Latest Posts by thetinytimeturtle - Page 5

the green remembers

Here's my love, abandoned.

On my recent cabbage merchant art, someone commented on this man’s sheer resilience and how he was the Sisyphus of ATLA, and that inspired me.

[ID in Alt Text]

just caught myself thinking “nooo i cant post that they’ll think i’m uncool” like brother you are on www.tumblr.com/dashboard

what if vampires are like mosquitoes and only the ladies drink blood

Kurama The Retired Monster: A Look at Kurama's Canon Characterization and Impact

Kurama is one of the most popular characters in the decades old Yu Yu Hakusho fandom. Published in 1992 and dubbed into English in 2002, Yu Yu Hakusho is one of the most influential battle shounen anime. References are everywhere for this wonderful story about a delinquent that surprised the heavens and saved a little boy at the cost of his own life.

The series is my favorite of the old Toonami anime with its rebuke to the strict norms of Japanese society and its message about the grey tones of life.

It's in every character in one way or another, but Kurama tackles a trope I'm personally fascinated by: the retired criminal that is dragged back into his old life by circumstance.

This doesn't seem to be a common read of the character, though all the tropes are there. Youko Kurama was a vicious criminal who, after he was taken out of commission, essentially retired due to the love of a woman. While it was not planned, Shiori showing him love and a life outside of what he knew is what canonically happened and shaped his life. He chose, after she cut up her arms to save him from broken glass, to be the son she deserved rather than leaving as he planned.

When Shiori gets sick, Kurama is contacted by Hiei to join him on a heist in Spirit World for the Three Treasures. Given Kurama's nature as the exposition fairy, he is clearly aware of what those treasures are: The Orb of Bast, the Forlorn Hope, and the Shadow Sword. So, Kurama uses his experience as a thief and gains the Forlorn Hope for himself. As we know, the Forlorn Hope has a rule: It will grant your deepest wish in exchange for your life. Kurama considers this cost fair, since he clearly still feels guilty about stealing the son Minamino Shiori was supposed to have. In the dub, he comments about how some parents are devoured by their young, hinting at blaming himself for the condition Shiori is in. It is only because Yusuke intervened that Kurama is still alive, pulled out of his suicidal guilt spiral by Yusuke offering part of his own life to the mirror after seeing his own mother mourn him.

Kurama chooses to help Yusuke defeat Hiei, cementing him as one of the good guys and beginning his friendship with and repayment of Yusuke.

The Four Saint Beasts arc can be explained as part of Hiei and Kurama's parole. I won't linger on it, but I truly believe this is part of Kurama trying to be good, serving his sentence for what is likely the least of his crimes. In his fight with Genbu, Hiei talks about how he brought Kurama on because he'd rather have him as his ally than his enemy. This is one of the first instances of what Kurama's prior life looked like to others. He is a ruthless and intelligent fighter, and he is known for it. Before Two Shots, this implies Kurama had a reputation prior to his human life, one that lasted long enough that Hiei would have heard about it. (Based on later information, Hiei is less than a hundred years old and Kurama may have left Makai a thousand years ago, making Kurama's reputation incredibly significant.)

This reputation continues to assert itself in the Dark Tournament. The audience of the tournament continue to jeer at Kurama and Hiei for being demons fighting alongside humans, implying that they are well-known enough for this to be an issue. (In the manga, we get a page that shows that demons are total gossips and I love it.) We also have Kurama's fight with Ura Urashima, where Urashima comments that he believes this Kurama, our Kurama, might have taken on the name of the scary bastard that they still tell stories about. He is mistaken.

However, it is also in the Dark Tournament where we get his fight with Touya, where he asks Touya to be better than he was. This is where we see, wholeheartedly, that Kurama regrets who he once was. He regrets being the monster that Hiei and Yomi idolize. The nature of the series is that he needs to tap into that ruthlessness to survive, which is why he connects with Suzuki before the fight with Team Toguro. It is his desire to survive Karasu that returns him to that self.

Another scene that is incredibly important is the battle with Amanuma, the Gamemaster. As we know, for Amanuma to be defeated, he must be killed, as per the rules of his territory and the video game he uses. Amanuma is also eleven years old, manipulated into joining Sensui's crusade to destroy the human world for its evils and hypocrisies. Amanuma is a child, unaware of what Sensui's plans truly mean and as much as Kurama tries to say Amanuma chose this with the full understanding of an adult, it is clear he does not really believe it. Kurama is clearly upset by his choice, but he still makes it. There is no way out, no magic solution at the time. After Amanuma dies, Hiei implies that Kurama has killed children before, in his past life, but Kurama's grief is obvious. He reacts ruthlessly to Elder Toguro. His hands are bleeding from how much he hates the fact he made that choice and how much that decision is linked to the past he's clearly trying to leave behind.

