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#to make them seem like they care about each other or erasing Gai’s relationship w Kakashi and putting Iruka in that spot

tenbees · 4 years

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(1) i read your entire response to the butch/femme question and i completely agree! i was really having a lot of trouble putting it into words, but for some reason there’s sth which always bothered me about the butch/femme subculture and stereotypes. butches aren’t men, and i don’t want people to think i’m gonna police who other people date/what kind of “roles” they get into, but when you see a masculine woman who, at times, passes for a man, dating a very obviously feminine woman, it always

(2) rubbed me the wrong way. like, if you see this couple out in public, maybe w their backs turned, at first glance you would assume they were a het couple. why is it such an “iconic” and old part of lesbian culture and herstory to imitate heterosexuality and heterosexual dynamics? why does a feminine person have to be “soft”, sexy, wear red lipstick, and be “protected” by her masculine, “strong”, muscly, more stoic partner? it seems to me like a v obvious parallel to hetero dynamics

(3) and there’s also this weird surge in lesbian/wlw communities where some lesbians are stealing terms from gay men (top/bottom) as a way to allude to the dom/sub kinks they’re into. “i’m a strong butch and i love STRAPPING my girly sweet sexy feminine partner w my butch cock!” like, what’re y’all doing? what is this obsession w straps and not being able to talk about anything else? and why is there so much of an emphasis on masc/fem pairings rather than like, idk, regular lesbians who

(4) don’t really fit into either category? maybe some lesbians don’t particularly want a masc partner to “protect” them and “strap them down and rail them.” maybe some lesbians just present averagely, like wear jeans and have medium length hair and want to date other women who present casually and not overtly masculine or overtly feminine? what about butches dating other butches, or two regular feminine lesbians dating each other? this hyperfocus on butch/femme completely erases lesbians who

(5) don’t identify with that label, don’t care for being “soft” and weak for their masc partner, & aren’t at all interested in weird power dynamics n yin & yang roles within their relationships, which again, seems to keep alluding to heterosexuality and the complementary masculine, dominant, emotionless partner who “looks after” his feminine, girly, makeup-wearing, subservient wife/gf or something. some lesbians are just normal and don’t want to imitate hetero roles in their sex and love lives.

yeah butch/femme relationships make me... uncomfortable is a strong word, but maybe uncomfortable lite lol? in a way that relationships between two butches or two feminine women don’t, and i think it’s because of the parallels to het relationships. it’s not really clear what butch/femme is supposed to be, because some people will say that they aren’t playing any role and that they’re just naturally feminine and that they just naturally desire a masculine partner who they can stitch back together in private while being protected by them in public or something (which seems so fucking specific to be something that comes about naturally and isn’t influenced by literally anything lol) while others will say that it Is roleplaying specifically to facilitate women fucking women and will fucking. write guides for butches on how to act more butch when asking femmes out, which just seems So artificial and ridiculous to me. but whichever it is, i do feel uncomfortable every time i see, like, a femme saying that she never feels more femme than when she’s vacuuming in a dress and uses her ankle to lift up the cord or when she’s getting strapped into a mattress, or a butch saying she never feels more butch than when she’s packing or a femme is sucking her strap (all of which i’ve seen) because the parallels to heterosexuality are So fucking obvious.

i can understand why it’s iconic, especially because that sort of culture has sprung up all over the world and it seems common for budding lesbian communities to have some sort of heterosexual-esque roleplay, for safety and because they had no other relationship models, i just hate how it’s taboo to question it or to even insinuate that it imitates het relationships when it’s so blatant. i don’t understand how people can deny it? and i’m not talking about all masculine/feminine relationships--who cares if people who present differently are in a relationship--it’s just when they start talking about their roles and waxing poetic about how femmes and butches are meant for each other that i’m like... the fuck are you going on about lol.

also don’t get me started on the strap thing 💀 the phrase butch cock is my fucking power word kill i cannot express how ridiculous and revolting it sounds lol. i think like 99% if not all of the ‘lesbians’ obsessed with straps are bi, and it makes sense that it would be such a huge part of butch/femme culture because so many of the original femmes and even butches were bi. reading through the persistent desire, so many of the women mention having previous male lovers or knowing femmes especially who left butch/femme culture to marry men. not to be ~controversial~ but it would make sense if a wlw subculture that heavily involves strap ons and masculine/feminine yin/yang roleplaying was/is very popular among kinsey 4/5 bi women.

#google chrome crashed when i was halfway through writing this because opening a new tab apparently required too much power im #but GOD STRAPS the whole concept is so gross #Anonymous

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tfw-no-tennis · 3 years

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mtmte liveblog issue 36

time travel arccccccccccccc yessssssssss

I have been waiting SO LONG to reread this arc hhhhh yessss

starting off strong with the sexy roller cover. nice

I love the disconnect of ‘orion pax: outlaw’ compared to the last time we saw him in shadowplay where he was orion pax: supercop

he’s still punching people for JUSTICE or whatever so I guess not much has changed

oh my god this is the issue with the many many two-page spreads...the first time I read this issue I didn't realize that was a thing and GOD I was SO fucking confused. there's already a lot going on in this issue/arc but this made things so much worse hvbhjkdfbsk. I powered thru and still managed to understand most of the arc despite reading half this issue out of order (essentially) bc the website I read it on split the pages up and I couldn't tell they were supposed to be doubled (and also I'm dumb so I didn't figure it out)

anyways, the actual issue...windcharger is out here using his powers to rip a dudes arms clean off. wow!

and there's skids getting punched in the face. Ls

and glitch! a totally minor character of course...

MANNNNN I SO adore the panel of all the lost lighters appearing in a cloud of purple smoke, all posing epically....SO fucking good, peak sci-fi coolness vibes, A++

as usual jro killing it w/the titles, ‘elegant chaos’ is such a great name for a time travel arc

also reading the tfwiki has shown me that many of jros titles are song or album titles, to which I say - that's epic and I love it. with jro doing it, I feel like it straddles the line between referencing music and the very fanfic-esque ‘title things after music’ vibe. I love it

oh god I forgot they use bs cybertronian time units in this sometimes lmao...I mean of course they do but still like, what the fuck is a cycle. is that a day. I feel like these words all have no meaning/the meanings change drastically depending on continuity. I cant keep up and also I'm lazy and don't care enough to try

I love rodimus did u know

poor riptide looks so confused lmao

IS....IS REWIND PIGGYBACKING TAILGATE...THATS SO FUCKING CUTE....I cant fully tell bc of the page layout but ooomg so precious. minibot buddies

whirl saying ‘chuff’ just reminded me how british jro is hvbhakjhdsfbs sometimes it just Jumps Out in mtmte and I'm like Oh God Britain Is Real

I really like the mtmte approach to time travel and paradoxes and whatnot. its just complex enough to be interesting but not too convoluted that it bogs down the story. perfect sci-fi fun!

mannnn chromedome talking abt brainstorm :( I'm sad abt those two hhhhh

and I love how at this point, nobody in the cast ACTUALLY knows brainstorm well enough to know what he’s really doing - including chromedome, who’s ostensibly his closest friend, somebody he’s known for a while - and even the readers don't really know what he’s up to...I like the mystery tbh

cant believe rewind wrote orion pax’s biography, omg. completely forgot abt that detail

cd saying ‘I love it when he talks history’ about rewind....hhhh I love cdrw so muuuuch

godddd the line rodimus says abt whirl - how they need people like whirl around who are ‘happy to get in the way’ of danger and death - that shit haunts me man like...rodimus is basically saying that he’s bringing whirl along to potentially die in place of someone like orion pax (nevermind the fact that whirl dying would ALSO fuck up the timeline)...like, how deep does it go?? is he saying that bc he knows whirl has been trying to get himself killed for a while now, or just bc whirl likes violence? mannn I cant...the character intricacies...man

anyways...I love rodimus he’s such an interesting character. you have that fucked up moment and then in the next panel he’s saying ‘if you want to call it a time phone, I wont stop you’ about the quantum walkie-talkie. he has the RANGE

oh and then rodimus casually volunteering chromedome to do mnemosurgery on anyone who might accidentally find out about them time traveling, which is again fucked up on multiple levels. the raaaaange

vjaksbhdhfusajbfdjk that panel of the lost light squad just standing there like idiots reminds me of that post where someone said abt that panel ‘these characters have a collective 3 brain cells’ or something hvbjadkfnksfdl

rodimus IMMEDIATELY breaking his own rules by trying to reassure pax that they're good guys by pointing at his autobot badge, even tho the autobots DONT EVEN EXIST YET at this point...my boy PLEASE go purchase some brain cells from the store

and the fact that rodimus introduced himself to pax w/his real name...shouldn't he go by an alias or st??? that seems like a good time travel rule since optimus and rodimus definitely know each other later

and like, did they not anticipate that some of the people in the past would recognize some of the lost lighters hgbajkhdjfnjksf like cd and whirl get Instantly recognized...great job guys

they are all SO bad at this hvbahskjdhfbasjkf I cantttt luckily for them the orion crew is handing them easy alibis

‘the dugout’ is that a baseball reference????

also I love the scenery here, the bg looks like rock but there's metal piping and stuff running thru it, its so cool...really adds to the whole ‘cybertron biomes are made of metal’ thing

‘ancient history’ rodimus are you KIDDING ME-

cyclonus time travels to the past and IMMEDIATELY finds a window to stare broodingly out of. icon

tailgate thinking orion pax is SUPER COOL continues here from shadowplay and I love it...tailgate is so cute

and the tg saying ‘don't you think that's awesome, cyclonus?’ hhhhh so cute

one reason I love this arc so much is that this is the arc where the gay Really amps up

TRAILBREAKER.... oh man ;_;

are you telling me that this outlaw base they're in has ONE bed for all of these people. what the hell vhbaksjhfnsal

cant believe rung sampled roller’s steroid juice box

also cant believe robot steroids exist. except yes I can and I love it

oooh roller’s a 0/1%er? I forgot abt that

cant believe orion pax just grabs some random phone that belongs to these weird new people and answers it. WHO does that

goddddd megatron and orion’s conversation....destroy me

HHHHHH like...the HISTORY....the regret...the missed opportunities...its all so palpable....goddddddd

and of COURSE, the whole thing is steeped in tragedy...the ideological differences that will become the foundation for a 4 million year long war...megatron, who believes that you need to burn things down and start again to really make change stick, and then orion, who says ‘reform is the answer, not revolution’....AUGHHH the intricacies. mannnn

‘you sound lost’ 😭😭😭

‘its tragic.’ yeah, that about sums up their relationship, especially at this stage and in this continuity

anyways. [cries about old man megatron talking to young naïve orion pax] goodbye

AUGHHH and then we jump to rodimus ONCE AGAIN breaking his own rules and trying to save trailbreaker...IT HURTS MAN...god I love rodimus, I feel like him being broken up about crewmembers like trailbreaker dying is one part regular sadness over people he knows dying for tragic reasons, and one part personal guilt at someone under his command dying, even if he’s not involved/at fault. I love the dichotomy of this emotional reaction that comes only partially from empathy/emotion, but also comes from a kinda self-centered need for success as measured by people under your command staying alive. and taking into account rodimus’s life it totally makes sense that he’d act like that...GAH I love it. the complexity of it all!

orion pax saying ‘you should read [megatron]. it’s powerful stuff’ I'm screaming, so many LAYERSSSSS

I fucking love time travel AHHHHHHHHH like the opportunity for interactions like these....chefs kiss

‘hey, best friend! miss you!’ rodimus is such a shit hvbdajkfksjhfd

‘very sus’ rodimus ahead of his time w/the among us lingo

oooh and then they realize that the senate is trying to kill the sparks...gotta save the babies!

tailgate scolding cyclonus for bluntly stating that you'd wanna be subtle when killing newborns...hhhvbhsdfhhhhhh I love them sm

ooooh and rewind has an interesting suggestion - that the senate is actually trying to irradiate the sparks into being outliers...rewind is so smart I love him

and the fact that he’s using history from his database...love it

rodimus sending cyclonus and whirl out like pokemon

ROLLER NOOOO DONT GO OUT THERE

also wow this is literally the 5th (I think) double page spread in this issue...the confusion I felt the first time I read this...lmao

and now this is literally one of my favorite issues so I'm glad I know what's going on lmao

oh man rodimus telling cd not to erase trailbreakers memory even tho that could jeopardize the entire timeline... :(

oh man I didn't even notice but roller getting debris blasted into his face like that makes the whole ‘roller is tarn’ theory even more legit considering tarn’s face scars....

‘tighter the better’ hhh don't say that orion. but also, that’s the companion phrase to megatron saying ‘the deeper the better’ hvbhasjkhdfbaksjlf

I do love the semi-campy action hero antics that orion pax gets up to. its just so fun, even when the stakes are high and things are serious

‘this is the greatest thing I have ever seen’ tg ily

THE REVEAL THAT THE SPARKS WENT TO NYON...so rodimus just saved himself, basically...time travel is so trippy

GODDDD ND THEN TRAILBREAKER...HVHHHHHh 😭😭😭 THATS SO CRUEL MAN

oh man that last panel of trailbreaker holding up roller’s juice box...iirc the first time I read this I thought that was roller (cause of the juice box I guess? idk I'm an idiot) so I was like oh ok he must've come back or something. very much related but I didn't really think about tarn being a particular pre-established character and totally didn't read the whole ‘roller is tarn’ thing that was going on

which in my defense ruth also didn't pick up on any of that while reading this and eventually like 2 issues before the reveal I had to prompt her like ‘you should maybe be wondering WHO tarn is’ vhbahjksdfbaksjdf

so! issue 37! this issue is a solid favorite of mine, id say definitely top 5 or even 3. I'm super biased bc I fucking LOVE time travel, it’s seriously one of my favorite tropes ever, and this issue hits all the time travel beats I love. characters traveling to the past and interacting with people they know! conversations that have multiple meanings bc of TIME TRAVEL! trying to save someone who meets a terrible fate in your future! fun time travel action! the time traveling characters being generally terrible at hiding the fact that they're time travelers! ITS SO GOOD.

and I love the clever way everything is tied together here - where we get a nice continuation of shadowplay, with this taking place shortly after that with a lot of the same cast, and time travel classics like the good ole ‘if we hadn't travelled back in time and done what we did, the future we came from wouldn't have existed at all,’ in the flavor of ‘rodimus saving his baby self’ and ‘rodimus NOT saving trailbreaker’ and ‘everyone forgot about roller :(’

ok but like, did the lost lighters just go ‘oh well, guess rollers gone now.’ like they DID realize that the outlaw crew would have no idea what happened to him if they got their memories erased, right?? did the lost lighters figure that since roller never reappeared after this time period, that was how history was ‘supposed’ to go and they shouldn't mess with it? am I overthinking it? as usual: yes, probably. I love overthinking about comics, in case that wasn't obvious

basically...I love this issue soooo much. so so good and a bunch of fun tropes that I love. I mean the whole arc is like that for me since I love time travel so much. so I cant wait to (re)read more!!

#lj rereads mtmte

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jewfrogs · 3 years

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the book was the fascinators by andrew eliopulos and i just have to say words about it because it’s going to bug me for the rest of the day if i don’t so here’s my impromptu (spoiler-rife) review, under the cut because it got long:

the central premise is really solid: these three kids—sam, delia, and james—live in a small town in georgia in a world where magic exists & is well known but generally frowned upon by xtians, and they’re the only three members of their high school magic club. sam is openly gay & less openly in love with james, and delia is a powerful magicker whose goal is to get into a fancy magic college & learn all of the magic she can. this is interesting! this is intriguing!

unfortunately, the further premise & the biggest cause of dramatic tension/plot in the book—these kids getting wrapped up in a magic cult called true light—doesn’t really Hit. true light is weird. it doesn’t make sense. they’re given this weird sense of grandiosity for a group that has literally seven members—yes, they’re powerful magickers, but they supposedly erase every mention of them from the internet, like carl’s note? how is that possible? (and why did sam not simply archive it? hit up the wayback machine, king)—and they don’t have particularly clear goals, other than gathering more magic to... do more magic? and one of the leaders claims that she’s getting messages from angels? right. what’s all this then.

the conflict near the end was incredibly anticlimactic—we find out that true light is going to fuck shit up at the state magic convention (which i loved conceptually! jcl vibes! but it didn’t really deliver on that either), and then they show up and do... something (i’m still not fully sure) and then it’s over in a few pages. the main characters don’t even really do anything when this happens. it just happens. sam knows about it ahead of time and doesn’t do anything in particular about it. none of it feels like it matters or like it changes anything. (also, i just have to say, delia joining the cult made no sense with her character! none!)

one of the problems this book faced that a lot of books that feature (high school) drama struggle with is that it’s not easy to write about a friendship that is currently falling apart and still make it compelling. the book started out with their relationships already strained, so we don’t really get to see sam, delia, & james work, be actual friends who love & care about each other, which makes it a lot harder to be invested in their feelings and to feel like they really are friends. we’re told about their friendship more than we’re shown, because the premise relies on us accepting that they’re best friends, but we don’t get to see that be true. they never seem to like each other that much.

and then there’s the trope that really bugs me: the stupid love triangle. i do not see it! i do not want it! here are some cluttered thoughts on that:

first of all i just want to say that delia is such a dick to sam about his crush on james, which is understandable—she’s a teenager, and teenagers are often dicks—but it felt unfair to me that sam never got to tell her that she was being an insensitive asshole

this was a variant of the trope i posted about yesterday, because sam’s crush... isn’t unrequited? really? it’s strongly hinted throughout the book that james likes sam back, and then it’s stated near the very end, but then sam is just... dating denver. and it’s not addressed or mentioned

speaking of denver: he’s nothing! he’s barely a character! he doesn’t have any flaws or any depth, he’s just a blandly nice guy who exists for sam to be gay with, but i don’t care about sam being gay with him, because, again, he is so boring. i cannot think of anything that he does that meaningfully affects the plot or any character trait that he has other than “nice” and “from nashville, i guess”

i wish james’s feelings about/relationship with his father had been explored more, because he’s clearly dealing with A Lot within his family but the book doesn’t spend any time on it and none of his friends seem to care all that much or extend him any real sympathy? even though his father is pretty clearly abusive and that informs a lot of james’s actions throughout the book

the whole thing with amber was weird. justice for amber (i think she should’ve been gay. delia also should’ve been gay)

literally why did sam and james not get together why was this not a best friends to lovers story i simply do not understand!!!!! what was the reason!!!!! they should’ve gotten together it would have made so much more sense than what actually happened lol

anyway my formal rating is a solid 2.25/5 stars. that’s all folks

#i know i could just post an actual review on goodreads or whatever but listen i hate doing that so #books #the fascinators #smh this book didnt deserve all the bite marks i have on my hands now #i love the concept so much i just want to take all of this and make it Work #ribbits

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x0401x · 5 years

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Okay already.

