#This is a basic design of what he looks like in the show!

[thewistlingbadger]

Yeah the comparison to the queer community was extremely helpful. Since I'm a POC, I personally use an analogy under that light. Vi reminds me of a person of color who tries to assimilate into white society whatever means necessary just so they themselves can feel validated by white people (this never ends up working in their favor. They always end up chasing validation that they're really never getting). She also gives me "I only date white people, they make me closer to whiteness" vibes, as well as "I'm not (insert ethnicity), I'm (insert nationality)."

Like babe just be true to who you are. Let go of all the nastiness you've learned and come back to who you truly are. It's not a good look, you look stupid, and you're annoying everyone around you INCLUDING those are trying to impress.

And man the more I think about this the more realizations I make. Silco was right about what he said about vi. "Everyone betrays us: Vander, HER- they will never understand. It's only us." Yes he was saying it just to diss her but he also recognized the truth in it. Which is so astounding because he's only been with Vi for a few moments throughout the whole show, and he's already been able to read her like an open book and predict her future actions.

Even though she never actually did betray Jinx he knows she's going to betray her in the future because her and Jinx have DRASTICALLY different viewpoints of zaun and what it means to be a Zaunite. Vi has the inferiority complex that she got from the bridge and never let go off. Jinx was raised by a radical politician/business man who ALWAYS emphasized the importance of what he was fighting for and the rights zaun. This is something that's been so embedded into Jinx even though she herself does not actually care about design or the plight to freedom.

Jinx and Silco are truly the only people who understand the nature of zaun. They've both lived it they both embody it and it's been taught to jinx since an early age/something silco learned as a child. Silco and jinx are both the two biggest characters that actually accept change in the show, where most of the other characters reject it (vi being a big offender of this.

To me piltover is representative of control and zaun is representative of chaos. Change is nature and nature is chaos with balance (most of the time). Jinx is very chaotic where Vi is mostly very controlled.

ALSO, separate thought: if we're comparing vi to Viktor and we look over at Jayce and Caitlyn, I'd argue they're very different. They both have prejudice just by being pilties but the difference is that Caitlyn feeds into Vi's insecurities and her inferiority complex. Her and vi are basically shaking hands when it comes to being prejudiced against zaun. Not so much with jayce and Viktor. Both of them uplift each other. To Jayce, Viktor's achievements are extraordinary due to the nature of the achievements, NOT because of the nature of who those achievements were made by. This can be very encouraging and damaging at the same time, because we see that because Jayce doesn't really recognize Viktor as being a Zaunite, it ends up warping his view and it leads to tension in their relationship. I also think it's important to recognize that Jayce tries to learn from his mistakes. He apologizes to Viktor, he tries to broker peace between zaun and piltover, we see him working with Ekko, trying to solve a problem that negatively impacts zaun that he himself started. Overall their relationship is very positive where the girls' relationship is very negative because they're both feeding into each other's negativity. Caitlyn never really apologizes for her prejudice and Vi never really makes her.

Both Caitlyn and Jayce don't really see their partner's nationality. The difference is that Caitlyn sees Vi as an exception, she knows shes a Zaunite but she's "one of the good ones" and Jayce just does not care that Viktor is from zaun (this can be seen as both positive and Negative).

The second the illusion shatters of Vi not being like every other Zaunite, Caitlyn tosses her aside like she was nothing. Jayce doesn't see Viktor as an exception, I think he deadass just forgets that he's from zaun (and can we blame him Viktor has been living in piltover for years and dressing and acting like a piltie for years. It's assumed that him going to visit singed is the first time he went back in a long time, perhaps even since he left. Vi makes it very clear that she's undercity, it is her identity ((that complex again)). Viktor being undercity is only PART of his identity, it is not entirely who he is. Another reason why he doesn't really present himself as undercity is because he's assumedly spent more time in piltover than he has his home.)

This has been spinning around in my head since I watched season 2 arc 1, and I can't refrain from putting it down to post anymore.

In season 1, Jayce and Viktor get into a fight when Viktor evades the blockade to go speak to Singed in Zaun. During their fight, Jayce snaps at Viktor that he didn't know that Viktor's friend was from the undercity, and when Viktor asks why that matters, Jayce says the above: [people from the undercity] are dangerous (earlier he had also said, "there are people down there who seem hell-bent on destroying us!"). That's when Viktor grows cold, reminding Jayce that he is from the undercity, and even after Jayce apologizes, Viktor knocks his hand away, choosing to stand up on his own.

In season 2, chembarons hired by Ambessa (though no one knows that at the time) attack the memorial for the dead council members. In the aftermath, Caitlyn calls them animals. Notably, Vi shows no reaction at all to this; she doesn't so much as flinch at Caitlyn's word choice. Instead, while she does downplay what happened to an extent ("they wanted the spectacle, they're trying to scare you"), what's notable is that she separates herself from the people of Zaun. This is especially notable when she tells Caitlyn to call off the invasion, because of the risk it poses for those not from Zaun:

"Down there, you'll be on their terms."

Viktor seems to have pride in the fact that he is from Zaun. He has love for his home. As difficult as life was there, as much as the pollution led to his illness and disability, he has no shame that he's from Zaun and he still sees value and has love for the people there. This is why, when Jayce writes the Zaunites off as "dangerous", Viktor grows cold. He is no different from them, in his mind; if they're dangerous, then so is he.

Vi is . . . different.

