#how do you even look at yuugo and see this??

[pinkprimrose05]

Okay first of all how dare you-

#holy shit man #i know the ygo subreddit has some weird takes #but this one is just absolutely stupid #how do you even look at yuugo and see this?? #im not the type who bitches about peoples opinions even when i disagree #but this #THIS #it genuinely pissed me off #yugioh #yugioh arc v #yugo (arc v) #mini rant

[fullscoreshenanigans]

No other option for this poll since it's based on the options that won a top 2 spot in the previous rounds.

Grace Field Kids Edition Goldy Pond Edition Lambda 7214/Paradise Hideout Edition Free-For-All Edition Other Platonic Duo Polls Suggestions Post

Copypasta'd propaganda from my other posts under the cut:

Grace Field Poll: I was glad to see how well Don & Emma and Gilda & Ray were doing on the Grace Field poll. ;w; Both feel the most criminal to me given how big of a role Don and Gilda play in the series, but ultimately I went with Gilda & Ray because I couldn't think of any moment for them that was equivalent to Don being the first of the larger group of kids to voice his support for Emma's plan:

(Chapter 130)

Except for maybe this brief exchange they added to the anime:

(S1 Episode 12)

Episode 10 also nixes the scene of Don and Gilda privately conversing in the woods in chapter 31 and instead has Ray apologizing to Don and Gilda directly rather than just Emma, which is made even more poignant when you consider how strongly he reacted to Emma and Norman giving them false hope about still being able to save Conny in chapter 11/episode 4.

He's not even trying to feign the distance he self-imposed between them in his mind at this point. He's genuinely sorry for failing them for their own sakes, not as extra able bodies who could assist Emma and Norman outside the wall. And it's a genuinely distressing sight for the two of them, seeing him at his lowest point after everything he sacrificed for this plan.

To have her then knowingly hum and hold that look of fondness for him when she sees how shocked is, after years of believing a better outcome was impossible, and how worried he is, because try as he might to keep the other children at arm's length mentally there's a way Ray frets over and looks after them that is reminiscent of Gilda's own (they are united in being the Mom Friends™ of the escapees 🤝), is such a sweet, gentle kindness that they didn't have to include but I'm very glad they did.

Goldy Pond Poll: Emma & Oliver has always felt like one of the most pertinent dynamics to come out of Goldy Pond alongside Emma & Violet with the amount of focus each are given individually as effectively the leaders of the Grace Field escapees and Goldy Pond kids, respectively, and together. The latter is significantly less, unfortunately, but Oliver usually acts as Emma's point person when she needs to confer information/plans and Norman and Ray won't work for the situation because symbolically the scene calls for a representation of larger group cohesion with the kids she didn't grow up with.

Also, after losing so many older siblings at Grace Field and becoming the big sister/leader of them, it's nice to have her regain that kind of relationship with any of the Goldy Pond group; Oliver just happens to have more panels dedicated to it lol

(Chapter 69)

(Chapter 110 & 111)

(Chapter 122; this moment is so minuscule, but again we have Oliver acting in a leader role and Emma using him as a point of reference to confirm that taking it easy in this new place is wise and safe for everyone. If even Oliver thinks it's okay to act like this—to say nothing of the way he tells her so gently and in so few words—then she can rest a little more soundly.)

(Chapter 161)

(Chapter 179; he's not the only one given focus here, but I like that he's the one this bit ends on to drive the point home to Norman and Ray about Emma.)

And then this piece by @nagaikei-ajin is my favorite of the two of them for the intensity and parallels.

i want to believe emma and oliver are carrying on yugo and lucas’ will and even got a pair of gloves for remembrance... 

Free-For-All Poll: I'm glad other people are also fucked up by this panel of Ayshe & Mujika:

(Chapter 144)

The way she's staring at Mujika in rapt attention, left hand grabbing for hers while she holds her right in front of her chest to show how animated she is in the conversation, either because she's gesturing to herself or is at a loss for words in the the excitement of the moment or because the adrenaline from the skirmish with Hayato and Jin is wearing off and trying to will the words to spill forth.

It's been months since she's been able to hold a conversation with anyone in the language her father passed down to her because he believed it was something worth preserving of his culture from a millennia ago, so to be able to have that back with someone as kind and graciously loving as Mujika is something special.

#The Promised Neverland #Yakusoku no Neverland #TPN #TPN Polls #FSS Polls #FSS Shenanigans #TPN Cast #Grace Field Kids #Goldy Pond Crew #Lambda Gang #TPN Don #TPN Emma #TPN Gilda #TPN Ray #TPN Norman #TPN Ayshe #TPN Alicia #TPN Gillian #Mujika #TPN Yuugo #TPN Vincent #TPN Phil #TPN Oliver #TPN Violet #TPN Barbara #TPN Cislo #TPN Smee

[chidoroki]

182 Days of TPN - Day 181

Chapter 181: "Beyond Destiny"

I keep thinking how Alex mentioned last chapter that he can only call for help during the spring and of the one panel that showed the snow melting and flowers blooming by the time we reached the scene where he takes Emma to the city, which leads me to believe it's actually early 2050 instead of late 2049. I know I'm in the minority thinking that since this chapter clearly states it's been two years since Emma disappeared, but I personally don't believe they meant that timeskip literally.

Referencing the search she, Don & Ayshe went on is a nice callback, but with both situations having their parallels, why couldn't ya think of this idea sooner sweetie?? Ah well, at least this leads everyone in the right direction in the end. Regardless of any of that, I love Gilda's outfit here.

Sigh. This arc had so much potential to give so many more characters some spotlight and we get crumbs.

I am politely asking the world once more to please let my boy say "fuck." You can't tell me Ray hasn't been swearing like a sailor with how frustrating these last two years have been for him. Also, seeing Phil using the WM pen raises more questions, such as who's pen did that originally belong to? My first bet would've bene that it Yuugo's, as he's really the only one we've seen with a pen aside from Emma (who still has hers), but with how chaotic life at the shelter was moments before it blew up, I have my doubts he would've even thought to give the pen away to Ray or one of the other kids for safekeeping. It would've been a pretty big hint towards him and Lucas not returning as well so I can understand why such a scene was left out, if it happened at all. Anyways, with Norman on the other end of the conversation with Phil, it's obvious he somehow has a pen of his own but how he acquired such pen doesn't seem that surprising to me, since Norman was actually shown to have one in season two and I can easily believe it was another gift from Smee or another supporter. If not, Norman seems like the type who would be able to create another pen just like the original, which could result in the one Phil's group is using, if it isn't actually Yuugo's. Other that than, seeing how the pens are still fully functional (and assuming they're both originals from the demon world and not newly made), I'm going back to my own question I had last chapter about whether or not Emma and Alex have ever tried using the pen she has in her possession. Surely they could've figured something out about Emma's past if they just looked through it.. unless demon god thought that far ahead and deleted all information off said pen.

I know it's the same moment as the previous chapter where Phil's group gets close to Emma without realizing it but it still makes me so anxious! I'd absolutely be yelling at my screen had this encounter been animated.

Now they're teasing me on purpose. Just let them meet, damn it! AAhhh.. at least Ray's looking handsome, even though he's completely worn out.

Oh how very convenient for the necklace to somehow fall off her neck and be found right in front of where she eventually reunites with her family. This necklace also looks like the kind that you just slip on over your head, as there doesn't seem to be a visible clasp anywhere on the chain, so how it managed to go up and over her head without her noticing is some sorta demon witchcraft right there. Look at how that thing is glowing! It's sentient I tell ya. I do like how much Emma values the necklace though despite not having any memory as to why it's so special to her.

Speaking of keepsakes, I'm also very fond that Ray still uses his scarf. More importantly though, this panel is such a relief! I'm so relieved the reunion takes place rather quickly in the chapter so it gives the characters more time to figure out the situation and sort out their feelings. And I may be wrong about this, but it kinda looks like Emma is raising her eyebrow at the sight of all these people suddenly surrounding her with such surprised faces. Hold on tight honey, it's about to get even weirder for you.

And this first panel is darn heartbreaking, for her family and us readers. They probably dreamed of this moment for so long, to finally reunite with Emma and live together again, but they certaintly never imagined her to react like this. Safe to say that our girl was taken off guard by this encounter as well. Here Emma was, expecting a chill day out shipping with her adoptive father and now she's getting hugged outta nowhere by a bunch of strangers. Poor girl looks seriously stunlocked.

I am so incredibly proud of my boy for figuring out that this girl is indeed their Emma. I'm sure anyone could've looked at the necklace in her hands and made the assumption this was her, but the way Ray was able to piece everything together about what exactly happened to Emma and what the real reward was amazes me to no end. He looks so angry and full of regret in that second panel before he reveals the truth too, almost as if he's a bit hesitant to let the words out of his mouth, but he knows this is absolutely something everyone needs to hear and unfortunately for Ray, no one is better at delivering hard truths than him. Once he reveals to everyone the true price of the reward, he looks completely crushed and I seriously need to go and hug him pretty please! I'm certain Ray has been constantly thinking up many possibilities of what the reward could've been over the last two years, but this reveal has gotta be something he never expected. Or perhaps it was, considering he realized it so quickly, but I doubt he'd be happy to be correct in this moment anyway. I can't imagine what Emma must be feeling hearing all this crazy stuff either.

Okay but what if she just said no here instead? Would demon god actually changed His mind or am I being too hopeful? Emma's optimism might be rubbing off on me, but I just want her happy! I don't like that sad look in her eyes or the slight pause she takes before finally answering Him.

She's such a damn sweetheart, I'll literally never get over how big her heart is and how much she loves and cares for everyone, especially over herself. I can imagine the sad tone in her voice for the first couple speech bubbles, but then she'll lighten up as she rambles on about the better future that's on the horizon and will be so grateful she's able to grant such wonderful lives for everyone she holds dear.

It goes without saying but Emma's family doesn't take the news of her memory loss too well. While I am glad that a majority of them were present to hear about the real reward (given how important it was) and that everyone eventually celebrates Emma agreeing to live with them at the end of the chapter, a part of me wishes the initial group who found her was a bit smaller? All the attention is completely overwhelming her and I can't blame her for shoving them aside for freaking out so badly. If it was Ray, Norman, Phil and a couple others from GF who found her first, they could've broken the news to her gently (once Ray figured it out) and then fill in the rest of their family one by one, if Emma still decided to join them in the end.

Phil is so good at picking up on major details, whether it be GF's secret or Emma's anxiety. And then ya got Norman who is just totally relieved to see her again. I had forgot to mention this during ch179, but another reason losing Emma hit him so hard was because he had just reunited with her a couple weeks prior to their arrival in the human world. Norman spent all that time planning his escape in Lambda and ways that would allow him to reconnect with Emma, Ray, and the rest of their family and he finally had a moment of peace when they all arrived at the paradise hideout to feel that hole in his heart being full again. Then you had all that drama at the demon capital that pitted them against each other for a little bit until they reconciled and fought together during the GF raid. He had to be so happy once they finally obtained freedom and to live by each other's side without fear of being separated again, until they split up once more without any indication how long it would last or if a life without Emma was gonna be Norman's new normal. So of course he breaks out into happy tears here because all that matters to him is that she's real and in front of him again.

Hearing him tell her how thankful he is that she's healthy, eating well and injury free is a great parallel to his speech in ch30 right before he gets shipped out, only instead of saying their goodbyes at the end, they can introduce themselves and start all over. I gotta wonder what Alex thinks of all these kids suddenly surrounding his adoptive daughter, though I pretty positive he's chill with it since we do see him a bit later sitting back and watching all their happy faces.

Although it's a real convenient way to tie up loose ends about what's been happening with their family these past couple years, I'm still thankful we get a little insight about everyone's dreams and progress they've made. Naturally I wish could've seen so much more of everyone, but I'll take what we can get. Poor Emma has gotta be so confused on what Norman is talking about though.

This boy is trying is absolute hardest to not breakdown in front of her. It reminds me of how he comforted Emma the night after Conny's shipment despite him being just as frightened to learn the house's secret as she was.

Okay but props to our girl though for sticking around and at least hearing them out. If a bunch of strangers came up to me and started sharing their life stories with me, you can bet I'd make a move to run the first chance I get.