Y’all are really damn eager for it, so here you have it: the infamous List of Erased Gay, AKA a glimpse of how we could be having it all if KyoAni weren’t doing us so dirty this year, Tsurune edition. The Violet Evergarden edition seems to have left a big impression, so maybe this listing will become a thing.

Then again, along with the canon gay that we lost, we gained a lot of anime-only shippy service that is not only weirdly fixated on Minato alone but also ruins the nature of many characters. KyoAni has been outright baffling this year in how little it understands the novels that it has been adapting, and even more in how proficient it has become in destroying the main relationships of each title. All in all, the personalities and purposes of the main characters have been severely altered, and there has been a disturbing trend (not only in Tsurune, but also in Violet Evergarden and Liz to Aoi Tori) of making the protagonists obsess with someone who apparently does only the minimum for them and being lukewarm with the people that seemingly care more for their wellbeing.

That’s not what any of these novels are about.

But since this post is centered on Tsurune, I’ll only talk about how the aforementioned major flaws apply to it. That boils down to KyoAni erasing most of what Masaki did for Minato and about 85% of the scenes they had together, replacing it with additional scenes without much purpose involving other characters. For whatever incomprehensible reason, KyoAni is hellbent on enhancing Minato’s relationship with everyone except the person he has the strongest bond with in the books, and a lot of you guys seemed to notice this. So, in order to address the cringeworthy disaster that the Tsurune anime has become, I’m naming this one as the List of Erased and Misplaced Gay.

Had to put it under a cut because of how long it got. While we’re at it, please consider reading the novel translations.

I gotta apologize to the Anons for stalling so much with this post. It took me a while to write it down since I had to skim the novel to take notes. By the way, to the people who haven’t finished the anime or don’t plan to read the novel: none of what’s cited here are things that will happen; they’re things that already happened in the canon timeline and didn’t make it into the screen. I’ve put them under a cut because it’s too much stuff. It feels like I just wrote a fanfiction but this is actually how canon goes.

I’m going to sort out the list by character relationship, from the mildest to the most blatant (y’all know which one it is).

Noa and Rika

Noa’s anime counterpart seems pretty meager, but her canon self is far more active, and if her saying “there’s no one in this world greater than Seo” isn’t an indication that she ain’t as straight as her arrows, then maybe her shouting at Nanao to “shut up and go burn in the fires of hell” after his advances might be an indication of it. Telling him that he “should be quiet because Seo’s feelings matter” when he flirts with her might also be one. Or not. Sadly, there’s not enough material in this aspect for the girls in the first volume.

Ryouhei and Nanao

These two are the straightest characters out of the group, but their interactions are always full of implications regarding the other club members. The two of them are often used as a means to translate the exchanges between the boys in a way that sounds suggestive as hell, and Nanao is oddly smug about it, which really doesn’t help.

Here’s a compilation of these dialogues, for convenience’s sake:

Nanao: Seiya doesn’t seem like himself today. Ryouhei: Minato probably turned him down. I already got rejected too. Nanao: I understand he wants everyone to join the the tournament, but aren’t those two too stubborn? That Minato guy is such a calamity, being popular with both boys and girls. I’m only popular with girls on that point.

(Try to convince me that Minato isn’t bi after this one. You shall not succeed.)

Kaito: You guys, don’t just stand there and chat; practice! Nanao: Geez, Kacchan, don’t take your anger out on us just because Seiya left. Kaito: Hah? What’re you saying? Nanao: Don’t you watch Seiya a lot? Kaito: Of course. Archery is about practicing while watching each other’s shooting forms.

Nanao: Kacchan, you really suck at endgames. Kaito: Shut up. I got what I needed, so it’s fine.

Kaito: I don’t wanna do team competitions with half-hearted feelings. Didn’t it seem like that guy had been practicing secretly? And I can’t understand the fact that he knows Masa-san. Since when have they known each other? Nanao: Aren’t you Masa-san’s favorite among his acquaintances? Minato’s a genuine bow geek, so I think he’ll unexpectedly be on the same wavelength as you, Kacchan. Kaito: We’re definitely not the same! And anyways, I don’t like that guy. There’s nothing decent about guys with nice faces, including you.

Seiya and Masaki

This one is in the misplaced gay list. In this case, implying Seiya’s non-existent co-dependency towards Minato. In the novel, Seiya isn’t jealous of Masaki and Minato’s relationship. He’s polite with Masaki all the way and starts calling him “Masa-san” from day one. Seiya also never says that he hates Masaki. Because he doesn’t.

Kaito and Masaki

Another example of misplaced gay. Kaito is very obedient around Masaki and obviously stans him as a good example of successful archer, but not in the exaggerated way that the anime tries to sell. In fact, it feels like the anime tries to get him to Minato’s level of fanboying, but although the two of them are equal when it comes to fawning over archery, they have a different vibe when it comes to Masaki. That’s probably because Minato is much closer to Masaki than Kaito is, and Kaito canonically sees Masaki as the brother he never had, while it’s unclear what exactly Minato sees Masaki as in his life.

For starters, Kaito never tried to keep Masaki for himself. He is jealous of Minato for also knowing Masaki and apparently monopolizing him, and he’s mad as hell that Masaki decided to start teaching archery because of Minato, but he never tried to keep Masaki’s existence itself a secret. The only one who did that was Minato. Kaito never refrained from talking to Nanao about Masaki at all. He also talked to Masaki about Nanao, enough for Masaki to be able to recognize Nanao at first sight.

Masaki jokes around Kaito like he does with everyone else, but Kaito responds to it right away with threats that he doesn’t really mean. Whenever Masaki dares him to actually do it, he meekly recoils. They’re found family through and through.

Daigo and Hiroki

The anime has been doing a piss-poor job at showcasing this ridiculously married duo. There isn’t much about them in the first volume, to be fair, but the little we had was enough to deliver that they’re old friends who complete each other. Hiroki is also the only person who listens to Daigo nerding out embarrassedly about idols without judging him, and the two of them are considered “special goods” of Kirisaki for being so inseparable and well-balanced.

Shuu, Sen and Man

These three aren’t nearly as close in the anime as in the original work. The twins absolutely love Shuu and admit to worshipping him. They’re clearly very jealous of Minato for holding Shuu’s attention, and physically attempt to drag Shuu away from him when they’re talking to each other. They’re also openly aggressive with Minato more than to any other team member of Kazemai.

In Kirisaki, their interactions are also different. The twins normally follow Shuu around and monopolize him, which he doesn’t seem to mind. The author describes Shuu sandwiched on both sides by the twins as “charming in some aspects”.

Shuu gives advice to them when asked, which the twins do often, not only because his shooting is their ideal, but also because they find his explanations easier than the teacher’s. He also defends the twins from the more hot-headed senpais when they’re called out for their rudeness.

Also, the twins’ admiration for Shuu isn’t equal. Senichi is way more serious about it than Manji is. The way this trio is depicted, it feels like Senichi is Shuu’s arranged fiancé who happens to be madly in love with him and has to deal with Shuu being in love with someone else.

Delicious.

Kaito and Minato

The anime keeps trying hella hard to maintain that Kaito and Minato have some sort of hero crush on Masaki and that this is the main connection between the two of them, but the novel begs to differ. It also keeps trying to pretend that Minato is the kind of spineless idiot who would act like Kaito is right in trying not to let him into the club because of his target panic, and who would attempt to gain Kaito’s friendship by catering to his unfair treatment. The novel also begs to differ.

Minato is a serious and assertive character. He acknowledges that he’s in bad condition and tries his best to prove his resolve, but only within realistic standards. He tells Kaito right to his face that entering the club is his own decision and warns that Kaito should back off from speaking on Seiya’s behalf, arguing that Seiya would be displeased with it. He also lectures Kaito on being a little shit to everyone, especially to Nanao, simply because he’s insecure.

After Minato joins, Kaito immediately bares his fangs at him. Albeit not putting up with his shit, Minato asks what he could do to be acknowledged as a comrade because you sort of need camaraderie in a team, and Kaito spits out that such a day would never come.

Kaito is outright displeased having to work together with Minato as kaizoe. Minato also isn’t in high spirits. The two of them comically have the same reaction when finding out they’d have to do it.

Minato decides to strike a conversation after the yawatashi, when he and Kaito are getting changed, mainly because he had noticed that Seiya and Kaito’s relationship wasn’t going well because of him. Kaito barks at Minato that there’s no honor in working with him, and Minato reasons that they should reach a mutual understanding, since they’d be in a team competition. Kaito retorts that he didn’t even want to be in them, but he had to after Minato joined. It only becomes clearer that Minato is ruining Kaito’s prospects one by one.

Despite all the clashing, Minato notices that Kaito’s passion for archery is genuine. Still, there’s a lot of misplaced gay in the anime during the training camp. Minato doesn’t desperately try to win Kaito’s favor, isn’t saved by Kaito from falling into the river, and doesn’t ogle at Kaito’s back when he shoots as the oomae for the first time.

Kaito finally shows a slight sign of warming up to Minato by thanking him for saving Nanao’s hat, which had been a present from him and his sisters. This is destroyed by him finding out that Minato and Seiya had attended Kirisaki for middle school.

After the whole accident with Masaki, Kaito assures Minato that it wasn’t his fault, and then he emphasizes it the next day, saying that Minato wasn’t worth being saved by Masaki if he was still twitching with guilt.

When Minato gets a ganglion on his hand, he tries to hide it from everyone, but Kaito notices something wrong. He forces Minato to have it examined by Tomio. And after Seiya performs first-aid on Minato, the following dialogue goes on:

“Shit, you’re seriously so…” “Sorry that this happened right before an important competition… It was because I was careless that I got hurt.” “Aah, you’re so freaking annoying. It doesn’t look like you get why I’m pissed off.” “You’re angry because I messed up?” “Wrong! This is why I said I wanted to focus on only the individual competitions. You tried to hide that injury from us earlier. You think you can compete in a team like that? In the end, you just don’t acknowledge us. All you do is keep secrets!” “I just didn’t want to worry everyone! What, don’t you have a secret too, Onogi!? You said you want to focus on the individual competitions, even though you actually couldn’t help but want to be in team competitions!” “Wha--no way that’d be true!” “I heard it from Nanao!”

Kaito almost gets back at Nanao for opening his mouth, but Minato put himself nose-to-nose in front of Kaito. This is one more example of closure that the anime doesn’t show.

“Onogi, didn’t you say that I was using target panic as an excuse to run away from archery? But aren’t you running away too? You run, run, and you’re still running away even now.” “What do you say that I’m running away from?” “From your ‘comrades’.” “What the hell are you talking about…” “You’re scared of making comrades. You’re scared that your thoughts and desires won’t be followed by other people. Even though you really longed for it, you didn’t want to disappoint others or yourself, so you decided to seal away that wish and not look at it. You’re the weakest kind of archer with that cowardice of yours.” “What did you saaaaaaaay——?!!”

This is how we get to the fight right before their face-off against Kirisaki, which was showed in the anime, but in a wholly different way. The fight itself is different as well. Kaito grabs Minato by the lapels of his gi, but Minato steps forward without any hesitation, unlike in the anime, where he seemed pretty terrified and just stood in place like a rock.

“Kaito.” “Don’t call me Kaito!” “Then, Kacchan.” “That’s even worse!” “Kaito, call me by my name. Call me Minato. Then we’ll be comrades.” “Haaa!?” “Besides, in the Kazemai High School Archery Club’s male division, everyone is calling each other by their first names, but we’re the only ones calling each other by our last names. It’s embarrassing to feel special, right?” “There’s no special feeling——! It’s normal, average. You’re such an airhead.” “When I learned that you wanted to be in a team competition, Kaito, I was really happy. I felt the same way.” “So what?” “Tommy-sensei didn’t make me the ochi for the evetuality of my target panic starting up. It was to make me feel like I had four comrades in front of my eyes. So, Kaito, you must feel the four of us at your back, right? You aren’t alone. I’ll protect the end of the line so that everyone can follow behind you. I’ll go with you to the very top.” “You were just babbling on. I’m gonna trample you.” “Why would you trample me? We’re going together.”

Yes, they didn’t get to this point by Kaito being hysterical about following Masaki’s teachings or by Minato telling everyone to forget them, because that’s just fucking dumb. If teachings weren’t necessary, there would be no need for taking classes in the first place.

It’s only here that Tomio hands them the headbands. They all put them on and Minato doesn’t need a pep talk from Seiya in order to tie his own. Kaito then finally calls Minato (and only Minato, as he’d already been on a first-name basis with Seiya since the beginning) by his first name for the first time.

Kaito and Seiya

To quote myself from an earlier post:

One of the things I noticed is that not just their relationship but their personalities are different in the anime, and this in turn affects the rest. What I find so good about them is the irony that Seiya is a dog person who acts cat-like and Kaito is a cat person who acts dog-like and you can feel this shit in their exchanges.

There are many details to this relationship that could be considered gems. When Kaito meets Seiya and Minato at Kazemai, he recognizes Seiya right away from their tournament in middle school, but not Minato. As I said before, the two of them refer to themselves by their first names off the bat and Kaito is quick to try to get Seiya into individual competitions with him. He insists that the two of them can “aim for the top together”, and gets extremely frustrated when Seiya refuses. He’s also pretty offended when Seiya claims that Minato is above him when it comes to natural ability.

The day after Seiya and Minato fight in the rain, Seiya catches a cold and is overall very distracted, enough to mistake Kaito’s bow for his own and use it instead. Kaito asks him how he managed the feat because one would normally be able to tell the difference, to which Seiya responds that he “did think it felt sort of tougher”.

I will not turn this into innuendo. I shan’t.

Kaito then notices Seiya looks red and places a hand on his forehead, confirming that he has a fever, like any good shoujo protagonist would do with the heroine. And this is where the author begins to hint that Kaito treats Seiya differently from the other club members. Kaito is overall gentler with him for no given motive. Even though he’s the type to care for everyone, he normally scolds those he looks after and makes clear that they should be able to look after themselves, but he doesn’t do this with Seiya at all. And the best of it is that Seiya responds to his awkward kindness.

When he realizes that Seiya is sick, the first thing he does is tell him that he should take a break because he’s busy with other matters aside from club activities and Seiya brushes him off, but then closes his eyes and says that Kaito’s cold hand feels good against his hot face and goddamn. What a low sweep. Goddamn.

Basically, all Kaito can do is frown and he doesn’t manage to come up with much of a response. By the time Seiya leaves, Kaito is still staring at him, and he gets visibly annoyed when Seiya isn’t there anymore. Again, for no given reason.

Kaito confronts Minato two days later about joining the club, acting as Seiya’s spokesperson on his own accord and telling Minato that he shouldn’t upset Seiya or raise his hopes fruitlessly. He gets angry when Minato argues that Seiya wouldn’t forgive him for butting into their affairs, and maintains that Seiya would be going to the individual competitions with him, not to the team competitions.

Right before the training camp, when Kaito and Seiya are cleaning up the targets together, Kaito finally confronts Seiya about his stance regarding Minato. He calls Seiya out for being like an overprotective father around Minato, and makes observations that even Seiya himself admits to be right:

“About your good point of nicely taking care of everyone, it seems that it’s because you’re following the rules. Like, you go forward at the green light and stop at the red light ‘cause you were taught to do so. Still, you’re different around Narumiya. You do with him what you really wanna do. But I’m not saying that you’re black-hearted. Your good quality is fairness ‘cause you have enough brains and ability to take action to properly make use of what you’ve learned. Many people are relying on you. Your guiding principles were misled ‘cause you, the club president, got too engrossed with one person. I mean, you shouldn’t have forced everyone to go for team competitions this time.”

Seiya is predictably displeased that Kaito hit bull’s-eye, and tells him that he should be focusing more into practice if he has time to be observing him. And sure, I get that he would want to tell Kaito to hop off his shit because this little fucker has a lot of secrets............ but he certainly didn’t have to hold Kaito’s hand while doing it. And he most certainly didn’t have to hold it so tight that the arrow on Kaito’s hand creaked a little.

Kaito says to Seiya’s face that a lot of what he spouts sounds fishy, and Seiya changes the subject by claiming that all he wants is for Minato to draw the bow like he used to once again. Kaito can tell that there’s more to his motives than this, but as Seiya leaves as fast as he can, he’s unable to ask. The arrow that remained on his hand was Seiya’s, and the emphasis on the fact that it was a wornout one probably stems from the long-standing burdens that Seiya has been carrying.

Yeah, this debunkes the anime’s stupid excuse that Seiya is in the archery club because of Minato. He’s depicted in the novel as being his own person and having his own will, so he does have a mind outside of Minato. Even if Minato had never joined the club, Seiya would have stayed in it.

Anyway, fast forward to the day before the training camp, Kaito confronts Seiya about not signing up for the individuals. Seiya ignores him, which pisses him off.

Once Kaito finds out that Seiya and Minato went to Kirisaki in middle school, he bitches to Seiya about keeping it a secret. Seiya argues that he hadn’t told anyone because he didn’t want everybody digging up on them and retorts that Kaito could have simply looked them up if he’d really wanted to know, but after Kaio leaves, Seiya admits that he should have properly talked about it when Kaito had asked. He resigns to the fact that finding out about it way after people of other clubs probably made Kaito feel awful and says he has no right to be the club president. Yet he’s cheered up by Ryouhei and decides to discuss the subject properly with Kaito when he gets a chance.

Kaito is so thrown-off by the fresh frustrations that he loses the improvement he had acquired during the training camp on the spot (no, he didn’t fail because of a stupid obsession with making his bow turn, KyoAni). He actually made it through the first round, but fell short in the second, together with Nanao (yes, he participated), Yuuna and Noa (yes, the girls didn’t fuck up right from the get-go and none of them had zero hits).

Kaito continues acting off during club activities and gets into an argument with the girls and Minato, but he’s immediately shut down by Seiya because this bitch weak.

Later on, in order to help the boys enhance their teamwork and to distract them from the stress of having to face Kirisaki, Tomio bought them sports fishing passes and sent them to a fishing spot. Since fishing alone was forbidden, the five boys split into two groups. Ryouhei and Nanao went with Minato, leaving Kaito to work together with Seiya, who had brought Kuma along. The two of them caught river bugs to serve as bait together and sat at opposite sides of the shore.

I think it’s worth mentioning that Kaito was being his usual sharp self with the others, but with Seiya, he acted completely tame. There wasn’t any trace of his frustration in his attitude.

Seiya went back to Kaito after having caught one salmon, and found that Kaito’s fishing line had become entangled on a tree. After Seiya sent a picture of what he had gotten to Minato and the others, he and Kaito sat down...... really close together under a shaded area. Seiya took a tomato curry bread out of his backpack and shared half of it with Kaito, and after they were done, they chatted idly, with Seiya commenting that Kuma seemed to be showing respect for Kaito. Kaito then stroked him and Kuma sat down next to Kaito as if to nestle close to him.

