#based on how long it took me to finish page 1

[moraxsthrone]

◊ title — scent (phase 2)

◊ pairing — zhongli/morax x f!reader

◊ wc — 3.3k

◊ notes — guys. the way it took so long to write this bc horny. sorry not sorry. hopefully you'll find that it was worth the wait. also, i lied. this will be a 4-part series (not a 3-parter) - the ideas are coming faster than i can get them out. how fitting that i finally finished this on mother's day - just a fortunate coincidence.

◊ be warned — nsfw. mdni. feral!zhongli/morax. heat/rut. dragon features/anatomy/instincts. oral/tongue fucking (f. rcv'ing). squirting. cum drinking. rough, animalistic sex. biting/marking. knotting. breeding. scent marking. light aftercare.

← phase 1 ◊ phase 3 (wip)

...end of phase 2 (48 hours before you ovulate)...

“hey babe!” you greet your husband cheerfully while closing the door with your foot. 

zhongli is sitting at the little breakfast nook that sits adjacent to your kitchen, reading a book and enjoying a cup of his favorite afternoon tea. he’s so engrossed in his novel that he doesn’t look up, just answers you with a low hum as you set the shopping bags down on the countertop. he’s mid-sip when you lean down and give him an innocent little peck on the cheek. his teacup is still pressed to his bottom lip when you twirl around and walk away from him to start putting groceries away. 

he’s still looking at the book that he holds in his ungloved hand, but is oblivious to the words in front of him. his gaze slowly lifts from the pages, looking over the top of the book to watch you move around the kitchen, putting the provisions in their respective places. you’re wearing those cute little shorts and he’s willing to bet mora that you’re not wearing anything underneath if the intensity of your scent is anything to go by. 

you bend over to place a couple of items in the bottom drawer of the refrigerator, unwittingly giving him a little peep show when the crease of your butt cheeks peek out from underneath those scandalous shorts. zhongli is looking closely, and sure enough, you’re not wearing any panties. what began as a small spark of heat at the base of his spine when you gave him that innocent kiss a minute ago has been ignited and is now a raging wildfire that is rapidly spreading to his loins. 

you’re fertile. he can smell it, and the delicious scent of your heat has triggered his rut. it’s not something he has any control over. similarly to how he’s clenching his jaw, he’s only partially cognizant of it. 

he just instinctively knows that you smell of unhad sex.

and he must have you. he must fill you with his musk and scent you. but before he does any of that, the ghost of your earthy scent is haunting the back of his tongue.

first, he must taste you.

you say something but it’s gibberish to him when all he can hear, see, smell, or taste is your heat. it must’ve started somewhere around mid-day. when he woke up next to you this morning, he could faintly smell you, which is typical. but now he is all but drowning in the rich, ripe scent of your pussy. and you aren’t even aroused yet.

but if zhongli has anything to do with it, that’s about to change.

deep down he knows that you need to be wet to receive his cock. more than that, though, he wants to smell your arousal. 

you’re still busying yourself with putting away groceries, humming the song that’s been stuck in your head all afternoon, having no idea that your husband’s dick is hard, his balls are aching, and he’s about .58 seconds away from bending you over the nearest surface. 

“what would you like for dinner tonight, li?” you ask, standing on your tippy toes to reach the top shelf in your pantry. but he’s too ensnared by your creamy thighs to have noticed; he couldn’t hear you over the blood pumping furiously through his veins. when you don’t get a reply, you turn around to look at him. “li?”

he blinks and clears his throat. “wh-what?”

you repeat the question, to which he stammers out a response while loosening his tie. “whatever you want is f- fine with me, dear.”

you close the pantry door and furrow your brow at him, noting his flushed complexion. he appeared to be perfectly fine a minute ago. “zhongli, are you feeling okay?” you fret, making your way over to him. at his age, he could be having a heart attack or something… “darling, you look feverish…are you coming down with something?” 

you bring your hand to his forehead. he’s burning up. you’re close to him again - too close - and you’re ripe for the picking. 

before he fully realizes what he’s doing, he quickly stands up, the legs of his chair skidding across the tiled floor. your eyes go wide when he grabs you by the waist and in one swift movement, your ass and thighs are unceremoniously dropped onto the surface of the small dining table in front of him. your mouth opens, but before you can say anything, it’s filled with the former archon’s tongue. 

his kiss is fierce, raw. animalistic even. there’s no romance behind it, only sheer need and passion. you feel like he’ll eat you alive…but he’s only just begun. as his hot muscle swirls around yours, he wedges himself between your legs, forcing them apart with his hips. his hands are everywhere - groping, pulling, pushing: your neck, your tits, your waist, your thighs. unable to get a word in edgewise, you whine into his mouth and he finally pulls away, mouth still open with a thread of saliva connecting your lips. 

“zh- hahh-” you whimper when you feel his teeth on your neck. 

he’s not biting you (yet). he’s merely keeping you where he wants you while he brands you with his mark. you wonder what’s gotten into him as his hand massages your naked thigh. he’s only like this when you-

oh.

has it been two weeks already? it seems like only yesterday that the two of you were talking about maybe starting a family.

a little mewl escapes your lips as the thought hazily occurs to you that you haven’t kept up with your cycle. but it’s okay…you haven’t had to because he has.

knowing your husband’s draconic rut has been triggered by your heat sends a pang of desire shooting to your core and you moan for him. his mating pheromones go undetected by your human sense of smell; however, the reptilian part of your brain is pinging like crazy, telling your body it’s time to breed. 

you’re frantically working to unbutton his shirt, your bare legs encircling his hips, but he pries them apart again with a low grunt. he hooks his hands behind your knees, making you yelp when you’re jerked forward, his forgotten teacup rattling against its saucer when your back hits the table. he’s looking down at you, lips parted, eyes glowing, dark scales appearing briefly above his open collar before diminishing again - evidence that as feral as he seems right now, he’s still able to hold himself back…for now.

zhongli never breaks eye contact with you when he curls his brilliantly glowing fingers into the waistband of your shorts, his rich amber eyes boring into your very soul as his chest rises and falls. he yanks on the cloth barrier so hard you hear the stitching surrender to his power as your ass is forced upwards off the wooden surface. 

the scent of your pussy is filling every one of his senses…it’s almost all he can even feel. he’s dying to taste you. needs to taste you as though your slick is holy water and he is a sinner. inside his tented pants, zhongli’s cock is glowing, leaking, throbbing. there’s a dark spot forming on the cloth as proof. he needs to shove his readied cock inside you like the desert needs rain, but first he’s dying to drink you. your scent is so palpable he can taste you on the back of his tongue and it’s driving him insane.

beads of sweat are collecting at his hairline as he picks up where you left off with unbuttoning his shirt. but he quickly loses patience and tears it away from his shoulders with a clipped growl, a couple of buttons flying off and landing gods know where in the process. he’s shirtless now, his beautiful arms glowing and carbon black scales emerging on the tops of his shoulders. 

he pushes your thighs back towards your chest and lowers his face to your cunt. he just hovers there for a moment and breathes you in, his eyes rolling back in his head as they flutter closed. the distinct scent of your arousal combined with your readiness to breed sends a new rush of blood to his cock and it jumps in his pants. 

“zhongli…please…” you keen for him, and he drops to his knees to worship at your altar. 

normally, he’d take his time with you - ghost his lips along your inner thighs, kiss around your labia, tease you just a little. but he doesn’t have the patience for that right now. 

he descends on your cunt, his open, watering mouth latching onto your aching clit, his long tongue circling it for a moment before he plunges it inside you. 

gods, your flavor. 

he tongue fucks you, filling you with a long, deep moan because you taste so fucking good to him. your hands fly to his earth-colored hair - something to ground you while he devours you. you can feel the hitch of his hot breath on your labia, not knowing that the golden tip of his cock is glowing and rubbing deliciously against the rough material of his trousers as he rocks his pelvis into nothing. pulling his tongue out, he licks a long, wide stripe up to your clit again. 

you hear your name in his deep, even voice and open your eyes. “look at me when i’m eating your cunt,” he commands, and you comply. far be it from you to go against your husband’s - your god’s - wishes.

zhongli’s diamond-shaped pupils have been replaced by serpentine slits that hold your gaze while he sucks your soul from your hard bud, growling and tugging at it with the suction of his lips as his hips jerk, rubbing the moist head of his cock against the front seam of his slacks. 

“hhhh~ li…fuck, feels so good baby, yes…” you praise him, but he already knows how good he’s making you feel. your husband mastered your body long ago. he knows your tells, the meaning behind every little sound you make. he can anticipate the way your body will move before he even touches you. but more than that, he can smell your growing lust. 

he hums in appreciation and gives your clit several hard flicks with his flexed tongue, making you whine before thrusting his long, wet muscle into your pussy again. you buck your hips against his face, but his strong hands are spread over the backs of your thighs, holding them back. he curls his tongue inside you, pulling it along your walls, lapping at your juices. 

you lightly pinch your nipples, rolling them between your fingers and pulling on them gently as zhongli returns his attention to your throbbing clit. he flicks it then flattens his tongue and drags it up and down, back and forth, the texture of his tastebuds rough against your tight little bundle of nerves. at the same time, you feel two of his fingers press against your hole. 

“ohh- oh fuck, li!” you whine for him as he slips them inside, working them knuckle-deep in search of the spot that he knows so, so well. he finds it quickly with great ease, and begins massaging it with his fingertips while his lips and tongue work your clit over. 

his hair is a mess in your hands; you’re a mess on your dining table. you can feel the cocktail of your need and your husband’s spit trickle down to your ass crack, knowing you’re about to make a mess in his mouth. but that’s exactly what he wants. he doubles down and starts tugging on your g-spot, moaning when he feels you tightening around his fingers. 

zhongli knows you’re close, so close. 

he continues to hump the air reflexively, sucking your clit harder, pulling it deeper between his wet lips as though he’s trying to swallow you whole. 

“haahhh!” you gasp. “fuck, baby!” you fist his dark brown locks between your fingers. “zhongli…ohgodyou’regonnamakemecum!” 

he releases your clit with a wet pop and you feel your abused little pearl being flicked furiously back and forth over the tip of his sinfully skilled tongue. your head rolls back on the table, briefly glimpsing your kitchen behind you before you squeeze your eyes closed. 

your pelvis is rocking helplessly against your husband’s soaked face but his lips are latched securely around your clit when your cum squirts inside his waiting mouth. his brow knits and he groans against you as he swallows again and again, drinking you down to the last drop. it makes him impossibly harder and his aching testicles are heavy, full of his sperm that he needs to release inside you.

with his craving for your juices temporarily sated, the raging need in zhongli's loins is now fueling his prime directive: 

breed. 

he stands and lifts you up, bringing you to your feet before spinning you around and pushing your chest down onto the table. you whimper, pussy clenching at zhongli's show of physical power. your pebbled nipples rake across the surface below when he ruts his hips against your butt, and you can finally appreciate just how hard he is. he could’ve taken you on your back, but he’s primally driven and compelled beyond reason to mount you from behind. 

zhongli the funeral consultant now more closely resembles morax the god of old. he’s even starting to show signs of his dragon form and operating purely on instinct at this point. your scent has become more complex, nuanced - the way you smell when you’re approaching fertility combined with your arousal, and now the mixture of his saliva and your cum…

there’s only one scent missing.

from behind you comes the tinkling of his belt buckle and the sound of his zipper. zhongli pushes his pants down just far enough to free his cock and testicles before he’s bending over you. you know his fangs have emerged when you feel them drag lightly across the back of your neck. his breath is hot and his cock is so hard, bouncing eagerly against your wet folds, drooling precum onto the floor below.

he spreads your ass apart with his strong radiant hands, kneading and pushing and squeezing bruises into your soft, sensitive flesh. you keen, bending lower, arching your back as you fold your arms and rest the side of your face on the hard surface beneath you. 

“zhong- hhhn fuck…” is all you can manage when the tip of his erection bumps against your clit. gods, the way your scent hits him when you beg him to put his cock in. 

his cockhead bounces along your slit a few more times before it finally catches on your hole and he thrusts in hard with a low grunt. the way it glides in, hard and slippery because you’re so ready for your mate to claim you, preening and presenting for him like a cat in heat.

his jaw flexes at the way you choke on your cries when your hip bones dig into the edge of the surface he’s fucking you into. it hurts, and there will be bruises later, but you can’t bring yourself to stop or slow him down. his cock feels too good filling you up so full, tugging at your gushy walls, the ridge of his cockhead peeking out every time he retreats, then splitting you apart when his hips slam against your ass again. 

he hunches over you, fully mounting you, his tail having emerged and wrapping around your leg to hike it up and hold your bent knee out to the side so he can break your pussy off harder, deeper. your cheeks are streaked with wet eyeliner when the fuzzy tip of his tail tickles your clit, your juices getting it wet. 

zhongli isn’t fucking you anymore - morax is the one driving his fat cock into your squelching cunt now. there are those who would clutch their pearls at the idea of being bent over a table and fucked by an archon, but your eyes are rolling back in your head at the feeling of being spread open by his celestial dick. for you, it’s a matter of course. he’s your husband - you’ve been in love with him for years and you adore him in every one of his iterations, even if you have your own special ways of worshiping him. 

your feral god-husband’s vividly glowing arms are wrapped tightly around your sweaty chest, the wooden legs of your dining table scuffing the floor as he grunts in your ear. “fuck, that’s my good girl. taking my cock so well. so ready to take my seed, yeah?…” 

“y-yes! need your cum, morax! breed me, my lord hahh~” 

he loves it when you call him by his ancient name. it reminds him that he’s still got it - the power and virility of his youth. he swears under his breath, digging his talons into your hips as he yanks you back on his cock. it’s too much. it’s too much and he feels his balls pull tighter against his body when he growls and snarls behind you. you whimper at the feeling of his knot swelling deep inside you, knowing it’s forcing your walls open so he can pump you full of his sperm. he opens his mouth and bites down on the back of your neck with a deep, guttural growl. 

you cry out the god’s name again and again, chanting for him, urging him to cum for you as his big, scaly tail tightens around your trembling thigh. the soft tuft of orange fur at the tip is matted with your juices. it licks and lashes against your clit as his humanoid hips dig into the plush of your ass, snapping against you in fits and starts. 

“ohh-oh, morax, gonna cum for you!” 

dark brown scales shimmer and separate along his spine as it curls with every frantic pump of his pelvis. 

“that’s it, my dear. cum on my cock…now!” he orders.

you tense and throw it back on him as you fall apart on his cock. his balls contract in their sac as you milk his ready, sensitive length, choking on your own sobs of his archon name when he throws his head back with a roar and cums hard. the first ribbon of his divine seed splashes against your clenching walls, his cock jerking violently as he empties his full balls deep inside your womb, coating your messy insides with his hot, sticky semen. 

◊ ◊ ◊

his sweaty chest is heaving against your back, his lungs filling and collapsing as the waves of his orgasm slowly fade. you can feel the heat of his labored breath as he licks and kisses the bite marks on the back of your neck, making you coo at him for soothing the pain. your husband can smell the oxytocin as it floods your brain; he instinctively knows to remain close to you in these crucial moments of bonding. dragons mate for life, so he’s biologically coded to crave the loving attachment just as much as you do. 

nuzzling his nose behind your ear, zhongli mutters his love and appreciation for you, making you smile weakly with the side of your face still resting on the table. he leaves lazy kisses on your neck and you feel his smile against your moist skin when you tell him how happy it would make you to be the mother of his young.

he still has a full erection, his balls filling up with more seed. he’ll need to release again soon. he slowly pulls out of you, a mess of his cum and your slick spilling onto the floor below when the bulbous head of his cock pops out of your tight ring.

you’re jolted from your dreamy afterglow, eyes opening wide as you yelp, suddenly finding yourself being carried bridal style towards your bedroom. now that he has scented you with his musk, zhongli wants to take you to your shared nest where he can begin breeding you in earnest. he can sense that you’re still hours away from ovulation, but he’s going to keep your womb so swollen with his seed, so full of billions of his sperm - ready and waiting to swarm your fertile egg the moment it drops.

← phase 1 ◊ phase 3 (wip)

◊ zhongli/morax m.list

this is dedicated to my zhongli sisterwife @crystalflygeo whose utterly fearless, shameless style of writing has filled my morax spank bank inspired me to write with bold and wild abandon. i can't even fully fathom the sheer number of ideas this wonderful human being has filled my head with. we share (1) singular zhongli brain cell and i love her with my whole heart. she literally begged me to write this fic so you all have her to thank for it.

#zhongli #morax #zhongli x f!reader #morax x f!reader #zhongli x reader #morax x reader #zhongli x y/n #morax x y/n #zhongli x you #morax x you #zhongli smut #morax smut #genshin x f!reader #genshin x reader #genshin x y/n #genshin x you #genshin smut #genshin impact x f!reader #genshin impact x reader #genshin impact x y/n #genshin impact x you #genshin impact smut

[tekesima]

PAGE 4!!!!! semester break finally so i finally got to finish this!! apologise again it took so long. I'm pretty happy with how this turned out honestly and im quite proud of it! once again, thank you to @blood-injections for letting me make this comic based off of this post! there's only two pages of this left and I'll post those last two together, for now I hope you guys enjoy this one :>

page 1

page 2 & 3

#my chemical romance #danger days #the true lives of the fabulous killjoys #party poison #jet star #fun ghoul #kobra kid #killjoys

[vintagevict0ria]

𝙸 𝚌𝚊𝚗 𝚜𝚎𝚎 𝚢𝚘𝚞

“You brush past me in the hallway…”

chapter 1

pairing: Adam Driver x f!reader

content: n/a

a/n: omg i am soooooo excited for this you have no idea. Its been so long since i posted and this idea has been stuck in my drafts since july and since im back in my Adam driver era- id thought id finish this. This is mostly inspired by Taylor Swifts song "I can see you" and each chapter will be based on a lyric! So i am no expert on how film/actor/movie stuff works so bear with me. Hopeful as this goes on, it will get better. Im planning on finishing this by the new year (who knows if that will happen) but since im on break i should take advantage of my free time. Ok long story short I will be writing this shit non stop since im on a writing high so who knows if the next chapter will come out tommorow! Hope you enjoy! Notes are greatly appreciated!!

Y/n, a famous actress known for her beautiful face and captivating personality but also her incredible acting skills. You had been nominated for over 50 awards and won 5 oscars. It had been a while since you were on a set nor a movie. The last film was a roaring success and the critics were crazy about it! The media begged for another film starring Y/N Y/L/N.

The first thing you heard when you woke up was the sound of your phone ringing. Your agent- Carolina, was calling. You quickly answered- yawning and hoping she wouldn’t hear it. “Y/n! Great news!” You sighed, not really understanding what was happening. “You got the job!” The job? what is she talking about? “huh?” You rubbed your eyes, laying back down. “The movie!! Adam Driver is in it too! Oh my gosh i can hear them now! ‘Y/n y/l/n and Adam Driver are co-stars in the biggest hit of the year!” Once you heard his name, you sprung up “Wait what?” “Yeah! They want you here in LA by tomorrow morning. I’ve already booked you a flight to leave in..5 hours! Bye!” She hung up before you could say another word. You glanced over at the clock- 9:35. The flight was at 2:15 and it would take a while to pack and get ready. So, being the smart woman you are, you got up and started the day. Showering, packing, and of course- stopping to get starbucks.

Once you arrived in LA, you headed to the condo where you would be staying for a majority of filming. That morning you woke up and started getting ready for the day. Showering, and making a coffee before you headed out to the table read. You threw on a pair of leggings and a tshirt. It was late autumn so you took a jacket on the way out. At the studio you said hello to the crew and a huge thank you to the casting director. “Y/n!” It was Carolina- she ran up to you and embraced you in a tight hug. “How was the flight?” You smiled at the redhead girl “Great.” Carolina jumped up and down with excitement and handed you sheets of paper. On the cover was the name of the film, the name of the director-JJ Abrams- and your name. “Heres your script. You need to go ahead and head in there! Bye!” She walked away, the sound of her heals clicked across the floor. You quickly skimmed through the pages while walking and not paying attention. You soon enough ran into someone, your coffee spilling over you and the floor along with your script- which was on the floor…covered in coffee. “Oh gosh Im so sorry!” You apologized while picking up your script, wincing at the wet paper. “You might want to watch where you are going next time.” The voice was soft but stern. You looked up and realized it was Adam Driver.

He was wearing all black and his hair was messy. He glanced at you with a subtle stare. “Im so sorry!” You stood up, brushing yourself off. “No worries, happens to the best of us.” He rolled his shoulders back and popped his neck, closing his eyes. Damn he was attractive. ”You headed in?” You asked, trying to keep your composure together. Adam simply just nodded.

The first day of the read consisted of going over the aspects of the film and the time line of production. After the read through, filming would start, then the movie premiere would take place after filming and production in Hollywood, but that was a whiles away. When the read was over you walked out with another co star. Heading to your condo, you received a text from Carolina. "Girl, just talked to JJ and he just gave me word that there is a sex scene between you and Adam 😁" The stupid emoji at the end made you cringe. Carolina giving you this news shot your nerves through the roof. As if you weren't already nervous enough about working with Adam, having to film a intimate scene made it far worse. Kicking your shoes off and falling onto your bed, you opened instagram, an attempt to get your mind of the situation at hand, it didn't work.

#Spotify #adam driver #adam driver x reader #actor au #smut #fluff #angst #adam driver smut #adam driver fluff #adam driver angst #taylor swift #i can see you

[reidsaurora]

emmy may i request candy cane kisses with the prompt snowed in at the bau with our beloved Spence <33 hot cocoas and manilla folders

I'm so excited for your Christmas challenge!! Happy holidays love <33

"Snow and Sweet" ~ S. Reid

Summary: In which a cup of hot cocoa and a slip of the tongue leads to a mistletoe kiss and a love confession.

Pairing: Spencer Reid x GN!Reader (reader wears lipstick but fuck social norms)

Word Count: 1,493

Content Warning: the tiniest bit of angst because Y/N is lowkey insecure because of Elle, mentions of coffee and hot chocolate, like one (1) swear word, Spencer is autistic but what's new, honestly i think that's it?

