Main cast are Goncharov himself, his wife Katya (née Michailov), and Andrey
One side character is named Mario Ambrosini. He is described as a “sad boi” and is involved in gambling.
Set in Naples and involving a drug ring/mafia. The plot seems to involve Russian organized crime attempting to get a foothold in Italy.
There is a Boat Scene. Katya survives via resourcefulness.
Andrey and Goncharov have a substantial amount of homoeroticism. Andrey also has an internet in Katya. This forms a true love triangle.
At some point, Katya threatens to shoot Goncharov. This is framed as a Girlboss Moment.
There is also a Beer Bottle Scene.
Katya fakes her death.
Does anyone else in the ToT fandom ship ALL of the main characters together? Or is it just me being delusional?
When you say "Greece" or "Greek", that's automatically referring to Modern Greece and Modern Greek. It's an existing country with a population of around 10 million people. The Modern Greek language is spoken natively by those 10 million along with 1 million people in Cyprus and around 2 more million in diaspora. If you want to refer to Ancient Greece or its history/culture, just add the word "ancient" to it.
The Greek name for the country is "Hellas". "Hellenic" is an adjective used for non-human nouns. Don't call yourself "hellenic" even if you have Greek roots, you're basically calling yourself "Greek thing".
There is no one correct way of pronouncing Ancient Greek as a whole. That language spanned over a thousand years and across places that didn't communicate easily or were outright hostile to each other. It's like claiming that Shakespeare's works should be pronounced with an Australian accent.
Along with the famous 300 Spartans, in the battle of Thermopylae there were also 700 Thespians (not actors, people from the town Thespiae) and according to some sources, also 900 helots (slaves) and 400 Thebans.
The town of Sparta exists in modern day. However, if you visit Greece, unless you actually are from Sparta, do NOT call yourself a Spartan, no matter what school/university you went to. "Spartans" is the name of a far-right, outright neo-nazi political party, so calling yourself that here equals to associating yourself with that.
Greek houses in American campuses sound weird. Do those letters (some of which are wildly mispronounced, btw) even mean anything
Democracy in Ancient Athens was not fair by today's standards. It was mostly a glorified, expanded aristocracy. The "demos" that had the authority to vote only consisted of land-owning Athenian men. If you were a woman, a slave, poor, an immigrant, or a child of immigrants, along with other descriptions I might be forgetting right now, you didn't have the right to participate in the ruling.
Oh yeah, the "birthplace of democracy" very much did have slaves. Some whom were prisoners of war.
Greece is on the southern end of the Balkan peninsula, located in South-Eastern Europe. However, many Greeks are wildly racist and will not admit we're part of the Balkans or Eastern Europe. There are cultural differences due to Greek not belonging in the Slavic languages (the most common language family in Eastern Europe) and for political reasons, but the main reason this distinction happens is very much racism. They prefer to be called a "Mediterranean country" (because then we're associated with countries like Italy and Spain, you know?)
Greece never recovered from the financial crisis of 2008, and has only been going downhill since then. However, the war reparations that Germany never paid Greece for the damages and the deaths it caused in WW2 is estimated to be over 200 billion euros. The German government considers this matter "to be in the past" (since they never paid them, I guess, we can forget about it!), yet is one of the countries that most strongly demands Greece to keep paying back the loans it took over the years from the EU. This is a very painful matter for all of us (especially considering there are people still alive who witnessed the destruction and death the nazis brought to the country, and now they along with their descendants are paying taxes that'll eventually reach German pockets), yet racism centers around hate for other Balkan countries and Turkey. Divide and conquer I guess.
One of the first things you learn when learning how to use a gun is that you absolutely do NOT put your finger on the trigger unless you're 100% ready and willing to shoot (and deal with whatever the consequences may be).
Accidental fire is extremely easy to occur. If your finger is touching the trigger, a simple spasm of the hand, a sudden sound or movement in the environment, or jostling from moving can cause the finger to pull the trigger. If you haven't aimed correctly at something that you want to shoot at, you'll very likely shoot something you don't want to shoot, including your own body parts. That's not even counting the fact that you may not properly control the recoil.
So normally, you need to train your discipline so that your first instinct when picking up a gun - especially during a stressful moment - will be for the finger to not go on the trigger until the gun is properly aimed at who/what you want to shoot.
I only trained with air guns some years ago, but discipline was still important; you wrap your hand around the handle with the index finger away from the trigger, make sure you have a good grip on it, raise the gun from the counter, aim, align the sights, and then you put the finger on the trigger and shoot. The one (1) time I accidentally put my finger on it before raising the gun, I shot at the wall while raising it and got a very angry look from my instructor. I was lucky that's all I got.
