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#Not that anyone would care haha.
chalkscrub · 6 months
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babygirl doodles from a little while ago
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toughkookie88 · 2 months
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rly curious abt your thoughts on the ares fight scene in more depth. watching it i was like “ok it’s a fight scene.” i was not Amazed compared to other media’s fight scenes and especially not compared to the book but compared to the other episodes it was the first fight scene that didn’t have me just outwardly :/ exasperated
Oh an ask... hi there 👋😳 I'm very flattered you actually want to listen to my ramblings more, lol. I sure hope you know what monstrosity you're unleashing with that question because here comes the flood 🌊 (pun intended)
So the short answer is basically (unmute for full effect xD):
(Thanks for giving me the motivation to finish editing this video 😂)
The more in-depth answer is complicated (and I apologize in advance because this is going to get long again haha):
It's a matter of small problems at the start snowballing into bigger ones as the show progresses. So my issue with that scene is not just the presentation of it, it's again an amalgamation of all the choices they made leading up to this point.
Strike 1 is the Percy vs. Clarisse/Ares' kids scene from episode 2 starting off an unfortunate pattern of very poorly communicating how Percy's specific demigod powers help him overcome the obstacles he goes on to face on his quest.
(Man, do I mean it when I say that I hate having to be the nagging bitch who can't stop shutting up about the book but we're just going to have to deal with me bringing it up constantly from now on xD)
By this point in the book we at least already had the sword fighting lesson with Luke before, to set up that Percy has a natural talent for it and a little bit of foreshadowing for what's about to come because he was only able to beat Luke after pouring the ice water on himself. We also get a side note that Clarisse "pulverizes" him during wrestling classes, setting up that on land, it is without question her, who has the advantage. And then finally during capture the flag he brutally gets his ass handed to him first, before he gets thrown into the water and only then manages to gain the upper hand in a 1v5 fight because he gets a power boost from being surrounded by his natural element.
In the show he is suddenly and with absolutely no training at all able to go toe-to-toe against several kids of the literal GOD OF WAR who should be way more skilled and experienced than him... just because? Did his super secret battle-instincts just conveniently choose to awaken right in that moment? Because he is slightly near the lake? Is he absorbing the water particles in the air lmao???
Sure, if you wanted, you could argue that the book version seems unrealistic/convenient/power-fantasy-esque as well, but at least there is enough foreshadowing and a completely solid explanation for why he is able to win that particular fight. The show gives you nothing, which makes it even more unbelievable.
The only reason I can think of as to why they made it that way (well aside from the meta-reason of "this is a live action production and we can't do the proper stunts/effects for it" ofc lol), is to make Percy seem more impressive without his powers, I guess? And if that really was the point, I think it's a misguided one because it's just way too early for this. At this point in his journey he should not be able to go up against trained fighters without "dirty tricks".
And remember this point because it's going to come up again lol.
Strike 2 is not doing enough to properly build up the animosity between Ares and Percy in episode 5. In the book Ares is described as having this rage-inducing effect on Percy, which is causing him to be rash and impulsive around him (more than he already is lol). He specifically mentions how Ares reminds him of Gabe (ya know... his abusive step-father???) every belittling teacher and every bully he has ever faced combined. At this point in the book Percy also already doesn't know for sure that his mother is alive. Ares is the one who baits him into walking into Hephaestos trap in exchange for information about his mom. So, that's already plenty enough ammo for him to hate this guy on sight lol.
I don't know if they actually meant to leave the "rage-aura-thing" out of the show or if it's again just a matter of it being poorly communicated on screen (Annabeth even alludes to it when she talks to Grover before they leave, but no one seems to actually be affected by it). In the show, especially in the diner scene, they make it seem like there is more hostility between Annabeth and Ares than there is between them. Percy's little declaration at the end could have been cool in a different context (as well as the callback to it in episode 8), but it just seems to come a bit out of nowhere, when you look back at their previous interactions in this episode. And the tone is just a bit off, somehow? I don't know how to best describe it, but he just comes off as way more confident and threatening, than he should reasonably be at this point. And Ares just standing there and taking it, as if he's taking his threat seriously, really doesn't help matters either.