Genre: Fluff, v fluffy 🫶🏻

Extra Notes: this took me soooo long to write but as they say, good things take time 🫡

Based on the Request: "emmy may i request candy cane kisses with the prompt snowed in at the bau with our beloved Spence <33 hot cocoas and manilla folders"

Originally Written: 01/03/2022

Beta Read By: @dungeons-are-too-cold

Criminal Minds masterlist can be found here!

"ofwilliamandwalter's Christmas special" can be found here!

You weren't quite sure how you found yourself in this position, but one way or another, you were stuck at the BAU… with Spencer Reid. Only Spencer Reid.

It wouldn't have been the worst thing in the world if you didn't have the biggest (and probably most unrequited) crush on the man.

You'd been working together for two years, straight out of the Training Academy. He must've been so smart he skipped training, you reckoned, because you were sure you would've seen someone as beautiful as him around and probably would've failed from being distracted by him.

Spencer looked much different now then when you'd first met, and if he'd looked like that in training, you were sure you would've tripped during your high speed chase at Hogan's Alley. His shaggy hair was replaced with neatly trimmed waves, his contacts were replaced with glasses that made him carry himself with a confidence you hadn't seen when you first met, and his shy, questioning smile was replaced with one of certainty. He seemed much more like his true self.

Any other time, you might've not minded being snowed in at the BAU. After all, it was a big enough building—a library on the second floor, a coffee shop on the first. But tonight was Christmas Eve, and you cursed yourself for insisting that you could finish up your paperwork and have time to make it to Penelope's apartment for a Christmas movie night.

Only five pages remained of your work when Spencer stepped toward your desk. "The Weather Channel says we might be snowed in." he'd said, his voice stupidly sweet, his expression stupidly concerned, his face stupidly beautiful.

Here you were, three hours later, sipping on some hot chocolate in your favorite work mug and avoiding Spencer like a plague. This was especially hard considering you were the only two people on this floor.

"You OK?" he asked, breaking you from your online shopping trance. "Well," he chuckled, "all things considered."

No. I'm trapped in here with the person I find most attractive who probably doesn't find me the least bit attractive. "All good," you smiled before taking another sip of hot chocolate.

He sat down in the chair next to yours, (Derek's, but it wasn't like he was there to use it anyway). A sideways smile stretched across his face as he said, "Well, please don't take offense when I say this, but I am a profiler and I can tell when something seems wrong. You've been avoiding me for one thing and every time we have spoken, you say three words or less."

"Not true," you pouted, crossing your arms in front of your chest. Your words reverberated in your ears, realization hitting you like a bus. "Sorry," you said, looking away. "I'm just not having the best night. I mean, I am stuck in the BAU with-"

You stopped abruptly, not sure how you'd let that much slip. Great, Y/N. Just great.

"With what?" he asked. Of course he caught that.

"Without Piper. She's my tabby cat." Well, at least he knows how much you love animals.

His mouth twisted. "You have a cat? That's so cool. I've always wanted a cat but I couldn't own one because my mom and I both have cat allergies." Of course he has cat allergies. How could I possibly make this worse?

Luckily, you stopped yourself before any more embarrassing things could slip from your tongue. Instead you took another sip of chocolatey goodness, thankful that it was the last one. "I'm gonna go make some more hot chocolate," you managed to say.

Much to your dismay, Spencer followed behind, reaching up into the shelf directly above you. His chest gently nudged your back, though his body felt rock solid. When did Spencer get so buff under those sweater vests?

"Sorry," he said with a blush.

You shook your head, perhaps a tad too fast. "It's all good." You turned your attention back to the fridge, grabbing the milk for your cocoa. Thank goodness Penelope stocks this fridge like she owns it.

A couple minutes had passed and you'd finished making your cocoa just as Spencer finished making his cup of coffee. You turned to walk back to the bullpen, but he grabbed your wrist with his free hand. Damn those hands. "Hey, are you sure you're OK?"

You set your mug back on the counter, your arms crossing tightly in front of your chest. "I am fine, Reid."

His eyes softened and his brows furrowed. "Did I do something?"

Your stomach churned at the thought of ever making Spencer sad or distressed. "Of course not! Why would you think that?"

"You keep avoiding me. You tensed up when I reached around you for my mug. You won't make eye contact with me. I'm just scared I've done something."

You shook your head, giving him a reassuring smile. "Spencer, you could never. I promise. I love you too much to ever-"

"You what?"

You froze in your tracks. If it hadn't been for hearing your slip of the tongue, Spencer might've thought you'd been seen a ghost.

"You love me?" he asked.

You couldn't move, you couldn't breathe, and the only thing you were sure you could do was hear because his question echoed in your head like he'd screamed it at the Grand Canyon.

"Y/N?" he called, waving a hand in front of your face. It wasn't until you blinked that he was sure you were still alive. You wanted to disappear. When you remembered that Spencer knew magic tricks, you were tempted to ask him how much you'd have to pay to see him make you disappear into thin air.

"If it's any consolation, I think I like you, which I know isn't the same but…" he told you, his voice trailing awkwardly. At least you weren't awkward alone. He chuckled for a moment before examining, "I sound like a seventh grader right now, don't I?"

Some of the heaviness left your chest as his response rang through your eardrums. "You… like me?"

He nodded softly, his cheeks tinged as red as your favorite Christmas mug. "I do. I'm assuming by what you said that you must really like me too."

You let out a deep sigh before looking up at him. "If I have to be honest, I've had the biggest crush on you since the day I met you. Up until about twenty seconds ago, I just assumed it was unrequited. I mean, the way you always looked at Elle before she left-"

He blushed with an awkwardly amused huff. "I suppose I should admit that I always thought Elle was pretty. Doesn't mean I thought she was prettier than you."

This time, a rouge made its way to your own cheeks. "Really? I mean, Elle's got everything. A nice body, she's smart, she's beautiful, and I'm… well, I'm me."

An expression of reassurance overtook his face as he placed a hand on your shoulder. "You are both beautiful in your own ways. You shouldn't compare yourself to others. Yes, I liked you both, but for different reasons. I always thought Elle was pretty. But you… I think you're beautiful. And you've always been kind to me. You're one of the only people here who respects my neurodiversity."

Your eyes darted away awkwardly, up to the roof—or rather, what was hanging from the roof. Why does the universe hate me?

Spencer must've noticed your eyes, widened and focused on whatever was above his head. His head tilted upward, and you were secretly thankful your eyes were stuck to the roof, otherwise you might've melted on the spot after seeing that one stupidly beautiful vein in his neck. "Huh," he said, his tone the most nonchalant you'd ever heard, "mistletoe."

"Yep," you replied, the p popping louder than you'd expected it to.

He looked back down at you, his cheeks redder and hotter than ever. "Hey, traditions are stupid anyway. We don't have to-"

He stopped mid-sentence when he noticed your lips twist the slightest bit downward. Even you hadn't noticed it until he was grabbing your face and pulling your lips into his, forcing them upward again.

He smelled sweet, probably because of the fifteen spoonfuls of creamer and sugar he always put in his coffee. Your stomach turned, probably a mix of nerves from your current position and the sickeningly sweet smell of Spencer Reid (or his coffee, anyway).

His hands stayed on either side of your face as he pulled away. You let out a giggle as you saw the remnants of your favorite lipstick coating his lips.

Spencer's wristwatch beeped loudly, breaking you away from your trance. He glanced down at his wrist while his other hand darted up to the nape of his neck. "Merry Christmas?" he said, cringing.

You giggled once more, pulling him in for another kiss. "Merry Christmas, sweet boy."

Rups, my dear!!!! This was such a cute request and I am so glad with how it turned out!

I wrote this probably ten times and nothing ever seemed good enough. I'm sure you as a writer understand that sometimes, you make your standards way too high for your own self 🤣 But, finally, one last time I deleted the document and started anew... and this is what happened! I love it so so much and I hope you do too!!

As always, thank you for being so patient with me. Sometimes requests take me a little while because I want to have the vision as beautiful as the requester has made it out to be so it does take me a lil bit longer sometimes to do that. Thank you for your patience, my dear!!!

↳ Request an imagine here!

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☆𝐓𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐓 𝐀𝐋𝐋 𝐏𝐄𝐎𝐏𝐋𝐄 𝐖𝐈𝐓𝐇 𝐊𝐈𝐍𝐃𝐍𝐄𝐒𝐒☆

#imagine #imagines #blurb #blurbs #drabble #drabbles #one shot #one shots #spencer reid #spencer reid x reader #spencer reid x y/n #spencer reid imagine #spencer reid imagines #spencer reid one shot #spencer reid one shots #spencer reid fanfiction #spencer reid fluff #criminal minds #criminal minds x reader #criminal minds x y/n #criminal minds imagine #criminal minds imagines #criminal minds one shot #criminal minds one shots #criminal minds fanfiction #criminal minds fluff #fanfiction #fluff #ofwilliamandwalter's christmas special #ofwilliamandwalter

[greenhorn-art]

Keep Your Head Up to the Sky (As Your Day Unfolds) by alphera [Twitter]

Illustrated by Shirou_UOHS @shirou-oh-sakura

Fandom: 全职高手 | The King's Avatar

Rating: General Audiences

Category: M/M

Words: 9 270

Time is rarely kind, and impossible to escape. At the ripe old age of 30, Han Wenqing retires from the Glory Professional Alliance and moves forward the only way he knows how: fearlessly and without hesitation.

About the Book

FONTS: Coelacanth, Segoe UI Emoji

IMAGES: Illustrations by Shirou; pastel sky ID: 7007221 from Rawpixel; dark blue sky ID: 7044483 from Rawpixel; Han Wenqing & Desert Dust image from The King's Avatar Wikia; Ye Xiu & Lord Grim image also from TKA Wikia; Glory card png also made by Shirou via Discord

MATERIALS: regular ol' printer paper (8.5"x11", 20lb, 96 bright); ~1.5mm chipboard; Neenah cardstock (8.5"x11", 65lb, bright white); Iris bookcloth (Madeira colour); paper from Gilded Ink paper pad by Recollections; waxed linen thread (30/3 size, white); wheat paste (1:4 flour:water)

PROGRAMS USED: typeset in Affinity Publisher 2; endpapers designed with Affinity Designer 2 and Affinity Photo 2; imposed with Renegade's Community Imposer (settings: Quarto, snug against binding edge, signatures of 2 sheets).

Text & QR codes printed with colour laser printer (duplex, flip long edge), images printed with inkjet printer (HP Envy 5055; one sheet at a time, single sided, place facedown in tray)

BINDING: quarto (quarter-letter) size, sewn board binding with french link stitch and breakaway spine.

.

Absolutely LOVED this story! I've reread this one a number of times, and keep going back for more. Alphera's writing is so good! Ye Xiu is the series protagonist so things usually follow him, which makes it refreshing to see a story through Han Wenqing's eyes. And the author does it SO WELL! AHHH!

It's been a while since my first read-through, but I'm pretty sure this was the first TKA fic that I actually downloaded and started typesetting. Absolutely chuffed to have it finished! (Love me some growth-- the typeset looks a LOT better than my earlier attempts!)

RAMBLES

Another sewn board binding and breakaway spine! Since this isn't my first go at it, the construction of the book was considerably faster and smoother than my last one. It's just as well, because I ran into a speed bump that stretched out how long it took to typeset and print.

The culprit: (very pretty) illustrations. My laser's colour printing capabilities are shot to hell, so I used my inkjet for the artwork. This involved creating 3 copies of my typeset: 1) the completed typeset; 2) just the text, images hidden; 3) just the images, text hidden/white. Then I ran them through the imposer and printed the text version. The real issue was figuring out how to feed the sheets through my inkjet printer to print the images where I want them. Had to go one page at a time, single-sided. (Just need to place sheet facedown in the tray. So flip along vertical axis.) It took a while, but I got there in the end. And the results were SO worth it! 😊

For the scene breaks I left them as written. I had tried inserting images of the Glory Logo and account card, or using crossed swords emojis ⚔️, but nothing I tried worked as well as what the author did. (It's really neat! Different characters were used to indicate the direction of the timeskip: >>>> for a jump forward in time; <<<< for a flash into the past; and ==== for regular scene breaks, a 'next' rather than 'before' or 'later/after'.)

The cover and endpapers were based off of Shirou's fantastic cover illustration of HQW and YX walking hand-in-hand down a beach at sunset. The art itself is phenomenal so I had it stand alone as a frontispiece and didn't do anything fancy with the title page. For the covers, I looked through my decorative paper stash for something red or black to represent HWQ or Team Tyranny. What I found was paper with pinks, oranges, and purples similar to that illustration -- and that was that. I liked how the colours matched the art, and the gold splashed across it. (Gold for victory, gold for wedding rings and a happy golden future together.)

(Sidenote: I love how the beginning of the end of HWQ's career as an e-sports player "starts with a tingle in his ring finger", leading him and YX to taking the next steps in their relationship and eventually getting married 💍🖐)

I went with a red bookcloth for the spine because it's a common team colour for Tyranny, Excellent Era, and Happy. It also represents good fortune, courage, passion, and love -- things that come to mind when I think about YX, HWQ, and HanYe. The particular shade of red I used is Madeira. It's darker than Ruby Red and leans a little cooler, which suits the decorative paper more.

The endpapers use two background images (overlayed, adjusted, using multiple blending modes) and some images of HWQ and YX from The King's Avatar Wikia.

The background images are from Rawpixel -- I was just minding my own business looking for images of clouds and maybe some mountains to represent overcoming challenges/glory/looking up to the sky, when I found some clouds with the same sunset colours of Shirou's art. Figured it was too perfect, and if I'm going to lean into that design-wise, I might as well go whole hog and full-ass it. Then I found a starry night sky to add some darker blues and stars to it to match. After that it was a matter of overlapping them and positioning them to fit. I also grabbed some images of HWQ and YX from the King's Avatar Wikia and added them to it because HanYe. (After removing the backgrounds).

#Keep Your Head Up to the Sky (As Your Day Unfolds) #alphera #fanfiction #bookbinding #the king's avatar #qzgs #tka #sewn board binding

[perfectlypanda]

When visiting the many islands that comprise the Fire Nation, it was not uncommon for their royal majesties Fire Lord Zuko and Master Katara to don the traditional dress of the host island.

Zutara Week Day 1: Tradition

I’ve been working on this one for... a month? On and off. Earlier this year I pinned some beautiful Thai brocade to a Pinterest board, and then kept thinking about how I could incorporate something like it into a Zutara piece. Although Japan and China are usually listed as primary inspirations (with a nod to some Southeast Asian elements), given that the Fire Nation is on the equator and is a volcanic archipelago, I’ve always head-canoned that areas of it swing much closer to the cultures of tropical Southeast Asia. So creating a piece inspired by Thai national dress gave me a chance to indulge that headcanon (and an excuse to stare at many photos of gorgeous Thai clothing). 

While I did end up doing a lot of research, I must stress that these are a fantasy inspired by Thai national dress. These are not meant to be accurate representations of Thai national costume, because I know they aren’t, and because I took liberties in my design choices. For example, Katara and Zuko are wearing outfits of different levels of formality, because I couldn’t resist putting Zuko in something that would show off his lightning scar. There are also many overlapping elements between Thai and Cambodian national costume, and the images I used as inspiration may not always have been correctly attributed. If you’re interested, the website for the Queen Sirikit Museum of Textiles explores the history of Thai formal wear and has a lot of lovely photos. 

It’s hard to see in the finished image because it’s shrunk down, but I designed the pattern for Katara’s skirt from scratch based on similar styles I found, but incorporated a flame in the middle of the design for a Fire Nation touch. The small gold embroidery on Zuko’s pants uses the inner most flame of this design. Zuko wears his Fire Lord crown, and Katara wears her dual moon-flame crown. Katara’s tiara-esque headpiece was inspired by images of Thai theatrical performers. Zuko’s shoes are inspired by similar long toe Thai shoes I found, although not from any one specific source.

Please forgive the background, backgrounds are hard. 

♥ Please do not repost. If you like it and want to show people, share a link to this page instead. Thank you!

#zutara #zutara week #zutara week 2022 #zuko #katara #fire lord zuko #master katara of the southern water tribe queen consort of the fire nation #are there still mistakes? yes. am I super done with it? yes. #I am very tired #pandaverse #look I made a thing

[sunfyresrider]

Where love ends, hate begins.

Synopsis: You are the wife of an imperial minister (Aemond Targaryen), who creates a high-society scandal by an affair with Aegon Targaryen, a dashing cavalry officer in 19th-century St. Petersburg. Your husband, Aemond, offers you a difficult choice: Go into exile with Aegon but never see your young son again, or remain with your family and abide by the rules of discretion.

Pairing: Aegon II Targaryen x You Warnings: Cheating, scandals, time accurate misogyny, mental health issues, mutual pining, kissing oolala Word Count: 6k Note: LOOSELY based on Anna Karenina. I tried to do an AU but I couldn't do scene for scene since it is such a long book and movie. I'm aiming for a three-part series but at this rate it might be more. @beaconofthehightower you asked for this so long ago and im so so so sorry it's taken me so long.

Act 1

It was early in the day and your maid, Annushka has been taking her time to dress you. She’s a good girl, young, loyal, and modest. One you could trust not to sleep with your husband. It was quite clear when several different maids had tried their hands at him. Albeit failing, at least to your knowledge. Except for Alys, sweet Alys, the wet nurse who wooed her way into his bed successfully. It was something you never spoke of but stayed as a permanent stain on your marriage. 

At the very least this affair was never publicized to embarrass you like most others would. Aemond seemed to truly love you and your son… the best way he could under the circumstances.

Ah yes… the circumstances of your marriage. You were nearly eighteen when you were whisked away to St. Petersburg and sold off like a dog. He was older than you and had far more power in government than you ever could. Aemond did court you out of kindness and propose to you out of respect, but the truth was clear… you had no ability to say no. 

It was a fine marriage at first. You didn’t love him, but he had a great interest in you. Aemond was a good man, an honorable man, but a boring one. The marriage bed was not filled with pleasure except for his own… You doubted he understood how a woman’s pleasure was different. Your day-to-day life was not filled with fun and affection but rather duties and niceties. 

You gave him one son, Jaehaerys, a beautiful snow haired boy. Both of you believed this would change your marriage for the better and bring you closer… It did not. Aemond was far too busy with his businesses and the government to spend time with you or your son. It all fell upon your shoulders to raise them both, take care of them both, and sacrifice everything for them both… You were a perpetually unhappy woman.

You moved over to your dressing table once she finished and began trying to read a letter that had recently been sent. Though your face remains expressionless your eyes frown. Your head swirls with a distant memory. Jacaerys in a vertical embrace with a woman; still clothed. You shake it away and turn the page to read more, another memory soon plaguing you. They were still kissing but this time he hoisted up her skirts.

The more you read the more concerned you are becoming. Jacaerys comes in quietly and late from a night on the town, he enters his dressing room. He stops. He smiles a foolish apologetic smile. Baela is waiting for him, shocked, enraged, holding out a billet-doux on. It was a love note! 

You stood up from your place and immediately went to your husband's office to tell him the gossip. Would he care that much? Probably not. Did it matter to him? Not so much. Would he most likely block out the sound of your voice? Yes. 

“... and Baela found a note from the governess.” Aemond was draining his coffee cup as you were trying to explain the situation. He continued to transfer papers from his desk to his portfolio as you waited impatiently for him to say something, anything. “Well…?” His voice was unattractive and reedy. Aemond finally took his spot as a senior figure in the government, he became a very busy man, and your drama obviously didn’t amuse him. “He wants me to come to Moscow… to persuade Baela to forgive him.” 

“I'm to be deprived of my wife so that adultery may be forgiven. I can't excuse him just because he's your brother.” Your eyes pleaded with him, “It's for Baela's sake too.” Aemond stood up and started preparing to leave. “I have four committees today…”

“Aemond, do you think nine years of marriage and children should count for nothing against a . . . an infatuation?” He cracked his knuckles, a very bad habit he’s had since you met. Aemond finally conceded with your request, “No. Very well.” He lifted your hand and placed a kiss on it, “but sin has a price, you may be sure of that.” 

He left soon after and his words rang in your head like an alarm. Jacaerys didn’t necessarily deserve forgiveness for his sin, but this was nine years of marriage and several children later… It would be a shame to let it go to waste all because of one mistake. 

When you went to tell Jaehaerys of your travels you found him playing with his locomotive and its tender plus a carriage or two, with part of the superstructure--the whole kit and caboodle was a rich child's table-top model railway. It was the best gift Aemond gave because ever since Jae rarely left its side.

“I need to speak with you, love.” Jaehaerys frowned and moved to take a seat on your lap. “I’m going to travel to Moscow for a little while because your aunt Baela is not well.” Your son was a sensitive child, the thought of you leaving caused him to tear up immediately. “Why?” You brushed his hair out of his face, “because that’s where Aunt Baela lives.” He sniveled, “why?”

You patiently said it again, “I told you, she's not well and I must visit her.” A tear slid down his cheek, “why?” You sighed, “Don't make me cry as well. I'll be back before you know it and bring you a present.” He stared up at you with his big blue eyes and you felt your heart shatter. “Don't want a present. I want you to stay.” You were on the brink of tears, “Oh . . . my little dragon.” Jaehaerys calmed himself at the idea of a new toy. He raised his chin and stared up at you with, “What present?” You laughed as you dabbed your eyes, “That’s better… it’ll be a surprise!” 

-

Annushka, your maid, rode with you in the train car to Moscow. She carried your bags with all your belongings and never complained once, she truly was a god send. You brought a picture of Jaehaerys with you… As you stared, the tears in your eyes began to form again. He was your little love, your little dragon who was more of an image of his father. You weren’t happy to be leaving in all honesty but who else would mend your family’s marriage. 

