"There'll be good weather today, too. I'm sure it'll be a nice day."
Video game fanatic, seasonal anime enthusiast, & very occasionally a fanfic writer.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
Summary:
This is not their first meeting. It probably isn't their second, or their fifth, or even their thirtieth. By the way that Takatoshi beams at him with such familiarity, by the way that Keitaro already knows how tall he is relative to the fence around his childhood home, there must have been an unquantifiable amount of time that they had spent together before that moment. Yet for Keitaro, there was never a world without Takatoshi. One day, he simply found himself staring up at this seven-year-old boy with dirt smudged on his rounded cheeks and knew, with a knowing beyond knowing, that he was his best friend in the whole wide world.
Keitaro, Takatoshi, and the way home.
dragging myself out of hell (again) to post something. hey 13 sentinellers what's up
read the excerpt below (or check it out on AO3 above!)
The first memory that Keitaro has is of Takatoshi peering over the fence, all thick brows over sharp eyes.
"Keitaro!" he cries, straining on what must be the tips of his toes to bring his chin above the edge, and this one action has always confirmed something for Keitaro—namely, that this is not their first meeting. It probably isn't their second, or their fifth, or even their thirtieth. By the way that Takatoshi beams at him with such familiarity, by the way that Keitaro already knows how tall he is relative to the fence around his childhood home, there must have been an unquantifiable amount of time that they had spent together before that moment. Yet for Keitaro, there was never a world without Takatoshi. One day, he simply found himself staring up at this seven-year-old boy with dirt smudged on his rounded cheeks and knew, with a knowing beyond knowing, that he was his best friend in the whole wide world.
"Hi, Takkun!" Keitaro grins back at him. "What are you doin' here?"
"Ain't it obvious? I wanted—" Takatoshi manages to hoist himself over the fence, and Keitaro chuckles as his friend tumbles roughly onto the barren dirt. He bounces back onto his feet, unbothered by the stains on his clothes, and continues— "to ask if you're comin' to the ball game! The Ashitaba Titans are goin' up against the Shibugaki Cranes today, y'know."
"That's today?" Keitaro squawks. Ashitaba has been buzzing with excitement over the upcoming showdown, their hometown heroes against the veritable terrors of the recently formed Japanese Baseball League, and Keitaro is no exception. He loves spectating the matches in the nearby field, loves listening to the play-by-plays of away games over the radio. "Well, what're we standin' around for? Let's go!"
"That's what I was waitin' to hear," Takatoshi declares, grinning, and he takes Keitaro by the hand.
This street is a labyrinth of houses inhabited by a mixture of classmates and grandmothers who will pinch their cheeks and offer them freshly made onigiri when they pass by, but Keitaro knows it like the back of his hand. He lets Takatoshi lead the way anyway, their hands tangled together. Familiar, too: the paradoxically calloused softness of the palms of a boy who sharpens fallen sticks and plays make-believe war.
"How's your grandpa been?" Keitaro asks. Shrii-shrii-shrii, chirp the crickets.
"Oh," Takatoshi says, and if he hesitates for a beat Keitaro pretends not to notice. "Gramps has gotten way better, actually! Turns out a few days of rest is a real help, not that my old man'd ever admit it. He started workin' on a new piece of furniture, soon as he got outta bed. Hang on, did I tell you about the argument he got into with Fuyutsuki-sensei?"
Keitaro hums a no, and Takatoshi delves into an entire spiel about how his grandfather nearly fought their elementary school teacher over a single piece of fruit. There's something about the way that Takatoshi tells stories, the excited motions of his hands and the thousand expressions dancing across his face, that has always been so engaging to Keitaro. if Takatoshi ever became an author—that is, if he ever acquired the patience to sit down for more than five minutes at a time and write—Keitaro would read every one of his novels.
"Oh, and worst part is?" Takatoshi is saying. "Gramps didn't even buy the fruit in the end! He told me it was all about 'a man's pride,' or somethin'."
"Sounds about right," Keitaro says. Takatoshi's grandfather is the type of man to never back down from something once he's put his mind to it. In fact: "You're a lot like him, Takkun."
