even though the story don’t need at all. So, I am very tired of it. Every media portrays romance as something inevitable, necessary and something we can’t live without. That’s wrong. 

Usually, romance goes like this... Person A sees Person B... they hate each other and add some possessiveness, jealousy... they magically gets attracted through some shared experiences eventually... they kiss and make babies. There’s nothing wrong with this. It’s just very tiring as I’ve seen million forms of this same repeated trope. I always cringe and yell “Can you give us something different? Grrr.....”.

And also, my motto is that love can happen with any person. It can’t be restrained into certain boundaries. So, I don’t like to put some relationship under an umbrella called Gay, Lesbian, Straight or whatever. Of course, illicit relationships and incest are not normal and am not okay with it.

With all that being said...

My experience after watching the Shippuden series until episode 478 was “Wait, do they love each other?”. I know am very late to realize this, but I have never even viewed them with any romantic lens throughout. 

On my first watch, I was always under the impression that “They are friends”... But there are certain moments I felt “Wait, why are they doing like this which could’ve been handled in a different way!!” I will get to this later in this post. But those moments were overlooked by me because of my curiosity of “What happens next ??”. 

And on my rewatch, it only confirmed my view. 

The other popular ships like SS and NH put forth many points to invalidate what SNS represents. The most common being “They are reincarnated brothers” or  “They are best friends”. Am just going to debunk them from my point of view. 

Naruto and Sasuke are like brothers.....

Nope. 

The best brotherhood title, in this series, should officially go to Itachi and Sasuke. 

You can argue as much as you want that Itachi mindfucked Sasuke and killed his parents....yaada yaada.... 

It is repeatedly shown why Itachi put a curtain on his own clan. The reason is, Uchiha clan decided to forcefully take over the village. No matter how much innocent you are, you cannot take over something with force. Dot. I will write about this in a separate post.

In short, Sasuke realised how his clan members were wrong after hearing the story from the First Hokage, Hashirama Senju. That’s why he openly proclaimed “I am going to protect Konoha and become Hokage”. 

Back to the topic, Itachi and Sasuke are blood brothers. If I ship them both, then what you claim is very valid. 

The above gif says, “Sasuke, I know, I made a mistake by filling you with hatred. But whatever you decide to do from now on, I will love you always”. Meaning, He stopped treating Sasuke as a kid and accepts that Sasuke has his own path to walk.

This is exactly how brothers behave. I would do the same to my kid sister. You can see a fraternal instinct from Itachi’s eyes realizing that this is their last time together.

Another thing, Brothers trope always has this hierarchy.... Protect the younger sibling no matter what. It is evident from Madara/Izuna and Hashirama/Tobirama.

Not convinced?

If you pull the Indra and Ashura bullshit, let me tell you one thing. Indra and Ashura were separated and formed their own clan long ago. They eventually branched off into Uchiha and Senju clans. No way you can relate a century old blood relation as brothers. It’s just their chakra got reincarnated over and over. 

Don’t pull up an incest angle between Naruto and Sasuke. Because they never shared a womb. Dot. 

Naruto and Sasuke are Best Friends only.

You know what, you are almost right. I thought that for a very long time. Remember I never wore any shipping goggles ON. 

There are two types of best friend categories. Best Friends without a reason and Best Friends through rivalry. 

Best Friends without a reason in Narutoverse are: Shikamaru/Choji. 

They just became friends and became BFF. They won’t fight or hurt each other. But when you have something to share...you would go to that person and share everything honestly.

Best Friends through Rivalry: Kakashi/Obito, Hashirama/Madara, Naruto/Sasuke

I really cannot provide more proof for the first two pairings as Best Friends as it is not the scope of this post. Although the latter two also qualifies for shipping category. Why?

Because, the common thing among them is that all the three Uchihas awakened/reawakened their Sharingan for their best friend. But Hashirama/Madara and Naruto/Sasuke are the only pairings to awaken or evolve Sharingan when trying to break their bonds with each other. 

Special Brownie points for Madara. He had 4 brothers and lost 3 but still couldn’t awaken his Sharingan but when trying to break up with Hashirama, his eyes were brimming red. 

Sasuke’s Sharingan matures in the first Valley of The End.

That’s why I excluded Hashirama/Madara and Naruto/Sasuke from this Best Friends list.

Because to the both Uchihas, the other person meant something special which cannot be comprehended into a mere term called ‘Best Friends’.

Which is exactly why Kakashi/Obito would perfectly fall into this category.

The way they quarrel, fight with each other, protect each other are perfect scores for a friendship. What makes them best friends is when Obito decided to give his Sharingan despite Kakashi was always putting a cold air around him and most importantly asked him to protect his love ‘Rin’. Also Kakashi carried his friend’s will to his heart and passed on to Team 7.

It all falls under ‘In the memory of my Best Friend’ trope.

Obito may be a trash but he is a good friend. Because after Rin was killed, he massacred everyone around him except for Kakashi. He could have killed him. Understandable. Or he could have plucked his Sharingan back (because he literally plucked most of the Sharingans from the Uchiha clan massacre and kept those eyes as a reserve). This could have enabled him to use Susanoo. I believe Susanoo can only be used with Mangekyo Sharingan in both eyes. But for some reason, he didn’t. 

So what makes me think Naruto and Sasuke love each other, not as a brother and not as a friend but something beyond which I can’t term?

My way of shipping is not about marriage, sex and rearing babies. Because literally everyone does this as an obligation. 

So, I don’t ship them in terms of living together in my headcanon and having sex daily. Nope. But it is not wrong though if you ship in that sense.

In this Narutoverse, Women are just some stow away pieces whose sole existence is to fawn over their dreamboy and cry for them. (Usually literally nothing useful comes out of them). Me being a girl, as much as I hate this setup but I have come to terms with whatever it is and have accepted it. If you are a girl looking for a strong female character...... this is not the place. Watch something else. 