Surely not Jacaerys because he was a damned fool. Your husband was a damned fool as well. It wasn’t confirmed that he too dabbled in adultery, but it would not surprise you, he was very talented at keeping things discreet and hidden. It seemed to be a curse that loomed over you, every man around you just couldn’t keep his hands to himself and his wife. You vowed never to be like them for your son’s sake… 

As you were unboarding the train you nearly ran into a man, he was tall, muscular, and had medium length, wavy, white hair flowing over his shoulders. You barely exchanged a glance before you moved your separate ways. He was handsome, strikingly beautiful even, just one last glance to confirm you weren’t daydreaming. You turned back just to catch a final glimpse and he did the same. You quickly turned away, but his eyes lingered on your back. 

You were proven to be a hypocrite. It was extremely wrong of you to even think about another man being handsome. You pushed the feeling down into the depth of your stomach and pressed onward to meet Jacaerys. The moment you saw him you flung an arm around his neck and pulled him in for a warm kiss on the cheek. He smiled and put his arm around you. “You don't look ashamed.” Your sibling looked like a sad puppy, “I am, I really am.”

When you pulled Jacaerys back into the train car you noticed the same man from earlier sitting next to the old woman you temporarily chatted with. She spoke with you about her son, Aegon, and you did the exact same. The countess was coming to pick him up for a visit almost exactly like you were doing with Jacaerys. You smiled, “There, Countess, you have found your son and I have found my brother.” The countess stood up to greet you,

“Madame — has a son, too. It's the first time they have been apart, so she frets about him.”

Your gaze barely left the man, his crystal blue eyes seemed to pierce through your soul. “Oh! You are my half-brother's wife, excuse me for not recognizing you before.” Your mouth gaped open, “I’m so sorry I did not realize! You must be Countess Alicent then. I’ve heard so much about you both.” In truth, you barely heard about his half-brother or stepmother besides the fact he had them. 

You went to speak but the countess intercepted, “What a lovely surprise! We passed the time telling each other about our sons without realizing we were basically family.” You nodded toward him with a grin, “Yes, I've been hearing all about you.”

“That must have been very boring for you.” You wished to speak more but the ringing sound of the wheel-tapper's hammer was faintly audible in your ear as you hesitantly turned to leave, “Au revoir, Countess.” She walked forward and placed two hands on your cheeks, “Au revoir, my dear. Let me kiss your pretty face.” Countess Alicent did just that, it was a European custom you never quite got used to. You turned to offer your hand to Aegon as was customary. He took your hand, then the train lurched and moved, unsteadying you both. 

Immediately after seeing you, Aegon was awed by you, he noticed some kind of inner light or maybe aura that was different from the rest of Moscow. There was also the fact that you were simply beautiful, too beautiful for a city like this. You also appeared too youthful to have a son in his mind. It enticed him to try and discover more about you. 

The first thing he really thought about was how mysterious you seemed to be. Who would be able to drop everything and come and visit their family? It must mean you were truly dedicated to them, which was beautiful. Then how sweet of a display you put on when you met your dear brother. Your heart must be bigger than the rest… Just as Aegon was falling in love at first sight, a major accident happened that caught both your attention. 

You ran out to the platform where Jacaerys was and noticed he -- and everyone still on the platform was shocked by a dreadful scream and shouting. The train, having moved a few feet, stopped. Jacaerys hurried towards the scene of the accident, right opposite the gate. The Station master overtook him.

The Wheel-Tapper lied between the wheels, mangled. You and Jacaerys joined the horrified onlookers after successfully pushing through the crowd. The Guards Officer arrived, with his bouquet. Then Aegon Arrived soon after. He turned to the Guards Officer, “Keep your people inside until this has been cleared up.”

The Countess, Aegon, you and Jacaerys, almost in tears, came toward the gate. A Porter followed with your large suitcase, hatboxes, etc. Annushka had the traveling bag. “The sole support of a large family, they say.” You nearly scoffed at Jacaerys but decided to focus on the family of the deceased, “Can't anything be done for them?” Aegon glanced at you, “Wait for me, Madam.” A wide smirk grew on Alicent’s face as she watched her son run off. The countess turned to you “I've you to thank for that.”

You had no clue what she had meant by that. Jacaerys peered back and noticed Aegon with the Stationmaster, taking money from his wallet. “What a good fellow…” You turned, was he paying them because you said something? Was this a way of impressing you? You pondered, at least he was trying to win you over by paying the family of a victim. However, you were married, and one simple act of kindness wouldn’t drive you to infidelity… You weren't like your family.

-

Jacaerys and you were riding in a coach on the journey to his home. You hadn’t spoken much due to the minor trauma you had just endured… And the man you had just met who seemed to fancy you. “Have you known Aegon long?” He chuckled softly, “Did you like him? He's in love with Rhaena.” You weren’t exactly sure why that felt like a nail to your chest. Rhaena was your sister in law's Baela, little sister. She was like a princess, sensitive, excitable, somewhat high-strung, beautiful, it made sense he would love her. 

“Oh…” you paused, trying to once again avoid your thoughts, “But we should be discussing you and Baela.” He groaned and you began to scold him like your son. “What have you got to say for yourself?!” He pleaded with you, “I've said it all--on my knees--in tears . . . Now I need you to say it. I'm going to the office, so you'll have Baela to yourself.” You rolled your eyes, “Don't be home late.” Of course, you had to be the one to mend their relationship. 

-

In your mind the meeting with Baela went rather well. You spent an hour comforting her and letting her cry into your shoulders.  She cried about how she could never forgive him, and she didn’t love him anymore, but you knew it was a lie. You successfully got that information out of her and made her admit it out loud. Jacaerys was rather satisfied with the outcome however, surely it was not going to be that simple for him. Of course, he didn’t deserve simplicity after he disrespected her in such a way.

After that ordeal, you were sitting with Jacaerys's children playing a game with alphabet letters. The peace you had with them was quickly disturbed by Rhaena bursting in the door overly excited about something. You push the alphabet bricks aside and sigh, well that’s the end of that.

“Will you stay for the Bobrishchev's ball, —?” You didn’t enjoy them anymore; it was for young fresh faces to excitedly learn about each other. You were only 24 and yet you felt absolutely decrypted, perhaps due to the fact you married an older man. “Oh… I always feel dull and old at balls.” She scoffed, “How can you ever be dull and old?”

Jacaerys arrived in the doorway and quickly the children bolted over to him. He had come to give you a break and take them away, how sweet. “Tell her she must come to the ball!” He smiled at you mischievously, he knew how much you loathe them. “Of course, she must!” When Jacaerys scurried off you turned your attention toward Rhaena again. 

“I know why you want me to come. You want everyone to be there because you're sure it's going to be your night,” You acted out mock-mysteriousness. “How did you know?” You moved the alphabet bricks around to spell Aegon. “I know everything.” Rhaena glanced down and began joyful nodding. You laughed at her genuinely happy she was still acting as a little girl. It gave you an excuse to reminisce on your old life. 

To be young again…surrounded by that blue mist, like mist on the mountains that clears slowly to reveal the terrifying, beautiful valley you must enter to become grown-up… you were eighteen too, when you got married. Back then, you had your entire life ahead of you and a skip in every step you took. Now, everything is dark around you, all the noise you hear is muffled, and the beautiful valley looks dull and dead. There was a quiet moment of regret that loomed in the air, but you decided to quickly dispel it. 

-

It was late at night, and you were still aimlessly playing with the bricks, too lost in thought to carry yourself to bed. The pleasant clicks are the only sound that remains in the dark home. Your thoughts whirl with the happenings of today, a deceased man on the tracks, a crying Baela whom you have to take care of and a man whose image looked like it was plucked directly out of a book. Were you just as bad as the rest for finding him attractive? No, just as long as you don’t act on it. Except there was something in the back of your head begging for you to. No, you’re too dull to catch his attention anyway… You violently closed your book and decided to sleep these thoughts away.                            

The doorbell ringing caught your attention. You made your way down the stairs in front of the entrance hall. Aegon was let in by a servant, he was completely splattered with snow. “No, Your Excellency. He's just gone up. The Princess retired early. Is there a message you wish for me to deliver?” One of your brother’s servants asked him. 

He glanced up at the top of the stairs and noticed you standing there. For a moment your eyes locked and nothing was said. Everything around you melted away and it was only you gazing at each other. 

As Aegon looked up at the top of the staircase, he saw you standing there, illuminated by the silver light of the full moon. Your hair was gently rustling in the cool night breeze, and he couldn't help but feel a shiver run down his spine. You were beautiful, and there was an air of mystery about you that made him want to know more.

You stood there with a grace that took his breath away. Your figure was draped in a flowing gown that seemed to shine in the moonlight, and the sight of you took his breath away. As he approached, he couldn't help but feel his heart racing faster with every step he took.

There was something about you that made him feel like he had known you for his entire life, even though they had just met. And as he looked into your eyes, he saw a spark that ignited his heart. He wanted to speak to you, to get to know you better.

Aegon felt himself lost in the moment, captured by the enchantment of the moon and the beauty of your presence. He knew that this feeling he had was something special. And with a deep sense of longing, he realized that he had fallen in love with you.

He was haunting you like a ghost. His very existence was temptation into sin, and you were no sinner. Aegon opened his mouth to speak but you quickly turned and ran up the stairs. His lightened eyes turned dark, “no, I don’t have a message.” 

-

As you looked at herself in the mirror, you felt a sense of disappointment wash over. The long black gown you had painstakingly chosen for the ball now looked drab and frumpy. Your hair, which you had styled into an elegant updo, seemed flat and lifeless. Even your makeup, which you had meticulously applied to highlight your best features, failed to hide the dark circles around your eyes.

But it wasn't just your appearance that made you hesitate. The thought of being in a crowded ballroom, surrounded by younger and more vibrant people, filled you with dread. You didn't feel like dancing or socializing, and the idea of making small talk with strangers for hours on end made you feel exhausted.

Despite your doubts, however, a part of you still longed for a touch of glamour and romance. You remembered how much you had enjoyed attending balls in your youth, twirling around the dance floor in a cloud of taffeta and lace. Maybe tonight, you told yourself, you could recapture some of that magic, just for a little while.

With a deep breath, you straightened your shoulders and picked up your clutch. You knew the night ahead wouldn't be easy, but perhaps it would be worth it, if only to remind yourself that you still had a spark of youth inside.

Once you arrived you realized how gilded an affair it was. Each guest was welcomed by a hostess and dancing had quickly started, a waltz. You stood at the corner of the room observing the people dancing and chatting… people watching was an interesting hobby. Thinking of how other people had their own lives, experiences, thoughts, and dramas eased your own suffering. 

Rhaena entered last to make a big show of her arrival. For a moment the crowd ceased and watched her float down the stairs. She was a proper lady, it seemed everything had come together for her. Her hair, her skin, her dress, and her moment. She was practically radiating happiness so you couldn’t help but smile and nod for encouragement.

You continued surveying the room, casually scanning the crowd for any sign of the man you were seeking, with his striking silver hair and enigmatic gaze. Your demeanor was cool and detached, as if you were indifferent to his presence, but inwardly your heart raced with anticipation. As you searched, your thoughts drifted, pondering the possibility of love at first sight. Despite your brief encounters, Aegon had left an indelible impression on you, and you couldn't shake the feeling that you were meant to be together… You were delusional and married, you told yourself. He was Rhaena’s and tonight was for her. 

“He’s here somewhere.” Jacaerys voice pulled you out of your daze. “Who is here?” He chuckled before raising his glass to his mouth, “Aegon, of course.” You scoffed, “his whereabouts matter not to me.” 

“They obviously matter to Rhaena.” He hummed by your side and watched her skip towards you both. Rhaena approached with a wide smile plastered on her face. “How are you, Jace?” He proudly stated, “Thanks to —, I am a changed man. Would you like to dance?” As he smirked, her face fell flat. “No! Ask your sister.” 

“I don’t… really…” Before you could finish your sentence, you noticed Aegon approaching. Your heart began to race, and the room slowly closed in on you. No! This was Rhaena’s lover not yours. “Come on then, little brother!” You snatched Jacaerys’s arm and twirled him onto the floor. 

Right as Aegon was about to bow you were whisked away from him once more. He doesn’t notice Rhaena staring at him like he is the king of Russia either. His eyes follow you all the way to the middle of the floor. “W-would you like to dance?” His attention is still on you as he answers, “Of course” With a fake smile on his face he takes Rhaena onto the floor and into the waltz.  

The entire waltz your eyes kept meeting with his. You could not escape him no matter how hard you tried. You successfully managed to avoid changing partners and dragging your brother along against his will. At last, you can no longer see him, so you relinquish Jace from your grasp and move out of the crowds. 

The night does not get easier for you. Your eyes peer up to the balcony where Aegon has escaped. You had hoped he wouldn’t catch you staring but it seemed he was already staring first. You turn and go towards the bar where Jacaerys has been talking to hostesses and further dishonoring his family, most likely. You gaze up at the balcony once more, but Aegon was not there. 

You look for him among the dancers until a voice from your side startles you. “Dance with me.” He demanded, Aegon didn’t have the restraint to pretend to be asking. Your surprise at his behest was not easily hidden. “I am not used to being spoken to like that by a man I met once at a railway station.” He let out a sigh, “I dare say, if you do not dance with me then I’m leaving and going to bed early.” You ponder for a moment, this is Rhaena’s crush, this is her night, this is her moment… “I’ll dance with you for Rhaena’s sake.” 

Rhaena was watching the crowd like a hawk waiting for Aegon to emerge. Until she saw it and was completely taken aback. You two were hand in hand waltzing across the floor. You said something and he laughed, he said something, and you covered your mouth to smile. You were blossoming in front of her eyes… He twirled you and you came smiling into his arms. There was no way this was happening… 

The room around you was elegantly decorated with soft, warm lighting that cast a gentle glow over everything. The sound of a faint orchestra playing waltz music filled the air, adding to the magic of the moment. The conversation between you two flowed perfectly as if you had known him all your life. 

As Aegon and you danced, your eyes were locked intently onto each other, and it would feel as though you were the only two people in the room. All of your surroundings melted away, leaving only you two standing in a quiet, intimate bubble. The sensation was both exhilarating and calming at the same time, like you were soaring above the world and yet completely grounded in the moment.

As you moved around the room, you felt completely at ease in Aegon's arms, as if you had been dancing together for years. You were smiling openly, feeling completely vulnerable and yet entirely safe with him. It was like a moment of complete surrender, where you allowed yourself to be swept away by the music, the moment, and the man holding you.

There was no need for words - no need for anything but the music and the twirl of your bodies as you moved together. It was simply a moment of pure joy and connection, where everything else faded away or frozen in time and nothing mattered except the two of you dancing in perfect harmony.

One of the hosts announced the time to switch partners and so you did unwillingly. Your eyes trailed back to him as he did yours. Whatever drunken trance you were in came to a halt when you looked at Rhaena. She was staring at you confusingly along with several other members of court completely sobering you up. As the partners switched again you felt panic set in and your breath became heavy. 

You ruined it, you ruined Rhaena’s night. The walls in the room started to close in on you, slowly suffocating you. Everything that left you in a daze now was making you panic. It felt as if you were drowning in a sea of people, noise, and lights. Your head began to spin and an ache that wouldn’t go away beat at your skull. What would your husband say? What if he found out you were enjoying time with another man? What did all the people of the court think? 

Your hands began to tremble as your partner spun you to another person. Your heart palpated to the best of the music. More eyes were on you, furrowed brows and questioning gazes blocking your vision. You forcefully broke free of the grasp your partner had on you and took off towards the exit. 

The cool air from the snow surrounded your body and took away its heat. The quiet sounds of the wind light blowing eased the intense beating of your heart. A few deep breaths pulled you out of your head and back into the moment… It was time to go home.

Except the man that haunts you wasn’t letting you go that easily. You glanced behind you at the sound of the door being shut. Good gods, there was no escape for you. His good eye was plastered with worry and his other had a subtle sheen to it. “Are you alright? Did something happen?” He took three steps towards you until stood right in front of you. The skirt of your dress touching his legs. “N… No, I just needed air.” 

One more step forward and your bodies were nearly pressed against each other. Your eyes widened and the racing of heart began again. Although this time it was not out of sheer panic. “I do not wish to see you so distressed after being with me.” You stepped forward and grabbed him by the wrists. Your thumb gently rubbing his hands, “No! Not you at all!” You spoke a little too loudly eliciting a smile from him. Your eyes trailed down to your shoes, “My apologies. I just meant my time with you was the opposite of distressing.” 

A finger to your chin turned your gaze back up to him. Your gut twisted around itself trying to keep your nerves at bay. “I enjoyed it too.” 

As you stood in the dimly lit balcony, the air electric with anticipation, your eyes locked in a silent conversation of mutual desire. Aegon took one step closer, inhaling deeply the scent of your jasmine perfume mixed with your natural perfume. Your nervousness was palpable as he gently reached out to lift a strand of your hair running down her face. With a slight smile, “your hands are gentler than I imagined.” 

As his lips drew closer, your breaths quickened, hot and labored. “Only to those I desire.” The world around you once again melted away while you were in his arms. Your eyes fluttered closed as your lips finally met, tentatively at first, then with an urgency that surprised you both. The touch of his mouth sent a shiver down your spine as you leaned into each other, deepening the kiss. Time seemed to stand still for those few precious, unforgettable moments, each touch and sensation seared into your memories forever.

Until you heard a gasp and turned to see the look of betrayal and disgust on Rhaena’s face. Accompanied by a supremely amused grin on your brother's face. It was as if he was saying ‘Good job! You’re just as bad as the rest of us.’

You didn’t say any goodbyes. You quite literally ran off with Jacaerys right behind you.  It was your greatest flaw; you ran when faced with conflict. Once he caught up to you, he chose to spend the night laughing and reveling in your mistake that was just as bad as his own.

 Though he did his best to reassure you. “It was nothing but girlish affections that weren’t reciprocated, she’ll be over it in a moon.” This was quickly followed by, “it is no wonder you seek out affections from dashing officers considering your husband is a dull cunt who doesn’t fuck you.” That gained him a slap which he quickly recovered from. “I'm just saying dear sister, unlike many you have more reason than most to make a little lapse in judgment. Do not fret over it anymore. I'll handle this like you handled me.” 

“You’re a horrible influence. This is precisely why Luke and Joffrey are no longer allowed to visit without mother.” In the eyes of many you had dishonored your husband and yourself… In the eyes of many you were a bad friend, sister-in-law, wife, daughter and mother. It was too embarrassing to stay here any longer. So, you did what you did best and ran away. 

-

The train carriage was dimly lit by a small lap you were using for “reading.” Your mind was unable to take in any word you read. You flipped the page back over and let out a sigh trying to focus. 

Your gaze moved to the window, a sudden chill creeping down your spine. You could not see the outside, only the betrayed face of Rhaena. The guilt was slowly eating you alive leaving no room for forgiveness. Why did you do that? A question you had repeatedly asked yourself and the answer your heart gave was not good enough. 

You did it because it felt good. You did it because you felt like yourself again. You did it because he was enjoyable to be around. You did it because you liked him. Your heart proved itself to be selfish and inconsiderate. It wasn’t right but it didn’t feel wrong until the end… Your emotional turmoil could no longer be chalked up to your “mental ailments”. It was just you this time, only — digging herself an early grave.   

The train clanked to a halt at a little station where you are to change cars. Everyone began to emerge from the carriage and into the fresh, cold air of Moscow. The wind blew snowflakes on your skin reminding you that you’re almost home. Here and there, people are talking, smoking and laughing and you feel a little better. 

Peace was obviously not something you could hold onto as a man in a greatcoat and military cap emerged from the gloom. Your breath hitched in your throat as he saluted you. With a genuine grin, “Can I be of service to you?” You breathlessly replied, “Aegon? I didn’t know you were… Why are you leaving?” 

“You know why. I have to be where you are.” The boldness of this man perplexed you. Your shock turned to fake anger, “This is wrong. If you're a good man, forget everything that happened, as I will.” He stepped closer, “I'll never forget a single thing about you, not a word, not a gesture—” You quickly spun on your heels before any more mistakes could be made. “Please behave.” You quickly ran into the train car and locked yourself in a carriage; alone.

-

You didn’t sleep well that night. Your thoughts were too focused on the man in a few carriages away from you. As the train pulled into the icy St. Petersburg train station, you peered out your window, anxiously scanning the platform for any sign of your husband Aemond. The snow was falling in thick flakes, muffling the sounds of the bustling station and adding an eerie hush to the air. As the train came to a halt, you scrambled to gather your belongings, your heart pounding with anticipation and a creeping sense of unease.

Stepping off the train, the frigid air hit you like a wave, and you shivered despite your heavy coat and scarf. Your eyes scanned the crowded platform, searching for Aemond’s familiar face amidst the throngs of people. Suddenly, you spotted him, standing stoically among the bustling crowd. Relief washed over you, but as you made your way towards him, an unfamiliar feeling of disquiet grew in the pit of your stomach.

As you drew nearer to him, you tried to push the feeling aside and embrace the warmth of his arms. But as you stood there in the chill of the St. Petersburg train station, your mind couldn’t help but wonder what other anxieties may lie ahead. “How is Jaehaerys?” You pulled away from him. He lightly chuckled to himself, “oh? is that all I get? Yes, he's quite well.”

“Brother.” As you embrace your husband, feeling safe and content in his arms, you suddenly hear a familiar voice coming from behind. It's the voice of the man you kissed, and it catches you off guard, sending a wave of anxiety and nervousness through your body. “Aegon. What are you doing here?” 

You try to maintain composure and behave as normally as possible, forcing yourself not to turn around and face him. Instead, you cling tightly to your husband's side, relying on his steady presence to keep you grounded. “My station has recently been moved. I’ll be staying here for a while.” 

“Hmm.” As you stand there, your mind racing with the possibilities and implications of the situation, you can feel your heart pounding in your chest. You know that you need to act carefully and avoid any suspicious behavior that might give away your secret. “Did you have a good journey Madame?” 

Despite the fear and discomfort that is coursing through your veins, you take deep, calming breaths and keep your gaze fixed on Aegon. “Yes, quite comfortable, officer.” Aemond tensed as he stared in his brother's eyes. “I have to get back to the committee… it was good to see you.” 

