a light tarot reading, because i'm still fond of what i cooked up here. expect allusions to the ending of aci and general detailing of my intentions throughout. some nuances omitted because i want to see if anyone else catches on to them....
probably the most obvious thing is the card itself, wheel of fortune. generally it suggests change, cycles, some big turning point in your life. with the eye cutout slashing through the sphinx i meant to encapsulate izaya's plan of flipping the wheel over on the game makers and throwing them under an imitation of their own work.
there's a distinction in the meaning of the card when it's upright or reversed. looking inward, the card reads upright towards him and reversed as presented to the onlooker. throughout the chapter there's a lot of emphasis on the lack of sincere connections he has, how no one seemed to reach out genuinely concerned about his absence. his attention drifts to his phone a lot as he works, and he continues to work until the end of the chapter which i'll leave here.
it's hard for me to articulate but i hope you can see how i also wanted to convey izaya's personal development at this point of the fic.
less obvious is the positioning of izaya's finger keeping the lion out of view. i know shizuo is technically an aquarius but that thing looks boring and i'm not partial to the zodiac anyways so to me he's the lion in reference this bit from the first chapter.
you could also read shizuo as the bull hidden beneath izaya's shadow which i was also considering as a nod to a bull charges at the stirring of a cape. regardless it can work both ways in keeping him out of view for this part of the plan.
and this one just fell into place for me but wheel of fortune happens to be the element of fire!! which if you know you know.
there's a lot i tried to work into this composition and i have to thank rosa again for putting up with me and making it look amazing.... collaboration with me is pretty intensive but rewarding to see the initial ideas get visually realized.
so i think. there is something special in the way izaya rifles through wallets to catalogue people. i hesitate to call it a love language because, i wouldn't even know how to even define that but.
this guy takes in every scrap of information he can get on someone and starts mapping out the kind of person he thinks they might've been. i know he doesn't care about them individually but i still think he's genuinely fascinated by people and enjoys knowing more about them.
but okay, he'll keep most of that in his head and prioritize keeping only the most essential things directly on him (i like to travel light) so that's his own belongings, polaroids of a family he wants to know more about, sim cards taken from people's phones, condoms, jakow's id, and… shizuo's wallet?
keep in mind that izaya is very deliberate about even the information he documents on his phone (because silly recordings of shizuo are so very important) and of all of the ids they come across he only pockets one. he leaves every other wallet and their cards on the ground!!
the fic doesn't explicitly show us what's still in there but i choose to believe he kept the whole fucking thing. because here, is a record of shizuo. nothing overly personal sure, but proof of his presence as just a guy. a guy who takes public transport, who prefers to use cash, who just has a slip of paper in there that serves no function (it's an old ticket for one of kasuka's movies), who likes to eat at particular places, often, who has connections with others in his life, who feels bad about breaking people's cars, who always carries a condom even if he never gets the chance to use it under the impression that he wouldn't want to be in a relationship, a guy that isn't aware that condoms expire and shouldn't be kept in wallets. and something happened to that condom.... all mundane and carefully preserved with, a few additions.
you're probably not going to understand all of it just from looking at it, and neither would izaya. that's the beauty of it i suppose. but tell me why?? this bastard must've had this thing smuggled away since chapter 6!! y'know, when he totally wanted that guy dead?? 🤨
tagged by @whamss i’m currently not doing anything so i will do this.
last song: i was thinking about heathers musical last night and put it on to loop while on a mad surugaya shopping spree. i was imagining it again earlier today and put on the end of our love is god just to listen to that part where kurt gets shot. i don’t even like the whole song that much but i kept looping some of the fun motifs from it in the other songs with my mind radio.
favourite colour: uhhhhh pfffff kinda suuuck at choosing one favourite colour but i vibe with this soft green #cccc66 that’s the colour of this little water bottle i got, and also the awesome yellow #e4bd18 on the cute crossbody itabag i also got.
last movie/show: when i watch shows or movies it’s usually with note who’s been busy with granblue relink as of late so i’ve just been catching up on connor vods (last one i watched) (what i'm watching right now) an actual movie or show I last watched…… i swear it must’ve been episode 5 of scott pilgrim from november last year with note? this was before i strapped in committed to making that video, and then travelled afterwards.
sweet/spicy/savoury: idk i like treats of both the sweet and savoury variety (separately) i think this is a weird question for me to answer. actually buying nice treats is costly so most of the time i’m just eating savoury for sustenance? preparing something sweet myself is a hassle.