Since then, I've been noticing trigger discipline in media, and a lot of those get it very wrong.
To his big credit, Tatsuya Endo gets it right.
Twilight's finger is resting parallel to the barrel of the gun, away from the trigger. While this entire pose is more artistic than realistic, it was still important to Endo to portray correct discipline. You don't do that if you don't know about it.
Similarly with Nightfall in the cover of the sixth volume.
Again, artistic, not realistic pose. Still correct discipline.
More examples of artistic depictions with correct discipline:
And then! An action pose!
Twilight has a clear ready-to-shoot pose; he has a target, so finger goes on the trigger. (Normally the gun should be a little higher so he can properly align the sights but he's TwilightTM so I give it a pass)
Even Bondman has good discipline!
Seeing correct discipline in those pictures piques my interest a lot, because it shows that the artist is consciously choosing when he'll show a finger on a trigger, making such a moment more impactful.
Twilight aims his gun right on Edgar's head, his finger on the trigger. Again, you don't put your finger on the trigger unless you're about to shoot. If you're only threatening someone, it should still be off because one single unintentional fire can kill your target when you didn't mean to. Now, I can suspend my disbelief and say Twilight has super duper control over his body to the point of not being jostled or his hand not spasming suddenly because he's TwilightTM. So I instead focus on how serious Twilight was here about killing Edgar. Should Edgar do any movement, he's dead.
Again, it's about the knowledge of trigger discipline itself. When you portray a character not touching the trigger when they don't need to, showing the opposite hits harder.
The Handler prepares the gun ominously, her finger off the trigger.
But when she aims it at the student's head...
She's serious. She's made sure the students heard her prepare the gun, so when she threatens the student, he knows what he's facing despite wearing a blindfold.
Again, in a realistic scenario, in both cases their fingers would rest away from the trigger, because their intention is not to kill their targets unless absolutely necessary. But that might have confused the readers who don't know about trigger discipline, and might have made for less impactful moments. So I give that a pass, especially since Endo is shown to be aware of correct discipline.
The anime is also aware of this.
Twilight is assessing the situation; finger is off the trigger.
The Handler prepares the gun; finger off.
She threatens the student; finger on.
(Of course, there have been moments both in manga and anime with incorrect depictions. But I can let those pass cause I know there's a lot of people involved in creating the art and things can get complicated)
A few more examples, from the Imperial Scholars meeting:
Those are very short moments, but someone drew those stills and intentionally had the guards' index fingers extended and not around the trigger.
As I said above, those examples pique my interest because they are conscious, deliberate choices... and good use of that can make for an impactful scene... say, identity reveal happens, Twilight is aiming his gun at the Thorn Princess, but his finger is off the trigger. He urges himself to put the finger on it, but the damn thing won't move... she also cannot bring herself to stab him even though her dagger is right at his throat, and she notices his hesitation... Endo-sensei I am begging...
(don't spoil me if it happens in the manga, let me live in ignorance)
"I want to eat you" is their love language and you can't change my mind
Unfortunately I am not gaslight gatekeep girlbossing. I am goofy giddy girlcrushing.
Thank you for sharing the tdb affinity lines! I know I won't be naturally getting any of these for ten years (if the games even still around by then) lol.
I was wondering if you could share any interesting lines of Taiga's? No pressure tho! It's just after seeing some of his lines from other people, he seems to have a bigger role in the story and I'm curious if any of his lines give any more clues to the situation on hand. Also would be interesting to see if he genuinely starts caring for mc besides wanting to like. Eat her for lunch lol.
It's no problem! And yeah that's part of why I wanna share them--getting the units to high enough affinity is a pain and to even see any of the home screen dialogues you need an SR or SSR, which means good luck with the gacha buckaroo.
YES TAIGA MY BELOVED. he's my favorite behind maybe Towa. Chances are if you've seen the one line you've seen the only one referring to that, although there is one more that may be related? But it might be general. As for caring for the PC, this is a joseimuke so. The characters will always love you more and more with time. And Taiga most certainly does haha doesn't prevent the hunger from rising up though. friendly reminder to feed your Taiga!
No affinity required:
"...Who're you? Don't pop up out of nowhere like that. Wouldn't want me to shoot you by mistake, would you?"
"What are you again? A middle school student? A transfer student? Got it, an honor student! Gyahaha! I'm never gonna remember that!"
"Playing with these morons is exhausting... Lulu gets all mad if I win too much..."