He turned to walk you back in the direction of your home and you let out a breath you didn’t realize you were holding. “The pleasure was all mine, brother!” His grip on your hand tightened and you swore you saw his jaw clench. 

You glanced back one more time to see a grin you could only describe as mischievous gracing his features. He spoke no words, but his body told a thousand. Aegon would not behave so long as he was in St. Petersburg. 

#aegon targaryen #aegon the elder #aegon x you #aegon x reader #aegon fluff #aegon angst #aegon fic #aegon ii #aegon ii targaryen #aegon ii fic #aegon ii x you #aegon ii x reader #hotd au #hotd fic

[isbus]

So I’m back…

But this time, I have a tutorial!

Do you have a 3DS?

(If you say yes to that, then we’re cooking).

Do you want to draw something similar if not better than…

THIS?!

Then boy I have a tutorial for you!

Since this was drawn on a 3DS, I can’t really tell you anymore than for a 3DS. Sorry..

Step One: Prep!

Grab your 3DS and go to “Nintendo 3DS Camera”! Or whatever it might be called if you have a “New” one.

Optional: If you want you can take a picture within the game- if it’s capable of doing so.

For me I’m gonna use a screenshot from Miitopia.

Step 2: Background!

Part 1: Plain Backgrounds

If you want something like the following image, follow this part’s instructions.

Take a random full screen sized image. Any image will work as long as it fits the screen perfectly. (Take a screenshot from a game such as Tomodachi Life or Miitopia).

Tap the image so that it says graffiti.

Then use a stamp, such as the dialogue bubble.

Hold the stamp and make sure it fills the corners.

Then you have a plain white background! This one you can press finish,but the other method you can’t.

Here’s a quick video tutorial, because I don’t think I phrased it right!

(I took it on my phone, that’s how easy it is).

Part 2: Backgrounds that aren’t pure white!

If you want to make the starting image (but your own), then follow these steps!

(Once again, I’m using Miitopia screenshots for an example).

Once again, GRAFFITI!

Instead of using a stamp, you might have to just color it yourself. Mainly because the stamp method is harder for backgrounds like the first one.

COLOR THE BACKGROUND, BUT DON’T DRAW ANYTHING ELSE. (Unless you just want to draw a background). Trust me, it’s easier.

Boom! Plain background ready for sketching.

Don’t press finish cause it can decrease the quality with enough graffitiing and finishing.

Step 3: Draw the Base!

You gotta draw that body-ody-ody!

Just draw a bust or whatever is easier for you. “Omg IsBus you have to have drawing skills?!” Yeah I know. How could I?

I’m gonna draw the bust up because it’s easier for me.

(Don’t look at me like that.)

For the plain BG ones, just do the same thing for the rest of the steps but for your screen.

Since the background hasn’t been saved, don’t use the eraser because it will remove the white BG. Unless you are using the first background method, that is. (Use the white pencil.)

Step 4: Draw the character / Coloring Page Step!

On the plain BG you can draw what ever but for me and my Miitopia character, I’m gonna draw him. If you did the color-only-a-part-of-the-drawing method (like I’m doing), you can do whatever still.

Think of the white area as a green screen; you can draw whatever you want on it.

This phase is like the pencil part of a physical drawing. White out the base as you get to parts you want over it (for example: hair or clothes).

Bam! Coloring page!

Part 5: Coloring!

Remember when I called it a coloring page? This is why.

Color the drawing how you see fit!

If you’re using the all white bg, then you might have to use the stickers or the rainbow pencil. I recommend the stickers if you want to shade/shine, but if you want more options, use the rainbow brush.

If you’re basically doing what I’m doing, you can use the colors from the image to color your character!

Once you’re done coloring the image, remember to ink the lines again! Use a medium brush for coloring but a thin brush for inking the lines.

Part 6: Final Details!

For people who want any additional details, or need to clean up edges.

If you did the plain bg you can decorate and clean up as much as you need!

If you’re doing what I’m doing, you can clean up the edges of the white spot and add additional details.

And Voila! You did it!

If you have a 3DS and followed my tutorial, show me what you did! I wanna see it!

Have a good day/night! And thank you for reading!

~IsBus

#isbus #isbus original #original art #original character #original characters #digital art #3ds art #3ds #nintendo 3ds #drawings #digital drawing #drawn on a 3ds #tutorials #tutorial #I wanna see your art #miitopia #the second one wasn’t as good #sorry lol #mission failed successfully #long post #show me what you got

[lincolndjarin]

BKS ✦ notes & bts : chapters 1-5

spoilers for chapter 1-5 of Best Kept Secret!!

✦

a/n :

I feel like this is just SO self indulgent of me but whatever I guess lmao, bks is my brain baby currently and I will take any excuse to talk about it. These posts are going to be long in-depth dives into my writing process, dress inspo, music i was inspired by, etc. of the mentioned chapters so settle in cause this is what i'm doing today lol. also this might be the longest one bc i'm gonna talk about starting and coming up with everything.

starting writing and original outlines :

i've said this so many times lmao but i wrote the ending first. like the ending ending. i work really long hours at a job that has me listening to music for like ten hours a day while i work so i get a lot of thinking time lmao. basically i originally wrote it as a story with no specific characters in mind. I'm a big Pedro fan so i was between characters i thought fit the fic but settled on din because i think he fit the character i was imagining best. (it helps that he's in my top three pedro characters lol) from there laid out a vague outline in my mind of where i wanted to start so i created a set list of characters and basically just dove right in without much to guide me except for an ending point lmao. it wasnt until closer to like chapter 15-16 when i started properly outline each chapter in advance in the document, before that i just wrote vague notes in a notebook that i didn't end up following all that well lmao

music :

i've also said this at one point but the original name of best kept secret was "my keeper and i" i wrote the first three chapters in the same week and spread out the posting but i used the same playlist for most of the early stuff so here's that!!

original bks playlist

inspirations :

if you've seem/read bridgerton then you might know that i took a lot of inspiration from the pattern the show uses and still do.

basically the show has a pattern of the couple getting together and breaking it off or having an issue that's resolved and then there's a new issue. i've sort of been following that sorta kinda

also reader is heavily based on charlotte because i had just finished queen charlotte when i started writing bks

din is more based on anthony bridgerton than george, (anyone unfamiliar with bridgerton, george is the love interest in queen charlotte)

also a lot of din's style of self loathing is based on edwards from twilight LMAO

notes :

here's a random page of misc. notes that i lowkey can't decipher lol

here are my chapter four notes! shoutout to when i didn't realize it was sarad'ika and it was originally ika sarad lmaooo

there's some unused dialogue here, specifically there was going to be a longer conversation about how he wanted to get her out of the castle more often as well as a scene where she was going to eat fruit ands it was gonna drip down her front and he was gonna wipe it off. it was gonna be a whole thing lmao but it didn't really fit the rest of the chapters vibe.

so.... originally there was a timeline issue where the first lunar interlude (i'm a huge taz balance fan and that's where i got the name lunar interlude from lmaoooo, i have 2 taz tattoos) was going to be chapter 4 and then it was going to be chapter 6 and then it made the most sense to make it 5, so any timeline notes here are wrong.

in my original concept for the fic, every chapter was going to end with a small portion of din pov, but it didn't flow well and i really didn't like it so it ended up being easier having it be specific chapters.

when writing the first lunar interlude i went through and read the previous chapters and wrote down how i thought he was feeling during each scene which is what these notes are ^

dresses :

here's a collection of the dresses i used as inspo for chapters 1-5 (these were posted on my old account but i'm gonna put them here as well!!)

chapter one :

the wedding dress was based on this dress!!

and this is the sort of jewelry i was picturing but this stuff is still pretty, i couldn't find anything as ugly as what i was picturing for her wedding jewelry.

this is the sort of stuff i pictured for her blue dresses she hates but honestly all of these are pretty as well LMAO. in all honesty i think that the blue dresses she doesn't like wearing are probably pretty i think she mostly just hates what they stand for and also they put her in gaudy makeup and jewelry as well which doesn't help

chapter two :

used all sorts of dresses as inspo for this chapter! here are these!

chapter three :

sort of a combination of these for the chapter three dress, if that makes sense lmao

chapter four :

something along these lines for the garden dress!!

that's all for these chapters!! I'll probably do 6-15 for the next one since there won't be as many notes for those and then go back to five each for the rest!! i have to do some practice makeup for the concert i'm going to this week so the next one of these will be up either tonight or tomorrow!!

#lincolndjarin #best kept secret #the mandalorian

[k3fanblog]

Best K3 song bracket!

Don't ask me how long this took

Overview group stage post

Overview group stage B post

Overview bracket round 1 post

Overview bracket round 2 post

Overview bracket round 3 post

Overview bracket round 4 post

Overview quarter finals post

Overview semi-finals post

Overview finals post

Results!!!

So, ever since we got polls, I've been wanting to do more K3 polls and so I thought, what about a song tournament? But K3 has 285 songs, which is a bit impractical, so I thought maybe just the singles, but those are somewhere between 96 and 116, which is also not useful. So, I thought, what I do all those 96 singles and then add 32 more songs to it to make 128 which is a power of 2 and hence perfect for a bracket!

So that's what I did...

We will pick these 32 songs out of the other 189 K3 songs, through 20 polls of each 9 or 10 options, the winner of each poll will continue to the main bracket, but the 2nd and 3rd place of each poll will also continue to 4 other polls of 10 songs, of which the best 3 all continue to the main bracket.

I have a scheme:

(The colours are to divide the different 'eras' of K3, every generation is its own era except the og, because I always feel like the first 5 albums have different vibes from the last 4. This way I could make sure the eras were evenly divided over the polls.)

So, how will this work?

I will post the group polls over the coming week, 3 polls a day and they will all run for a week. After that I will post the first round of the bracket over 8 days (which means 8 polls a day), and I'll also all make them last a week. Eventually in later rounds I'll probably switch to 1 day polls, but I want everyone initially to get a chance to vote even if they find the tournament after a few days. I will tag all polls with #Best K3 song bracket.

FAQ:

How did you seed the bracket?

I seeded the songs based on number of Spotify plays, which has its limitations (not all songs are on Spotify for one), but felt fairer than using my own preferences and using Youtube views would be difficult because there are more versions from each song. There are 2 exceptions to this, after I finished putting everything in, I moved Willem-Alexander and Koning Willem-Alexander to be against each other in round 1, because I thought that would be funny and I swapped K3 Kan Het! and Toveren, because it didn't feel fair to put Toveren up to Superhero in the first round (I feel like it is more popular than Spotify shows).

How did you determine what songs are singles?

A combination of the Discografie van K3 Wikipedia page and looking at what songs have video clips. With clips from specials it was a bit confusing, because not all felt like they should be counted as singles? However the group stage should make sure all actual popular songs get through to the main bracket.

Why is this in English?

Because I want to leave the option open for international people to be(come) K3 fans.

What happens if a poll ends in a tie?

I will let them face off in a 1-day poll, if that doesn’t give a winner, both will continue.

What will you do after this tournament ends?

I polled my followers a few weeks ago to see if they’d be interested in seeing a bracket of only kkj, respectively hmk and hmj songs, as the og is pretty heavily favoured and I thought it would be cool to give the newer songs a place to shine, so I will continue with those (much smaller) tournaments

This will be added to

#Best K3 song bracket #K3 #polls #dutch #belgium #the netherlands #This is way too much effort for something 10 people might be interested in #So not to be that person but I would actually really appreciate it if people would reblog posts relating to this

[gren-arlio]

Ah, another 2 parter. Welcome to Part 2 of Episode 2 of Season 2 of Waku Puyo Translations.

(That's a lot of 2's.)

Hello everyone, it's the guy with Kempf calling Olwen a stupid bitch banner here, back at it again with translating a funny video game. Ain't that fun? Sorry for the delay, with tests going on, a super big assignment, and of course, English class, I haven't had too much time to finish these. Also I've had an illness for the past 5 days and that's been kicking my ass. Hope you understand.

As stated prior, this is Part 2 of Episode 2, because Arle's route has so much text from the information booth that its super hard to put all of this stuff in a very timely manner, thus making two parts. Thankfully, a delay still means this gets released, just in a weird time. With it, I bring this part.

Here's the link to the video:

Timestamps:

Sasori Midboss: (10:39, defeat at 13:00.)

Info Stuff Again: (13:25 through 15:15, with extra Momomo stuff)

Draco Boss: (17:28, defeat at 21:08)

Draco Revisit: (23:17)

Finally, this episode will be done. And with this, I hope you enjoy.

Major Edit:

First off, I want to thank Eudae for this. They told me about this and I frankly wanna thank them for it. Here's their Nexus page for their info:

I messed up a key gameplay mechanic. With the major mistake, the mechanic is NOT called pinning, but storing an item inside of a bottle, Ala a fairy from Zelda. The effect I explained is still the same, where inside the bottle, the item doesn't wear down, but the correction had to be made.

Second, Weathering as a name. I took the name literally, which I shouldn't have. In reality, gameplay mechanics wise, it's more like an item wearing down, ala...Zelda again. The effect is still the same, but the names itself are wrong.

Third and more minor, the item for bottling up items is actually called the "Bottling Wand" or an overly long "Put-it-in-a-jar Wand" rather than a pinning stick. Fixes have been made, and once again, thanks Eudae.

Sasori Midboss:

Arle:

Huh? You're...

Sasori Man:

How are you? I'm Sasori Man.

Sometimes I'm a mysterious mogul, other times I'm the informant working behind the scenes, and sometimes I'm the deadliest assassin of them all...

Arle:

???

Sasori Man:

Well, I'm busy with stuff, so shall we get right into it?

Arle:

What? I'm fighting you now? Alright then, I won't lose!

---

Defeat: (13:00)

Sasori Man:

You're a good one, you win.

I'm going back. Goodbye.

Arle:

He's gone. Let's go too, Carby!

Carbuncle:

Gu!

----

Info Booth Again:

(So with this, back to menu nonsense. The player clicks Bulletin and the order goes:

To You Who Has Obtained the Grimoire

Momomo Store Reopening <- 2

Fire Mountain

Water Paradise

Starlight Stage

Identification Recommendation

Trap Warning

Pinning Recommendation <- 1)

"Bottling" Recommendation:

Sasori Man:

How are you doing today?

Arle:

Oh, Heya. What can you tell me?

Sasori Man;

Well, you see, I have a lot of work to do.

So let's get right into explaining.

Arle:

O-ok...

Sasori Man:

Arle, do you know why food rots?

Arle:

I believe if an enemy attacks it, or a trap.

Sasori Man:

Yes, that's right.

If you eat rotten food, you'll have a horrible stomach ache, so be careful.

Arle:

Alright then.

Sasori Man:

Along with rotting, another issue is the item wearing down.

Arle:

The item wearing down...? Oh, the thing that makes items worse.

Sasori Man:

Yes. For example, a Medical Herb becomes an Ordinary Herb, and Medicine jusg becomes Water. That's what I mean by wearing down.

Arle:

The effects of the item dissappear too...that's rough...

Sasori Man:

Whether it rots or wears out, eating spoiled food is incredibly painful.

Arle:

Yeah, it sure sounds like it.

Sasori Man:

...Well, I have wonderful news for you!

Arle:

Aren't you really excited all of a sudden-

Sasori Man;

There's a way to prevent such problems.

Arle:

What? You're serious!?

Sasori Man:

They call it "Bottle-clogging." (For now, I'll keep this name based off the info given.)

Food and other items can be kept safe with the bottle...with no worries at all!

The bottle protects the item from incoming attacks!

Arle:

Wow, that's amazing...

Sasori Man:

You can also bottle up items like herbs and the sort.

Of course, even when bottled up, the item can still be used normally.

Arle:

So how many items can I bottle up?

Sasori Man:

All you have to use is an item called the "Bottling Wand".

They're dropped in dungeons occasionally, so you'll find one if you're lucky.

Arle:

A bottling wand... alright, so I CAN protect my items!

---

Momomo Store Reopening:

Bulletin Board:

The numbers of items in Momomo's store and gone up a bit. So come on in and buy even more stuff.

(You can then find him in Fire Mountain...but the player just sells items when he says welcome.)

-----

Draco Boss: (17:28)

Arle:

Oh, you were at the entrance...

Draco:

Ah, you've finally arrived!

...Hm? Do you have a Grimoire?

Arle:

Grimoire? I don't have one.

Draco:

Well...guess I have no other choice then.

If you want to clear this room, you're going to have to get through me!

Arle:

What? What is this, a beauty pageant or something?

Draco:

Hmpf...I thought you'd never be able to match my beauty...

...Wait, no! Not here... (As in, this ain't the place for this nonsense.)

Arle:

So are we going to play Puyo Puyo then?

Draco:

Hehehe, I can make 5 chains...

...No! This is a proper fight!

(In defeat, she just says Gao 3 times.)

----

Draco Revisit:

Draco:

Gao!

Arle:

It's you again...

Draco:

I have to say, you're much stronger than you look.

Arle:

Huh? I do?

Draco:

I need to train myself, so I'm here to get even better!

Arle:

Eh? Is this place good for training like that anyways?

Draco:

Hm? I mean, you can always enter the attraction again, but it'd be hard to get out of it.

Oh, and I see that you have red orb, take good care of that.

If you forgot to ever grab an orb, don't worry, they'll still be on the 10th floor.

Arle:

Alright...thanks.

Draco:

Alright then, cya.

Arle:

Yeah, bye!

-----

And with that, Episode 2 is properly done. Hopefully the 3rd one isn't as long.

Next time I'm here I'll most likely be doing an Extras episode. But with that...

Adios.

#Youtube #madou monogatari #puyo puyo #japanese translation #sega #waku waku puyo puyo dungeon #arle nadja #draco puyo puyo #draco centauros

[ivygeorgi]

To go off that last ask, sorry to ask for art advice, but how do you merge reference images while drawing? Like, how the hell am I supposed to look at a reference of people kissing and turn it into Dagur and Hiccup? I have so much trouble doing that and it frustrates me a lot. (Please feel free to ignore if you’re not up for answering. Thanks in advance.)

Here's the reference I chose for the demonstration. I sometimes use drawing references, stock photos, screenshots, and if their bodies are in frame, I usually chose those where the body types match which Hiccup and Dagur. It makes things easier.

I also have to mention that I don't follow references to details. Both Hiccup's and Dagur's proportions are stylised, so unless you're going for realism, following the reference into every detail won't be helpful. I personally just take the base and, unfortunately, the rest I have to figure out myself.

I start with a simple sketch and add eye guidelines. The heads are always tilted in order to mold together, so the lines have to be curved in opposite directions.

Then I roughly sketch where the eyes, noses and mouths are. Rule no. 1 is not to press hard with your pencil throughout the whole sketching phase when drawing traditionally. This allows you to erase and fix any errors with ease, just like I did here with the bridge of Hiccup's nose.

Don't forget about Dagur's big chin and mouth, which is very close to his nose. My personal tip is to draw him kissing Hiccup's upper lip so that the rest of their faces still align.

Then I sketch everything else to figure out if things look good. Again, not pressing on the pencil so that I'm still able to fix anything. (Adjusting is much easier digitally since you can basically resize a whole head lol) If I'm satisfied with it, I go over the lines and now I'm allowed to press with the pencil a bit harder.

I'm gonna say that drawing kisses is hard, ESPECIALLY for Dagur and Hiccup because of their facial proportions. I struggled with it for so long and I still do. I only ever share the sketches that I like, but there are many which I don't show. Here are few which I found.

So the solution to this is to open a sketchbook and just sketch those smootches! Fill a whole page with them! You can spend only a few minutes on one before moving on. When one is not going well, start a new sketch. If one is going really well, keep working on it, maybe finish it! Be messy, don't try to make it perfect right away. That's how I learned it and I'm sure you'll learn it too. ✨Trial and error✨

I hope this was helpful! ;v;

Sorry it took so long to respond, my brain is a mess and I totally forgot about ask 😅

#art advice #Art tips #Asks #Dagcup #dagur the deranged #hiccup horrendous haddock iii

[joyce-stick]

Adachi and Shimamura's Second Season

An essay by Audrey of the joystick system

Revealing and analyzing the plot of Adachi and Shimamura's never-yet-released second season of anime.

TL;DR

Adachi and Shimamura, the yuri light novel series by Hitoma Iruma, is extremely good. The currently serialized manga adaptation by Yuzuhara Moke is also good. The anime is good too, but not finished.

The novels go some rather surprising places, and this essay is about those surprises and how Adachi and Shimamura, quite unexpectedly, proves itself a very unique series quite unlike many others in the yuri genre.

Mainly because it's secretly also science fiction.

Video version:

Text version under the cut. Feel free to watch or read or read along while listening to the video version!

[cohost version]

Future video essay/transcript: Audrey's Best Girls Winter 2023

If you're on desktop, you may find this more comfy to read directly on our Tumblr site.

If you enjoy this essay, please consider following us here or on any other platforms, and/or donating to support future works via our Patreon or Ko-fi.

Patreon • Ko-fi • YouTube • Twitter • Cohost • Tumblr • Mastodon

Prologue: Triviality & Psychology

Despite not having read a single word that Hitoma Iruma has written, I think I’ve been convinced, with relative certainty, that he’s probably a pretty good writer.

The English versions of his work that we have read, which are written by other people, based on his novels written in Japanese, that we haven’t read, give the impression that his novels are pretty good.

Of course, the specific work we’re here to discuss today is Adachi and Shimamura, but of what little else we’ve read of his work, mainly the first chapter of the Bloom Into You spinoff novels, there’s a consistent focus on introspection and careful characterization and articulation through all sorts of details, both trivial and otherwise.

This may sound arrogant, but I knew early on that I was talented.

When I say “talented,” I mean that I can get results when I work really hard and that I can maintain those results, too. I think I understood the value of those two things much sooner than the other kids.