It's crazy how seeing a panel of our favorite girl cry such big tears can make me so happy but aaahh, I'm so thankful that the love she has for her family is powerful enough that it overrides her dumb amnesia. Demon god can be a bastard and take away her memories but he can't do shit about her strong feelings! Also, I always liked how her tears land on the necklace, considering it resembles the dragon's eye, it makes it look like as if it's crying as well.

It took me until now to remember that several pages of this chapter were redrawn since I remember that one fantasy scene of the boys finding her on that beach.. but no way in hell am I gonna go back and rework this to accommodate those changes. I've been writing this post out for far too long already. The sun is no longer up.

It's because of the inner monologue from the previous pages that leads me to believe it's also Emma who declares "screw destiny" here and I will literally never accept anything different because I love that phrase for her. That's the very reason I went nuts during s2ep10 when she shouts "I don't give a damn about that destiny!" at Peter. (Dub had her fire back with "Well I don't give a damn what you say!" if anyone was curious, which is equally good in my book.)

Favorite panel/moment:

Oh, there's.. so many. There would've been more but I did already chat about some favorite moments already, such as Ray's smart mind recognizing Emma and the real reward, along with her expressing how much she's always wanted to meet her family regardless of meeting everyone for the first time. As for the rest however, of course we're starting with Ray's lost family members assisting him with locating Emma. Seeing Conny, Yuugo and Isabella appear one last time was such a welcomed surprise and I could absolutely ramble about them more, but I should really keep the rest of this short considering how long this darn post is turning out to be. I'll place the original review here though for funsies. I will mention something I only thought of recently though, and that's how I think the "Over here, Ray" is actually in Emma's voice instead of Conny, Yuugo & Isabella's like I originally believed. While I do love the idea of Ray thinking fondly about all the people he failed to save, no one compares to Emma and that girl has probably been living rent free in his head the past two years. It would also makes sense as to why he would later comment about how hearing her voice could've been his imagination since he's thinking of her so frequently all the time, as we clearly see as he sprints off chasing that voice.

Eeehehe, Ayshe may not have been around for the reunion but her absence is definitely forgiven with this small panel! I would die for more content about these two and how their complicated acquaintanceship changed over the years, even if only barely. Norman still has to be on his guard around her and I love the idea of her lowkey threatening him often enough so he'll never feel relaxed. So glad all her dogs were able to cross over as well considering the new promise really only affected the cattle children. Rest in peace Vincent!

One of the most important reveals is my boy Chris FINALLY waking up!! It still really sucks how he was knocked out for almost half the story but oohhh I'm so incredible thrilled that he's okay. Poor guy has so much drama to catch up on though. I'm sure once he heard about Emma's disappearance he would've offered to help look for her, but since he wasn't shown anywhere else during the chapter, it makes me believe that his awakening was fairly recent and he's possibly still recovering. I'm fine if that's the case considering he gets to join in all the fun during the epilogue.

Everyone delighted beyond belief to hear that Emma missed them and her adorable face when they return the sentiment. Ah, Ray also looks fantastic. Love that smile on him as he's crying tears of pure joy.

Though I very much prefer the redrawn version of the final page where it includes more of the family joining in the celebration, having Emma accept their offer and wishing to live together will all of them definitely makes for a wholesome ending.

End of volume 20. But one day remains.

#the promised neverland #tpn manga #182daysoftpn #chidoroki used chatter

[best-underrated-anime]

Best Underrated Anime Group B Round 2: #B6 vs #B4

#B6: High school drama in a countryside farming school

#B4: Human falls in love with an android

Details and poll under the cut!

(This poll has been reposted because the previous post contained errors.)

#B6: Silver Spoon (Gin no Saji)

Summary:

Yuugo Hachiken is studious, hard-working, and tired of trying to live up to expectations he just cannot meet. With the ushering in of a brand new school year, he decides to enroll in Ooezo Agricultural High School, a boarding school located in the Hokkaido countryside, as a means to escape from the stress brought upon by his parents. Initially convinced that he would do well at this institution, Hachiken is quickly proven wrong by his talented classmates, individuals who have been living on farms their entire lives and know just about everything when it comes to food, vegetables, and even the physiology of livestock! Whether it be waking up at five in the morning for strenuous labor or to take care of farm animals, Hachiken is a complete amateur when it comes to the harsh agricultural life. Gin no Saji follows the comedic story of a young student as he tries to fit into a completely new environment, meeting many unique people along the way. As he struggles to appreciate his surroundings, Hachiken hopes to discover his dreams, so that he may lead a fulfilling life on his own terms.

Propaganda:

This show provides an honest look at the ups and downs of farm life, with both the hard work it takes and the satisfaction it provides. The cast is varied and likeable, with every character having more to them than meets the eye. I loved watching the main character's development from an insecure city kid to a confident, well rounded young man.

The information about farming and agriculture is also detailed and interesting - the series creator grew up on a farm and you can tell.

Trigger Warnings: Animal Cruelty/Death. It’s a show about the farming industry, and there’s an arc about the characters coming to terms with animals they’ve grown attached to.

#B4: Plastic Memories

Summary:

Eighteen-year-old Tsukasa Mizugaki has failed his college entrance exams, but after pulling some strings, he manages to land a job at the Sion Artificial Intelligence Corporation. SAI Corp is responsible for the creation of “Giftias”—highly advanced androids which are almost indiscernible from normal humans. However, unlike humans, Giftias have a maximum lifespan of 81,920 hours, or around nine years and four months. Terminal Service One, the station Tsukasa was assigned to, is responsible for collecting Giftias that have met their expiration date, before they lose their memories and become hostile.

Promptly after joining Terminal Service One, Tsukasa is partnered with a beautiful Giftia named Isla. She is a Terminal Service veteran and considered the best in Giftia retrievals, contrary to her petite figure and placid nature. Time is fleeting though, and Tsukasa must come to terms with his feelings for Isla before her time is up. No matter how much someone desires it, nothing lasts forever.

Propaganda 1:

This anime is a heart-wrenching masterpiece. It is slow, tender, and incredibly cathartic. The art is beautiful, and the story is enchanting. Of all the random anime I watched in middle school, this one really stuck with me.

Propaganda 2:

My brother and I watched it together. He ugly sobbed at it so hard, he had to go stand outside and weep down the phone to someone and my mom thought that he’d received news of someone’s actual death. He was okay, though, I promise

Trigger Warnings: [Not Stated]

When reblogging and adding your own propaganda, please tag me @best-underrated-anime so that I’ll be sure to see it.

If you want to criticize one of the shows above to give the one you’re rooting for an advantage, then do so constructively. I do not tolerate groundless hate or slander on this blog. If I catch you doing such a thing in the notes, be it in the tags or reblogs, I will block you.

Know one of the shows above and not satisfied with how they’re presented in this tournament? Just fill up this form, where you can submit revisions for taglines, propaganda, trigger warnings, and/or video.

#anime #best underrated anime #polls #poll tournament #tournament #anime tournament #animation #group stage #group stage round 2 #tournament polls #group b #silver spoon #gin no saji #plastic memories #plamemo

[manofmanymons]

Survive cast meeting the cyber sleuth cast you know so far

I am just imagining that Shuuji would have an impossible time looking at Kyoko. He feels like the kinda guy who would feel that if he didn't hold aggressive eye contact the whole time, he would be committing a crime. She would definitely tease him for it.

Also RIP to any of these kids who has a crush on anyone while in her presence cuz she's gonna notice ToT

Repeat of that one wrathful route scene where the kids are trying to pretend that the professor's cooking is fine bc they don't wanna offend him only for Takuma be like EW but this time it's with Kyoko's coffee.

Aiba's just internally like "I haven't endured this coffee for this long for you just to come in here and shamelessly react that way wtf"

I am accusing Shuuji of being an old-person-befriender and getting along with Matayoshi

ALSO I JUST REMEMBERED I have talked with a mutual about how funny it would be to see him and Date interact. I can only imagine him being afraid of her.

Man I don't know if even Minoru can handle how energetic Nokia is. Although she and Aoi are both Defenders of Cute Things so I'm sure they'd get along even if Nokia would probably make Aoi feel a little freaked out at first. She'd get along better with the girls than the boys, that's for sure. I don't think she should be allowed near Ryo and Kaito she would just bully them ToT

Maybe Takuma would be safe.

Remembering how Survive Agumon kept picking up random things and asking if they were food, CS Agumon (and Gabumon) would insist on another food tour (while Nokia casually calls Yuuko and asks her to save her wallet).

Speaking of Yuuko. For one thing I think she would remind Saki a little of Aoi and they would totally get along. I bet Saki would INSIST on her trying Aoi's cooking (she would also help, ofc). Maybe also draft Ryo into helping. For another thing—

Yuugo 🤝 Miyuki

I'm not even gonna elaborate

I feel like I keep accusing Kaito of being a main character magnet but also you can't tell me it wouldn't be fun seeing him and Aiba hang out. The could both cause AND solve so many problems together. Also imagine

Takuma: Isn't that...illegal?

Aiba: I remember when I used to worry about those things...

I think any and all of the Survive cast would have q u e s t i o n s about what having a half-cyber body is like

*points at Miu, Minoru, and Arata* nerd gang nerd gang nerd gang

The question is can Arata cope with having these kids unironically think he's cool jsjdjrj he keeps waiting for the part where they make fun of him for being a dork or say something about his attitude but it just doesn't come and he's like "WHAT is happening right now"

(Meanwhile considering all the time they spent with Shuuji, Ryo, and Kaito, Arata's bad attitude doesn't even register to them)

Minoru @ Arata BUT ALSO Arata @ Minoru (in their heads): holy shit he's like a real life comic character

Totally random other thought but like I'm not saying that Miu would weaponize Nokia's loud nosiness to mess with her brother, but—

I think Fei and Ryo would be friends.

Just remembered Jimiken exists. Aoi would, with 0 offense intended, ask him if he's a Kiss cover band. He would take offense.

Kaito, about Suedou: so that guy definitely looks evil, yeah? And his behavior is kinda suspicious?

Everyone else: I don't know what you're talking about

Kaito: why do I even try

I know I said a similar thing about data squad too but

CS gang: whoa your partners are half of your soul?

Survive gang: whoa so many of you have more than one partner how does that even work?

Both groups I'd imagine would be really fascinated by how the other's version of digimon work. Like it would be genuinely baffling to the Survive kids how anyone could mistake a digimon for a computer program but things really are just Different. And even the cs characters who know digimon are living breathing things might still be surprised by the concept of a fated partner.

Especially Aiba and their million digimon.

(I mean I know you can recruit free digimon in survive but it's not...quite the same)

...Survive kids would totally all be on board with Nokia's digimon defense squad ksjsnd

#digimon survive #digimon cyber sleuth

[officersnickers]

Left Is Alright

or: Handedness in The Promised Neverland 👈👉

Apparently I‘ve got too much time on my hands (hah!), and while re-reading the manga I made several discoveries about handedness I wanted to share with you.

First of all, about 90-95 % of the human population are right hand dominant, which is mirrored in The Promised Neverland with a large majority of the characters being right-handed.

Now it gets (more) interesting – the few left-handed characters we met throughout the story. First and most prominent of them all would be Norman; using his preferred hand was even a major plot point later one when he noticed someone in Lambda had to take the same daily tests as him, but left the pen on the right side of the pad, instead of Norman, who left it one the, well, left side.

Now back to other left-handed characters – for example, Smee. Although we can‘t clearly see him using his left hand while writing in the manga, the anime did so:

(sorry for the low quality😑) and with this, we can conclude Smee‘s left-handed.

Another character that is presumably being left-handed is James Ratri aka William Minerva; the way he wears his watch on his right wrist leads me to this conclusion, since you‘re usually wearing your watch on your non-preferred hand.