"That smells amazing... Shit, where's it coming from?"
please feed your taiga.
if you have messages:
"Huh? You got a letter. If it's for me just reply for me, yeah?"
Affinity 1:
"It's too early for your bleating. Shut your trap unless you wanna get abducted."
once again, welcome to sinostra's house of human trafficking--
Affinity 2:
"That dealer sucks. He's been here the longest? Why should I give a shit? Fire him."
Affinity 3:
"You wanna know what kinda meat this is? Anomaly meat. What else would it be? ...Who the fuck're you again?"
he recognizes you enough to ask 'again'! progress! also I guess he almost exclusively eats anomaly meat.
Affinity 4:
"Oops. I lost all the money Lulu gave me. Better make a run for it before he notices."
Affinity 5:
"I'm bored... Hey, you over there. Come play five finger filet with me. Gimme your left hand."
five finger fillet also called the knife game is when you put your hand on a table and stab the gaps between your fingers with a knife in a sequence! Obviously stabbing the hand being played with means you lose. Taiga's chibi plays it when he's idle!
Affinity 6:
"They nabbed one of ours? You guys aren't toddlers. Deal with it yourselves."
it's fascinating that there's such a faction divide within Sinostra that members of Taiga's side get abducted by Romeo's, and probably vice versa. And I bet Taiga doesn't care about any of this. Or at the very least it's not that serious to him.
Affinity 7:
"Gambling and shoot-outs are pretty much the same thing. Morons who panic mess up and get dead. Gyahaha!"
Affinity 8:
"None of you morons have any flair for the table. Lulu needs to raise the minimum bet already."
isn't it your casino too. . .can't
Affinity 9:
"You're a real smooth talker, huh? Don't remember anything you said though. Ciao!"
your seduction attempt didn't fail because of a bad roll, it failed because taiga failed a perception check lmao. . . .
Affinity 10:
"Can't sleep? Sit over there. I'll deal the cards."
He'll play with you until you fall asleep. . .or maybe he'll sit around making ASMR card shuffling noises until you doze off.
Affinity 11:
"...I'm not gonna play today. I'm sleeping. I don't care if the place is burning down— don't wake me up."
fun fact, he's making this face when he says this lol
Affinity 12:
"What's that guy's name again? You know, the one who's gonna become a judge or a cop or something. ...Whatever, I'll just forget it again."
at least he was interested in knowing for a second! maybe he'll give him a nickname.
Affinity 13:
"I spy, with my little eye, a tasty-looking kitty-cat.... Come over here so I can pat you. ...Nah, changed my mind. Scram."
maybe it's just my interpretation but I like to think he's hungry and he saw you and he mindlessly tried to lure you closer because he wanted to eat you, then came to his senses and told you to go away so he wouldn't do something stupid like trying to eat a human. . . .
Affinity 14:
"I'm starving... You, get my usual. It's breakfast time."
i wonder what his usual is.
Affinity 15:
"How does Lulu always have so much energy this early in the morning? It it 'cause of all that expensive water he drinks?"
Affinity 16:
"Stop talking. I don't care."
Affinity 17:
"You going to bed already? Aren't you a good little kitty-cat. Whatever, do what you want."
he'd rather you stay up with him but he's not attached enough to try and make you stay up. . .yet.
Affinity 18:
"You want a surefire way to win at the table? Doesn't exist. You just gotta keep playing."
Affinity 19:
"Hey, go warm up my bed for me. What do you mean how? Get in there, dumbass."
either you're gonna get fucked or you're gonna get disappointed when he really just wanted a warm spot that smells nice to lie in and he makes you leave after he gets in bed. Or maybe he'll let you sleep in the bed with him and use you as a little body pillow!
I'd also like to add that the expression he's using is called "using the "adult" face "adult" so uh. leaning more towards you're gonna get fucked here.
Affinity 20:
"Where you going, kitty-cat? Class? You don't need to go there. I got something more fun in mind for us."
the expression used here is once again simply labelled "adult" so. . . . No going to class and no going to sleep.
Affinity 21:
"That's it, kitty-cat. I feel like my luck'll change if you're around."
Affinity 22:
"I'm starving... This isn't enough... I want more... More..."
they've gotta stop letting him go so long without eating because he clearly loses his mind if he doesn't eat enough meat.
