#“you think you know how to interpret their actions”!!! this!!! ive been looking for how to word that for sucha long time!!!

[fruiteggsaladit]

ID: "I love it when characters seem righteous at first and then you realize they did everything for their own satisfaction. It’s like the ultimate betrayal as a reader, you think you know how to interpret their actions until they do something unforgivable and it makes you reevaluate everything they’ve done. Masterfully written." / END ID.

Too good!! Of a comment!! Not to put on the blog!!!

[teamatsumu]

screenshot. (kita shinsuke x reader)

summary: your friend confesses on your behalf. for my valentine’s day event - theme: confessions.

word count: 1161

tags: @keiva1000 @kindnessspreads @msbyomimi @sleepyxxhead d @priv-rose @nishayuro @kitas-tapioca @kakashineedstotouchgrass @amisuh @avis-writeshq @samanthaa-leanne @akaashi-todorki @sp1ng @kur0obaby @bleach-your-panties @pinkiipeachiikeen @whippedbel

event masterlist

Many of Kita’s friends and volleyball teammates think he is a stickler for routine. And they are right. But Kita isn’t rigid. He isn’t unchangeable. He accepts a break in routine, takes it in stride, learns from the turning tides and comes back with a smile on his face. Why else would he be the captain of the volleyball team if he didn’t know how to assimilate with rapidly developing circumstances?

Today, he is confronted with another such change. He is staring it right in the face. For a few moments, Kita cannot fathom the sight. How can it be? A red envelope in his locker? Surely, it must not be meant for him.

His next thought is how it got there in the first place. No one besides the volleyball team is allowed in the club room. He is the one who always opens it and he is also the one who locks up every night. Did someone sneak in during practice time?

Nothing else in his locker seems out of place. Just the letter placed delicately on top of the rest of his belongings. Kita finally reaches out for it, tugging on the flap to detach it and pulling out the crisp white paper inside. Kita is halted in his tracks when he realizes that there is no writing on the paper. It’s a print-out. Of a screenshot.

He eyes the text message chain, recognising the small icons on both the sender and receiver’s text bubbles. It’s Suna, his underclassman, and he also recognises you, the manager and his long time best friend.

‘I can’t stand it anymore suna!’

‘then just tell him’

‘u know i cant’

‘thats a u problem’

The next message is long, bordering on a whole paragraph, and Kita’s eyes skim over it. For the first time in a long while, his heart skips.

‘ive known him forever rin. hes such an amazing person and my best friend but he doesn like me that way. if i tell him im just gonna lose him as a friend and id rather we be friends than nothing at all’

The punctuation is atrocious, and the grammar is slightly questionable, but Kita smiles regardless. He carefully folds the paper again, placing it inside the envelope. He closes his locker and continues his evening routine of cleaning up and locking the club room.

Over the next hour as Kita cleans, his thoughts mull over the letter he had just received. The menial nature of the tasks relaxes him, gives him time to mull over this new information. Kita realizes that maybe he isn’t as perceptive as previously thought by his friends.

How can he have not seen that look in your eyes before? Softer than anything and directed only at him, now that he thinks about it. He ponders over your words, the insecurity and negativity behind them. He has never known you to be a negative person. You are endlessly optimistic and full of energy. You are so bright that Kita loves basking in it. He has known you for a very long time, and he is almost affronted that your budding romantic feelings were hidden from him for so long. Especially when Kita has made his courting intentions for you fairly clear.

He has not directly said anything. But he doesn’t think he was ever being discreet. But maybe he has been wrong in his approach. Maybe you hooking your arm with his when you walked to school in the morning, sharing lunches every day, permanently stealing a few of his choice hoodies were all friendly gestures on your part. While Kita has interpreted the gestures as romantic, it seems you have not felt the same heat behind those actions.

Kita has always walked the same route home, sometimes with Aran, sometimes with you, and sometimes on his own. Today he takes the walk alone, but he is not bothered. He has purpose in his mind, the red envelope in his hand, and his feet carry him all the way through the winding streets until he stops at your doorstep.

He smiles at the surprise in your eyes when you receive him at the door. He nearly coos at the fuzzy slippers on your feet, huge and with bunny ears on them, making your feet look twice their usual size. You are so cute. Kita scolds himself lightly, regretting that he had wasted so much time as your friend when maybe he could have spent it with you as his romantic partner. His girlfriend.

It has a nice ring to it, Kita decides.

“Shinsuke?” Your voice breaks his train of thought. The ‘what are you doing here’ is clear in your voice. Your eyes are wide and your face is questioning. There is a tinge of worry on your face, and Kita realizes that showing up unannounced may not have been the best idea. He isn’t sure what is going on in your head, but he quickly tries to quash your worries.

“Everything is fine.” Clear, direct, to the point. It’s Kita being Kita. “I’m here about something I found in my locker while closing up.”

He holds up the red envelope, and when you stare at it in confusion, he proceeds to open it and pull out the white paper. You take it when he offers it to you, unfolding it and reading the letter. If you can call it that.

Kita watches the color drain from your face, notices how the panic overtakes your features as you recognise the conversation printed in front of you. He feels his shoulders slump a little, lamenting the fact that you are truly scared about him finding out. What do you think he will do? Has Kita truly not made his intentions for you clear enough? He cannot help but self loathe in that moment, seeing the state you were in now.

“Shin-”

He doesn’t let you finish.

“If you will allow it, I would like to take you out for dinner this weekend. Will you be free on Saturday?”

You blink once, twice. Your mouth opens and closes. Kita is acutely reminded of a fish. He tries to tamp down his smile.

“R-really?”

He merely nods.

Slowly, life reinjects into your face. You seem to age in reverse before his very eyes. Your grip on the letter crinkles the paper slightly, and Kita reaches out to gently pry it from your hands and smooth it out. He stays quiet as you process his words. He thinks of hugging you, maybe even kissing you. But stops himself. Those are moments he will reserve for after your first date, after he has properly given you the best date of your dreams. So he keeps his eyes on the letter.

“Remind me to thank Suna for this letter.” He comments. “I must say, it’s the strangest confession letter I have ever received.”

There is a pause.

“You’ve received other confession letters?!”

[queezleish]

The character of Alana Bloom: a not that coheorant ramble :3

I’ve always had a soft spot for Alana since my first watch for Hannibal. I think when I first watched I didn’t really think about her character but now after a view rewatches I’m entirely hooked by her character. Especially on the different ways you can view her when she’s “helping” people.

On the one hand all she wanted to do was help and she tried so hard to do so-- while rewatching season 1/2 u can see just how much she cares, especially as opposed to season 3 where u can see how getting caught up with these ppl and in hannibals life toughened her, turning her into the more ruthless and cold character we end the show with. And it's so tragic. It's SO tragic. This girl wanted to HELP PEOPLE but by the end she's so completely changed, so much that we see her actively seeking out to hurt and or kill different people more than once (to her credit those ppl were also murders but my point stands) .

BUT ON THE OTHER HANDDD

…..... Back in season 1, did she want to help those ppl for them or for herself?

Ive started to look back and view Alana's season 1 actions, specifically towards Will, with distain because It has always read weird to me. And I'm starting to think it's because even from the beginning she's been a very selfish person- I think she did care for Will but I think it can be read as more out of a selfish desire to help/fix/mother someone in a sense

Like that is a grown ass man babe……… idk especially considering the closeness or lack there of between will and Alana I think you can totally read Alana’s actions towards him stemming from a selfish desire to “fix”. (not saying being selfish is bad, sometimes that’s just how it be…(honestly I can make a whole another rant on the selfishness of Alana))

I don’t know if this is a hot take or not but, I feel like the two “sides” I’ve touched upon with her character are what her character gets boiled down to and I’m here to say…. Let’s not????

I understand not liking her for xyz reasons (which is so valid and me too) but I truly believe she’s so complex from a character standpoint and i think we should acknowledge this more as a fandom as opposed to boiling her down to one or two defining moments (this is especially important bc the few women of Hannibal are already given the short end of the stick and not explored upon enough as is…..but that is an entirely different rant)

While rambling about this I'm at the conclusion that maybe Alana Bloom is just a flawed character; she could’ve really wanted to help Will and Jack and with that came along the feelings of fixing/saving. And through this you can see that “fixing/helping" makes her personally feel good and that probably contributes to why she does what she does as well. Even if she doesn’t do it great either-- she definitely showed her subconscious biases and maybe ended up hurting more than helping along the way in her desire to fix/help...but that doesn't mean she never actually cared...i think u can see that she did because why else would she be constantly trying to do good ??? (At least season 1/2)

I mean it's rlly up to personal interpretation- there's a billion ways to read media, but as I was ranting to my friends about some of my gripes with her actions, I realized as I was talking, I was saying too little. I felt like I was misrepresenting. Hence my rambles

UGHHH she can just be read as SUCH a complex character and I really do think it’s an injustice to boil her down to one or two defining characteristics and the way she helps ppl is sosososo interesting to ME!