In season 1 arc 1, Vi expresses to Vander that she has bought into and believes that those in Piltover are more than those in Zaun:

Now, here, Vi is still grouping herself in with the rest of Zaun. But there is a level of self-hatred (and hatred for one's home) that we don't see in Viktor. Viktor doesn't see himself as lesser than those in Piltover. He doesn't see the Zaunites as lesser than those in Piltover. Vi, however, does. She states this as if it is a fact. And while she loved her family, and has parts of Zaun that she likes (e.g. Jericho's food), it's worth noting that at the end of season 1 episode 1, she isn't telling Powder that they'll liberate Zaun, or fight for Zaun, or anything like that. Instead?

"This city's gonna respect us." This city. Not our city. Here is the first moment we see in which Vi puts some separation between herself and the rest of Zaun. She wants to make them respect her (and Powder). Even if she's less than those in Piltover, she still sees an opportunity for herself to be above those in Zaun.

All of this is to say that, when she has no reaction to Caitlyn calling Zaunites "animals", when she refers to them as "they," when she refers to Zaun as "their terms" . . . ultimately, it isn't too surprising. Vi represents a type of person who does exist in marginalized groups: the self-hating type, who hate others in their group for "drawing aggression" or "negative attention."

Think about queer people, for instance, who hate those who are flamboyant or open about who they are and who they love. The ones who think, "If we just assimilate more, be less of a bother, be less obnoxious, then the queerphobes will accept us." Obviously, other queer people find this type of person extremely frustrating, sometimes even infuriating, because we know that it doesn't matter what we do or how we act; bigots will never accept us.

But what we should understand, and extend compassion for, is that self-hating marginalized people are that way because it's a defense mechanism -- a survival mechanism, really. They can't square why bigots hate them, so they reach for any kind of explanation they can find, even if that explanation ultimately blames others in their own group and does more harm than good. Not to mention that hating yourself for who you are is often a result of long-term, systemic abuse -- the exact same kind of abuse that comes from living under an oppressive regime that murdered your parents and will assault you at any given opportunity, even for something as petty as your little sister miming shooting them with finger guns.

Vi says that she, "grew up knowing [she] was less than them." This is extraordinarily damaging to the psyche, and Vi's self-hatred -- and the extension of that hatred toward Zaun, not wanting to save them but wanting to make them respect her -- is a trauma response to that. One that Viktor, obviously, doesn't share (and neither does Ekko, or Jinx) -- but everyone reacts to trauma differently.

The point is, we saw shades of this already in Vi's childhood; her statement that she's less than topsiders, but that she wants those in the undercity to respect her. So when Caitlyn calls the Zaunites animals, Vi doesn't flinch. She agrees. And she speaks of them as separate from her, because Caitlyn has already designated her as one of the good ones (reinforced to her by what Maddie told her Caitlyn said right before the memorial), and because, well, those who attacked the memorial did do something horrible. And maybe if they wouldn't do that, and maybe if Jinx hadn't blown up the council building -- maybe if they were better behaved -- then the enforcers wouldn't have to invade and do what they were about to do, now would they? Those in Zaun -- or at least those in Zaun who decided to strike against Piltover -- brought it on themselves, so Vi isn't with them. She's with Caitlyn, and is okay with referring to them as animals.

It's interesting to think about.

[zoomzooml]

Redesign concepts of Webmaster and Feathers

After a year

WEBMASTER

My biggest problem with the Webmaster design is how cluttered it seems; there's just a lot going on here. So I tried to calm it down a bit; I took away one pair of legs to make him less cluttered but keep (more or less) original body lenght. And I know that in his episode Jun says “if something has eight legs, she doesn't like it,” refering to spiders, but I think eight limbs works too.

I also played around a bit with his colors and markings. As well as body structure and proportions, noting this dragon's show-off skill - spinning webs.

When he puffs up his “cheeks” just before he spits, you can hear a sticky, mushy sound - you know that something is going on inside. The muscles are moving and pushing something with a sticky, gluey consistency. I would like it to be somewhat repulsive.

When he spits silk in attack it does not come out as big ball of burning web. It's more like net in "V" shape, in form of many separate threads of silk shooted at the same time. Similar to actual spiders, but on the bigger scale. His webs also don't burn; I feel like it's an overkill.

I changed the arrangement of his forelegs slightly. I know it's not quite in line with the style of HTTYD (see Speed Spingers' front limbs) but in his case I think arranging his hands in a similar way to therizinosaurus gives him a more menacing look.

Deadly Spinners are dragons that give a very unpleasant first impression. They are not the most beautiful dragons around (at least not by the standard) and their behavior can be repulsive to some. The type of dragon that people are willing to pin an unfriendly, sometimes unfair patch on more easily than on other dragons - as many people do with spiders or snakes and other similiar animals.

Deadly Spinners don't live in large groups - either small groups or solo. But when they are in a group they have very close bonds and spend a lot of time socializing among themselves.

FEATHERS

She is a challenge to me, not gonna lie. She definitely is the most changed among my redesigns so far. She just seems very basic to me.

The most bothering thing to me about her are those "feathers". Because, Alex in s1ep3 calls these "feathers", as well as Olivia in s5ep2, wiki calls these "feathers-like scales", but they can move and are thick what implies they are more like Furies'/Night Light's head numbs? I absolutely can pass the crowns as feathers, but Queen's horns and holes in her meaty tail were here the last straw to not to

And yes, I made a shitty video because I'm really confused and wanted that confusion express lmao. I hope Tumblr won't take it down.

So idk, I wanted to clarify what the frick those things are and go from there. I had two main ideas - either give her actual feathers or quills similiar to those of Bewilderbeast. When drawning I wasn't sure about either idea but finally decided for the latter one. Feels more HTTYD-like I think? And very flammable feathers don't seem like the best survival choice when almost every other animal around can spit fire.