Additionally, in the inside cover of Volume 2, we were able to see William Minerva write with his left hand too:

Also adding Adam here, since we see him (once) stitching up his teddy bear with his left hand:

(Isn’t it impressive how a big guy like Adam can now handle fragile objects like needles and is also able to sew after only two years? 🧸❤️)

Which further makes me believe Norman and Adam are clones (in one way or another), maybe even from the same source… the same left-handed source, even?! (looking at you James >>)

It‘s also stated on several sites Leslie‘s left-handed, but… I couldn‘t find any evidence for that claim? As seen in the anime, he‘s playing the mandoline as a right-handed person would do, so I actually doubt he is left-handed (of course if he‘s actually left-handed and we learned about that in the novels, I‘ll take it all back, but it‘s quite complicated to find a source for this).

Last, but not least – Lucas! Because, well, there are no other options anymore than using his left hand (thanks, Leuvis). 

I think it‘s safe to say Lucas wasn‘t left-handed before, but having to rely on his only hand left (hah! unintended pun again!) he counts as left-hander, too.

By now you may ask „But Snickers, that‘s no hot tea and not interesting at all!“ and I‘ll answer you proudly „yes, I know, but now we get to what, or better, who I truly wanted to highlight“. 😅

Yes, exactly.

Yuugo.

He‘s nowhere stated as being left-handed, presumably because he‘s seen on various occasions using his right hand, handling guns or doing other tasks.

But that‘s not how he‘s introduced, because:

Threatening the children with a knife, merely scratching Emma‘s cheek with a bullet as intended, carrying his gun on his left side all leads me to one conclusion: Yuugo‘s ambidextrous. He can use both hands as quite as good, an attribute only around 1% of world’s population shares, which means it’s even rarer than being left-handed!

The question remains, why did Yuugo foremost used his left hand during his introduction arc and later on his right hand? It’s speculation by my side, but I would blame it on this:

Yuugo is a sentimental man who cares a lot about others, even if he can’t quite show his feelings properly most of the time. Still feeling guilty about what happened to his family and especially Lucas, I could imagine he didn’t wanted to hurt the children with the hand that carried a part of Lucas with him, no matter how much he resented the Grace Field-escapees. As soon as Yuugo accepted he’s now the adoptive father of 15 very noisy, very annoying but also very his children (more or less🤔), he started using his right hand with the glove way more often, even to the point you could guess he’s right-handed and nothing else.

In conclusion: We got several left-handed characters in The Promised Neverland, but only one (know) being ambidextrous, Yuugo.

Or maybe I’m just pouring too many thoughts into this topic, who knows?

#that's all of me today I guess ^^ #I'd like to hear your opinions (if you got some of course) about this #I'm still not too sure about Leslie but we never saw him write? so... #the promised neverland #tpn #ynn #yakusoku no neverland #Snickers babbles #yakusoku no nebārando #long post #another note: Yuugo wanted to commit suicide with his right hand (aka glove hand) and you can make out of it what you want #maybe I'm looking too much into little details but it's also so much fun! #it would be nice if you would pay attention to this post #since I carried it with me for quite some time #and also took a while to put onto this website ^^' #if you got other opinions don't feel shy to add them! #discussions about TPN keep me alive at this point I swear

[higuchimon]

[fanfic] Shiny!

"Rin!  Rin!" 

Rin looked up as Yuugo scampered towards her, bearing a Pokeball in his hands.  Yuugo almost always had a brilliant smile but right now, it looked fit to light up the world.  She leaned back from where she'd been brushing out her beautiful icy Ninetails, running a light hand over her head before setting the brush aside.

"What did you catch?"  Yuugo always got so happy when he caught a new Pokemon.  He wasn't very competitive on the battling scene - though he was pretty good at it - but he just liked making new friends, and there weren't any better friends than one's Pokemon.

He grinned even more.  Rin suspected if it got any wider than the top of his head might very well fall off.  He tossed the ball once, then opened it, letting the Pokemon out.  There popped out a small Pokemon, that looked around for a few seconds before focusing on Yuugo.  She knew it for a Merrill right away; she'd seen them before.  But this one was different from the others.

Every other Merrill she'd seen in her life was a cute shade of blue.  This one bounced around just like the others, but instead of being blue it shimmered a bright green.  Her eyes widened.

"You found a shiny Merrill!"  Shiny Pokemon were rare.  She'd never seen one of any kind before outside of a book.  She reached out her hand and the Merrill sniffed gently before brushing against her.  "It's adorable!" "I know."  Yuugo agreed, rubbing the back of his neck. "It - it kind of reminds me of you.  I mean -"  Yuugo gestured from the Merrill to Rin herself, specifically her hair.  Rin blinked.  She'd never thought about it like that before.  It sort of matched. 

"You're not wrong,"  she allowed.  "Have you decided what you're going to name this little one?" 

Yuugo turned red, eyes flickering downward. "Well, kind of.  If you don't mind."

Rin tilted her head.  "Yuugo, that's your Pokemon.  You can name it whatever you like." 

"I know.  But it reminds me of you so much.  I kinda want to call it -"  Yuugo fidgeted again. "Rin-Rin."

The Merrill perked up the moment the name was uttered, cheeping happily.  Rin laughed, shaking her head a little.  "Well, I guess that's her name then."  It wasn't always easy to figure out a Pokemon's gender but this one appeared to be female.  And named after her. 

Yuugo petted Rin-Rin on the head and the Pokemon at once snuggled back into his hand.  Rin hadn't ever known anyone who got along with Pokemon the way that Yuugo did.  She had a pretty tight bond to her own team, but Yuugo was in a class by himself. 

"Well, let's get Rin-Rin something to eat,"  Rin suggested.  Yuugo's eyes lit up all over again and he darted to the kitchen, yelping about how Rin-Rin would just love what he had in mind for her.  Rin chuckled softly before going back to take care of the rest of her team.  That was life with Yuugo.

Yuugo trained Rin-Rin very well.  She learned mostly water-type attacks, and seemed to favor a couple of ice ones as well, including Rin's own favorite of Ice Beam.  While Yuugo did most of the training, sometimes he and Rin=Rin both watched as Rin worked with her own team, that lovely ice Ninetails and her Vanilluxe, Glaceon, along with Walrein, Froslass, and Lapras. 

Rin-Rin's evolution came without warning, during a sparring match against Rin's Vanilluxe, Sweet Stuff.  Yuugo could tell Rin-Rin wouldn't take another hit, but had just enough energy left for one last strike.  Sweet Stuff was on their last cone as well.  All that was needed was the right opening.

It came - just a single choice of attacks.  Rin-Rin blasted out Ice Beam as strong as they could get it to go.  Normally Ice attacks didn't do much damage against Ice Pokemon, and it wasn't really that damaging anyway.  But it damaged enough - just that little bit.

Sweet Stuff drooped down, eyes clouding over, and Rin hurried over with a Revive and a couple of Potions to get it back up as quickly as possible.  She never let her Pokemon stay out of it for long, not when the nearest Pokemon Center was at least two hours away.  They made do for themselves out here in the back of beyond.

"All right!"  Yuugo cheered, patting Rin-Rin on the top of their head and offering some berries to help her recover her strength.  "You did great!  I'm really proud of you."

Rin-Rin trilled happily, smiling up at Yuugo, before a sudden glow enveloped her.  Yuugo caught his breath, eyes widening, and Rin caught his hand automatically.  She'd seen Pokemon evolution many times before, having raised most of her Pokemon from either eggs or when she first caught them, but she always adored watching them get stronger and bigger, showing their development.

Yuugo's jaw dropped as the light faded and he saw the new Pokemon that stood there. Rin-Rin now was a full blown Azumarill - and it wasn't a bright apple-green anymore.  Still shiny, of course, but -

Rin dropped down next to the Pokemon and held out one hand gently, smiling.  "She's still beautiful,"  she declared, even as Yuugo kept on staring as if he had never imagined such a thing could happen.  "Looks like she got ripe?"  She teased him.  More than once people had likened her hair to an apple.  She didn't think it was worth smacking them about.

Yuugo swallowed.  "Rin-Rin's yellow now?"  He whispered before he shook his head and dropped down next to Rin, hands held out for Rin-Rin.  "You're right,"  he agreed, that brilliant smile flickering strong and true..  "She is still gorgeous.  You're still gorgeous,"  he added, addressing Rin-Rin directly.

Rin glanced from Rin-Rin to Yuugo, a thought occurring to her.  "You know - I think Rin-Rin should get a new name."  Her eyes drifted to the slash of golden yellow on the top of Yuugo's head.  "She looks more like you than me now, after all."

He tilted his head up to look at her.  "Huh?  A new name?"

Rin nodded, grinning.  "What do you think of - Ringo?  Partly you, partly me?" 

Yuugo could and usually did look surprised at just about anything.  This was something else altogether.  His eyes lit up and he grabbed for Rin's hand, all but glowing in joy.  "Really?  You want to name Rin-Rin after me and you?"

"Of course.  What do you think, Ringo?"  Rin addressed the Pokemon that stood there, glancing at both of them.  At first the Pokemon didn't react, looking more than a little confused.  Then Yuugo spoke.

"I think Ringo's a pretty cool name.  But if you don't like it then that's okay, too."

Ringo chirped loudly and flung herself into Yuugo's arms, snuggling happily.  Yuugo gently stroked her, and Rin didn't think she'd ever seen him looking happier in all her life.

The End

Notes: I’ve had many ideas for the Arc-V characters as Pokemon trainers!

#fanfic #higuchimon writes #ygo arc v #pokemon #Yuugo (arc-V) #rin (arc v)

[silvormoon]

Yuugo and Rin, 25, for the ask

I wasn't sure how you feel about AUs and divergences, so I made this canon compliant: younger Yuugo and Rin, having an adventure together.

(Anyone else want a ficlet? The prompt list is here.)

"Yuugo, why are you crying?"

Yuugo sniffled. Rin looked at him with the mix of pity and exasperation her best friend often provoked. He was one of the sweetest people she'd ever met and she cared for him deeply, but the fact remained that his problems were, at least half the time, the result of something he'd done to himself.

"Come on," she told him. "I can't help you if you don't tell me what's wrong."

"I don't think you can help," Yuugo said through his tears. "I don't think anyone can."

"Try me," she suggested.

He sniffled again and tried to pull himself together.

"You know how Haseo got those new cards?" he asked.

Rin knew. Getting new cards was such a rarity that it generally caused talk among the children in the orphanage for days afterwards. This latest batch had been a windfall: a couple of boxes of booster packs had fallen off a truck when it hit a pothole and a door had shaken loose. Someone had scrounged them for the children to play with, and everyone at the orphanage had gotten a few packs. It had been better than Christmas. But Haseo was the lucky one, because one of his packs had contained a rare card, making Haseo the celebrity of the moment. Luckily, Haseo was a good natured boy, or all the attention might have gone to his head.

"Well, I got into an argument with some of those guys who run with the gangs on Short Street," Yuugo went on. "They challenged me to a duel today, and Haseo offered to let me borrow some of his cards so I'd be sure to win."

Rin began to see where this was going. The Short Street gang was, in her opinion, nothing but a bunch of juvenile delinquents, a pack of losers who spent more time trying to convince people of how tough they were than actually doing anything worth mentioning. In this part of town, even committing actual crimes might have gotten them some respect, if they'd committed them against the right people, but the Short Street gang seemed to think that picking on orphaned kids was about their speed.

"Did you win?" she asked.

"Of course I won!" Yuugo huffed. "You think I'd let them beat me? But they saw what kind of cards I was using and started pushing me to hand them over, which I wouldn't have even if they had been mine. So then they started trying to take them by force..."

"And now they've stolen Haseo's cards," Rin concluded.

Yuugo shook his head. "Nah. If they'd done that, I'd just go and steal 'em back. But they were making noise and I was yelling and we were kind of, you know, scuffling, and Security showed up and said we were fighting. They arrested some of the Short Street guys and took the cards as evidence."

Rin winced. She knew what that meant in real life terms: the Security men had taken the cards and would doubtless either keep them for themselves or sell them for a profit. Either way, Haseo was never going to see them again.

"So now I'm stuck," said Yuugo. "If I go and tell Haseo what happened, he'll be upset and he'll never loan me his stuff again, but if I go after the Security guys, I'll just get in even more trouble. I might even get arrested! There's no way to win this!"

Rin thought about the matter for a bit.

"Maybe," she said. "Can you help me get some stuff? Not steal," she added quickly. "But I need my good dress, and some of Matron's makeup and stuff."