Thus, I didn’t mind that my after-school schedule was full of lessons. There were ikebana classes, calligraphy school, piano, cram school, and once I was a third year in elementary school, swimming lessons, too. I was considering taking on English speaking classes next. I pretty much took anything available to me. As a kid, I felt lucky that I was even allowed those choices.

Even a child could see that that my house was a respectable one. We had a lacquered gate, a side door for the help on the left side, and many tall trees in our garden. The surrounding walls were tall enough to prevent anyone from peering inside. Our house was bigger than the entirety of the light-green apartment complex across from us. In addition to my parents and I, my grandparents on my father’s side and their two cats lived there. It was quite a lot of space for so few people.

Growing up in that house, I knew I had no choice but to be talented. No one actually said as much, but I knew instinctively that it was true. As long as I kept moving with purpose and produced good results, my parents never seemed upset. What parents wouldn’t be happy to have an exceptional kid?

[Bloom Into You: Regarding Saeki Sayaka, Vol. 1 by Hitoma Iruma

Translated by Jan Cash & Vincent Castaneda

Published in English by Seven Seas in 2020]

The first pages of the Sayaka novels open with Sayaka describing her school curriculum and extracurricular activities, her awareness that she’s a gifted student, and that she’s incredibly committed to being one, so much so that she rarely quits something. She is devoted.

And this characterization informs the rest of the work quite readily, as Sayaka finds herself first annoyed by another girl at her swim practice, who to her, appears not devoted.

Devoted perhaps, not to swimming, but to Sayaka herself. And then her first lesbianic encounter with that same girl results in panic, in her running away, in her quitting.

Quitting for the first time she can remember.

And her quiet surprise when her parents just accept that.

All this is told to us, in prose, in monologue, it’s delicate and psychological and intriguing and it leaves us wanting to know more.

And yet somehow, we read all this, were fascinated, and then our attention span burned down around it and we forgot about it for a year or two.

So, yeah, that happened. And we also forgot about… until one day very recently I, Audrey, decided to wrangle this mess of a brain and have us settle down to read it… Adachi and Shimamura.

Part 1: The Adashima-daptations

1.1 Anime vs Manga vs Light Novel

Most of y’all know Adachi and Shimamura for being an anime. And, that’s fair, I guess, it is an anime after all. But it’s also an adaptation, as most anime are. And specifically an adaptation of a novel, or a series of novels, the first four of them at least.

Those four novels are only the first act of the story. There’s now ten, with at least two more planned, and we’ve read eight of them, and I have opinions. So you’re going to hear them, because someone has to. Unless you don’t want to, and then you can leave, I guess. We are fine with people leaving. Anyway.

Concerning the anime, we have some feelings about it. Our overall opinion is that it’s good. It’s a pretty good anime, it’s a competent adaptation, and we don’t really have a lot of complaints as to its quality in either of those respects.

It’s not a particularly lavish production, nowhere near as technically impressive as Bloom Into You (which is one notable example of “probably about as close as you can get to a KyoAni level work without being from KyoAni”) but it’s pleasantly storyboarded, elegantly scored, and overall perfectly watchable.

It’s good enough to recommend as an entry point into the story (although the Moke manga is the far better adaptation), but woefully insufficient as a substitute for it. Partially for the obvious snag that it ends before the relationship gets going, and there’ll likely never be a second season.

But there’s also some speedbumps that have, somewhat unavoidably, arisen from adapting the story to a visual medium.

1.2 Shimadensity

When the anime aired, the thing I most remember is people being confused as all heck why Shimamura was so… dense.

That is to say, blind. A blind blonde, an unnatural blonde at that, being blind to the obvious homosexual before herself, being extremely homosexual towards her in her presence and drinking mineral water, which, as anyone who’s seen the film Heathers knows, is a universal signifier of homosexuality.

And, well, you see, there is an answer to that. Shimamura is not blind whatsoever.

She knows something is up with Adachi, and it’s not as if she’s not pretty nearly drawn the conclusion that Adachi is attracted to her, but she’s just sort of averted her eyes from it.

She’s decided, albeit somewhat subconsciously, that thinking about Adachi being gay is troublesome. Answering the question of “why Adachi wants to hold my hand, wants to be so close to me,” and all that, isn’t a path she’d like to take, and so she just ignores it.

Shimamura’s gotten through life this way, by not thinking too hard about it. Just going with the flow, letting everyone around her take her wherever, putting up a path of least resistance through life. She finds forming genuine, lasting connections with people difficult, and doesn’t really feel very strongly about most of her peers.

But she also feels that she needs people, anyway, so she masks through it, politely smiles, and lets her relationships just happen, come and go like the waves. This does bother Shimamura, if for no other reason than that she finds it tedious and tiresome, but she just kind of rolls with it anyway.

Meanwhile, Adachi is explicitly an introvert to the extreme, and not in the Bocchi kind of way, where she wants to make friends but can’t; no, Adachi straight-up doesn’t want friends. She finds friendships burdensome, to the point of being soul-crushing.

An anecdote in the novels has Adachi describing how, in elementary school, she made an honest attempt towards being more socially active, but found that each new friend she made felt like another chain on her soul.

But these forced friendships weighed down on me, suppressing my emotions, erasing all my imperfections. Whenever one of them spoke to me, I had to craft a fitting response and keep the conversation going. No part of this was genuine; I just parroted whatever I heard other people saying.

Every time I repeated this process, I grew restless. And every time I gained a new friend, I boxed myself in further, closing off my exits.

But then one day I threw it all in the trash and walked off without them…and that was the day I noticed just how freeing it felt. All I needed was a single breath of fresh air to finally realize that I was meant to live my life alone.

[Adachi and Shimamura volume 4 (Chapter 3: The Moon and Courage) by Hitoma Iruma

Translated by Molly Lee

Published by Seven Seas in 2021]

Eventually coming to accept that, at least in her view, she was not built for close relationships with other humans.

To put it simply, it’s not a skill issue. She just doesn’t care for the grind.

1.3 They Who Don't Remember Your Name

In middle school, she comes off towards her peers as an ice queen, and there’s this really really interesting chapter- the first chapter, in fact, in the fourth novel, where Adachi is described from the perspective of someone else. An unnamed fellow student, with whom she is delegated to work the school library counter, who tries and fails to form a connection with her.

And this student’s description of Adachi is fascinating. Adachi is described as someone who, in step with her desire to eschew friends, is seen by the student body as seemingly unattainable. And this student is startled, then elated, to have the opportunity to even sit near this person.

But Adachi, unconscious and undesiring of her semi-celebrity status within the school, deflects all attempts to break her shell, and so there this unnamed student stays, stays looking, stays admiring.

And then one day this girl, this unnamed student who we never again hear of, who has no significant characterization to speak of, no importance to this story other than to be a lens through which we see Adachi- happens to run into Adachi once again at the beginning of their high school’s second semester, and takes the opportunity to say

“Thank you.”

For something that Sakura Adachi didn’t know. Didn’t see. Couldn’t feel. Didn’t realize. Something so incorporeal to her, yet so powerful to this one peer of hers, as having been allowed to be in proximity to her, to have a memory of her that none else can claim to have.

And Adachi doesn’t get it, and can’t possibly have it explained, and it’s just… that’s it, really. That’s just that chapter.

It was gut-wrenching to read, because it tapped deeply into a specific desire that’s been stuck within us for a long time, that we’ve previously found it… really hard to articulate without sounding weird, or creepy, or wrong.

The desire to know how we were seen, the impact we’ve made on people we crossed paths with whose names we don’t know, whose faces we’ve forgot, or whose lives just briefly overlapped with ours at one time or another

to know if they’re okay, to know if they even remember us, or, the person who we used to be, whoever that was, to be able to affirm that those connections, however tenuous, were important.

And just like… yeah, I don’t know. I don’t know if what I’m saying even makes any sense, but those many little encounters, those small moments that made us who we were

have left us conscious of dozens if not hundreds of possible branches in this life, that could have butterfly effected us somewhere completely different from where we currently are, and we can’t know, and we can’t say

but it’s just it, that basic feeling of I wonder how you’re doing, I wonder how life could have been if we’d followed after you, I wonder if you think about me too.

And that desire to achieve closure, something articulated, actualized, in this unnamed girl saying thank you, and at the same time, saying goodbye. To another Sakura on the wind.

1.4 Adachi Recollection

These events are not adapted in the anime. They are not adapted in either of the manga adaptations.

But there is such significance to this anecdote, such immense weight that is given to this random no-name and her view of Adachi, a story about Adachi to which Adachi herself was nearly entirely oblivious.

But then later in one of the most pivotal moments of Adachi’s character arc when a shady fortune teller convinces her to do something about her friendship with Shimamura before they drift ever further away, and she remembers that girl,

Every now and then, I thought back to this one time in junior high when I worked as a library assistant. There was this girl—I couldn’t remember her name or even what she looked like, but she asked me if I had any friends. At the time, I told her I didn’t, and that I was fine with it…but looking back, I couldn’t help but wonder why she asked me that. Was she going to offer to be my friend?

Even then, my answer would have remained the same. I would have told her I didn’t need any friends. But part of me regretted how that interaction played out. Part of me felt that we should have talked it out first, like actual human beings, instead of me one-sidedly slamming her with rejection.

With that in mind, I didn’t want to add to my list of regrets. I couldn’t keep sticking my head in the sand. No, I was going to take action. And if I ended up regretting that, then so be it.

[Adachi and Shimamura volume 4 (Chapter 3: The Moon and Courage) by Hitoma Iruma

Translated by Molly Lee

Published by Seven Seas in 2021]

And this is such a hugely emotional payoff. Adachi did remember. That girl did affect her life. Even despite Adachi’s efforts to refuse connections, still, such a trivial interaction still made her who she is, still contributed to altering the course of her life, and that’s just… y’know, like, gosh.

This is so fucking cathartic to think about, y’know? Even if that person you remember, you wish you could have known, isn’t thinking about you, barely remembers you… you still were there. You still did something for them. Even if it was just being there, even if your feelings didn’t reach them right then, even if even if even if.

The fact that you crossed paths with them, alone, is significant.

It’s that affirmation of that fact that I see in this small, insignificant seeming novel-only plot beat, from which I feel so much meaning is exuded, and, why it's a shame it was excluded.. It may have seemed trivial, seemed unimportant, and seemingly that’s why every adaptation adapted this out,

but that triviality is precisely what is so important about it.

I cannot exaggerate enough when I say that I feel something essential is lost by this piece of story being discluded from every other version.

And that’s really the curse of adapting Adashima, in general. There are so many other details of the characters and story, too numerous to list, that the prose takes time to explore and develop and clarify, that would be tedious to elaborate on in an anime or a manga, and are thus cut.

And rightly so, for the sake of telling the story economically in those mediums, but what is lost as a result is the essential psychological depth of this narrative. And yes, it is a psychological narrative. A cerebral one, even.

Yes, it’s true. Adachi and Shimamura is a calmer, gayer, Kaguya-sama.

And that’s why

Shimamura is so

fucking

dense.

And why Adachi and Shimamura, is so, fucking, dense.

Part 2: A (mostly) calmer, gayer Kaguya-sama

2.1 Cold War of Gay Panic

Once you’ve read deep enough into Adashima, there is absolutely no way around it, this is a deeply psychological conflict. The characters’ mental states and attitudes, the things they won’t say, say so much more in this story than anything else. Which is why I think, although the adaptations are pretty good:

The Moke manga adaptation is actually really good, it does a much better job visually illustrating the psychological aspect of the story than the anime does, and, I think, if you’re really allergic to prose but really want to read Adashima, you should read the Moke version.

It’s not a perfect 1 to 1 recreation of the story, no adaptation ever is, but it’s pretty damn up there. Nonetheless, the adaptations are still limited in how far they can go in elevating their versions, and Adachi and Shimamura, the anime, is good.

Just good.

It’s a competent slice-of-life anime and an incomplete romantic drama. And it’s nice to have a visual companion to the story. But as a standalone piece of media, it’s not all that much more. It doesn’t get the time to develop things further, or to get to the things that make Adachi and Shimamura, as a story, something truly unique.

So, I mentioned earlier that Adachi decided she can’t do relationships, of any kind, and you might be thinking, well that sounds like a terrible protagonist for a romance story, and oh gosh you have no idea. Adachi is a total disaster of a human being. And just to drive that point home quite clearly, I want to read this particular quote from volume 5:

Besides Shimamura, the current me had nothing. I was empty.

Were you to peel back my skin, you'd find not flesh and bones, but her. Shimamura.

And yet. And yet. I felt like I might start tearing out my hair soon. Simply allowing my mind to wander caused my eyes to grow wet with tears.

The fantasies I'd indulged in were not based on anything. I knew that. Even so. Even so.

Was it really that wrong, wanting to be rewarded? Wanting your efforts to pay off?

[From Adachi and Shimamura, volume 5, "Shimamura's Sword"

Written by Hitoma Iruma

Translated and published unofficially by sneikkimies]

To be quite exact: This particular bit of text is from the fan translation of Adachi and Shimamura volume 5. I do not know what the original Japanese says. I do not know what emotional connotation the original Japanese carries. The official translation from Seven Seas, meanwhile, rather says:

Outside of Shimamura, I had nothing. Cut me open and I would bleed Shimamura. So how could she do this to me? Every time I let my guard down, tears welled in my eyes. I knew my feelings were one-sided, and yet…was it so wrong to want her to return them?

[Adachi and Shimamura volume 5 (Chapter 4: Shimamura's Blade) by Hitoma Iruma

Translated by Molly Lee

Published by Seven Seas in 2021]

The official translation is quick, concise, sharp. It cuts thick, as it says, like the slashing of a knife across skin. In this version, Adachi hardly lingers on this emotion, her mind races, her thoughts tear through her.

But in the fan translation, the feeling is mulled over, gradually peeled away, as it says, revealed slowly, with intense deliberation.

The chapter from which this comes, Shimamura’s Sword- or, Shimamura’s Blade in the Seven Seas translation, is perhaps the most psychological chapter contained within the entire series. It is a chapter that, knowing Adachi, you know is coming from the very first few pages, when this illustration of one of the upcoming chapters is shown.

It is Shimamura and Tarumi, her childhood friend who has tried to rekindle their connection after years apart, and Adachi, working a food stand, watching as Shimamura goes out with a girl- a girl who she doesn’t know, a girl who isn’t her.

We knew this was coming from this very moment, and yet, it still smacked, it hurt, when we got to this chapter. Adachi pondering, stewing in this jealousy, after days of depression, as her mental state reaches a boiling point, before erupting straight into the receiver of her cell phone, in the form of her screaming crying voice, transmitted straight to Shimamura’s ears.

Our pulse had steadily begun to quicken as we read this on our own cell phone, our heart in step with Adachi, as she began to speak these words, and we stopped reading, almost too afraid to turn the page.

We did eventually go back to it, of course.

It was not too long after that I realized why this chapter had tripped us up like it did. We saw ourselves in this. No, it’s quite accurate to rather say that we were worse than this.

We too, when we were Adachi’s age, had a crush who saw us as a friend, to whom we had limited access. We too, grew depressed and jealous and angry at being away from them, as a result of us having few other friends and no one else particularly on our mind or in our social life. We too, were bitter about our negative home life.

But we didn’t stop quite at where Adachi stopped, at airing our grievances, at assaulting our crush with our undue anger- no, we made a specific threat.

I won’t be repeating that here, but needless to say, we never followed up on it. It’s been nearly a decade since then, and we haven’t ever not regretted it whenever that memory resurfaces.

While the things we said up to that point, the emotions we aired, were probably not as bad as the things Adachi says here… the threat kind of compensated for that. I’d say, in the end, we were just about as bad as Adachi at her age.

We were not ready for a romantic relationship with anyone, at that age. We probably still aren’t, and personally, I don’t want one. I have doubts that it’ll ever go well. My headmates feel different, but, they’re not talking right now, so…

Anyway. Shimamura is annoyed, doesn’t even follow what the fuck Adachi is on about, hangs up, and Adachi thinks she’s thrown away their friendship.

But then she works up the courage to call Shimamura again, or, perhaps more accurately, lacks the emotional maturity to let it go, and they reconcile.Although weirdly, Shimamura doesn’t seem bothered.

And then, although Shimamura tries to get Adachi to make more friends, it doesn’t really work, one of the most FUCK YOU I’M AUTISTIC AND I DON’T CARE WHO KNOWS scenes ever, happens

And then the next volume, Adachi tearfully confesses to Shimamura for a second time after a first time blundering it and passing out while gripping her close in the bath while they’re both wearing swimsuits, gosh that’s also the most fucking hilariously cringe scene, just imagine how embarrassing it must be to pass out from telling your crush how you feel about them, and

THEN Shimamura accepts Adachi’s feelings, and then they are officially girlfriends.

2.2 "Problematic" Yuri

And the whole time I was reading this. The whole damn time, I could not stop thinking. I can fucking see it. The thinkpieces, the ones going, “How Adachi and Shimamura exploits queer teenage girls, by depicting queer teenage girls realistically.”

The twitter threads going, “is Shimamura right, for not taking Adachi’s shit right then, or was she being an asshole, instead of, y’know, it being revealed that her patience has limits but also she later feels like maybe she was a bit too cold and made a mistake…” or like, “is Adachi a womanizer, or a yandere, or a dangerous abusive codependent manipulator”.

Were the arcs of volumes 4 through 8 to be adapted to a second season of anime, there’d be plenty of fuel for opportunistic media criticism weirdos such as ourselves to say… “is Adachi and Shimamura problematic?”

And, no, it’s not. It’s dramatic. This is a psychological romantic drama about a deeply emotional neurodivergent teenage girl who has human flaws. Like, yes, Adachi is jealous and controlling and even a bit mean, and she knows this.

And we’ve seen these articles and twitter threads about Adashima, about Yagakimi and about other queer media in general, floating around, that are just like, is this lesbian relationship between two mentally ill teenagers dangerously codependent or abusive?

We sometimes even floated around to that idea ourselves, reading all the yuri stuff we read- we read a lot of yuri stuff, and, a lot of the time the answer is just, yeah, maybe.

Is that wrong? Is it wrong to depict these things as part of a normal story with stakes and drama? Don’t these people need to have issues in order for the story to have somewhere it can move up from?

There seems to be a subset of the queer leftish internet and hell, pop cultural media criticism internet in general, that just doesn’t want things to happen in narratives

And like, Joyce sort of had this phase herself, in reaction to her breakup last year, where, she wanted to believe that the fact that she was a fan of Love Live was the problem. The fact that Love Live occasionally features shots of teenage girls’ legs, that would’ve been the issue, not that she had a difficult personality or overinflated expectations of her partners.

She just stopped reading yuri for a while, because she just thought, maybe the fact that I was reading yuri stories that just pretend these issues don’t exist, maybe that’s the problem.

Maybe the fact that these stories have male gaze, because they’re targeted at men, is the problem. Maybe I’m actually a man, is the problem. And y’know, this is all just bullshit. This is all just self-directed homophobia as an excuse for happening to be a bit of a fucked up person who is queer.

And that’s really all that is. People don’t criticize straight romance stories for characters having realistic relationship issues. People don’t even criticize straight romance stories for being exploitative or fucked up or weird or anything.

Well, some people do, but y’know. No chance would the average online anime fan be having such takes on like, I don’t know, oregairu. But even the most like, reasoned takes on Yagakimi from very smart people online, have to acknowledge, oh yeah some of these characters check off all the boxes for the “predatory lesbian” trope.

That sentence says everything, doesn’t it? There is a predatory lesbian trope. Is there a “predatory heterosexual” trope? Is there heterosexual shipping bait? We sure could pretend there is one, as a bit, but like, no. The answer’s no.

And like, yes, the depictions of queers as uniquely specifically unhinged and dangerous by straight people is a thing that is a thing because of queerphobia, itself, and maybe it makes us look good or better somehow to paint ourselves as not having awful personalities or issues with relationships so that bigots have less rhetorical ammo against us.

But somehow the more I think about all this the more I think that, maybe, the predatory gay tropes in straight media aren’t just straightforwardly to make queer people look bad, but to make us afraid of ourselves. And to make us afraid of art that depicts us as human beings and not just soft uwu girls.

Maybe the reason was to make us afraid of Adachi.

Anyway. I’m just going to say it. There is no problematic media. Fictional, and especially animated or drawn media, cannot be declared immoral simply on the basis of what it chooses to depict. And it’s high time we stopped deluding ourselves into thinking it can be.

And I know this is all very much an extremely online discourse, and most normal people offline don’t tend to think of media quite that way, but it still pisses us off, y’know? It pisses us off that this stupid problematism bullshit around fictional media had us brain poisoned for like half a fucking decade. So we’re really rather ticked off by that.

…That’s not the point of this essay. Maybe it’ll be the point of another one.

2.3 Drama Lesbian Queens

So, yeah, to sum it up, a lot of yuri things that the average concentration of yuri fans like tend to be free of too much conflict, and quick to gay. And Adachi and Shimamura fulfills the former requirement, most of the time, at least, and especially in all the material adapted by the first season.

Past volume 4, however, things start getting more intense, because, well, Adachi, first of all. Adachi is a whole person. Tarumi is also a whole person, although we don’t get to see too much of her, it seems pretty clear she’s going through her own general turmoil away from the center of the story, and yeah.

Yashiro also. What the hell is with her? Well, it turns out, she actually is an alien, or at the very least her being an alien is a much more plausible explanation than anything else. We’ll get to her in a bit, maybe.

The relationship happens, with Adachi and Shimamura, being girlfriends, and that’s just adorable the way that works out. Shimamura isn’t a hundred percent certain she loves Adachi, but she doesn’t dislike Adachi, she’s certainly not indifferent to Adachi, and she’s open to trying Adachi out, so, she accepts.

Adachi is at first her usual jealous self, taking this as license to be even more aggressive about not wanting Shimamura to speak to or even look at any other girls in the world. Adachi’s literally never had any other relationships, not even with her own mother, so, that just makes sense, she thinks of being together as special itself.

Which prompts Shimamura to try to think of ways to raise Adachi’s bar for things being special, by such things as… making Adachi lunch. Kissing Adachi’s forehead. And that’s where that stays for a little while! The third base of lesbian, homemade lunches and forehead kissing.