I reimagine Featherhides as way more nervous and skittish dragons. Changewings were mysterious but usually seemed calm and strategical. Featherhides' nature is more in type of "flee" than "fight" (tho they can get so smoke when needed, they are not defensless or smth). They are very easy to spook and sometimes will flee in panic from something very trival just to return seconds later when they realise there was no danger at all, or are curious of whatever scared them. They often make rapid little movements, much like birds - especially if something catches their eye and they are not sure what it is.

Featherhides also live in large flocks without a complex hierarchy. If they can - they run, if any of them can't - at least some of them also stay behind.

Once Feathers bonds with Alex she would be very protective of her little human.

When Featherhides mimic sounds they do not do weird things with their faces like in the show. It looks much more like like some birds do that. But that's just a sidenote.

[lightningarmour]

Absolute comics first thoughts

For the first time since the end of DOOMSDAY CLOCK I've been persuaded into paying money for a DC comic, and two, no less.

I've been 100% checked out of the DC sphere for about 5 years, only occasionally seeing some news here or there about the latest crossover event or fave character or what have you, and I regard those with the passing interest one might have in seeing a hot air balloon. Nothing has drawn me back partly because I'm old now and don't have the time or inclination to try catching up on years of crossover event, status quo altering storylines and yadda yadda.

I had heard about the new ABSOLUTE line of titles, but from the initial teasers and previews, not the least of which was the character design for Absolute Batman with his giant stupid fat bat symbol, I just wrote it off as them doing yet more edgy elseworlds stories, and thought no more on it until maybe three weeks ago. I saw a little roundup of details about Absolute Superman from an interview with Jason Aaron and it caught my attention.

I've gone on at length in the past about how I think that any earnest attempt at writing Superman for modern audiences that keeps true to the "idea" of Superman without making a cynical edgelord version of the character would need to depict Superman as a politically engaged, class conscious individual at least, and a full on Leninist at best. Now obviously I do not expect DC comics to publish a comic about communist superman without it being a laughable piece of propaganda like RED SON, but nonetheless, hearing that Absolute Superman is about a superman who is fighting a mining corporation to protect a community of abused labourers, and re-imagining Krypton as a caste-based society that was destroyed by reckless exploitation of the environment, I was certainly interested.

I resolved to check it out at least. I'd seen some of the details about Absolute Batman, that he's not a billionaire and whatever and still wasn't too interested, but realized I'd heard basically nothing about Absolute Wonder Woman. "She didn't grow up on Themyscira" okay what does that mean?

At this point both Batman and Wonder Woman were out so I looked it up and found some pages from Absolute Wonder Woman #1 and was pretty much instantly hooked because the art was tremendous, and Wonder Woman is flying on a skeleton pegasus with a huge Guts sword and like, that just fucking rocks ass, come on. So I was now sold on two Absolute series, I decided eh, what the hell I'll check out Absolute Batman #1, maybe I could be convinced.

So now that I've read all three first issues of the new ABSOLUTE Universe, I have some thoughts.

ABSOLUTE BATMAN #1 is a confused mess. I think that Batman, being easily the most popular DC character, with the broadest demographic appeal, has too much baggage. You'd kind of think that with a character like this where everyone knows his whole basic backstory, you could gloss over the details a bit more, but this issue is so concerned with establishing and referencing as many iconic Batman characters as possible, it's so bloated.

in this one(1) issue they set up or directly show you: Alfred Pennyworth, Jim Gordon, Barbara Gordon, Harvey Bullock, Killer Croc, Penguin, Riddler, Cat Woman, Two-Face, Black Mask, Ras Al Ghul, and of course we cannot go even one single issue without giving you The Joinker. It's too much. Ease off. We're not going to encounter probably two thirds of these people for ages. And, frankly establishing that half of Batman's presumptive rogue's gallery just so happened to be Bruce Wayne's childhood friends is dumb as shit. The dynamic between all of them is going to follow the exact same "gasp, could it be that my old friend is now a criminal?!" dynamic like 5 times in a row.

This is easily the most edgy of the current Absolute series and is basically exactly what I assumed the whole imprint was going to be, but it really feels in places like Scott Snyder wanted this to be a Batman that was darker and more violent but then DC editorial was like "no, Batman can't kill people" so he adjusted the script as little as possible to reassure the audience that he's rolling non-lethal damage as he stabs the shit out of people with his ear-knives and chops their hands off.

Despite all the parts I don't like about how they portray Batman, the thing that pisses me off is I really like the way they are doing Bruce Wayne.

Typically Bruce Wayne, the billionaire is kind of a hard character for me to like because of how much he serves this kind of great man power fantasy(yes, I know, superhero comics are inherently fascist) He has a vendetta against the concept of crime because his parents were killed by a criminal, so he takes it upon himself to "protect" Gotham, but in many depictions of Batman it's kind of like, what exactly is his connection to the city other than he lives there and presumably is the HQ of Wayne Enterprises. he views it the way a rich person would, dirty and too full of undesirable people who must be punished so that he, a wealthy socialite can enjoy the place without having to see the underclasses.

Making Bruce a working class urbanist is such a more interesting way of exploring the character. He loves the city because he grew up in it's streets, played in it's parks, attended it's schools, rode it's busses. Adding the layer on that that he became a civil engineer and worked with the municipal government does for the first time I've ever seen something interesting with Gotham by kind of interrogating the notion of what makes a city what it is. Is it the infrastructure, the people, the civil servants? It's the most interesting Bruce Wayne has ever been.