"I can probably do that," said Yuugo. The dress was to impress potential adopters, kept in storage most of the time, so she wouldn't get it dirty, but getting it down from the attic was no great challenge. Borrowing some of the matron's costume jewelry would be a bit more of a challenge, but it was still well within Yuugo's range. "What do you need it for?"

"To look respectable," said Rin. "Don't worry. Just leave everything to me."

******

Rin waited and watched. For the past few blocks, she had been stalking the Security officers who had taken Yuugo's borrowed cards. She hated to just stand by and watch them while they hassled the people of her neighborhood, most of whom were nice people whose only crime was to be born on the wrong side of town, but she didn't dare intervene. If she jumped the gun and acted too soon, her act probably wouldn't come off, but if she took her eyes off these men for even a moment, she might never find them again. All she could do was creep along through shadows and over rooftops, holding the hem of her dress in one hand to prevent it picking up even the smallest smudge of dirt.

At last, they reached the edge of what Rin might have considered her territory: the place where the slums she had grown up in began to give way to more respectable neighborhoods. She made sure of which way her targets were going, and then hurried around the block so she could be seen coming back in the other direction. She looked around, feigning worry, then brightened as she let her gaze fall on the Security men.

"Oh, thank goodness!" she cried, hurrying towards them. "Please, officers, I need your help!"

The officers looked at her, and she looked up at them with her most appealing look. She had to admit, Yuugo had done sterling work. He'd filched a lipstick and some nail polish, as well as some hair clips and a pearl necklace. With his help, she'd managed to turn herself into a reasonable facsimile of a pampered rich girl whose whims should be taken seriously.

"What can we do for you, little lady?" one of them asked.

"I was playing in the park with some of my friends," she said, allowing a quaver to creep into her voice, "and some rough men came and stole some of my cards. Can you help me get them back, please?"

She looked at them appealingly. Maybe it was because she was genuinely concerned, but they seemed to believe her act.

"Can you describe these cards, Miss?" asked the officer who seemed to be in charge.

Rin nodded. Yuugo had given her the extensive list. He might be a bit airheaded in some areas of his life, but he had an excellent memory when it came to the cards he'd been playing. When she was done with her recitation, the officer nodded.

"Well, you're in luck," he said. "We caught some hoods fighting each other and one of them had your cards on him."

He reached into his pocket, beginning to take them out, but his partner stopped him.

"Wait," he said. "How do you know she's telling the truth? She could be in league with them!"

"What are you talking about?" the other officer replied. "Just look at her! Those are real pearls she's wearing! Her nail polish isn't even chipped, and you think she could be one of those delinquents? You need to get your eyes checked."

Rin managed to coax out a sob and rubbed at her eyes. "How can you say I'm one of those awful people? That's mean!"

"Hey, hey, don't cry!" said the second officer, sounding frantic. He fumbled a handkerchief out of his pocket and offered it to her. "I didn't mean it, really. Anyone can see you're a very respectable young lady."

Rin dabbed at her eyes with the handkerchief. The other officer offered her the cards, counting them all out carefully.

"Thank you so much!" she said. She gave them each a hug, thinking to herself that she was going to have to wash this dress before she washed it again. Still, it was important to keep up the act. She waved to them both as she skipped away and made herself vanish back around the corner.

A few minutes later, she was climbing back over the orphanage fence. Yuugo was waiting for her there.

"You were gone a long time," he said, as he hustled her back inside to change. "Did it go okay?"

"No problem!" she assured him, flaunting the cards. She grinned. "And I stole a Security officer's handkerchief."

"Awesome," said Yuugo. He gazed at her with idol worship in his eyes. "But I bet it wouldn't have worked if you weren't so pretty."

She blushed. "It was just the dress and stuff. Anyone could have done it."

"If they were brave and smart enough," said Yuugo. "<I>And</I> pretty. And there's nobody as smart and pretty and brave as you."

He really means it, she thought. She turned away, trying to hide how warm her face was becoming.

"Come on," she said. "Help me get rid of this stuff before Matron comes in and notices."

He helped her out of her borrowed finery, and then he scampered off to put everything back where it belonged. She pulled her day clothes back on and flopped back onto her bed. Now that it was all over, she felt drained.

Stupid Yuugo, she thought, smiling a little. Imagine getting himself into such a fix! All the same, it had been kind of fun, pulling the wool over those officers' eyes. Somehow, life was always fun when Yuugo was around. Lying there drowsing, she could only think to herself that if she stuck with Yuugo, her life would be nothing but adventures.

And I wouldn't have it any other way.

#yugioh arc v

[just-like-playing-tag]

Personal highlights from the fourth chapter of the fanbook!!! You can read the entire chapter translation here :)

Thank you so much @/1000sunnygo for the translation!!!!!!

According to Shirai, one of the reasons why Emma needed to be a girl is because of her so called "soft idealism" in not wanting to kill demons, which (somehow????) could come off as "uncool" or "naïve" to readers if coming from a guy (?????????????). However Shirai also says that “he wished Emma's words were acknowledged even if it came from a male protagonist instead of having the stereotypical expectations of what a man should be like”, which is nice in its own way.

The idea of a demon with no face under the mask, which was used both in chapter 103 and later in chapter 155 for Legravalima's transformation, was inspired by an old note Demizu left on a early draft where she commented on how it would be “creepy if a demon is actually faceless if you remove their mask”.

Sugita comments that Shirai often used to say "I wanna draw another jailbreak!", like dude same 😔😔

Shirai says that the escape from the bunker felt close enough to a new jailbreak, but the sadness of knowing that Yuugo and Lucas would have had to die “overshadowed the joy of being able to draw an escape again.” (╥﹏╥)

Sugita thinks that since most of the adults of the story are selfish and filled with hatred, it was nice having Yuugo and Lucas as adults who were loving and caring towards the kids. I never thought about it that way, but it's actually a very sweet fact. Yuugo, Lucas and grandpa Alex for the best adults awards!!!

Shirai speds time complimenting Sandy's good heart and ability with the younger kids which has me (◍•ᴗ•◍)

Shirai actually addresses the matter of Lucas not having recognized that Minerva's voice in chapter 110 was too young to belong to an adult: he says that there was too much noise for Lucas to suspect the difference.

While Sugita had repeatedly asked Shirai and Demizu to make the series darker, he jokingly says that Andrew's face was overdoing it- Shirai remembers Sugita saying “It's too scary! The children will cry!” pffttttt

Sugita actually had Andrew's face at the end of chapter 110 censored because the original illustration was too gorish (the mangled half of Andrew's face was blurred)

Andrew survived the explosion by doing the opposite of what Yugo and Lucas did: using his subordinates as a shield.

This is such a cool fact yet I feel like I didn't want to know ಥ_ಥ

The initial plan was to have one of the children shoot (and supposedly kill?) Andrew, but “it was more satisfying to let him be eaten after he called the children "food" ”; I actually really like this detail. Shirai also says that thanks to the stray demon, Ray didn't have to become a murderer. Thank goodness! For once Shirai chose the non-traumatic way for Ray XD

The wild demon saying “uh” after eating Andrew is indicative of it gaining human intelligence. Said demon was supposed to reappear in his human form, but that plotline was ~once again~ discarded.

Shirai regrets not having named Andrew Bernard or Bell had him been female, both references to Tinkerbell. I love this!! Wish you had thought about it sooner @Shirai ahah

Vincent calling Norman "James" instead of "boss" in chapter 112 was him just being playful

Hayato "looks as a protagonist", since his design was taken from a resistance leader from a discarded plotline. Shirai's initial intention was to make him cool and serious, but Sugita suggested to make him kind of a fanboy of Emma's group to reflect how amazing they had become.

Sugita (jokingly) says he “used his absolute authority as the editor to make Anna and Ray interact”, since he likes them as a couple

During the serialization, Shirai used to calculate the timing of information release of both the SJ serialization and volume release so that magazine and volume readers could enjoy similar revelation simultaneously. Following that logic, he synchronized Norman's riapparence in the manga and the volume 12 “merry Christmas Vincent” to happen around the same time, which was also when anime season 1 started airing.

THIS Q&A:

Q: Why do Peter’s men wear sunglasses?

A: Because Peter-sama is too dazzling.

Shirai says the symbol on the back of Norman's Minerva cape is the crest of the demons who lived at the hideout. Though I'm not completely sure it was intentional, the choice of having Norman wear the robes of a demon while planning the eradication of demons is... Peculiar, and also kinda ironic.

Peter and Andrew are related!! Andrew too was born from a branch of the Ratri family.

Okay this matter is tricky, but I think it was actually explained how there's demons like Musica and Sonju's horse and the demon pigeons that won't eat human meat. Apparently as of this panel of chapter 103 (which is also one of the few things included in the anime, ahah)-

There's five different species of demons, one of which - fourth column - may have gone extinct. Out of these five species, only one includes humanoid demons, who thus are the only ones who need to eat humans in order to maintain their form.

Also the Demizu note at the end of the chapter is such an highlight:

How he [Shirai] never gives up. Till the last minutes, he keeps adding corrections. I really admire his belief, “I'll surely bring a better result than the last time”. This “I'll bring something better than last time” mentality is a huge thing. Usually, when I make corrections, I feel like maybe it was better the last time. So I always used to think it's best not to mess with my arts too much. But I changed my mind after seeing Shirai sensei. There were times I'd be surprised to receive a text message at 4 am (laughs) It made me worry if he was resting properly.

You have my heart Demizu-san 🥺🥺🥺

#tpn #the promised neverland #I swear one day I'm rereading the whole fanbook and noting down everytime Shirai says something in the lines of #“I had already in mind a way to develop this but I discarded it not to make the story too complicated” because he says it all. the. time. #tpn emma #tpn legravalima #tpn yuugo #tpn lucas #tpn andrew #tpn sandy #tpn vincent #tpn peter ratri #tpn manga spoilers #tpn fanbook #Thank you again Sunny for your job 🥺🥺🥺 #mine #Do you think... The Andrew-demon would maintain their hatred for the kids? It's something interesting to think about 🤔 #Edit: Wait more notes: I've been wanting to continue doing these fanbook sums for a long time- #but unfortunately couldn't work on them until recently ಥ_ಥ #I'm already halfway through correcting rereading the following chapter post so please look forward to it if you'd like to! #If everything goes smoothly I plan to post the remaining two chapters on the next Sundays #And Sunny if you're reading this: I'm too shy for directly tagging you ahah #But thank you for your hard work I hope you enjoy reading this and I wish you have a wonderful day / night!!!! (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*.✧

[shihalyfie]

Shiramine Nokia, and her role in Cyber Sleuth’s narrative

This one’s on request! Cyber Sleuth is quite the interesting game and a rather landmark entry in the franchise, mainly for being a love letter to the franchise and its long history itself, and for being the franchise’s very first work exclusively aimed at adults, meaning that it can explore different topics that wouldn’t normally be Sunday morning timeslot material, while also being a little more willing to assume that the people playing this are familiar with a lot of older parts of the franchise (not that it’s advisable to have complete lockout, but the game benefits greatly by not needing to assume lockout by default).

One of the ways Cyber Sleuth exhibits its “franchise love letter” status is by starting off the game all the way back at the franchise’s roots, before Digimon Adventure changed the game and everyone’s perception of Digimon and Digimon partnership, when the V-Pet lore was intertwined with Digimon as elements of hard sci-fi. As the game proceeds, the atmosphere slowly starts to resemble the more fantasy-like version of the franchise established by Digimon Adventure and its follower entries -- and that change is represented in none other than Nokia herself.

Before we begin: As anyone who follows my meta work has probably noticed, I generally prefer to have my analyses use tons of references and screenshots so that it’s easy to follow and the evidence is concrete, but Cyber Sleuth is a game, and it’s much harder to get those things without replaying the entire game, so I hope this won’t be too hard to follow despite being mostly text.

Nokia’s background and personality

If we want to apply the producer’s statements on Twitter, Nokia is 17 years old at the time of Cyber Sleuth, and has a backstory of having originally been a shy, bullied child who broke out of her shell thanks to the influence of her cousin (who, of all people, happens to be none other than Date Makiko). The flashback we get with Nokia in chapter 18, however, portrays her as just a fairly cheerful, go-getter child, but (although we only get to see her hair) she’s not quite as “flashy” or in-your-face as the description entails.