This is just another instance of where the show severely nerfing the gods' initimidation factor, works incredibly against its favour. I get that the intention seems to be, to highlight Percy's fearlessness. But since we never really get to meet an Olympian who actually has a commanding, otherwordly presence, it just makes them seem like push-overs for letting this twelve-year-old mortal casually mouth off at them with no consequences. The scene would have worked better for me, if Ares had at least started mocking or threatening him (or both probably) in response.
In the book Ares' mentions that the only reason Percy is allowed to get away with being as snarky towards him as he is, is because he doesn't care as much about propriety as some of the other gods do. Plus, it's obvious he gets a kick out of specifically goading him into doing it. But even then there are hard limits on how far Percy can go without being blasted to bits. (Also Ares nervous ticks here are a much better way of foreshadowing Kronos' involvement. These hints were what I was hoping for Grover to pick up on during their conversation in the diner, but that scene of him staying behind with him in the show just ends up going absolutely nowhere.)
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You know, I got into my fair share of trouble as a kid for talking back at shitty teachers and authority figures, as I'm sure many can relate, lol. And every time I got home from another argument, I would always get the same weary lecture from my mom that "There is no use in becoming a target, even if you are in the right. It's just better to shut up and keep your head down because there is nothing we can do about it. They are the ones with the power at the end of the day."
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These little moments between Ares and Percy in the book just capture this feeling of rage and helplessness you get in these kind of dynamics so godamn well xD, which is what makes Percy's victory against him later so cathartic in the first place! The show doesn't really deliver on that front, because in my opinion it just doesn't do enough to cement Percy as the underdog here (Percy's history with bullying was also very quickly brushed over and we all know they completely defanged Gabe, so that can't really come into play here either).
Strike 3 is again the very lackluster presentation of Percy's powers in the show. By the point we get to episode 7 we have seen him push a girl into a fountain, throw toilet water at Clarisse and her posse, breathe underwater... and that's pretty much it. I don't know wether to give him Crusty or not, because the scene is soo vague and confusing on how they actually defeated him. At first I thought that since they specifically made it a point that Crusty is showing him a waterbed, that we would get to see Percy manipulate the water inside the matress to trap him, which would have been so freaking cool????? But no, I'm pretty sure the take-away is supposed to be that Annabeth just pushed him while she was invisible. What a waste. A lot of the scenes were Percy gets to show off his powers in the book get changed, watered down (badum tss) or omitted in the show. So the only somewhat impressive feat that actually leaves us with, is when Percy gets whirlpooled middair into the river in episode 4. But that one was specifically Poseidon's work not Percy's. Which brings me to my next gripe.
Poseidon's whole voice-over at the end of episode 7 where he talks about how he "will be there by Percy's side, when he's ready and knows who he truly is blablabla" while we see Percy walking up to Ares, ready to face him, could again have been a very cool moment in a different context. But since we get to see so incredibly little of Percy becoming stronger and slowly getting a better handle on his powers by himself over the course of the show, the framing of this scene heavily implies that the only reason he is able to beat Ares in the next episode is because he has daddy-dearest backing him. And that just left such an incredibly bad taste in my mouth, because no! This is supposed to be Percy's big moment!
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The book makes a point to explicitly call this out!!! Ares even specifically taunts him about that!!!
And with aaaall that background we finally get to the actual fight scene. A confrontation between Percy and the, let me reiterate, LITERAL GOD OF WAR, remember at this point they weren't actually supposed to be sure (or more like in denial lol) about Kronos yet, so this was supposed to be Percy confronting the culprit behind everything they had to go through so far, this is supposed to be Percy's moment of coming into his own as a legendary hero in his own right, Percy fighting a representation of again all the bullies he has ever faced in his life, a classic tale of David vs. Goliath, a true battle between-
The fight doesn't even last 2 minutes in the show. TWO. GODDAMN. MINUTES. And we get one. SINGLE. Measly. Water effect. Why does the lighting still have to be so grey and boring? Why is there no sense of tension in this fight? So much time... is spent... on just... standing... around. Ares has so many opportunities to beat the everloving shit out of Percy but he's just taking his sweet ass time for every little step he takes, no sense of him enjoying the fight whatsoever.