But then as Batman he's just fucking mutilating people and blowing them up with bombs and whatever. Yawn. I think that the Batman aspect also annoys me because it so blatantly disregards the central premise of the Absolute line. What if Batman wasn't a billionaire? Well then he wouldn't have access to tons of money and resources to do his Batman shit! So they like, half-ass that by giving him the kind of stripped-down arsenal. No gadgets and gizmos, just knives and a hunk of bat shaped metal used as a battle axe. But then oh yeah he also has some kind of miracle fabric that he can use as like tendrils or whatever and it's completely bullet-proof and so on and so forth. Like, Batman really really does not feel in any meaningful way like he is working at a disadvantage in this version of the story, and that just makes the whole thing so damn boring.

ABSOLUTE WONDER WOMAN #1 fucking kicks ass. This was by kind of a wide margin the best issue of the three series debut issues. I think that unlike Batman and Superman who both have quite a lot of baggage tied into their backstories and supporting cast and so forth, Wonder Woman has never quite achieved the level of iconography as they have so there's almost more freedom to do something new without hitting a bunch of prescribed plot points. In fact she might be the one of the trinity who has had the most attempts to re-imagine her and spruce her up to get people interested. I recall back in 2010 they did a big shake up that was not too dissimilar to this new take on the character. What if she never grew up on Themyscira? What if she didn't have the favour of the gods, etc. And I really liked that one, so I guess it's no surprise I'd be fond of this new version as well.

I think the number one thing that hooked me on this issue is the artwork, tbh. It's my favourite style so far of the Absolute comics, and everything just looks so cool and big and epic and awesome. That's it. It's just cool as hell.

The next most important thing is it has much better pacing than the other issues. You get a very simple, very effective set-up. The Amazons have been punished by the gods so this baby is being raised in hell by a witch. That's it. Good, effective time lapse of her growing up interspersed within the action scenes of her fighting monsters. It's simple and to the point but still leaves me invested int he mystery and wanting to know more. And again, it did not feel the need to shoe-horn a bunch of characters in so you can do the soyjack point at the issue. They could have easily shoved Steve Trevor in there as one of the soldiers responding to the freaky monster pyramid but that would have just been lame. It's confident enough in itself to not have to try and get you with low hanging fruit.

I don't really have much else to say, it's just cool and good and I'm unequivocally excited for more.

ABSOLUTE SUPERMAN #1 is a solid start. Now I'll admit I'm way more of a Superman-head than I am for Batman or Wonder Woman. This was the series that made me interested in the Absolute experiment in the first place, so I'm probably way more willing to be lenient towards a Superman title than say Batman.

That being said, this one also has like Batman, aspects I really like, and others I'm a bit iffy on, though not in as wide a gulf as Absolute Batman. As I said before, I've spent probably too much time trying to think of how to reinvent Superman in a modern context and, specifically, from a politically left-wing perspective, and I'll say that so far I think they're doing a decent job.

It's obviously nothing new to look at Superman as an immigrant story. Going all the way back to Siegel & Shuster, who were children of Jewish immigrants, the whole idea was what if this guy came from somewhere else. I think that the way that Jason Aaron has interpreted that concept for a modern context is actually quite brilliant. It's almost less of what if Superman was an immigrant than what if Superman was a refugee? Rather than unable to return to his homeland, but finding a new home with loving foster parents we are given the suggestion that he's never had a stable home since arriving on Earth. Moving from one place to another, nowhere to go home to, hiding among the economically exploited peoples of the global south.

It's such a riveting set up, I'm really excited to see how this version of the Character is informed by his history.

I also like the use of Krypton as kind of a heavy-handed double metaphor for stratified class society and the dangers of climate change. Like, it is presumably already dead and gone and unable to like, textually affect the story so who cares if it's allegorical nature is too on the nose. I also really like the notion of Kal El having like, living memory of Krypton, rather than only knowing about it from recordings on an alien flash drive or whatever.

I think the use of this "Lazarus" corporation as a kind of stand-in blanket evil corporation that does every kind of exploitative, extractive, broadly seen as morally wrong kinds of industries a bit hokey but hey it's a comic. I love the use of the Peacemakers as the like, corporate PMC security force though, that's fun. I am pretty curious if Lazarus is going to be a kind of fake-out Lexcorp. Like Luthor is the head of it but they called it by a different name so as not to ruin the surprise of his introduction. That or maybe it's related to Ras Al Ghul? Who knows, but I'm interested in what their whole deal is. They not only operate diamond mines and factory farms but also like, hunt down alien technology to reverse engineer?? And employ a Brainiac. curious as to what the deal is with the screaming jars. Does being shrunk down just like, really hurt? Seems like almost going overboard with the concept. Like not only does he shrink down cities and put them in jars but he also tortures the shrunken people? Like why, what's he getting out of it?

Some of the iffy parts for me include the suit AI thing he's got because I'm frankly sick of that trope by now. Ever since Iron man it's like every fucking character in comics has to have some kind of tech suit with a quirky robot voice. I'm willing to give it a chance on the grounds that it's like alien technology so sure whatever. I kind of like that he has to fucking charge the suit with a solar panel. I am curious about what exactly the breakdown is with the suit. He uses his x-ray and laser eyes so presumably it's still Kal himself who has super powers and they're not like, imbued by the suit. The suit seems like it is regulating his powers in some way. Like without it he couldn't control them and would cause havoc, but the fact that he has to like charge the suit's battery is kind of funny. Like, is the suit solar powered and his powers are just inherent no matter what, or does he still derive his power from sunlight as well? Fuzzy on the rules.