Once Kaito gets the Kuma Seal of Approval, he and Seiya have the following conversation:

“About the whole deal with Kirisaki’s Shuu, it was wrong of me to keep it all a secret; I’m sorry. I’ll discuss things properly from now on.” “Ah, no, you don’t have to talk about it. There’s nothing you have to apologize for. You had something you didn’t want anyone else to know about, and it was wrong of me to get curious over it. Even if I knew, it doesn’t really mean I could be of help to you guys, either.” “That’s not true. I’m counting on you, Kacchan.” “You…even though I was talking seriously… Can I punch you?” “Well, the competition is over, after all. I think Tommy-sensei gave us this mission not to acquire stamina and patience through fishing, but to make us step away from the bow once in a while and relax. Minato seems to be conscious of Shuu and getting flustered by him too.” “Rather than him, I’m a little worried about you.” “Me? Why?” “Aren’t you fretting over Narumiya’s target panic more than he is? Other than that, how can I put it? Uh… Anyways, you’re also a disappointment.” “I don’t quite get it, but well, I’m thankful that you’re worried about me.” “You’re nice to everyone, and yet you act sassy with me.”

Kaito had actually wanted to ask Seiya if he felt some sort of guilt regarding Minato, but the question was too insensitive even for him. He also acknowledged that he might not be able to find the right words to reply with if Seiya said yes, and didn’t want to seem like he was criticizing Seiya for it. So, instead, he goes with this:

“Seiya, when I first saw you at the information session, I thought that you were a guy who was well-composed and really good at archery. I’d been watching you for a while, and I thought maybe you were similar to me in some way. You have passion, some kind of conviction, don’t you? I want to respect it. I respect you for working hard to earn a calm and collected self.” “You praising me feels unpleasant. Should I say that you should go practice if you have the time to observe me?” “I want to win the prefectural tournament - with all five of us.” “Yeah… that’s right.”

The author then describes the maple trees overhead, and just to put it out there, maple stands for reserve, which might be an allusion to Kaito holding back from digging further into the matter (even though he was right, like he always is about Seiya). They also mean strength and endurance, and that matches Kaito’s comments on Seiya.

A few days later, during a softball tournament of their school, Minato and Seiya’s class was playing against Kaito’s. Seiya teases Kaito when they spot each other about how the soccer field is somewhere else, since Kaito was being recurrently summoned to be part of the soccer team by the school’s soccer club at the beginning of the semester, to which Kaito responds with, “Seiyaaa, not you too”.

When the game begins, Kaito is the first batter and Seiya is the baseman. Kaito gets a hit in the second try, and gives Seiya a “how’s that” look when passing him by.

On the first day of club activities after Masaki was hospitalized, Kaito was the one to announce that everyone should continue practice like normal in order not to waste what they’d been taught. Before doing so, he gazes at Seiya for a brief moment as if to ask for permission to speak on his behalf.

After Kazemai’s tiebreaking match with Kubo high school, while everyone was having lunch, Seiya and Kaito were checking the competition’s program and discussing the formalities for the exiting of the next round, which would be slightly different from the others.

At the tournament, when Seiya diagnoses and treats Minato’s ganglion, Kaito is visibly impressed by the fact he carries first-aid items around with him, and Seiya merely responds that he shouldn’t underestimate a son of orthopedic surgeons who used to play with medical tape instead of building blocks.

Keep on roasting him with care, you four-eyed witch.

In other words, Seiya and Kaito interact a lot. Onogi “hands off my man” Kaito is often on the role of looking out for Seiya, who in turn looks out for everyone. Just like Masaki with Minato, Kaito is always spot-on about Seiya and gets really damn close to finding out his heaviest secret, and prods into Seiya’s business enough to shake even a careful planner like him. Meanwhile, Seiya is sharp as a knife with him, but recognizes he shouldn’t be, and resorts to sassing Kaito when he gets too sappy. He also acts somewhat tsun when Kaito is too gentle, and not-so-subtly starts hanging around Kaito most of the time after he starts acting like a normal best friend to Minato once again.

Seiya and Minato

It all obviously starts right on the first part of the first chapter, because Ayano Kotoko wastes no time. When Minato and Seiya meet during the morning of their high school entrance ceremony, Minato hinted that he might have been getting sick, and Seiya teases him about it. Then he says that if this did end up happening, he would offer to “faithfully nurse” Minato in the special hospital room of his parents’ clinic, to which Minato retorts that he would turn Seiya down because “who knows what you’d do”. Seiya claims he wouldn’t do anything, but the feigned innocence is so evident here that you don’t even have to guess what kind of face he’s making.

When Minato, Seiya and Ryouhei are approached by Tomio, Seiya bluffs that he knows Minato is “carrying his treasure around” and smirks when he falls for it. After Minato fails magnificently at the demonstration shooting and scurries to leave, Seiya says he’d be waiting for him to join the club, holding Minato’s place in the boys’ team for as long as it was necessary.

When Minato comes back home late in his third night visiting Yata no Mori, he finds Seiya waiting for him in front of his house. Seiya already knew that Minato had sneaked out somewhere the previous night, and as he questions Minato about it, he finds one of Fuu’s feathers on his hair. Minato does nothing but give roundabout answers, and then straight-up lies that he was just wandering around on his bike, which Seiya is far from believing but lets slide. This whole moment sort of feels like a father questioning his teenage daughter about sneaking out of home to see her boyfriend.

Seiya then confronts Minato about joining the club, competitions and target panic. He reveals that he doesn’t feel their loss in middle school was only Minato’s fault, since he got caught up with the whole situation and lost control of himself as well. Minato happens to hate this whole talk, and ends up saying he doesn’t want to do archery with Seiya, which isn’t true. He simply doesn’t want to keep causing trouble, but doesn’t know how to convey it. Although Seiya does understand what Minato means, he’s still hurt by his words because Minato being able to rely on him is his anchor. He then responds in the way he always does when he’s upset.

By being a stone-cold bitch.

The anime is trying to paint Seiya as meek and passive, but he’s an icy little fucker when his mood swings for the worse. He stares at Minato as if looking down on him, and this is when he throws the “Actually, would you be able to endure it if I did blame you? Or not? It’s easy to make you cry.” bomb on Minato’s lap. And instead of leaving it as that like he did in the anime, Minato grabs Seiya by the collar and pushes him to the ground, then Seiya pushes him onto a tree.

The following day at school, Minato found himself looking for Seiya during his absence, even though he had been avoiding him before they fought. A day later, Minato leaves a box of Pucky in Seiya’s mailbox as a sign of apology. No, he doesn’t write that he would be waiting for Seiya. He didn’t have to, since novel!Seiya never once doubted his love for archery. What he did was draw a dog on the box, which is something that Seiya used to do to display an intent of reconciliation. Seiya also leaves a box of (premium) Pucky for him as reply.

The next morning, Minato contacts Seiya, who welcomes him to the archery club, and he almost tears up at it.

Misplaced gay ensues in a non-canon scene of the five boys bathing together at the training camp. Nanao’s comment about Seiya’s “love” for Minato never happened in the novel. Seiya also wasn’t around when Minato retrieved Nanao’s hat from the river, so he wasn’t even there to help, although he was worried when he saw Minato coming back all soaked.

During the softball game, Seiya yet again shows exaggerated worry as the pitcher aims at Minato’s left flank. He attempts to get someone else to be the batter even though Minato had dodged the ball and was unharmed.

Even as the game ends, Seiya asks if Minato hadn’t been grazed even a little, and despite being reassured that he hadn’t, Seiya asks if Minato had been going to his yearly check-ups. When Minato answers that he hadn’t, as already four years had passed since the accident, Seiya yells that he shouldn’t neglet his check-ups because his wound still throbs from time to time, loud enough for Minato to flinch. Seiya then comes up with suggestions to motivate Minato to go, like asking his parents to drive Minato there (no, he doesn’t do check-ups with Seiya’s father) or offering to tag along in case Minato feels bored while waiting. Minato feels extremely uncomfortable and declines it all, asking Seiya why he worries so much. Seiya responds that he has the “responsibility to worry for Minato’s health”, and Minato jokes that he sounds like he feels guilty for something. Seiya says nothing back, and when Minato prods for an answer, he replies that it’s part of his responsibility as club president. That isn’t the whole truth and Minato can tell as much. In fact, he had only joked because he had been hoping to hear Seiya ask back “what are you even talking about”.

Minato had felt for a while that Seiya seemed to wish for his improvement at archery even more than his own, as if he were trying to compensate for something. He recognizes that some aspects of Seiya’s worry are unnatural and can’t be explained with the word “meddling”. As Seiya’s sense of guilt became gradually clearer, Minato grew scared.

At this point, in the anime, all of this was replaced with flashbacks from Minato and Seiya’s childhood that never happened in the novel, like the day Minato’s family went to greet Seiya’s, their multiple discussions about entering the archery club when they become middle scholars, Minato saying that he asked Saionji to include Seiya in their class but was denied (yes, he kept it a secret even from Seiya in canon), Minato introducing Seiya to Shuu, Minato saying he didn’t want to do archery anymore after he got hit, and Seiya convincing him to do it.

The next day, when Minato and Seiya come home from school, Minato asks to talk and the two of them go under a nearby tree. He starts off reporting that he booked a check-up, and announces that what he has to discuss is serious talk and that he was bracing himself for it and that he wanted Seiya to answer without teasing him. Seiya asks if he has to talk about it right away, and Minato says that things might end up just like the last tournament of middle school if he doesn’t. Basically, his built-up anxiety over their unresolved matter might cause his target panic to act up again. It’s finally then that Minato asks Seiya why he didn’t go to Kirisaki even though his parents could pay for it and why he kept trying so hard to get Minato back into archery.

This entire conversation was replaced in the anime with the scene of them on the street, and although some things are similar, most of it is wholly different:

“I swore that I would protect you on behalf of your mother. Creating an environment where you can draw a bow is my duty.” “Could it be that you spoke with Mom at the hospital she was transported to? Did you make that promise there?” “No. It was my fault that your mother died. That you suffered a wound that won’t disappear for the rest of your life.” “What are you talking about? That was an accident. An accident where a runaway vehicle ran over people walking on the sidewalk. The police took this conclusion too, and there were lots of witnesses so there was no doubt about it. Why are you saying something like that? Didn’t you just happen to be at the scene by chance?” “Don’t you remember? On that day, you were walking with your mother. I stopped you two to talk on that road. I said goodbye and left, heading in the opposite direction. And then, an awfully fast car passed by me… If I had turned around, if I had turned around… ‘If’…It’s all suppositions now. If, at that time, I hadn’t stopped you, the two of you would have passed that place sooner, and then you wouldn’t have been involved in the accident. I was the one who injured you and snatched your mother away from you. So I swore that I’d fully atone for the sin of hurting you. I will protect you…”

It’s kind of impossible to tell that Seiya sounds exactly like a mom at this point, just like in everything he does for Minato. Minato resents not realizing that Seiya had burdened himself with something so heavy and had been in pain ever since the accident which I think says a lot about the fact that Kaito noticed something was wrong with Seiya in the way he acted around Minato and in the things he would say from the very beginning. Minato feels like the problems resolving around his target panic are dust next to what Seiya was dealing with and that he wants to accept Seiya’s troubles. Seiya had always been protecting him, and now he thinks he wants to protect Seiya in return.

Yeah, he never really said that he had managed to get back into archery because Seiya waited for him, or that it was his turn to wait for Seiya. That’s misplaced gay, and unsurprisingly, it’s watered-down. Their exchange in the novel is actually pretty calm in spite of all the tension that had built up until then:

“I’ve always thought that you were smart, Seiya, but you’re actually surprisingly dumb.” “Huh?” “Am I wrong? It was you who kept me on the earth. Because you stopped us at that time, I only got injured. I’m here thanks to you. Thank you, Seiya. I think I really am a lucky guy.” “Minato… I’m a sneaky person. Maybe I said all that because I knew that you would forgive me, y’know?” “Uh-huh, that’s fine. Even if you become a vicious criminal who shakes up the world, or even if you get a contagious disease without cure that leads to death, I don’t plan on ever stopping to be your friend. Even if it’s at a prison at the farthest ends of the north, even if it’s at an isolation ward, I’ll go see you.” “What’s with all that…? Were you planning on putting up a cool façade by saying all that?” “Of course.”

Seiya then smiles and places his head on Minato’s shoulder without any lame excuses, while Minato thinks about how Seiya can lean on him sometimes, for he won’t collapse. About how he wanted to stand firm on the ground, not too stiffly or too limply, but flexibly. And then Seiya throws in the golden line that the anime shouldn’t have cut out, because doing so ruined his character and painted his obsession as something positive and justified:

“Minato, I just want you to believe this. I love archery too. I’m not drawing the bow for someone else’s sake, but because I love it.”

Catch me stanning this eternal friendship until I die. Yeah, that’s as far as the “gay” goes for them. Of course, they’re still shown together in as many scenes as possible, but the ambiguousness is no longer present as soon as Seiya stops treating Minato like his own child and actually gives him the space any normal friend would. Literally everything that happened in the anime between them beyond this point (and I do mean everything, even just their conversations) is KyoAni’s original content.

Long live these unapologetically healthy best friends. Fuck KyoAni’s fanservicey ass.

Shuu and Minato

The way Shuu is being depicted in the anime is underwhelming at best. He might be quiet and calm on the outside, but on the inside, he’s extremely passionate about archery and about Minato, though not in this clichéd and overused way that the anime is portraying.

Even though Seiya also used to be on their team, Shuu considers Minato his only rival and bow friend. The two of them know each other well and are actually pretty close, since they literally attended the same middle school.

None of this actually shows in the anime at all. One may argue that it’s easy to notice he’s interested in Minato more than anyone else, and it really is, but their rivalry isn’t nearly as fiery and there seems to be no trace of their friendship. Shuu simply keeps spouting been-there-done-that catchphrases that any rival of any sports animanga has said to the protagonist, and that’s it.

In the novel, Shuu is rather obsessed with Minato in different ways. He doesn’t only crave for Minato in competitions, he also craves for him outside of the dojo. He misses him since they’re attending different schools, but ever since they were little, he had always wanted to spend way more time with Minato than he actually had in his hands. He hates having to part ways with Minato when business is over and is unforgiving of anyone who might “steal” Minato from him. KyoAni for some reason has made Seiya hostile towards Masaki, but Shuu is the one who resents Masaki for becoming Minato’s goal rather than himself.

The flashbacks also aren’t helping. When they were kids, they acted... well, like kids, and not like mini versions of how they are now. They were loud, openly competitive, and would fight for Saionji’s side because he had bad hearing, so they had to talk close to his ears. They were also like older brothers to Saionji’s grandson, which the anime didn’t show.

Their first meeting was different. Minato usually came around the dojo to peek at practice, and Saionji took him as pupil along with Shuu because he believed that teaching the two of them was his fate.

Minato had always annoyed Shuu and was always the only one capable of instigating fiery emotions in him, starting with the fact that he made Shuu realize that someone else his age was as talented as himself. Shuu was extremely irritated when Minato suddenly stopped coming to their practice, having no idea that the motive had been the car accident. He was irritated yet again when they met by chance in middle school, and all the while, he keeps thinking, “who do you think you are to irritate me”.

When Hiroki comments that Shuu must be so elegant and skilled with his shooting because he was taught by a former imperial guard, Shuu responds that he’s actually like that because there’s someone whose heart he wants to shoot through. He credits Minato for his own prowess because his desire to be better than Minato is what got him so far. The twins ask if there was someone who managed to charm him that much and if the saying “the greatest hate springs from the greatest love” has anything to do with it. Shuu responds with nothing but a daring smile and an “I wonder”.

Other interactions between them that the anime watered down are their greetings during the beginning of the tournament and Shuu’s words before he left. In the novel, Minato froze at the sight of him and held his breath when he got close. Shuu reminisces to memories of when they were kids, which is why he goes to Minato’s side and whispers into his ear. Then he puts a hand over Minato’s scar and asks if it still hurts, and Minato answers that it doesn’t.

Just a heads-up: everyone is watching this unfold. Kazemai and the twins are staring at this bullshit but everyone feels they can’t get close because the gay atmosphere around them is too intense.

Minato says that he knows Shuu turned his back on him for getting target panic while he got a full score during the individual competitions at the middle school championship (because of the “cold look” that Shuu had given him in after their loss), and claims that he can’t face Shuu at all. Shuu responds that he hadn’t turned his back on Minato even once, and that he had only not comforted or admonished Minato at that time because he didn’t think there were words for Minato’s situation.

He reveals that he had no idea Minato had suddenly stopped coming to their secret practice because of a serious injury, and that he had realized just how eagerly he had been waiting for Minato when they met again in middle school. He had believed that Minato would definitely come back in high school as well, and asked Minato to “show his archery again”. Minato seems a little touched by it, and Shuu comments that Saionji actually never taught anyone personally, and that Saionji apparently believed Shuu and Minato to be the last duty entrusted to him. Shuu believes that their meeting was a “gift from the God of the bow”, and after saying so, he leaves.

Many things didn’t happen, though. Like the two of them meeting after the tournament and at the shrine. Shuu never asks Minato to take responsibility for changing his life, never acts like a total dick with Seiya and never tells Minato that one can’t do archery for someone else’s sake.

The day before the first team competitions, Minato had barely slept because of his meeting with Shuu. He was glad that Shuu hadn’t given up on him and felt strongly that he didn’t want to lose face in front of him. He was extremely impatient after seeing Shuu’s shooting, and their difference in skill was ever so present even in the next days, as he wanted to become the kind of archer who could be a match for Shuu as fast as possible.

During the second phase of the tournament, Minato and Shuu meet again, and the dialogue they have is way different from the anime:

“Minato, it’s been a while. How are you feeling today?” “Not bad at all, Shuu. A lot of cheering squads came for us today, so I’m fired-up.” “I’m surprised to hear you say such a thing. You said before that you weren’t drawing for the sake of other people watching you. You thought spectators were annoying.” “I’m honestly happy to be supported now. Besides, I’ve just always loved doing archery, be it before or now. So why is someone like you drawing a bow, Shuu? Aren’t you doing it for the same reasons as me?”

Instead of replying, Shuu just smiled brightly, and this ticked off the twins, who started attacking Minato and had to be stopped by Shuu. He apologized on their behalf, which yet again spiked jealousy, and left with them.

Right before the tiebreaking match, Minato wondered if Shuu was watching from somewhere. Minato had never participated in one of them before, and it was all thanks to Shuu. Having someone as skilled as him to be the ochi was reassuring, and Minato entrusted him and Seiya with his back in their middle school days. However, unlike how the anime goes, the novel explicitly states that Minato’s state of mind being at ease during competitions was Shuu’s merit, specifically. He knew that Shuu would always hit, and so he could remain calm, knowing that someone could cover up for him if he made any mistakes.

Similar to this scene, right before the final match between Kazemai and Kirisaki, Shuu yet again comes to talk to Minato as he was being bothered by the twins:

“I’m deeply moved to face you in competition again, Minato. Did you hurt your wrist?” “No, it’s already fine. I can’t help but feel happy to take on the strongest member.” “I’m looking forward to it.”

