#Michi answers

[howtofightwrite]

Is it possible for a character who is 18cm shorter and not as muscled as their opponent to pin said opponent to the ground in a few calculated moves? Both characters are fit and exercise regularly, but the shorter character has trained in various martial arts (with and without weapons) and the taller one is more proficient in sword duelling. My intent is to write a sparring scene where the shorter character humbles the (overconfident) taller one. Any specific martial arts I should look at?

So... being shorter doesn't matter. In fact, in this situation, it is an advantage.

I'm going to point out here that if you're not careful, your character that you want to have a badass moment is going to look like an complete asshole because they are humiliating another character who they actually are better than. If they haven't been trading off humiliations to build tension (safely so no one gets hurt) then you're going to have a lopsided “sparring” session. Or, you will, if you haven't been building up your narrative to support the humbling. (And there is a lot that goes into these scenes to make them work, which, if you're not familiar with how martial arts training works then you'll approach it from the wrong mindset and hit Starke's pet peeve.)

Let's hit the ground running with the high points:

Sparring is not dueling.

Sparring is not play fighting.

Sparring is not so you can humiliate your opponent.

Sparring is not about fighting anyone or anything.

Sparring is a training exercise so that both of you can work on improving specific techniques.

Do people in real life get carried away sparring? Yes, they do. Are they complete competitive idiots about it? Yes, they are. Do they get punished for it? Absolutely, they do. This is especially true where they'll be expected to put their lives on the line. Treating violence like a game is detrimental, and leaves the trainee ill-prepared for dealing with real danger when in the field. Make no mistake, that is exactly the mindset you are describing in this question. Your characters (at least your minor ones, the trainers in this situation if your leads are too young or too dumb to comprehend their reality) should care about stomping this attitude out. And you as the author should to. Why? Because if you don't take the violence in your narrative seriously neither will your audience.

There are rules, as a writer it's imperative you establish the rules (and there no rules means you haven't established them for violence in your setting and therefore won't be able to establish the baseline that can be built upon later) and one of the rules is that you're not going to spar someone with a weapon (wood or otherwise) unless you both have weapons. There's not a lot of value in having one character spar with a weapon and one spar without one unless it's a knife, and the point is learning the dangers of knife fighting. And knives make sense because they are in the same distance range as fists. Swords are in a completely separate distance category. They are mid-range weapons.

You don't practice disarms by sparring, you practice disarms by practicing disarms in a controlled setting where you're repeating the motion over and over. Can you humiliate a person by being good at practice disarms? Yes. You do it by being a complete dick. It also requires the character in question to be better at the moves in question than the other character performing them because they need to be able to confidently, or at least believe they can, counter the other person's growing anger while taking the move a step further or two than they're supposed to. It also means they can get away with it without arousing the suspicions of their instructor (or act with their instructors approval) and no one gets hurt. (We hope.) For a character to do this is a sign of overconfidence, FYI. As is trying to humiliate someone in a sparring session. The characters that are good enough? They don't do it.

In fiction, good sparring scenes serve one real purpose. They establish a baseline of skill in safe setting so the audience becomes comfortable only for that to be disrupted and thrown into chaos when the characters encounter real violence. There's two paths for this. Either the character is a big winner only to be brutally beaten later, or they get dumped on their ass to find that they're actually much better prepared than they thought later when it matters. That's why so many stories with these scenes dump their MC on their ass, especially in any Wuxia or Shounen manga. This is because the authors of these stories understand that sparring has no reflection on how well a person will do when they're allowed out of the training safe space. If your baseline is: my character is awesome. Then it's all downhill from that point on.

Say it with me, Losses Create Tension. If your character is winning all the time, you have no tension and your fight scenes will be boring. The goal when it comes to creating a character who is good at fighting is to make other characters look better. Or, from an antagonistic/mentor point they exist to establish the height our MCs must eventually reach/how much further they have to go in their journey. Kakashi's fight with Zabuza or the first fight between Itachi and Sasuke in Naruto are both great examples of how to do this well.