I also don't like the Lois reveal. It's just dull. Who care. The little teaser of Kent Farm is interesting to me. Feels like several different ways they could pivot:

Kal El's rocket lands and blows a hole in their barn, they find him and are frightened of him so they call the authorities/Lazarus and Kal flees.

Similar to above but they care for him like usual before Lazarus shows up looking for the alien craft and kill the Kents to remove any witnesses

Altogether it does enough things I'm interested in to keep me going with it despite the few quibbles I have. So far it's 2/3 on the Absolute universe and with the "phase 2" or whatever announced I'm 100% guaranteed also picking up Absolute Flash because it's my boy Wally and Jeff Lemire writing, like come the fuck on, how could I resist that.

[explodingchantry]

A review of Veilguard from a long time, die hard fan of Dragon Age

When the review embargo on Veilgurd was lifted, I found it hard to take any review at face value. Dragon Age is unfortunately the one series I am very pretentious about, and I can’t trust reviews from people who aren’t huge Dragon Age fans like I am and who don’t hold the same views as me -- those views being, to keep it short, that Anders was right and justified, that he is one of the most tragic characters in the entire series, that he is a hero, that Bioware’s writing can be shockingly biased at times in the wrong ways, and that Inquisition is really not that good at all. These opinions have a lot of weight in whether I will listen to someone about Dragon Age matters. And I haven’t see a proper review from someone like this -- though granted as soon as the game came out I locked down and refused to look at anything in fear of spoilers lol. 

This review will be spoilers free, and there will be an addition at some point with all the spoilers and what I think about specific story details, because I have so much to say. 

The TL;DR? It’s a good game. If you like Dragon Age like I do, you’ll like it. If you open your heart to it, you’ll love it. It was made with love. 

This will be divided in section based on people’s biggest worries about the game and how much I have to say about each of them.

The art direction

Honestly I was a defender of the art style as soon as the trailers started coming out and my opinion has not changed lol. Dragon Age was never exactly known for its graphics - Origins and DA2 look… okay. And Inquisition was fine for its time but has aged like the most rotten milk you could find. Its environments are still pretty, but its characters, man… I’m sorry, it just hasn’t aged well. Frostbite engine did not help Bioware in this case. They’ve spoken about how it was a new engine for them and how they struggled with it and it shows. 

This game? Oh boy, yeah, no, I can believe they got a handle of Frostbite now. It is breathtaking. The environments are crafted so meticulously and with so much love, the lighting is beautiful and that’s even without RTX (because I’m in the AMD gang and can’t splurge on Nvidia lol). Many many times I would stop and go into photo mode either to take screenshots or to just admire the world around me. I’d spam screenshot in cutscenes, too. The character animations are good, especially the facial expressions -- though the body animations remain a tad stiff, like everyone’s got a broom up their ass and forgot their spine can bend and move. It’s not that big of a deal, but I did notice it a couple times. 

You can tell Bioware had fun both with character design and with the environments, now that they’re free of Ferelden’s basic medieval england looking ass. You grow attached to the beautiful and lively environments. Treviso has got to be my favorite, but there’s a lot for everyone in there. 

And no, the smoother art style does not make the game less dark. If anything, some of the enemy redesigns really help make the game scarier. The first time I was faced with the blight in game, even though I’d seen it in all of the promotional screenshots and trailers -- I was horrified and sickened by just how gross they made it look (and sound.). I promise you, you shouldn’t be scared of that. 

The emotional moments sold well even “in spite of” the art style. I don’t know, it’s hard for me to even understand people’s worries about that. Not everything’s got to be hyper-realistic, ya’ll. 

The combat system

That IS one thing I was a tad worried about, when we first saw it. It looked good, but it was definitely a departure from what we were used to. 

Honestly, to sell my point, we have to look at the previous games’ combat system. I don’t actually know if there’s a specific name for this style aside from, idk, “CRPG combat” lol. I like to refer to it as MMORPG combat because you mostly see it in MMOs now, I feel. Your character cycles through a bunch of basic combat animations for basic attacks, and has a lot of abilities to throw in combat which can synergise which each other. DAO had the best system, but DA2 felt best to play due to the updated and dynamic animations and faster paced combat. DAI had the weakest both due to the way they overhauled the classes (especially mages) and made us lose fan-favorite specialisations (spirit healer and blood mage) with not much in exchange. It was simplified and a bit sluggish, in my opinion. It missed the strategy imposed by DAO as well as the punch from DA2. 

And of course, there’s the battle tactics. You get to basically program companion AIs and can chain some really, really good combos with them. It’s really fun once you get the hang of it, but let’s be real: very few people did. Very few people actually used them, as good of a system as it was. 

This combat system… has aged a tad, unfortunately. It doesn’t fit today’s gaming landscape, but even if it did… It would need more to land, I think, if they kept it as it was. Something to make it feel less sluggish, more intense, more involved. Make the attacks FEEL like they land and hit and hurt the enemy. Because the harsh truth is, although DAO has the most in depth combat system of all of the games -- it also has numerous popular mods to skip combat entirely. 

Combat in Veilguard feels really, really good. When I first started I often found myself grinning, going “oh HELL yeah” at the screen, because it felt so good. I almost raised the difficulty a few times because I wanted combat to last longer because it just felt so damn good. I do wish it was a bit deeper, especially in the case of combos, but it remained nonetheless fun to cycle through abilities and companions depending on the area and type of enemies I was fighting. It feels more action-y, but it isn’t a damn hack n slash like I’ve seen people say lol. Have none of these people ever heard of the term action RPG or what. Because that’s what Veilguard is. It’s an action RPG and there’s nothing wrong with that. 