During the duo’s last shot, the clouds opened up, and the grains of dust illuminated by the sunlight formed the shape of wings on their backs. As Shuu misses his last shot, he mouths the word, “congratulations” to Minato while the Kazemai boys are hugging him.

In short, Shuu and Minato’s relationship is originally complex and tridimensional, and the anime is reducing it to something dry, commonplace and boring.

Masaki and Minato

Here comes the bible that you asked for, you heathens.

First off, this duo is ridiculous. Their relationship literally has absolutely no business being as good as it is. You just know that it’s the most important one of the story from the fact that it begins when chapter one ends and appears on the very first illustration (other than the one in the cover).

I’m gonna start from the start: the character relationship chart from the official site. It says that what Minato borders for Masaki is “reverence”. That’s pretty heavy for a high school student.

A number of things ensue right before Masaki and Minato’s first meeting, which the anime didn’t show:

When Minato hears Masaki’s tsurune for the first time, his heart starts racing.

While he’s approaching the dojo, he’s praying in his head for Masaki not to disappear until he gets there. He was already thinking that maybe Masaki might be a ghost that haunted the shrine, but he didn’t care if this was the case.

Minato watched Masaki’s shooting for waaay longer in the novel. He stood hidden behind a fence as Masaki fired six shots and then did the finishing formalities.

While Masaki was collecting the arrows, Minato was sighing heavily, rubbing his sweaty palms against his uniform and wondering if he should go talk to him. But it’s totally not a crush. Totally not.

I hate these two so much.

Just to put it out there, it feels like Yamamura Takuya (the anime’s director) is fanboying over Masaki. Or more like over an ideal version of him. In canon, Masaki is an absolute dork and not nearly as composed and mature as the anime tries to sell him. He’s usually clumsy and vulgar, and jokes around a lot.

That being said, he gets friendly with Minato overly quickly. Although he’s confused as to why a random kid would be in the woods watching him, their first conversation is about anything but that, and suddenly Fuu is the topic. It escalates from Masaki offering to nurse the scratch on Minato’s hand to Minato volunteering to replace the lamps of the shrine’s waiting room, and then to the two of them drinking canned coffee together at the shajo. In-between this, we have Masaki joking about Minato being suspicious of him and that he wouldn’t charge for the medicine, knocking over a drawer and sending the contents flying, throwing unnoticed sarcasm at Minato while he changes the lamps and Minato mistaking the can of coffee for alcohol. Masaki then resumes shooting the rest of the arrows after that and Minato stays as audience. Once he’s done, Minato questions him about his shooting routine, and Masaki answers every question even though they literally just met.

All of this in just one night.

To add up, the novel has a veil of supernatural in it, and Minato and Masaki’s encounters in the shrine are portrayed with an atmosphere of mystery. They feel somewhat fantasious since there’s a lot of symbolism and ellusive language involved, like the shrine is a separate world that belongs just to the two of them, where both Minato and Masaki find not only each other but also themselves, renewing their love for the bow. And this is where I myself started becoming inspired while reading this novel. I, too, felt like praticing archery for once, so that I could point the bow at my head and shoot an arrow right into my face because I can’t take this bullshit.

But I digress.

Minato goes home without asking Masaki’s name, then proceeds to search for information regarding him on the internet like some stalkerish middle school girl. He finds nothing and berates himself for not asking, but also wouldn’t know what to do if he had really asked. 100% not a high school chick flick.

The next evening, Minato visits the shrine again. It’s raining, and when he finds Masaki shooting just like in the previous night, he notices that it feels like Masaki is performing a prayer when he does so. Minato watches hidden behind the fence yet again and wonders what Masaki could be wishing for in a night where the stars aren’t visible, because apparently Masaki’s presence increases Minato’s poetic tendencies by a hundred.

When Masaki spots him, he gives a peace sign and beckons him, but Minato’s brain has bluescreened at that point, so being the little shit he is, Masaki crouches and gestures to Minato as if he’s calling over a dog or a cat. This predictably has Minato flustered, and Masaki jokes that seeing him under the rain in a dark spot is scary. Minato comes to the shajo dripping wet and Masaki lends him a beginner’s uniform, telling him that he doesn’t have to be so formal.

By the time Minato returns, the floor that he had dirtied is completely clean, even though Masaki had asked Minato to mop it once he finished changing. The two of them have canned coffee together again, this time with oyaki. Fuu hadn’t showed up because of the rain, and that’s when Masaki jokes that Minato’s shoulder is the perfect perch for him. While arguing that he isn’t an ornament, Minato asks about the hours of activity in the dojo, and finds out that it was supposed to be used until 9pm but is currently only used during daytime, so the only one who is there at night is Masaki, except for couples that sneak inside occasionally. Minato is taken aback at the fact that couple come to a sacred place to make out and whatnot, and for some godforsaken reason, the author seemed to think it was a good idea for Masaki to retort with, “You don’t seem to have much experience in that area. Shall I teach you the basics?”

*high-pitched screaming*

One might argue that this isn’t as suggestive as it seems, but Minato responds with, “You perverted old man” and Masaki just... freaking grins. And then this bitch hits jackpot when he tries to get Minato to fire an arrow because he can tell that Minato has experience with archery and that he wants to shoot. Minato is exasperated and wants to run away from it, but Masaki coaxes him into opening up, assuring him that not even telephone lines pass through the dojo, so whatever Minato would say would be heard by no one but him. This is when he throws the infamous “I’m not someone who exists in your reality” line, and Minato ends up squeezing out everything that had been burdening him. It’s then that they finally introduce themselves to each other and Minato finds out that Masaki used to have target panic.

The next day, Minato doesn’t attend club activities despite Seiya and Ryouhei’s insistence to get him to join, and goes to visit the shrine again. He finds Masaki dressed in formal hakama instead of kyuudougi for the first time and stops on his tracks unintentionally at the sight of Masaki’s muscles glowing in the evening lights.

This is not homoerotic fanfiction. This is not homoerotic fanfiction. This is n

You kind of can’t ignore at this point that Masaki grins every time he sees Minato. Meanwhile, Minato shudders at the sound of Masaki’s arrows piercing the air, which is unlike any he had heard before, and thinks about how he never gets tired of seeing Masaki shoot. There is joy in the fact that such ideal shots are being executed right in front of him, and cheesy as it may be, this makes him happy to have been born. And since Minato already knows about Masaki’s goal of scoring ten thousand shots, this thirsty motherfucker is already wondering if he’ll ever see him shooting again after he accomplishes it.

Minato is, in fact, just as much of a sports nerd as any sports animanga protagonist. It just so happens that he’s less showy about it, and basically the only one who gets it out of him is Masaki.

Masaki carried out proper practice with Minato, unlike in the anime, where Minato only shoots once. They start with practice at close range, and it’s then that Masaki starts using his ridiculously improper tips, like “push your hips forwards more, like you’re peeing standing up” and “look at my armpit hair”. For better or worse, his advice is easy to grasp and Minato makes the most out of it.

By that point, he’s also already grasped Masaki’s personality. When they’re done, Masaki calls Fuu over while they’re having coffee. He also shares with Minato all the material he had about archery, which ranged from students’ books to exclusive publications to old magazines, and the two of them have a priceless dialogue that the anime cut out:

“It’s amazing that you collected all of these books so thoroughly.” “I didn’t; they were a gift.” “I knew it.” “What do you mean by ‘I knew it’?” “It’s because that kind of detailed work doesn’t suit you, Masa-san.” “Don’t you feel like treating your seniors with even a bit of respect?” “Not at all.” “Good grief, does that mean I have to teach you by praising you?”

Masaki then hands him a rubber mascot and recommends him the muscle training that he learned from his grandfather. The two of them speculate on the reasons why Minato might have gotten target panic and discuss methods to cure it. Then Minato finds out about Masaki’s powder container and the bikini pattern on it, and they have yet another beautiful exchange that KyoAni has ruined:

“What kind of drawing is that?” “Oh, Minato is a healthy young man too, eh?” “No way, this is…” “Yep, it’s a bikini.” “You have some rare items here, old man.” “I’m honored to receive a compliment from you.” “It wasn’t a compliment—!”

Harold, they’re bi.

The following evening, Minato goes to the shrine not realizing that his back had been injured when he and Seiya fought, but Masaki notices it and insists on treating it. This results in Minato taking off his shirt so that Masaki could stick a bandage to it, and honestly, Minato could have been thinking about anything at that moment and I would have been okay with it. He could have thought about Seiya, about the club, about what to have for dinner that night even. Any crap would have sufficed. But nah.

Nah.

He’s thinking about the cold touch of Masaki’s hands on his skin and shivering at it. Because. You know. That’s what straight boys do.

Minato’s shooting is horrible that night and he’s sullen because of the lack of the smell of coffee, since Masaki had brought tea instead. He asks to see Fuu, but Masaki reveals that Fuu had only been with him because he was feeding it and healing its wound, and after it got better, it left his hands. This leads to an exchange that somewhat feels like foreshadowing:

“So it dumped you after you healed it?” “Any problem with that?” “Noooope.”

And it causes Masaki to notice that Minato is feeling anxious, so he tries to confort him, and Minato confides to him about the whole issue with the club and Seiya. Masaki tells him that he’s probably conveying to Seiya he has lingering attachments, and suggests that he takes upon Seiya’s offer. Minato counter-argues that he has no confidence for it, and Masaki asks if he’d be just drawing a bow all alone from that point onward. Minato questions what he means by “all alone”, and it’s only then that Masaki says, “Don’t think that I’ll be here forever. You shouldn’t keep coming to this place.” Minato is confused by his words but doesn’t ask for clarification because they sound like Masaki had grown tired of him. He compares it to something like what a child would say to a stray animal that they’d picked out of pity but then grew bored of.

Masaki is completely unaware of the effect this had on Minato and casually asks him to put away his powder container, tossing it to him. And my God, my sweet lordly goodness gracious, there’s a really odd emphasis on the bikini pattern when Minato catches it. THE DOUBLE ENTENDREE IS TOO STRONG, KIDS. Minato is clearly scared of being dumped by him like he was dumped by Fuu, but it's almost like the author tries to hint that Masaki being into women has something to do with Minato’s insecurity. Y’all may think Minato was actually not that affected by it, but after he left the dojo, he did everything robotically and had a restless night, with the mascot that Masaki gave him appearing in his dreams all the while.

The next afternoon, Minato goes to the shrine to return Masaki’s powder container, which he had accidentally brought home with him, and then the whole misunderstanding about Masaki being dead happens. When Minato returns in the evening, Masaki’s tsurune sounds like a funeral march to him. He finds Masaki in nousha clothing and two shots short of achieving ten thousand, and thinks that the scene as a whole looks just like a skillful stage production. He’s also oddly fixated on Masaki’s “exposed skin” and “fascinating profile”.

It’s here that Minato shows the first signs of selfishness towards Masaki. One would think that being excessively cared for by Seiya would mean that he’d be more of a free-spirited person, and his discomfort at Seiya’s meddling might seem like a sign of that. And indeed, Minato is like that with everyone else, except Masaki.

With Masaki, he’s the greediest little bitch.

He starts begging that the night would never end. He literally wishes that time would stop so that he could be there with Masaki forever. Like, screw his dad, screw Seiya, screw the entire rest of his life; he just wants Masaki to remain there.

Masaki was, of course, oblivious to this. He decides to recreate a scene from Zen in the Art of Archery that he had once mentioned to Minato with his last two shots. He lights up sage and positions it at the target bank, and after he shoots, he thanks Minato and says he has no more regrets. This makes Minato feel like he might disappear at any moment, and that’s when we get the iconic “don’t pass on” scene.

I must point out that one of the things I find really interesting in character dynamics is when a character has set rules of conduct and ideals for themselves but they break all of them willingly for the sake of only one other character, and that’s exactly what happens between these two. This trope is used by the author in a very obviously intentional way, which is even better.

Before Minato runs to Masaki and begs him not to leave, there’s a series of ironies to consider:

Minato dislikes being clingy with people on default.

He doesn’t do things like wishing upon stars, but if he were to, he’d wish for Masaki to stay with him.

The night before, Masaki had told him: “In the future, if you find someone that you like very much and you have to part ways with that person, will you give up without doing anything when that time comes just because you have no confidence? There are things people can’t beat no matter how much they wish to be strong. But if you do meet something that you truly don’t want to lose, it should be able to make you cling to it and shout.” Of course, Masaki had absolutely no idea that this “person” could be himself. Since he was talking about the future, he probably meant a lover.

Minato’s response is that he’d never so something so embarrassing in his life.

Yeah, boi played himself.

When Minato holds onto Masaki and shouts at him not to go anywhere, a lot is different from the anime version. For starters, since Masaki had his sleeve down, Minato basically shoved himself onto his bare chest. He also grabbed Masaki roughly with both hands, only, it’s not said where he grabbed. I............ kinda hope he didn’t grab the same spot as he did in the anime. ‘Cause. Well. Titty out.

Anyway. Minato was half-crying back there, and his words to Masaki during this moment are an absolute treasure and I have no idea why KyoAni would cut so much of it out, so here go his original lines:

“Are you a ghost? No, wait, a zombie? You’re so cold… But I’m never letting you go! You’re still my master, after all. Until the master passes on all his skills to the disciple, he has the responsibility to watch over him. No, wait, you don’t have to be my master. I just want you to stay here, Masa-san. If you’re a ghost, you can possess me; if you’re a vampire, I’ll give you my blood; and if you’re a zombie, huum, well… I’ll try to not mind even if you stink a little!”

Read this again. Digest it. Or at least try, because there’s just too much going on. Sure it’s all really damn funny, but Minato’s possessiveness is peaking here. He’s basically declaring that, supposing Masaki were actually a ghost, Minato wouldn’t let him rest and wouldn’t hand him over to even death itself. At first, Minato tries to argue that there should be still something chaining Masaki to the world of the living, since he hasn’t fulfilled his role as mentor yet. But then he thinks it over and decides that he wouldn’t want Masaki to leave him even after having taught him everything he knows. And the solutions that he comes up with are not only over-the-top but also risky.

“If you’re a ghost, you can possess me.” What the fuck, kid? “If you’re a vampire, I’ll give you my blood.” What the actual everloving fuck, kid?

So, yeah, he’s known Masaki for less than a week and is already willing to give his flesh and blood and overall control of his life for the sake of keeping him at a reachable distance. Bonus for actually picturing Masaki taking possession of his physical form and biting his neck to suck the life out of him.

How very straight.

The fact that Masaki’s jaw drops and he lets his bow fall to the floor is an icing on the cake. After he laughs his ass off once the misunderstanding is solved, he comments how “it’s really true that the sillier the kid is, the cuter” and then teases by asking if Minato was relieved that he wasn’t a ghost. This chapter section is just glorious.

Masaki then asks if Minato hadn’t been showing up because he thought he was a ghost, and Minato answers that he was merely doing as told after Masaki said that he shouldn’t come to the place. As if him being a ghost would stop this relentless little fucker. Masaki reveals that since Fuu had returned to the forest, he believed Minato should return to where he belonged as well. However, Minato had immediately come back to him, and he couldn’t do anything about that.

The two of them then went to collect the arrows and sat next to each other for their usual coffee time. Masaki explains that the powder container was a present from his grandfather, who was also his former master, and tells him the meaning behind his ten thousand shots. Yes, the one he opens up to about his grandfather being a good archer but a shitty teacher is Minato, not Tommy-sensei.

The thing is: his grandfather never asked if he liked archery. He simply thought that Masaki was fooling around because his form was messed up, so Masaki was cast away by him as someone who should be ignored due to apparently not taking archery seriously enough. The truth was that Masaki was actually trying his best, which is why he was so deeply hurt by his grandfather’s attitude that he quit archery and didn’t join the archery club in college. However, he undoubtedly loved it, and had always been thinking of ways of reconciling with his grandfather, but to no avail.

His grandfather was still estranged from him when he passed away, so Masaki came up with the idea of shooting ten thousand arrows in order to communicate with him from the other side. After he overcame target panic and fixed his form, he was able to become the exemplary archer that his grandfather wished he would be, so he set the task upon himself to get rid of his burdens and send his grandfather’s soul to rest.

No, KyoAni, it wasn’t for petty revenge against a dead person, omg.

It’s also clear by this point that Masaki and Minato are parallels of each other. Masaki, too, ended up returning to the forest, to his family’s shrine and to its dojo, and troublesome as it could be, he found himself unable to stop drawing the bow. While he talks about this to Minato, there’s a quick emphasis on the azaleas blooming nearby, and their flower language surely has something to do with the scene. Amongst other things, they mean “remembering your home with fondness or wishing to return to it”, “caring for yourself and your family”, “temperance and emotional evenness”, and “delicate passion”. All of this emphasizes how awesome a character Masaki is, and the way the anime ignores every single one of his best points is just appalling.

When Masaki finishes speaking, Minato decides to shoot at the targets instead of the close-range practice he had been doing until that point. Masaki lets him, and he goes as far as getting dressed up in the uniform in order to do it. He hits for the first time ever since his target panic started acting up, at the edge of the target. Overcome with nostalgia and feeling so happy that he could die, Minato shoots again and manages to hit the center. Minato then realizes how hungry he had been for the bow and realizes that there’s actually still hope for him as an archer. Masaki asks if he had also recovered, and he declares he’ll join the archery club.

After he joins and Masaki comes in as the coach, Seiya sees his reaction and asks Masaki if he owned a pet bird. Masaki is confused and answers no, because he really doesn’t. Minato, on the other hand, wants to run the fuck away because shit, Dad found out who he’d been with all those nights.

Training camp starts shortly after this, and it’s wildly different from the anime. Starting from the fact that the whole servant thing never happened. Masaki never made the boys serve the girls, never tried to coax them into doing his priest work, never wakes them up at 4am, never barges in on them taking a bath and never keeps them from practicing. I’m trying to figure out why KyoAni made him do all of this, not just because it wasn’t in the books, but also because literally none of that made any sense and served no purpose other than for painting Masaki as an irresponsible asshole.

In the novel’s training camp, the boys and the girls share the load. They all do the chores and are made to help around the shrine alongside practicing because they were staying there. They would cook their own meals, and Masaki and Tommy-sensei did them the favor of taking them to hot springs at some point. There was training aside from practice, and the kids would gather in the boys’ room right before sleep time simply to hang out.

Masaki had also done thorough research on the tournament results and tried to get the kids to reach them with a cautious and slow start. All the way up to this point, through the training camp and until the tournament, Masaki coaches the kids properly, giving really helpful tips, fixing their quirks and being overall a good observation example, never casting pressure on them and never poking his nose where he shouldn’t.

This is all very important to everyone, but above them, it is to Minato. He’s by far the one who benefits the most off the training, and Masaki’s careful supervision is everything he needs while his target panic isn’t cured.