But I draw inspiration from male characters who are characterized deeply for which I have to applaud the creator. Reason being, the very first character which I connected with was Itachi. It was when Sasuke thinks about his past with his family in the flashback before the first VotE battle in part I. I will be writing a separate post about Itachi in this week. 

In short, If you are a person who wants inspiration, draw it from male characters. Not in a single moment, you stoop so low for characters like Hinata and Sakura. That’s not how I envision myself or any woman. Dot.

With all this being said, I ship them as a couple who necessarily don’t have to get married or have sex... But they each other has some special allowance towards each other in their hearts which no one can touch, not even their wives or children. 

This doesn’t mean I accept what came after episode 478 as they are literally something they made for $$$$$. 

There are some basic traits which are absolutely necessary for a ship to sail successfully. They are Acknowledgement, Reason, No Hierarchy, Influence, Owning each others rights and Privilege. (All these reasons should come from both the sides for the ship to be worthy)

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Acknowledgement, I mean here, is to accept and acknowledge what they are to each other.

They both agree that they are Bonded/Friends verbally as well as emotionally.

To me, this is essential in any relationship especially for the ones you are trying to ship. I didn’t see this in any other ships like SS or NH where it is always one sided. Sakura confessed before the village entrance to which Sasuke said “You really are annoying!!”. Hinata proposed in Pain arc. Naruto didn’t even acknowledge her confession. He went on to beg for pardon for Sasuke. Again she proposed in the War at the expense of Love Cupid “Neji”. Naruto went on to joke with Minato that Sakura is his Girl Friend. 

If I were in both of these girls place, I would literally be mad and drop this shit right away.

Wheras in SNS, I saw both the people I am trying to ship were asking “What am I to you?”, to which they reply “You are my friend”. To me this is very important.

Reason

To those who are saying “Love is blind”, “Love is Madness”, “Love needs no reason”, you all need self-evaluation. This is not some K Drama situation where you don’t need any reason. You should know why you love someone and why you need the other’s presence.

Naruto’s reason is very simple.

I could provide many reasons. But here, Sasuke, without any reservations... knowing full well of the consequence if he feed Naruto but still extended the helping hand to someone who was always hostile. It is just like what Iruka did. And many incidents which happened during Land of the Waves arc are evident.

He wanted to be friends with this lonely Uchiha boy way back when he was around 7 or 8 for a simple reason that he understands his pain more than anyone. But he really became friends when they were grouped together for Team 7.  

Sasuke’s reason goes even way beyond when Naruto series started.

“Because he felt relief”.

Imagine a young boy who witnessed a massacre before his eyes and lost everyone he loved. But somehow another young boy of his age made him feel relieved. This explains why Sasuke went all out of his way to make friendship with Naruto despite being aloof. 

Isn’t this what we want from someone we love?  

Rather than being completely insensitive about an orphan life or just stalking from the distance and never offered any support, I would prefer someone who understands my pain from their heart and try to reach me. Sasuke reached out to him by offering the lunch and Naruto reached out to him by making him his rival and bug him.

NO HIERARCHY

This is pretty self-explanatory. Unlike blood brothers, there should be no hierarchy in a relationship I want to ship. 

We saw Naruto yells at Sasuke many times absolutely for no reason, despite Sasuke bearing this cold attitude. Probably he is the only person who can call him by such variety of names. 

Sasuke always calls him by his trademark ‘Usuratonkachi’. Sometimes he calls him fool just like everyone. But was never insulting or mean towards Naruto. Except for that time in the final battle, he made fun of his Shadow Clone jutsu citing his loneliness. 

In short, be it a physical fight or verbal offense.... neither of them wilts like a flower. They equally give back. 

The only other person who can verbally assault Sasuke is Karin and probably the only girl who never addresses him as “Sasuke-Kun”. 

U-SU-RA-TON-KA-CHI..... Why do Sasuke spend such an effort to call someone with a 6 syllabic word, instead NA-RU-TO, a 3 syllabic word which is way more convenient to call?? I always wonder.

POSITIVE INFLUENCE

I don’t have to spell out anything here. There are many obvious examples but will try to keep it short. 

Naruto became strong because of Sasuke. He trained hard for 3 years with Jiraiya , a month with Kakashi developing Rasen Shuriken and controlled Kurama’s power with Killer Bee. Except for Sage Mode jutsu everything he learnt was all for bringing Sasuke back. 

In short, Sasuke is Naruto’s predominant strength. 

Though Naruto was not the source of strength for Sasuke, but he brings out many vibrant emotions in Sasuke which he really needed for his traumatic mind otherwise he would always be that cold angry brooding doll without any emotions and I am sure Sasuke enjoys to banter with Naruto.

LOL!!! I don’t know why Sasuke feels competitve here. It’s pretty childish even for Sasuke.

Friendly tease :-) I think he also protected Sakura in this scene. He can also ask her the same, isn’t it? I mean as a friend. 

The best one is yet to come

It’s incredibly hilarious to see how Sasuke pouts when he was with Naruto. Sakura!!!! You third wheeling joker :-D :-D

Throughout Shippuden, Sasuke never shows his emotions with anyone. He either looks very cold or angry.

Reminiscing his Team 7 days, for a split second. 

Probably the only positive emotion is this, in all of the Shippuden. I mean not counting Episode 478.

I don’t think Sakura brought any kind emotions in Sasuke except annoyance when they were together in Team 7. Or Hinata too. These girls just moan “Sasuke-Kun”, “Naruto-Kun” but brings nothing to the table. Total wastrels!!!!!

OWNING EACH OTHER’S RIGHTS

This section is exactly where SNS moves on to a whole different level.