The Three Kings arc is when this really begins to show up, though due to its truncated nature, it seems to go unnoticed. Yomi is essentially the end result of what happens when someone adopts Kurama's old views. Yomi is introduced to us as untrustworthy and brutal. Kurama's patience and ruthlessness became a guide to him as he became a king in the notoriously vicious Makai, after a botched assassination attempt left him blind. To be called to serve Yomi, Kurama has to face what he once was and how it impacted someone. Yomi didn't just look up to him, but he was also Kurama's victim: Kurama is the one who paid the assassin to kill him. Kurama also has to balance facing that with his desire to keep his mother and the Human World safe. Kurama's choice to betray Yomi and go along with Yusuke's cockamamie scheme can be read as a rejection of that past self as well as reinforcing that Kurama does not want to live that old life ever again. He chooses the human world, the world where he's not a vicious bandit and has loved ones.

The anime expands this by setting Kurama up against Shigure, the demon surgeon who gave Hiei his Jagan. This fight originally felt incredibly random: Shigure and Kurama don't have anything to do with each other. However, the fight with Shigure clicked once I realized that Shigure offers to restore Kurama back into who he once was. The entire fight is Kurama choosing to fight as who he is now, not rely on that past self he hates so much. At the end, Kurama even tells Yomi he doesn't throw anything away, but what he says in his little monologue is that he'll never be that version of himself again.

Kurama spends the whole series having to depend on the reputation and ruthlessness he cultivated as a bandit. He does it in life-or-death situations, not just randomly or for shits and giggles. He doesn't seem to enjoy his reputation, especially after living as Shiori's son. He looks more contemptuous of it, his face blank when he has to tap into it. He hates that he has to be that guy, that he was that guy. With the series over, it seems like he'll choose to stay human, to stay in the Human World for as long as he can.

Kurama's canon characterization draws him more in-line with the story's theme of growing up and healing due to the power of human connection. He is mostly retired from being a brutal monster and shows regret and guilt over the past, but by the end has mostly accepted who he once was, warts and all.

part 2

*No. I have no qualms about how it affects the story; I just don't like deviating from canon in works in general. **I like playing around with it in fanfics/AUs, but I don't think it should actually happen in canon. ***Yes, a thousand years of cattle children and the general demon population suffering should have been compensation enough. ****Combination of two or more listed options since tumblr won't let us have multiple choice voting.

Sort of a continuation of this poll from last year.

(Mystic Code Book Chapter 6)

also this is absolutely the worst cut and worst framing they could've possibly given Ray for the characters pages in volumes 2-3

THEIR PARALLELS MAKE ME SO ILL

Both of them feeling helpless due to leg injuries

Both of them lying to the people they trust and love the most for the greater good

BOTH OF THEM GOING UP AGAINST LEUVIS WITH AN AXE AND NO HESITATION!!

HELPING HIM ACROSS THE POND AND HOLDING HIS CANE WHILE HE GETS DOWN THE LADDER???!!! They are so wholesome!!!

This moment is also very funny to me since Ray is never directly told Yuugo’s name I imagine during the two week walk back to the bunker Lucas accidentally slips and tells Ray (and apologizes cuz he assumed he wanted to be told like Emma) and Ray is just like

no

give me more blackmail against him

which i assume this scene came from Ray snitching

I know Ray and Yuugo parallels are more obvious but I would have loved for Lucas’s relationships with Emma and Ray to be expanded on as well since I don’t see it as much!

postcanon Emma meeting with the GF mamas and meeting girls her exact age —

Here is a free pdf of the players handbook

Here is a free pdf of xanathars guide to everything

Here is a free pdf to monsters manual

Here is a free pdf to tashas cauldron of everything

Here is a free pdf to dungeon master’s guide

Here is a free pdf to volo’s guide to monsters

Here is a free pdf of mordenkainen’s tomb of foes

For all your dnd purposes

They beat Toguro but at what cost

reblog if youre the kind of person that checks other ppl’s tags when they reblog ur stuff

accident

mischievous nomads

Do you ever become mutuals with someone you share an intense interest with and it becomes this limbo of "I want to be your friend SO fucking bad but I'll eat a shoe before dm-ing first"

Teen Titans/Outsiders: Secret Files and Origins (2003)

Cackling over this one panel of Cassie and the griffin that ate her homework. We need more Cassie and Greek myth/monster shenanigans.