But the absolute BEST thing is the way it ends.. omg the ending... had me in actual tears because I was laughing so fucking hard. WOW! who knew Ares was such a great listener xD??? It sure is nice of him to wait until Percy veeery sloooowly gets up, slooowly finishes his grand dramatic monologue about how he's a big boy now, slooowly summons a big wave you can see coming slooooowly from miles away, all the while Ares THE LITERAL GOD OF WAR just stands there and watches. Why the fuck does he just stand there and do nothing XD???? He doesn't do a single thing to stop Percy in his tracks or dodge... just NOTHING.
(Oh, also just want to reiterate that I'm not dunking on the actors' performances here, they do a great job actually for the poor material they are given, what I'm criticizing are the completely baffling directorial choices)
I think my video edit above already illustrates well enough why this scene just came off as laughably ridiculous to me by the end xD.
But this isn't even where the problems end.
The whole "You didn't ask to be a half-blood"-bit could have been a neat little inclusion, but the rest of the Luke sword fighting lesson they akwardly wedged into this episode literally contributes nothing to the fight, lol??? They frame this flashback as if Percy is remembering a specific lesson or piece of advice to use in his upcoming fight with Ares. But they don't elaborate at all what that lesson is supposed to be lol??? Since Percy doesn't disarm Ares (and it doesn't even look like Luke successfully managed to teach him that xD) it's certainly not that. Is it the "being a halfblood makes you part of something bigger than yourself, which is good since you clearly can't do this on your own"- bit? Percy literally solos this fight with absolutely no outside help, so obviously no. Is it the single-combat-challenge thing?? Are we really assuming that Percy couldn't have gotten that absolutely groundbreaking idea on his own without Luke's help lmao???
There is a similar moment in the book, but at least in that example Percy is thinking about Luke in that moment because he is remembering a practical lesson where he taught him how to fight an opponent with a bigger weapon. Which makes sense??? Because that's literally what happens in that moment with Ares??
In the book Percy wins this fight because he manages to outsmart him. He manages to hit exactly the right nerve to goad Ares into a 1v1-fight with him (because Percy cleverly taunts him by implying that if Ares were to turn him into an insect like he threatened to, he would just be admitting that he can't beat Percy in a fair fight), both to get more information out of him and to get back Hades' helmet.
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(also the audacity of removing Percy's moment of absolute badassery here lol)
At first Ares very clearly has the upper hand. As THE GOD OF WAR he can predict his every move, and he is clearly just drawing out the fight because he enjoys toying with Percy, not because Percy seriously gets him to struggle much at any point. Ares isn't a brain-dead idiot lol. He knows about Percy's fight against Clarisse, he knows about the river, he has just seen Percy conjure up a giant wave to get rid of the boar he sent after him: He is fully aware that Percy has an advantage in the water, so he makes an effort to drive him away from it during the fight.
Percy notices that and is clever enough to use it to his advantage. He tricks Ares into thinking he succeeded at that objective, he pretends to be too tired to keep on fighting, while holding back the tide and unleashing it when Ares doesn't expect it. Ares does NOT languidly watch a giant wave come at him from 50 miles away without doing anything to stop him adsfahahajs lmao!!! Then Percy uses this split-second-window of him being disoriented to wound him. Ares does NOT get completely taken out of the fight from being splashed once or spend half an hour crawling after his useless sword, as if that's the only thing he could use to defend himself lmao!!! Ares absolutely would have annihilated Percy then and there, no matter what the deal was, if it wasn't for Kronos intervening in that moment! And I could go on.