Affinity 23:
"I'm the only one who sees how fucked we are. But he won't believe me. So just let it all burn down—I don't give a shit anymore."
if Taiga sees the future or knows the future because of timeline/loop shit, then that Taiga doesn't seem to actively care much about being Captain or doing his job makes sense. He knows that if nothing changes everything's going to fall apart anyway so there's no point in trying. We don't really know what his stigma does either--in fact, his "good luck" could be that he can see and react to future events, so he knows things like what cards will be drawn and such. But he's getting tired of everything always going so bad no mater what he does in response to what he sees. And Romeo(? it doesn't say who he's telling about how bad things are getting) isn't helping to make changes. . .so he's just giving up. But now you're here, maybe you're different somehow. Maybe somehow you're an outlier in this timeline. Maybe injuring you was on purpose to change something in the future he saw. Maybe that's why he's telling you about the spy. . . .of course this is all speculation. Until we learn what his stigma does or what he means by 'ditch this future' then. . .all speculation. But there is a wickhive post that someone can see the future. And the more I think about it the more I wonder if it's Taiga. (also because i'm sure someone will point this out, the wording 'let it all burn down' is specific to the English dialogue, so it's not a callback to the pre-prequel sequence where the school is on fire.)
Affinity 24:
"If you don't like pain then quit flailing around. I'm getting a taste of you, so close your eyes and shut up."
welcome back to the torture chair! You're probably getting cut like a piece of good meat before he just sinks his teeth into you! Your hands and legs are bound and he's not going to let you get away without eating at least a little of your flesh, so suck it up. That or scream and hope somebody comes to rescue you. . .but the desire to eat the pc never goes away. Most likely because he just wants to eat fresh meat in general and the more he likes someone and the more they hang around him the more he wants to eat them. . .although I assume he unlearned it and now you're here and he just can't help himself. . .if they did consume demons to become ghouls, I bet you're the only thing short of maybe Romeo that'll taste anywhere near as good as that demon did.
Affinity 25(max):
"You're not getting away from me, kitten. You're here till death do us part, whether you like it or not."
oh and also you're married. y'know in case you wanted to do that. or even if you didn't. you don't have a choice in the matter.
Spring:
"(Yawn) Man, why am I so tired today... Someone spike my food?"
"What? Cherry blossoms? Is it that time of year already? Man, that snuck up on me."
"Fuck it, I'm taking a nap. Come over here and be my pillow."
"What's with that vacant look on your face? You need more excitement in your life? Come over here, I'll play with you."
Summer:
"Too hot... Hey, I want my breakfast on ice. They got tons of it over on Jin's turf, go nab some."
hey uh why do you remember Jin by name. like i know Jin's short enough of a name to not need a nickname but also you remember not only Jin but where he lives and how cold it is? Then again you started in the same year, maybe Taiga remembers all the third years since he's known them for two years?
"Why don't we make a giant pool in Sinostra? It's so hot here. I'll put up the cash... Wait no, I used it all yesterday."
YOU COULD HAVE A NICE POOL IF YOU WERE MORE RESPONSIBLE WITH YOUR MONEY.
"Quiz time—where's Lulu going all dolled up on a stinking hot day like this? Answer— he's cheating on me! Gyahaha!"
THEY ARE FEEDING MY SHIP WHAT DO YOU MEAN TAIGA JOKES THAT THEY'RE DATING. they have such awful married couple who hate each other but also love each other energy.
"Shower? I don't wanna... Shut up and strip me already then."
man he has no fucks to give that you'd be taking his clothes off and seeing him naked huh. . . .
Autumn:
"Good weather for sports? You get a lot more exercise fighting to the death. Gyahaha!"
how frequently do you think he fights to the death. . .probably a lot less than he used to. poor baby needs his deadly enrichment. Also the fact that he finds the idea of fighting to the death fun explains why he smiles when he takes damage in combat lol
"That looks tasty. Gimme a bite."
so given one of the most common autumn foods in japan is like sweet potatoes(and also the pc probably doesn't eat raw anomaly meat) I assume this means he does eat normal food, just prefers to eat raw meat especially from anomalies? Either way, i am once again remind you to feed your Taiga.
"We're going out. I've been eating more lately and these guys are too slow. Gonna go stock up."
you've been eating more lately? because it's autumn? what are you, a bear about to go into hibernation?? also he's taking you grocery shopping i guess. or anomaly hunting. . . .
"Watch your back. Way easier to jump people when it gets dark so early. Gyahaha!"
i'd like to think he stuck his gun under your chin and snuck up behind you from in the dark here lol
Winter:
"You trying to pull my covers off? Wanna die?"
my boy does NOT like being cold. Or getting up in the morning. So winter mornings? just leave him in bed.
"I wanna go nab some food from Harry's place, but it's too cold for that shit..."