I'm not saying you can't write a sparring scene like the one you intend. I can't tell you to do anything, what I want to you to start doing is considering the implications of the scene, what it may say about your world and characters that you didn't intend, and it's overall impact on the whole of your narrative. Narrative gratification here is work you'll need to do to build back your tension later. Is it a win your MC can afford?

Now, you can look at any martial art that has a ground fighting component for what you want to do unless you're planning on having the duelist spar with their sword. If you want that, you're going to have to do a lot more work with a smaller pool. This will be doubly true if your characters are of European descent and you want to avoid the East Asian martial art styles.

Type: “how do you knock your opponent off balance?” into Google and you'll find a lot of variations.

The basic concept behind putting someone on the ground isn't strength, it's balance. The key is disrupting your opponent's balance. If you're skilled enough or your opponent's footwork is bad enough, it can be done in a single move. In fact, it can be done a variety of different ways from a variety of different moves from countless different martial arts. The question isn't can it be done, the question is how does your character want to do it? The fact they are short only helps them because their center of gravity will be lower than their opponent's, they don't have to work as hard to maintain their balance, their stance doesn't have to be as deep, and they will have an easier time knocking a taller person over. Most people who've never practiced martial arts have no idea how foundational the footwork is or how important the feet are to staying upright.

I personally like reviewing Silat for studying balance, not necessarily for techniques, but because I find their instruction on the concept easy to grasp/digest. They do the string on the top of the head and the balance triangle, which if you can wrap your mind around that you'll be able to conceptualize fight scenes where the character focuses on knocking an opponent off balance better. 

The above is a more advanced video, but if you have no martial arts background or even a sports background whatsoever then you want to aim for instructional videos that focus on concepts over techniques. The advice is always write what you know and if you don't know learn. Copying techniques onto the page won't create a great fight scene. Understanding the concept, philosophy, and basic body mechanics behind the techniques will get you much further. None of them are stand ins for real experience or doing it yourself. If you really want to be good at it, find a martial art you like, find a school nearby, and invest the time.

All of your characters' martial arts moves (whether they are dueling with a sword or fighting hand to hand) function around the body's center of gravity. Your center of gravity is slightly above your hips and in your core muscles i.e your abdominal muscles. They will be trained so maintaining their balance is second nature. When martial artists talk about overextending, they're talking about putting your weight past your balance point which puts you in danger of losing your balance/falling over or being grabbed, kicked, etc and getting thrown, tripped, or forced into a fall. This can happen when you're throwing a punch, doing a kick, lunging with your sword, or doing any other sort of movement. You end up in a position where your balance between your front and back leg is destabilized, which creates the opening for your opponent to throw you. Or when you fall over on the ice, because that happens too.

Some other martial arts to turn to:

Judo

Jiu Jutsu

Aikido

Baguazhang (Seen in Avatar the Last Airbender as the basis for Air Bending)

Tai Chi Chuan

Northern Shaolin

Taekwondo (if you want to do it via kicks, all kicking martial arts innately focus on balance)

Krav Maga

Ninjutsu

The list goes on.

I also recommend dipping your toes into live action martial arts flicks to start getting yourself accustomed to more complex choreography. This is getting yourself out of the animated space (like in anime) and into the space where you have to watch a live person perform the techniques. Asian cinema has a different choreography style than the US does, because there are different cultural expectations. Overall, the choreography is more intricate and they break the action down a lot more (as opposed to American media where they zoom out to cover for the stunt double.) It's easier to see how the bodies are working and they put a lot more focus on destabilizing balance as part of the fight sequences. Hollywood doesn't get into the weird martial arts shit unless it's an actual martial arts action film. You can also do an Avatar the Last Airbender/Legend of Korra deep dive because the action there is also usually on point, but I'm a proponent of going to the source when you want to learn something. So, you know watch Alchemy of Souls instead.