[calamarispiderart]

hello hello!!! random question before i get started on work haha

how do you come up with dialogue for ur hms comics? the back n forth of them feels so heavy and realistic. especially the casualness paired with the bleeding-brooding (alliteration for fun) violence makes everything just. hit. in a tragic and hopeless way imo. it’s so neat :0

i’ve been trying that kind of writing out a bit lately too. this is what i’ve managed with my iambic pentameter gang (hms but rain world iterator). MiND is being threatened by the rage pent up inside himself. and, strangely enough, it has the voice of HeART.

constructive feedback is welcome ^_^!

once again, hello hello! sending good wishes and all :]. i love ur work ^_^ 💛

oooo hmm... this isnt something ive ever really thought about trying to explain, thank you for the question! big fan of the posing in the piece youve added here btw, i like the alliteration in 'heliocentric heathen' B:•∆

honestly the way i go about writing them isnt something i feel i can put into words with a clear structure of process... often with my comics it starts with me simply having a vague idea of 'i want to make a comic today', and drawing what feels right to lead into it. the words typically link in with the actions as well - i usually draw something, draw the next thing, write a bit of dialogue, draw the next thing, write more dialogue.... not in that exact order but the words always feel to be a reaction to the actions and the actions are a reaction to the words (and/or, words and actions work in tandem). people rarely talk in a vacuum, especially when theyre having the conversation in person, so i find it helpful to see the actions as part of the dialogue and vice versa.

occasionally ive scripted out dialogue beforehand (always with actions included within the script.) but even with a script what actually is said needs to adjust with whats been drawn. when i dont write with a script (which is the norm), its often while im drawing the next frame that im thinking over whats being said. typically i just go over and over a sentence mentally, adjusting bits until it feels right, looking at it once its written on the page and adjusting it more if necessary.

perhaps a bit vague? apologies! i do have certain mental rules i try keep in mind for each of the threes characters while writing. 'how would heart respond, how would he word this? mind? i cant word it this way because i know he doesnt do this...' <subconscious questions and thoughts but they are important to keep in mind. i find it the most helpful to keep the core traits i personally see in them in mind, and let those traits kind of... guide what is said. if i think of how that collection of traits and facets would respond to something, the vague concept that creates can then go through the filters of dialogue traits i have in mind for them. ...ehhh, put more simply... 'what is the general response this character would have to this situation' and then 'how would they structure that response through words and/or actions?'.

i, being who i am, cccc being what it is, am somewhat naturally inclined to writing grim and bleeding-brooding (nice word) things. i also consider myself to be quite a grounded person, which i hope comes through in my work! however, natural inclinations aside, cccc itself is quite a bleeding-brooding album (at least it is to me). its one about depression and self hatred and it really doesnt pull many punches in that respect. or at least, thats my read on it! as a result, that becomes reflected in my interpretation of hms. however, id also note that cccc is silly at times, theres humor in it. all good grim things need a bit of levity to really make it feel Real... people joke in the worst of times, not just the best, and it really helps in writing serious things to have just a little bit of joke to it, even if its not immediately noticable... this is hard to really give examples of honestly but it is relevant i promise. im unsure if youve read much of my writing aside from my comics, but theres just a bit of absurdity and humor in both my cccc pieces that would make the writing feel sorely lacking without in my opinion. notable with how violent and tense both those pieces are.

lots of words now! hopefully helpful ones B:•] or at least interesting! ill try write out some of the core traits and details i keep in mind when writing hms so as to give better reference points to all my prior words:

heart: reactive, not instigative. he doesnt start fights, he finishes them. he also doesnt need an insane amount of prompting to get going... but he does need prompting. apathetic, a bit fanciful. hes depressed, and not in a cute way. he talks casually but he uses serious words. no point in simplifying his language - he wants to be taken seriously, and while he makes himself look small and weak at times he is Not weak and he is Not small. hes just as much of a wordsmith as the other two. he covers his mouth when he speaks sometimes, and he puts his hand over his chest... a bit defensive? muffling his own input, but notably he still speaks. lies by omission or by twisting facts - if full honesty helps his case, thats what he uses. if a white lie works better... i personally see him as a bit of a planner too. sometimes his reaction to things is built up to; it never comes out of nowhere, even if it may seem like it.

mind: instigative, less reactive. he still reacts to things but hes generally the one starting shit and hes honestly very bad at Not talking shit. uses contractions. <this is a small one but mind says 'dont' and 'cant' and i dont think ive ever heard him Not use contractions to any notable degree. kind of weak! hes proud of himself, very proud of himself, and even in the moments of the album where theyre getting along he cant drop his superiority complex. hes bad at making compromises that put him as the lesser one. hes also quick to point blame and to lie (even if hes a bit roundabout abt it). hes also not That smart - or at least, hes not any smarter than the other two. he Thinks hes smart and hes quite confident about that but that doesnt actually mean hes right lol. aggressive verbally, passive physically. hypocritical.

both of them tend to see soul as an afterthought, or as something to benefit from. note the 'something', not 'someone'. imo, they dont really see him as a valid living entity in the same way they see themselves. speaking of soul...

soul: hes difficult. hes a difficult and complicated guy. vague, fanciful, depressed, suicidal, tired... i personally see him as quite passive. both passive and active... hes violent, towards himself and towards the others. just as they dont see him as an individual, i believe hes too apathetic and burnt out to see them as individuals either. when he threatens to hang himself, thats a direct threat to the two if them as well - and it functions as one, seeing as they are all linked in that way! his suicidality isnt purely self destructive in the way it would be in other story contexts which i find important to remember. i see him as someone who sleeps a lot... and as someone who is treated more like a tool than anything else. but he is, simultaneously, idealistic. he hopes for the best and would do anything (Anything.) to try and achieve it. he wants things to Get Better or to Stop. most of the time when i write or draw him its within the 'Stopping is the only option to Get Better' stage of things. hes tired and he doesnt want to deal with things but he has to and he doesnt want to and hes at the end of his rope. honestly within the album he feels a bit like a ghost. hes granted a similar level of personhood as the shadow of what could be, which is both more and less than mind and heart get.... hes confusing! hea a difficult guy. honestly you can take a lot of my notes and thoughts on his character with a grain of salt because hes always been such a puzzle to me haha. i find him easiest to convey in art... OH yes one last thought/trait is hes a bit... arrogant? hes tired and hes careless. listen to me or fuck off and die. arrogant. what a guy.

ahaaha this kinda became me just rambling about my reads on the three but.. hopefully helpful!! this is all stuff i try keep in mind when im writing and drawing them. theres certainly nuances ive missed and things i havent worded as well as i could, but you get the idea i hope! all of that informs how i write them and... in a way they almost lead me through the piece.

also! this isnt something i often think about because its just a natural part of the process, but sometimes i end up scrapping stuff! entire paragraphs, panels and poses, because it hits a stasis where i cant find any way for one or the other to continue the interaction - theres a distinct difference between this and the interaction hitting its ending point. if ive written one person saying or doing something and none of the parties involved are able to respond in any way at all, thats a sign that ive conveyed their characters wrong and i need to go back. people *always* have a response to something, whether thats continuing the conversation or leaving or anything. if none of them can come up with a response that feels like them, ive messed up somewhere. dont be afraid to go back and rewrite things.

ummm yeah thats all i can think of to say now! thank you for the question, and thank you for the nice words!! B:•∆ im very happy my comics come off the way youve described, and very happy youve enjoyed my work enough to want to ask me about it!! means a lot to me B:•] your rainworld iterator hms concept sounds swag as hell, id just say to keep at it!! from what youve shown here youve already got a great start B:•∆ thank you again! hope you and anyone else reading this has a good week!

[kai-rio]

no light no light is so beckory coded

(song analysis 2: electric boogaloo)

like look at these lyrics

no light no light in your bright blue eyes can be interpreted as tony dying, feeling betrayed, or being injured

you cant choose what stays and what fades away i believe this is about tony losing his father to prison, yes, but also gregory over his lack of control during the events of ggy, especially concerning his memory

and id do anything to make you stay i think both of them would want to stay with each other, gregory with trying to keep tony's memories so he doesnt forget him, and tony s he can solve the mystery (and also cos hs gay)

you want a revelation, some kind of resolution how tony always wants answers to things, and he wants to know everything there is about ggy even after its happened and he's met up with gregory

but its a conversation i just cant have tonight is like tony asking him about ggy, but gregory dismissing it or ignoring it because of the shared trauma they have, and he wants to try move past it despite tonys insistence

in your place were a thousand other faces this would go with gregory and his inability to remember the exact faces of tony (and ellis), and all of the counsellors and everyone ggy encountered during the time he used his body

i was disappearing in plain sight this is gregory living at the pizzaplex - he’s missing, but in plain sight, as the pizzaplex is a big and crowded place, so if any of his friends were to go there, theyd have a chance of noticing him

would you leave me if id told you what ive done? it kinda goes for both of them, but mainly gregory - when he'd remember the actions ggy took, he'd obviously feel guilty and would think everyone would leave him because he was dangerous. i think this also applies for tony, but only after he realises how much of a jerk he's been - gregory wouldnt remember everything, so if tony told him, he'd be afraid of his reaction

[leynaeithnea]

*comes in dancing to hide the tears*

Soooo, a winion told me you have thoughts on Not sorry for loving you?