"Hey!" Takatoshi whirls around, bringing the two of them to a stop. "C'mon, I'm not half as stubborn as he is."
"You're provin' my point!" Keitaro says, doubling over with laughter at the scowl on his friend's face.
"Gramps would sleep outside in the pouring rain to win an argument!"
"So would you!" Keitaro points out. He wouldn't be surprised if he already has.
"Geez," Takatoshi mutters, sighing to veil the silly grin tugging at his mouth. He marches onward, Keitaro trailing behind him. "How 'bout you, Keitaro? Any new stories 'bout your family, or anythin' else?"
"Hmm." Keitaro thinks for a moment. "I don't think so. Not anything half as interesting as your stories, anyway."
"C'mon, don't say that." Takatoshi, though focused on navigating the street before them, tugs on his hand. "You got plenty o' stuff rollin' around in that head o' yours. You just need to man up and say 'em aloud."
"If you say so," Keitaro says, skeptical.
"I know so," Takatoshi insists, as always. "I—Hey, look!"
As they round the corner, Ashitaba's baseball field comes into view. It's nothing nearly as grand as what Keitaro hears the Americans have in their home country, but the sight is always breathtaking regardless: players warming up on the wide-open field, the stands packed and spectators spilling onto the grass around them. Takatoshi pulls him out of his slack-jawed staring and drags him toward the shade of a nearby tree, the boughs decorated with leaves that sway in the cool breeze.
Nearly a decade and a half later, Keitaro won't remember the result of that match. Hell, he'll hardly remember the dreams he had before the war, or the back alleys of his hometown, or the warmth of his best friend's small hand in his. But there are hundreds more of days like these to come, and for the wide-eyed kid he was back then, they'll feel like infinity. How could he ever imagine a world without Takatoshi?
But it's been some time since he draped Clay's jacket over his shoulders as a reminder of what he was fighting for; more since he looked to Mr. Gav—to Kristoph for his cool and calm counsel; and even more since he was a law student with a picture of Phoenix Wright on his desk, struggling to find his place in the world. The struggling has hardly stopped, to be sure, but he's older now; he ought to be able to stand on his own without leaning on someone or something else for validation.
Apollo—of, for the first time in years, his own volition—says to Machi, "When I was nine, my father sent me here. To America."
hi @theatricuddles, i was your gifter for @aa-spring-swap! hope you enjoy this lil fic about apollo talking to machi about being a kid in a foreign land :D!
surprise self-rec time! pick 3 of your favorite things you’ve written/drawn and share them here, then put this in the inbox (anonymously or not) of your fellow creators to spread the positivity and help celebrate already posted works 💞
this is a very late response haHA but thank u for the very kind ask!!
my very personal favorite is twenty-thousand yen man, which, though i'm able to see a lot of flaws in it now, is one that i put a lot of feeling into
The ride back is quieter, given that they've already hit every frivolous conversation topic that comes to mind besides what happened—and that, Tomoya is in no particular rush to cover. Souta will talk about it once he's ready, and Tomoya is willing to wait even if that day never comes. Instead, to fill the silence, he puts his Spotify playlist on, and '80s hits drown out the downpour sluicing off of the roof of his car. Something about the moment is deeply soothing, like swaddling yourself in blankets during a thunderstorm as a kid, like nostalgia for the sort of moment that can only happen once.
i am also really proud of a lot of the things i did style-wise for the universal law of gravitation!
"Sleep tight, love," he murmured. Almost unconsciously, he matched her breathing, focusing on the steady rise and fall of his chest. He was ahead of schedule; he could afford to bask in this moment for a little longer.