-Michi

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#writing reference #writing advice #writing tips #how to fight write #michi answers #martial arts #sparring

[twstchaos]

🚪

11. covered in confetti

Knuckles tapped the wooden door.

Tonk. Tonk.

Silence.

Tonk. Tonk.

More silence.

BANG! BANG! BANG!

Peri opened the door to be met with a very pouty Missy Chievous. Her face and hair was covered in sparkly shreds of paper, glitter, sequins, and everything else shiny under the sun.

"Wha-"

"Ester shot a confetti cannon at me, and now I need help plotting my revenge.

#keep ‘em comin’ #michi answers #michi writes #missy chievous #the gremlin #peri eclipse #peri belongs to twstrhythm #twst oc #twisted wonderland #disney twst

[ask-ruth]

Ruth, the number 1 Michie shipper since god knows when

since i saw richie longingly looking at max in the halls freshman year

#ask ruth #ruth answers #michie

[24-guy]

[Michie be like]

Max: I just like to up at the stars and wonder what it all means huh?

Richie: You got that right!

[He looks at the stars, they read "Wanna make out?"]

Max: (*ゝω･*)

Richie: 0////0

https://youtu.be/aJU0qxBGn-8?si=YSvFOOJgTuXYlSMO

Answering two in one here. :)

#asks #musicalfan78 #lab-trash #j is talking again #michie #i wish i could answer two asks at once somehow….. #also i love danny gonzales hes great

[ecogirl2759]

Your honor please let him be punk rock

WHY IS HE SO DAMN PASTY IN HIS CANON MATERIAL???? MY BOY NEEDS SOME VITAMIN D ASAP

Also released this too late for Delinquent Brawl FUCK

Original sketch because it doesn't look too bad lol

#Sorry for all the tags lol #danganronpa #I might make him into a sticker #takemichi yukimaru #yukimaru takemichi #danganronpa fanart #danganronpa udg #udg #dr udg #danganronpa ultra despair girls #fanart #my fanart #my art #my artwork #artists on tumblr #mondoblr #michisweep #michiblr #I actually think it's so funny that he's literally Snow White while standing next to the two Owada brothers lmao #I also like the idea of Michi's color being orange in stark contrast to the soft lavenders of the Diamond Bros #He is so orange-coded to me. do not ask why I have no answer #He has such a baby face tho #Idk I just think the artists shoulda made him more angular. more intimidating #He's the right hand man of the most powerful biker gang in all of Japan god dammit #At least give him piercings just to show how not like other girls he is please #In all seriousness though piercings are a common sign of delinquency or going against the grain in Japan #The fact that Michi doesn't have any in canon is BLASPHEMOUS!

[gojoallmine]

UR JJK SMAUS ARE SO GOOOD U GET THE PERFECT ENERGY FOR EVERY CHARACTER PLS NEVER STOP COOKING 🙏🙏🙏

OMG???? THANK YOU SO MUCH THAT'S LIKE THE BEST COMPLIMENT !!!! I TRY !!! THANK UUUUU 💋💋💋

#thank u anon #u have no idea how many times i'm writing something and i'm like #“no he WOULDN'T SAY THIS this is NOT like him” #and i have to start from scratch lmfao #it's not like i perfectly captured their voices but i try my best #[michi: answers]

[pan-kuzu]

✨🧡🌙SEND THIS TO TEN OTHER BLOGGERS YOU THINK ARE WONDERFUL. KEEP THE GAME GOING. ✨🧡

You're so sweet; thank you, hon! The feeling is mutual~ I'm so sorry for answering this late ;; I hope you've been well! You always inspire me to draw Michi so:

#taichi x mimi #mimi tachikawa #taichi yagami #digimon adventure #digimon #fan art #pan art #doodles #zoetekohana #ask #meant to answer this earlier but the past few days were creatively draining #we're in a perpetual michi content drought and i've been thinking of this au again

[raineyy]

Chopped cheese

Kills you with my laser attack. dipshit. explode now

#michy speaks #my post #michy answers

[michi-chelle]

also the screen does momentarily fuck up like on purpose right?