relationship status: single and fine with it.
last thing i googled: this sucks the last thing i looked up was “sustenance” to make sure I got the word right, my last few searches have also been “episode 6 scott pilgrim” “episode 4 scott pilgrim” “granblue relink” i’m literally going through my history right now and everything in the last 24 hours is just me checking what i might be saying or checking what i was buying from last night.
current obsession: i’m not deeply obsessed with it right now but my active interest is still durarara at the moment, still thinking of and not finishing a bunch of things i want to do for it and last night was a deep shopping spree for mostly durarara merch. i do get like, pretty invested in some of the games connor plays in the moment though, like super mario rpg went hard (such a charming game) and still thinking about detective grimoire which he played for like 10 minutes i wish he’d play for more. i do just watch that guy a lot. i’ve also got genshin back in the schedule again (sorry) and am pretty into the card game, which oddly enough is making me feel like reading some fic.
i am afraid to tag mutuals that apparently follow me because i barely post anything on here like you said but we should harass @euclidpaws more into posting too because i haven’t seen them say a word. @rosa-maltz @stray-tori i talk to you guys enough and we are registered mutuals you can do this if you want.
Last song: I’m a designated Not That Into Music guy but Mahou by Myuk? I think (Where TPN season 2 failed me, the music never did)
Favourite colour: This bright ass blue (or green? up to interpretation): #5cffc8. I don’t know the name of this color I just know the hex code I assign myself in all of my servers. Runner up is #ad90bb
Last movie/show: The Zookeepers Wife (with my mom) and uh, Dungeon Meshi. Last show I finished in full was Steins;Gate (feels so long ago). I think last book would be a more interesting question for me to answer here
Sweet/spicy/savoury: I like Boring. White rice and buttered pasta. Savory I guess, if I must
Relationship status: Blissfully single
Last thing I googled: Have to disappoint people in that I only look up practical things like “How long do navel oranges last” and “How long does bottled soda last in the fridge” and “How long do pickles last” (notice a theme here)
Current obsession: Homestuck (permanently ingrained in my brain, does it really count?), min-maxing in Fire Emblem Three Houses (I come in for Edelgard and stay to try to make broken builds), meta analysis of media that nobody asked for... I’m reluctant to put anything school related here but unfortunately schoolwork is always on the mind…
I’m annoying enough that I feel very little shame in tagging several of my dear friends and mutuals: @terraco-07 @fantasiallamarcia @kurisus @loppiopio (I know you don’t really post here. Consider this encouragement to post more) @euclidpaws @bblueraven14 @rosemaryyuri. Others are free to hop in and pretend I tagged them, I don’t mind
i've been sitting on this post for a few days now and it's literally just, me making assumptions about kudos i've noticed on fics lately (particularly aci since i've been checking that fic every week for book club these past few months) and this'll make me seem more insane than i already come off but by this point. how much lower can i go?
just going from top to down as of today.
[ShibaLee] i know you from your art on here!! tumblr user shibaleeart i'm happy to see more people in potentially enjoying the stories this fandom has to offer :>
[reiscm] shizuchansmilk?? what are youuu doing here? i didn't know you read shizaya fic tbh and i was surprised to see you here suddenly, relatively recently too. does that mean you just started the fic then?? after at least a year of being in the fandom right? maybe this wasn't from your first time reading it (same) but at the very least it shows you visited it not too long ago… i may be delusional in thinking i could be a contributing factor there because, why now? it's not like i'm the only aci advocate out there but i've probably been the most vocal about it around this time soo… well whatever it is, hope you had fun with it! i'm so curious what drrr comedian shizuchansmilk thinks about hit fanfiction a cheap imitation 👁️
i'm also recognising some of the other names around here like [anonymooose] and [durarasaiki] even though i haven't the faintest idea who they might be. i've just been seeing them lately across different shizaya fics which probably means these are the people doing their shizaya fic dive around this time. i have nothing more to add there i just, think it's cool noticing the same names across fics like yeah, we all feasting on the shizaya tag rn.