WE’RE SO BACK MY LOVE (i was the winion)

OKAY LETS GET GOING THANK YOU MY FRIEND

Not Sorry For Loving You

BOY, i was worried about this song & how it made the events play out considering the odyssey, and I’m satisfied enough with it and I have A LOT to say (i think)

First we start out with the same….tip-tap thingy instrument we had with Love In Paradise, but lower, which DEF is something specifically in music and I’m excited for the musican reactors on youtube start to react to it, and pick it apart (like major/minor)

But its an exact mirror of the beginning of Ody waking up at Calypsos island, is it because things on the island stay the same I wonder? Mhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh (its so beautiful)

Someone arrived today (HERMES , we can hear her take a breath and brace herself for what she has to tell Ody)

They said they′re taking you away (FUCKING FINIALLY, ITS ONLY BEEN WHAT, 7 YEARS???)

That you’re not mine to save (Oh…OH now this one…this can refer to several things 1. calypso “saved” him when he washed up on her island and patched him up 2. she thought she could “save” him from his dark thoughts and everything? “i can fix him” vibes? 3. shes talking about herself and “youre not the one who will safe me”)

And soon I won′t get to see your face (…….i know this probably because of rhyming purposes, but i like how this kind of implies she cares more about his looks than him xD)

So I came by to say (interesting, does she leave him alone completely, did she start leaving him alone after his breakdown at the cliff? or does she just not tend to go to the beach when hes sitting at the beach crying every day? mhhhhhh)

You’re unlike anyone I have ever known (…he is unique)

‘Cause you′re all I′ve ever known (…….thats just sad, i teared up at some part during the stream, im not sure if it was this or the end of charybdis,..but yeah)

WANGUIS VOCALS ARE BEAITUFUL; THE MUSIC- ITS

ITS SO GOOD, im in love

And if I pushed you

Or if I came on too strong (“if”, ok…miss hypothetical, and miss “i” messages, if she pushed him, he literally refused her from the start and she kept going and told him to bow down………….”if”, as in “thats what you say I did and maybe thats true but probably you made that up”, can i see this as her just now looking back and being like “yeah….maybe that was too much?”, maybe, but if this was the first time in seven years that she reflected on her own actions, then she has ISSUES still)

Or if I ambushed you (the song keeps things very vague, but I see this as a way for Jorge to semi-confirm the assault, or at least to not erase it, ive seen a lot of conflicting views on the song, from “not specfic enough about the SA as it should be” and “this song proofs that calypso is innocent” and Jorge probably found a way to let both interpreations co-exist, that being said I will be excited for animatics that will lean into the more Odyssey-accurate interpreation)

For that, I’ll say I was wrong (you say you were wrong, but you dont say you’re sorry for it?… aha)

And if you hate me (“if” you hate me, not like she FORCED him to stay on her island for SEVEN YEARS, girlie aint you the one trapped too in this interpretation? :) :) :) u should know how it feels, if you had ANY sympathy and goodwill for him at heart instead of selfishness you would’ve let him go years ago, like….7 years)

Then I am sorry my love′s too much for you (THIS is the biggest proof to me that this whole song is just BIG emotional manipulation, “my love is too much for you”, she blames HIM, for her feelings, like he is at fault that he cant deal with her emotions, instead of her being able to respect his boundaries and keep herself in check after his INSISTENT refusal), again the VOCALS THO

But I’m not sorry for loving you (eh, valid, but also rly guilt tripy, yk? You dont have to be sorry for your feeligns, but you have to be sorry about the way you act if it harms someone (WHICH YOU JUST TALKED BAOUT BUT DIDNT APOLOGIZE FOR, so shes not sorry for loving him, she - on some level – understands that she has hurt him, but she doesnt say shes sorry for her actions)

AND THEN A CHOIR to back her up? there was none in Love in Paradise, so its interesting that one appears now, is it because her emotions are stronger now and they’re overwhelming her? is she trying to use her godly power to convince him to stay? no matter what, they sound lovely, and i gasped when i first listened and had to replay it them, it does kind of sound like theyre trying to pressure ody

“Calypso-” THATS pretty much all he gets to say, MY HEART, he tries to speak, having let her vent that all out but…)

Let me speak (SHE INSTANT INTERRUPTS HIM?? THE AUDACITY? GIRL SHUT UP AND LET THE MAN SPEAK, another BIG red flag of this being a lot of emotional manipulation here, especially since she continues with giving her “sad sob story/explanation”, right after its like “yah i did bad but look at my sad story, this is why I did all this, you cant blame me)

I spent my whole life here (isnt it paradise calypso??? doesnt it have all that you want there, all that you need there?? mmhhhhhhhhHHHH someone was dishonest >:) )

Was cast away when I was young (sad, yeah i do feel bad for her about this, but that does not excuse her actions)

Alone for a hundred years (thats a long time i suppose, but for a goddess maybe not that much

I had no friends but the sky and sun (actually love that line)

So when you washed ashore I thought for sure that you were my dream come true (….ah, yes, that makes sense, latching onto the first good thing you come across, hopeless romantic, but being completely blind to the fact that the thing has free will, is actually a human with complex feelings and you were so obsessed with the IDEA of having someone who loved you that you extremely hurt them an,. ofc its the psychological explanation, of course she deserves better, but how she acted was NOT okay, no matter her reasoning)

I thought I knew (you knew…what? thats interesting that she doesnt end that line…and i honestly cant figure out what she implies there, she thoguht she knew that he loved her? that he DOESNT love her, she thought she knew what love felt like? what being loved felt like? OR thought she knew that he was a gift send by the gods? (as it is in the Odyssey iirc..Im not sure on this rn tho, so dont quote me)

The music…is so fricking beautiful in this….we have another refrain, but this time the choir backs her up on the words for “you, too strong, you, was wrong, me, and then the Uuh build up for the the not sorry for loving you”, which just emphases the words again i suppose, and makes her get more emotional? mhhhh not sure! it sounds great tho)

“Im not sorry”, so in the end, even IF she was wrong….shes not sorry, whatever she did to hurt him, the base line is, that she’s not sorry. She should be.

I′m angry and tired and restless and sad (valid feelings, but its all about how you express those…maybe you should get therapy)

I’m stuck in the moments I swore that we had (you swore, but maybe, maybe you just imagined them, because you were so desperate to believe there was actually any love from him, that you made yourself believe his rejections ended up being signs of love after all…thats not healthy, get therapy, rip to jorge tho, i believe i saw a thing that said he wrote it when he was in a low point in life, Id think hes better now, but still, unreciprocated love DOES hurt a lot, so ouchy)

I wish you would chase me (the way that you chase him….mhm)

Or try to embrace me (but he never does because even after SEVEN YEARS, he somehow hasnt warmed up yet….)

For once, I wish you would lie and say (……aha, like him lying would make any difference? because then you could make yourself believe that what you did wasnt wrong? that theres hope for you? girlie you have to learn to accept that, if you want him to lie to you, youre in a BAD spot. do fricking better.)

I love you (…………..okay……okay, so…..that line makes the whole song controversial….from the animatic we saw that right after these lines odysseus turns away with an empty/determined expression and no regret or guilt on his face what-so ever, and we can also hear that his voice sounds desperate, dare i saw close to breakdown (slightly out of breath, because he interrupts her, trying to get a word in, my first interpretation was that he was worried and tired, and gave in to her demands, scared to refuse her)

and then theres a breaths pause

You do? (she sounds so HOPEFUL, like she ACTUALLY would believe him if he said it, and i think in this moment Odysseus too realizes that just saying him him, would make it worse, so he sort of back paddles a bit?)

But not in the way that you want me to (because i see not a single clue in the rest of the music that would indicate that he as any positive emotions for her, and i rly just cant imagine him feeling any positive emotions for her even if she did NOTHING else than keeping him on the island, (which is VERY unlikely imo), but its also interesting because thats pretty much as well as vague as the odyssey leaves it, so its kindaaa more accurate again? except that we do not get any cue about ody’s view on the whole situation, we see him sitting at the beach, yes, but we dont get a single “as she wished but he did not” moment…so, thats up to the animators or maybe, maybe, one day jorge confirming or denying anything….but yeah, whatever Calypso feels, Odysseus does reciprocate the sentiment, I like thinking that she did try to guilt-trip into staying and that he ACTUALLY feels guilty for leaving her……….the rest of the saga has elements where I will read A LOT more into the scenes than is written out, so i might be over-analysing them at some point and projecting what I want it to mean into it…but alas)

I hate that I fell in love with you (yeah understandable)

Why did I fall in love with you? (because you were lonely girlie)

What do I do with this love for you? (process it and move on eventually, you got eternity to get over it)

How am I supposed to get over you? (therapy)

Why in the world won′t you love me too? (because HE HAS A WIFE WHO HAS BEEN LOING FOR FOR 20 YEARS )

The ending music is beautiful, but aT LAST he is sailing off

[enchiibean]

i feel like you are one of the only people ive seen that doesnt immediately believe gon fell in love with killua in the hunter exam arc. i feel like it's dismissive of his character, it bothers me. what are your thoughts?