A possible hypothesis for rationalizing this all together comes from a what we learn about the process of memory wiping in Cyber Sleuth chapter 14: even if memories are extracted from the person, there’s some kind of residual memory left behind (the producer’s above statement also states that the same thing had even happened to Suedou). In Hacker’s Memory chapter 16, Arata confesses to Ryuji that the first Under Zero incident and Jude's loss to the Knightmon had re-triggered his trauma from having lost Yuugo years prior -- “not the memory, but the feeling.” So in other words, there was some feeling of loss that came after the loss of Yuugo that impacted those involved -- and it’s very possible that this deeply impacted and traumatized Nokia as well.

Assuming we’re still following this line of thought (since, again, this background point wasn’t actually in the game proper), Nokia eventually decided to break out of her shell thanks to Makiko’s influence, and become eccentric and assertive, and thus, the game begins.

While we’re here, I also want to point out that Nokia is also voiced by Han Megumi, possibly the Digimon franchise’s most notorious “promoted fangirl” who freaked out after getting to meet her childhood characters’ voice actors while cast as Airu in the Xros Wars crossover and ended up casted in a handful of major Digimon roles thereafter as a result. Which is not to say that her voice performance wasn’t also absolutely perfect for the bright and aggressive Nokia, but, you know...considering the below analysis, food for thought.

Nokia as a representative of “the conventional franchise”

Cyber Sleuth opens on a world where Digimon are largely seen as hacker programs, and even the hackers themselves only see them as non-sentient programs; there are ones like Chitose who treat them with empathy, but his attitude seems to be kindness towards them in a way not entirely unlike a family would treat a Roomba. Although he doesn’t admit to it at first, Arata himself also comes from this “world” of hackers, and we later learn that Yuuko herself is as well (via her “Yuugo” persona), meaning that, other than the playable protagonist, Nokia is the only “outside-context” person -- a completely ordinary civilian who’s gotten dragged into all of this.

Much like, say, the protagonists of Digimon Adventure.

With this background behind her, once she’s thrown into the world of hackers, she immediately has a “fateful encounter” with Agumon and Gabumon, instantly recognizable as two of the franchise’s most prominent Digimon (and complete with their Adventure voice actors, too). And I do especially bring up Adventure specifically, because while Nokia’s position in the game does end up taking in certain elements that roughly came around that era and possibly slightly predated it (mostly Digimon World and V-Tamer), Agumon and Gabumon weren’t particular mascots of the franchise until Adventure basically blew everything to pieces.

Right off the bat, Nokia does not have a single shred of doubt that Agumon and Gabumon are living beings and should be treated as such (again, much like the protagonists of Digimon Adventure; even Taichi in his “is this a game?” mode never doubted this). And they open up their meeting with this conversation:

Agumon: Umm, who are you? Nokia: It... It can talk?! It's so... so... so adoooooorable! M-M-M-M-My name's Nokia. What're your names? Agumon: Me? My name is Agumon! Gabumon: I... I'm Gabumon. Nokia: Agumon and Gabumon? Hee hee! What weird names! Gabumon: Hey, they're not weird! Agumon: You're the one with the weird name! Nokia: As if! My name's not weird! Hee hee!

And on top of that, Agumon refers to Nokia as having a “familiar” scent. Remember this for later.

Nokia’s second encounter with Agumon and Gabumon in Cyber Sleuth chapter 3 involves her properly partnering herself with Agumon and Gabumon, and learning about the existence of the “Digital World”. Note that, for all intents and purposes, EDEN had been treated like the functional equivalent of the Digital World in this narrative up until this point -- cyberspace with hackers, coming from the network, it’s basically a “digital world” from top to bottom, and yet here Agumon and Gabumon are introducing the concept of a more fantasy-esque incarnation of a digital world. (And, in fact, despite EDEN being right there, many long-time Digimon fans playing this game often complained about how little you get to see the “Digital World” in this game, because of how associated that term is with something more fantasy-like.) So, again: here we have Nokia, who’s forming a partnership with Agumon and Gabumon as equals instead of recruiting them as hacker tools (even the protagonist wasn’t immune to this method), and being indirectly responsible for introducing the more fantasy-like concept of the Digital World that the modern franchise is currently associated with.

Nokia embarks on the conventional shounen anime character arc of starting off cowardly, but eventually learning to have her own inner strength, with her Digimon evolving in accordance to her emotions. And, eventually, in Cyber Sleuth chapter 8, she decides to form her own hacker team, called the “Rebels”. She ostensibly bases it off the old creed of Jude, having heard that they were a team that never caused trouble for others, but we later learn via Arata turning out to have been its former leader, and the even later portrayal in Hacker’s Memory of its spiritual successor Hudie, that this is an extremely rose-colored image of them -- Jude (and Hudie) was not a well-intentioned team by any means, but rather a sort of mercenary group meant to enforce the “freedom” of EDEN, often taking on shady jobs and “punishing” entities they considered to be causing chaos. But in this case, Nokia forms her team under the idea of legitimately fighting for justice and good will -- again, much like a Digimon Adventure protagonist.

In case the metaphor weren’t clear enough, Nokia decides that the members of her group will not be called “hackers”, but “Tamers” -- the same lingo used by the franchise to refer to a human who partners alongside a Digimon to help them get stronger -- and that she wants to promote the idea of humans and Digimon working in tandem (complete with emotional bonding exercises). For this, everyone looks at her weird, and yet her methodology, initially naive as it seems, keeps working, because Nokia’s natural charisma starts bringing people from different places together and making quite the formidable team. Everyone is perplexed by this, but perhaps it’s only natural, because Nokia has just independently invented the modern concept of Digimon partnership in a world where it did not exist. And this is eventually solidified by the Under Zero invasion in Cyber Sleuth chapter 10, in which Omegamon is finally formed (from sheer guts on her part).

Omegamon is yet another symbol of the modern franchise, but it’s important to remember that he hasn’t always been so; even his appearance in V-Tamer was as more of a tactical piece than any kind of game-breaker, but the impact of Our War Game! has led him to constantly make a resurgence in major franchise roles (maybe a little too much these days). However, on top of Nokia basically embodying the modern franchise itself by doing this, Nokia and Arata’s positions are an obvious reference to Our War Game! in particular, being Omegamon and Diablomon Tamers -- but they’re not seen directly fighting each other. In fact, Arata’s partner only ever reaches Diablomon when he’s at the highest point of his morality, so the reference is more ideological; Nokia represents the more idealistic and heroic side of Digimon, whereas Arata represents the more dirty-playing and cynical hard sci-fi side of it (remember that Diablomon himself was rather detached from the fantasy conflict of Adventure, being a mysterious entity that sprouted out of nowhere on the Internet and wreaked havoc). Moreover, Nokia’s usage of Omegamon embodies a theme that’s central to both Our War Game! and Cyber Sleuth itself as a whole -- while most people associate Omegamon with Taichi and Yamato these days, the original method of formation back in Our War Game! came from “bringing people from different places together”. Nokia managed to bring together a formidable army in a place where everyone else in the hacker world was trying to promote a dog-eat-dog philosophy, and the sense of cooperation is arguably making her stronger than anyone else.

(I should also point out that Nokia’s name is, obviously, a reference to the Finnish telephone communications company, and this has a lot of relevance to the game’s theme of connection, along with her phone Digivice...and, also, the method used to bring everyone’s powers together in Our War Game!’s spiritual successor, Diablomon Strikes Back. Feels a bit too on-the-nose here.)

In the second half of the game, when the world starts falling apart due to the Digital World portal opening, Nokia becomes one of most important people holding everything together as Arata goes off the deep end and Yuuko starts fixating on her own personal problems and revenge -- because she’s the one most in tune with treating Digimon as the living beings they are, she’s most active in advocating for them and helping them bond with humans, and and she’s the one making the chaos be a little less chaotic. The second half is basically the more fantasy-esque version of Digimon leaking into the sci-fi, with the sidequests progressively resembling your average Digimon anime monster-of-the-week episode, and holding that all together is Nokia, who becomes a vital figure in maintaining that fellowship by being in tune with the modern franchise’s philosophy.

Through all of this, Nokia ends up taking a role rather similar to a Digimon protagonist, which is highlighted very strongly in Cyber Sleuth chapter 18 when she ends up literally becoming the player character while the main protagonist is out of commission. During that time, Yuuko and Nokia learn the truth of what happened during the EDEN incident eight years prior -- and we also learn that the five children involved had an extremely conventional “first meeting in the Digital World” experience that could have been pulled right out of the first episode of a Digimon anime, with them having a lovely adventure meeting new creatures. And at the center of that “first contact” was none other than Nokia, Agumon, and Gabumon themselves:

Agumon: Um... who are you? Nokia: Ahem! I am Nokia! And just who are you? Agumon: Me? My name is Agumon! Gabumon: I... I'm Gabumon. Nokia: Agumon and Gabumon? Hee hee! What weird names! Gabumon: Hey, they're not weird! Agumon: You're the one with the weird name! Nokia: As if! My name's not weird! Hee hee!

Nokia, Agumon, and Gabumon’s meeting at the beginning of the game had been an (accidental) reenactment of their first meeting in the Digital World eight years prior -- and, in the flashback, Nokia invites them to go on an “adventure” with them. So in other words, Nokia getting involved in the hacker conflict at the beginning of the game was, unknown to all of them, her attempting to restore that beauty and idealism of the Digimon Adventure-esque philosophy and fun in a world where the Eaters had torn it away and EDEN had turned into a haven of cynicism and hacker battle royale.

In the end, the game’s conflict is only resolved by bringing everyone together; Arata has to be retrieved from the deep end, and Yuuko has to settle her deep-seated personal grievances. Everyone makes a promise to return together, in the sense of making things right and repairing the connections between them that had been cut in that incident. The final battle (momentarily) causes the playable protagonist to literally fall apart, and the one reaching out to them and sending her message to them at the end of the game is none other than Nokia herself -- again, in the absence of the game’s protagonist, Nokia is the one with the closest role, because in the face of the new world going forward, she was the one who contributed most to restoring its idealism.

Ultimately, all of this is especially because Cyber Sleuth works under one of the most terrifying imaginable premises for a fan of a kids’ franchise: “we made an entry for this, but for adults.” Many of us can testify that this kind of premise can go very well, or very badly -- the latter especially in the case of things that decide “taking the opportunity to do things that you can’t do on a Sunday morning kids’ timeslot” means “going out of your way to put edgy violence and sexy things and cynicism just because you can”, or, in other words, looking down condescendingly on its kids’ franchise roots with malice and deciding that something for adults means “more suffering” and not “issues that require more life experience to understand”. The reason the game ended up getting as much acclaim among longtime Digimon fans as it did was that despite being the franchise’s first venture into this territory, it did end up setting itself up as something that took that opportunity to do something new and unique that would have never made it into any of the prior entries (holy hell the doll quest) and yet never gave up on the idealism and themes of connection that make up the franchise at its core, and paid respect to everything that had contributed to all of that while it was at it.

And at the center of that is Shiramine Nokia, who is effectively the spirit of Digimon Adventure, condensed into a single character.

#digimon #digimon story cyber sleuth #shiramine nokia #nokia shiramine #shihameta

[pinkprimrose05]

Can you do the whole favorite thing about them, least favorite thing about them, favorite line, brOTP, OTP, nOTP, etc. for Yuya?

Warning: Long post, contains slight spoilers.

I am so very sorry for long this stayed in the box- but thanks a lot for the ask!

Favorite thing about them: Why must you make me choose. I can't. I can't do that. There's genuinely too many things to choose from.

...fine, I can do honorable mentions. One thing that piqued my interest in the tomato son all those years ago was how layered his persona can be... if you squint. Or if you're like me and relate to him on a spiritual level. You see, at the surface of his character, Yuuya's your average protag boy: fun-loving, good-natured and full of innocent hopes and dreams-

Except, that's not all there is to it. Not even at the very start of the story. We see from the get-go how he struggles with the weight of past events and his own doubts and insecurities -which only gets more and more prominent as the show goes on- all while holding onto his smiles in defiance against adversity, and trying to help others do the same as well. Personally, I still think that this is a deceptively simple yet very powerful message.