I think Bioware always kind of wanted to move towards this, as well. Since DAO, Dragon Age felt like it kept its combat system not because it was the most fitting for the games Bioware wanted to make, but because they “had to”. Because it was right for the genre. Because it’s what players expect. Because they’d get backlash if they didn’t. But they finally decided to change it, and I think it’s right, for Veilguard. I think Bioware had fun making this system, and it is very much extremely fun to play. 

My only wish is for spirit healer and blood mage specialisation to come back, and for companion leveling up to have been deeper and more varied. They basically have set abilities that you level up and though you can change some aspects of them, that’s it. But it remains a good system. I liked it. I genuinely have really enjoyed fighting in this game and will be exploring all classes and specialisations thoroughly in my next replays, as well as exploring every difficulty. 

The writing

It’s fine. It’s brilliant, at times. Cringy, at others. And you want to know a secret?

You could say that about every god damn Dragon Age game, lol.

I’ve recently -- as in, very recently -- replayed the whole series in preparations for Veilguard. Not only did it have cringe-worthy moments in all games, but some even made me grimaces. DAO is staggeringly misogynistic both for its time and for its setting: You are told in the character creator that men and women are equal in Thedas only to constantly face outward sexism at every turn. It’s shocking. As for DA2, it’s weirdly mean spirited. It calls a lot of its characters crazy and makes fun of them for the meanest fucking reasons. It has a character who fights for his people’s freedom approve of you when you give another character over to a slaver, for fuck’s sake lol. It is very mean. This one is the most “product of its time” of all three, because DAO was misogynistic even for its time lol. And DAI… well, DAI is bland and lacks depth and feeling ina almost everything lmfao. 

Veilguard holds your hand a lot, especially in the beginning, and kind of babies you at times. It also suffers from painful expository moments. Thing is, I feel for Bioware: They have three games and dozens of side media’s worth of lore to explain to you, and have to keep in mind not only that some players will have never heard of Dragon Age, or that some have only played the games and never touched the side media, or that they played the games a whole DECADE ago and can’t remember shit. It’s hard. I would’ve done better lol but it IS difficult. I feel for them. 

Some things are a little less excusable, like the game REALLY holding your hand through a couple puzzles and through the fact that you need to focus on companions and do their quests etc. A part of me wonders if it came out of playtesting, or something. It definitely took me out of it a little bit, not gonna lie. It felt quite jarring. 

There’s a couple other things, like having far too much telling in places. I’d also have liked to do some of the cool stuff my Rook does in cutscenes within actual gameplay, lol. And there were beats where I was left thinking “... that’s it?”, which is never good. 

The codex entries are great and interesting though. Only game in the franchise where I read every single codex entries I found (AND I FOUND ALMOST ALL OF THEM!!!!). A lot of them are fascinating, but more are just very sweet or funny, and they help build the characters and the world. 

And my god, those characters are ALIVE. I truly understand when Bioware said they really put emphasis on the companions. There are so many cute banters, a lot of which you can catch in the lighthouse, as well as little scenes that mostly serve to humanise the companions and make them feel alive. Not only that, but you also get attached to a lot of NPCs -- and I do mean a lot. Each faction has NPCs I cared for deeply, and you always just get to visit them and talk to them, even if it’s just them saying a line or two of dialogue at you. It still helps to build a relationship with them, and care for them. And your companions interact with them sometimes, too! And they have history! It makes the world genuinely feel so much more alive and makes you feel so much more involved than you were in DAI! They manage to transform from pixels on a screen there to give you quests to actual characters with rich lives and feelings that you want to see succeed.

I romanced Lucanis and he is by far my favorite of the companions, but I love all of them. This means it’s the first game in the series where I genuinely really love all the companions. There was always one, maybe two, in each game whom I didn’t care much about or which pissed me off -- but they’re all immensely likeable here, and I care so much about not only my Rook’s relationship to them, but their relationships to each other. And there’s so many little banters, notes, and codex entries which helps further their bond and makes them feel like roommates. It’s very sweet and enjoyable.

I also love my Rook a lot. I played mostly as a sarcastic Rook who was very impulsive and wasn’t afraid to speak their feelings out. There are times you can express genuine fear, hurt, or anger at certain NPCs or situations, and the line delivery really carries it. They felt alive and involved, so much more than the Inquisitor ever did. My Rook has a personality, and not only that, but the way the factions were integrated was really nice. I played as an elven mage grey warden, and each of those bits came up a lot. I’m a bit miffed that you don’t get to choose whether you were dalish or city elf, and more miffed that the game/npcs try to explain dalish lore at you even when you put a wholeass vallaslin on your character, but aside from that I’m rather pleased with the integration of the faction. I imagine some factions (lords of fortune) got the shorter end of the stick - but playing as a grey warden was deeply rewarding in this game. Rook can make comment about it in dialogue, in banter, and other characters mention it too. I got to discuss the joining with another warden, and my Rook commented a few things about their time in the order. And it made my friendship with Davrin mean so much more, too. It also made every plot point involving the wardens hit like a TRUCK. 

And my god, do some of the missions in this game hit like a truck. The villains are believably terrifying. This isn’t Corypheus 2.0. I hadn’t felt this level of dread in Dragon Age since DAO. Some missions especially have rocked me to my core, and some of them I consider to be absolute masterpieces (Weisshaupt, my god Weisshaupt. My favorite mission in any Bioware game, period.) I wish the last boss had been scarier and stronger, though. I felt it did fall short in regards to that. Funny enough a lot of the side bosses were harder than main bosses. That was a bit sad. But yes, Elgar'nan and Ghilan'nain feel like gods that you are facing. It is so much better than DAI in that regard.