Hi! Sorry for taking so long answering! I wanted to write a good answer to this because I do actually have a lot of thoughts about it, so thank you for the ask! This ended up really long and as more of an analysis on their relationship in general… I want to preface this by saying that everything in this post is simply my interpretation of the characters, and that it’s only one interpretation of many. Just because how someone else interprets their relationship is different from mine doesn’t mean I think they’re wrong, it just means we see them differently! If you read this post, I hope you are able to see my point of view!

Although Killugon is one of my favourite ships ever, introducing romantic feelings so early into their dynamic makes their relationship feel less meaningful to me. I think that their friendship is more narratively important than their romance — and I think that both of them would be okay with the other not returning their feelings because being together is more important to them than being together romantically.

One of the things that makes their relationship so special is their friendship!! Their friendship is the foundation of their relationship, and the romance exists on top of it, not before it. Although I don’t think that romantic feelings would necessarily change their motivations and actions, I do think that it would alter how the audience would perceive them! And when we look at their actions through a romantic lens, it changes how we view their motivations.

For example, to me, the reason Killua approached Gon at the beginning of the Hunter Exam and wanted to become friends with him isn’t because he had a crush on him at first sight, but because he wants to have a friend his age and to feel like a kid. Even if it’s that he developed a crush on him later in the exam, I think that the idea of him already having been attracted to Gon or even in love with him during the Hunter Exam takes away from the importance of friendship to Killua, since the climax of Killua’s character in this arc is when he declares that he just wants to be friends with Gon when he feels like he can’t even have that.

I don’t think Killua really thought that anyone would be willing to confront his family for him because that’s literally an insane thing to do?? But Gon did it!! And I think that Gon being that insane and willing to risk his life for Killua is what really dragged him out of the darkness and gave him the devotion to be insane right back at him. 

On the other hand, with Gon, I feel like, when viewed through a romantic lens, his motivation during the Zoldyck Family Arc typically becomes that he’s going after Killua because he’s already developed feelings for him in the Hunter Exam Arc, which as you may have guessed, I don’t agree with. To me, that was something he’d have done for any of his friends — if Kurapika or Leorio suddenly started acting strangely and had run off when it seemed clear to Gon that they didn’t want to leave, I think he’d have chased after them, too.

We know that Gon is the type of person who would even risk his life to try to save someone he barely knows (if he likes them), like on the boat on the way to the Hunter Exam! And if I’m being completely honest, I don’t think Killua was even a particularly special friend to Gon until partway through Heaven’s Arena… If Killua hadn’t followed him and they didn’t speak ever again, Killua would’ve just been someone cool that he’d met and that he would no longer think about, and I definitely don’t think he had any romantic feelings for him by then.

That’s not to say that Killua wasn’t someone he considered a friend, just that I think that, at the time, to Gon, it was like when you make a friend at summer camp and then you lose contact as soon as you part ways. And while to Killua, Gon��s actions during Zoldyck Family Arc gave him this unpayable debt and made Killua extremely devoted to Gon, I don’t think it meant that much to Gon because again, I think this is something that he’d have done for any of his friends. However, by the end of Heaven’s Arena, I do think Killua has become someone who is special to Gon — on Whale Island, Gon tells Killua that he’s his first friend his age, and more than that, he’s someone that he wants to stay with.

In that same scene, they tell each other that they’re their first friend (their age). To me, this is something that informs so much of their dynamic — they don’t know what being friends with someone “normally” looks like, which is part of why they’re so insane!! And because of this, it’s important to me that there is at least a small period of time before this where that’s all they were — friends, no romantic feelings involved. 

Their insanity extends to romance, but is not because of it — their friendship is the most important part of their relationship. This is why even during the needle scene, where I feel like I can say that I definitely think that Killua has feelings for Gon at this point (his reactions during the “it has to be Killua scene,” the “Gon, you are light scene,” etc.), the emphasis is on how Gon is precious to him because he’s his friend, even though he is probably in love with him.

That friendship foundation is so important to how I see Gon and Killua and honestly, beyond the whole “viewing their actions through a romantic lens changes how we perceive them” thing, I just… don’t see either of them as being in love by the end of the Hunter Exam! These reasons are why it’s important to how I interpret their characters for there to be a period of time where their feelings are purely platonic.

Also, as an add-on, personally, I think that there’s a chance that Gon doesn’t return Killua’s feelings in canon even at their separation since nothing that he’s done, said, or thought has felt as explicitly romantic in nature as Killua. BUT I really like the idea of Gon pining for Killua on Whale Island during their separation, haha. The earliest I can conceive of when Gon starts developing feelings for Killua is Greed Island and a lot of it has to do with the shift in their dynamic — it’s when Gon starts really saying things to demonstrate his appreciation of Killua!!

HOWEVER, that doesn’t mean I perceive his actions as romantic in nature from his perspective. For example, while “it has to be Killua” is a romantic line, I don’t think Gon said it with romantic intent (nor that he’d be aware of them yet if he did have them)! I think that that was more for Killua, as well as planting the seeds in the reader’s mind for their romance, rather than a confession from Gon. Plus, imagine if he’d confessed his feelings for Killua to TSEZGUERRA instead of Killua when Killua is RIGHT THERE…

The other reason why Greed Island is the time where I think Gon is most likely to have developed feelings for Killua is because I really don’t think he was focusing on Killua in the same way in Chimera Ant Arc and it’d be a strange point in their relationship for romantic feelings to develop to me… I can’t imagine any of the moments in Chimera Ant Arc as being one where Gon would have developed feelings for Killua, or where he would have realized them. I like the idea that his realization happens sometime either during or after the separation the most!

On the other hand, I think that Killua probably had feelings for Gon by the start of Greed Island and realized them either during the dodgeball match or the “Gon, you are light” scene because they had the most romantic undertones to me from Killua’s side :) and I think that Killua could have developed them at any point after the Zoldyck Family Arc. 

I think that the way that their relationship develops is so beautiful and subtle that the romance ultimately feels very ambiguous. I don’t think that there is one specific point where we can say that either of them developed or realized any romantic feelings for each other definitively, and I don’t think there are any ideas that are necessarily wrong about when either happened, just ones that don’t align with each other! There are only different interpretations and ones that don’t align with each other and this post is only representative of my personal interpretation :) I hope this answered your question, Anon! And thank you to anyone who was willing to read the entirety of this post. It ended up much, much longer (and perhaps, much, much, more off-topic from the original question) than I expected, haha!

[wispythreads]

I really like the voices that end up coming around in Chapter II, and how differently the world and the Princess become.

Don’t get me wrong, there are some absolutely wild variations of the Cabin and the Princess in later chapters, and it’s nice hearing all the voices bounce off of each other if you get to a Chapter III or Chapter IV (though at that point it’s quite hectic), but there’s just something very neat to me when it’s just you, the two voices you started with, and the one newcomer. It’s fun how the game interprets what you did in the previous chapter, what kind of person you’d have to be to make those choices, or how you’d be feeling after they’d been made.

For example, when I was going about the game for the first time, I didn’t quite like the idea of blindly accepting what the Narrator had told me about the Princess when he was my only source of information. But at the same time, he really was the only information I had to go on. I decided it was probably best to take the knife with me, while fully planning on discarding it if I heard enough from her side of things to determine he was wrong, if not outright lying. The meeting with her wasn’t illuminating, like I hoped, but I had grown more doubtful of Him than I did of her. So I decided to set her free. See what would actually happen if she walked out of the cabin. What the Narrator then tried to pull left me very distrustful of him, so of course I did my best to fight him at every chance, before the Princess mercifully ended it.

I got the Skeptic, which fit perfectly.

(Narrator: Did you just say 'wink' out loud?)

(Voice of the Skeptic: No, I didn't. Wink.)

Anytime he shows up again he’s the one I’m most drawn to agreeing with, and because we seem to be on the same page so often, he’s the one I’m more inclined to listen to if he has something he’s interested in doing, even if I enjoy the other voices too.

My brother, even more blind about how this game worked than I was, decided to leave the dagger behind. He talked with the Princess, all soft and bubbly in contrast to my version, up until he decided the best option was for them to just hang out and get to know each other better. “I can make sandwiches!”

No one besides the Hero liked this idea.

The sudden change in the Princess’s behavior set my brother on edge enough that he was still of the belief that it’d probably be best to just leave her chained up. Then, with her shouting creepy threats at him as he ascended the stairs, and the Narrator prompting him with the reminder that he could come back down to finish the job, he figured that’d probably be the best solution, and retrieved the knife.

Then he saw the discarded remains of her chewed off arm, previously attaching her to the shackles it still limply laid in.