Sasuke wanted to inflict his pain over everyone who lives in peaceful Konoha for what it did to Itachi. (though I don’t really accept with Sasuke here since he never even bothered to question about his clan’s history, but what he was doing is understandable. Just like Naruto tells him).

But the context here is Sasuke is on a murder rampage. Starting from the Kage Summit, killing Danzo, unnecessarily hurting Karin and almost reached a point where he could not be stopped anymore. Then Ms.Annoying appears. She literally have no fucking clue what Sasuke is going through. So started to spout nonsense that she wanted to go with Sasuke-Kun with an ulterior motive to kill him without a strong resolve. 

The interesting SS dynamics here is Sasuke asks Sakura “Do you know what I want?” and to which she gives a carefree-shitty-pathetic answer “I don’t care. I will do whatever you want”. Geez!!!

If I were Sasuke, I would think, “This person standing before me don’t even care about what I want but coming with an intent to kill me and not only that... she is a kunoichi from Konoha where I planned to inflict my pain by slaughtering them.. I better ram my Chidori and be done with it”... He doesn’t see her as his former Teammate. He just want to kill that person.

However, Kakashi deflects the attack and saves Ms.Useless. 

( Me : I am a Sasuke fan through and through. But, Sakura..... You always says you will do this, do that.... But you never succeed at anything... Why is that? Why are you even continue being a ninja? No one asked you to kill Sasuke, you decided to. But why don’t you kill him. Probably you would’ve earned my begrudging respect... Pffft” ****sighs with a heavy second hand embarassment)

Anyways, Sasuke becomes an unstoppable maniac at this point because he was very irritated on seeing Kakashi and Sakura spouting some unreachable nonsense. So he started to attack Kakashi as he is even more irritated on seeing his Sharingan.

Again, Ms.Idiot wants to kill Sasuke when he is at his weakest point due to chakra exhaustion and that too from behind his back. (You!!! Gutless wrench). Sasuke sensed this and attempted to kill her again... (Naruto!!! You idiot. Why did you save her...)

However, Naruto appears and saves her. Naruto and Sasuke’s eyes meet each other.

But somehow Sasuke calmed down and hears out Naruto for what he has to say. He says, “Whatever you are doing until now, it’s understandable”. 

Kakashi wanted to kill him and Sasuke got riled up and prepare his Chidori. Anyways, Naruto intervenes and they go to some meta physical plane and talks privately. And Naruto comes up with his idea and announces as below:

Me: Naruto!!!! Sweety..... Do you realize that you have a big dream of becoming a Hokage which you have been shouting from Day 1? But still you want to overthrow everything for that one person who is in unbearable pain. It’s alright. But you don’t want to go alone or send him alone. No Best friend would go this far. And to those Sakura shippers.... Why didn’t Sakura try to bear the burden? Why didn’t she come up with this Idea? Afterall, you spout nonsense like ‘Sakura saved Sasuke from Darkness, isn’t it?’ And, Naruto.... Who gave you the right to take his hatred and shoulder the burden? And what makes you think you are that only person to do it??? Sasuke, might have other special person in those 3 years. How can you decide on Sasuke’s behalf??? Aren’t you going overboard ?

The answer to all the above is simple, Naruto can risk anything for Sasuke. And he clearly knew that Sasuke’s only living bond is him.

And what happened next was almost unbelievable and for the first time I thought ‘What is it with these two guys?’. 

Sasuke agrees with Naruto’s proposition to not destroy Konoha before fighting with Naruto. 

Me: Sasuke!!!! You have every right to reject his proposition. Since, he was not in your life for the past 3 years, your side of bond with Naruto should have been cut-off long back, right? Sasuke??? Well, at this point he was just your former Team 7 member. You don’t need to honor your proposition. You can attack Konoha anytime. Why did you accept?

Also Me: Sweety!!! Why do you always question Naruto ‘Who am I to you’? Why do you need his opinion always? There is an annoying princess standing behind Naruto vying for your attention. And yet you didn’t even ask her this question at any time. But before Naruto, you completely calmed down from your rampage and willing to wait for what he has to say plus asking for his validation. After all you don’t care about anything, why just Naruto???

And the reason being, Naruto is still his closest bond which he couldn’t cut off despite trying very hard. After all, Many years ago, Sasuke was the one, who readily jumped in to protect Naruto knowing full well that it’s a trap. He was ready to throw away his revenge for this boy back then. Sasuke is afraid that he will give in to this bond once more and Naruto is his weakness which he wants to eliminate so badly.

This is definitely not any Best Friend would do..... Fix that in your mind.

The purpose of these GIFs is not show how protective Sasuke is..... Well, I can talk about it all day. Let’s save it.

Me: Yo!!!! Sasuke..... You wanted to kill Naruto.... You said so yourself under the bridge. Meaning, He is the only person standing between your goal and your resolve and Naruto is always known to weaken your resolve. And yet why are you protecting him here? There is absolutely no need. Because, if there is a situation like Kaguya where both of you are must needed to save this world , then there is a reason to save him. But why now? Plus do you know, if Naruto dies, then Madara’s plan may not succeed because if a Jinchuriki dies, tailed beast also dies. It is perfect for your Revolution, isn’t it? Who gave you the right to own his life? Obito has his reason to kill Naruto, why not let him?Why is it that you want to personally remove him from your life? If he is dead by an external factor, you can carry on your path without any interference and pain. Why go so far to protect him ?

The answer is Sasuke values Naruto’s life more than his own even during his Team 7 days. He has this high esteem for Naruto and almost consider it to be a shame if some worthless fool takes his life. And Sasuke never hated Naruto. He once hated Itachi and his resolve to kill was real and intense. But when Orochimaru asked him to kill 1000 people for practice, Sasuke never killed anyone. He even implemented no kill policy for his team “Hebi”. So, someone like Sasuke who never liked to kill random innocent people, how could he let some trash take away a life, he considers dearly to the same level of Itachi? That’s why in this situation, his body moved on his own to protect something special for him. He may not agree it, but he always shows it.