Least favorite thing about them: Ah, that's a question I can't quite answer. You see, there isn't anything specific I dislike about him, as much as there's stuff I dislike that happen to him- as in, to his character. Like the last stretch of the Xyz and Fusion arcs. Those parts did irreversible damage Yuuya's portrayal- so much so that even I, known for being more forgiving of the story's flaws than most, was shaking my head in denial through the first, second, and third watch. Lord help me when I reach them in the fourth.

Favorite line: Quoting myself from the Yuugo version of this post: would it be cheating the question if I said there's too many to count? Because it's still true. I know for a fact that I'll mention a line here and then find another one I prefer not a day later- that's how it is with the faves, I suppose. For the sake of not leaving this empty, though, here's one quote that stuck with me longer than most:

"The dueling I've had up until now isn't something I made alone. Because everyone was there, I was able to make it this far!"

brOTP: Yuugo!

...Saw that coming? Yes? No? Look, Yuuya's the protagonist so he naturally has a lot of interesting friendships, some established, some made over the course of the show... and a few entirely hypothetical, like this one. What can I say? I just think they'd go great together. Picture this: two idiots with half a braincell between them, who meet each other proper and instantly click. And get on like a house on fire from there. Seriously, they're so different yet similar in so many ways, and I think that'd lend itself to a great mutual underdtanding between the two- almost as if they have some kind of telepathetic link (hmmm). Putting them in one room for extended periods of time will either result in the most fun sort of chaos or in talks so deep they both end up bawling their eyes out in each other's arms.

They're friends. Besties. Brothers even.

OTP: Look, I'm a bonafide vanilla when it comes to romantic ships. Fruitshipping is my first and main OTP in all media of interest, and the threatre kiddos get a badge of honor for being one of a scant few pairs that got me extremely close to crying on more than 1 occasion. That's more than can be said for... *checks notes* ...99.8% of the characters I know!

nOTP: Hmm... there's none that come to mind, honestly. I don't mind seeing Yuuya paired with anyone, as long as the ship is not inherently inappropriate and/or isn't portrayed in any weird ways.

Random headcanon: Thanks to certain happenings towards the end of the plot, Yuuya ends up developing the unconscious habit of hoarding things precious to him. He'll go to sleep curled up in the middle of a nest of blankets and pillows, surrounded by all his favorite plushies, random trinkets and gifts from friends, and of course, his pendulum and card partners (thank god in-universe cards are stupidly sturdy). The first time Youko chances upon him in this state, deep in the peaceful bliss of slumber, she stealthily snaps a photo and- huh? No, you didn't hear a thing. "Cuteness overload can be heard from over a mile away?" Pfft, nonsense.

Unpopular opinion: No idea how unpopular this may be, but... I don't get the claims that Yuuya's not a good duelist?

Several people point out that he relies on Action cards to stall out a duel until he can turn it around, and conclude that as such, he's less skillful than most of his opponents. That take confuses me more than anything; after all, isn't it in the nature of the Action duel rule that one must make use of the card scattered around them? They're not just there for show, nor are they solely used for their effects. And besides, it's clear that Yuuya's particular brand of entertainment dueling places heavy emphasis on the dynamic aspect, which is why he's always running around the field and trying to make a spectacle out of every move. That doesn't diminish his skill in any way I can see- he's just more inclined to using resources outside those in his deck, thanks in part to needing more combo pieces than survivability cards by virtue of using Pendulums.

Song I associate with them: Assuming any song qualifies, I'd say it's Future Fighter; because it's literally Yuuya's (and Reiji's) very own personal song. It highlights core aspects of their personalities through the lyrics- and what do you know, our boy has a very nice singing voice too! It was one among many highlights from the back half of ARC-V S1 to me.

Favorite picture of them: Look, I just want to see him happy. I think he deserves to display genuine joy more often. And the more sparkles the episode budget allows, the better! So with that in mind, here's a few of my favorite pics of the boyo.

....oh, you thought I could pick only one?

Bonus:

#as you can tell #this blog is perfectly average and completely normal about sakaki yuuya #totally does not devolve into needlessly long rambling episodes whenever asked about him #nope #absolutely not #....i care him so much.... #yugioh #yugioh arc v #yuya sakaki #sakaki yuya #asks #character breakdown

[s0c1al-r3j3ct]

Pinky Promises and Hugs From the Wind {Ray x Fem! Reader TPN}

~~~~~

Hi! This is my first story here I hope you like it! Request stories from me however that works as well! I don't get very inspired all the time so please, I'll write for you no matter how specific or odd! I'm still figuring out tumblr so as I said in my bio, bare with me through my writing journey and me figuring out tumblr because it seems the one thing I am not advanced with is technology lol.

KEY: Y/F/F = your fav flower F/L = first letter of your name

~~~~~

Who would have thought a childhood promise could be kept?

It was a sunny day at Gracefield Orphanage. Two children around 5 years-old stood under a large tree tree reading a book. This book involved something called romance or love. They didn’t fully understand the word but they were drawn to it. They read about the beautiful girl marrying the beast because she saved him in all the ways she could. That made the young, slightly sleepy, boy think of her. She was sitting right next to him, looking over his shoulder as he read the end of that chapter. Her beauty was beyond compare in all aspects of the word. She saw through how closed off he was and made a great relationship with him. He wanted to marry her. He wanted to spend the rest of his days reading to her and seeing that smile or hearing her laughter. “Ray, when we get older I want to get married and have a family.” she says a bit bashfully. “With who?” “You of course silly. Would you do that for me?”... “Yeah I think that would be nice.” He said with a rare smile. “Pinky Promise?” They interlocked their pinkies, kissed their thumbs, and stuck them together for extra strength as she called it.

Now they would finally fulfill that promise they made oh so long ago. They decided to get married at the same spot they made that promise. The big tree with the two carvings “L+I” and “R+(F/L).” They had carved their names on that tree when they were 11 and 12 just before they escaped. It was kind of like a parting gift to the place they used to call home. They also had it there because so many firsts happened there, their first time holding hands, their first kiss, everything they did together for the first time happened there. It was only fair they would have the first wedding for humans under that tree.

Ray stood under the arch of flowers, nervously straightening his tie. Norman stood in the middle of the arch waiting with Ray. He put his large hand on Ray’s shoulder and said “Your tie is straight, relax.” That did little to quell his fast beating heart and sweaty palms but at least he had a friend to reassure him.

You stood in a room with some of the other girls. Gilda was straightening up your dress, Anna was making sure your bouquet was perfect, and Emma was staring in admiration. You were stunning. You looked effortlessly beautiful and radiant. They stepped back to admire their work and squealed. “Ray will love it!” They said in unison.

You walked down to where Mister or “Yuugo” as you knew him by now stood waiting for you. (Ik he is dead but pretend he is not so he can walk you down the aisle!) You were like his own daughter so seeing you in that beautiful white dress and long veil covering your face made him shed a minuscule tear. You met him in the middle and he put out his arm for you to grab. You smiled and he smiled back. Although he would never admit it, he was proud. This was his family of sorts and he was giving away his “daughter.”

Nat started playing the piano once he saw you take a step out into the aisle. Carol walked in front of you and Mister as she threw flowers on the walkway. You still remember when she came to this exact place when she was just a baby and you held her for the first time. Now she was 12 years old and was just like what Emma was like as a kid. Phil walked behind you holding two rings on a pillow. He grew up too fast for your liking. He was 16 now and quite tall. It made you feel old seeing him so grown up when it felt like just yesterday you could hold him on your hip.

The crowd of people went silent and stared in awe as you walked down the aisle. Your hair glistened and your eyes sparked as the sun hit them oh so perfectly. Your bouquet was magnificent as well. It consisted of an assortment of white flowers and for a pop of color, (Y/F/F).

Ray tensed and his eyes widened a bit. She was more beautiful than he would have ever imagined and he had imagined it a lot. He started to tear up as you got closer. You were going to be his wife in just a few minutes. It made him look back on all the things you did together from your very first conversation to your first kiss. It felt like this all but a dream.

“You may now kiss the bride!” said Norman in an enthusiastic tone.

Ray lifted the veil over your face and looked into your eyes with all the love in his heart.

After what felt like hours of staring into each other's eyes Ray kissed you. It was filled with every emotion he could fit in it. The crowd erupted in cheers and some wolf whistles from Thoma and Lannion. Then, you both did something no one expected.

You and Ray put your foreheads together and smiled softly as you made another pinky promise. You were silently promising to follow your vows. Even though you had previously done so a pinky promise felt more real. You kissed your thumbs, stuck them together, and sealed it with another kiss on the lips.

In the night, after the reception, you and Ray were celebrating yourselves without anyone around. (not dirty stuff lol) Then the sound of water hitting the window pane interrupted your happy little hug.

It was like when you were younger. You would both go out in the rain after your escape and just slow dance. You would hug, kiss maybe, but you both enjoyed it a lot. Though you never knew, some of the little kids would spy on you two in these moments and just make quiet “aww’s.”

You dragged Ray out into the rain and you just started swaying. You didn’t care if you would be soaking wet or sick in the morning, you just wanted to stare into your husband’s eyes and never want this moment to end.

Then you heard a click. You looked up and saw Ray pulling out a picture from his camera. It was a much more up to date model that he got as a wedding gift. What would be a better first photo than one of his beloved wife?

You both just laughed.

“You know there's one thing I want to add to our vows…” said Ray “I will always dance in the rain with you. Even when I’m in my rocker.” you both finished off in unison.

As you said those words you both looked up to the gray sky and said yet again in unison “We did it Mama.”

Then you felt a gust of wind grasp both your shoulders, as if to hug you.