He was NOT comfortable venturing out into the dark after her, and tried to wait her out in supposed safety. It didn’t work. He fell asleep, she pounced, it all went dark. And he died.

He got the Hunted, whom he grew attached to quickly, immediately following his advice without question and then pleading for it when it wasn’t given.

Though I don’t have him here right now to verify if this is how he particularly felt, I think it perfectly fits with the feeling a theoretical player would have with these choices. You gave her the benefit of the doubt, and decided that something was off enough to justify her imprisonment, then dangerous enough to warrant your original mission. She’s not just dangerous, she’s a predator, and only a fool chases after a predator. You’re not looking to be a hero, you’re looking to survive.

Also it’s just very ironic to me that he’s absolutely obsessed with Dungeon Meshi right now and got the most Dungeon Meshi aligned route that could possibly exist. The monstrous chimera, the more heavy focus on action, to eat or be eaten, and if you are eaten, do you give up then? Or do you continue to fight for your survival? The underlying message I saw someone else mention of how to eat is to love.

Crazy stuff.

[jozor-johai]

Revisiting the Rat Cook, Part 1: The Best Pie, and Lord Lamprey

This is the first part of a series I've been sitting on for a while, where I'm going to examine the symbols and themes present in the "Rat Cook" story, as relayed by Bran in ASOS Bran IV, and search reappearances of those elements throughout the rest of ASOIAF.

This series is predicated on the understanding that these books are rich with intentional symbolism, metaphor, and allegory, and that the repetition of these symbols and themes adds to their meaning.

In general, the symbols that are present in ASOIAF are limited by their ability to be inserted into the plot of the story (i.e. if the symbol of a stag killing a direwolf is important, there must be a way in which the characters are able to encounter such a scene within the plot's context). However, the metadiegetic legends that exist in-world for the characters of ASOIAF are not beholden to the same restrictions, and because GRRM is able to invent these myths in their entirety without restrictions on any of the individual symbolic elements, we can trust that each separate element of these in-world myths was placed intentionally.

With that in mind, I believe we can use stories like that of the Rat Cook as a sort of "road map" when looking at the reappearance of these same symbols and themes elsewhere in the story; I believe the "Rat Cook" story is the most distilled example of these elements. I don't mean to say that every instance of "rats" references the Rat Cook directly, but that the Rat Cook story provides a place where Martin is able to use these symbols in their most abstract form and describe their relationship to each other, so that when we see them appear again elsewhere in ASOIAF we might better understand what we are being shown.

So, among other things, the Rat Cook story is about a rat which eats rats, or a cook who serves kings; The Rat Cook story is about fathers and sons, about cannibalism, about trust, about vengeance, and about damning one's legacy.

This is likely going to be a 9-part series, but ideally almost all of these parts will be able to stand on their own. Each post will inform the next as I build my analysis, but hopefully each individual post is also interesting in its own right.

RtRC Part 1: "The Best Pie You Have Ever Tasted" and "Lord Lamprey"

This opening part, for better or worse, is going to retread some well-discussed ground: the clear parallels between the "Rat Cook" story and the incident in which Lord Manderly serves certain overlarge pies in ADWD The Prince of Winterfell, a scene lovingly dubbed "Frey Pie". However, as well-established as this comparison is, I want to begin here so I can begin to introduce how a closer analysis of the Rat Cook themes are present in this uncontroversially parallel scene, and how they might add more depth to interpreting that moment.

Not only does the scene evoke the same imagery, serving pie to the Lords amidst conspicuously missing sons, but the connection becomes even more direct when Wyman Manderly looks directly to the camera and says, “Hey reader, if you’re wondering where those Freys are, think back to any scary stories you know about pie”.

Okay, he doesn’t actually say that, but it’s close enough, and as much of a nudge we’re like to get from Martin (and which still went over my head on my first read through). Instead he does the next best thing, cueing Abel to sing while staggering past our POV:

"We should have a song about the Rat Cook," he was muttering, as he staggered past Theon, leaning on his knights. "Singer, give us a song about the Rat Cook."

Manderly seems to acknowledge the similarities himself, and most have noticed as well.

However, making the comparison between the story of the Rat Cook and Manderly’s actions is particularly interesting in their differences.

There are many ways in which Manderly’s pies, as a mirror, are appropriately an inversion of certain elements in the Rat Cook myth.

Returning to the scene as we see it in ADWD The Prince of Winterfell:

“Ramsay hacked off slices with his falchion and Wyman Manderly himself served, presenting the first steaming portions to Roose Bolton and his fat Frey wife, the next to Ser Hosteen and Ser Aenys, the sons of Walder Frey. "The best pie you have ever tasted, my lords," the fat lord declared. "Wash it down with Arbor gold and savor every bite. I know I shall." “True to his word, Manderly devoured six portions, two from each of the three pies, smacking his lips and slapping his belly and stuffing himself until the front of his tunic was half-brown with gravy stains and his beard was flecked with crumbs of crust.”

Manderly takes on only some of the roles of the Rat Cook here. Despite his status as lord, he plays the role of the humble cook, personally serving Roose Bolton, Walda Bolton (née Frey), Hosteen Frey, and Aenys Frey, all standing in for the “Andal King”. In this way, the role of “Andal King” as someone who has official power and the role of “Rat Cook” as effectively powerless dissident are played out straightforwardly. Bolton and his allies are backed by their army and the authority of the crown while Manderly has no official backing of his own.

Wyman even physically resembles the Rat Cook; Wyman’s blue eyes indicate he is presumably pale, and Wyman is prodigiously large, to mimic the descriptor of “white, and almost as huge as a sow”.

However, like the “Andal King” himself, who had a “second slice” of his own son, it is Wyman Manderly, and not Bolton nor the Freys, who devours two portions from each of the pies. In this way, the roles have elements which are interchangeable.

Wyman is acting out both roles, which is especially interesting because in this comparison is a single most definitive contrast: The Rat Cook, most notably, is not punished for serving the pie, as "a man has a right to vengeance". Instead, he is punished for violating guest right.

Now, Wyman—who lost his son to the Freys at the Red Wedding—certainly has a “right to vengeance”, but betraying guest right is something which Wyman Manderly takes great pains not to do. Manderly conspicuously notes that he gave the three dead Freys guest gifts upon their parting, marking them as no longer guests under his roof, and subsequently, theoretically, freeing him to kill them. Manderly introduces the idea while Davos marks the distinction for the reader’s sake in ADWD Davos IV:

“The Freys came here by sea. They have no horses with them, so I shall present each of them with a palfrey as a guest gift. Do hosts still give guest gifts in the south?" "Some do, my lord. On the day their guest departs.”

The Freys, on the other hand, as executors of the Red Wedding, are the most notable violators of guest right, while the Boltons contributed their part as well; both are being punished for that sin by Manderly-the-Rat-Cook here, marking the inversion of the story. In this iteration, the party serving the pie seems to warrant no judgment; instead, the pie itself is the judgment, served as retribution. With that connection in mind, it's worth remembering the other importance of the Rat Cook story, based on its placement in ASOS and which I think has often been overshadowed by Manderly’s “Frey Pies” incident.

In the Rat Cook story, after the Rat Cook's punishment, he spends an immortal future forever eating his own descendants, a scenario in which Bran describes the rats of the Nightfort as “children running from their father”. That eternal, kin- and legacy- devouring doom does not just come secondary to the punishment, it is a part of the punishment following the violation of guest right, and introduces the notion of an entire family being cursed for that violation... and, for good measure, is brought up in ASOS Bran IV, chapter that occurs only a few chapters after the Red Wedding itself.

In one respect, this is just another reinforcement for the reader of the sanctity of guest right and of the laws of the old gods. Coming so soon after the Red Wedding, the Rat Cook story hints at the fall of House Frey. Walder Frey, most culpable violator of guest right, has apparently doomed the rest of his dynasty to death, punished for his actions, the way that the Rat Cook, too, is a patriarch who creates not only his own ruin but also the ruin of his progeny. Although Walder himself is not literally tying the nooses, it is Walder who has metaphorically become the father "devouring his children" indirectly through his ruthlessness. Wyman Manderly, then, is merely an agent of that doom.

On the subject of the Freys being cursed by violating guest right, only one of the named consumers of the pie, Aenys Frey, is truly mirroring the Rat Cook legend by literally eating his own son, Rhaegar Frey. Both Aenys and Hosteen Frey, on the other hand, are specifically called out in the scene as being the “sons of Walder Frey”. It’s appropriate within the mirrored Rat Cook motif to invoke Walder’s name as patriarch as well as the promise of other “sons” that might succumb to their father’s insatiable appetite for status; this sentence invokes the dynasty of the Frey household. Indeed, Walder Frey himself also has shared motifs with the Rat Cook: like the immortal Rat Cook, Walder Frey has nearly innumerable children and grandchildren, and he too seems to refuse to die.