There is some misplaced gay in the anime for the two of them in the training camp, though, as the scene of Masaki helping Minato get dressed doesn’t happen. But in the novel, the clothes Minato wore were Masaki’s, not his grandfather’s. And after the yawatashi, Minato comments on how it was an honor to serve as Masaki’s kaizoe.

Ren was introduced differently in the novel as well. In it, he went straight for Minato at first sight, played a prank on him, and then asked if he was “Minato-kun”. Meaning that Masaki gushed so much about Minato to his brother that he already knew exactly who Minato was and what he looked like. Minato almost doesn’t believe that Ren and Masaki are related because Ren seemed like he was mischievous in his younger years.

After Minato falls in the river getting back Nanao’s hat, Masaki lends him his jacket and takes him back to the shrine for a bath. Not because he was “stinking of river”, but because he wanted Minato to warm himself up as fast as possible. Minato argues that Seiya might worry if he doesn’t return soon, and Masaki tells him not to fret about it as he should prioritize his own health.

Once Minato is done, he meets with Masaki in the dining room and Masaki pours him hot coffee. Since he usually only ever saw Masaki in a hakama, Minato thinks it’s refreshing to have a glimpse on his everyday life.

Not just the warm drink but being there with Masaki makes Minato feel relieved and relaxed, and he opens up about maybe being a bother to everyone. Masaki brushes it off, and so, he ends up also venting about Seiya and how he acts like a meddlesome family member. He reveals that Seiya unintentionally pressures him into meeting his expectations, but what Minato thinks wouldn’t worry him often has the opposite effect. Masaki asks when he’d started acting that way, and Minato tells him about his car accident and that Seiya had witnessed it. Masaki suggests that Seiya might have earned his protectiveness from the event, but Minato feels like Seiya harbors some sort of guilt towards him. When he says he feels like repenting for it, and this leads to the two of them being little shits like they usually are around each other:

“‘Repenting’? I’m a Shinto priest, not Christian. I can perform exorcism rites and blessings, though.” “Eeeh, you don’t seem very holy, Masa-san.” “What did you say? Well, then do you want to ask Ren? Unlike me, he has some kind of ability to sense the supernatural, and he has a priest certificate anyway. But there may be surprises, so people with weak hearts should take caution.”

And then these two bastards just look at each other and start laughing.

Minato takes the opportunity to ask about what Masaki had been teaching Kaito and Masaki explains it.......... sort of differently than how he had done with Kaito:

Masa-san held Minato’s arm so lightly that he almost wasn’t touching him at all. His faintly transmitted body temperature was warm. And then, he let go of his arm just as gently as when he touched it. Minato desperately chased after the feeling left on his skin so he wouldn’t forget it.

The last sentence fucks me up immensely, fam. The rest goes on unlike in the anime too:

“Why do you think you’re the ochi for this time’s shooting order?” “To watch over my teammates’ backs?” “You’re on the right track; that’s half-correct. You have to protect Seiya’s back in particular.” “Me, protect Seiya?” “It’s a role that only you can take. I’m also happy to pass on the teachings that my master left to me. I can’t express the feeling of his palm with things like words and pictures. Thank you, Minato.”

This renders Minato speechless, and makes him think that he also can’t help but long for the day to come when he would pass the warmth of Masaki’s hand on to people who will share their wishes and ambitions with him.

After the sports tournament in which Seiya’s protective dad vibes started getting more serious, Minato went to the shrine to pray, wishing to be able to laugh the whole thing off but having no idea who to talk to about the topic. Masaki shows up as if on cue, just in time to also warn him not to lean too much to look into the shrine’s pond, or else he might fall down.

Turns out that Masaki had been taking lessons to improve his knowledge so that he’d be able to coach the kids better, and as he came back from it, he decided to review what he had learned in order not to forget it, and allowed Minato to stay and watch. Some of the material had to do with target panic, and he let Minato in on it as he shot.

Once he’s done, they have their usual canned coffee, since Masaki always has enough for himself and Minato for some reason. While drinking, Minato stares at Masaki’s hand because he’s just as straight as his arrows. He analyzes Masaki’s shooting as something like a forest in a tree, combining strength and generosity, and becomes disheartened at his own lack of skill.

Masaki offers to call Fuu upon hearing Minato sigh, and Minato dismisses it since he had been able to hear Fuu’s cry, and then comments to Masaki that he had seen a karp with an injured eye at the pond. Before Masaki had arrived, Minato had met Ren there and Ren had told him about a creepy legend involving the fish. Minato had heard from Masaki that Ren had more disposition than him to feel the supernatural, so he’s successfully freaked out, but Masaki reveals that the legend is Ren’s own invention as Ren is a writer of children’s literature in addition to being a photographer and illustrator.

Masaki laughs his ass off at the fact Minato actually believed in a scary story made up for little kids, and although Minato is utterly embarrassed, he’s also happy, since it feels like Masaki is laughing his worries away. After Masaki unknowingly serves as emotional support for Minato as always, Minato earns some determination and decides to properly question Seiya on the matter.

Even when he’s facing Seiya and his issues finally come to light, Minato is thinking about Masaki. When Minato opened up to Masaki for the first time, Masaki had commented on how painful it must have been for him. They weren’t words of pity or consolation, but they resonated with Minato because they were truthful which means Shuu has to step up his game and get on that level. To Minato, truthful things were good, and good things were beautiful, just like the tsurune that had captivated him in the forest. Therefore, Minato wanted to convey honest feelings with his own words to Seiya as well.

So, yeah, Masaki grows to be an ideal for Minato even outside of archery.

Along the course of all this, there’s a fair amount of hints of latent bisexuality other things about Minato that the anime hasn’t displayed, which come mostly in the form of narration, thoughts and silent actions. And unsurprisingly, they’re always related to Masaki:

Minato thinks Masaki’s eyes are bewitching.

He’s weak to Masaki’s smile.

He has mixed feelings when Masaki treats him like a child and when he sees Kaito acting familiar with Masaki.

He hates not being able to see Masaki. Above that, he really hates not having alone time with Masaki, specifically.

He often stares at Masaki and observes details in him, like how long his fingers are and how well-built his body is. The moment he started thinking that “those fingers had the ability to produce a beautiful tsurune”, I cry-laughed because this is just too much bullshit.

He actually, non-ironically sees sensuality in older men when they look suspicious of something, and he notices this in Ren. But the first thing he does is compare him to Masaki in that aspect and conclude that Masaki still has some childishness in him and that he’s gentler than Ren.

God help this boy. Ayano Kotoko is merciless.

I don’t even care if he’s never confirmed as bi, but I refuse to believe that Minato is heterosexual. But of course KyoAni isn’t making any of this clear. Of course.

Anyway, moving on. Episode 11 was a disgrace. Literally none of it happens in the novel.

What goes on after Minato settles things up with Seiya is that Masaki takes the boys to an equipment store to buy stuff for the club. There, Masaki and Minato have a talk about Masaki’s grandfather, and Minato finds out that he was actually a famous archer. Minato then becomes convinced of why Masaki was so into archery, as anyone would want to draw a bow having a master that great so near them, but Masaki retorts that he’d been holding a bow before even knowing anything very well (which brings us back to the fact he started archery when he was a toddler). As a matter of course, Masaki asks why Minato started archery, and Minato answers it was because he once watched a competition ten years before with his mother and never forgot it. He also comments that the tsurune of the archer that won and Masaki’s were exactly alike. And that’s where we get the second obvious hint that fate is one of this duo’s main elements.

After they’re done, Seiya and Masaki stay behind at a café to do accounting work and the other four left first. Minato remained outside while the others decided to go into a bookstore, and after a creepy encounter with an injured cat that reminded him of the injured fish, Minato was almost killed in a truck accident. A truck driver lost control of the wheel and the timbers that the truck was carrying flew out. Minato was almost fatally hit but Masaki saved him at the cost of a head injury that sent him straight to the hospital.

Minato and Seiya went with Masaki in the ambulance and waited outside the surgery room for him. Seiya was used to it after having gone through the same thing during Minato’s accident, so he remained calm, but Minato was a ball of nerves. His sense of reality was impaired, and he was asking himself what would happen if Masaki never woke up.

When Ren arrives, Minato apologizes for being the reason why Masaki was in such condition, but Ren dismisses him and tells the boys that they’re free to go home. Minato insists he'd stay, and the boys end up staying as well. Masaki regains consciousness not much after that, and asks about Minato immediately after finding out where he is.

Ren leaves to call a nurse, Seiya leaves to contact Tomio and Minato stays by Masaki’s bedside. Minato doesn’t know what to say; neither how to apologize nor how to thank Masaki. He had gotten nine stitches and seeing the bandage on his head caused Minato to feel pained.

Read this one more time, and then read the in-betweens. Masaki has earned himself a scar. Minato wasn’t taken away by the gods, but now the two of them are “separated from everyone else”.

While Minato is hanging his head in guilt and gripping the bedsheets, this dialogue ensues:

“What’s wrong, Minato? You’re making such an ugly face. I’m perfectly alive.” “Masa-san, if you had died, I’d have followed after you.” “Hey, hey, don’t say such disturbing things.” “I really mean it.” “Good grief.”

And what I love about this is that Minato says the literal most drastic shit that he’s thinking, out of fucking nowhere, for no goddamn reason. Neither thanking nor apologizing was quite right; he just had to declare that not even death can do them part, again.

Because fuck you, that’s why.

Masaki then stretched out his hand (which had an IV in it because why not add more pain to this clusterfuck) and ruffled Minato’s hair. Minato started crying, unable to stop even if he willed it, thinking to himself that he knew the weight of Masaki’s hand, and that it was still warm. He wanted to thank everyone who had helped Masaki survive, but could only keep crying until Ren and Seiya came back.

Next day at school, Minato was approached by a classmate who had heard rumors about the accident. When the boy mentions that Masaki would be publicly acknowledged for his deed and that he became a local hero, Minato glares daggers at him because he hates the idea of Masaki being treated as a martyr at the cost of almost throwing his life away to protect him.

Minato and Seiya were consoled by Tomio when he saw them, and Minato once again felt like crying his eyes out. He knew that Masaki would have laughed at him if he were there, but the tears were welling up in his eyes all the same.

When they all go visit Masaki after school, Masaki wastes no time to give the boys advice. He finishes by giving Minato a pep talk: “Enjoy the state of the draw. If you keep stretching to open left and right from the center line of your body, your arrow will naturally be let go of along with the triggering of your spirit. That’s what the ‘release’ is about. Drive target panic and delayed hold away.”

After that, Masaki told them that they didn’t have to visit him anymore, but Minato refused it and went to visit him every single day.

The day before the tournament, Minato went to the shrine. He saw the surrounding cherry trees without any flowers and thought about how different they were in comparison to when he and Masaki had first met. He then prayed for everyone in the club to to their best at the tournament and for Masaki to get better as fast as possible.

After lunch, Minato went to the lobby of the building by himself, still plagued by his anxiety over not knowing when his target panic could start up again. He then sees coffee in a vending machine and walks towards it “as if drawn to it”. He buys a can, drinks the contents, and when he’s throwng it away, he notices someone standing under the shadow of the pillar behind the vending machine. The person was drinking the same brand of coffee as Minato had drunk, and he got a deja-vu from the sight, so he peeked into the man’s face.

Really feeling the Red String of Fate vibes in this Chili’s once more, and it was, of course, all on purpose. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg in this chapter. As Minato’s eyes met with Masaki’s, they have their usual comedy routine:

“Masa-san!?” “S’up, Minato.” “Don’t you ‘s’up’ me!? Why are you here? Today’s not the day you’ll be discharged from the hospital, right?” “I escaped from the hospital. It’d be a bother if Tommy-sensei and the others hear about this, so keep quiet.” “‘Keep quiet’, you say…” “Yeah, yeah, you hide too, Minato.”

Masaki pulls Minato into the shadow of the pillar and explains that Ren helped him flee from the hospital by pretending to be him. On top of that, he was wearing a cap to hide the bandage around his head.

When Masaki expresses his wish to watch his students, Minato argues that they were recording the matches for him, but Masaki shoots back that he can’t see the details on camera and comments that Minato had forgotten to tighten his left pinky during the draw. He clarifies that the rubber dormouse was meant to train his muscles of the hand and help him control them, and asks if Minato had been worrying over something. As always, he hits jackpot, and also as always, Minato doesn’t hide it from him. Masaki then assures him that he’d shot well either way, that it was fine to be nervous and that it was okay not to hit. His attitude is too easygoing for Minato, who asks himself how Masaki can afford to be drinking coffee so carefreely at such a timing. It all makes his worries seem foolish, and he soon starts feeling better. Masaki informs him that he’d leave as soon as the last round ended and leaves Minato to fight back a smile before he goes back to the venue.

This scene is probably the one that makes most obvious how Masaki is always there for Minato, almost like it’s a rule. He’s conveniently placed at a distance where Minato can find him, is able to realize that Minato is distressed, and easily makes him feel better. It’s undebatably intentional from the author’s part.

Fast forward to right before the final round, Tomio gives the boys their headbands. They’re yellowish green, which is Minato’s assigned color, and that’s obviously intentional as well. Tomio calls them “treasure items” and reveals that they’d been “blessed by a certain priest”.

While the boys take on Kirisaki, Masaki is in the audience, wondering if Minato realizes how much he attracts those around him. He reminisces to his 10,000 shots, and how he had decided on that absurd number because he intended to let go of the bow permanently after he was done with them. He found extreme joy in archery, but he was tired of pursuing abstract goals with it, so he had decided to give it up. But on the night he completed the 10,000 shots, Minato had extended his hands to him, and his eyes had told Masaki that he could still draw his bow. Minato is described as the one who sent his smouldering soul into the wind, his “fire-starter”.

This is also valid for Minato, who is, at the very same moment, reflecting on how he wouldn’t have arrived at that place if he hadn’t heard Masaki’s tsurune on that night. He then has a long monologue about life and meetings, both between people and between humans and gods, all related to archery one way or another.

Right upon finishing the formalities, Minato looked at the audience, and found Masaki standing in the wind. As always, his eyes are drawn to him, and also as always, Masaki grins at him when spotted.

Later on, while Kazemai prepared for the regional tournament, Masaki was discharged from the hospital, and the first thing he and Minato do after meeting again is check on each other’s codition. Then, Minato reveals to Masaki that he and the boys had contacted an acquaintace of his grandfather’s and learned the words he had expressed about Masaki before dying. Masaki is confused, and Minato says that his grandfather had regretted becoming estranged from him. When Masaki argues that his grandfather would never say something so admirable, Minato tells him the words directly: “I look forward to Masaki becoming a fine archer”. Masaki almost cried right then, and so, the boys’ practice started. Masaki joined them, and I think it’s very obvious that he was going to shoot the target next to Minato’s.

There were also these sentences in the narration as Masaki holds back tears: “‘Fortune’ might have been a word that referred to all meetings. A gift named coincidence, as though someone had devised it.”

Of course someone fucking deviced it, Ayano. It was fucking fate. We fucking get it, Ayano. Fucking thank you. Unironically.

#tsurune #narumiya minato #takigawa masaki #takehaya seiya #fujiwara shuu #tsurune kazemai koukou kyuudoubu #onogi kaito #kisaragi nanao #yamanouchi ryouhei #seo rika #hanazawa yuuna #shiragiku noa #sugawara senichi #sugawara manji #motomura hiroki #sase daigo #kyoani #kyoto animation #ayano kotoko

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theunbinary · 4 years

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Sometimes the people I follow reblog from terfs and I don’t know how to tell them. I don’t want to embarrass anyone, you know? It’s easy to get tricked, as terfs (and swerfs and other radfems) don’t always come out and say “I hate trans women and other trans people (or sex workers or w/e)”. At least, not in their bigger posts that blow up and get spread everywhere. You have to be able to hear the dog whistles, which are only audible to other radfems, the people they’re targeting, and those who choose to be in the know. So instead of going into peoples asks and telling them, here are some things to be aware of when you’re about to reblog something ostensibly feminist. Be on the look out for the following:

1) Does the blogger use the word “male” when “men” would be sufficient? Do they use “female” when “women” would make just as much if not more sense? Terfs have a preoccupation with genitalia and biology and often refuse to acknowledge that trans women are women, referring to them as biologically male instead of women.

2) Is their idea of “biology” extremely reductive? Is their understanding of primary sexual characteristics, as well as chromosomes limited? Does this seem to be where their understanding of biological sex begins and ends with no regard for other components of biological sex? Do they still make the XX is female, XY is male argument and refuse to talk into account intersex people (or worse, treat intersex as a deformity)? If their qualification for what makes a person a “woman” or a “man” is limited to what they were born with between their legs or what their chromosomes are and they hold that above the many other things that make a person a woman or a man or nonbinary, they’re probably a terf.

3) Do they use the terms “gender critical” or “gender abolitionist”? Do they talk about dismantling the concept of gender altogether? Do they claim everyone is nonbinary? Terfs and other radfems like to pretend they’re on the side of nonbinary and genderqueer folks by being “critical” of gender and claiming it would be a good thing if the concept of gender was done away with completely, ignoring (or just not caring about) the fact that gender identity is very important to many people. They would seek to define people based on physical sex (and only their reductive view of physical sex) rather than what each individual decides is their gender, effectively erasing trans people.

4) Does their url have the word “terf” in it? Probably a terf. Does their blog have the word “pussy” in it? Better check their blog tbh. These ones are kind of obvious.

5) Do they talk about “men” as if they’re all the root of every problem women face without any regard for intersectionality? Do they seem to forget that trans men, gay men, black men, disabled men, Hispanic men, and every other kind of man that isn’t an able-bodied, neurotypical, cisgender, heterosexual, white man even exist? When this is mentioned, do they ignore it? Do they ignore class and racial oppression? Are they capable of tracing back every issue women today face to the patriarchy?

6) Are they quoting Andrea Dworkin, Janice Raymond, Mary Daly, Germaine Greer, Shelia Jeffreys, or Cathy Brennan to name a few? These are very famous trans exclusionary radical feminists. If the quotes sounds like something these women would say you might want to do some research on the women they’re quoting and spreading around before you reblog.

7) Do they push the idea of political lesbianism, the idea that women need to self-segregate from all men and sound either exclusively date women or refrain from having relationships with any man whatsoever? Do they push the idea that all men (again, disregarding intersectionality and family bonds) are dangerous predators mooching off the women in their lives? Do they state or imply that women should be “critical” of the relationships they enter into with men, especially in the romantic or sexual area? Do they seem to imply that all heterosexual relationships are inferior or inherently abusive and/or unbalanced in favor of the man?

The trouble with terfs is that they’re sneaky. They can talk about things that seem to make sense on the surface and issues that do affect women, but underneath there is a current of hatred and exclusion. They’re not easy to spot unless you know what you’re looking for and even then their talking points can and do spread *because* they talk about injustices that women face, often in ways that disguises their true feelings and motives. While I will never say that women can’t and shouldn’t talk about the pressures and oppression they face under the patriarchy and how that system is upheld, I ask you, please, pay attention to who’s saying these things. If someone encourages you to be critical of someone else’s gender or who they’re dating, this isn’t the kind of person who has everyone’s best interest at heart. Someone who wants you to be distrustful of all men, who makes you question whether or not your happy relationships are hurting other people, and who makes you feel bad for your gender or sexuality is not someone who’s looking out for you. Terfs are damaging to all trans people, but trans women especially.