[ya_boi_twink] it took me a second to recall where i'd recognised your name from and then it hit me. i knoooow you! tumblr user yaboitwink in my notifs… i appreciate you, and i'm glad you liked the things i made for it c:
[bun_o_ween] oh i know you're here because of mr crapo. i hope you guys had fun with it! i wanna take the chance to also admit that like. the moment i found out you were that sebastian writer i experienced the wildest sense of deja vu. because. i had seen your name on ao3 before. but when i checked your fics there was no way i'd read a fic from you?? so then i realised i must have recognised you... through other kudos on other fics??? dude. i must sound crazy, i have no way of proving this because i actually don't remember what fics these were i just vaguely remember it was either bsd or tgcf? that i was looking at fics for, trying to find something to sate my hunger at the time. and i just remember, noticing your name across like a few of these fics in a row and thinking "heh someone else has been going down the same rabbit hole" AND NOW I SEE YOU AND CRAPO OF SHIZAYA FANDOM HITTING IT OFF it was surreal. like. my awareness of you had zero to do with black butler, i could not have predicted that you would have been the random ao3 user i'd seen apparently enjoying some of the same fics i was not too long ago. wow.
there are like two separate flamingo related names around here [niceflamingo] and [flamingoo] which doesn't mean anything but for some reason they are standing out enough for me to want to mention them. i feel like i've seen ao3 user flamingoo in the kudos of some other fic before but idk.
[Luzki] omg hey!! twitter artist vi_138_ woah hiii funny seeing you here :0 especially like. not so long ago? since i'd imagined you would've been aware of the fandom for a while since you seem more invested in the alts than shizuo and izaya in particular? well it was cool seeing that you'd read this one, i hope ya had fun!
[frogsarefriends] right under that is artist hallucxnating >:O i know they've read the fic already but it was cool to actually recognise their kudo down here, especially since it's like. not recognisable just from the name alone, but you've shared links to this ao3 as your writing so now i know it's you. my impression is that you came into the fandom through slavhew since, i'd connected the dots at some point that you two were friends which. made a lot of sense since i noticed you both started being active around here at the same time lol. but hey!! welcome to the club :D
[7FlyingPancakes7] this is one of the ones i'd noticed earlier on during book club, i distinctly remember checking a chapter while walking home one night (because i do that i guess) then BAM what the hell?? i just see tumblr user mari-lair's ao3 appear down there, totally out of nowhere for me. for context this was a writer from the tpn fandom i recognise from like 4 years ago? idk it's been a while, i didn't talk to them much but they were active in the fandom at the time so i'm familiar with their name. i haven't been keeping up with them but last i'd seen they seemed to be into tbhk with no indication as far as i was aware that they'd shown any interest in shizaya. nothing wrong with that it was just unexpected, so i was just like woah!! how did you get here? i am so curious how they may have come across this fic, was it some rec from a friend? how familiar are they with shizaya? how invested were they in the story and characters? enough to go down more of shizaya's greatest hits? anyways, that was just a fun little small world moment for me.
[psych0tastic] hey isn't this…. axietoh? like, the artist who used to draw shizaya like 5 years ago? what are they doing here so high up the list? 🤔 i have no clue lol i still follow them because i really like their art style but i hadn't noticed their interest in shizaya resurfacing... i suppose they just haven't been too active on these socials in general. anyways their name stood out to me and i was like, wait….. well it's a shocker seeing their name so high up here, were they reading this fic for the first time there or were they revisiting it and happened to have not kudo'd it until then? well anyways, it's nice to see they've revisted the fic within the last two years at least :0 that's cool to me.
[MiyukiWynter] dude i was feeling crazy just now trying to figure out where i'd recognised this name from because i'd swwooooorn i'd seen it from somewhere like as someone on twitter?? i think i was mixing them up in my mind with unrelated (as far as i'm aware) twitter user miiyankhr but turns out they're someone who's fics i've seen in the tags before. i haven't read them myself but apparently they just posted a new one two days ago so that's crazy.
[Dodomka] heyyy it's dodo from twitter, hellooo 👋 they've been the biggest supporter for my deep in the sauce fic tweets and for that i appreciate them very much :3 didn't expect to see them here tbh i wasn't aware of when they'd first read the fic but as i was expanding the list a few times to write up this post i noticed their name here and just thought that was neat. shout-out to them!
[mochi010] there's a user named mochi that has shown up in my twitter notifs somewhat regularly and they have nothing on their account so i have zero clue what they might be like outside from that they've been liking my shizuo and izaya retweets. their handle isn't even mochi so i have very little reason to believe this could be them but idk, maybe? no conclusion has been made here. well i already spent time writing and cleaning up the paragraph, guess i'm leaving it in.
shout-out to [ouiouipussay] and [ramenflavorpacketsnorter420] just for having some names that stand out lol. i don't recognise you from anywhere but, i guess now i will if i ever come across those names again.