#slow damage #actually don’t answer that i have a feeling i’ll learn more about it later on but idk #i’m about 3 hours in already and i’m like….wait a minuteeee lol #‘cause like the screen would flash intermittently and i thought it was just my laptop being fucked up but #that scene in roost where rei asked ikuina if he was okay and ikuina was like yea i’m okay and rei was like you sure you’re okay #i’m like wait does the screen actually change at the word ‘okay’ #if that’s intentional that’d be a really interesting detail #either i’m bugging #i’m the slowest person in the world #or i’m big brained lmaoooooo #ugh i just gotta sit down and play this game for 12 hours bruh #michi yaps

[sparklezfallsinlovewithbooks]

💗🌷🌼 ✨This is the you are amazing award. Send it to ten bloggers you think are wonderful or just take a moment to bask in your own awesomeness! ✨ 🌼🌷💗 (you are so sparkle!!!)

you are so michi!!!

#michi :> #sparklez answers

[cinnabeat]

please brush your teeth and hopefully youll never have to hear your dentist tell you the terrifying words "laser" and "cauterize"

#on god that was an awful dentist appt #but the lady who was cleaning my teeth was very nice and funny #she kept laughing at me bc apparently im funny for answering honestly #the dentist asked me how often do i floss and i was like um..never #cleaning lady asked me do i wear my retainer and i was like uhhh no #she was like i love how honest you are #like maam you are asking me a direct question why would i lie #anyways #i havent been good on brushing my teeth lately bc i keep forgetting #but theres nothing to light a fire under your ass quite like hearing the words laser in relation to your mouth!! #michi tag

[howtofightwrite]

I'm writing a scene where a cultivater (chinese martial artists who fights ghosts) falls in a forest and I'm trying to figure out how someone who fights on rough terrain would train to fall. I tried looking at martial art/parkour/stunt man tutorials, but I feel like a lot of the basic techniques (rolling, and slapping the ground to distribute weight) wouldn't work well on uneven ground. I also tried looking at hiking advice but they just say to fall on your pack. Any insight?

Chinese cultivators don’t fall, they choose to reacquaint themselves with the ground.

That sounds like a joke, but the best way to understand Chinese cultivators and Chinese fantasy media is to realize that martial arts are the gateway drug to magic. And that will get you into a lot of trouble if you follow that all the way into Martial Arts Give You Superpowers, which is both the outgrowth of the western understanding of Chinese culture and a trope rife with orientalism. Cultivation seems simple on the surface when you’re watching Chinese media, but it’s more than martial arts, it’s more than religion, it’s more than mythology, (though it is all of those too) it’s a genuine transition into metaphysics that reorients how we understand and interact with the world around us. The concepts we see in cultivation come from real martial arts philosophy that you find in Tai Chi, Shaolin, and most other Chinese martial arts. They come from real religions including Daoism, Buddhism, a healthy dose of Confucianism, general mythology and mysticism from a wide range of subcultures, and, to an extent, Animism. If you aren’t doing your reading with the Eight Immortals, Journey to the West, The Legend of the White Snake, and others then you should dig in. I also really suggest watching the live action C-Dramas whether they’re true Wuxia or more Xianxia idol dramas (and in this case the idol dramas are better because the action is slower) so you can acquaint yourself with the stylized martial arts portrayals, a wide variety of choreography, character archetypes essential to motif based storytelling, and the most important aspect of all—wire work.

Understanding and conceptualizing stunt action done on wires is essential when you’re trying to visualize and create action scenes in any East Asian genre. Your first instinct might be to dismiss the stylized movement as unrealistic (it is) but remember that it’s also genre essential. Hong Kong action cinema has a very specific feel to it that’s very different from the way Western cinema structures and films their fight scenes. Even when you’re writing, you’ll want to find ways to imitate it through your visual imagery on the page.