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There is just so much more thought involved here to make Percy earn this victory through his own merit! Sure, he may have inherited the powers from his father, but Percy is the one who came up with a plan to beat Ares entirely on his own. And it doesn't even feel outrageously cheap or plot-convenient either because this is a "victory" in the loosest sense of the word. Even with all his effort Percy is only able to put the tiniest scratch on him. There is absolutely no doubt left, that if the circumstances were different, Percy would have been zapped out of existance in an instant (and he doesn't get away without consequences because of Ares' curse). As it should be!!! Because this is still supposed to be a powerful godly being he is fighting!!!
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This is also the reason why using this opportunity to set-up Kronos as this ominous and terrifying entity, that even the God of War can be manipulated by and afraid of works so much better in the book than whatever it is they're going for in the show. In the book Ares' goes into a trance and he is the one who slips up and mentions something about dreams, which Percy then questions him on. In the show Percy jumps to that conclusion ABSOLUTELY out of nowhere lol???? Damn, calm down there, Sherlock Jackson! It's yet again another awfully clunky exposition dump instead of characters organically putting the pieces together.
And many other people have already said it, but why would they cut out some of Ares' most important lines at the end there???
There is a lot more to say about how in the book it's just such a cool, really big spectacle, with people from both worlds watching it happen, how there is such a cool and funny pay-off for the whole "fugitive-delinquent" subplot with the mortal police thinking Ares and Percy are having a full blown shoot-out on the beach lmao, Ares summoning earthquakes and hurling fireballs, a hint of Kronos' presence sending everyone into a terrified trance etc. etc.
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I don't mind them toning all of that down, I know it's probably hard to translate into live-action (all the more reason this should have been fully animated cough cough). I don't even care that much about fight scenes. Even the big spectacular looking ones can tend to bore me if I'm not emotionally invested. So I don't care about clunky effects or clumsy stunt choreography, most of the time those things usually fly over my head, anyway. What I care about are emotional stakes and clever strategies. And this scene falls very flat on both of those aspects.
Sooo in conclusion: There are absolutely no tactics or clever maneuvres involved in the show-version. Percy is just able to brute-force a win against the God of brute force because the plot demands it at that moment and Ares is a floundering idiot waiting around for Percy to beat him. The way Percy's battle prowess and powers have been communicated so far, does a poor job at making it seem believable that Percy is able to win a fight against someone of this caliber. In an effort to make Percy look stronger they really only managed to make the gods seem weaker. The emotional investment isn't really there either because not enough care was spent on setting up Percy and Ares' rivalry beforehand or what beating him thematically means for Percy. There is no intrigue, no questions left unanswered, since the kids have already figured out everything they needed to know by this point. All of that just makes this fight seem like a formailty they needed to get it over with, when it was such a climactic and triumphant moment in the book.
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healpimp · 1 year
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seeing ppl say tf2 has "no diversity" compared to ovw is so wild. the mercs literally all mentally ill AND they have pyro.
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How about a bit of a different question? Does Quin have any original species they’ve made?
Oh uhh kinda :’D I technically only have two that are pretty fleshed out, but none of the information is public but uhhhh
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The one licking feet is called a Monkitty(I’m sure you can guess what makes them up…), the one being licked is a Seamur, the tallest is a Silvafex(the most fleshed out species of the this group) and the last is a Monkitty/Silvafex hybrid which…I guess is just a mix of two others but :’D
Not pictured here because it’s more exclusive to my sona, Mimzy(I don’t have any current ref art for her what the FUCK), but I have Transients too. They’re uhhh my most thought over species cuz they were created based a lot on me exploring myself, my gender fluidity, and how I feel in my own skin so it’s
PERSONAL…
So I probably wouldn’t talk about them much…I wouldn’t mind talking about Silvafex though.
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roachclit · 2 years
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one of my trans female friends wants a hysterectomy :(
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lindonwald · 1 year
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3 mimir?
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drainbangle · 7 months
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wait omg i’m curious about your unpopular thoughts about temenos writing wise.. i love when people discuss octopath writing it’s really enriching to see what we all have to say about certain story elements. plus you’re like a temenos representative to me. your thoughts about temenos make me go “so true!”