The game does make you care deeply about everything happening, I can promise you that. And it manages to make even vehement Solas haters like him. I used to be a Solas hater back in 2014/2015, though I did mellow out over my replays. By my last Inquisition replay I did come around to him and was just mildly annoyed at how popular he was because I still found him overhyped, mostly because he suffered from DAI’s bland writing. But Veilguard makes you care for him, and elicits a lot of strong reactions towards him. He’s made me cheer, and also made me feel extreme anger, and then a lot of sympathy. He’s a marvelously complex character and one of Bioware’s best. He went from being one of my least favorite characters to one of my favorites - potentially even top 10 material. This is high praise for me lol. 

The matter of bringing choices in is…. Well, not gonna lie, a few events I was like “hm, no this wouldn’t happen in my world state” or “oh I wish they took in account past choices for this scene/plot point”. It remains an extremely baffling choice from Bioware and I remain really pissed off about it, lol. 

The Inquisitor was fine. I’m not attached to the Inquisitor, so I’m not able to make many comments about them. I’ve seen other people who ARE attached feel happy about their inclusion, so I’d go with that. There were a few nice moments. 

Act 3 is absolutemy amazing, also. It's engaging and terrifying and broke my heart several times. I do not cry easily but I was left sobbing and whimpering at Bioware lmfao. Granted, it was my first playthrough, and my emotions were heightened by having a new Dragon Age game after so long. But I do think Act 3 is just... really, really good. It gets the point of the game across very well, too.

The lore

This… is where the game falls short the most, for me. 

Don’t get me wrong: we get a LOT of new lore and a lot of it is insanely satisfying when you’ve been in the trenches for a decade and had tons of theories. A lot of discoveries left me buzzing with thoughts, new theories, ideas, and excitement. It was exhilarating. 

But there’s many points where, as a guy who just casually reads the lore books for fun, I was left saying “uh, no, that’s not true” to “that doesn’t make any fucking sense”. Mostly, a lot of my issues comes with the integration of the politics of the game. Dragon age has always been a political series, in the sense that the politics of Thedas are just as important as any threat we face in the game. And for like 15 years, the north was built up in a certain way -- and in many aspects, Veilguard does deliver. In others, it feels like it glosses over very important lore, or just tries to gaslight you into thinking you were wrong all along. Some of it is clever recontextualising that I did appreciate, considering all the lore we DO know is in universe, which means biased by the areas we learn the lore from. But there are a few times where the lore breaks took me out of the game and felt very immersion breaking.

Unfortunately I can’t go to much further into this without spoiling anything, but it’s definitely where I was the most disappointed. It’s small things, it’s always small things, but it’s definitely made me either raise my eyebrows or be very disappointed at times. I’ve already spoken about a bit of it in previous posts, and need to write something lengthy about magic specifically. Just beware that if you are insane about the lore, it is where the game will fall short at points. But it will also offer you amazing lore in turn, so you know. It’s a balancing act. 

It feels like the writing has mellowed out in this aspect. It makes me wonder how different the past games would be, if written by these people. How different this game would've been, if it was written by past writers. Only game where I've gone "wait why am I not getting hate crimed right now".

Also the secret post credit scene sucks entire ass and ruins everything lmfao I am ignoring it entirely.

There’s obviously a lot more I want to say about many things. I want to talk about Lucanis, about Taash, about Emmrich, about Harding -- about everyone, really. But that’ll be for further, spoiler-full posts. 

I’ll also save some more in depth review for a later post because I wanna go play dolls in the character creator again.

[vidavalor]

Hi @masnadies & friends! I don't really have a literal map, just an idea of where I think things are from what we've seen in S1 & S2. I love @mochacoffee's map & think that it makes sense that a ton of the space in the upstairs rotunda is shelves of books-- particularly, the bit visible from the main part of the shop downstairs-- but also that there are rooms up there, as we saw in S2. Aziraphale designed the shop as a space for him and Crowley so I think there's actually a lot of intentionality behind it. I've had some thoughts on this for awhile so I hope you all don't mind me sharing them here.

Some ideas on what rooms might exist and where they might be in the shop, how the threshold/invites work based on what we've seen, and what new room in the shop I would bet is going to be in The Finale. Also, what the story purpose in making the shop mysterious enough that we're having these conversations might be.

Design-wise, I think that the whole interior of the bookshop is built to look to any angels that might enter the front door like it's nothing but a bookshop that is a cover for the angelic embassy. Aziraphale only has the embassy so he can have the bookshop, which is really a cover for having as close to a house as Aziraphale had been able to manage while being a working angel. The way they are using the bookshop as a metaphor for Aziraphale (and for Crowley and Aziraphale) and its design tells us a lot about Aziraphale and his relationship with Crowley. What we have been allowed to glimpse of the bookshop-- and when, and in what order-- is very much intentional and part of both the design of the story and pf Aziraphale's design of the shop, imho.

In S1, the show uses the bookshop metaphor for Aziraphale by focusing more on Crowley's relationship with the bookshop than on Aziraphale's relationship with it. Each episode gives us more and more information regarding what level of access Crowley has to the shop that is symbolically Aziraphale as a way of slowly showing the audience the depth of the intimacy of his and Aziraphale's relationship.

In 1.01, we see Crowley feel safe for the first time in the episode when he and Aziraphale are in the bookshop. We see him on his couch, their familiar setup and being able to speak freely and have some privacy in the shop. Crowley's glasses come off for the first time in the minisode. It's the setting of the bookshop that helps to establish how close they are from the jump of the story. Each subsequent episode, though, begins to unfold that even more.