But some other ship wankers try to say Sasuke may have said “You are annoying” but inside he deeply loved her which is why he was smiling. If so, Why didn’t Sasuke never showed his care not even once? He not only tried to kill her twice when she was defenseless but also let her die twice or didn’t bother at all during the war. Or show me where these soul level connection happened between SS or NH

In short, Sasuke and Naruto own each other’s rights unconsciously. Because they are the only ones who can understand each other’s soul which nobody can reach.

Me: Oh, by the way Sasuke, I think Susanoo should be used like this. You really don’t need your hand to protect Naruto. Susanoo can do it’s work for you. Minato would be proud though!!!!

PRIVILEGE

Most of the points I written above are in and of itself is a privilege they give for each other and not for anyone else. Privilege is essential in a ship. Because it shows how different a loved one is from normal people. 

For Naruto, 

I originally want to put how he begs for forgiveness on Sasuke’s behalf before Raikage and weeps immeasurably before hyperventilating. But this one trumps the other. Naruto literally broadcasted everyone how important Sasuke is to him and how he regretted not offering his friendship at that time and how he couldn’t stop Sasuke from reaching Orochimaru. 

If you want to inspire Alliance shinobi forces, you should have shown how you worked so hard from the bottom to top. Projecting Sasuke as your regret and inspiring people shows how deeply you prioritize this person which affects you after so many years and hence, you don’t want any more regrets. 

It’s very unconventionally romantic which passes the shipping category in flying colours. 

For Sasuke,

The following is the Land of the waves arc which was novelized in the name of Innocent Heart, Demonic Blood released in 2006. 99.9% of the material is exactly as it happens in Manga/Anime. 

This is the privilege Sasuke provides for Naruto. “ But coming from Sasuke, It almost counted as a hug”... 

BROWNIE POINTS:

Now, the following are the scenes which add a mysterious flavour to this ship. I sincerely don’t understand why Kishimoto put this. I mean I am absolutely happy with it, but why? What was he thinking while drawing these scenes? 

It’s also strange that, whenever they clash a Chidori with Rasengan..... They always gets repelled to their own sides and fall with a loud thump. But Naruto’s posture looks very perfect, I mean it looks like someone carried him and laid him down. Anyways, What’s Sasuke doing on Naruto’s side?? He should have fell on the opposite side. Why didn’t he walk away? There is absolutely no reason for Sasuke to come over to Naruto’s side and have an intense meaningful gaze. 

This is another mysterious plus intense scene. I am still wondering, Is this really Sasuke? He is a person who avoids casual touches with anyone other than his brother. I’ve seen so many times Sasuke rejecting hugs from Sakura. I can’t even imagine what Kishimoto was thinking. 

If you people pass these scenes off as Brotherhood or Best Friend chemistry... Then you lack basic human emotions. That’s all. 

Me: Well, Sasuke, If you really want to kill him, you should have shovelled your sword right through Naruto’s vital point when you made that exuberant landing. There is literally no need for you to draw a long sword in close quarters. And what about the Personal Space??? With your speed, you can land without leaning on Naruto’s shoulders... 

Also Me: Yo, Naruto... You were panicking when Sai does the same....but you don’t even flinch when Sasuke invades your personal space????

Anyways, it’s funny that both the intense scenes I have mentioned here were initiated by Sasuke. Quite strange and thrilling.

So, to conclude.... All these scenes I have mentioned  made me unconsciously ship them as a pair. With all these being said, I believe all the ingredients for a good romance were laid perfectly. A moment of impulsive tension or affection, say a hug, between them after a difficult battle could mess with both and make a romance happen. And I don’t think either of them will deny especially Sasuke. 

I don’t see any of this aspect in other popular ships such as SS and NH. If I am Sakura or Hinata in this universe, I will not be okay with my pair doing all these things with other person. I intentionally left scenes from Episode 478 as it is so intense and require a separate post. I am happy that even without Episode 478, SNS ship sails high. So, I believe both Sakura and Hinata are still fourth wheeling their respective pairs in Boruto universe also, I guess. 

P.S: I don’t watch Boruto

Final memento:

No way a friend will look this mesmerized on seeing the other one. 

[ultimatetrashyfanfic]

Still loving Komahina and I also love hurt/comfort sickfics so this was pretty inevitable. Nagito is very good for sickfics. Anyway, I wanted to show these two trying to navigate a bad illness and all the frightening and sometimes embarrassing things that come with that. Post-hope arc again. With fluff because I can’t NOT do fluff. I hope you enjoy it - Circle

Also on A03: https://archiveofourown.org/works/34280557

Warning: descriptions of vomiting (I didn’t describe the puke itself or anything, don’t worry, I’m emetophobic myself) and high fevers/vague descriptions of medical procedures.

Hajime noticed at the beach this time - and just like every time, he kicked himself for not noticing before he’d made Nagito leave the cabin. He thought back to when Nagito stumbled as they walked across the island, about how he’d chased every meagre bite of breakfast with a gulp of water like it was difficult to get down. Hajime hadn’t been vigilant enough, and now they were sitting together on the sand and Nagito was leaning far too heavily against his shoulder.

“Nagito?” Hajime said cautiously. When Nagito turned his head, Hajime hastily put a hand to his forehead, managing to catch it before Nagito veered away. “I knew it. You’re burning up.”

Some old routine. Nagito would deflect, then grow self-deprecating; Hajime would shut that down, then begrudgingly carry Nagito back to their cabin. They’d done this dance together over and over, whenever Nagito’s weakened state and illness made something like a common cold seem as serious as smallpox.