Please, think before you reblog. If something looks a little fishy - perhaps a little too aggressive or reductive or too focused on biology, please do your research before you reblog.

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uniformbravo · 4 years

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a bunch of winter 2020 anime first impressions from Me

Koisuru Asteroid / Asteroid In Love

ok ive already professed my love for this one so i wont get too much into it but basically it’s Extremely cute & im way invested in the two (HOPEFULLY romantic) leads bc their relationship is so sweet so far aaaaaaa

like do u SEE this shit im actually tearing up hgnfhrognfghdjfnjg

this show is Pretty and Cute and Space-Themed and Probably Gay what more do u Need. i love it 10/10

Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken!

so fucken good, this is the one i was most excited for based purely on the art style/animation and god did it deliver, everything is such a treat to look at i fuckin LOVE a setting w/ just as much personality as the characters

and My Goodness the Characters, 3 distinct girls w/ strong designs & personalities that aren’t like super moe/catered to cishet dudes heLLO

we Love a gremlin protag & her chaotic neutral best friend & the “fuck you dad i want to make anime” dreamer they meet........

also HELL YEAH it’s about making anime and they don’t even use that as a gimmicky set piece, the art is a huge part of the story and the detail with which it’s explored in the first ep gives me high hopes for the rest of the show aaaaa so excited to see where this one goes after that BANGER of a first episode

Jibaku Shounen Hanako-kun

switching gears to a less great one lol..... so the thing is this show’s visual aesthetic absolutely fucking slaps in a way that’s so rare to see in a sea of samey anime art styles, like the character designs are unique and everything is so damn colorful, the backgrounds alone blow me away w/ how fuckin Pretty they are??? LOOK at this shit

and just. this show has a lot of stylistic flourishes that make it like 100/100 Certified Good-To-Look-At Anime

which makes every other aspect of the show that much more disappointing lmaoooo like ok i can deal w/ a mediocre story if the visuals slap, which they Do, but also these characters look 10 & we’re doing the whole sexualizing minors thing which fucking BLOWS it’s so uncomfortable to watch........... i feel like it’s one of those things where they’re trying to justify it by being like “o well hanako’s like a thousand year old spirit or whatever so he’s not REALLY underage” but fuckin. fuck off he looks and sounds like a Young Boy yall know what ur doing ugh

it’s not a thing that happens Constantly throughout the episode, really just a few moments here and there, but it is in the op pretty prominently so i feel like it’s gonna be a Thing that keeps happening so idk if i’ll stick w/ this one in particular which is a Damn Shame bc it really is such a gorgeous looking show im mad

number24

ok ngl just from the character designs alone i rly didn’t think this one was gonna make as good a first impression as it did??? i guess the huge ensemble cast of pretty boys reminded me of last season’s actors: songs connection, which uh. was Not great,

so i went into it totally expecting it to be all shitty but it rly surprised me, i found it so intriguing? the characters are actually really endearing so far...... i love how it doesn’t try to shove the entire cast in our faces in the v first ep but instead starts out w/ a small handful and lets us spend a lil time w/ them while only giving assorted Hints and passing impressions of the others, that was nice

also love how very not “generic sports anime” it is right off the bat by dropping us right into the middle of these characters’ story instead of doing the whole “bright-eyed first year joins the team and fights his way to the top” sorta deal- which you’d think would be a confusing and awkwardly paced approach but in this case is handled surprisingly well, especially because it seems like it’s gonna have a lot more elements of a character drama than a straight up classic sports anime (which i am Super here for)

(there is a lot of rugby in the op though so we’ll see how things go, it’s only been 1 ep after all)

the air drop into the characters’ established lives makes introductions a lot more organic as well; since the characters are already familiar with each other we don’t have to sit around watching everyone introduce themselves to the protag, we get to infer their relationships and general opinions of each other through their various interactions & it’s a thousand times more engaging imo!!

i mean we do have this other first year joining as a manager and our protag did deliberately say he learned everyone’s names/info after deciding to become a manager so im sure we’ll be getting those character introductions anyway, but well. we’ll cross that bridge if/when we come to it

also i believe this takes place in college rather than high school?? i couldn’t pay attention to every detail but i definitely got that kind of vibe in which case Hell Yeah another welcome deviation from the norm babeeyyyy (i just checked and it Is college yeehaw)

basically what im saying is im tired of tropes & number24 just no clipped past the first 25 chapters of the sports anime formula and also it’s set in university AND it seems to be character-driven & im living thanks thank u

Pet

ok ill be honest i completely forgot that i watched this one lmaooo (which should give u a hint as to what i thought of it *thinking emoji*)

the art style’s whatever and the animation’s whatever, nothing special there. the show is like, dark?? more stupid than dark idk it feels a little bit “welcome to my twisted mind” but the twist is homophobia w/ a mild side of ableism, and also an entire episode of suspense wondering if im gonna have to watch this black side character die (he doesn’t, so there’s that at least)

honestly i cant even remember what drew me to this show enough to put it in my plan to watch, i guess the premise sounded interesting enough (something about controlling minds and erasing memories?), but mature psychological shows usually aren’t really my scene, especially when they’re executed.... Like That. i did kind of enjoy the twist at the end, mildly, though i feel like it was pretty obvious in hindsight and the only reason i didn’t see it coming is bc i can be astoundingly shortsighted when it comes to things like that (aka im DUMB)

since it took until the very end of the episode to Really introduce our dynamic duo tho, i feel like this ep was more of a prologue than anything and the Real show is gonna begin in ep 2, which is great n all but uh. idk if i care enough to give that a watch tbhhhh. i might just to see what the show has to offer but really truly honestly cant see myself sticking this one thru to the end lmao rip

hate to end on a bummer note like that but hey that’s all i got for this post ! i have more shit to watch so i’ll probably end up making like a part 2 w/ more impressions but this is getting long enough that it’s becoming kind of a pain to keep adding more so thats it for now boiyoeiyeoii

#i kept wanting to talk abt my thoughts & figured this format would be more efficient than making a bunch of scattered text posts #also this way i get to include pictures to help identify each show #which is a lot more fun and probably way easier to understand wtf im talking about #so thats my gift to u ur welcome #retag later #ani blogging

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pr0gf0x-archiveseeya · 5 years

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hey im gonna be a critic for a second i dont usually express an opinion on this site for obvious reasons but im gonna do it and im probably gonna get hate but w/e anyway its about a rly popular moomins ship

i dont get moomin/snufkin as a romantic ship. i dont dislike it, i dont dislike people who ship it, i just dont get it. and let me preface this by saying that i’m very very queer (nonbinary trans man + panromantic typically leaning towards trans men and nonbinary identities) and honestly worried people are going to say im like, erasing gay identities by not shipping them romantically which im not because neither of them are canonically queer

it’s just that personally, i cant see them as anything more than best friends. their closeness doesn’t make them seem like love interests to me, and thats not just because moomin has snorkmaiden or because i think snufkin and alicia are really cute (tho really wheres the art of them at not even like romantically theres just so little art of them together in general and its sort of a shame since snufkind probably lov to learn some witchcraft but thats not the point)

i see them solely as best friends because, to me, that’s what they are, and, to me, their friendship is more beautiful than any romantic relationship could ever be. they love each other so much that moomin can’t stand to be apart, and i don’t think that that should automatically mean that moomin is in love with snufkin. i think it just means that they have a very deep and meaningful friendship, and that neither of them is afraid to express that which is such a breath of fresh air.

i’m always seeing men in real life getting called gay or queer for expressing friendship with other men and its so disheartening (whether they’re gay or not) so to see a fictional representation of two male best friends who openly love and care for each other so much without judgement is so incredibly touching. expressing your feelings for each other should not automatically be gay. straight men are allowed to express their feelings just as much as anyone else

thats just my two cents. again, dont dislike the ship, dont dislike people who ship it, this is just why i don’t understand it and can’t ship it myself

#dont reblog -#!pers #moomins bloggin

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mxlfoydraco · 5 years

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Hiiii, this is not a gentle giant story... unless you count my fear and insecurity in the face of asking a fellow queer woman out. So, um, I face a grand dilemma. Or not even a dilemma, just a situation I’m not ready to share w/ my friends cause they will -as much as I love them- fuck shit up BUT I need to share w/ someone before I die of repressed gayness. I’m a 20-yo gal who just casually started studying fine arts after two very unfulfilling years of engineering and who is also very gay. 1/?

The rest and my answer under the cut!

I come from a very traditional (borderline disgustingly homophobic) family & though I am gay, it’s one of those things that my parents know but conveniently have erased as a phase/sin/psychological issue... I was therefore not actively looking for a relationship (and working on managing years of depression and its effects on my health and motivation and self-love). So BAM, here to hit me in my face when I least expected is a very liberal fine arts atmosphere and, most importantly, this girl. Ohhhh, this girl and I... we hit it off. I’m into HP, she’s too. I’m obsessed w/ musicals and theater, she’s studying theater and acting. We like the same books, people, etc. We love Hamilton. We are goofy, silly, awkward and a mild wreck... Together. We pick a theme for one of our subjects coursework just cause and we make every assignment about lamas. People think is brilliant, we hang out and talk a lot. She comes out to her friends and I’m the first to know. We go to the cinema, she comes to my house to help me take care of my lil sister and then we go to draw at a museum together. People are telling us we’ll end up married. We text each other in the morning w/ encouragements on hard days and help each other when needed. Talk about getting what she called “a couple tattoo”. Talk each other through worries and anxiety... So, I might have a crush. Thing is, I’m not really fine with myself?? In an, I know I’m not a bad person and I have my good things. But I can’t help but to feel like there’s is not that much I can offer right now? I’m a little work in progress. I know the kind of people she finds pretty and I’m just... not it?? There’s so much I’m working on (mental health wise, physically, etc). There’s a lot of stuff that I’ve always wanted to do that I haven’t done yet (FA being finally my first step). And so, I feel like I’m only a project of who I’d like to be or date. Idk, I guess I just feel like I may not be ready but I really like her?? Afsjsfsh Anyway, I don’t know if there’s an anon limit and this won’t go through. But I’m insecure and I see her sometimes saying things that I don’t know if I should interpret as flirting cause like, I don’t think she’d be into me. And I don’t know if I’m crushing my own chances. I’m... I’d really like to date her but I feel like I need a few more months of working on myself before I’m ready to be w/ someone but I also don’t want to blow my chances if she’s indeed interested and I’m a mess help me😂😂

Hey, first of all I’m sending you my biggest virtual hugs. I’m sorry about your family, you deserve so much better than that!

While I’d never suggest you to get into a relationship if you’re not ready, I want to emphasize that we are all works in progresses, from the beginning and until the end. I don’t want to sound like a cliche, because I’m well aware some of us have bigger things to work through, but when you look at the bigger picture? Change, growth and healing are a part of all our journey in varying ways, importance and size. There’s no rule that says that we have to take that journey alone, that’s usually our minds telling us that we’re “too much”.

You are not too much though. If the bond you guys share is as genuine as you make it seem, then having someone on your corner who’ll stand by you is a gift. Your comfort, safety and well-being should always come first— but just think, if the roles were reversed, would you judge or think of her the way you do with yourself? Or would you want to be there for her?

From what you tell me, she likes you and you like her. You can go at your own pace, you don’t have to rush into or start anything, but don’t deny yourself the chance before you can even consider it. You deserve companionship, love, affection and support. You deserve it unconditionally, if it’s what you really want. Just make sure it’s you making the decision, not someone elses voice in your head, fear or anxiety.

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namjinschanglix · 6 years

Text

::Destiel short (Highschool au) (Updated)::

Castiel wandered into the school, amazed at the scenery. As many times as he has walked through that door, he never really noticed the way the sun shines through the windows, casting beautiful, dancing shadows along the floor.

Today was an especially good day for Castiel. Since he won a school art contest, he was granted the day all to himself. He was able to wander around and NOT get in trouble. The first time he ever got caught skipping class was when he was in 7th grade. Needless to say, he had gotten in a lot of trouble with his brothers and he hadn't done it since.

He was so excited because he decided to spend the whole day in the art class! It was his favourite class, for he was quite the artist. Many of the younger students looked up to him as an artistic inspiration, which was one of Cas's main motivations to continue with his art skills. It made him happy to know people enjoyed his art.

Castiel walked down the, now clustering, hallway. He saw a few people he talked to, but not many. They were all probably at the library studying for the upcoming exam. Castiel was always lucky when it came to exams. He failed one class exam, but it wasn't completely his fault. All the sounds around him from the other students (like tapping their pencils or sniffling) distracting him. He had retaken it, and to no surprise, he had aced it.

Cas walked up to his locker, placing his things inside, making sure to grab his art supplies. He slammed his locker shut, turning around.

What he didn't expect was for Dean Winchester, the school's most mysterious badass, to bump into him, causing them both to fall to the ground. Castiel's pencils flew everywhere, his sketchbook falling open while a few papers crinkling against the hard floor.

Cas groaned and started to frantically pick up his things. He didn't want anyone to step on anything and potentially break his art supplies. He spent a lot of money on all of it!

"Sorry, man. I didn't see you there." Dean commented, helping him pick up the pencils.

Cas smiled and glanced at him for a moment, before answering.

"It's okay, I'm used to it." As he reached for the last pencil, Dean grabbed it for him. They both stood up from their spot on the ground. Dean passed him all his pencils, their hands just barely grazing against each other.

"See you around?" Dean said, making finger guns which made Cas laugh a little.

"Well, we're stuck in a prison for about seven hours a day for five days a week, so we have no choice."

Dean laughed and clapped him on the shoulder, walking away to seemingly nowhere. From the rumors he heard about the guy, he was probably going to fuck some girl in the janitor's closet. But from their small encounter, he seemed... sweet? Was that the word? He didn't quite know yet.

Cas just shrugged it off, heading towards the art room.

Castiel erased a stray line on his paper, making sure that everything was straight and even. Once he was satisfied with his creation he blew on it to get rid of all the pencil shaving and eraser residue. He had drawn a cute couple, holding hands while walking down a path in the forest. He always seemed interested in couple drawings.

Cas had one girlfriend before, but it didn't end well. She left about three months into the relationship without telling anyone. He tried to text her, call her, even video chat with her. But nothing worked. She never talked to anyone who could possibly get up with Cas. It hurt Cas very much, but what was he to do? Track her down and say goodbye? No. He wasn't that kind of guy. He was sensitive. To be honest, Cas didn't really want to be with her at first. But he needed to hide the rumor that he was gay, for he was. Maybe if he got a girlfriend, people would stop with the rumor. They still go around.

Cas didn't know why being gay was so... amazing disgusting to people. He thought it was normal. Maybe it was, but people are just trying to cause trouble. The people at his school didn't really care about it, but they always seemed to use gay as an insult. The only problem that he was worried about was that his older brother, Michael, worked at his school as a teacher and his family was very religious. He didn't want him to possibly overhear anyone talking about how the one and only Castiel was gay. The only gay person who knew was his best friend, Charlie.

Charlie was a lesbian. She was loud, but oh so amazing. She was one of the first people to come out in their school, which inspired others to come out as well. She wasn't really on the popular side, but she always managed to make friends with everyone. When she came out to Cas a few years back, she cried. Only because she didn't want the Great Castiel to see her differently since they had known each other for so long. A few hours after she came out, Charlie and Cas ended up sitting in an actual closet talking about how gay she was. That's when Cas said, "I don't know, I think I'm pretty gay too," which made Charlie burst into a smile and Cas to smirk.

Cas picked up his new drawing and his collection of pencils, walking out the door. His locker was two hallways down. It wasn't that far away, but he did have to pass the gym, which was normally very smelly.

As he approached his locker, he saw Dean talking to one of his friends, who seemed unfamiliar. Dean glanced over, smiling at Cas before continuing his conversation. Castiel was a little taken aback, considering all of the terrible rumours that get spread faster than bullet trains.

Castiel twisted the locker combination with graceful hands until he heard the faint click, signaling that he had successfully unlocked it. He swung the locker door open and grabbed his dark blue backpack that had writing on it from his friends. Mulitple inside jokes and drawings were written on the bag, which Cas thought was cool because he hadn't seen anyone else with a backpack like his. He also had pins and patches that reminded him of all the places he had gone and the fandoms he was in.

As he shut his locker, he walked towards the exit. Dean wasn't standing by the door so Cas assumed he just went home like everyone else was.

He jogged down the steps, his bag bouncing a little as he did so. He ran his fingers through his almost black hair. People often mistook his hair for black, but he didn't mind. No one really knew who he was, besides "that one kid with glasses and black hair who loves to draw".

As he started to walk down the sidewalk towards his house, he saw Dean. He was leaning against a tree, smiling down at his phone. Castiel decided to keep walking. He knew Dean would get freaked out if he tried to say hey.

He reached into his back pocket, grabbing ahold of his phone and headphones. He unlocked it, clicking on his music. He hit shuffle and put his headphones in his ears. As he walked, he closed his eyes and took in the music. It was gentle. His favourite music. He wasn't a fan of loud music.

Just as he was about to put his phone back into his pocket so he didn't have to carry it, he felt someone grab at his shoulder. His heart started to race, for this had NEVER happened.

He turned around and the first thing he noticed were candy green eyes staring into his sky blue ones. Dean Winchester. What could he possibly want from a lonely nerd?

He removed the headphones from his ears and smiled at him. He didn't want to come off awkward or rude for leaving his headphones in, even if it was just one in his ear.

"You walkin' home alone?" Dean questioned, curiosity seeping through his words.

"Yeah, I always do. Well, except Fridays. Charlie walks me home on Fridays." Cas stated, shoving his hands into his hoodie pocket. He felt wrong for assuming that Dean knew her, but before he could clarify who she was, he spoke up.

Dean smirked at him. "Is that your girlfriend?" He said elbowing Castiel. They began to walk down the sidewalk. "Did he really not know or was he just teasing?" Cas thought to himself.

"Charlie? No, she's not into guys." Cas shrugged, scratched the back of his neck. He smiled down at the ground, blushing for no reason.

"Ah, I see. Do you have a girlfriend... or boyfriend?" He said, shoving his hands in the pockets of his leather jacket. He looked back at Cas's red cheeks, smiling a little.

Cas shook his head and let out a small sigh. "I see you've heard the rumors," he shrugged, letting a slight frown take over his lips.

"Rumors? That you're gay?" Dean asked, causing Cas to widen his eyes. Has he really never heard about them? Cas was kind of thankful that Dean didn't really hear about the stupid rumours that spread within his school.