You both knew it was Isabella and you knew she was smiling down at both of you.

~~~~~

#ray x reader #ray tpn #the promised neverland #x reader #tpn fanfic #oneshot #first story #hi ily #xo <3

[chidoroki]

182 Days of TPN - Day 176

Chapter 176: "We're Home!"

The long awaited hug! It's so heartwarming it almost makes you forget about Emma tossing her weapon aside, which later becomes an unfortunate consequence, but we'll worry about that later and do our best to focus on these precious kid's happy faces.

I'm pretty glad their reunion is one of the only things to get animated from this chapter.

Of course one of the downsides to the anime not including everything is us missing out on Phil's reaction to seeing everyone else. The rest of the kids just sorta show up all in one place in the second season but the manga makes the many reunions feel more personal, especially with him learning that Norman was never killed.

Phil reflects on how hard the past couple years have been for him while keeping the farm's secret and feeling isolated from the other children due to knowing it and if there's anyone who can understand his pain, it's Ray, as he suffered the same cruel experience so the fact the two of them can share this hug (and head pat) is so sweet, it can bring me to tears. These boys deserved so much better! No more sadness allowed for either of them til the end of time!

I'm very happy Sherry get her own moment with Norman too. Their friendship is so adorable. She's undoubtedly his biggest fan.

Look how relieved and happy Isabella is to finally be done with all the lying and fighting. That smile of hers is so pretty, she wants nothing more than to care for her children like a real mother should and damn it y'all, I wish she could've got that chance alongside all the other moms and sisters!

This quote (that continues into the panels after this page) is probably my favorite from Emma. I know I've said it a lot, about how amazing Emma is to be so optimistic while being surrounded by this world's many various threats that constantly want her dead, but finally being able to see her achieve all her goals while staying true to herself is something I'll always be proud of her for. No matter all the difficulties she faced, whether it was losing someone dear to her, sustaining serious injuries or making life changing decisions, she kept on fighting to secure a better future for her family. Of course she had some moments of weakness to process everything going on around her and to keep her emotions in check, but not once did she ever quit pursuing that bright dream of hers.

The children have all fought through so much together and had their own personal struggles, so seeing them all smile and break out into tears is definitely one of the best moments of the series. They all deserve this victory and a moment to be excited about their freedom.

Sigh, rest in peace to all those we lost along the way! I may not remember all their names aside from Yuugo, Lucas, Conny, Olivia & Michelle, but having Emma think of everyone again proves just how important they all were to to, even if we, as readers, didn't get to see them often enough throughout the story.

Yeah, that brief moment the kiddos had to relax? All gone, thanks to this bastard! If anyone desired to know which character I hate most, it's this damn demon. I don't wanna talk about it but the reason is literally unavoidable in this chapter and to this day I'm still crushed that it happens.

Glad you finally realized your own mistake, honey, but ya gotta be quicker than that! These poor children though, living just a normal life at the orphanage one moment and then running scared for their lives because of this demon the next.

I'm so damn proud that Ray managed to stay alert despite all the reunions and how his protective nature gets kicked into high gear to try and stop that bastard from harming Emma and the girl she's rushing to save.

The look on Ray's face (& everyone else's) makes me wanna scream. I don't wanna imagine this scene getting animated (& I'm so incredibly thankful it wasn't) but I can just hear the couple of shots Ray fired off, the complete silence that follows as the kids stand by completely speechless due to the sight in front of them as an occasional drop of blood drips off the demon's claw as Emma slowly looks up and... aahhh fuck.

The way I fell in love with this woman just a handful of chapters ago to now be on the verge of losing her, just.. FUCK! I hate it. I hate it. I hate it. I hate it. I hate it. I will always hate it. I will always hate this demon. I will always hate how this chapter was released on Mother's Day. The timing could not have been any worse and I'll never not be completely devastated by this moment!

Favorite panel/moment:

I desperately need some happiness right now and this panel is the perfect way to achieve it. Writing out the next chapter is absolutely gonna put me through emotional hell. again.

#the promised neverland #tpn manga #182daysoftpn #chidoroki used chatter

[bon-nii]

There's literally no stakes in the anime at all. Its so bland and emotionless. I don't feel anything for these characters. Everything is being handed to them. Give me back my son, Adam. He is far more intelligent than any of these anime characters. They all drank stupid juice.

Yeah, I definitely agree. I'm just watching to see where this ends up at this point (and also to shitpost lmfao)

Every Thursday me and two of my friends (one has read most of the manga, the other is anime-only) watch it on discord, or talk about it on discord and man... my friend who is anime-only is like "yeah, this sucks ass, I need to just read the manga" and is confused with stuff. We just kinda clown on it at this point. It's basically just someone's shitty canon-divergence AU playing out on screen.

Random assortment of thoughts:

I can sympathize with Manga Norman. I can understand WHY he is doing what he is doing and what his motivations are. It is, quite frankly, completely disgusting what he wants to do, but I can get why he wants to do it and I don't hate him. He is a very complex character, trying to make sense/live in a very complex world. Anime Norman on the other hand? I feel nothing for him like, I just Do Not Care. Norman is, imo, the best written out of the three mains and my personal favorite, but they've completely squandered his writing... ugh

I've held strong by this belief: If you are going to adapt TPN, there are 3 major characters who you *cannot afford* to mess up. Isabella, Yuugo, and Norman. (I'd even throw Peter and Leuvis in there as well) Well, Yuugo's gone and if they *do* decide to have him show up his character is completely different (i.e. the out of character note he leaves at the bunker). Norman has next to none of the depth he had in the OG story (I can't remember, but didn't Cislo or Barbara say that he saved the kids at the mass production plants? Uhhh, what?!?!). And Isabella is being built up as the big villain YET AGAIN which does not align with her development at all (though I do think they will still pull a bait-n-switch on us like in the manga) so there goes that.

Peter and Leuvis oh where do I start? Leuvis is my personal favorite villain of the story for multiple reasons (I think I will write an entire post on him sometime) and Peter is the epitome of everything Emma stands against and is essentially the Big Bad. Leuvis is gone, Peter is in the op but has had ZERO screentime thus far, not even any fucking hints to his existence at all. There's 5 eps left so he has to show up at some point, right? He's in the opening soooo... where the hell is he? How are viewers supposed to give a shit about him? He's pretty fucking dangerous and has been influencing the plot since day ONE, but whatever I guess??

Anime Ray is the only one I vibe with rn, and even then he's meh. Anime Emma is on thin fucking ice, and Anime Norman can be fed to the Dropkick Murpheys for all I care.

Infodumps. My god. These bitches be talking like they're reading a wikipedia article.

The literal butchering of Emma's character. Goldy Pond would have been the ep 19 of Demon Slayer of this anime season if they had adapted it, and I stand by that. The amount of HYPE on social media that would have happened after Emma pulls herself from the brink of death to challenge Leuvis would have been insane. There are so few strong, well-written female shonen protagonists... damn shame that the brilliance of Emma is relegated solely to s1 and the pages of the manga, she is a husk of herself in this season.

No character growth. Trio is separate for 90 chapters. That's literally half of the entire manga. There's no feeling of separation, no feeling that they are wildly different people now. These three have spent their entire lives together. Ray and Emma have to struggle without Norman, and Norman has to struggle without Ray and Emma. It's so important. This dynamic *literally* dictates how they grow as characters. When they are finally reunited it is so emotional and amazing, but also a bit unsettling because Norman is *clearly* not the Norman we remember... but in the anime we don't feel any of the impact of those 2 years.

Yuugo and Lucas. Contrasting the love Isabella gave to the kids with the love these two dads give to them. Adds a lot to the story. RIP.

Also RIP Adam and the Gold Pond kids... jeeeeeze there was so much potential.

Anime sacrifices extremely hard-hitting and emotional moments for cheap shock factor (namely, bunker raid and the trio reunion)

Speaking of the trio reunion, why the FUCK does Anime Norman not give a shit about Anime Ray? Hes completely ignored, and it's not like in the manga where he came in later no, like... he's there, seeing Norman at the same time Emma is. There's like, a solid minute and a half of Norman and Emma crying over each other while Ray just stands in the back like 🧍‍♂️and then is added as an afterthought. Emma's like "oh yeah, I brought Ray" GIRL??? And Norman is like "oh hey Ray.." BITCH?!?! YOU KNEW HE WAS GONNA FUCKING KILL HIMSELF AND HAD NO WAY OF KNOWING WHETHER OR NOT EMMA WAS ABLE TO STOP HIS SUICIDE, FOR 2 YEARS??? AND YOU JUST IGNORE HIM?? AND THEN ACKOWLEDGE HIM AS AN AFTERTHOUGHT?? I--okay!

Manga Norman: Emma and Ray are my best friends and I love them more than anything in the world, but Ray understands me in a way that Emma doesn't. They are both important to me.

Anime Norman: who the fuck is ray

Zero suspense. Minimal world building. Very minimal lore building. No mystery.

What the fuck is up with the William Minerva part of the plot like... uh, that's pretty important??? He's been completely dropped and there's zero reason for us to connect him with Norman. Like, he had his phone call in ep 3 and then any mention of him dipped. Disappointing as hell. Don't get to see the parallels drawn between him and Norman. Man...

Yeah idk what else... am I being too critical? Honestly, not sure. I think my criticisms and frustrations are well-founded, but I am definitely basing most of this off of the anime's failure to adapt the manga. Though I suppose, looking from an anime-only standpoint who has no idea just how much of the story has been axed, it might be okay or it might not be? Or it might depend on the person... in any case, I cant fathom how anyone could look at this season and go "Yeah, this feels like the same show as season 1!"

#the promised neverland #tpn #yakusoku no neverland #promised neverland #ynn #tpn s2 #tpn salt #tpn criticism

[the-silliest-idiot]

More more terrible sims

And they are completely helpless too

Especially Sonju, he had a mental breakdown about food or two

The other TPN sims stories

Bob is so boring. His ambition is to learn how to make an oven dinner and I don’t know what I expected from him

Time to get away from his boringness and move to my main family

Just like her father, Horse likes to eat things not made for sims. Here she is eating Parvus his food

However, I am absolutely sure that Sonju did not teach her that

Sonju is the most negligent parental figure I ever had in the sims. I eventually forced him to interact with his kid and... yeah

He was definitely thinking about grilled cheese instead

Yuugo is a better parent for Sonju’s kid than Sonju

Sonju just prefers to fight his siblings and eat grilled cheese instead

On a more positive note, Lucas is the best parent my game ever had. He was not negligent at all and keeps wanting to have a daily chat with his son who is off to purgatory college. Such a good sim

Lucas even burned the fucking house down again, which makes him an even better sim!

Lewis really said: anything Lucas can do, I can do better

Last but definitely not least, Sonju decided to start a fire too!

The eternal question is why would he do that, he is afraid of fire and burning his food. I guess he just really wanted to see his siblings beat each other up

Sonju had a mental breakdown or two about burning his grilled cheese and causing a fire. Why yes, he is impersonating a chicken

And then Sonju just went absolutely feral. I think he snapped or something. Look at Sonju just attacking his siblings non-stop. 

He just kept fighting Lewis in that hallway for the entire night

He looks very angry while eating his cereal

Bud, last time I tried to get you grilled cheese you burnt down the house, had two mental breakdowns and started beating up Lewis for an entire night.

You’re eating cereal for breakfast

Bonus: this is just this dumpsterfire of a family in a nutshell.

#ahh some lovely fire #and multiple arsonists #sonju is absolutely feral now and i want to see where that goes #that ought to go well #promised sims #poor horse is so neglected #sonju does not care about her #she sleeps outside in the woods #also the ghosts keep scaring her so she can't even sleep

[higuchimon]

[fanfic] Annoying or Adorable

“Please, shut the hell up,” Yuuto groaned, trying to cover his face with a pillow. Yuuya poked at him with one finger regardless.

“No.” He could probably take the pillow away if he tried, but then Yuuto would get even madder at him. This wasn’t going to work if Yuuto didn’t like him.

Well, he knew darned well Yuuto liked him. They were brothers. But that wasn’t what he wanted, and as much as he knew that it wasn’t right, it wasn’t what he wanted, and Yuuya wasn’t good at denying himself things that he wanted.

Not that Yuuto was a thing by any means. But Yuuya wanted him and he couldn’t shake that want no matter how much he tried.

He suspected that Yuuri would laugh at him because of this. But Yuuri tended to laugh at all of them no matter what.

Yuuto didn’t move from behind the pillow. “Don’t you have something to do somewhere else?”

“Not tonight. Tonight I’m all yours.” Yuuya teased. He could have gone out to see Yuzu or Gongenzaka but he’d made up his mind that tonight would be the night he actually told Yuuto how he felt and maybe once it was out of his system, he could do something else.

At least he thought he might. Yuuya wasn’t sure if Yuuto could ever get out of his system. Yuuto was just so – Yuuto. Even if nothing else happened, they’d know each other for the rest of their lives. They were stuck with one another.

Yuuto lowered the pillow just enough to stare at him with mildly annoyed gray eyes. “Yuuya, are you all right?”