And that’s all really cool and satisfying, cause there’s not a lot of yuri stories, hell, not a lot of romance stories, period, that actually depict the work of the relationship. Most yuri just rush to have the girls kissing, and that’s that. It’s a lot of casual fluff, with not a lot of particular focus on how the relationships develop, or anything.

In devoting her time to doting on Adachi, Shimamura neglects Tarumi, and the distance between them widens again. She one night thinks in a dream, ominously, that Adachi, in her quest to have Shimamura all to herself, has ruined Shimamura’s relationships. But Shimamura’s not sure that bothers her.

And Adachi continues to have her personality issues, but, she and Shimamura are both happy for now, and so not too much active drama ensues- just anxiety, just tension, just slow development.

And this continues through volume 7 and 8, but Iruma makes a very interesting creative choice to capture the totality of the narrative. Starting in volume 5, certain alternate contexts for the beginning of Adachi and Shimamura’s relationship are depicted.

In the first chapter of that volume, Adachi and Shimamura first meet as small children in preschool, during which Yashiro introduces the basic concept of an alternate timeline to us readers.

Then in volume 7, we get vignettes where Adachi doesn’t decide to close the distance between herself and Shimamura, and instead continues hiding on the second floor of the gym. Where Adachi and Shimamura never meet in high school, and instead find each other as adults. Where Adachi and Shimamura encounter each other at the end of the world. Where Shimamura is an alien- or perhaps, I should more accurately say, a foreigner from space, whose language Adachi spends years learning just so that they can talk.

And all of this is written from the perspective of Adachi and Shimamura feeling as if this is random chance, a simple coincidence, luck of the draw, the one twist of fate that changed their lives forever.

But then in volume 8, Iruma skips ahead a decade.

2.4 Ending the Second Season

Adachi and Shimamura are now living together, both 27 years old. Is Adachi still clingy and jealous? Less so, apparently, but, it’s not explored fully. How are Hino and Nagafuji- I’m just realizing I’ve barely if at all mentioned them in this entire essay. How’s Tarumi, is she okay? I don’t know.

But regardless, adult Shimamura goes and says hello to Yashiro, the small child-shaped alien who’s taken up an unofficial position as the Shimamura family pet, and Yashiro says something very interesting.

Shimamura and Adachi meeting is not chance whatsoever. It is in fact, destiny. According to Yashiro, anyway.

In every timeline and reality, she says, they are fated to encounter each other- not because they’re special, not because the universe is eyeing them closely or anything, but simply because they are. Because, apparently, reality likes being consistent, or perhaps finds it too exhausting to get particularly creative. Adachi and Shimamura just meet each other because, the code for reality gets copy pasted. Or something.

Yashiro has no answer for this, particularly, other than that it just is, and she doesn’t seem bothered by it. Shimamura doesn’t think too much of it either, and then she and Adachi go off on their overseas vacation and reminisce as a framing device for the rest of the novel, which is about the school trip they went on in their second year.

And, about how Adachi is horny, but, doesn’t know what the hell to do with that. And about their classmates who are grouped up with them for the trip noticing that they’re a same-gender couple, and surprisingly, supporting them! At least, one of them does.

Well, it was surprising to us, and surprising to Shimamura, who expresses in her internal monologue that she was afraid of facing a much less nice reaction after Adachi, in her lack of care for how she’s seen by others, basically outed them.

But it’s also not that surprising, because in the Reiwa era of the yuri genre, it’s pretty normal for there to be more straightforward acceptance of homosexuality and less “just a phase” framing, that there is.

This is a thing that our friend @studentofetherium went into in a tumblr post, well, volunteered to go into it rather, after they mentioned this fact to us and I told them that I was writing this. Also, they take credit for coining the term “reiwa era yuri” so if there’s another term I guess someone might tell us, but otherwise we’re just gonna continue using this one.

So, the school trip happens, things happen on the school trip, and the whole time Shimamura is wondering, do I really love Adachi? Is this relationship going to go okay? Will we have a future together? And when her classmate asks her these things she just… doesn’t really know.

And then, in a twist of an ending to the eighth volume that feels custom fucking made for the hypothetical second season of the anime to end here, Shimamura has an epiphany. As she’s stumbling through the fog that’s emerged around their school trip bus, she realizes that she’s looking through the fog… for Adachi.

Because Shimamura really does love Adachi, really does care about Adachi, want to live with Adachi, and they find each other and meet each other’s eyes and it’s just this entire love magic cinema moment

and then that night they sleep together.

By which I mean, they just sleep. The idea that one or both of them want to have sex is floated, but neither of them are emotionally ready for that. So they just lay down, and they chat about how their future is going to go, how they want to one day go even farther than there- and the last chapter cuts ahead to them, in the future, again, going home from their overseas trip, from whence they've gone farther.

And it’s just like.

Huh. Neat.

Part 3: The Trouble With Life

3.1 The Improbability of Endings

Most yuri, most romance, stories just kind of end at, they dated, they kissed, they’re together now. The end.

Even Bloom Into You, a romance story that we like so much that Yuu Koito literally infected our brain, just gets its two leads together, has them fuck, and has an epilogue going, “yeah, so they got married, they’re fine now.” And it’s not out of a lack of care, or consideration, or laziness, or anything, that so many romance stories end this way, it’s more that human relationships are kind of metal as fuck.

So metal, in fact, that they take years and years and are fickle as hell and, no matter how much work you put into them, will constantly collapse under the slightest pressure, like a run of your favorite roguelike, or some kind of massive long-term jenga tower of social pressures and favors and feelings that you just cannot stabilize.

And this is something Shimamura and Adachi are both very conscious of, that Tarumi is conscious of when she encounters Shimamura again after all those years, that everyone in this story is painfully aware of- human relationships are not built to last. Especially not in a world like this, in an economic system like capitalism that’s seemingly hell bent on tearing us all away from each other at every turn.

Dealing with all that is hard to do within the framework of a traditional narrative. So, a lot of romance stories do end with the couple getting together, because, that’s economical. It’s easy. It’s satisfying. You don’t need to think about it too hard, don’t need to think about how most relationships just kind of fizzle out and fade and everything.

And Adashima does ponder the fragility of relationships so much more than most other romance fiction we’ve read, and it takes its time to try and make the relationship between its leads special, to make it believable that this will last. The fact that Iruma puts so much time and thought and effort into this relationship and its development and strengthening makes it come across, in context, as just a little bit off when the story just

Skips the rest of them.

The reveal that Adachi and Shimamura are literally bound by fate is not handled as cheaply as you might think, or, really, cheaply at all. It doesn’t ruin the story, Shimamura doesn’t really have any regard for it, she’s just kinda like, yeah, well, our relationship happened and it’s fine regardless, I don’t need to understand all the fate stuff.

And its y’know, it’s good. It’s good that it’s working out. But I still have so many questions. Adachi’s personality. Shimamura’s devotion. Is she devoted, I don’t know. She doesn’t seem devoted, so how’s that working out? How’s it going to work out if and when Adachi asks for something that Shimamura can’t or won’t give, and then that’s the point at which the relationship is truly strained?

Tarumi. Do they stay friends? Will Adachi ever meet Tarumi? Will Tarumi be upset that someone else likes Shimamura? How’s Shimamura going to take all that? And everything, and everything else. How are their parents going to take it? It seems that it’s fine in the future, but was there drama, was there difficulty? Or did they just not care that much? I don’t know.

On the one hand, it’s nice to see the future stuff more, it’s nice to see a more thorough exploration of an adult couple’s life in a yuri story than we’ve previously really gotten. We all want that sequel to Bloom Into You. Cause it’d be nice to capture that experience in an art piece.

But the way it’s paced, well, it feels disappointing because I don’t really like the way that it kind of arbitrarily makes the story end, before it, keeps going, but also I can’t really criticize it for that because, well, I can’t think of a particularly better solution. I know we all want answers to these questions, we all want to see more of this, and Iruma would probably like to write more of it, but they have other things they want to write and unfortunately aren’t immortal.

In the eighth of Iruma’s afterwards, which consistently fail to convince us that they are not writing their autobiography here, it is explained that volume 8’s flash forward to the future is the ending. Or at least, an ending. You could say, a contingency, so that if Iruma stops writing the novels prematurely, then there will have been an ending.

There’s currently eleven total volumes, and there’s going to be two more, or so says Iruma, with the eleventh one having come out while we were working on this essay. So, yeah, that’s the reason why this feels so weird, so much like a forced ending to the series at the expense of the larger plot’s pacing. Because this one person can’t spend their entire life writing the life of a fictional cast of characters.

And that’s just the tragedy of our finite lives, isn’t it, that we can’t spend all our lives chilling out, eating food, and making art. Hopefully one day someone’ll have that figured out. But in the meantime.

Reading this, and considering both the conclusive way with which volume 8 ended, as well as the fact that there was a change in illustrators starting with volume 9, and the thought that this would be the ending of the hypothetical second season of the anime… Which is our own original thought, I should clarify. We decided it’d make the most sense to treat it as a clean break in the story, and read volume 9… later.

After reading… the Anime Special Novel. Which is also quite interesting, for some different reasons!

3.2 The Time Lord Cat

Just in case you’ve never heard of this before, I probably need to explain what the hell it is. So, when Adachi and Shimamura, the anime, got a blu-ray release, the publishers wanted to include some incentives for buying the thing even if you’d already seen the anime on TV or wherever.

As such, they asked Iruma to write them something to include as a bonus. And so, four new light novel chapter-sized pieces of writing from Iruma were distributed in the first runs of each of the four blu-ray volumes. And these stories, which, otherwise have seen no official release, got translated into English by the same people doing the fan translations of the main novels.

So it might be more accurate, technically, to describe these as four different discrete novels, but that’s a huge linguistic nuisance. It’s four chapters, that’s only about a chapter or two smaller than the average light novel, so I’m just gonna describe it as a four-chapter novel, because it basically is one. Anyway. The Anime Special Novel is about Yashiro, and how she is an immortal cat.

Did I already explain who Yashiro is? I don’t know. Anyway, Yashiro is best explained as an alien and corollary to Shinobu Oshino, anime’s other mildly famous non-human immortal child, who one day waltzes into town and sweet talks all the humans into giving her food. And we say, “Wait, an alien, really?”

While the anime provides no real answer, the novels eventually get around to clarifying, “Yes, an alien. Really.”

Yashiro is most definitely not a human, and not a documented Earth species, so she’s probably an alien. Her pockets are bigger on the inside. She can read minds. She barely ages after ten, seventy, and then thousands of years. She can apparently time and space travel all by her lonesome, and she loves humans and apparently favors spending time with them far more than her own species, who she is ignoring. She can fold to comfortably fit into spaces smaller than herself.

Therefore, Yashiro is indisputably a Time Lord. Or, Time Lady, Time Maiden. Whatever.

Taken in context, the most questionable claim Yashiro makes is that she is 680 years old. It is later shown that she is terrible at keeping track of the time, so much so that later, she views the difference in time between three thousand years or thirty thousand, as something trivial, that it doesn’t matter if she flubs up a bit. She’s just like that.

Yashiro is an extremely interesting character, who, very curiously, perceives herself as the least interesting thing in the entire world. She claims to have come to Earth for a rendezvous with her fellow aliens, but she never treats this task with any degree of urgency.

While she’s never specific about the details of this plan, my guess is that she, like Adachi and Shimamura, only decided she wanted a piece of their slice of life because she was playing hooky. At least that’s how I’d prefer to think of it. The idea has thematic resonance, so as far as I’m concerned, that’s canon. But the other thing is that, unlike Adachi, Shimamura, and basically every other human in this story, Yashiro has only one emotion.

She is happy all the time.

Yashiro is never bothered by anything, whatsoever. She always has what she wants, and she’s never bothered by not getting what she wants- if she doesn’t make her goal, she moves the goalpost. Yashiro does not seem to have any worldly concerns whatsoever; she eats all the time, not out of an apparent need to sate hunger, but rather for the simple pleasure of doing so.

She doesn’t face much opposition, either, she’s such a cute child that everyone just wants to pet and feed and pamper her, and Shimamura’s family takes no issue with her just chilling at their house for ten years. The only thing Yashiro is ever described as not liking is baths, and even then she’s never really angry about being made to take one. In her internal monologue, Shimamura consistently describes Yashiro as being like a cat.

And she really is, isn’t she? She eats and sleeps all day, she doesn’t like water, and she is happily accepted as a freeloader for years in the homes of human strangers. And that’s just normal, even though Yashiro… is… well, humanoid, at the very least.

But the bizarre factor of Yashiro’s character is increased exponentially when Iruma takes her out of Adachi and Shimamura, and plops her right into Girls’ Last Tour.

3.3 Yashiro's Last Tour

Girls’ Last Tour, if you aren’t aware, is an anime (AND MANGA) about Girls on their Last Tour. It’s a survival kirara where moe blobs have a picnic in a dying world full of remnants of a fallen civilization. It’s all moody and pensive and about small girls who do not seem particularly bothered by the inevitably of their death. One of them is into vore.

Relevant here is that one of these two moe blobs is named Chito. And, coincidentally, the protagonist of the Adachi and Shimamura Anime Special Novel, who is also touring a dying world full of remnants of a fallen civilization, is also named Chito.

Did Iruma do this on purpose? Probably not, but there’s an excuse to recommend Girls’ Last Tour without needing to make a video about it. Go watch it. Uh, probably go read it too. We haven’t read it, but it’s probably really good. Both forms. It’s great.

Anyway, Chito Number Two is also hanging around Yashiro on another planet, not Earth, which we��ve never seen before, that at some point was colonized by Chito’s ancestors, but then it turned out that the planet sucked at sustaining crops and so everyone fell ill and/or starved, and unfortunately died.

Which sucks.

So, Chito is just wandering this basically dead civilization, aware she could be the last human alive for all she knows, but not really caring much. Yashiro is here, accompanying Chito and chatting her up, because she finds it fun I guess. She doesn’t really seem to care very much about the whole humanity dead thing, but she’s very eager to tell Chito this one story she has about these two very nice girls who gave her a lot of snacks to eat some thousands of years prior.

Yashiro tells four separate stories to Chito, which are each set at different points in Adachi and Shimamura’s adult lives together. All the typical things, really. Going shopping, going on onsen dates, kissing- well, no, they don’t directly kiss, but Shimamura does reminisce about their first bloody kiss. And also, Shimamura dying.

Yes, Yashiro confirms, in canon, that Adachi and Shimamura died. But she’s not particularly bothered by it. She’s just as cheery as ever. It’s not like she’s happy about them being dead, but she’s not especially sad, either- no more troubled than she’d be if Shimamura refused to give her candy.

And common sense, common familiarity with tropes about immortal people, says this should be existentially terrifying, shouldn’t it. A living creature that is only ever happy, that never dies or grows old or grieves. This is the basic setup for some lovecraftian horror story or another, or several, isn’t it?

And it is, on a basic level, kind of unsettling to see Yashiro just… not being bothered by living thousands of years, by the people around her dying, and just remaining a child forever, but… It’s not really, is it? Look at her! She’s too cute to be scared of. She’s a human shaped cat! Isn’t it adorable?

Humans typically live longer than cats, I know. But if a cat lived longer than humans, do you think it would give a fuck?

One of the most interesting parts of Adachi and Shimamura is the middle part of volume 6, where, as I think I already said, it’s revealed that up till now, the love of little Hougetsu Shimamura’s life has been not a girl, not even a human, but the other Shimamura family pet.

The dog that lives at her grandparents’ house, Gon. Gon was Hougetsu’s best friend, Hougetsu’s only true friend, the only living creature she ever loved, and for a time, the only reason Hougetsu wanted to come back.

And it’s only just now that Shimamura is really realizing just how strange this is, though, she’s come to accept that she’s really rather strange, that she doesn’t particularly care. And now, she’s coming back for the yearly Obon visit to her grandparents’ house, to see Gon for what is probably the last time.

This dog, who was once young and spry, once quite literally bounced up and down at the sight of little Hougetsu, has now grown old and frail, barely able to walk. This dog, who Shimamura loves more than her own mother, is dying, and Shimamura finds this prospect… What’s the word? Disquieting, perhaps. Disquieting.

Shimamura is disquiet with thoughts of age, thoughts of love, thoughts of death. As she still finds herself puzzled over what Adachi’s feelings are, what Adachi wants out of her, knowing what Adachi wants but not really able to admit it to herself, wondering about her own life, about if she’ll have companions in her future, about if it’ll suck, and it’s just…

I don’t know. Shimamura thinks about a lot, and I don’t have words for a lot of it. The main thing I remember is her speaking to the odd old man who’s her grandparents’ next door neighbor, and it being firstly really funny because he just is walking around with a teacup that his granddaughter made and bragging about how great of a potter she is. Just because he can. Just because he’s a weird old guy, and people will let weird old people get away with these things, and he can.

And he gives Shimamura a fishing rod, as such, so he says, because he can.

Yeah, so just to repeat what I said, Shimamura runs into this weird old dude on a family trip, he says, “hey, my daughter’s real damn good at pottery and that’s why I’m toting her special teacup around, how about you go fishing with this fishing rod,” refuses to elaborate further, leaves. And that’s just great.

Well, he does elaborate a little further before he leaves, says she should enjoy her childhood while she can, and then gives her some fishing advice, I guess. And that’s all very nice of him.

And then Gon shows up, walking all slow like he does, and Shimamura asks the old man,

“Is it tough growing old?”

His answer wasn’t going to affect anything. Things were going to continue the same way as they always had. And yet, despite all of that, I just couldn’t help but ask.

Mumbling to himself, the man shook his head slightly. His turban shook as well.

“I see. So, your questions too have a hint of philosophy to them, huh? I guess that only makes sense, given your name and all.”

“What’s that even supposed to mean…”I hadn’t meant to grumble that out loud. No, it was simply my instinctual reaction to the situation; if I had to call anything here philosophical, it would be his needlessly obtuse answer.

“It’s not tough for me, no. Why? Well, I got this teacup from my granddaughter, that’s why. Haha. Does that answer your question?”

You could see the man’s eyes sparkle as he said that.

“Hmm, I guess.”

It really didn’t. Apparently, I’d picked the wrong person to ask.

[From Adachi and Shimamura, volume 6, "Home Town Dog"

Written by Hitoma Iruma

Translated and published unofficially by sneikkimies]

And that’s just sort of… mellow, and funny, and surprisingly sage. Well, maybe not that surprising. I don’t know. It’s just an entire moment. It’s also a little surprising, just a teensy little bit, because...

This is a kirara, isn’t it? This kind of story doesn’t usually go there. Like, according to Iruma, the editor’s prompt that resulted in Adashima was “write something like Yuru Yuri,” and Yuru Yuri is a stupid and silly nonsense comedy about immortal lesbians violently assaulting each other both physically and sexually, which is really funny, because they’re literally a bunch of gay Looney Tunes.

Or maybe that’s just the anime, I don’t know, I guess the manga might be different, but even still, the manga’s never aged these characters a single day as far as I can see. Really the only kirara I know of (other than Girls' Last Tour) that addresses the fact of the cute girls eventually dying is School-Live, but like, that’s an edgy one isn’t it? It’s literally set in a zombie apocalypse. It’s not exactly subtle.

You don’t really want to think about, say, the keions getting older and dying, do you? I mean, maybe you do, and if you do you’re probably a little weird, and that’s fine. So like, this is just kind of… I don’t want to say weird, because in the context of the story, it isn’t.

But I’m quite sure that people who’ve only seen the first season of the anime aren’t really expecting this, y’know? It’s certainly a place to have gone, and be going.

It’s so comical, so caustic, so casually morbid, to see the cast of Adachi and Shimamura reflect on their life, their future, their love and their relationships and their families and drifting apart from their friends and peers as the rivers of life all take them all the different places they’re going to, towards their eventual deaths, and all these very difficult human things to be thinking about, and Yashiro just… is happily prancing around eating donuts.

But it’s also not… that weird, really. Although Yashiro is so transfixingly childlike as she is, she’s also so pure and straightforward and earnest as any sentient creature can plausibly get. Although she doesn’t share in the complicated feelings of the humans around her, she’s never unsympathetic to their emotions, and to their needs. She’s always happy and childish, but she never forces that on people- she just accepts people as they are, and she does her best to do right by people.

Which is unsettling, not because it’s undesirable, exactly, but rather because it’s impossible. But if it were possible, and, hey, maybe it is possible for Yashiro, a non-human, to be emotionally stable and pleasant and good, but it’s not possible for us humans all the time to be that way, just the same as it’s not possible to live immortal and ageless as Yashiro does…

…

I guess the conclusion that I just came to is that Yashiro IS the part that’s like Yuru Yuri! Yashiro is the immortal gay looney toon! But given new meaning by being placed in a world of actual people dealing with gross human problems like jealousy and unfulfilled desires for affection and burgeoning sexuality and age and work and family and death!

And Yashiro is, Yashiro is just great! Um. She’s a great child, and a great cat. Like, probably the best cat! Okay, and now I have to explain why she’s the best cat.

Final Part: The Lesbians of All Time

So, the last story. In the second chapter of the Anime Special Novel, Chito and Yashiro run into another girl- a girl named Shima, described as having black hair and feeling like Chito already knows her, and then you turn the page and THERE’S THE ADACHI CHIBI THERE IT IS THERE’S ADACHI

and they keep exploring the desolate deserted planet and then in the fourth and final chapter, Shimamura dies.

The story that Yashiro has to tell. Is about Shimamura. And told to us from the point of view of Hougetsu Shimamura, age 85 ish, who describes her relationship dynamic with Yashiro as having gone from little sister to daughter to grandchild on account of Yashiro still not having aged a single day after all these years.

And up till this point, knowing that Shimamura was already dead in the future, I’d been thinking, oh gosh, oh fuck, it’s gonna absolutely SUCK if Shimamura dies first and then Adachi is all alone and miserably depressed for the rest of her life- and thankfully that doesn’t happen.