If a named heir in Westeros is like the ASOIAF version of Chekov’s gun, then the Late Walder Frey is sitting on Chekov’s arsenal; once he becomes the late Late Lord Frey, it’s going to explode. If that happens in an upcoming book, then the Rat Cook story might be setting up the idea of how an eventual succession crisis of House Frey might further this metaphorical connection, with this doomed family turning on itself, each running from the shadow of their father’s legacy like the Rat Cook's children run from him in the Nightfort.

Lord Lamprey

Now, to push through a little more symbolic linking between the Frey Pie scene and Lord Manderly:

If we consider the “pie” element as a key part of the Rat Cook story, then seeing a “pie” specifically in the hands of Wyman Manderly prompts a connection with a noted favorite of Manderly’s: lamprey pie. As early as ACOK Bran II, we learn that:

“His own people mock him as Lord Lamprey”,

Interestingly, we see in that same chapter a telling metaphor considering Manderly and lampreys not in a pie:

“Lord Wyman attacked a steaming plate of lampreys as if they were an enemy host”.

Considering Wyman’s lampreys-as-enemy association makes for curious contrast later, in ADWD Davos IV, as Manderly is feigning allegiance with the hated Freys. Here, Manderly has just stepped away from the feast in order to secretly treat with Davos, and the food served may contain more meaning than at first appears:

“In the Merman's Court they are eating lamprey pie and venison with roasted chestnuts. Wynafryd is dancing with the Frey she is to marry. The other Freys are raising cups of wine to toast our friendship.”

The reappearance of this noted lamprey pie might take on more significance knowing that some of those eating it become a pie later on. The reminder of the association between Manderly and his lamprey pies seems even more intentional when the “Lord Lamprey” nickname conspicuously returns as Bolton’s men search for the missing Freys in ADWD Reek III:

"You did not find our missing Freys." The way Roose Bolton said it, it was more a statement than a question. "We rode back to where Lord Lamprey claims they parted ways, but the girls could not find a trail."

Invoking his nickname in this scene draws a connecting line between Manderly’s favorite pie, the “enemy host” of lampreys, the missing Freys, and “lamprey pie” being served as a symbol of the fake “friendship” between the Freys and Manderlys.

If that Frey-Manderly friendship is marked by mentions of lamprey pie, and Manderly loves to eat lamprey like he would eat an enemy, and we see in The Prince of Winterfell that Manderly apparently loves to eat his enemies, having two portions of each Frey pie, we might think that the Freys are being paralleled with Manderly’s favorite pie filling: lampreys. If that is the case, then comparing the punished Freys to lampreys is a scathingly fitting image, and I mean that literally.

Considering that carnivorous lampreys latch onto fishes to slowly eat the fish’s blood and flesh while the fish still swims, then looking at an image like this makes for some serious symbolic resonance if you consider the Tullys as fish (as they often are described) and the pie-filling Freys as pie-filling lampreys. It certainly provides a strong visual metaphor for the Frey’s “late” and half-hearted vassalage to Hoster Tully, how they dealt with Catelyn, and how they are now parasitically using Edmure—he sits in Riverrun at the end of ADWD, but with Freys latched onto him, bleeding him like they did his family.

This series is otherwise about pies and rats, not lampreys, but I will mention a few other interesting associations with lampreys that are worth looking into. The Stokeworths, when they are desperately trying to secure a match for Lollys, serve each of their prospective suitors lamprey pie, perhaps a signaling of the Stokeworth’s parasitic place at court, or the attitude towards their search for their daughter’s match. Note that in that context, Littlefinger remarks that he loves lamprey pie, perhaps fittingly for someone who has risen high by making use of his parasitic attachments to those more powerful. By contrast, when our intrepid advocate for truth and justice—Davos—is jailed after his return from the Battle of the Blackwater, he is served lamprey pie in the dungeons, but finds it “too rich” to eat. We have already seen that Davos has no stomach for the blind flattery that some of Stannis’ other lords have, and this scene describes that same character trait. I believe there are even further associations that are worth investigating, but for the sake of this essay, we must move on and end here for now.

In the next part, I'll focus on how it's relevant that the Rat Cook's pie and Manderly's pie were both allegedly "pork" pies, and where that reappears as well.

[dianaladrislovebot]

wow! reading every gone fic worth reading is an accomplishment! do you have any thoughts or recommendations on what you read? any observations on what common ideas and character interpretations present? i’m excited to hear your thoughts!!

hi anon i know it’s been a million years since you left this question and i sincerely apologise for taking so long to answer it but i’ve been attempting to find links !!! w a fandom as old as this one it’s a bit difficult to track things down but ive managed to compile a few of my favourites finally ! thank you so much for asking !

fayz trials by trudirose

an incredibly interesting look at the legal side of everyone’s actions that i think portrays all the characters it includes very well for the setting they’re in. a lot of people write a lot of the characters sort of ooc but this one is very true to who they are and how they’d react post fayz and i quite enjoy that.

finding asylum by onlyifyouwishit

this is probably my favourite gone fic of all time. beware, it is technically drake/diana but the writing is so incredible you can almost ignore it and truly, they almost make you believe it. the main premise is drake attempting to get therapy after the fayz while being in a psych ward and also being forced to confront things about diana when faced w her years after the fayz and it’s an incredibly interesting look into him as a character, and it encases exactly why i like him so much. i don’t enjoy him because of what he does or because he’s a senselessly violent villain, i like him bc he’s so much more than that. there’s multiple facets to his personality and his morality and his motivations than just causing violence for violences sake, and i think this fic portrays him and the way he thinks while under the influence of a mental illness really well. i want to study him under a microscope like a bug

irony’s a bitch by nymphofgreed

most of why i like this one is bc i believe caine got to take the easy way out in the main continuity and i don’t think he should have died, not bc he’s my favourite character, but bc he didn’t deserve such an easy ending. yes, he’d made progress from the beginning of the fayz and he admitted to everything to get everyone else out of legal hassles, but im not sure he truly felt any guilt, any remorse for what he’d done to anyone at any given point and simply knew he’d be incarcerated the second that wall came down. this fic forces him to face things he’d been avoiding. it puts him into the worst possible position he could ever imagine and then he has to attempt to survive it with nobody but himself for assistance and it’s ridiculously compelling. he retains a lot of his character while also doing a lot of self reflection that i feel he simply didn’t do in canon.

words spoken silently by royalty over reality

i really enjoy the switching between the fayz residents and the parents pov and showcasing how it affected the parents of the fayz kids outside the dome knowing their kids were right there and just slightly out of reach and how they coped w it. it’s a much different take from most fics i’ve seen and i find myself coming back to it a lot.

sandcastles by kur8kami117

a very basic fic that, to put it simply, just makes me happy. long before the trials and tribulations of the fayz and the forced maturity the characters must endure, a simple beach day when they’re children is very refreshing and a nice break from all the trauma.

silence by museflight

a take i find really interesting and wonder why nothing like this happened sooner. in which penny gets her revenge on caine much sooner than she does in canon and in a much more permanent way. i know that she was a tad indisposed due to her legs being broken and that’s why her retribution came so late in the series, but it’s still fun to think about.

hypocrisy

this fic is incredibly special to me, as someone who used to identify as ftm and currently identifies as non-binary, i very much enjoy the trans!caine hc almost as much as i love simply making one of the twins a girl. i can’t explain why i love it so much besides maybe just shared lived experiences, but this fic never fails to make me cry.

redo by deadinderry

in which upon his death in fear, howard gets shunted back in time to just before the fayz and has the opportunity to change the outcome w his regained knowledge. i never thought ready anything from howard’s pov would be as interesting as this is but watching him scramble to fix things before everything goes south is both comedic and captivating to read. and hey, as far as i can see, it’s still being written !

[antiv3nom]

Bedman (Romeo)

omg havent had an excuse to talk abt bedman in a hot minute thank u anon...

favorite thing about them:

i love the tragedy of his story arc... that feels like a weird thing to say but its the first thing that came to mind! just. look. the road to hell paved with good intentions bit taken to the extreme really works here!!! the idea that he remembered the name of every person he ever killed because he was under the impression he could bring them all back, only to have the rug pulled from under him? hurts me! in the best way!!!

other than that i do enjoy his design, both romeo himself and the bed :] i wanna give my bedman cosplay another try sometime for sure, it didnt work out for various reasons but i have most of the components and would enjoy cosplaying him fr in the future

least favorite thing about them:

i think i dont really dislike anything about the way bedman is written in the source material strongly enough to point it out here? i think my main gripe is the way the fandom treats him to either extreme, like theres "bedman did nothing wrong ever" people and "bedman is horrific" people and i wish both camps would chill out and recognize hes like. a complex character? but i do think most people do this already which i can appreciate

favorite line:

im a little obsessed w his win line against may in xrd

"I do not understand humans who are motivated by love. A person is born, lives for a number of years, and interacts with up to eight billion people. What proof is there of something they can't even define?"

bc like. buddy. you dont even realize it. YOURE driven by love. all this shit wasnt just for yourself but it was for delilah too!!! fuck!!! you dont even see it as love you see it as necessary because shes that important to you!!! and dont even get me STARTED on the bed in strive and how its still running because of his last minute code additions which almost act as the last part of his will to protect delilah. GAHHHH

brOTP:

BEDMAN AND AXL INTERACTIONS. PLEASE. PLEASE. their dynamic is so interesting as characters with such fascinating ways of interacting with the world...gah. GAH. and no one fucking talks about it!!!