Probably the best way to contextualize cultivators is that they’re wizards who do martial arts. They’ve learned to transcend the limitations in our understanding of reality through knowledge and study to perform superhuman feats. How superhuman? Well, it gets wild. They can be anywhere from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon/Who Rules the World fly through the trees levels to Shang Tsung’s “I’m going to slam my hell reality into your normal reality because commuting to work is too much of an inconvenience.”

Which is to say, they don’t always fight ghosts. Sometimes they fight other martial artists, sometimes they fight other cultivators, sometimes they fight demons, sometimes they fight gods, and sometimes they fight incredibly overpowered monkeys. They’re often monks living in seclusion on a mountaintop, but not always. Cultivation is more of a state of mind. Anyone can do it if they learn how to absorb spiritual energy from the world around them through meditation and breathing exercises. Gods cultivate. Humans cultivate. Animals cultivate. Remember, the demons and the ghosts cultivate too. Sometimes, your master gets reincarnated as a demon. Sometimes, you do. The amount of wacky spellcasting you can do is dependent on how much energy you’ve cultivated, which is dependent on how old you are and how good at cultivation you are. Using the power means you need to cultivate more energy, the greater the spell or difficult the battle then the more energy is lost.

This is important to the question of: how does a cultivator fall?

Metaphorically? Existentially? Physically?

When we’re talking physically, wire work becomes very important. Think of your cultivator as being on wires. If they have the knowledge and understanding to do it, they can slow their own fall through the air to land harmlessly on the ground or twist over like a cat and launch themselves back off the ground to fly at their opponent in a counter attack. If they have the knowledge and understanding, they can teleport. If they lack the knowledge and understanding or want to trick their opponent, they can hit the ground like a sack of potatoes. If they’re relying on basics, they can also smack the ground to counter and spread out the impact then use the momentum from that fall to roll back onto their feet. They’ll do it no matter what terrain they’re on because it’s a basic technique that’s trained into their foundation to the point it’s a reflexive action. Any force distributed away from, and reducing impact on, important body parts like your spine is better than nothing. It’s better to sacrifice your arm than be paralyzed. At its heart, that’s the point of the technique. If you’re able to walk away with a functioning spine, it’s done its job. Your shoulder hurts? That’s normal. Your arm is sprained or broken? Sucks, but that’s better than the alternative that is paralysis and death. For reference, learning to fall was the first lesson my Wushu instructor ever taught me. It is that basic.

A lot of the time when portraying cultivators in media, the goal is to show them as being beyond the limitations of standard martial artists. How vast the gap is between the cultivator and the average human is dependent on both the setting and the cultivator. So, the average martial artist who possesses superhuman talents but hasn’t dedicated themselves to a life of cultivation and cultivators who are new to the path are going to be on the rung below and more likely to be knocked on their ass. Cultivators in the mid-range are more likely to have crafted or trained in solutions to being knocked on their ass which put them in a less vulnerable position while recovering and empowered/enhanced their martial arts. Cultivators in the top tier are usually straight up masters at spellcasting, if they deign to fight at all. Gravity need not apply. Rember, the time it takes you to hit the ground and roll to your feet is time your opponent has to launch a counter attack or move to a better position. Also, it means you’ve taken your eyes off your opponent. This is bad enough against a normal human opponent. Against another mostly immortal or ancient magic user this risks a terrible outcome.

Cunning and strategy are both as important as skill. Wisdom, knowledge, and hard work outweigh talent and raw potential. You’ll have to decide how esoteric you want to be and what limits you want to set. I really urge you to do this because the danger of power creep is real and especially prominent here. A character’s growth in power is often linked to their growth in character or their arc, as they gain a greater understanding of themselves and the world around them their skill increases. The self-discovery/self-reflection/self-interrogation/intense suffering to reach enlightenment portion is just as important and intrinsic to the martial arts portion of Martial Arts Give You Superpowers. It’s easy to focus on the Superpowers or the Martial Arts parts of the equation and miss the genre necessity of character growth. This growth often happens through heaps of steadily increasing trauma. Or, failing to undergo that by being too powerful and thus unable to progress is the joke like it is in Qi Refining for 3000 Years. (Go to hell, Bai Qiuran, you hilariously overpowered monstrosity.)