It didn’t seem so bad for the next couple of days. Nagito had a fever, but it was a low one, and he ate when Hajime asked and seemed alert and talkative. Hajime felt comfortable leaving him in the care of their friends while he went to Mikan for medicine and advice - though his friends proved to need supervision of their own. He returned to his cabin just as Sonia and Gundham were leaving, reassured when Sonia reported that Nagito wasn’t any worse. At the time, he didn’t notice the splashes of brown paint on Gundham’s bandages or Sonia’s dress.

Hajime stopped short when he stepped over the threshold. There was a gigantic swirly witchy symbol covering almost the whole wall above the bed, the heavy smell of paint in the air. Nagito was peeping over the top of the bedsheets, eyes sparkling.

“What the hell is that?” Hajime couldn’t even sound angry. He was just bloody tired. Why were the Ultimates so dramatic?

“Sonia and Gundham did a ritual for my good health,” Nagito explained. His lip twitched and Hajime knew he was fighting a smile. “I was so honoured to have two Ultimates working to help me that I thought it’d be unspeakably ungrateful to protest.”

“Oh, shut up, Nagito! I can see you just think it’s funny,” Hajime snapped. Nagito snorted and disappeared under the sheets, spluttering.

Hajime sighed and took another look at the giant eyesore on his wall. At least it was painted fairly neatly - and he knew Gundham and Sonia’s hearts were in the right places even if this particular stunt was irritating. He supposed they were trying to help in a weird way. Sonia went along with anything Gundham said, and Hajime didn’t expect Gundham to know you shouldn’t paint giant symbols on other people’s walls without permission. Gundham navigated social interactions like he was going into battle; Hajime doubted he would ask permission for something he clearly saw as a good deed.

“Doesn’t it make your boring plain wall more interesting?” Nagito piped up.

“Don’t push your luck, Nagito.”

“Right. Who knows what pushing my luck will do.”

Later on, Hajime would worry that he’d jinxed them somehow, that whatever strange force was behind Nagito’s Ultimate Luck was malevolent and wanted to teach them a lesson for mocking it - because that night brought disaster. Nagito was usually exceptionally clingy when they were in bed, often to the point where Hajime got so warm he had to pry him off, but now he curled up right on the very edge of the mattress, well away from Hajime. Hajime knew he was awake from his strangely measured breaths and his unusual stillness; Nagito was a restless sleeper. He frequently kicked Hajime in the night and rolled right on top of him and yanked the blankets away. Sometimes Hajime felt like he’d get more sleep on a busy runway as airplanes roared overhead.

Hajime poked Nagito in the back, careful not to tip him right off the bed. “Hey. What’s up?”

He didn’t get a response. Hajime sighed. “Do you think I’m stupid? I know you’re not asleep. You never sleep like that. So what’s going on?”

He wound his arms around Nagito’s waist and tried to pull him closer to get a better look at him, but Nagito winced and slapped his hands away with surprising force. “Don’t,” he gasped, curling up even tighter. “Don’t press…”

“What? Is it your stomach?” This was new. Nagito had been off his food lately, but then he frequently found it difficult to eat. “Do you feel nauseous?”

Silence. Getting information from Nagito was like getting blood from a stone sometimes. Hajime felt Nagito’s forehead in the gloom. His fever had definitely gone up and his skin was clammy. Hajime let his fingers trail down Nagito’s cheeks to his jawline and felt along his neck - the lymph nodes were so swollen they felt like two throbbing ping pong balls.

“Fuck,” Hajime muttered. “I thought we might get through this one without anything too bad.”

He was expecting some strange rambling about how this bad luck would inspire them to hope for good things in the future, but Nagito still didn’t speak. He rolled over and shuffled across the bed, tucking his burning head right under Hajime’s chin. It worried Hajime more than any words could; Nagito didn’t actively seek out comfort unless he was feeling really terrible.

“Hey,” Hajime mumbled, having to spit out a mouthful of Nagito’s unruly curls. “Ugh, your hair keeps getting in my mouth. Look, I know you’re sick and I’m sure it must feel crappy, but you’ll be okay. You’ll probably feel better by tomorrow morning. Right?” Hajime knew he sounded like he was trying to convince himself as well as Nagito.

More silence. Hajime could feel Nagito shivering, and wound his arms around him quickly. He usually teased Nagito for being so chilly all the time, needing his jacket whenever the sun dipped behind the clouds and getting goose pimples in the air conditioned cabins, but it didn’t seem remotely funny anymore. Nagito trembled like he was buried up to his neck in snow, but he certainly didn’t feel cold.

“You’re burning up. Fuck, I think I need to get Mikan,” Hajime said. He felt a hand shoot out and grab hold of his t-shirt, clinging for dear life. Hajime knew he could easily pry Nagito off, but he couldn’t bring himself to try at a time like this. “Okay, don’t freak out. I’ll stay. But I’m going if you get any worse.”

It was after midnight when the vomiting started. They’d already been in the bathroom since eleven, huddled together on the floor by the toilet, sharing a blanket. Nagito kept sleepily begging Hajime to go back to bed and leave him there, but he wouldn’t budge.

“Shut up,” he mumbled. “Don’t act like you wouldn’t be here with me if our roles were reversed.”

“That’s different. You’re you and I’m me,” Nagito whispered. He let his burning head rest against Hajime’s shoulder despite his pleading.

“It shouldn’t be different though. It’s not different, not to me. You’re sick and I wouldn’t be able to sleep anyway if I knew you were in here on your own feeling miserable.”

“You have such a kind heart, Hajime. To think you could care so much about someone as worthless as I am.”

“Nagito. If you don’t stop that I’m going to shove your head down the toilet and flush, no matter how sick you are,” Hajime threatened. “You’re not worthless. For the millionth time.”

“You’d think you’d have got tired of saying that by now,” Nagito said.

“I have. Very fucking tired. But I’ll keep saying it until you believe me. Now shut up and try to get some rest. And let me know when you need to throw up. You’re in a position right now that would have you puking down my front and it’s making me nervous.”