Aw, thank you! It took a while for me to decide on what to write here, since honestly I could go on for… frankly any aspect of this guy, especially in regards to treatment in fanon. But for now, I'll focus on my thoughts regarding how people treat tragedy in Temenos' story— namely, Crick's death— and why I personally dislike it as a writing decision and why I disagree with the idea that it is necessary.
Note: Goes without saying, but this is my personal opinion. If you believe otherwise, then that's all good. I'm not writing this to say that any one person is wrong, just to talk about an issue I have with the game's writing itself.
To start, I'll say that my main reason for disliking Crick's death in SH route is a matter of practicality. Killing him off causes Temenos to lose the main person that he had a fantastic relationship and banter with, and in my opinion, Temenos works best when he's bouncing off another person; not unlike most under the Sherlock-archetype.
Also, genuinely? It works wonders to keep Crick alive, if just because it provides a fantastic avenue to explore Temenos' institutional trauma. Having a character that's lived a different experience but within the same harmful institution opens up ways to explore the scope of its harm. And yes, this is for Crick specifically; not Ort, not the travelers, but Crick.
I think it really adds something that Temenos was raised by the church while Crick converted as a teenager during a really difficult time in his life. These two are good for each other. Crick sure as hell makes it a lot easier to write Temenos in fic.
(If you have a different experience, again, that's cool. I'm glad for you. I, however, will never fail to take the easy way out.)
(This is a lie, I'm over here making up fantasy church law for fic stuff but that's not related to this answer.)
I won't pretend that disliking Crick's death is an unpopular opinion. I mean, "Stormhail Fix-it" is an entire genre of fic on the OT2 Ao3 tag. What I do feel tends to go unaddressed though, is the fact that the idea that Crick's death is canon, therefore it is necessary, therefore it is the best decision; an idea that I wholeheartedly disagree with.
Within the text itself, Crick is killed off in order to give Temenos a personal reason to pursue Kaldena, thus putting him at odds with Kaldena's motivations being driven by her ideology and worldview that, "because humans committed the massacre, it was the gods' mistake to put us here". I also won't pretend that Kaldena's writing here isn't fucking awful, because Crick's death is also a device to make the player want Kaldena defeated even though she is just as much as a victim of the church; and that's to say nothing of her portrayal as an indigenous and dark-skinned woman.
These decisions are ones I disagree with. Killing Crick off was unnecessary to give Temenos reason to pursue the culprit, because Temenos already had someone close to him killed; and that's Pontiff Jörg. He raised Temenos from infancy, but due to the lack of focus on him outside of banter conversations, it's never relevant to his motivations outside of the desire for truth because a crime was committed. 
We also didn't need to kill Crick off to show that the church was a terrible institution, because Roi already went missing in action. The Sacred Guard is the main body of law within Eastern Solistia, it's not unreasonable to think that the reason why Temenos dislikes them is because they clearly didn't do shit to investigate his disappearance.
However, one thing I really don't agree with is the idea that Crick's death is necessary because Temenos' story is a tragedy. And if you asked me why, I'd ask this in turn: why is death the only form of tragedy? Furthermore, why must a tragedy contain only tragic events? That in mind, what gives anything value in a tragedy, then?
Pretend we cannot completely rewrite Temenos' story. Even then, changing Crick's death to a permanent injury, a coma, or whatever is still a tragic event; and that's nothing to say of living with the consequences. Isn't losing your faith a tragedy? Isn't losing something you worked for years to do a tragedy?
Similarly, I'd still argue that it's more valuable to make Stormhail a near-death experience because not only does it show Temenos succeeding in making someone question the church but also the terror that is feeling like you're doomed to repeat tragedy. Even if you really aren't, it's hard to dismiss that feeling; especially when it has to do with being victimized by institutions.
And before someone says, "but bad things happen to good people in real life", I'm not treating these characters as living, breathing people who are subject to things like gravity, hunger, and exhaustion. I'm treating them as choices, and choices made that I disagree with. 
It's why I make different choices. I choose to make Crick have to deal with chronic pain onwards. I choose to make Temenos realize change is still possible. I choose to let them both leave Stormhail alive. Are these better choices? I don't know. But I'll never stop questioning the ones made by the writers regardless; much less stop disagreeing with them.