OTP:

sinbed. must i wlabo.

ok but i will, im not as into them as i was like a year ago but i still do really enjoy their dynamic. sin being such a beacon of hope and being so willing to see people as good contrasted with a post-xrd living bedman (bc all my sinbed stuff exists within au but im having fun out here so sue me) seeing himself as inherently evil due to his actions despite his intentions and believing no one would ever care for him? it hits for me

nOTP:

i dont know of anything off the top of my head that ive seen for him??? nothing prevalent at least.

actually on second thought i think ive seen like one instance of bedman and ram in a romantic sense, and that im not a fan of but i guess i could see the appeal, just not my thing

random headcanon:

this motherfucker would have gotten heated in some internet forums or wiki talk pages, DEDICATED to accuracy out here and he WILL fight you about it

unpopular opinion:

not entirely certain i have one? i think the "bedman while flawed is not actually a terrible person and was doing his best given his extremely fucked up circumstances" is a pretty cool take by this point for most people

i think the only thing i have is that my interpretation of bedman has always been as like a young adult rather than a kid but like i dont really have a concrete opinion on that and i totally understand people who do see him as a kid like its entirely understandable to do so

song i associate with them:

other than his character themes, its GOTTA be dramaturgy by eve, which just. it gives the vibes. read the english lyrics it will make sense i prommy

favorite image of them:

THE EEPER...

OTHER than this one its more an animation but his 6p in xrd is so silly i love it so bad...and for a more serious option his instant kill is really cool

[lyss-sketchbox]

if u saw the new trailer whats ur opinion?

im very excited for skirk,,,,

OH BUDDY YOUVE OPENED THE FLOODGATES CUZ IVE BEEN SPAMMING MY FRIEND WITH THEORIES LIKE HFJDJDJDJ I WAS SCREAMING THE ENTIRE TIME

Obvious spoilers for the fontaine archon quest in general for my thoughts and interpretations

Okay FIRST OF ALL NEUVI SENTENCING FURINA TO DEATH.

Okay so refer to what neuvi said at the end of Act 4 where 'all sovereigns are not im full dragonhood and it can only happen IF THEIR ARCHON DISAPPEARS'. I was hoping that Furina would somehow relinquish the gnosis or her godhood to Neuvi to let him be full dragonhood and stop the flood and WELL THIS LINES UP.

1) arlecchino did say furina was not archon like or has something wrong with her, 2) her playable character model HAS A VISION!!!!!!! 3) Iirc but her promo art, the one with the white bg with nation symbols on it, people say that it didnt have the symbols an archon would.

She's DEFINITELY losing her godhood here somehow and man. MAN IM SO EXCITED TO SEE HOW THIS PLAYS OUT

Second of all FURINA or should i say the HYDRO ARCHON as a whole

She sounded MAD when she stated she wanted to use her own trial to show the world the true meaning of justice. This leads me to believe that focalors DOES have some sort of multiple sides/personalities to her. Especially with her announcing HER OWN TRIAL through the 3rd person.

And well one of these sides is either Egeria's manifestation or furinas actual 'TRUE lady justice' side. A bit of a stretch but one of the official art in the livestream is multiple depictions of furina so it can be a lil nudge ya know.

NEUVILLETTE!!!! NEUVI NEUVI NEUVI!!!

MAN ID KILL TO SEE THIS MAN IN ACTION FULLY ANIMATED, LET HIM BE FULL DRAGON AND KICK ASS!!!!! IM BEGGING YOU HOYOVERSE LET HIM BE MORE AWESOME!!!!

Okay this man definitely was acquainted to Egeria in some way and this extends to Furina as well (BECAUSE HE LOOKS SO SAD LIKE WHAT HAPPENED TO CRACK THIS MANS FACADE). I like to believe that Egeria and Neuvi might have a sort of Mentor/mentee/passing of the torch relationship. Because in so far everytime we hear Egeria, she talks to neuvi as if to hope that he will learn to understand humanity or learn his purpose or find SOMETHING (i forgot exactly what she says). But yeah he clearly holds her to high regard and that sentiment might extend to furina either because Egeria entrusted Neuvi with Furina, his loyalty to Egeria and Fontaine, or Furina just reminded him of Egeria and regardless of the trial still didn't want harm to come to his archon.

Okay a step back, we know that neuvi has holes about his past when he came to the world as the sovereign successor. And his line (i think its his idk) 'i seem to remember now... this trial is...' could be a call back of something Egeria told him from the past.

I firmly believe that this prophecy was actually a trial for NEUVILLETTE and not FURINA. It could be a final trial for him and his understanding of his position as chief justice and humanity. WHICH would tie into Egeria's line

and neuvi's line

Finally the GNOSIS

Okay the most obvious place is in the Oratrice. I feel like because Egeria isn't truly dead (from the who Amrita thing), it's possible that she lives in the Oratrice where she guides Neuvi and Furina. That's why it seems like it has its own conciousness and agenda. It's why it falsely accused Childe (and presumably Furina too). It might be why neuvi i think says this.

Anyways theres NO WAY the gnosis is staying in the oratrice lmao. There's bound to be a power transfer, the oratrice might be dead or dismantled because of its previous 'wrong' accusation for childe. And well im very much hoping it goes to Neuvi where he'll finally have his own meaning of Justice and no longer needs the assistance of the Oratrice to make judgements

I dont have much to say about Skirk, im most certainly looking forward to skirk childe interaction. Im guessing shes there at the abyss side either for the Narssizkruenz (fack spelling) ordo relation or well.. the gnosis. Im taking a random guess that she and the abyss might take away the gnosis to prevent celestia from descending early because fontaine is giving back the power they stole from a sovereign back to him.

ANYWAYS IM HYPED IM SO INSANE WAAAAAAAAAA

[basofy]

Can you further explain the idea of garth being an emotions guy? I find all the different ways you look at him to be very interesting and would love to hear that interpretation of his character!

ill try to somehow organize my thoughts rn because im not entirely conscious rn but i think i got it first and foremost from the fact that most of his moveset is about causing reactions on other people, most notably negative emotions which get worse the more he levels up. it's also interesting to me that his agreeable drawing can cure such harsh status effects as scared or depressed i used to envision him as someon who was empathetic but not kind (since those ar different) i think uhhh i think it might be important to him as an artist to get appreciation but also for his art to mean something, ive been wondering for years what the actual quality of garths art might be and a thought that occured to me was that he basically weaponizes how disliked he Is lol . whwther his art is Shit or if the stuff hes into is just not everybodys thing i think he couldve grabbed this and used it agaisnt other people. it could also have to do with whatever controlling thing he has going on, being fascinated by human beings' emotions and wanting to get a hold on them? Strange artist anctics? hoewever that's spelled. art and the need for connection etc etc. a moot said something days ago about how he couldve be compensating Sort of for relapsing; i tend to think he is actually not as in control of himself as he could be and this shows to me at the end of the game where his actions in battle contradict his dialogue like seconds ago a little which shows that he's literally just some guy whos horrible not a god like entity of sorts for having a hold on what people feel. i wonder if his joy addiction could play a part on this too? since i believe joy maximizes feelings a person already has and garth as this guy trying to gain benefit from his art during the current events somehow decides the whole situation is made for him to do as he will but he just falls on the same traps he sets for other people. i see him as a guy that's very desensitized to the problems around him basically focusing too much on shit that does not even matter. hes very interesting to me!!!!! he's an asshole!!!!!!!

on the topic of garth being controlling i wonder if it's like the result of just being inconsiderate/ creepy to others or if viceversa it's a side effect of his artistic vision being too importabt to him and him prioritizing it over everything it could be either! it could be the result of him being a weird pervert but ive also seen people say he might not even be a pervert and he likes to fuck with people! idk! (Disclaimer: intention does not erase the harm caused!)

another fun thought ive had of this is how well this works on behalf of how his character works in regards to the players because whether someone feels positively or negatively towards him it tends to be expressed really loudly and it's like LOL because i think that's precisely what he wants he just wants to make u feel something anything the only way to beat him is to not gaf i guess….

another side thought i had which is literally just me Making shit up and that some friends agreed with me in is that garth severely lacked attention in his infant years LOL and you know how that goes

i really really like the choice to add that "Garth doesn't want to do this…" text at the end bc it really does not solve anything and such a sudden change of heart does not really matter to anyone other than himself and Maybe the player it's just there to show u this guy is just another human being who thought too high of himself it's cool i love when the horrible companions start tweaking at the end it's tragically funny.

so the whole emotions thing could be him being a snobby artist who wants to leave a mark of sorts or he could be being weird about it or he could be trying to evade how vulnerable he actually is as much as everybody else or all of these alltogether i dont know. sorry im typi g while drunk i i hope this makes sense