"Yeah. Someone started rumours that I was gay because I never had a girlfriend. So when I got one to make people think I wasn-"

"So you are gay?"

"What?"

Dean laughed and slapped Cas's shoulder, making Cas's stomach tingle a little. "You just said you got a girlfriend to make people think you weren't gay."

“N-no, That’s not what I mea-” Cas covered his face in embarrassment. He shouldn't have to be embarrassed, but he was. I mean, he kind of did just accidentally tell someone he doesn't know all that well that he was gay.

"It's okay. I won't tell anyone. You're 'secret' is safe with me." Dean laughed, shaking his head while looking at the sidewalk they walked down.

Cas was a little shocked at his reaction if he was being honest. He felt bad for assuming what kind of person he was, just because Dean looked like a stereotypical jock who showed mercy for no one.

"I was expecting you to say something like gay is gross or something," Cas said, looking away from Dean, blushing at his words. Cas wanted to be honest for judging Dean by his looks.

"Nah. We can't help it." He said, getting red in the face when he realized what he said.

"Wait..." Cas scoffed. He smiled and looked at Dean. "You're gay, too?"

"What? No, I-"

"It's okay." Cas laughed. "I won't tell anyone either."

"Wow," Dean laughed. "I wasn't expecting to come out to anyone anytime soon. I guess it wouldn't hurt to have one person know," They both chuckled and continued to walk a little.

"I guess that means that Sammy won't be the first to find out..."

Cas turned to look at Dean, catching a glimpse of his side profile before Dean could turn and look and Cas in return.

"Sammy? Is that your little brother or something?" Cas asked, tilted his head in curiosity. Dean made a mental note to bring up conversations that would make Cas tilt his head, for it was the cutest thing he had ever seen in his years of living.

"Yeah, he is. The only part of my family that I can say I actually care about. I basically raised him since my dad was never home," Dean said, lightly kicking a rock, only to kick it again when he approached it.

"Hm... My home is kind of like that. My dad's never home, but I have a house full of older brothers. I have a younger sister as well, but she lives with my mom. I'm the youngest boy," Cas said, smiling a little. His brothers always treated him the nicest since he was seen as the baby in the house. The only one who couldn't really stand Cas was Michael, even though their dad put Michael in charge of taking care of Castiel.

"How many brothers do you have?" Dean asked, trying to get to know him as fast as he could.

"In counting, I have 7. There's Lucifer, Michael, Gabriel, Urie-"

"Hold on, hold on. I'm not trying to sound rude or anything, but what kind of names did your parents pick out?" Dean asked, a little overwhelmed by the religious sounding names.

Cas let out a heavenly laugh that Dean could listen to for ages. "My family is very religious. I'm just happy I got the best name,"

They both laughed, Deans face flushing at the sound of Cas' silent laugh. All the while, the feelings were the same for Cas.

Castiel noticed that his house was only a few yards away, which made Cas a little sad. He didn't want to leave his new friend.

"Uh, this is my house," Cas said, turning towards Dean. Dean frowned a bit and looked into Cas' eyes. They were so uniquely beautiful.

"Do you maybe wanna hang out tomorrow after school? I mean, if you want to- if you don't, that's fi-" He blurted out, feeling his face start to heat up as he panicked, trying to search for the right words.

"Yeah, sure. I don't mind." Cas said smiling. Dean could've sworn he felt his heart skip a beat at his smile.

On the outside, Dean was smiling and blushing. But on the inside, his mind was screaming. Of course, no one knew this, but Dean had always thought Cas to be just... amazing, even if he never talked to him. The first time he saw Cas, he was walking down the hall with his friend Charlie by his side. Cas was carrying his art book, which Dean wanted to see. He wanted to get to know him through his artwork, and not just the ones that were hanging around the school. He wanted to see the ones that he dared not to show anyone, the ones that meant the most to him, the ones that had a deeper meaning to Cas. He just wanted to sit down and go through that nicely decorated sketchbook and get to know Cas in all his beauty.

"So," Dean dragged out the 'o', rocking back on his heels and shoving his hands in his pockets. "I'll swing by tomorrow and pick you up? Of course, we could alwa-"

Cas laughed once again, setting his hand on Dean's shoulder to stop him from rambling on again. As much as he admired the cuteness of it, he didn't want Dean to suffer through his own words and feel like he was embarrassing himself.

"Yeah, that's sounds great. Uh, are we going right after school?" Cas returned the cute head tilt, Dean swooning a little bit.

"I can pick you up around at around four or five if that's cool with you. I gotta go home and make sure Sammy will be okay while I'm out," Dean said, remembering to check the locks to make sure they were pretty stable.

Cas nodded and let out a small hum of approval, walking backward a little, getting ready to say his goodbyes.

"Call it a date," Dean said, laughing at himself a little. Nothing was funny, he just couldn't believe he said that out loud.

"Will do," Cas smiled, laughing a bit too. From what he had seen so far, Dean seemed to be a huge softy. He wasn't hard to get along with at all. In fact, it was quite the opposite. The rumors Cas heard about Dean Winchester weren't true. At all.

Dean nodded his head shyly, I nervous laughter escaping his lips. He'd never done that before. He normally just took girls on dates and ended up ditching them because they all tried too hard to get his attention or he had a quick fuck if he got lucky with some girl at a bar. But Cas. Something about him made everything different. He couldn't really explain how he felt, but he knew that this wasn't just some one-night stand situation. Dean wanted to be able to see Cas every day, and maybe even get lost in his eyes. He didn't want to go on one date and then ditch him. He wanted to go on many dates and never forget him. He thought it stupid of him to be thinking this way, but he couldn't help himself.

"See you then," Cas said, turning towards his driveway. He turned to look at Dean, who was already walking down the sidewalk.

Once he was inside, he started to smile even bigger. He felt like such an idiot for it. The 'worst' guy in school just asked him out on a date! This had to be one of the best days of his life.

He had to take a minute to breathe, seeing the realization of it all. Dean Winchester and Castiel Novak were going to go on a date. Together. In public.

He bet that if he were to look in a mirror, his face would be the colour of a strawberry.

Setting his backpack down on the coffee table that was placed in the center of the living room, he heading towards the kitchen to grab a snack.

But not without dancing a little to relieve that happiness inside him

#supernatural #Destiel #castiel #dean winchester #fluff

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feralhogs · 4 years

Note

ANSWER 1 THROUGH 65 HO

65 Questions You Aren't Used To

WPOOOOO LETS GO

Y E E T

1. Do you ever doubt the existence of others than you?

nnnnooooooo. its called holding onto my last marble.

2. On a scale of 1-5, how afraid of the dark are you?

1. sometimes i can freak myself out going to the bathroom at night but bro. i take walks at like 11pm or whenever the hell i please. and i LIKE IT.

3. The person you would never want to meet?

i would not care to meet dick face

4. What is your favorite word?

worm

5. If you were a type of tree, what would you be?

well darn i dont really knowwww!!!!!!! the big jungle one from minecraft. but i love weeping willows of course.

6. When you looked in the mirror this morning what was the first thing you thought?

i didnt think

7. What shirt are you wearing?

my pyjama shirt from new vegas. las vegas. oh my god. not that i went there. my friend did. ive been wearing it for 3 days now. because its fine.

8. What do you label yourself as?

androgynouOOUUSSSSSSS i heard it described the most accurately for me as “in between blue and pink, purple is a blend while not being either of them.” yes this SPECIFICALLY. i could never be feminine while female presenting, but now that im usually read as masculine i go around seeming gay as fuck. and even though this sounds like heresy considering how i instinctively want to throat punch people who feminize me, i have comfortably considered myself a woman lately ONLYYYYYYYY BY being as butch as a butch can possibly butch. maybe without the cars. i would NEVER go by she/her NEVER NEVER NEVER. like there literally are butch women who go on T and use he/him pronouns. that brings me euphoria too and i find people reallllyyyyyy get mind-bent at this point. i really also get irritated at the idea that identifying with both lessens one or the other... thats why i like the purple thing so much. like im 100% of the thing. i was watching on queer eye, once, there was this part where all these women met up and one of them who was really masculine was saying how “a woman can look like this too” and i was like “i am probably crying for an important reason right now” and sometimes i feel attraction to women that is nOT of the ManTM just... i can do what i want.

but my point is it’s like im only happy if i have a blend. theres even a particular quality of it i can put my finger on, like a rugged, handsome feel... and then a flamboyant, passionate feel... mix em all up...

9. Bright room or dark room?

BRIGHTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT

GUHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

10. What were you doing at midnight last night?

transition juice, or fucking around with cs paint with some gentle existential dread

11. Favorite age you’ve been so far?

this one, because my life is not hell, and i know a few basics about adulting now

12. Who told you they loved you last?

the sister. i said it for damage control because she had blown a fuse the other day. i was being very fake on purpose because i’m not being vulnerable with someone who will blow up. when she says it all i feel is pain. like cold paralyzing needles in my soul. i cant say i love you to her and mean it, even if i want to. honestly i wish people would say this to me. the most i love yous i remember are from family members putting band aids on the wreckage of our relationships, so i can feel a little twang of guilt and longing for what could have been and should have been. and feel like i should be doing something more. and feeling awkward because you both know they fucked up and it’s the elephant in the room. and i can feel their confusion and sickness causing them pain, feeling that pain for them.

13. Your worst enemy?

hmmm. anyone who made me feel like less than i am. anyone

14. What is your current desktop picture?

cherry blossoms and a city at night that i stole off the internet

15. Do you like someone?

like like crushes right? i fucking wish. i am so god damn sick of myself. i dont feel fuck or shit for anyone. its a fucking wasteland. yes im on T so i want to fuck anything that moves. and yet? can i please have some feelings? please may i have some feelings? not aesthetic appreciation. not moral, personality appreciation. or even just a deep respect and compassion. these are all fine things of course. but cant someone just drive me crazy? cant i have that extra spice of life? cant i just have a little bit of happy crazy? i will know a perfectly lovely person and ill WANT to have feelings for them. but i FUCKEN DONT. I DONT!!!! SHIT!!!!! WHAT IS THE MEANIGN?!?!??!??!?!1 i have fucking YET to meet anyone im more obsessed with than some really gay ocs. come on universe!!!! bring it!!! poor oscar. poor fucking oscar. whatever wavelength im vibing on man you are not on it. i wish you were on it. i wish you were on it oscar. you are hot you are hot with your bike oscar. and the rose quartz i gave you. the rose quartz you wanted. but i feel no authentic electric connection to you. i feel like all i just see is how your brain works with a coolheaded certainty. all i do is analyze what you are wearing so i can be as hot as you. maybe id like to draw you. and girls from work. you are so beautiful and amazing. i see you in bikinis on instagram. and im like oh beauty standards. look at you go, adhering to them. my heart rate goes right along at the same old pace. dont tell me this is principles. does someone have to smell bad? like edward cullen?? CAN SOMEBODY PLEASE JUST SEDUCE ME?!!!?? ID LOVE SOME EXTRA WILL TO LIVE! THEN MY STORIES WILL BE BETTER!!!! see this is the whole problem

16. The last song you listened to?

what am i to you by finn the human or actually that asgore fight song that i do not know the context of and dont want to until i play the game for myself

17. You can press a button that will make any one person explode. Who would you blow up?

i would save this button for a karen.

18. Who would you really like to just punch in the face?

jk rowling. every time i see her face in a news article about why her bland new transphobia anvil book is pretty bland without addressing the raging transphobia in it and around it, i take a minute and contemplate shoving a pie in her face, and agonizing that i cannot do it from this distance.

19. If anyone could be your slave for a day, who would it be and what would they have to do?

a... slave? is this a kink thing? im fucking laughing this is going to be so honest. probably a toxic person from my past i have unresolved sexual tension with, especially since i was in my abused kid shell and was a huge doormat so now im all vengeful with issues. since this is totally something i am open to considering right now i would like to browse this concept’s menu

20. What is your best physical attribute? (showing said attribute is optional)

yknow what? yknow what? i am just going to say all of me. i am feeling very body positive right now. i often feel isolated as fuck because of trans stuff and male body standards, but thats Also What Makes Me Special :) i like me, i like my face, i think i am very cool and unique, and i can walk fast.

21. If you were the opposite sex for one day, what would you look like and what would you do?

GOD DAMN IT THIS FUCKING QUESTION AGAIN

22. Do you have a secret talent? If yes, what is it?

yes. but it’s a secret.

23. What is one unique thing you’re afraid of?

deep sea creatures. idk. even if its small and not even ugly. i just lose my fucking mind. i jump out of my chair. i get the heebies and the jeebies.

24. You can only have one kind of sandwich. Every sandwich ingredient known to humankind is at your disposal.

okay. chicken. cheese. something spicy so it wont be boring. a fuck ton of veggies so i can be healthy. and some olives, fuck olive haters.

25. You just found $100! How are you going to spend it?

IM GOING TO GIVE IT TO MY LANDLORD <3

26. You just got a free plane ticket to anywhere in the world, but you have to leave immediately. Where are you going to go?

mexico city to see what all my friends are talking about.

27. An angel appears out of Heaven and offers you a lifetime supply of the alcoholic beverage of your choice. “Be brand-specific” it says. Man! What are you gonna say about that? Even if you don’t drink booze there’s something you can figure out… so what’s it gonna be?

............................................................................

w h y

okay. i would go around tasting a bunch of fucking. really fancy old wines. listen i dont really drink okay. but with a very fancy old wine i can go around with a like, glass and look really sophisticated and tell gay things to gay people. hello boys. so id find one that strategically i would like the most for the rest of my life and choose it. and if its expensive i can sell it.

28. You discover a beautiful island upon which you may build your own society. You make the rules. What is the first rule you put into place?

i would stick a bell in the middle of it and all of us have to go there at six o’clock and throw bread at each other and fuck.

29. What is your favorite expletive?

cunt. i dont really use it ever, but boy it can pack a punch!

30. Your house is on fire, holy shit! You have just enough time to run in there and grab ONE inanimate object. Don’t worry, your loved ones and pets have already made it out safely. So what’s the one thing you’re going to save from that blazing inferno?

that means my trees because theyre living things? good. my phone. i need it to function. everything else i have on the clouds and i can just write on a napkin if i really need.

31. You can erase any horrible experience from your past. What will it be?

i wanna say nothing because the good and the bad made me who i am and all that. and they’re learning experiences and healthy stuff. but some of my sisters abuse that has destroyed my psyche, literally just ruined my life, it would make things easier if that hadnt happened.

32. You got kicked out of the country for being a time-traveling heathen who sleeps with celebrities and has super-powers. But check out this cool shit… you can move to anywhere else in the world!

WHAT I WANNA KNOW MORE ABOUT THIS LIFE STOP TELL ME HOW I GET THERE

Okay i’m moving to... greece and i’m going to study ancient greek everything and live right on the edge of the sea where the water’s lapping the doorsteps. and im gonna learn greek by immersion

33. The Celestial Gates Of Beyond have opened, much to your surprise because you didn’t think such a thing existed. Death appears. As it turns out, Death is actually a pretty cool entity, and happens to be in a fantastic mood. Death offers to return the friend/family-member/person/etc. of your choice to the living world. Who will you bring back?

i am not surprised whatsoever death is a cool entity.

probably someone who died really sadly and too soon in my life (no one close to me thank god) but just as a service to society

34. What was your last dream about?

wolves with bombs were chasing me around a giant university. it was all part of the game. i was trying to protect some people... soldiers were chasing me... i was hiding under the floor... hiding from authorities and war are VERY common dreams for me

35. Are you a good….[insert anything you’d like here]?

Writer? Yes. am i saying that to sound full of myself? no. i am fighting very hard to maintain some self-confidence. i have done some writing recently and i am proud as fuck of myself. i caught myself thinking, “now that was banging, i know that was banging.” and so i just admitted it to myself.

36. Have you ever been admitted to the hospital?

nooooot reeeaaaalllyyyyyy. i went in an ambulance for my face swelling up! still dont know if i needed to. still think i was allergic to the person i was talking to at the time. seriously when i stopped talking to them the hives went away. they literally gave me hives sdjfnskjndsjknfkjsfnjskdnfdsjknfjknf

37. Have you ever built a snowman?

yes

38. What is the color of your socks?

they have inuyashas on them

39. What type of music do you like?

dark, longing, aching, angry, raw, disappointed, serious, low songs that get intense as fuck.

40. Do you prefer sunrises or sunsets?

sunrises for the concept, sunsets for the looks

41. What is your favorite milkshake flavor?

you know what? i dont really like milkshakes. they dont feel good in my tummy even if it’s not my stomach having a fucking meltdown.

42. What football team do you support? (I will answer in terms of American football as well as soccer)

the fuck is football

43. Do you have any scars?

yes, most of them are from dermatillomania, two big cool-looking ones on my hands from touching a cookie sheet without an oven mitt and pouring microwaved coffee all over my thumb because literally every inch of the counter had a foot of dishes on it and i didn’t simply heat up the water normally because everything was dirty

44. What do you want to be when you graduate?

i want to be a psychologist and an author

45. If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?

id like a dong please

46. Are you reliable?

yeeeeeesssssss...... but the adhd wins sometimes

47. If you could ask your future self one question, what would it be?

future self: even if you’re in a worse off place than where i am right now, don’t regret anything, don’t beat yourself up. sometimes it’s realistic to have hope. you don’t have to be hard on yourself all the time just because it’s familiar and natural to you. so stop thinking “if i see a note from my past self ill be filled with rueful self awareness”

48. Do you hold grudges?

yes. i feel like im saving my soul a little and taking some power back when i am able to say “that hurt, that was wrong, and you don’t get access to me anymore, i don’t have to forgive you” it’s admitting that my own pain is real so i can listen to and protect myself. i wish i was more of a forgiving person but i spent too much time trying to forgive unorganically for the sake of being moral that i just can’t, can’t can’t now. it hurts so existentially and i deserve better. time for me to be mean and hold grudges. a little mean is okay.

49. If you could breed two animals together to defy the laws of nature, what new animal would you create?

a DOG CAT????????

50. What is the most unusual conversation you’ve ever had?

“doesn’t having a human-shaped robot with smoke coming out of it in the corner of your shop scare you late at night?”

“yes, sometimes i see it and jump a little”

51. Are you a good liar?

yes, when i’m dedicated. getting my birth certificate back? oscar worthy

52. How long could you go without talking?

i live like this lmao

53. What has been you worst haircut/style?

once upon a time i had bangs. and a bob cut

54. Have you ever baked your own cake?

yes bitch

55. Can you do any accents other than your own?

yes bitch i can do a convincing british accent but i don’t want to broadcast that fact because being british is cringe and plus my name is gordon and im already trans and interested in cooking and my greatest fear is that people think i am trying to become him when i am deeply offended when people assume i make personal decisions for anyone other than myself. no one has ever actually voiced this theory to me but it haunts me late at night. i can honestly probably do any accent if i listen to it for a little bit. i find it very easy to imitate sounds and like individual speaking styles to the point of stealing them even when i dont want to. like actually this is something that just comes to me easily i think.