Apparently a part of the reason why farmed bees stay in the beehives that humans build for them is because the farm hives are safer and sturdier. I don't know how a busy Discord server's worth of bugs that only have one brain cell each would logically conclude that the humans protect them from outside threats, illness and parasites, but if I understood right, the bees would be free to move away and build a new nest somewhere else any time they'd want, and they simply choose not to.

You know how in almost every culture, people have some concept of "if I sacrifice something that I made/grew/produced to the Gods, they will ward me and my harvest from evil"?

So, in a way, don't the bees willingly sacrifice a part of their harvest to an entity not only far greater than them, but nearly beyond their comprehension, in exchange for protection against natural forces wildly outside of their own control?

So tell me, beekeepers, what are you to your bees, if not a mildly eldritch God?

Adult friendships be like “I miss you bro, let's hang out in November"

guards! read me my bedtime yaoi

Reblog and put in the tags which one you see

Where do you store your OC’s info chart made by this person

Thinking about old men and women. Specifically the ones who frequently wake up at 3 am soaked in sweat and/or blood.

Assorted bits/trivia/propaganda: • Favorite volume cover poll can be found here, and favorite inner volume cover poll can be found here. • Chapter 47's art is Kaiu Shirai's favorite color chapter cover art per the "Tracks to the Neverland" exhibition book interview (from December 2020): "Amazingly drawn upper arms (and legs!) Everyone is drawn differently for their different ages! I adore the happy smiles of a mother and her daughters. It's a color page published on One Piece's 20th anniversary, so let me applaud the use of the straw hats and One Piece theme. I love it. Only Emma's hat is fringed and that's the best!" • Chapter 75's art is Demizu's fifth favorite color chapter cover art per the exhibition interview: "The theme was graduation, and I had a lot of trouble deciding the color of the clothes, which left a lasting impression on me. The color scheme is a bit mismatched thanks to the combination of bright colors like foreign uniforms and cherry blossoms, but I think I turned out beautifully." • Chapter 119 was the inspiration for the "The Guiding Star" short story originally published in Shounen Jump GIGA 2019 Summer Volumes 1–3 and eventually reprinted in the fourth light novel, "Films of Memories." (First part can be found here, translated by @presumenothing.) • I included the original spread of chapter 153 in WSJ because the "he is always alone" line kills me. This is also Shirai's fifth favorite color chapter cover art per the exhibition interview: "God. Representing Norman’s mental landscape like this..? I want to take a peek inside Demizu-sensei’s brain! The expression on Norman’s face, a burnt land's grief, frailty; Emma and Ray appearing there. It hit me so hard that I used the metaphor for the main story as well. I love it!" • Chapter 181 propaganda by @tutubola and some tag ramblings:

"i really like this actually. ray carrying one of the younger kids? norman w rolled up pants? the vulnerability???? all of them w rolled up pants/skirts actually. gilda looks so cute. and look at sherry she's so obsessed w norman it's so cute. i would make this more elaborate but i cant think rn be back in 46-79 business days (#it's the more-than-earned casualness of it all combined with it being one of those pictures you can hear the sound of #the soft ebb and flow of the waves and cry of the seagulls #with the warmth emanating from this scene of this family that against all odds was able to overturn destiny #and come out together just as close as not more so than where we started with them in the very first chapter #enhanced by the gentle hues of the setting sun to parallel the end of their long and hard-fought journey #and the warm air that's carried by an equally gentle sea breeze~ #shoutout specifically to seeing Anna‚ Don‚ Norman‚ and Ray naturally falling into their elder sibling roles #showcasing one of the fundamental cores of this series #healingly wholesome)

I also need a Ray-charge 😆

—-

Romantic nor platonic, this Ot3 is life 💕

Commission Info | Ko-fi | Society6

Enough guilt you can make a bouquet out of it

Honestly, I love the idea of a vampire who only drinks blood taken from blood banks and hospitals, because it so beautifully encompasses someone who's more concerned with the vibes of something than the actual impact of it.

Drinking from someone on the street, barring some other condition they may have, isn't likely to kill them unless you gorge yourself. Taking blood packs? There's always a shortage of blood, and having even less of it runs the very real risk of getting someone killed in a way that is wholly out of your control once you've sipped on that blood. Someone you can't assure the innocence or guilt of, if you're the type of person who cares about that.

Despite that, in popular stuff, I often see discussions of drinking from a blood bank being somehow better or preferable, and yeah. No. The only thing it does is make you feel better while doing more harm, because of that degree of removal. You're effectively drinking blood from someone on the cusp of hypovolemic shock, but since it's not straight from the tap, some people seem to think it's better.