Thankfully, Nagito was exceptionally neat about it when he did have to lean over the toilet to vomit. Hajime hooked his white curls back behind his ears and tried not to groan too much. It was unpleasant, obviously, but it was clear Nagito was the one suffering the most right now. He didn’t need Hajime moaning in his ear for him to hurry up - and as the minutes ticked by Hajime found his embarrassment and mild disgust morphing into anxiety. He knew Nagito hadn’t had much to eat these past few days, but the retching and heaving went on well after Nagito had nothing left to bring up. Nagito’s cheeks grew flushed and blotchy, and it wasn’t long before Hajime was the only thing holding him up over the loo, his arms wound around Nagito’s chest. He could feel Nagito’s heart pounding hard against his arms, on and on.

“Come on,” Hajime said eventually. “I’ll get you a bucket or something. You’re not really throwing anything up now anyway. You need to lie down.”

Nagito didn’t respond. He was breathing heavily, his face dripping with sweat. He was gripping the porcelain so hard his knuckles bleached white. Hajime had to pry off his fingers one by one.

“Come on,” he repeated. “I’ll get you something to wipe your face. I know you feel miserable but you can’t stay tethered to the toilet until you die.” He scooped Nagito up into his arms, cradling him as carefully as a newborn. Nagito felt frighteningly hot and damp.

Shaky arms wound around Hajime’s neck and a weak, hoarse voice whispered into his ear. “Death would be welcome at this point…”

“Stop it,” Hajime said firmly. “Don’t go all melodramatic on me. You sound like Gundham.” He carried Nagito to the bed and ran a cloth under the tap. “Here. Shall I do it for you? Then you don’t have to sit up.”

Nagito didn’t react, staring up at the ceiling. He seemed to decide to ignore Hajime at will, and it annoyed him almost as much as Nagito’s self-deprecation.

“Fine, don’t talk to me,” Hajime snapped. “I’ll scrub your face like a baby if you’re going to act like one.” Despite his tone, Hajime ran the damp cloth over Nagito’s skin with unbelievable care and tenderness, going carefully around his eyes and mouth.

Nagito’s eyes flickered over to him. “Well, Nurse Hinata, what’s your diagnosis? Is it curtains for me now? Is this world finally finished with me?”

“No! God, I’ve never known anybody so dramatic,” Hajime said angrily. “It’s just a little stomach flu or something like that. Don’t be so stupid.” He was almost shouting now. It was far easier to get angry than to admit to Nagito that he was scared too, that the knot of panic in his chest was getting tighter by the minute.

Nagito stared at him pityingly. Hajime wanted to slap him and clasp him close all at once.

“I’m going to get Mikan.” He turned to leave, but felt a clammy hand grasp his wrist and hold it with a surprisingly firm, desperate strength. Hajime turned back. “Nagito..?”

Nagito had his head bent, his lips pressed together. He didn’t speak, but he clung to Hajime’s wrist so tightly his fingernails dug in.

“But we need help. I’ll be as fast as I can, I promise. I’ll run all the way,” Hajime tried.

The hand squeezed even tighter.

“Oh fucking hell,” Hajime groaned. “Okay, I won’t leave. But we still need help, so you need to let me go for a second, okay? I promise I won’t go past the door to the cabin.”

A pause. Then Nagito slowly unclamped his fingers and let Hajime break free. He immediately flew to the cabin door, opened it wide and took a deep, long breath inwards. “HEY!” he bellowed, as loud as he could possibly manage. His voice boomed through the still night air. “WE NEED HELP! COME OUT AND HELP US!”

He yelled the same simple lines over and over until a door opened. He’d rather hoped for somebody sensible like Twogami or Mahiru; he ended up with Kazuichi. It made sense really - the sensible people would be asleep at three in the morning, and Kazuichi’s cabin was directly across from Hajime’s.

“What the hell are you screaming about, Hajime?” Kazuichi whined, scrubbing his eyes. His hands were covered with oil and he smeared it across his cheeks. It looked like he was wearing bad war paint. He’d doubtless been hunched over some project he was working on. It usually annoyed Hajime to see his friend neglecting vital things like sleep for his machines, but he was grateful for Souda’s insomnia tonight.

“Kazuichi, come over here, I need your help. Nagito is sick. Like, really sick. I need you to go get Mikan. Please.”

“What? Why can’t you do it?” Kazuichi said indignantly.

“I just… I don’t want to leave him alone, okay?!” Hajime muttered, flustered.

“Awww, Hajime! You loooove him,” Kazuichi cried, spluttering with laughter.

Hajime heard Nagito snort behind him too. He must’ve heard. He felt his cheeks flush crimson. “Kazuichi, will you just fucking go before I throttle you!”

“Stop yelling at me, I’m doing you a favour!” Kazuichi cried, looking wounded - but he ran off in the direction of Mikan’s cabin obediently.

None of them slept much that night. Mikan worked diligently, trying antibiotics and saline drips and ice packs, but she couldn’t get Nagito’s fever down, getting more and more tearfully apologetic as if she was personally blighting him herself. “His fever is dangerously high. We have to find a way of lowering it,” she muttered over and over like a mantra, shaking her head.

Anti-nausea drugs stopped the persistent stomach pains, but Nagito was clearly far from comfortable. He stopped smirking and teasing Hajime, stopped laughing at Kazuichi’s silly jokes. He stopped putting himself down and babbling about how the four Ultimates were so full of kindness and hope to be fussing so much over someone like him. He just stared vacantly up at the ceiling, his eyes foggy and over-bright, his cheeks flushed.