The irony is that the trajectory in character growth is the same trajectory the average student experiences when practicing martial arts. The only difference is that the power arc is inflated. This includes overcoming ingrained truths that you believe about yourself, about your own abilities, what you believe yourself to be capable of (both good and bad,) about your biases toward yourself and other people, your biases about reality in general, your understanding of good and evil, the potential upending of right and wrong, and facing the greater complexity found in the world at large. The stripping away of these illusions, coming to terms with uncomfortable realizations in a more complicated world, and the gaining of new understanding and confidence are vital to that growth.

Skill isn’t just represented in the power creep, it’s also found in a character’s sophistication and complexity in their approach to combat and life in general. Their awareness both of themselves and of other people, their ability to read intentions, their predictive abilities, their complexity in initiating their own strategy and tactics while also recognizing and countering the plans of others. It’s their insight into human nature and their cunning. It’s not enough to be powerful. The world is full of powerful people and not so powerful people who have the capacity to be just as dangerous. This isn’t Goku and Freeza slamming into each other while the planet explodes in nine minutes. You also need to be smart. It’s also not about being a better person. It’s about being a self-aware person. A person who is self-actualized. Monkey’s growth is in his awareness of the world around him through his experiences and in approaching problems differently rather than becoming less of a little shit. If you grow up in the West, one of the issues you’re going to face is thinking of these hurdles as materialistic rather than emotional or intellectual.

A lot of Western media misinterprets the concepts of “giving up” as physical sacrifice. One of the popular examples is physically sacrificing the person we love. In order to have enlightenment, we must be separated from them. We can’t physically be with them anymore. Whereas under a Buddhist structure, what we are actually sacrificing is our own ignorance, our own preconceptions, and beliefs that keep the world comfortable. Under this structure, we’re sacrificing our preconceived notions of who our loved one is. The person that we invented when we first met and we must force ourselves to come to terms with who they really are. The outcome of this isn’t necessarily going to be bad, but it’s still painful. The person we think we love could be perfectly wonderful. However, they’re not who we imagined. If we choose to hold onto the illusion we created, to ignore the realization that the illusion is the person that we love, we’ll only end up causing ourselves and our loved one more pain. We must fall in love with them all over again. Coming to terms with that is painful. All pain comes from ignorance. In sacrificing, letting go of, or overcoming our ignorance, we grow.

These are the emotional, intellectual, and spiritual challenges necessary for a cultivator because they allow the cultivator to level up. Yes, level up. Whether this is coming from the influx of gaming culture into media at large or because the concept synergizes with the Buddhist goal of progressing through the Six Realms toward nirvana, leveling up is how a cultivator’s increasing power is often depicted. Of course, once we reach the next level we can’t go back except by falling or failing and are no longer the person we once were. This then gets mixed in with Daoist principles of finding divine understanding by living in harmony with the universe. The more understanding we gain of the world, the more energy we can absorb as a result, but our original goals may be lost or changed in the process. If a character begins their journey on the path of revenge, their newfound contextualization of the situation that caused them immense pain may force them to give that revenge up or find they don’t want revenge anymore.

Failure is also an option and often a common part of the story. These stories usually follow characters through multiple lives and rebirths over hundreds and even thousands of years, especially if they’re also gods. This is the existential fall. The fall to the Dark Side. All our heroes are going to go through it at least once. This is also why a lot of Chinese media ends in tragedy with hope for the next round.

-Michi

This blog is supported through Patreon. Patrons get access to new posts three days early, and direct access to us through Discord. If you’re already a Patron, thank you. If you’d like to support us, please consider becoming a Patron.

#writing reference #writing advice #writing tips #michi answers #how to fight write #martial arts

[twstchaos]

Jack x Epel?