No, it’s Shimamura who is all alone, and literally everyone else who is dead. Adachi, Hino, Nagafuji, Tarumi, Shimamura’s little sister, everyone she knew is dead now. And Shimamura, now, too, is also dying, of old age.

Shimamura thinks she might be seeing Adachi’s ghost, because she’s evidently gone and introjected Adachi after Adachi’s death, but she’s also not quite sure about that whatsoever, and she’s just tired and lonely and reflecting on all her life up to this point and how fondly she remembers her high school years with Adachi and her only other thought is

Damn. All my friends are dead, and being old is boring.

To relieve her boredom, Shimamura takes her sister’s games console, which, no longer works with modern TVs, because it’s the future, so she goes out to an electronics store and gets an adapter. Also, because it’s the future, there’s been alien visitations and humanity is looking into space traveling more. But Shimamura’s been born too soon to care.

So she goes back to her home, boots up a JRPG on her sister’s old games console and makes a party of characters which she names after Adachi, Hino, Nagafuji, Tarumi, and her sister, and then finds out that video games are good. So Shimamura decides that her life’s goal, for the rest of her life, is going to be to finish Dragon Quest.

Does she finish it? Who knows. No idea. The story ends.

But before Shimamura dies, she asks Yashiro, her immortal alien child house cat, if she will ever see Adachi again.

Yashiro says yes. She will. For it is destiny.

And Shimamura’s dying request of Yashiro, is for Yashiro to make absolutely sure that every Shimamura across the universe finds their Adachi.

Yashiro promises earnestly.

And thus, here, in the present of the future of the end of humanity in a dying civilization Yashiro looks at the two last known living humans on this planet, says, “My job here is done!” And then shortly thereafter fucks off, assured in the knowledge that she’s fulfilled her promise to Shimamura:

Play matchmaker for her most recent reincarnation and her destined wifey.

So, yeah, that’s what happens. It might be just about a wrap on humanity, or at least this particular humanity, but The Lesbians of All Time are still gay.

There’s several Things About this particular chapter.

One, it’s, unintentionally, a particularly stark distillation of the classical American millennial slash zoomer fantasy of having the economic security to retire at an appropriate age and spend your last years in dignity, after a good life of living well with a good partner who you were happy with (or, multiple or no partners, if that’s your preference), and then dying peacefully of old age playing video games.

Yeah, uh, oof.

Two, it’s a particularly stark distillation of the perhaps not as common but particularly appealing fantasy of being assured that you and your partner will reincarnate and get together again, by your cat, who promises to make extra sure that that comes to pass all throughout every time and place and timeline. Because your cat likes you, and is a Time Lord!

Yashiro is good!

And three, um, yeah, it’d be really nice to know that you’re going to reincarnate with your soul mate. Like, that’s just convenient. For some people. I’m sure.

Okay, so, anyway, do I have anything to say about this story? Yeah, I probably do, probably a lot. But I don’t know if I can coherently say very much of it without repeating a lot of what I already said. It’s melancholy as all hell and it’s also just not something I expected at all from this series when we started reading it. Iruma even reflects on that fact directly in their afterward, saying,

“Anyway, yeah. That's the sort of story this became.

Death approaches!”

Heh. I guess it does. I guess it does.

There’s a lot else I feel I have to comment on. If I had infinite time, I’d also add on analyses and comparisons of the two Adachi and Shimamura manga adaptations. I’d read volumes 9 and 10 before finishing this video, and talk about my feelings on however Tarumi’s arc gets resolved- if it gets resolved. I barely even began to discuss or analyze Hino and Nagafuji’s relationship and their additional flavoring of the story as a side couple. And did my tangent on Adachi’s jealousy really go anywhere, did I have an answer? Well, no, but the volumes that I read up to didn’t really have an answer, either. Do I want to try to pretentiously psychoanalyze Iruma and his writing more based on the incomplete information I have from these English translations?

There’s another series, also, Iruma’s apparent debut series, where a girl and a boy who fall in love have childhood trauma about being kidnapped a long time ago and are being retraumatized by a serial killing incident in a small town and that has some HELLA TAGS on the site’s it’s listed at- does this psychological horror crime fiction have some connection to Adachi sometimes thinking a teensy bit like a serial killer? Is the electric child in Ground Control to Psychoelectric Girl, another thing I haven’t watched nor read, a proto-Yashiro? Is Yashiro really a corollary to Shinobu? Did the Saeki Sayaka novels contain secret Adashima foreshadowing? Did Iruma say something super interesting in an interview somewhere that someone translated on Twitter maybe? Can I get answers to any of these questions without knowing how to speak Japanese?

Are we just going to have to learn Japanese and read all the rest of the things Iruma has written ourselves?!

And this has now just about broken ten thousand words, and I cannot answer any of those questions just yet. So, much like Iruma and Adashima volume 8, I’m going to arbitrarily force an ending to my unfinished work despite these loose ends and hope it’s good enough in case we never get around to writing a sequel.

In lieu of a better wrap-up, I guess I can just say, and as such,

ANIME GIRLS CAN DIE TOO.

The end.

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[sg-artem]

ArtemRosa Relationship Progression

As an Artem main who loves a good relationship progression, I can’t just pass the opportunity to do this. So, here’s me doing an Artemrosa relationship progression analysis and rant just in time for 1st Anniversary (I’m cutting it so close). I did a thorough (as meticulous as my mind could) run-through of all the card dates and compiled them into the timeline below. In my opinion, this is the best way to read all of Artem’s dates so that readers can get a nice and progressive flow of their relationship with Artem.

Personally, the event cards were easily set in a timetable because I just needed to follow CN’s timeline for those. However, the standard banner cards [2 SSRs and 4 SRs] and the top-up cards [1 SSR and 1 SR] were difficult to place into the timeline. Even if it was newly released, his top-up SSR had to be placed before event SSRs. This is because the events in the SSR were flashbacks that were dated around the time Rosa just became Artem’s partner.

Notes: This analysis will contain detailed spoilers of the main story, Artem’s personal story, and all of Artem’s Card Stories/Dates released on the Global Server. I will also be hinting at and mentioning the Anniversary card as a little easter egg so that you won’t miss these details once you read that card story.

I included Main Story Chapter 1-5 because this was when Artem and Rosa started working together and where we get to see the scene of Rosa choosing to be Artem’s partner. It is also good to note that Main Story Chapter 6 comes before Personal Story Chapter 3. I don’t mention Chapter 6 as much because the only thing referenced from it is the information on Artem’s father, which is mentioned in his Winning Ball SR [Electrifying Night].

Additionally, I didn’t include any private messages since those 2 minutes are tough to place in a timeline. Also, part 1 and part 2 don’t even happen sometimes in the same timeframe, so it would be difficult for me to place them. Artem currently has 12 private messages in-game right now. Six from the grindable 3 SR card fragments in Anomaly – Staying Humble, Darkest Before Dawn, Choice. The other six from his MR cards – Intentions, Stretching, Unwilling to Part. I only have to say that for the private messages, Unwilling to Part’s [Code of Flowers MR] messages canonically happen after the 1st Anniversary based on the CN server.

Lastly, like and share if you enjoyed and can since this took me a long time to make, and I really poured my efforts into this. I have 46 pages of data and story notes if anyone is willing to read them. I’m also thinking about doing this with the other boys, so comment if you want to see that happen. If I do the other boys, I might release it after the Anniversary drops because I won’t have the time to finish.

Act 1: Being Your Partner This relationship phase primarily includes the main story, chapters 1-5. Even though the main story can’t really be associated that much with personal story and date cards because it messes up the timeline. I think it is still important to note how Artem and Rosa’s relationship started in the first place. The two were just ordinary co-workers, one a senior attorney and the other studying for the junior attorney exam. The thing that brought them together was NXX essentially. NXX allowed them to interact more with each other and become work partners. This causes them to spend more time together and interact more than ever before since they now have the duty of sharing workloads and solving cases.

An important thing to note, though, is that while Rosa might not be aware of Artem. Artem does already harbor some sort of feelings towards her even from the beginning chapters. We get these clues from his protectiveness over her. How he hesitates to choose her as the NXX candidate because of her safety. Also, in how he acts around her, Rosa’s existence was already precious from the beginning of the main story. Rosa may have only seen Artem as a strict boss, but Rosa’s presence was already unique to him.

However, as we go on from the chapters, we get to see Rosa’s change in perspective about Artem. She slowly starts to see the other sides of him one by one. She starts to see that the cold façade might not all be there is to Artem. He has his clumsy and lonely sides to him as well. Furthermore, even though they might not be close, Rosa still trusts Artem a lot. We have the scene where Rosa faints from overwork. Her last thoughts were, “If he’s here, then there’s nothing to worry about.” This means that even if they did not know much about each other, she still trusts Artem enough to take care of her and finish what needs to be done.

This is how we were introduced to Artem and Rosa’s dynamic. They go from simply co-workers, and by the end of the main story, chapter 5, they begin to work as partners – together in NXX and in Themis.

Act 2: The Strongest Foundations Need a Lot of Work and Care: Getting to Know You Like most relationships, the most prolonged phase will always be the getting to know someone stage. It’s not so much that the both of them are just loveable awkward idiots, but also because you can never truly get to know everything about a person all at once. People will constantly change and grow because that’s what our environments set us up to do. Consequently, as you can tell from my timeline, this act will have the most dates in it. The beginnings of a relationship always need a strong foundation for it to grow and prosper.

The cards I included for this act are from Sparks to Entwined Fate. Through these cards, we learned how their relationship grew and what things they have encountered together for it to grow. Primarily, the dominant factor that happens in all these cards is that something new is being learned about either one of them. Not to say that the latter cards don’t provide further information, but just that both of them are still trying to get to know each other and are not yet comfortable in each other’s presence.

This is evident in Rosa’s behavior with Artem, especially in the earlier cards. She still finds it hard to ask personal questions and to engage in physical contact with Artem. ArtemRosa are like any other friends or strangers who have just gotten to know each other. There will be awkward moments but moving past those moments, people get to see the gems and diamonds hidden beneath the rubble. The more you dig and try, the more information about the person you can learn.

What all these cards have in common is that they are all scenarios in which others can learn something new about the other. For example, in Loving Memories SSR, Rosa personally learned about Professor Neil Hume from Artem. It wasn’t through the news or gossip. Artem opened up his vulnerability as he shared precious memories of a person dear to his heart. Other examples would be Sparks, Thin Veil, Focus Fire, and Entwined Fate. Rosa learned about Artem’s hobbies and what he likes doing in his spare time through these cards. Connecting more to Rosa and seeming more down to earth than before. Reminding her that he may have achieved many things at a young age, but overall, he is still human and needs to rest.

Additionally, Atmospherics does a great job of showing Artem’s more vulnerable and childish sides. We see him childishly jealous of Kanon, who makes Rosa smile at a party. In reality, they were smiling because they were talking about him. We get to see his fears, how he is afraid that he’s too dull for her, and how he knows that Rosa might choose to leave him. It shows that even though he appears strong on the outside, on the inside, he is still capable of feeling scared and childish.

Another thing we see well during these cards is how deep Artem’s feeling for Rosa goes. We get a pretty good viewpoint from personal story chapters 1 and 2. We see the sincerity and how hard he is working to showcase the feelings he respectably has for her. He doesn’t want to be a burden or to force his feelings onto her. He just wants an appropriate direction on how he should make his move and show his feelings to the girl he likes.

In my opinion, Unusual Love and Entwined Fate showcase just how deep his feelings for her go. He protected her without hesitation from a sulfuric acid attack for Unusual Love. We see how much Artem would sacrifice to protect Rosa (Also, how he didn’t even bat an eye when she spent more than half a million on shopping). When they thought sulfuric acid was being thrown at them, he shielded Rosa from any of the debris. The glass itself stings when being cut, but if it was genuinely sulfuric acid that hit them, Artem’s skin could have been permanently scarred. There would have been burns and blisters, and in extreme cases like that, it could have resulted in death. This is how far Artem goes to protect her. It didn’t even matter to him that his face would have been scarred. What mattered the most was that she was safe and protected in his arms.

On the other hand, Entwined Fate contains scenarios vital to his 1st Anniversary card story and his first solo banner card. However, it still depicts how deep Artem’s feelings for Rosa genuinely go. We can see it clearly from the marriage wish tags both get. Rosa’s was, “Like the red bean set into a die, my yearning is etched into my very bones.” The master explains it simply. It means lovesick to the bone. Someone in her life clearly harbors deep and true feelings for her if she got one of the luckiest wish tags of the year. 

[Tip: Remember Rosa’s wish tag when reading Artem’s 1st Anniversary Card. It will be a nice easter egg if you find the reference.]

On the other hand, Artem was the unluckiest wish tag the master had seen all year. Artem’s wish tag says, “It is better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all,” By the end of the story, we get to see the other half when they walk through the shrine walkway. The whole line goes like this, “It is better to have loved and lost, than to have never loved at all. My entirety is yours, as my mind, my heart, my soul, needs you to become whole.”  The whole line seemingly connects with Rosa’s lovesick to-the-bone wish tag. It shows us just how profound Artem’s feelings are for Rosa and how he would wait than search for another.

Since we’ve talked about Artem’s feelings, just how deep are Rosa’s in this relationship stage. Well, to be honest, not that deep. If the other party is 100% sure of their feelings for her, hers are like a flower bud. They are just starting to form a bud. Rosa, through these dates, is still slowly starting to get to know Artem. She is gradually beginning to take notice, and her heart does flutter around him. However, we don’t have any confirmation or monologues from these dates that she is starting to have feelings for him.

Act 3: Comfortable in Your Presence The cards I have placed for this phase are In Sickness or In Health to Personal Story Chapter 3. Also, the name of this phase really encompasses what I want to say about these dates. Both of them, namely Rosa, are finally comfortable in each other’s presence. It’s not so much that they don’t have any more awkward moments, but rather that they have found common interests to discuss. They can care for one another and ask more personal questions. Also, they have finally removed their masks in front of each other and are showing their true selves without worrying about judgment.

You might wonder why there are two standard banner cards so further up the timeline. It’s because personally, for me rereading those two cards again, I didn’t get the slightest bit of awkwardness from the two. Sure, there might have been some awkward moments, but overall, the date had a more comfortable vibe. The first is Artem taking care of Rosa when she’s sick, and the other is them doing a tutoring session together. You just don’t do these things with someone you’re uncomfortable with. It shows a significant amount of progression between what the two had before.

Furthermore, if the previous cards focused on getting to know more about one another. These cards focused more on showcasing how comfortable they are in each other’s presence. We still get atmospheres of hesitation and awkwardness, but through these cards, we see how much their relationship has grown deeper.

For example, Dreamful Melodies’ whole premise is to help Artem with his insomnia. I don’t know about you, but I think people are the most vulnerable when asleep. If they’re not in a comfortable enough environment, then sleep is basically impossible unless the person is fatigued. The amount of effort Rosa went to for Artem to just relax and take a break is not something just about anyone does for unimportant people. Additionally, the Wandering Heart card story helps us realize that both of them are comfortable enough to try new things together and travel with one another. People don’t just travel with anyone. The people that you are with when you’re traveling are someone you are comfortable being around. This is because they’re basically the only people you actually know in an unknown country or place.

Cards like Fixated on You and Por Una Cabeza showcase again how much Rosa means to Artem. Fixated on You shows that he does pay attention primarily to her stories and wishes. He listens and then tries to implement them so she can enjoy doing things with him. Can I just say it was so cute how he practiced drawing that cartoon pumpkin? That is my standard for a man now. Get me someone who would practice drawing a cartoon pumpkin for me. Moving on, Por Una Cabeza showcases how for Artem, Rosa will be his one and only partner. He didn’t try to dance the tango before, not because there wasn’t anyone to dance with but because he didn’t have anyone he wanted to dance with. For him, the tango is a dance meant only for someone you are genuinely passionate about; to him, that person is Rosa.

On the other side of the spectrum, Rosa’s growth was also seen in these cards. Fixated on You and Personal Story Chapter 3 brings great amounts of feeling progression on Rosa’s side. Fixated on You mainly showcased how Artem was once Rosa’s idol. Someone who she saw on a pedestal. However, in the end, we get to know that perspective changes. Artem goes from being her idol to an important friend. The friend zone is real, but Artem brought that upon himself in this card. Also, in Personal Story Chapter 3, Rosa says that Artem already has a lot of charm and that everything will just work out whenever Artem’s around her. They also fall asleep together while on the phone with each other. If that’s not cute, I don’t know what is.

These cards showcase how the last remaining barriers are slowly being torn down. Through their previous interactions, they learned more about each other. Now they can joke around and act silly with one another. They are more comfortable in the other’s presence, and Rosa now sees Artem as an important friend in her life at this stage.

Act 4: Only a Small Push will be Needed I have only three cards for this phase, so please bear with me while I fangirl and name all the essential and cute scenes for this phase. The phase title says a lot. They have passed the point of being just comfortable with one another. Here we are getting heart fluttering, fluffy moments, and the just kiss please atmospheres. These dates showcase just how far we’ve come from the start, and actually reading all of these dates in one sitting made me realize just how much growth Artem and Rosa have come from before. The two of them started off as being awkward partners to being irreplaceable people in either’s lives.

Firstly, we have Two Hearts as One. However, before we talk about this birthday card story, we have to talk about the birthday preparation story since it is crucial. Through the birthday preparation story, we could see both of them act out About Time, which was super cute. Also, Artem confessed to Rosa that he was Mockingbird in the end. Closing the Thin Veil arc for Rosa’s speculations that Artem was Mockingbird. It was not really mind-blowing, but it was a nice conclusion to the Mockingbird arc.

For the main card story itself, the main point I have gathered was that the amount of trust between the two is on another level. It’s to the point where they can’t even imagine hurting the other person. The thought of the other person hurting brings them pain, parallel to something in Personal Story Chapter 4. Their empathy for one another is something that cannot be compared. Artem literally cried when he saw that Rosa was crying. Also, it is crucial to note that once the leak issue was started, not once did Artem suspect Rosa. He even defended her honor in front of the client. He was willing to sue his client if he kept saying mean things without solid evidence. That is how much their bond of trust has grown up to know.

I also want a special mention for their almost-kiss during this card when they were acting. They were so cute during their acting scene. Also, Artem softly asking Rosa what was wrong and why she was crying even while they were doing the scene was everything. The amount of love this man has for Rosa. I’m on my knees for you, sir. Lastly, the physical touch they share in this card story is so good. Rosa initiates holding hands with him and palm to palm with him at the end. Rosa clearly has overcome the shyness barrier regarding physical affection, and I am here for it.

Secondly, we have Sunshine After the Rain. This card, to some, might not be super important, but in my opinion, this card has one of the best Artemrosa scenes and progressions in this category. Sunshine After the Rain marks their second trip overseas together. While Dreamful Melodies and Wandering Heart started as work, this card purely focused on the vacation aspect with its RRG story and gave work as one of the conflicts for the card story itself.

Through this story, the two finally solve one of the final barriers hindering their relationship. The two of them sometimes care too much about the other’s reactions and feelings. They hold back at certain times because they are afraid of the response they might be getting. This led to a cute ending scene where the two of them agreed to stop being so conscious of the other person, and Rosa rushed into Artem’s arms for an embrace. The both of them share a cute ending scene where Rosa asks Artem if they’ll be able to spend more time alone together after the trip. [The both of them are just dripping with sugar. [S O C U T E.]

Other things I would like to point out for this date are overworked Artem, black swan interpretation, and the wool scene. The overworked Artem scene was a nice change of pace since, for once, we are seeing Artem get hurt because of his choices instead of external factors. He was not forcing himself to do it. He selfishly wanted to do it to spend more alone time with Rosa. This leads to him stretching himself too thin and Rosa finding out and helping him out anyways. However, this scene is crucial for them to realize that they must stop being so conscious of one another. Without Artem overworking himself, they wouldn’t have gotten to open that conversation up in the first place. So, thank you, Artem, I guess?

Next, we have the black swan interpretation. During this date, they were able to spot a black swan. According to the date’s description, a black swan stands for unrestrained desire and yearning a person feels after giving up one’s internal struggle and casting aside all pretense. On the internet, a black swan event is a metaphor for a surprise event that might have significant effects. Sounds familiar? It’s basically a foreshadowing of the flood that happens on this date, leading us to the adorable wool and ending scene. In addition, black swans also mean rarity and in love signs of commitment, romantic love, and lastly, trust. All these words I just mentioned ideally signify and describe the relationship between Artem and Rosa. Both of them have a rare relationship that is hard to find. Also, they both trust each other a lot and firmly commit to each other. The only thing missing is the confirmation of their romantic feelings towards each other, but we’re just waiting for that.

Then, the wool scene. I don’t actually have much analysis for this scene. I just think it’s adorable how Artem sacrificed his sweater to make that thread of wool since he noticed that Rosa was just acting tough. The wool that connected them reminded me so much of the red threads of fate we see in East Asian mythology. It was just a string that tied them together, but Rosa felt safe enough to go to bed since she knew she was connected with Artem. How is this not the most adorable scene in the world? They literally made their own threads of fate and tied them onto one another.

A special mention for this date is Artem flicking Rosa’s forehead because that’s just so adorable on so many levels.

The final date for this phase is Winning Ball. Personally, reading this date after experiencing Sunshine After the Rain made this date make a whole lot more sense to me. When I first read it, I was confused about how much intimacy they shared between them from just this date. The two of them were literally dating, just without the label. However, after reading Sunshine After the Rain and scrutinizing winning ball, the levels of affection they showed just made more sense to me. They are now more open and less conscious of the other person’s opinion. This led them to be more upfront with their affections for one another. May it be from the milk tea sharing or the overall vibe the two give off. They seem closer than ever, and my phase title could never be truer. The both of them just need that final push to make them a couple.