[persimminwrites]

HELLO HELLO you are right the venn diagram of arcane enjoyer and alnst fan is a circle

anyway. how we feeling after round 7(it was over a month ago but i am still reeling)

OMG HELLLOOOOO HIIIIII

i am feeling so very many emotions oh my gOD i just learned about alnst yesterday and now it has truly taken over my entire brain like AHHHHH I've already rewatched all of the videos 4 times ajsjsjs!!!! and round 7..... round 7 i -

i will put the rest of my thoughts below since it's a lot !!!!!!

im just going to make a list lmaoooo

TILLLLL AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH NOOOOOOOOOO TILLLLLLL AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH <- really no words can describe my agony rn. the way that he died in mizi's lap smiling and the cut between him looking down at a smiling mizi to him looking up at a crying mizi HOW FUCKIN DARE U VIVINOS !!!!!!!

ive only read back ~7 months of community posts on vivinos channel so i feel like im still learning about the lore of the show but from what ive gathered luka has already won alien stage once. so do contestants just compete infinitely? or could a winner "retire"? im so curious about why he re-entered unless he had no other choice

speaking of luka, on the edge of my seat about him facing hyuna at the end and them just staring at each other. again i don't know if i have the entire timeline straight in my head but i know the accident with hyuna's brother happened while she was still in the garden with luka. did she leave immediately after? is this really the first time they're seeing each other since. i wonder how much of luka's actions are just motivated by pure survival or if he's trying to find a way to see hyuna again? his face was so devoid of expression in his shock seeing her which i think is so interesting since most of the time he's on screen he has some emotion "pasted on" for show so i thought it was so impactful when his expression was "blank" when he was probably faced with a tidal wave of emotions at seeing her again

hyuna and mizi.... my queens.... what is to become of you...... WHY ARE YOU SPECIAL GUESTS

also the heist? operation? what info were they getting? maybe contestant locations? a database of the human "pets" locations??? what was the point. and why did it need to happen during the final round. also why did hyuna try to stop mizi from leaving initially? is it because she was hurt I HAVE SO MANY QUESTIONS

ivan..... seeing you as a twisted memory in luka's face..... AAWHHHHHHHHGGHHHHHHHGGHH stab me in the fucking heart :'((((((

also my personal theory is that the huge screens with ivan on them weren't literally there but more a representation of how ivan's actions and his presence are looming over till. till was still reeling from what happened with mizi in round 6 (which btw most devastating thing that has ever happened to me is watching that video wtf) and then ivan who has been a constant by his side and someone whose actions seem to be endlessly confusing and incomprehensible to till (that's based on my interpretation of what ive seen and read) goes and does THAT in this essay i will -

in conclusion i am in pain and i am nowhere near gathering all of my thoughts on this. i am diving headfirst into fics for comfort and i have a need, an itch, to write something from ivan's perspective from the beginning through round 6 I'm really obsessed with him and his dynamic with sua, mizi and till LIKE AAHHHHHHHHHH

now i get to join everyone in the torment of waiting for what comes next and im so so SO very excited to see what's going to happen !!!!!!!

[twistedstoryteller]

What are your genre, tone, and topic preferences in fics? Which Link or relationships between Links do you like? Favorite ships for the Links and their partners? Preferences on the angst-to-fluff scale? Epics Tales vs One-Shots? AUs? Character driven vs plot-driven?

I can make better recommendations from there. Or I can just drop a list tomorrow (Ive been meaning to make one anyway).

First of all, oh my god that was fast and wow. I actually never genuinely thought too much on those kind of questions. Though I guess if I can sum it up

it’s kinda free lance, so nothing too specific I honestly have no preference between the epic stories and one shots. That and seeing the character and plot one could both technically quite the forte for me. I do prefer to at least see a happy ish ending for them(No unhappy endings, I avoid those. Plus no explicit ones either please. I very much definitely avoid those). Relationship between the Links, I enjoy them all. I do especially enjoy the brother bonds between them all, I’m quite chill(I’ve been getting to know what’s in the fandom as best I can ever since I jumped into this rabbit hole :]). I love to give them a hug if possible too, AUs seem cool cool, however I like to see them mostly focus on the time era of well the Chain are in aka no modern AUs in the list this time(Hey I don’t hate them, I mean I got one already forming at the back of my head at the moment, it’s just not what I’m looking for right now, though I don’t mind a separate list for that later), maybe Minish Four or Legend and Fable being siblings. Favorite ships plus the angst and fluff scale, on the other hand

Where do I even begin! Oh man, for starters and the easiest I can get out of the way. Ships, ahem. Time x Malon, that is obviously. Sky x Sun and Legend x Marin is there too(of course I can chill with Legend x Ravio but I prefer Legend x Marin). I really like Wild x Mipha a lot. Warriors x Artemis too(doesn’t have to be a requirement), Hyrule x Zelda(been bouncing between Aurora and Dawn cause well, different interpretations of them) as well(also not a requirement). But the ones I definitely want to say is not only Wind x Tetra but also Four x Dot!(I’m still sad there isn’t too much content around that :{) I love these two ships very much, especially with me thinking how wholesome these ships can be(well Four and Dot can, Wind and Tetra might be more, behind well. Pirates 🏴‍☠️ and how they are in general. They are more of an action couple. Wholesome can still squeeze in there just not as much as I can imagine for Four X Dot). I believe the next one is the scale of angst and fluff and I got to say I love everything in that scale. From the fluffiest of fluff with happy hugs and cuddling, to the deepest of deep angst where they are all suffering and crying. I love it, Hurt and Comfort that has both. Is even better cause it can have both the fluffiest of fluff and the angsty of angst. There’s literally so much you can do there. Like

a certain palace of the four sword that can be between Four and Legend for example! Gosh there literally so much I want to see and more. I really hope this isn’t too hard on you

🥺

However I’ll be really grateful regardless

🥹

🙏

[hannahbarberra162]

thank you so much for responding to me twice now!! im sorry im sending these in so frequently, I dont know how tumblr works but i hope that, even if you dont post a reply to this, (which btw you NEVER have to, please dont feel obligated), i honestly only want you to read the ask. (even then its okay if you dont lol), im a bit overenthusiastic about your work, if you couldn't tell haha 😓 (not that it doesn't deserve all the enthusiasm in the world!!- I just know I can ramble when something excites me.)  I'll try to space out my asks more as to not overwhelm you or anything. i  honesty would love to read whatever you have to offer, even if it's just posting little snippets. I feel bad requesting stuff, though, from what I've read you're probably a busy college student with enough on your plate! still, without making any specific requests, whatever you have to offer, ill eat up like it's my last meal!! id love to see your works on other chatacters! i honestly didn't even really care heavily for mihawk or shanks but you know damn well i ate up your works on them! and like i said, i dont even really know Marco besides your interpretation, (which are canon in my mind haha) and literally had to look up who thatch was. yet i STILL have enjoyed your writings with them to the point ive been up late wondering what happens next. whatever you write, ill enjoy! you just have such incredibly intriguing stories, i honestly have never been so hooked before. thank you so much for writing! i guessed that either Marco or Ace was your favorite, so im glad i was close with Ace! i had the same sort of question as i did with Marco, but I didn't wanna ask both in one message. kinda a 'why him', sorta thing, not that i dont get this one completely- ive seen him in action and i love ace too! But i wanna hear why YOU love him, how YOU see him, same as what i asked for Marco. you don't have to answer if you dont want to! i know ive already typed a lot, so ill cut myself off here!! thank you my goat!! 🐐 and thank you for my appreciation of the WBP!!

(I've also really enjoyed your jinbe work so far!! he's one of my favorites🌊)

@celine-zzz Don't be sorry!!! This made my day, my week, my month! I lose confidence a lot and reading things like this make me think it's worth it. Thank you so so so much for your praise!!!! I actually screenshot nice asks like these and reread them haha. Ask whatever you want!! I like interacting with other people!!! Talk to me all you want!!!

I don't mind getting requests, I just don't ask for them bc I don't know that I can fulfill what people want. But I'm always happy to try! Heat Transfer is actually based off a Nonnie ask and I spiraled from there.

And, ah, I'm quite a few years past my college days 🫠🫠🫠 I'm not sure if that's better or worse, but time comes for us all.

In truth I started writing characters I felt I had a better handle on. I find Ace to be the most relatable. I think he's the most like someone you could potentially meet, maybe other than Law. Someone who is confident and self loathing and insecure and smart and dumb and self assured and all of that wrapped in a cute bundle with freckles. I also find Ace easy to write because I do feel that I've met people like him in real life, so I think of the dumb shit they would do lol. He reminds me a lot of a few of my friends, maybe that's why I feel protective over him.

That isn't a very good answer, but in summary he's my bby and I want the best for him <3.

Jinbe is who I'd actually want to ship myself with (see self indulgent fic) and I'd most want to be friends with and spend the day with Usopp.