Ahh!!! I fuckin’ LOVE the 1B ship!!! Best boys, perfect boyfs!!!

I love how one of their interactions is:

Jack: Eww, it smells like shit in here.

And it’s just Epel with a shit ton of onion.

Need more content of them together!!! I’m so excited for when Portfest comes to NA, because I love their interaction in the event!!! So cute and hilarious!!!

Honestly, my favorite first year ship, more than Adeuce.

I have no idea what their ship name is though.

Thanks for the question, anon~

#keep ‘em comin’ #michi answers #jack howl #epel felmier #jack x epel #epeljack #is that the ship name? #like the fuckin’ cereal? #twisted wonderland #disney twst

[ask-ruth]

Max said Richie would make a good Noel (Ride The Cyclone) because he’d look hot in the outfits-

personally i always thought he was more of a ricky but....... ig max thinks otherwise

#ask ruth #ruth answers #michie

[mye-chi]

13, 18, and/or 22 for the choose violence ask game? :] -zenixromeave

here is the ask game! 22 was answered here

13. worst blorboficiation

michi is hilarious to me because she's simultaneously a "mwehehe >:3c i'm going to steal your boyfriend!" stereotypical mean girl villain but she also committed horrendous crimes like trying to get a man executed. but she's also been given an extremely sympathetic backstory and suffered an unnecessarily cruel fate in mystreet. AND SHE'S CANONICALLY BISEXUAL

she is the aphmau character ever. /10

18. it's absolutely criminal that the fandom has been sleeping on...

miasha masha saichi sashaichi them. i am obsessed with the potential of their dynamic. big tiddy goth shadow knight gf x evil goth cat girl. the most toxic possible yuri. they LITERALLY sailed away to live together. i am on my hands and knees can we please get then to atleast interact in cocomau.

#mye-chi talks about michi. who could've foreseen this #( 💌 ) ⸻ frills answers #ask game

[seijorhi]

Hihi Rhi :))

ART&RCSW - Special Edition

This week (??) I'll talk about two fics, because I absolutely have to talk about Tailspin <33 And since I'm talking about that, it'll be a Tokyo Revengers themed week I guess

Firstly, The Shape of Your Name?? I have a thing for Kazutora, 100%, and it's like, partly your fault tbh

Anyway, I love this fic so so much, because it's 100000x more painful than any normal soulmate fic you've written, and that's saying something

I love Baji so much and this poor boy just does not get a break, not to mention his poor soulmate

And the twisted way Tora is drawn to the reader just ticks all the right boxes, not to mention how his sense of indebtedness towards Baji translates towards the reader - because obviously, as much as he seems to like her, she is still an extension of Baji, the only one he still has

Just, the entire fic is so mouthwateringly delicious <33

Now, on to the star of the show

Tailspin <33

I like how this fic is centred around Chifuyu and the fact that he remembers - that he's trying to do the right thing and still fails miserably

I do have a question before I get into it - did he kill Takemichi to get the time leaper power?? Or??

Anyway, the way he tries to keep Baji and Kazutora away from the reader, all for it to amount to absolutely nothing in the end - also the fact that we read it from his pov and see how much it strains him to stay away, it almost seems like he was being punished for not taking the reader when he had the chance - she died because he went against the grain and all that

It's like one big cosmic joke because he tried to do the "right" thing

Also the reader's piece of shit boyfriend?? Man, him getting beat up was satisfying as hell, thank you for that Rhi :))

It was such a beautiful fic, and I loved the attention to detail, and the idea that he remembered bits and pieces from previous timelines

Also, I'm curious about Baji and Tora's reactions to him kidnapping this random girl - obviously they were happy and went along with it, but like, what was the process?? Did they ever question how and why Fuyu noticed her and decided to kidnap her??