So, in summary: I dislike Crick's death. I dislike Temenos having to spend the rest of the story without someone he can talk to so easily because Crick's absence weakens a lot of his scenes in Temenos 4. But more than that, I dislike the idea that tragedy is necessary on top of the idea that it is superior. Tragedy's good, I adore the genre; but written in mindful doses and all that.
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ell-arts · 1 year
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Sometimes I think back on the 9+ years I've been a fan of PMATGA.
With so much time that has passed, I've come to terms with the fact that the show is never coming back to continue its run. I've made peace with it and know that the chances of Namco picking it up again are next to none because of the show's poor ratings during its run.
It hasn't stopped me from being a fan though, and I can still appreciate its influence in my childhood while acknowledging that the show's over and it's closed its chapter, both in my life and just in the animated series sphere in general.
...BUT THEN sometimes I look back and nostalgia and fixation hits like a runaway brick train and all I can think of is DAMN YOU NAMCO PLEASE BRING IT BACK 😭
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einstetic · 5 months
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i'm not tired, i'm exhausted
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nonbinary-niki-bog · 2 months
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Hey!! Do you care about getting fan art at all? I literally love ur au so,,
~The Marvelous Marss! (Aka ☁)
i don't mind any fanart of anything. rather i would be honored if people would want to do fanart of anything of mine.
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freakzterz · 7 months
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rawr
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shenzaibird-art · 2 months
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"Maybe working with Hayley might turn out to be good for something after all..." Yeah this is how the whole Verloren thing ties in with the modern day stuff in The Necromage. This is actually a scene in tN chapter 2 kinda. This should've been written by now, if I hadn't gotten entirely derailed along the way haha. Today is tNniversary. 12 years since my first scribble about this story. 2 years since I posted chapter 1. Yeah 2 years of "I'm so going to do this" and then not doing this :'D But I swear, someday, I will do this. Too much of my lore is built up from of this story for me to ever truly abandon it.
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automatonknight · 6 months
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thinking about patches joining the lovelies again. and by thinking i mean i'm mentally letting hart beat the shit out of him in my head
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i still have not gotten to ketsu itself let alone post ketsu but.... ive seen Sources that say that after ketsu, izaya was left with pretty severe ptsd after shizuo nearly killed him... so a post-ketsu shizaya relationship would probably have izaya's ptsd flaring up- it's not something izaya can control, its just an instinctive thing... shizuo and izaya cuddling in bed but shizuo's hand brushes the exact wrong spot on izaya's back, izaya having nightmares and shizuo grappling over wether or not to wake him up because if he wakes him up, izaya will react on instinct and shizuo cant bear to see him so afraid of him, and he knows its selfish and cowardly to keep izaya asleep but ht just cant bring himself to do it and have his heart broken like that; he entrusted it to izaya and he cant bear the heartbreak, even if izaya didn't mean to break his heart
and of course izaya would know shizuo's thoughts on this and would try desperately to suppress his ptsd, which ends up making it erupt violently when it does flare up. izaya would absolutely hate the lack of control he has over his actions and how the ptsd he never wanted will end up pushing shizuo away from him
(i do still attest that izaya was mentally ill before the ketsu-related ptsd- even to the point of possibly already having ptsd- but the ketsu stuff is overpowering him because its new and the wounds are still raw, and shizuo is right there to give his trauma-addled brain a constant reminder of being so close to death)
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ofallthingsnasty · 2 years
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As someone who has a very 'laissez-faire' style when it comes to clothing, there is something so special about a yandere dressing you up, molding your appearance so that there is no doubt you're the perfect fit. I barely throw my outfits together, even when I go out for the night, how exciting would it be to have it all match? From the underwear to jewelry, daywear to sleepwear- if they care enough, you’ll have a special outfit for every single outing they could take you to (if you aren’t stuck in the basement until further notice, that is). Doesn't matter if they're more on the stylish side like Mirko and Hawks or prim and proper like Nighteye or Overhaul. Especially with someone who has the means to splurge on you and will do so with glee. Sure, some hold it over your head that you need a new coat - but some will find nothing but utter delight in treating you like their little dress-up doll. After all, there is the matter of you trying on every single garment and them being able to either ogle you shamelessly- or downright grope you, obviously finding faults with how the fabric fits around your shoulders, ass, legs.