They each toiled in their own way until dawn, when they finally collapsed with exhaustion, squashing up together on Hajime’s bed. They lay there undisturbed until Twogami came looking for them, concerned by the absences at breakfast. He shook Hajime awake, wanting to know why there were four people curled around each other like puppies on his bed, but all Hajime could focus on was Nagito. His head was resting on Hajime’s chest, burning hot through his shirt. The fever was still there. He’d woken up but the nightmare was still going.

It was a mercy that Twogami found them. He sent Mikan off to sleep in her own cabin and made Hajime give a detailed account of the previous night (he let Kazuichi remain asleep at the foot of the bed. Twogami knew he wouldn’t sleep again if he was disturbed, and he wasn’t in the way).

“If he gets any worse, we might have to contact Future Foundation,” Twogami said thoughtfully. “They’ll have more complex medical equipment.”

“We don’t need them,” Hajime snapped. “Especially Makoto.”

He’d thought Kazuichi was still sleeping, but he snorted. “Because Nagito gushes over Makoto. That’s why you don’t like him,” he mumbled sleepily, sitting up.

“Shut up, you hypocrite. Why didn’t you like Gundham before?” Hajime argued.

“I don’t know why you get so fussed, Makoto looks a lot like you.”

“He doesn’t!”

Twogami sighed and crossed his arms like an exasperated parent. “If you two want to bicker you can go do it outside. Nagito needs peace and quiet.” He sounded like a parent too, and the other men quietened immediately and focused on Nagito again.

Nagito didn’t seem to wake up properly. He could open his eyes (though this looked like it was taking an extreme amount of effort) but he didn’t speak or even react very much when somebody spoke to him. He barely blinked when Hajime tried to make him sip water or Kazuichi tapped on his cheek and called his name. Mikan was forced to give him fluids intravenously. When the afternoon brought no improvements, Hajime let Twogami contact Future Foundation for better medicine.

Hajime spent another anxious, sleepless night desperately holding Nagito - though he didn’t feel like Nagito. He hadn’t spoken a single word all day, and though Hajime was trying to be optimistic, he could feel panic pooling in his stomach like oil. Would the medicine get here in time? Would it even work? Nagito was so sick, as sick as he’d been with that awful Despair Disease. Hajime remembered how he’d left Nagito alone then; he wouldn’t make that mistake this time. He’d be there for Nagito - if he was even aware of Hajime at this point. It seemed less and less likely. He wasn’t even opening his eyes now. All Hajime could do was hold him, hold onto this lifeless, unresponsive husk that sucked in shallow breaths far too fast. He wondered if the real Nagito was somewhere deep inside, floating aimlessly, or if the fever had fried his brain completely and obliterated the strange, smart, fascinating person Hajime knew. No, surely he was being stupid. It couldn’t be that bad, right? Unless Mikan and Twogami were just being tactful. Maybe they both expected Nagito to perish and just didn’t want to snuff out Hajime’s hope. He clutched the burning body tighter.

“Don’t you dare die,” he whispered fiercely, cupping Nagito’s cheeks. “I mean it. Not after everything that’s happened. You can’t just give up now. You woke up once before. It took you the longest of everyone, but you still came back. Do it again, because I’ll lose my fucking mind if anyone else dies. You’d better fight this.” His eyes burned. Several tiny droplets of water fell onto Nagito’s face.

Hajime waited. He silently begged Nagito to open his eyes, whisper something coherent, clutch his hand… but nothing happened. Hajime held him all night, terrified of drifting off to sleep in case he woke up and found Nagito stone cold and white and still. He’d found Nagito dead once. Bloody and bound, his eyes bulging with pain… No. It wasn’t real, even if it felt real. It wasn’t real it wasn’t real it wasn’t real.

Morning brought the stronger medicine from the Future Foundation. Twogami explained what it was and how it worked, but Hajime was so fuzzy-headed with lack of sleep and stress that he didn’t take any of it in.

“Are you sure you’re going to be okay?” Twogami said doubtfully. “Mikan set up the IV so you don’t have to worry about anything. You could leave one of us here, go get some rest.” He tried for ten minutes to convince him, but Hajime shook his head.

“I can’t leave him. Not until he’s better.”

“You’re so stubborn. At this rate we’ll need to start nursing you along with him,” Twogami muttered, but he left them alone. Mikan left as soon as she could too, apologising even more than usual. Maybe Hajime had been glaring at her? It wasn’t her fault, he just had a splitting headache, but he obviously couldn’t leave to go apologise. Not now.

Time had started to blur. Minutes crawled by like days, but then suddenly an entire hour could disappear in a second. Hajime stayed sitting by Nagito’s side, periodically holding his hand, begging him to squeeze his back. Nagito lay still, but his breathing had evened out considerably since he’d been given this new medication. Hajime tried tickling at his cheeks and smoothing back his hair and Nagito twitched and sighed - tiny reactions, but they were reactions. Hajime hardly dared let himself hope and he definitely didn’t dare let himself sleep, though he was so tired now he had shooting pains behind his eyes.

Later - much later - Kazuichi came back, bringing Hajime toast and coffee. He looked startled by the state he was in. “Good God, Hajime, you look worse than Nagito!”

“Thanks a bunch,” Hajime grumbled. He didn’t touch the toast but took a grateful gulp of coffee.

“Seriously, bro, when did you last sleep? Or eat? Or… shower?” Kazuichi asked, sitting cross-legged at the foot of the bed.

“That’s rich, coming from you.”

“Have you seriously not slept since he got sick?”

“How can I?” Hajime snapped. “Will you please stop bleating obvious questions at me, Kazuichi. Yes, I’m fucking tired and hungry and I look like shit right now, I know. But I’m trying to make sure my boyfriend doesn’t die right in front of me, so forgive me if I can’t give much of a fuck about anything else! I don’t have the energy to deal with you right now. So can you please just shut up or fuck off!” He was practically screaming by the end of it. Part of him really wanted Kazuichi to yell back, start a real fight; he was so tired and so frustrated and it was so easy to take it out on Kazuichi.