There are, of course, cute scenes from this date. One is Rosa as Artem’s personal cheerleader. The lady used a loudspeaker just to cheer for Artem. Also, after Artem won, she ran straight into his arms to congratulate him on the win. The barriers to physical affection no longer exist, and I am here for it. Secondly, we have Rosa looking at Artem’s lips while drinking milk tea. Rosa is such a cutie. Oh, how you have grown so much from your earlier dates. Thirdly, we have Artem inviting Rosa to the next time Artem has a basketball session with his dad. This is basically Rosa’s meet the parents already. We also get this conversation out of that invitation which is so cute.

• “I hope he thinks I deserve to be with his excellent son.” • “Of course, you deserve me. You’re outstanding.”

Lastly, we have Artem protecting Rosa from the fight, and when he wants to leave her, she says this to stop him from going without her. “Artem, I hope I can be with you, anywhere, anytime.” The amount of physical affection in this card is too much for my brain to handle. They’re so cute with each other once they removed the restraints they had for their hearts. Artem literally cups Rosa’s face with both hands and presses their foreheads together to check if she has a fever. If that doesn’t scream almost dating to you, I don’t know what will.

Act 5: Setting Up for the Confession This Act will purely be focused on Personal Story Chapter 4, so if you haven’t read it, look away now since this will contain lots and lots of spoilers. I do suggest reading it before his anniversary card, though. It does a great job setting the atmosphere of the date’s story, which is a crucial part of their relationship progression.

Artem’s Personal Story Chapter 4 does a good job, especially near the end, leading up to his anniversary card date. Throughout Chapter 4, Rosa and Artem are constantly being aware and questioned about their feelings for one another. Rosa is mainly trying to find answers to why Artem is super empathetic and caring towards her and how she might feel for her partner.

I loved the part where they were questioned by Lynette Li. She asks them, “According to your logic, are you in love with him? Or is he in love with you?” The question did not shock Artem as much since our boy knows his feelings quite well now, but it shook Rosa to the core. When they left the faculty, she continued to think about the question and how the answer for her could not just be a no.

Another scene that makes my heart flutter is when Artem confidently says, “Because there is someone I love, and I know how it feels to love someone.” It might not be the confession yet, but it is one of the only verbal and physical evidence we have of Artem saying he loves her. Take note of this, though, because verbally, he’s saying 喜欢/좋아해요 which means more to like than love. We don’t actually get to hear 愛/사랑해 from his 1st-anniversary card. The latter is more intimate and serious rather than the former. I think we’ll be hearing those words in the later stages of their relationship, like 2nd Anniversary or even after that, since in Asian cultures 愛/사랑해 are really used sparingly, and with someone, they are in a relationship.

Also, Artem and Rosa’s talk at the end was my everything (4-14). I actually cried while reading it because Artem was so sweet throughout it all. He slowly explains his reasoning for why he loves her and him explaining what it feels like to be in love. Hoyoverse made this scene really well by giving us the bare truth of how deep Artem’s feelings truly go for Rosa. I love that Artem has the confidence to question why Rosa’s asking him these things. He does it not once but twice. He questions her why she’s suddenly asking these love-related questions to him. It goes really well, as we know, and Rosa finally realizes the feelings that went unnoticed in her heart. She almost confesses to him right away, yet Artem stops her. He says, “Yes, after you think it over, and if you still don’t regret it. Then tell me your answer when I confess my feeling.” This statement shows us how much sincerity Artem honestly does give to Rosa. He is willing to wait for her to be sure of her feelings for him. Also, it confirms to Rosa that the one he does like is her and that there will be a confession of feelings in the future.

To end Act 5, can I just say how it was so cute how Rosa found, read, and kept the book. I can’t believe she found the “Introduction to the Psychology of Romance” book. It was so funny and heartwarming at the same time reading it. My mind was going through all the scenarios she mentioned and how Artem worked hard to show his feelings for her. I appreciated her take on it, though. She said, “For me, this is not cowardice or an escape, but a reflection of his sincerity.” She acknowledges the hard work and sincerity that Artem put out just for her. The man wrote so many notes and remarks on the pages that who wouldn’t be touched. The book was a nice breath of fresh air, reminding me as a reader that looked how far they or we’ve come. It started with being partners, but now they’re each other’s half, which they would choose to not live without.

Artem and Rosa’s relationship might not be the most complicated out of the bunch, but it centers around growth and sincerity to me. They did not have any life-changing problems that needed supernatural fixes. They have the typical relationship growth we would see daily [with a sprinkle of Otome and Artem magic]. Their relationship centered around how they slowly formed that strong bond through getting to know each other and being able to experience different things with one another. They spent time together, which led to a strong foundation of trust. This trust will soon lead to a happy and strong relationship centered around understanding and communication.

I look forward to seeing the growth in their relationship, with 1st Anniversary Cards being the confession cards and the cards after being dates, where we can continue to see their relationship flourish as more time passes by.

#artem #tot artem #tears of themis #artem wing #artemrosa #relationship analysis #rosa qiangwei #the both of them are too cute

[foodfightnovelization]

Introduction

So here it is, here's the book we're going to read together. I'm aware this is a Junior Novelization and is basically a book for small children, but it's interesting for SO MANY reasons so please just indulge me on my bullshit for a little while.

First of all, the fact that it's a novelization of the movie Foodfight!. I'm sure if you're reading this blog you've already heard of the movie so I'm not going to spend too much time going over the basics, but to cut a long story short, Foodfight! is a 2012 animated children's movie directed by Lawrence Kasanoff, centering around a supermarket that comes to life at night. Said city is populated by "Ikes", icons of the various brands of grocery store product e.g. Mr Clean, the California Raisins, Charlie Tuna, as well as original characters like Dex Dogtective and Daredevil Dan. In many ways, you could say this movie is like Wreck-It Ralph if it took place in a grocery store instead of an arcade. You could ALSO say this movie is like if a cartoon dog fought Nazis, poorly attempted to recrate the "La Marseillaise" scene from Casablanca, and hung around with a racist caricature played by Wayne Brady who regularly talks about wanting to ejaculate in/on various women. And all of that would be true, because this movie is crazy loco. Because of that, it's hard to imagine what it'd be like in book form, but it's interesting for other reasons too:

The film itself had a long and painful development. Originally intended to release in 2003, the release date shifted to 2006, then 2007, until it FINALLY came out in 2012. Over the years, the animation was redone so many times that it went from looking like this:

To looking like this:

Around 2006 (one of the initial release dates for the movie) various merchandise for the movie was in development, ranging from picture books, to plush toys, to even a videogame that had a playable demo at E3 2006. The game was never released, but the picture books eventually made into stores, and the plush toys were sold off to various arcades, claw machines and carnivals as prizes. However, there's one piece of merchandise I've never seen discussed ANYWHERE online- and that's the novelization.

I found it on eBay a few weeks ago and just HAD to buy it. There were so many questions in my head right away: Why was the novelization was published in 2008, four whole years before the actual movie came out? Okay, it's probably just because the movie was planned to release around that time at one point, but how is there no other information about this anywhere online? If this was published in 2008, is there a chance it's based on an earlier version of the movie and has vast differences from the finished film? (if you can even really call the film "finished"...) The book says it contains 8 pages of color stills from the movie- again, how can that be when this was 4 years before the movie came out?

I just couldn't leave all these questions unanswered, and so here it is in my hand (next to the Daredevil Dan plush I own because I'm NORMAL about this movie), Foodfight!: The Junior Novelization. As far as I can tell, this was the ONLY copy of the book available for purchase anywhere (is it maybe even the only copy in existence? Why is this book so vague and unknowable?) so I'm really at the forefront as far as discussion of this is concerned, on account of being the only person to even know it exists. Once I'm done talking about it though, I'll be uploading the entire book to the Internet Archive so everyone can get a chance to read it themselves. But for those yearning for a page-by-page analysis comparing the novelization to the finished film, I'm your girl! Stick with me and we'll strawberry jam our way through this enigma of a book.

Chapter 1 analysis coming soon!

#foodfight #dex dogtective #charlie sheen #eva longoria #wayne brady #novelization #analysis #daredevil dan #christopher lloyd #book review #mr clipboard #lady x

[threeletterslife]

Hii! It's me again. I was curious how you came up with this? Was the whole series your idea or someone elses, or mabye where you found your inspo and such. And when you started writing it, did you come up with all the plots and stories yourself and did you have doubts on it? OH and also how did you come up with all these characters and fantasy like places and stories and names?You're welcome to answer or just ignore tho. Whatever is nice for you! 💓

wellllll this is quite a long story, so buckle up!

i consistently write a journal documenting my journey with lod, so i will be copy-pasting excerpts here. i am planning to post the entire journal once lod is finished (right now, it is 37+ pages, but it'll definitely be much longer lol. not sure if people would even read the full thing, though.) FYI: below the keeping reading line, words in red omits spoilers (aka the chapers i haven't posted yet) and words in green are commentary (since i wrote this journal a couple years ago)

tl;dr: i was bored in quarantine and had a lot of motivation, so i came up with lod. the entire series was my idea, but i found inspiration from other fantasy/magic series. i did have doubts when it came to plotting, but i had a couple of friends who proofread. coming up with everything was definitely a process—i explain it in detail below:

1. HOW IT ALL STARTED

November 1st, 2020, Sunday was the day I created the first LOD-related Google Doc. I remember for the longest time, I wanted to write an ultra-long series. I had no idea what this series would consist of—the only thing I did know is that I wanted it to be a slow burn. Of course, I began dabbling with the idea of the internet’s most beloved trope: enemies to lovers. I realized that I don’t exactly have much of an interest in developing a story based on modern-day happenings. If this series was going to be long, I wanted to go all-in—that is, I wanted to play around with some extensive world-building. Though I admit I have some experience in world-building, I say this with a grain of salt because I’ve never actually expanded upon my new universes. (Most of my world-building work has been through the Society Series, which included seven stories that ranged from 2k-29k words. And 2k-29k words are barely anything compared to the long series I wanted to write.) So I took on this challenge of creating an entirely new world with new nations and cultures and people.

Except I didn’t know where to start. I think I found it the easiest to figure out who I wanted to write. I definitely wanted to write a somewhat angsty relationship (definitely something on the lines of enemies to lovers). So I knew my main characters had to have a lot of spunk to them. I still wasn’t so sure about the setting, until I realized how interesting it would be to write a story about a war. I’ve never quite done that before. I accepted the challenge. And with this setting in mind, I began to piece together my characters. I typed out a quick: general!yg (26) and general!yn (23) into the Google Doc. It was actually smooth sailing from there.

1.1 Castings, Genres and Plotting

I created two nations: Solaria and Darlae and then split them up as the elemental magic group and traditional “wand” magic group. I wasn’t so sure how to build upon the magic, though. I decided to leave that problem up for the future me. Meanwhile, I assigned Yoongi the role of the cynical, cold yet somehow gentle Solarian General. Of course, to add some *spice*, I cast our OC as the kindhearted, passionate Darlaean General. I took a lot of inspiration from Avatar: The Last Airbender and the Harry Potter franchise but ultimately decided that I’d create my very own system of magic (somewhere along the line). I did know that the Solarians would control the elements and the Darlaeans would use what I later called their birthstones to do their own form of magic. But other than that, I literally let alone the magic. I figured I’d begin to create the magical guidelines when I felt more comfortable with the other parts of the story.

From November 1st to the 7th 2020, I plotted every day. But these were very general plot points—mostly to map out where the story would go. I came up with an introduction that I felt was a good hook, and from there, I focused a lot on moving the plot along. It’s a little problematic considering I didn’t exactly flesh out my characters yet, but I thought it would be better to just word vomit than stay stagnant. I realized I could tweak the plot a little (or a lot) after I got my ideas out. So then, I made the whole storyline of OC’s lost memory, Yoongi being suspicious of her, her feeling a little lost in Solaria, then her assimilating and gaining Yoongi’s undevoted trust. The plot was very much centered around her and the Solarian General. I remember being stuck at a particular plot point, however. It was after the fact that OC went into battle and got “captured” by the Darlaeans. I knew she’d meet her past lover (Jungkook) and it’d be a whole angst parade. But there were a few complications that are plot spoilers of the latter half of the second act, plus acts III and IV, so I will not share them for now. Just know that it wasn't until January 2nd to 14th of 2021 that I finally configured the ending of LOD

1.2 Creating the Title

I also came up with the title on January 10th. I had some possible choices too: ​​Forgotten Memories, Lost Memories, The Legends of Two Kingdoms, Legends of Magic, Legends of Darlaria. At first, I really wanted to incorporate the motif of memory in the title. [Reasons are redacted.] But then I started brainstorming some ideas and realized putting ‘memory’ in the title sounds cheap/an attempt to sound overly deep. I didn’t like it. So I realized I could branch off and talk about the nations. The Legends of Two Kingdoms gave me Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities vibes and I was not there for that. Legends of Magic sounded straight-up stupid. But then came Legends of Darlaria. It clicked. I was so happy with that and it stuck like glue.

1.3 Fleshing the Plot Out

1.3.1 Creating the Acts

January 12th, 8:38 AM, I copy-pasted my plot doc into a new doc specifically for chapter divisions. By 8:46 AM, I had created three acts. Act I is OC’s time spent in Solaria. Act II encompasses the entirety of OC’s stay in Darlae. Act III is the ending. I didn’t flesh out any of the chapters/parts. In fact, I spent the next several days splitting my story into parts. And by January 26th, I had all 65 parts basically fleshed out (plus the epilogue). It ended up being 57 pages, 33 more than my original 24.

January 16th, I first came up with the idea of having four acts instead of my original three. I felt like if I stayed with three acts, act II would be unnecessarily long. [Redacted discussions about acts III and IV].

1.3.2 Major Creations and Edits

From then on, I worked on my chapter divisions doc sporadically. I skipped the whole month of February. Then, I only worked on it twice around the end of March. I remember this was because I was losing a lot of motivation for Legends of Darlaria. I had completed a lot in a pretty short amount of time: creating a title, creating functioning characters, creating a 65-page plotline, etc. It was safe to say that I was (a) getting tired of it (b) realizing my ideas weren’t so great as I had originally thought they were. It also might have had a lot to do with college decisions and online school burnout. I remember I was just tired all the time—even though I was getting more than enough rest. Legends of Darlaria felt so… bland. Every arc I had, I felt like it had been done before, and there was nothing really special about my characters either. In fact, I started to worry that they were really, really starting to look like Mary Sues (especially the OC). 

But I got ahold of myself and began working again, picking up momentum. I entered the chapter division document (my main doc) on April 19th, ready to get back on track. I remember, I felt kind of lost, then. I wasn’t sure if I should add any more details to the plot or whether I should even take parts of the plot out. I felt like to change one little detail, I had to change a billion other things. So in the month of April, I remember obsessively reading over the document and editing every little piece of dialogue, sentence, plot point. I even built upon my characters. On April 19-22, I gave them zodiac signs, IQs and their place of birth. Zodiac signs were easy. For OC, her stubborn nature and willingness to stay grounded made her a Taurus, which is perfect considering that she has an April birthday (in order to have the diamond birthstone). I didn’t plan for that to happen, but it did happen to work out. Yoongi’s an obvious Aries; head on his shoulders, also stubborn and pretty tough (redacted information). I always imagined Jungkook as a Virgo (which he is in real life). On April 20th, I created the five sectors of Solaria—literally on a whim. Each element would get its own sector and there would be a heterogeneous capital sector. Coming up with the names for that was so fun. I basically looked up “names that mean [insert element]” and created my own variations from what I found on the internet. Needless to say, the names did not disappoint. (I’m usually shit at coming up with fantastical names, so this was an improvement on my part.) This was how I was able to figure out that Yoongi’s birthplace is Aithne; OC and Jungkook are both from Darlae, a huge kingdom with no separate cities/sectors [that obviously got changed later LOL]. Figuring out their IQs was a roller coaster ride [even though honestly it shouldn't even have been a huge deal since IQ doesn't define intelligence whatsoever]. In the beginning, I gave OC the highest IQ of 133. Jungkook had the lowest of 127 and Yoongi had a 131. But I thought about those numbers for a long, long time. (The funny thing is, IQ is not even remotely important to the story, so I have no idea why I was fretting so much about it.) But two days later on April 24th, I edited the IQs. Jungkook now had the highest of 131. Yoongi had the lowest of 127, and OC had 130. I remember realizing that I didn’t want the nations’ militant leaders to be too above average; that’s not how usually the military works. But I did want their IQs to be a little higher than average, too—because let’s face it—these characters do some smart shit in the story. But I ended up bumping Yoongi down the IQ ladder (for reasons that are purely intuitive; I can’t explain them with words). Jungkook went up (because I realized he’s one of my most intelligent characters), and OC is just right behind him.

1.3.3 Art & the Quest of Smut

No one asked for this, so I will be omitting this excerpt LOL.

1.3.4 An Obscene Number of Things to Fix

April 27th, I fleshed out the five sectors of Solaria, creating their relative sizes and different ecological biomes. (I literally remember researching the different biomes during my math class—it was a nice bio review!) I also realized I needed to take the initiative on my still ever-so-present dilemma that Legends of Darlaria felt bland. I was ruminating about the reason it could come off as bland for months. But I finally got somewhat of an answer. It was definitely because there was too much focus on the main characters; the side characters didn’t get the time of day! I also thought that the main characters’ flaws were not well-portrayed enough in the plot. So, I came up with a list called ‘THINGS TO FIX.’ It consisted of 10 bullet points: (1) yn’s not good with kids, (2) [HUGE FUCKING SPOILER], (3) [another spoiler LOL], (4) the ending drags on too much, (5) [semi-spoiler but omitting just in case], (6) sprinkle in stuff about sectors, (7) [more spoilers bruh], (8) add seokjin to the flashbacks, (9) add more female OCs, (10) figure out dates/times

(1) OC gets to meet children in chapter 5 where she voyages to the capital with her General. But I realized, it doesn’t make much sense for OC to be a kid-person. Even when she was young, she was mature for her age, and she had to grow up quickly due to the death of her mother [changed this to her parents' neglect instead]. She never got a chance to be a child. So it would make sense for her to be awkward around children. She doesn’t know how to treat those mini-adults!

(2) Nope

(3) Also nope

(4) Semi-spoiling the ending, so will take out just in case

(5) Also a semi-spoiler...

(6) I just created the different sectors, so I realized that now has to be integrated into the story.

(7) Oops also a spoiler

(8) Seokjin is a character we barely see in the whole story, which sucks because his character has so much potential. Even though I didn’t write it down anywhere, I always internalized that Seokjin is a misunderstood character. (Kind of like Jungkook.) He has a lot of potential and is a highly disciplined individual, but doesn’t quite understand how to interact with others. I think he’s a very “rigid” character. He likes to follow the rules. He likes to obey orders. I think a pivotal point in his character is when [REDACTED]. But since Seokjin is such an interesting character, I want to put him in the flashback scenes. He must have played some role!

(9) I knew for a while that Legends of Darlaria would not take in place of a patriarchy. Men and women are literally equal. So it was just sad to see more male characters than females. But that may have something to do with the fact that this is a BTS fanfiction and I kind of promised myself to include all seven men. So, of course, there is an imbalance. My concern, however, was coming up with female characters who could be seamlessly integrated into the plot.

(10) I realized while writing this longass series (which I had no idea would be in several months), I would also have to write descriptions of the setting. But the setting also includes the weather. How am I supposed to write about the setting if I don’t even know what season the chapter is taking place? This last bullet point perhaps stressed me out the most. (For some reason.)

1.3.5 Fixing and Creating New Characters

I worked on LOD basically for the rest of April—almost every day. I was really big on weaving the to-fix points into my plot. I remember I made 81 edits in one day trying to sprinkle in bits of the sector stuff. I also changed a lot of the dialogue and the choices the characters made for them to stay true to their character. At the beginning of May, I focused a lot on rounding out my main characters and fleshing out the world-building. I created a money system, which, I have no idea why I made (but whatever. I guess it made my world feel a little more real to me). I added three things to my to-fix list: (1) add more bits of confident yoongi, (2) add more yoongi character flaws (his willingness to surrender/give up), (3) add more yn character flaws (too trusting, overthinks, workaholic). I still felt like my main characters were Mary Sues (except Jungkook LOL). So I realized to make the audience sympathize with them and root for them, I had to make them seem more human by giving them notable flaws. 

I took a break for a couple of weeks and got back on track in the middle of May. On May 18th, the Lieutenant of the Solarian Army Kang Doyun was born. I didn’t really know much about her other than the fact that she speaks her mind and is a generally likable character. The same day I created her, I also decided that ultimately, she has to die. Originally, I planned it so that OC and Doyun do not know each other too well. That would make it easier for OC to take Doyun’s place as the Lieutenant when she dies. In hindsight, I realize that is definitely not how the military works—even in a fictional nation. But we’re going to let my past self be in blissful ignorance. [Which is why I changed it later so OC never becomes the Solarian Lieutenant General LOL.]

May 19th, Hana was born. She was created for the sole purpose of tripping up OC because she’s so similar to Hajin. Immediately, I knew I had to design her as a very likable character. In fact, I added to my to-fix list: make ALL characters more likable/complex. By the end of May, my original 24-page document became 71 pages. 

I worked on the document for three days in mid-June. Mostly, I was working hard to polish up the plotline; my goal was to slowly get rid of all the bullet points from my to-fix list. I worked on the document for one day in July—mainly to add to some important plot points. I think at that point, I thought I was basically done fleshing out the story.

Anyways, the rest of this journal is me doing a breakdown of each chapter I've written in LOD, which can get quite tedious, so I won't include that. Hopefully, this gives you a better background of how my idea came to be and knowledge of some of my pre-writing processes!

I began writing LOD after I settled into my college dorm, and three years later, I'm in my apartment still writing. I will most likely finish and wrap up this story when I soon after I graduate and begin working full-time

#ask #yoongijoon07 #lod #sorry this was so long but i hope i answered your question!! #i can't believe how many spoilers i had to take out LOL #it's cuz shit RLLY GOES DOWN in the latter half of act II LOL #and i honestly doubt anyone can predict what act III's gonna be about #tbh i don't even think act IV is all that predictable #the most predictable thing in this entire story (i'm hoping) is the fact that OC is Darlaean lol #since most of you figured it out anyways