One might just enjoy seeing you squirm around while you’re ordered to twirl and twist, another genuinely gushes over how good you look. One takes pride in having everything match with them, the other might try to veer your style into something entirely unexpected, might try to turn you into their perfect fantasy. And then you have the ones who either don’t care for getting you clothes or simply can’t afford a huge wardrobe. For them, keeping you naked or minimally clothed is an option as well, one that might be just perfect.
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thenon-fictiondays · 2 years
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Hirano to Kagiura light novel translation 2-1
Chapter 2: Summer preparations.
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Part 1
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T/N: (1) Japanese schools typically start summer break much later than Western schools, so that's why they had an entire semester's worth of exams before summer break and why they haven't gone home yet
“Wait, …….hm……?”
Facing his luggage, which is unusually disheveled for him, Hirano groaned.
Even as he turns the bag he’d started packing in preparation for going home inside and out, he can’t find what he’s looking for.
“Not here either, huh…”
He has not a clue where they might be, and he tilts his head at the unexpected turn of events. He’d of course checked the floor, as well as in the bed, the hallway, and even the dining hall.
He always takes them out before he goes to sleep, so there can’t possibly be that many places he could’ve left them. But unfortunately, once something becomes a habit, you stop thinking about it while you do it.
It’s probably not that he put them in a different place from normal after taking them out, but there might have been something out of the ordinary.. In fact, last night Hanzawa had suddenly come over.
Although he’d come inside after hurriedly knocking on the door, he didn’t seem to have anything in particular to do, and had been acting strangely. He had looked uncomfortable too, but—had Hirano taken them out by that point?
He can’t remember clearly.
As he recalls, Kagiura came to this space and was loafing around, saying how nice the freshly washed sheets felt. Thanks to him, they’d gotten all wrinkled, so Hirano had scolded him and made him set them straight.
Because Kagiura hadn’t put the sheets back on before bathing unlike Hirano, the mattress pad was uncovered. Hirano had made him put them on immediately afterward, saying “even so, that doesn’t mean you go invite yourself into someone else’s bed”.
Even if he tries thinking back, he can’t remember the gist of his own movements.
Both the left one and the right one are gone, so the probability that they fell out is low. The backings weren’t loose, so it’s also unlikely they got caught on something. And yet he can’t find them anywhere, a situation that has him scratching his head in frustration.
“What’s wrong? Hirano-san.”
At the sound of the voice that rang out from beside him as he spaced out, Hirano noticed his roommate for the first time since he’d returned.
“Oh, welcome home. It’s not a big deal, but I can’t find my earrings. I thought they fell somewhere around here, though.”
When he added as an afterthought that he doesn’t take them off outside, so they must be in the dorm, Kagiura crouched down to the floor.
“I’ll help you look for them.”
“Thanks, but it’s fine. I’ll find them on my own. Keep an eye out just so you don’t step on them though, okay?”
“Got it. But it’ll be a problem if you don’t find them, right?”
“Yeah, but it’s not like the piercings will close up if I don’t wear them for a day or two. That aside, Kagi-kun, I thought you said you’d be doing free practice today once you got back from dropping off your school bag. You promised your friends you’d be there, didn’t you?”
Under the blazing sun with summer vacation just around the corner, Kagiura apparently still goes on runs despite club activities having ended. He’d exclaimed as much when they’d run into each other at lunchtime. 
He was probably venting the stress from the final exams. For Kagiura, unskilled at studying, he’d probably been quite run down by his poor showing on the midterms.
With the support of Hirano, for whom taking care of his kouhai was no struggle, he’d been able to get through them safely, but they were scores that he, even as a sports recommendation student, couldn’t brush off, so he had, as he put it, “studied as a hard as a student preparing for entrance exams”.