"Oh, I got an idea. I just gotta use someone as a punching bag to warm up. Hey you guys, stand over there."
Taiga beating the shit out of his own men because the exercise will keep him warm. . .why do people side with you again?
"I don't like the cold... Come on, come be my hot water bottle! Let me cuddle up to you!"
Getting all tangled up with Taiga under his blankets while he shivers because Sinostra is in a desert and deserts in the winter can be FUCKING COLD especially at night. It gets cold and he's just the whiniest little meow-meow. Until he gets hungry.
His birthday:
"Huh? Whose birthday? Mine? Gyahaha! Totally forgot about it! Grazie!"
it's okay Taiga, I forget my birthday too most of the time.
Your birthday:
"Is it your birthday today? That little twerp told me. Okay, you can take one thing from my room."
Ritsu fuckin doxed you? is that legal? Doesn't Taiga's room have like a pile of coins in it. . .is one coin 'one thing' or is 'the pile of coins' one thing. . .then again the background is AI generated so. not really sensible and doesn't say much about him sadly. considering taiga's described as spending his money wastefully I assume he buys a lot of random things he doesn't need or use--then again he probably spends most of it on gambling. But considering he's offering you anything out of his room, I assume there's a lot of nice stuff in there.
New Years:
"You gonna go skipping off to a shrine together just to get your fortune told? That's dumb. Here, let me guess what it'll say—you'll have an okay year."
Valentine's Day:
"Is that for me? Sure I'll take it, but it better be edible."
i was gonna say 'has he never gotten valentine's day chocolates before?' but i remembered that he probably doesn't really remember if he has so. this is probably his general reaction to gifts lol 'is it money and if not can i eat it'
White Day:
"What's that expectant look on your face? Lulu was harping on about mimosas or something before. That what you want?"
of course he doesn't know what white day is lol but he does remember that Romeo had something tasty!
April Fool's Day:
"I'm gonna die soon, you know? And I'm taking Lulu with me. ...Gotcha! Gyahaha!"
wait you didn't remember white day but you remembered april fool's day? maybe someone tried to prank him first lol remember guys, suicide is not an appropriate april fool's prank!
Halloween:
"Trick or treat. Where you gonna put your chips, kitty-cat?"
I think if you're trick or treating then they're supposed to decide if you get the trick or the treat. . .but it seems more like Taiga to give you something that could be a trick or a treat lolol russian roulette is a totally acceptable halloween party game right? of course!
Christmas:
"Come on Santa kitty, tie a ribbon 'round yourself and get over here. Gyahaha!"
at least he knows what gift he wants! unfortunately you don't know what for but based on his expression you may not get eaten. . .depending on your definition--
Idle:
"...This is boring. I'm outta here."
"Are you done yet? I'm hungry over here."
Absent:
"Long time no see! You decide to ditch this future too? Sorry I'm not dead yet."
AND HERE"S THE LINE THAT'S CAUSING SO MUCH SPECULATION. . .what does that even mean Taiga. . .what do you know, what have you seen. . .and can we fix this future instead of leaving it to rot--
UH. YEAH. I THINK I'VE SAID ENOUGH HAHA. . .everything Taiga says is so. . . ./gestures weakly) IT REALLY DOES SEEM LIKE MORE IS HAPPENING THAN YOU REALIZE RIGHT??? The game's still so early on we probably won't learn for a very long time lol. . . . But, yeah. Taiga definitely loves you--and lusts after you. As his affinity goes up, he asks "who are you" a lot less, did you notice? He starts to remember and just say "kitty cat" and "kitten", because that's who you are and he can remember that. So far the only people he remembers are Romeo, Hyde, and Jin it seems. And you.
the way i can just imagine which one would do which from the other three-
vyn: i don’t think we can mansplain, manipulate or malewife our way out of it this time
luke: [cracking his knuckles]
luke: manslaughter it is
just started chapter 6 and this shit got me HOWLING like fjkldsajflkd
on rosa's tendency to be a block of wood.
i know this would never take off, because trying to get a group of people on tumblr to do something is like herding cats, but could the x reader fandom agree on a collective tag to use for ambiguous drabble-style posts with multiple character names at the bottom? e.g. ‘#adapt drabbles’ or ‘#archetype drabbles’ or something along those lines, just so that people who don’t like reading them can block the tag (and that those who do can follow it!)
(for clarity, i’m referring to the post style which is roughly as follows:)
[a piece of text — usually a description or short passage of some sort, using the characters’ pronouns but without specifying a name] CHARACTER, character, character, character, CHARACTER, character, CHARACTER, character + your favs!