But Souda didn’t argue. He didn’t speak, but his eyes filled up and he ducked his head to hide his quivering lips. Hajime felt a sudden wave of shame wash over his head. He didn’t want to make Kazuichi cry (even if that was pretty easy to do).

“I’m sorry,” he mumbled, putting his head in his hands. “Yes, I’m tired. Tired and miserable. It’s not your fault.”

“I know you’re tired. I thought I could stay here. Keep watch over Nagito for a bit. You can sleep next to him,” Kazuichi said, his voice cracking.

Hajime felt worse than ever. “Shit. I’m sorry.” He grabbed Kazuichi and pulled him into a clumsy hug. “You’re a good friend. Better than me.”

“I’m your best friend, right?” Kazuichi asked hopefully. “You’re not just being nice? Am I actually just annoying?”

“You are annoying. But you’re still my best friend.”

Kazuichi grinned. “Okay. And you’ll get some rest now? I think you really need it, Hajime. You’re so grouchy when you’re tired.”

Hajime rather wanted to grumble about that comment, but he didn’t want to prove Souda’s point. “You’ll wake me up if anything changes with Nagito? Even something tiny. Even if you’re not sure it’s a change, can you wake me up to check?”

“Yes. God, you’re worse than Peko with Fuyuhiko. Do you really love him, Hajime?” Kazuichi asked.

“Look, we’re not at a pre-teen sleepover, Kazuichi. I don’t want to sit here with you and gossip about boys,” Hajime said, shuffling close to Nagito. He wasn’t sure - maybe it was wishful thinking - but he thought Nagito’s body was slightly cooler.

“See what I mean. Grumpy,” Kazuichi mumbled.

Hajime didn’t bother to reply this time. He didn’t think he’d manage to get a wink of sleep with all the stress and worry, but he was out like a light almost immediately, so exhausted he didn’t even dream. He wasn’t sure how long Kazuichi kept vigil at their bedside (several hours, he guessed. Kazuichi was a good friend) but he was gone when Hajime opened his eyes. The silvery dawn light was filtering in through the windows, bathing their furniture in a soft glow. Something was burrowing into Hajime’s chest like a small animal.

“Nagito..?” Hajime mumbled, still half-asleep.

“Of course. Who else do you invite into bed, Hajime?”

“Nobody, dumbass.” Then it clicked and Hajime was instantly awake, peering through the dim light. Nagito truly was awake, looking very pale and sleepy and weak, but his eyes were open. Hajime clutched onto him at once, holding him as tight as he dared. Nagito felt as fragile as glass, like he might shatter altogether if Hajime squeezed too hard.

“Careful, you’ll yank my IV out,” Nagito mumbled, but he buried his face into Hajime’s shoulder too. His skin was still clammy, still warm, but not that terrifying burning anymore. Nagito felt clammy all over. “You should wait till I’ve showered before we do all the tearful reunions.”

“Shut up. I need a shower too,” Hajime said hoarsely. He tried to swallow the lump in his throat. “Fuck, it’s good to see you awake and talking.”

“How long was I out?”

“Several days. How much do you remember?”

Nagito paused. “I remember the night Mikan and Kazuichi came. It gets a bit muddled after that. Someone tried to make me drink quite a few times. Nothing much then. Except…”

“Except?”

“Perhaps I was dreaming. I couldn’t imagine somebody caring so much for someone like-”

“Oh Christ, I haven’t missed that,” Hajime groaned. “Just tell me what you remember!”

“You. Your voice, telling me not to die. Though it sounded more like you were threatening me not to die. And something dripping on me.”

Hajime felt his face flushing. It seemed like years ago that he’d hovered over Nagito and frantically begged him to keep fighting. “Trust you to remember something embarrassing like that.”

“Were you truly crying?”

“What else would I be doing? Drooling on you?”

“You hardly ever cry.”

“I’ve never seen you that sick before,” Hajime admitted. He held Nagito in the hug so he couldn’t see his face. It was somehow easier to blurt it all out in the gloomy morning half-light. “It was… fucking horrible. I didn’t dare sleep. I haven’t felt scared like that since the simulation. I thought I was going to lose you… just like Chiaki.”

There was a long, pregnant pause. Hajime could feel Nagito’s breath tickling against his neck.

“We smell awful,” Nagito finally whispered.

Hajime started spluttering with laughter. “For God’s sake! Can’t you ever be serious?”

“You know I don’t have any idea how to comfort people. But… you shouldn’t worry so much when I get sick. Not just because I’m me, but because my luck usually comes through for me eventually. It hasn’t let me die yet. Well, except in the simulation.”

“Shut up. Don’t talk about that,” Hajime said quickly. “Izuru has luck too. So that should mean I’m stuck with you forever.”

He rather expected Nagito to shoot back with some sort of self-deprecating response like “poor you” but Nagito was silent for a while. He was practically in Hajime’s lap now, his skinny legs wound around Hajime’s waist.

“Thank you.”

“Hm?” The words were so quiet Hajime barely heard.

“Thank you for taking care of me. Nobody has ever done that before,” Nagito said, his voice as light and delicate as the dawn. He still found it so hard to accept things like this. He’d spent so many years building walls around him and then Hajime had come along and blasted through them in an instant. Nagito felt raw and vulnerable and exposed - but there was a warm feeling in his stomach too, new and unfamiliar.

“I’d do it again in a heartbeat,” Hajime promised.

“You’ll probably have to. My immune system is awful.”

“Then I will. Needing things isn’t bad, Nagito. You’re not meant to do things all alone.”

“The thing we need right now is a wash.”

“Yes. We’d better get that over with first,” Hajime agreed - but despite their words they both remained in their embrace, clinging to each other with desperate strength, long after that sun had risen properly.