If Keitaro hadn't dozed off so quickly, he would have felt the tiniest bit of movement as Natsuno smiled into his collar.
and, to mix it up a bit, i'll put 1929, which i'm happy i was able to push through to completion :)
His uniform is torn open at the torso, revealing an array of darkening bruises and wounds. His hair is matted with dirt and dust and blood. His own blood, smeared against the side of his face, sealing his other eye shut, flowing from the deep gash in his forehead. Hysterically, Keitaro thinks, Look, now we're matching. Two boys fighting a war they don't understand, bruised and battered and bloodied by the things that thwart all imagination. Part of something bigger than what they are.
doing questionable things like rewatching a bard’s lament for “fun” and scanlan and vex you will always be famous. the fact that scanlan brings up that they’ve travelled across planes to fix vex’s daddy issues but then it’s vex’s daddy issues that ground her rebuttal to scanlan when she tells him to stop treating kaylie like an object. and god. vex’s “fuck him! fuck him for not saying anything sooner. and fuck us for not asking.” in the immediate aftermath, and then once she has time to put her walls back up, vex’s “my take-away from scanlan is that we all talk too much.”
the fact that vex was the one who made that comment that without his magic scanlan is just some guy but he’s also the some guy that vex spends the campaign looking up to (even if she does it through barbs and snark), the fact that when vex was fighting against saundor hearing things like “unproven ally” scanlan was all jokes until he realized how much vex believed what was being said to her. the fact that when scanlan comes back, it’s vex who literally sees through his disguise.
what do you mean scanlan was a deadbeat father who discovered a daughter that he did love but loved only as an object until vex called him out on it? what do you mean vex was a woman who struggled to forgive in part due to her crapshoot father and she was the first to forgive scanlan when he came back?
vex and scanlan also have such interesting interactions in terms of the balance of snark, silliness, and sincerity. it’s not uncommon from any characters of sam or laura’s since they are both silly little guys who also love drama and roasting each other especially when it comes to character rp, but as always it’s so dynamic when it’s the two of them bouncing off each other, especially when they’re doing so through scanlan and vex who are already bitchy characters (affectionate) with humour as a deflection method. but it’s a silly and deeply sincere moment when vex finally puts the witch hat scanlan gave her back on with his promise that he won’t run away from the final battle. it is one of my favourite laughable moments in c1 but it also reeks of sincerity when scanlan asks vex if she prefers planetar scanlan or normal scanlan and vex tells him he is fucking hot as a planetar, but she loves him like he was and he’s her favourite when he’s just himself.
like. they’re insane do you understand. the dawnfather asks vex to prove herself and scanlan turns her into a dragon to help her succeed, pelor asks vox machina what vex means to them and scanlan says she’s greedy and mean and the most perfect of them all. the knowing mistress asks scanlan to prove himself and vex escorts him on a broom he unlocked for her and then she picks an impossible lock for him, ioun tries to remind scanlan that his strength is the joy he provides to his friends and he makes a deflective quip that he’s really powerful and vex undercuts his deflection with a sincere assertion that he is. scanlan cast his last wish spell letting her see her brother on her wedding day. vex sent herself across the continent alone with her worry and grief while scanlan’s corpse lay awaiting resurrection to ensure that his daughter could be there to either bring him back or say goodbye.
they are the platonic chosen soulmates of all time to me. i make a post like this like once a year minimum and it’s because they Haunt me. both sam and laura said what if we made high charisma characters using their charisma as a shield and humour as a weapon and they saw through each other’s masks but they never explicitly talked about it to one another. good riddance to talks machina but i will never forget the episode post bard’s lament with laura and sam where sam revealed that vex was the only one who said anything that actually got through to scanlan and another episode where laura revealed that the reason vex was so angry and sad when scanlan left was that vex felt like her and scanlan had a unique bond where they were the only two who really saw one another’s masks for what they were. also laura providing the insight that while vex was actively working on being more forgiving, another reason she was so open and happy with scanlan when he came back was that vex didn’t want to scare him away again.
what am i supposed to do with all that? be normal about scanlan and vex? literally impossible
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
Summary:
"You're gonna kill it, Truce," Phoenix says, and it sounds the same as when he said it before every show, and before her entrance exams, and before she asked Pearl on that first date. He brushes her hair aside and carefully, carefully lets go of her hand.
i am, shockingly, still alive & here to post my fic for @aaweddingzine !! thank you to them again for the lovely opportunity to contribute my Thoughts and Feelings about trupearl and phoenix watching them both grow up :>
