Nanashi - Tumblr Posts
(Whumptober Day Three) HAIR'S BREADTH FROM DEATH
Warnings:
Spoilers for SMT IV: Apocalypse Bad Ending (Siding with Dagda
Mention of Blood
Character being Impaled (Not describe)
Major character death (The characters are not named but with context clues you will know who if you played/seen the game)
You breathe heavily as you are on your knees. Surrounding you are your friends. Dead. Bloody, burn, frozen , filled with holes… The friends you met on your adventure. You turn to the towering figure. A friend, at least what they used to be. Not after being a puppet to Dagda. You didn’t try to reason with him like how the others try to do.
You close your eyes as you brace yourself, “Go ahead Nanashi…Get it over with it.”
The only thing you felt is the pain of being impaled by his sword.
(Whumptober Day Eight) EVERYTHING HURTS AND I'M DYING
Dagda: What’s the fear? I’m going to revive you.
Nanashi: IT’S STILL GOING TO HURT.
I ACTUALLY THOUGHT NANASHI WAS A FEMALE PROTAGONIST WHEN I FIRST SAW HIM AND WAS SO UNEBELUEVEABLY EXCITED FOR A FEMALE MAINLINE PROTAGONIST AND THEN I SAW THE TRAILER AND WAS DISAPPOINTED
SMT PROTAGONIST EVOLUTION
SMTIV: Mostly masculine, but has ponytail
SMTIVA: Commonly mistaken for small lesbian
SMTV: It's hard to find the words to capture this. Uh, just check Pixiv. Don't do it in public.
Nanashi Icons ||| like/reblog if you use, no credit needed
Pokemon Trainers Nanashi and Asahi want to battle!
(Edits of Nate and Rosa from BW2 because I suck at poses. Both of their outfits are simplified/altered a little to be more pokemonnish - it’s hard to see, but Nanashi has a backpack on, and he’s missing his knee guards and other little apocalypsey bits of gear, while Asahi has bike shorts on because she’s going to be tromping all over the outdoors and it’s just sensible.)
Oh my god King Aquila's gauntlet is the sword in the stone how did I not realize
@thonkphonk
a PERFECT addition to your previous ask. omg. Nanashi is the only one who could activate it in over a thousand years :)
I love the gauntlet. I love how you can pass it off to Fujiwara and Skins and learn about Akira ahead of when it's confirmed akira = aquila (and that nanashi = akira). I love how it assists you when you're on bonds route.
and how it activates to DEFY you in massacre....before dagda crushes it under his heel.
If Nanashi was raised in Mikado, his name would be John. The most default name you can give a person. John Doe, to match up with Nanashi's No Name. Perfectly nondescript.
With SMTVV, Nahobino has 2 total magical girl sequences while all of the other mainline SMT protags are at a zero. In light of this unfairness, I nominate Flynn and Nanashi to also get magical girl sequences. Full diegetic light show when equips are changed, with a penalty that it draws aggro of every enemy around.
Flynn likes Nanashi's eyebrows. They're all scrunkly! They make him look extra cool and fierce! When he smiles the eyebrows are a charm point!
Then one day Nanashi buys a new wig that doesn't cover his brows. He decides that since he's already doing the rest of his face he might as well shape his eyebrows too.
When Flynn sees he gets all quiet and sulky and sad, which for him is standing in one spot and staring off into the distance, the picture of melancholic contemplation. Life has once again taken something precious away from him, woe is Flynn.
The next morning Nanashi asks Asahi if he can borrow her eyebrow pencil. No he can't just wait to go out and buy one later in the day, he has to draw his eyebrows back in before Flynn wakes up. Shut up Asahi stop laughing.
Steady
Flynn can hold a sword and shoot a gun no problem but is clumsy at smaller, more delicate tasks like baiting a fish hook. This was never an issue growing up because Issachar was always there to help him, hand reaching out while Flynn fumbled. They were thick as thieves, Issachar helping Flynn so he wouldn't fall behind in his chores, Flynn personable enough to always get them out of trouble. He will always associate fishing with the peace and contentment found in his childhood.
Nanashi was a sickly child growing up, so wasn't expected to do the more physical chores other children did in the shelter. Instead he was tasked with taking apart small relics, which led to an interest in understanding how relics work and what life was like before the apocalypse. He probably would've ended up as an apprentice to the relics repairman if it wasn't for Asahi pulling him along in her dream to become a Hunter.
Now when Flynn goes fishing it's always Nanashi who comes along. Nanashi reads while Flynn fishes but always pauses to bait his hook when needed. It's a peaceful reprieve from the dangerous lives of a Hunter and a Samurai. They don't talk much on these retreats, but the ripples of the lake and the steady pressure of Nanashi's back against his is enough for Flynn to wish for these moments to last forever.
Flynn watches while Nanashi fixes relics. He sets up a record player then sets the music to play low, so low that he'd still be able to hear someone walk past outside. Nanashi works and the only sounds are the gentle clinks and tremors of old things being taken apart and the music that Boss had passed onto him. He doesn't ask anything out of Flynn except his presence, enough for Nanashi to lift his guard and fall into the familiar pattern of dismantle, diagnose, fix and reassemble. Flynn can't take his eyes off him when he's like this, caught on nimble hands and relaxed shoulders and a focused gaze, clear and steady. Quietly they sit, ankles brushing beneath the table, and Flynn thinks I think I can fall in love.
AU where the prentices meet nanashi and the two luxurors, jona and isabeau, suspects nanashi is a long lost prince of mikado because he has the iconic eyebrows of mikado royalty
An AU I thought of based on this is Nanashi gets isekaied (read: demon summoning accident) to Mikado Castle. The Samurai pull him in front of King Azahuya who takes one look at him and realizes he bears the marks of King Aquila (scar and eyebrows), prophecied to return at Mikado's darkest hour, whose true appearance has been kept secret by the royal family for generations to prevent pretenders.