[Stupidusernamepolicy] i struggled to find you amidst all these names for the writing of this post 💀 had to ctrl+f that shit. but i remember seeing your name here while i was going through the list some days before and being like "oh hey!! it's slavhew :)" but okay there's actually a tangent i've been wanting to go on from here.
outside of aci i've actually been noticing you and hallucxnating double duo'ing under some fics together, like after the story era which i'd reread after hallu reminded me of its existence in a reply, and also sacramental which i had reread because of your reply, lol. i find this quite funny, just like. this visual representation of you two reading and recommending fics with each other. then you talk about it on twitter and more people like me are visiting this fic too. chain reaction of sharing stories :)
ALSO [anonymooose] and [durarasaiki] spotted down here in some of these kudos too!! that's craazy. wow. i tell you guys i'm recognising these names i'm not just crazy 😭
[NotElectricT] this took me a second to dig up again since it's quite buried down that list at this point but the plan i'd had in mind for this post was to end on this one since i saw them kudo it right in front of me (through the vc stream) and i didn't think this post would get as long as it did but... well i already wrote it 😬 but yeah, this is my good friend note! check out this art they made for, still one of their favourite chapters, sharks fly. it's sandwiched in between some squid game au they made for a gift exchange for me..... it's a long story i don't wanna talk about it (embarrassing......)
but what i do wanna talk about!! is how note (referred to as "patient zero" regarding aci book club by the only other patient lol) just decided to read this fic completely of their own volition?? i didn't tell them to do that and for sure didn't expect them of all people to try reading it, ever (they're not really a fic reader) but they just did that, two years ago. and that was like, insane to me at the time because it's seriously so out of their depth guys they don't do enemies to lovers.... they still don't lol. but i was insane about this fic back then with no one to really be insane about it to so i just yelled about it to these friends out of context and i guess???? that was convincing enough to get this one to start the longest fic they'd ever read 💀
i had much fun having someone experience the fic i'd been insane over..... like i'm smiling about it rn thinking about the time i did a live reading of the chainsaw man (as i like to call him) chapter which was so fun i kinda forgot i had a hamilton musical i was supposed to watch that evening... that was awkward. and other chats we exchanged regarding the fic (they were reading chapters whenever they felt like it which i enjoyed because i like pacing these things out) but for some reason (i think things just happened around the time that disrupted the momentum) they never made it past chapter 26 😔 which was tragic to me but oh well....
well i'm am even more insane about this fic now because of this convoluted chain of events that gradually built and cascaded me towards whatever the fuck i'm doing now!! god. i've never made so much, anything, like ever. until now. because both note and rosa (who has not kudo'd this fic as far as i'm aware lol) made the decision beyond my expectations to commit to, a book club. which i organised. and i've been having a lot of fun! so much fun, there's all this wild "marketing" stuff i've been churning out in record fucking time by my standards. i've never felt so creatively fulfilled dude, never finished a thing in my life until these past few months. so that's awesome, and it's in large part because of note having committed to this fic again. so that's some of the story behind that one kudo haha.
and now we're at chapter 49, we're supposed to be talking about it tomorrow, which is today by now since it's 1 am but uhhhhhhh writing is so hard. i was supposed to just be cleaning up this draft i'd written like 5 days ago? i am now very hungry. there's actually more i'd drafted up from here just from more names i recognised as i kept expanding the kudo list that day buuuut i'm fuckeeeen cutting this off right here. i need to stop. the end.
the chances of the people seeing this aren't super likely so this is highly inefficient but i'm too afraid to approach people personally…. yet i've been burning with the need to express my gratitude for the tags i've received individually somehow and figured, i could do it the way i do best. in the tags 😅
(sorted by most recent) (i capped the limit hard here) (some ✂️✂️ had to be done 😔) (i still like this format a lot though) (might do this again in the future idk would people like that??) (i hope it's not mortifying for anyone……..)
it's sorta the way i like it, indirect and unimposing, even if it's kinda. wieldy. but it's just on my blog so anything goes right? although in saying that, i am open to being imposed on. like if someone wants to talk about aci or something, like other fic?? i'm a big fic fiend. or anything else lol not sure what else you'd wanna chat about since so much of the stuff i've put out is just. about fic. but hey, if you're a person i don't mind being approached :>
(lol the way i've made this like a *throws out a bunch of paper slips* find your's 🎉) (might be obnoxious hm) (sorry...) (find your's if you want though 🫡)