“I’m fine.” Yuuya shrugged. He’d spent days trying to decide what to do and how to do this. It wasn’t like telling someone else that you liked them. Most people, if you told them that, they’d either like you back or not, and you figured it out from there.

But when the person you liked was your quadruplet brother? Your older quadruplet brother?

As far as Yuuya knew, that wasn’t something that happened every day of the week. As far as he knew, it wasn’t supposed to happen at all. But there it was all the same – the flutter in his stomach and in his heart every time he saw Yuuto. It wasn’t the same with Yuugo or Yuuri. He tended to lose track of time whenever Yuuto started talking to him, just listening to whatever he was saying.

He caught a quick glimpse of Yuuto staring at him, and groaned to himself. It had happened again. He’d drifted off, just staring at Yuuto.

“Are you sure you’re all right?” Yuuto asked, sitting up a little more. “You’ve been acting really weird lately.”

Yuuya quickly shook his head, shifting his attention so he wasn’t so absorbed in Yuuto. “Nothing. Yuuto – I want – I -” As often as he’d tried to come up with some proper words that would at least get all of this over with, whenever he got too close to Yuuto, everything he’d thought about just faded away.

Yuuto nudged him, and Yuuya emitted a tiny little squeak, eyes stuttering back over to his brother. Yuuto looked more and more worried by the moment, sitting up more and raising one hand. Yuuya started to pull himself back, swallowing quickly.

What do I do? He’s going to be disgusted! He won’t even want to talk to me again!

Yuuya tried to tell himself this at least twenty times a day. No matter what, he could never completely convince himself of it. He would always tell himself he’d just forget about it and he would, right up until he saw Yuuto again.

“He wants to tell you that he likes you, and he’s being a babbling idiot about it,” came from the kitchen door behind them. Yuuya and Yuuto both turned to look, seeing Yuuri there, arms crossed over his chest, a very annoyed expression on his face. “And quite frankly, whatever you two end up doing, get it done with so he stops pining after you, one way or the other.”

Yuuya wanted to sink right down into the floor and never come back. He stuttered out Yuuri’s name, or tried to, and refused to look at Yuuto at all, pushing himself away.

“You don’t have to tell jokes like that,” Yuuto snapped. “It’s not that funny.”

“If I were going to play a joke, I’d do a lot better than that. Besides, Dennis does the jokes, not me.” Yuuri sniffed as he crossed the room. “Just get it sorted out. I’m tired of hearing him complain about it.”

Yuuya pulled his goggles down and scrambled up, ready to head outside and find somewhere to hide until he could come back and pretend that this hadn’t ever happened. It might take a while but he was fine with that. Then he’d figure out a way to get back at Yuuri for opening his big mouth in the first place.

But he’d not taken a full step away before Yuuto grabbed his arm. “He’s joking, right, Yuuya?”

Yuuya didn’t look at him. He was too busy thinking of where he could go. Maybe Yuzu or Gongenzaka would let him stay at one of their places for a few days. A few weeks. The rest of his life. However long it took before he could look Yuuto in the eyes and not want to melt into them again. If he ever could.

Yuuto’s fingers tightened a little bit, then his other hand grabbed Yuuya by the chin and turned him so they were staring at one another again. “He’s joking?”

Yuuya had no idea of how to read that look. Hopeful? Wistful? Regretful? Too much for him to figure out and if he couldn’t get away, he knew damned well Yuuri wouldn’t let this go. He’d never thought Yuuri even knew that he had a crush on Yuuto. Did that mean Yuugo knew? Did their parents know? Or their bigger brother?

Oh, that would not be fun at all. Zarc could be the absolute worst when he put his mind to it. Not that he had ever had much in the way of morals, so he’d probably not actually care. He would be a jackass about it because that was what Zarc did.

“He’s not joking,” Yuuya managed to force the words out. He wanted to follow it up with the fact he knew that Yuuto was his brother, wasn’t evver going to like him back that way, he didn’t want to bother him, he wanted nothing to change and he wanted everything to change.

Not a single word passed his lips. He just turned his head away again, and hoped that Yuuto would let him go. Why couldn’t he have fixated on someone else, someone who it wouldn’t be so wrong to care about? To – to love?

He did love Yuuto. Not just as a brother. Or he wanted to think he did. He wanted to try. He wanted to so very much.

“Yuuya.” Yuuto seemed to be thinking something over. “I don’t know. I didn’t know.” He shook his head slowly and Yuuya’s heart sank down to his shoes. “I’ve never thought about it.”

“Not surprised.” Yuuya managed a noise that didn’t sound close to his usual laugh. He plastered one of his best smiles on. If there was one thing he could do, it was smile when he wanted to do anything else. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll get over it. Probably not what I think it is anyway.”

He pushed himself up and this time Yuuto let him go. He hurried out of the house, pushing by Yuuri as his brother watered his plants and muttered something Yuuya didn’t catch. He refused to let so much as a single tear escape him, forcing himself to remember what his dad had said so many times. When you felt like crying, laugh instead.

The trouble with that right now was that he couldn’t think of a single thing to laugh about.

Yuuto stared after Yuuya, trying to put everything that had just happened together and get his head wrapped around it all. None of this felt right – and what was even stranger, none of it felt wrong, either.

He likes me? Like – like? He knew what the whole concept meant but he’d never thought of Yuuya like that. Yuuya was his littlest brother. Yuuya was – adorable, really. When he smiled, he lit up the world, and he spent most of his time smiling.

Though Yuuto wondered a lot how much of that smile was real and how much was Yuuya just trying to be happy for the sake of other people. He’d never asked. He wasn’t sure if he really wanted to know.

“Let me guess,” Yuuri said as he wandered back in, this time holding one of his plants. Yuuto couldn’t guess which one. They all looked alike to him, mostly green leaves and usually with something colorful on top. If he ever told Yuuri that, Yuuri would probably drop poison berries into his favorite tea. “You told him no.”

“I didn’t tell him anything.” Yuuto replied, still trying to piece it all together and not having a lot of luck. “He – we’re brothers.”

“Yes, I know.” Yuuri agreed, paying more attention to whatever potted monstrosity he had in his hands than anything else. “I was there when you were born. Getting born myself, actually.”

Yuuto glowered at them. Yuuri was the oldest of the four, with Yuuto and Yuugo coming in between Yuuya. But it wasn’t unknown for Yuuri to be almost as much of a jerk as their other brother.

But that wasn’t the problem right now. Yuuto worried at his lip. He didn’t just not know what to tell Yuuya, but he wasn’t sure what they could do if they did anything. It might even be better if they never talked about this again. Let it just fade away.

“If you want my advice -”

“I don’t.” Yuuto snapped right away. He knew that much, at least. No one wanted Yuuri’s advice, ever. This in no way stopped him from giving it.

And as he expected, Yuuri kept right on talking. “Just go make out with him. Exchange spit. That sort of thing.” He raised one hand to wave it through the air. “At a minimum it will satisfy him and it might satisfy you, too.”

Yuuto sputtered out a few words, mostly ones that didn’t involve a lot of coherency. Finally Yuuri sighed, set his plant down, and stared him directly in the eyes. Yuuto could not forget how sharp and piercing Yuuri’s eyes were. He stopped talking.

“Since most of that seemed to be ‘we’re brothers’, think about this. If you weren’t and he liked you like this, what would you do?”

Yuuto opened his mouth again, then closed it, working his jaw back and forth but with no real words coming out. That hadn’t occurred to him. He wasn’t sure if it should have, since they were brothers.

But what Yuuri said worked into his head. What if they weren’t brothers? Yuuya clearly wanted it. That didn’t mean he should get it. But neither one of them were being forced into this. It was almost like a normal relationship – except for the brothers part.

If they weren’t brothers, though – he would do it. He would do it and not care anything about it and maybe even enjoy himself. From what he'd seen before, Yuuya would definitely enjoy it as well.

Yuuri snorted softly, turned, and all but vanished out of the room. Yuuto sagged back against the couch and tried to decide his next move. It was one thing to acknowledge that if they weren't brothers, he'd go for it. It was something else altogether to do something about it.

He cast a quick glance the way that Yuuya had disappeared. Then he slowly pushed himself to his feet and headed off to go find Yuuya.

Finding Yuuya wasn’t that easy. There were a lot of places he could and usually did hide when he wasn’t feeling like being sociable. That did happen a bit more than Yuuto wanted to think about. Usually he would be perfectly fine with Yuuya going off by himself until he’d worked his emotions out. Today, it seemed, would be different.

He wasn’t with Yuugo, which didn’t surprise him. When Yuuri was at home, hanging around Yuugo was almost certain to end with Yuuri turning up as well. In the mood Yuuya was in, he probably wouldn’t want that.

Yuuto sent quick messages to Yuzu and Gongenzaka, and wasn’t overly surprised to hear back that neither of them had seen Yuuya that day. He decided not to ask Zarc. Yuuya wouldn’t go to him unless he had no other choices, and he didn’t think Yuuya was that far down.

So he wandered everywhere he could imagine Yuuya would go, to no actual avail. It wasn’t likely he’d miss him in the crowd, unless Yuuya wanted to go to the extreme of hiding his hair. One thing could be said about each of them - they stood out in a crowd.

Which probably explained why Yuuya wasn't in one. He would know that anyone who tried to look for him would easily spy him. So he’d go somewhere else. Somewhere that didn’t have a crowd and where he still wouldn’t be easily seen.

Oh. Of course. He wans’t sure of why he hadn’t thought about that right away.

Yuuto made his way through the city to one of the gardens he knew that Yuuya liked. It took him a few minutes of searching before he stopped in front of a thick green bush and stared down into it.

“Yuuya?”

The bush rustled. Yuuto regarded the leaves. “I mighit not be into botany the way Yuuri is, but I know this particular plant doesn’t have green and red leaves to it. And goggles don’t grow in the wild.”

Slowly Yuuya raised his head. His lips twitched the tiniest bit but he didn’t really smile. Yuuto crossed his arms.

“We need to talk.” He wasn’t going to give htis up until they’d settled matters.

Yuuya tried to look away. As long as he didn't try to run away, Yuuto didn't care. Words mattered more right now.

"How long?" Yuuto finally asked. He could only hope that Yuuya would actually answer instead of trying to distract him.

"I – don't know, really. I don't remember any particular time. It just seemed to happen." Yuuya shook his head and shrugged. "I like being around you. I like being with you."

Yuuto nodded slowly. As much as neither of them probably wanted to be this direct about it, sometiems some things just had to be said. He sorted through his own thoughts.

"I – we're brothers, Yuuya. I know we're not supposed to think like that about each other."

Yuuya's head snapped around and for a moment, Yuuto saw a flicker of Yuuri's own sharpness there. "You think I don't know that? You think I haven't been aware of that all this time? This is wrong." He shook his head. "It's the most horrible tlhing ever, and I don't care."

Yuuto blinked a time or two, trying to get his head wrapped around that still, and still not having that much luck with the conceptp. What else could he do? He knew what he'd come out here to do, yet there was still that tiny part of him that thought if he explained things to Yuuya in a calm voice then whatever he felt would become properly sibling feelings.

Only that wasn't going to happen. As he stared at Yuuya, his brother made a very annoyed noise deep in his throat, then darted forward, grabbed the back of Yuuto's neck, and kissed him on the lips.

Sweet. So sweet. Yuuya could have kept on doing this forever. It was everything that he'd ever dreamed of and so much more besides. Even better, Yuuto wasn't protesting. He wasn't doing anything at all, really, just sort of letting it happen.

Then that dawned more firmly on Yuuya and he stumbled back, breaking the kiss, breathing hard, and trying not to show how much he wanted to do it again and how much doing it this time had hurt at all.

Yuuto hadn't returned it. He'd just stood there in shock. Sure, it hadn't been expected. Yuuya had just wanted him to stop talking about how this was wrong and they shouldn't do it. As bad as it might get, he would carry the memory of that kiss forever. He wasn't sure if any kiss would ever be like that, ever again.

He wanted to say he was sorry. That he should have asked first. Was that Yuuto's first kiss? It had definitely been his. He'd once thought his first would be with Yuzu, and they'd come close a couple of times, but it hadn't ever felt right to go through with it.

Tears prickled in his eyes and he moved his goggles enough to fiercely wipe at them. "Sorry," he managed to mutter. What he wanted to do the most was just leave, but he knew Yuuto would follow him. He'd already done it once today. Somehow they would have to get this dealt with once and for all.

Yuuto shook his head. He didn't look as if he were going to say anything, and Yuuya couldn't shake the feeling he was trying to find a nice way to say that he'd hated it.

I won't ever do that again, he promised himself. He breathed in, then straightened all the way up. "Come on. Let's go home." He would let it drop. He would forget what it felt like to have his lips on Yuuto's, to be so close to him, to be able to feel their breath interlinking.

He'd only taken one step away before Yuuto's hand closed on his wrist. "We're not done here yet," Yuuto said at last, voice firm and sure. "You kissed me, Yuuya. We can't – you can't just walk away after that."

"I'm just going home! We're both going there!" Yuuya protested, and Yuuto shook his head.

"This first." He stared at Yuuya, thoughts Yuuya couldn't read clear in his eyes, then leaned forward and pressed his lips down onto Yuuya's.

This time it was softer, richer, sweeter. Yuuya whimpered and leaned into it, not wanting to torture himself and not able to make himself move away. It didn't matter who might see – all that mattered was the kiss, and that this time, Yuuto wanted it.

The End

Notes: Seriously, this took forever to write and get to a point I was satisfied with. But now it’s done!

#fanfic #higuchimon writes #sakaki yuuya #yuuto (arc-v) #warning: incest