Now knowing the worst time in the kingdom's history is happening right now, Azahuya presents Nanashi with Akira's gauntlet and starts work on uncovering what exactly might lead to Mikado's downfall.
Nanashi's connection to King Aquila is kept secret outside of Hope, tasked to train him so he can survive whatever is to come. However, unbeknownst to Azahuya there are others able to recognize Aquila's reincarnation. Soon enough a certain sister at the Monastery makes her move, and Nanashi finds himself wrapped in a conspiracy a thousand years in the making...
Do you think some Mikado citizens ever figured out they could get their original works published as long as they threw King Aquila in there somewhere? And how much of it was actually fanfiction about Aquila, Mikado's state-designated blorbo? It'd be really funny if Aquila also got "and he'll return in Mikado's darkest hour" like King Arthur. Like technically he did!
@thonkphonk
OK......... THE FAERIE QUEENE IS AN INTEREST OF MINE. I read Books 3 and 4 for a class called 'Violence and Romance in Renaissance Literature'. We spent a lot of time on it, because iirc the only other thing we read in the class at all was some Shakespeare. So it was actually mostly a class on the Faerie Queen books 3 and 4 lol (and all of my papers were on the Faerie Queene instead of Shakespeare lol).
The whole deal with the Faerie Queene is that the titular Queene is the goal of King Arthur's quest, and yet Arthur himself only has cameos in the stories because he is the 'main plot' where all the books have different main characters (and focuses on elaborating on various virtues that each main knight upholds--Arthur is the perfect knight, who extols all virtues, whereas all the characters in the books exist to define specific virtues--ex: Britomart represents Chastity, Artegall represents Justice, etc). And Spenser never actually finished the Faerie Queene, which is why Arthur's quest never gets full attention.
To apply this to SMTIV would be extremely fun.
Absolutely I could see so many stories about King Aquila's times. Especially since Mikado is trapped in this sort of medieval stone-age ('holy times' as viewed by angels) so its not even like stories about Aquila would be dated, it would be so easy to write stories of modern times with Aquila present. Or, even easier, would be his inclusion in these 'fairy-stories' the Luxurors know.
Aquila means so much to people despite having lived so long ago, I would assume his knights are known the same way Arthur's are (with people inventing new knights all the time, as with Arthurian legends as well). So people would toss Aquila into all this often while writing their own stories about the various knights (with a focus on those knights because, like Arthur's presentation in the Faerie Queene, Aquila would be the 'perfect' character, meaning that the stories are more interesting if they can be about the flaws of the others).
But 100% Aquila would always come in to save the day, or to approve of the resolution the story reaches, etc. I am so on board with that idea.
That being said, this would mean the angels likely erase much of this when they take over Mikado, Aquila' name remains on the Obelisk, but his statue is destroyed, so I imagine many of these books are just straight up burned. A few would survive though, less objectionable ones,but the angels hate the influence Aquila still has on the people, and how he is still venerated.
Also you are SO RIGHT about the 'once and future' thing. Like. This has no support in the game because the game is so nebulous about Nanashi's birth, but I do somewhat theorize he was born in Mikado? He's literally just found in Sky Tower, so I'm like, okay was he born there and brought down somehow? I would KILL to know anything about this because like. Ok, they found a baby. How did they find him? In the hands of a demon, dead humans, or just like, on the ground? Hello? Can I have some information please?
But I've always assumed Nanashi was born in Mikado and then SOMETHING was a reason for him to be carried below, and then discovered. Because like. we don't even know why the HUNTERS were in Sky Tower--most people knew about Medusa back then and wouldn't want to go, and people even assume Medusa works for Tayama (which is false--I theorize she worked for Akira but that isn't confirmed anywhere). but if people just assumed the Sky Tower was controlled by the Ashura-kai, I don't know why anyone would approach--they KNOW Medusa kills everyone up there.
and Nanashi of course is randomly discovered after Medusa is there, he's only born well after Akira establishes Mikado, so the Hunters have long-withdrawn from Sky Tower and like. what. is happening.
But yeah a prophecy about Aquila's return and somehow that also including the need for Nanashi to go below rather than above, there's some sect of people somewhere that know something, this is just, one of those many holes left open in the SMTIV world. so we are free to make theories and headcanons and I am so with it.
Thank you for sending this, this was so fun omg. I went on a bit of a ramble.
When Flynn and Nanashi were getting together they were all nervous and embarrassed with flirting and went about it in different ways.
One time Flynn asked Nanashi out, apologized, flirted with him, apologized again, tried to justify it by saying the flirting was a defense mechanism in life-threatening situations, then apologized. Flynn's talkative when he's nervous but most people don't notice unless they're familiar with him because he can fib with a perfectly straight face. Flynn tries to flirt and his mouth opens and suddenly the memory of the next 30 minutes is gone. All he knows is that he managed to make Nanashi laugh a few times and he clings onto that.
Nanashi can't keep a straight face. It turns red when they're close and he struggles to look Flynn in the eye. He has trouble saying lovey dovey stuff and holds back because he's afraid to look uncool, he can't yolo it like Flynn. Instead he relies on small, deliberate actions like brushing his shoulder against Flynn's, adjusting his coat, playing with the sleeves. Nanashi doesn't think it's much, but inside Flynn is squeeing.
Their prime first dates spot is the Kinshicho bar, there's food and a terminal nearby and Nanashi lives right there. This whole song and dance happens right in front of Asahi while she works. After the third date she starts to water down their drinks whenever they sit at the bar.