56. What do you like on your toast?

fuck toast. i make a grill cheese. cheese and garlic.

57. What is the last thing you drew a picture of?

i tried digitally painting a generic girl who ended up looking really simliar to someone i went to school with only i made the eyes way too small and i would show you except it’s too much work

58. What would be you dream car?

vw bug with giant monster wheels, black with flames, big booming stereo. eyelashes in a drag way. ill run pickup trucks off the road

59. Do you sing in the shower? Or do anything unusual in the shower? Explain.

i sang in the shower back when i felt free to annoy everyone in the house. oH WAIT IT DOESNT ANNOY PEOPLE WHO ARE KIND TO ME

...........

they taught me i was annoying. ANYWAY. i am too shy to sing in the shower but id love to. i dont really do anything unusual except that i take really long in there but yknow im not actually doing what people think im doing when i take long. im literally just sitting there decomposing, head empty.

60. Do you believe in aliens?

yes, of course, i have been telling everyone theres water under mars since day one and now look. now look

61. Do you often read your horoscope?

yes. im a sagittarius and clearly it is needed because CLEARLY theres no other fucking sagittariuses

62. What is your favorite letter of the alphabet?

G, because my name starts with that and i’m just great. really, i like... it has a chonk to it. like a reliable chonk to it

63. Which is cooler: dinosaurs or dragons?

YKNOW WHAT? im going with dragons because of the fantasy, fire breathing and so on but yknow for my wip i was going to have both dragons and dinosaurs at a reptile like shelter

64. What do you think about babies?

i think they should be loved and nurtured, but they are too much work for me to want for myself at this point of life, and you should definitely read some manuals before having one if you can because people can and do mess this the fuck up

65. Freebie! Ask anything interesting you can think of.

you didn’t ask anything here so im just going to tell you something. i am going to tell you that i have always been so hell bent on writing even when i hate it because sometimes when things are going well i feel like i am just so in another world and i feel like im doing something im really really supposed to do. it is such a euphoria and it has an effect on my whole aura. i really wish i had never made myself stop but we can’t change the past so i shall just have to never stop again.

THANKS HOOOOO

#chatty #notthecanadianaverage #bug

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landofsomethingsomething · 7 years

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your askbox seems crowded with johnroxycallie asks today. welllll sorry im going to add another one to the pile! i am intrigued! i used to ship johnroxy because it seemed real & cute but i moved to roxycallie when it was canon. but this is interesting?? sooo im interested but not sold. give me your best sales pitch for this new ot3 and adopt me into that good good 4 person fold?

Okay here’s why I like it.

To start you have to understand my salty relationship with Roxy’s bisexuality. I basically wrote my own god damn narrative for it in my own head because I am just so over homestuck’s completely unwillingness to give women arcs relating to their sexuality. Womens’ queerness is always something treated by the narrative as obvious and unworthy of commentary or exploration or any element of revelation/self-discovery or even an iota of reflection or struggle, which is especially FRUSTRATING when they’ve been shown struggling with the queerness of OTHERS. It’s that last part that gets me w Roxy -- I especially hate this with Roxy specifically because her relationship with Dirk was so very fucking fraught with her being bitter at him for being gay and thus unwilling to be with her. Roxy was aggressive about her attraction to Jake and Dirk and I would have really liked to see SOMETHING about like. The narrative there after she meets Callie, especially when Callie expressly tells Roxy that her species can’t experience human romance and blah blah blah blah there are so many things I would have loved to know more about re Roxy and her sexuality but this post is already going to be long so enough said about how mad I am about this specifically

The way I’ve settled on it for my own peace of mind is that Roxy went after Dirk and Jake most aggressively because she had the “save the human species” thing held up as the banner of like, the most important thing she could do to the exclusion of most else. Couple that with her being upset at Dirk for being gay and you get a workable explanation for her suppressing her own bisexuality and being so exuberantly performatively straight.

So. Callie is the only person outside the other alpha kids that Roxy has had this lifelong close relationship/bond with. They have a conversation where they basically gal pal each other aggressively, with Callie saying her species can’t do redrom/human romance and Roxy being cagey about whether she’d reciprocate because Callie is basically telling her there’s no point to the thought exercise and who likes rejection?? but Roxy is the one who brings it up and is clearly fishing to see if Callie likes her likes her and blah blah blah people have been shipping RoxyCallie long before credits video because of all this, the ring, etc. The closeness of their relationship and the mutual “if only this could work it could be so good” narrative there like all right.

Then, John. There’s an element to Roxy’s attraction to John that’s rooted in that instinctive thing she has going on that you can see on display in their first meeting, where she sees A Dude and immediately does her mental calculus to determine hey here is A Dude, he’s kind of cute, he’s maybe not gay and/or off-limits b/c my best friend has a huge messy crush on him. And it would be real easy to weigh the scales here and go full RoxyCallie if that were the sum and parts of their relationship, but like, here’s the thing -- it’s not.

I just cannot let go of John and Roxy as the sole survivors of the Game Over timeline. Roxy is Callie’s beacon of optimistic hope, Roxy is the one who acts to save Callie and preserve her in the alpha timeline (with John’s help -- John gives Roxy the ring after all. I like that detail in the full scope of them being a Unit in the future.) But JOHN plays that role for Roxy. Roxy watches Rose die and is ready to sit down and throw in the towel. She tells John straight up that her only plan going forward after this is to accept her fate and bury her mom and wait for her miserable doomed timeline to end and take her with it. John is the one who convinces her there might be a better way, there might be hope. JOHN is the one who acts to preserve Roxy’s existence in the alpha timeline. I really love the parallel between Roxy bringing Callie back from the brink of oblivion and John bringing Roxy back from the same via the same mechanism that allows John to get the ring that allows Roxy to bring Callie back in the first place. That is a really tidy loop and I like it a lot.

So, Roxy in Earth C with a boy she likes and has a connection with that literally no one else can understand because no one else went through Game Over, no one else has this dissonant experiences that might not mesh 100% with the people they love, no one else has this potential imposter syndrome. I love the idea of Roxy and John bonding over that and have never really been willing to give it up. I love the idea of Roxy coming to understand that her infatuation with the idea of A Boy, Any Boy and the future she wanted so bad were products of trauma and really examining that and then realizing she fell for John legitimately, that she genuinely finds him charming

Simultaneously, Roxy in Earth C with the alien girl she’s had a crush on for like probably forever, and now she’s free of the burden she always assumed she had to repopulate the human race. Also her entire family is queer and she’s free to explore her own feelings with that context. Maybe to accept that her feelings for Jane were never purely platonic (and her feelings for Callie certainly never were) and half her frustration at Dirk was that he insisted on being “true” to himself while Roxy never felt she could be and imposed straightness on herself out of obligation to the human race. That could make a girl bitter, right? (I have so many god damn feelings about Roxy and Dirk reconciling post-canon)

And here’s Callie with her insistence that cherubs can’t experience redrom, too. Except now she’s living on Earth C with, for example, Karkat, a troll who absolutely experiences romantic feelings the same way humans do despite all his species lore stating Trolls Can’t Feel Like That. And now Callie has eternity to explore HER feelings -- and we know part of why Callie just accepted that she couldn’t experience flushed/human romance is because she didn’t think anyone would ever love her like that anyway, right? She thought she was hideous and unloveable. Well now she’s here on Earth C and there’s no way Roxy is going to go on letting her believe that. And without that holding her back from exploring the way she REALLY feels, you can see a path to Callie allowing herself to experience emotions she never thought she could.

And all of these are positive things and wonderful things for these people to learn about themselves and about each other.

Roxy caught between the boy she fell for on her journey and the girl she fell for long before her journey even started, just having this realization like, everyone is doing what they want here, this is our universe and our earth and our society and our rules, and she’s kind of unofficially dating them both for awhile but not committing labels-wise to either until eventually she’s just like fuck it??? Here’s how I feel, now how about you??? And I cannot imagine Callie protesting Roxy loving them both or someone else loving Roxy as much as she does, and John’s relationship with romance throughout Homestuck is so bemused and ???? and exploratory, I imagine he’s like well this is kinda weird is this like a troll thing and Roxy is like no this is just an us thing and they deal with it

John and Callie have already been spending tons of time with each other throughout and again, as I referenced in an earlier post, there’s some initial awkwardness that settles out into a balanced arrangement and Callie and John both love Roxy and care about each other very much.

Also like, until there actually is some kind of epilogue that does more with John’s current depression arc and ties in the Masterpiece with everything, I like this alternate reality where John has someone who understands him in a way really no one else can there for him when his shit starts to go south, I like the idea of there being an entire long ass subplot where John tries to isolate himself and Roxy is instrumental in not allowing that to happen, I like Callie’s cheer in the face of her own blisteringly unforgiving history and reality being an inspiration for John, I like a lot of things that canon as it stands doesn’t have a satisfying character-driven arc for at the moment.

And, you know, to cap all this off, I really just like JohnRoxyCallie as an acknowledgement that bisexual woman are not “less” for liking boys, that bisexual woman don’t “count” unless they are exclusively with women, and that bisexual people in real life who ship bisexual characters with people of opposite/other genders are not somehow betraying the queer community by doing so, while simultaneously not sacrificing a potential f/f romance for a m/f one.

The LGBT community’s relationship with bisexual women is MY pet issue, because obviously I’m a bi woman, and there’s obviously an element of that going on as well. It bothers me with the treatment of a lot of fandom/homestuck’s bisexual women (this frenzy by queer fandom to erase every relationship a bisexual woman ever had with a man as being not real or not valid for x, y, z reasons while Straight Fandom is over there doing the same thing, but opposite) but Roxy is by far the Homestuck Canon Bisexual Woman I personally care about the most so SHRUG that’s why you get a million words of my feelings

Anyway that’s why I like them

#text #asks #johnroxycallie #john egbert #roxy lalonde #calliope #Anonymous

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flinnybillymoonexplosion · 7 years

Text

Still too many fucking questions

So, once Black Sails is over, and once whe know how it ends, I still have some questions about the show.

First one: Why did Billy end up alone in that Island and how is he going to do to get out of there?

We know that in TI Billy is Jim Hawkins’ inn and that all his crewmates (well maybe they are not his truly crewmates cause they all died during the whole BS) are looking for him just to give him the black spot. I know that is supposed to pass like 20 years from BS end to TI, but seriously, why did they leave Billy stranded in Skeleton Island? Is he marooned there? Wasn’t it Ben Gunn the one being marooned in TI? Then, why is he with Hands and Flint when they arrive to Savanna? Is he in Silver’s crew? Did he just give his back to his only friend?? yeah, the one that he followed in the resistance and the one he freed and also the one that missed a shot at him?? Really? ok

The second one: Why did they make Flint gay in Black Sails?

Here I can understand and see different reason for that. The show in the end talks about the outcasts, the ones who are left for monsters and who civilization wants to extermine. Showing gay and queer characters represent that part of the history that the history itself tried to erase. These people existed and fought for their rights as well as we are doing it now a days. The only difference is that what we know from them are all stories, not the HISTORY (yeah in capitall letters), and that’s why this show is amazing, cause they focus in those micronarratives to build a pice of reality, using fictional characters as well as real life characters to represent that scene and those lifes. Because this is a metanarrive show, they are explaining how society worked in a concrete epoc and how it was lived by the ones who where left out of that same society. Even though my questions has been explained trought this text, I still can’t see clearly why the BS writers made Flint gay.

I thought that the main reason behind that was Billy and Flint’s relationship. For real. Why? Cause when I used to see Muppet TI or read TI it self, I always had a strange feeling towards Billy. He’s a drunk old man, too noisy and too rude, who created a debt in the inn he’s in cause all he does is drink, eat, and fight whoever faces him and therefore brake everything he’d find in his way. But at the same time, he’s not that bad. He’s just a scared and paranoid man, who at the end of his live gives little Jim the map and mentions that Flint gave it to him when he was about to die in his own bed, just the same way Jim’s at Billy’s bed at that time. When he’s drunk he tells old pirate stories and he is clearly proud of being old Flint’s first mate. My inner child and me always thought that Billy had a platonic kind of love for Flint in TI.

So, my question here is: why was TIBilly so proud of being Flint’s first mate if, at the end of BS, Billy is left alone in the island and Flint is back with Thomas? Why was TIBilly so proud of his captain if in BS he’s been betrayed by everyone he knew and cared about (including his captain)? And why did BSBilly end up trying to kill Flint when all the previous scenes were telling us the opposite (I mean, Billy’s face in 4x05 when he’s waiting for Flint to come out of the fort, is not his “I hate Flint” face; or when he shoots the one Flint’s trying to help out of the water instead of pointing directly at Flint)? Or why doesn’t Billy punch Flint in the face anytime he had the chance to do so?? And, related to TI, why does Billy see Flint’s ghost when he’s sober?? Could it be a consequence of being marooned in Skeleton Island? Or because he feels sorry for what he did to him?? But what could he do to Flint to feel so bad and sad about it? Betray him with Rogers?? No! Cause he had all the right to be mad at them and wanting them to pay for everything they did to him.

This leads me to the next question: Why didn’t Billy tell that he stole and defeated Flint in TI in his drunker and rude stories?

I mean, if Billy really hated and wanted to get rid of Flint in BS, it would make sense if TI Billy was braggig about it and how he fooled Flint or how he manage to get them all (the Roger’s men and the Walrus) to Skeleton Island and then how he’d get he map and the chest. Cause TISilver brags about him being the only pirate Flint really was afraid of, and that makes him badass, and even makes fun of him naming his female parrot Flint (another reason to make Flint gay?). But if Billy really had hated Flint or killed him or stole the map from him, he would had been even more badass than Silver, and he could had been even prouder than him. But TIBilly doesn’t say that, he’s just proud of being part of the Walrus crew. And my question is, why?? I mean, if Billy was still feeling hatred againts his brothers and wanted to keep the money for him in revange to their betrayal, he would had said it, right? I mean, that would become him into a very dark character in the book, and not a pathetic old drunk man...

When Billy dies in TI, Jim finds a chest with money and coins. Billy had them with him all that time in the inn. He didn’t waste anything from it. He kept it. He didn’t even brag about it, nor the map. He just tells at the end that Flint gave it to him. This only leads me to metalotage. Yeah, that shit was true in piracy, so why hadn’t we been introduced to that in BS? And, why would the metalotage make sense in Billy and Flint’s relationship? Because, in my opinion, that could be the main reason behind Billy keeping the map and that chest and not wasting it nor saying nothing about it. And because Billy has always been the apple of Flint eyes in BS. We only have to pay attention to their interactions and the way Billy always gets aways with all the things he screws up in BS. Flint is never mad at him, he’s pleased at them. Flint always teases Billy and the later gets annoyed by it, but at the same time he’s genuinly fascinated by Flint. This and the lack of communication they have during the show, can lead Billy to hate Flint. I mean, hate is not the opposite if love. The opposite of love is indifference, and Billy is anything but indifferent to Flint. In fact almost all of his scenes in BS are related to Flint and he never has had sex in the show. That makes him an asexual character, or a character that hasn’t had the parter he really wanted (AKA Flint). So, that’s always been my main reason the ship them. I thougt that making Flint gay and Billy asexual or not interested in visiting the whores in BS would lead us to an outcome where Flint and Billy would end up together as TI says.

And last but not least: Why did Thomas had a beard?

I know he had to change from what he looked in London cause it’s being 10 years since they last saw each other. And I know that his characterization is like that cause now he’s another man, he works the ground and in a sense he’s no longer the camp man with wigs that made Flint fall in love at first sight. But the beard?? What’s going on in BS this last season, didn’t they get money for blades?

When I saw Thomas in 2x01, I couldn’t believe how phisically similar he was to Billy (or how similar was Billy to Thomas). But when in 4x10 Thomas turned his head, and showed his face, I was like... “wait, I know that this is Thomas, but that beard... he look’s just like Billy this season!” for a moment I thought about the possibility of being Billy and not Thomas (yeah, I’m pathetic). But no, it was Thomas, and even though I was happy for a happy ending for Flint (believe me, I truly was), my mind was worried about another person... yeah, Billy “my poor little chicken without head” Bones.

His last scene with Flint in s4 is when he falls from the rig. It’s just a fucking paralell to 1x06 when he falls overboard. I think we all know that when Billy “dies” everything goes to shit in Flint’s world. He has a mutiny againts him, and kills his best friend on the way. And when he starts to gain back his power and finds a new partner (yeah Silver), he has those flashbacks with Thomas. I feel like in this last chapter they did just the same kind of transition from Billy and Flint’s definitve break up to Thomas and Flint’s reunion. Billy had to dessappear in order to appear Thomas. He went back to the sea, but he survived, as well as he did in previous seasons. And Flint gets back to Thomas, but in this case it is shown as if it was in real life. But that’s not how I interpretated, cause that’s what Silver told us. Is just a story told by someone who chose to tell it that way and not in another way. The season2 flashback scenes are in colour, as if it was treated like the present scenes. The dreams Flint had in season3 where B/W. And the Silver’s flashbacks or memories are in another tone, some are kinda blue, and some are kinda sepia. the visual is another way of telling us about whats going on. Here I am not saying that Thomas and Flint’s reunion wasn’t true, nor that Silver killed Flint. What I am trying to do is give sense to this loose end, cause I can’t believe they leaved this so open for nothing.

After all, as so many people has said, BS is just a fanfiction of TI, so they had all the rights to represent their persepective of the book the way they wanted. But if they say that the show is a precuel of the book, why did they do this to Billy? Where does his relationship with Flint come to good ends after the show? Cause it seems that there’s no much place for Billy beside his captain anymore. Also, Billy is the one who introduces Flint in the book, not Silver, and Billy is the one who Hands and Silver’s men say to be very similar to Flint. They also laugh about it, telling about their killing tecniques and how raw the both men were.

And why didn’t they had a proper talk in BS? Was it so difficult to sit them and make them speak their minds about each other? Where would that had lead us? Was it so difficult for Starz to make this two “alpha” males crazy for each other? To make them explain what they truly felt for each other? I think it was. I think that it was easyer for them to remove the past, rather than open up a new relationship that’s being build during the 4 season between two manly man who always seemed to hate each other but always end up saving each others lifes. Yeah! It’s a pity, but that’s what I think! I’m not saying that bringing Thomas back was the easy way. But the fact that they brought someone from the past, who’s coming back makes sense to his character’s plot (except for all the homophobic audience in BS who seemed to be watching other show), is easier to explain and to witness than bringing this new dinamic into Flint and Billy’s relationship and having to explain it to the audience that hasn’t been paying attention to it. That’s all.

But as I’ve always said, I know nothing and thus, I never will. This are my ultimate thoughts about the show, I wanted to write them to get rid of them, as always. So thank you for reading them if you made it up to here.

#Black Sails #Billy Bones #Captain Flint #Blint?#the loose end is worse than waiting for a new BS season!#you can answer some questions if you like #or ignore them...#as you wish!

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