Anyway, I loved this fic so much, I love all of your writing <33

Sorry again for being a bit late, but by this point, I guess we're both used to it - I hope you've had a good weekend :))

See you (maybe??) on Thursday for another round of fangirling over your writing <33

art, bby, i adore you <33

okay so y'all know (or maybe you don't idk) but tora, baji and chifuyu are my absolute faves in tokyo revengers ... hence why at least half of my tokrev fics features at least one of them hehe

i will gladly take the blame for any Kazutora love, he deserves it all and i am just a vessel to share that with you guys.

the shape of your name is i think the first time i've written a non-soulmate pairing in a soulmate fic? cuz that's such a fun concept to play with, especially when it's yandere, and especially when it's someone clearly fucking unhinged <33

but yes. tailspin :))

YES! HE! MURDERED! THE! FUCK! OUTTA! MICHI!!

again there was gonna be a full scene but i kinda liked the idea of leaving it more up to y'all imaginations as to whether he went and 'asked' or picked the less noble path which involved a pipe but uhhh, in my mind he definitely went with the latter. more because it was a, i guess, sort of proven method? there was no guarantee that even if takemichi agreed to give him the power that he'd know how to do it, that it'd work properly.

and takemitchy wouldn't have given it to him anyway.

but yeah, the universe i guess has it out for the reader fhjdekfhjrek

it wasn't all that intentional, but i never really loved (from a narrative side) the whole 'everyone lives and we're all happy best friends forever uwu' ending that we got. ofc i was thrilled my faves got a second chance, and draken and emma got together and takemichi saved his friends yes, but... life doesn't work that way.

i also liked the idea that certain things are just set in stone within that universe, and yes, maybe chifuyu trying to stray too far from that inevitably made things a thousand times worse for everyone involved.

as far as ginji goes.... gbfhdjkjhvfjdks after getting in trouble for making oc's that you guys liked and then putting them through hell i decided to go the opposite direction. initially when i started the fic he was gonna be a loving, good bf but... where's the fun in that? >:)

chifuyu operates on the belief (or at least tries to convince himself) that the reason they did what they did with the reader in the past was that they were essentially broken people. they lost their way, they lost their friends, and as sad and as sick as it was a kind of coping mechanism. they were beyond healthy relationships, and while they loved the reader, that dependency and the fear that she'd be taken from them too made them go to those lengths.

therefore, in this new, shiny timeline where they're all better people without mental illness, trauma and ptsd who don't kill their friends and beat people to death for the fun of it, they should be able to have a fresh start and be better versions of themselves.

unfortunately for him, they're just broken, fucked up people to begin with, there's no changing that.

i think i sort of explained it badly in the earlier ask, because it wasn't like 'oop, there's this pretty girl and we've noticed you stalking her, but hey if you wanna keep her down here that's cool with us as long as we get to share :))' fghdjkdjhvfjdks

in the original timeline they clock on pretty quick – almost from the get-go in tora's case – that something is up with chifuyu and the reader, and when he starts to spiral... they piece things together. they're both incredibly perceptive, even in canon.

between him leaping back and actually physically abducting the reader, months pass. he sort of leaves a trail of breadcrumbs, waits to see the reaction they'll have to that. i refuse to believe that none of them knew anything about the time leaps, even if they didn't remember anything like fuyu does. there is no way loudmouth, awkward as fuck takemitchy (or mikey) at no point said some weird shit that twigged something between their friends.

it isn't difficult to put chifuyu's strange behaviour and his 'sudden' obsession with this girl together with what they know – or at the very least suspect – and come up with some interesting conclusions. chifuyu wouldn't come right out and blurt the whole story, but over time he'd let things 'slip'.

but i also don't think they're all that interested in pushing him for reasons or justification. if chifuyu wants to keep his secrets, fine.

it's not like they don't feel that draw towards her. it's not like they don't have those same, dark, selfish impulses lurking beneath their skin.

#rhi answers #artemis32 #ART&RCSW #fic asks #tailspin #also i am so glad someone asked about the michi thing #i have been waiting for that #ghfjdkjghjfdk