Club is on break today because the advisor, current captain, and incoming captain were at a meeting at another school. It is an act of mercy given the temperature, but for Kagiura, who’d just managed to get through exams, it is not fortuitous timing.
“Ah! …..I’m heading out.”
His head snaps up, suddenly fidgety as he remembers.
He’s energetic in spite of the heat.
As he wakes up every day with him and comes to understand his daily routines, Hirano has nothing but admiration for the overwhelming differences in their physical activity.
“See you later.”
At the sight of Kagiura rushing out the door, Hirano’s face suddenly falls.
Ever since he came here, the moment he leaves, the room feels unpleasantly silent. 
No other pair in any of the other dorm rooms is a match for his relationship with his roommate, who has completely opened up to him—a fact of which Hirano is proud. He feels it all the more strongly for having been in the kouhai position himself a year ago.
There is just one more week until summer break.
It got a little too quiet.
Hirano’s family home, which houses their family of three, is seldom lively, as his father is quite reticent. 
They all get along, and from his point of view as the child, they’re a happy family, but it’s a little lonely for someone who has gotten used to living in a group with age-mates.
“I didn’t think anything of it last year, though…”
Mumbling his grievances, he stands and stretches his aching back.
In his line of sight is the terry cloth blanket rolled up on his kouhai’s bed, in disarray as if to illustrate his trouble with getting up in the morning.
On the off chance that his earrings ended up here, Hirano cautiously searches the sheets before fixing them back in place, but unfortunately they are nowhere to be found. His ears were pierced with titanium earrings, the downside of which is that they’re not particularly shiny, so they’re difficult to find in situations like this.
Reluctantly, Hirano re-packs his bag and gets started on his homework. He’s preparing for the summer term prep school course. Besides that, there’s also countless practice exams.
There is not much leisure time in the summer breaks of high school second years.
It’s not like he’s spending the entire time applying for intensive courses, and he has more time to hang out and go places compared to usual, but the passage of time is most definitely changing from last year.
As long as Kagiura can graduate, he’ll probably also get into college with a sports recommendation.
His gaze going soft at the pointless supposition, Hirano begins solving the problem set.
As if he has entered an empty space cut off from the world, the cries of the cicadas outside become distant. The blood is rushing in his fingertips, and the point where they touch the shaft of his mechanical pencil feels prickly.
Preparations for the cultural festival will begin tomorrow.
In the short time before summer break, each class will work out their plan and divide up the tasks amongst themselves.
It takes a fair bit of time to determine the details of the project. If their plan does not pass through the two-step audition process of an initial document screening and a secondary interview, they will not be able to proceed with it.
That said, events must be limited in the amount of space and materials they are allotted in order to have a high application-to-acceptance ratio. In effect, one could say the classes are like food truck vendors competing with one another for curb space.
For that reason, during this period, when they take charge of the cultural festival planning committee, there are times when they’re so swamped with work that they complain that even studying for exams is easier.
The judging panel consists of representatives from each class’s planning committee, the student council, and a faculty member in charge of the event. The festival judging, which is hard on both those doing the judging and those being judged, will start this week.
Hirano’s class, 2nd year class E, has already started narrowing down their plan, and are contriving to get it past the judging as quickly as possible.
Their plan is to make a haunted house spanning two classrooms and the hallway beside them. 
They will remove the door and insert a passageway, using a bigger space than one would typically imagine for a culture festival program and making it difficult to tell how often the lurking ‘ghost’ will appear. The person playing the ghost will work the distance between the entrance and exit, in order to decrease the risk that someone will find out where they’ll be ahead of time and lose interest.
Under the circumstances of blocking the corridor, it will be a one-way street, so implementation of their plan is limited to the vicinity of the staircase, and they must carefully consider emergency exit routes.
The amount of time it takes to prepare the classrooms is enormous, and on top of that they will be dressing in costume, so the amount of enthusiasm they are putting into the cultural festival is considerable.
Even Hirano, who is among the less ardent group, finds his spirits raised.
Now then, what about Kagiura?
*****
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