When the shop goes on fire, we find the doors will open for Crowley-- basically, that he has a key to Aziraphale's place. When Crowley goes back to the shop in Aziraphale's body during the body swap, we see him able to identify which books in the shop weren't there before Adam adjusted reality-- telling us that he spends so much time in the bookshop that he knows every detail of it. When he meets Aziraphale in the park afterwards, he tells Aziraphale that the bookshop is just as it was, with not a single smudge and everything in the same places that they always were.

While we just saw Crowley on the ground floor of the bookshop, this comment-- delivered while he's literally in Aziraphale's body, for fun symbolism-- is saying that Crowley has unfettered access to the entire bookshop and knows the whole place so well that he knows everything in it, everywhere, by heart, and could tell if anything was amiss in the shop. He knows his way around every room in the bookshop and has permission to go into any of them that he wants because they're basically his, too.

So... Crowley, while in the midst of the sexual metaphor that is the body swap, is seen telling Aziraphale that he went through their entire house and everything is fine, and this is not a conclusion that Crowley could have drawn without having gone into Aziraphale's bedroom-- and without being familiar enough with it to be able to tell if anything is amiss. This is the end of the steady progression of information about Crowley and the bookshop throughout S1 and it comes when they're in each other's bodies, ahead of the romantic Ritz finale.

In S2, we start to see a little more of the shop but what of it we see is reflective of the conflicts happening in the story, as it would be, right? First, we find out what's behind the door of the room behind Aziraphale's desk that remained closed in S1 and it's a subtle but potent reveal-- it's a room being used like a massive storage closet.

It's Aziraphale's actual backroom, not the office to which he brought Gabriel and Sandalphon in S1, which is built to be a place to which he can bring a visiting angel. This backroom is painted the color of Crowley's eyes and is a hodgepodge of random things that are being stored back here without a shred of the structure of the rest of the shop. While Aziraphale's bookshop is cluttered in a good way, that isn't what's happening in the backroom we see in S2. There's an open privacy screen in the corner that seems to be blocking off nothing. There's furniture and books just kind of pushed into the room-- random lamps. A chair just kinda stuck in there near the door. It's a storage unit, basically, and not a room that is in use, and it looks like it's holding things in limbo for a future that may or may not happen. It's stuff that belongs to he and Crowley that neither want to give away but that neither have room for in their lives at the moment. It's a total holding pattern of a room and Muriel bursting into it is literally the (literal) closet door being broken down by the supernatural cops, right?

In S1, the bookshop itself is essentially their closet but, as the supernatural characters like Gabriel and Muriel keep pushing further into the shop in S2, even as Crowley and Aziraphale wind up stopping hiding their relationship in S2, in the first half of it, we have this closet room representing them trying to try to find a space to talk openly in their own house during the chaotic week they're having.

Then, we see use of the home bar space in 1941 a bit, and this one is really interesting. While we saw this space in the present in S1 while Aziraphale was trying to figure out how to tell Gabriel about the antichrist kid mix up, now we see Crowley and Aziraphale using it and see that this table that Aziraphale keeps clutter on during the open hours is basically the dining room of the bookshop. It's positioned so that it's not in direct view from the front door of the bookshop-- just like how Crowley's couch is tucked away from immediate view of the door by the bookshelves.

If you look at the front of the shop-- everything between the front door and the cash register counter-- it actually does look like a little bookshop in its own right. The display tables and shelves and stacks of books along the wall. These are probably the books that Aziraphale can part with, if he absolutely must lol, and is really the only part of the shop that is truly the bookshop. Pretty much this bit below and the bookshelves where Crowley pulled the Jane Austen book that is on our right out of sight below:

Because the bookshop is metaphorically Aziraphale, I'm of the opinion that, technically, basically anyone can theoretically get through the front door. Humans are obviously kept away by locks and closed signs and restricted to business hours (whatever Aziraphale feels those are at any given moment lol.) The supernatural characters, though... The threshold, as Shax discovered in S2, is not actually the front door. Likely symbolic of how Aziraphale will give anyone a chance. The threshold is proven in both seasons to be the cash register counter-- the point at which what is meant to look entirely like a bookshop is really becoming Aziraphale's house, whether it seems that way to others or not. But, still, it means everyone can theoretically get into the entryway, right?

So, how do Crowley and Aziraphale have any privacy if the supernatural beings can all get through the front door?

Because they have found a way to exploit the angels and demons' dislikes of one another to get it.

Technically, the bookshop is an angelic space and an angel could demand entry to it and there's nothing Aziraphale could do but allow them to go wherever they wanted. This is the one weak spot because, while the demons won't want to deal with an angelic space and will just stay away, the angels are a different matter. Even if they cannot get past the cash register area without an invite, they need to believe like they have control over the space in order for Aziraphale to be able to keep it. So, why do the angels frequently turn up at the door asking to be let in, even if the vibes are very much that they feel it's sort of dumb that they have to ask and Aziraphale knows he has to say yes? Why don't they just go through the door?

Aziraphale out-psyched them, basically.

He told Heaven the truth-- the threshold to the shop is not the door but the cash register counter-- but he also told them that they were all going to make sure that the demons in Hell thinks the threshold is the front door. He told them that this is how they'll keep the embassy secure because, it being an embassy, they might have to allow a demon in during the daylight for spiritual counseling towards the light (the excuse for Crowley being seen sometimes entering the shop during business hours) but they can't just let a demon have unfettered access to a heavenly space-- that would be unseemly!

So, that's Aziraphale's argument for the threshold in the first place-- he needs control over the embassy space in order to protect it for Heaven and not just let these demons wander around in it unchecked. But he's made it so that Heaven thinks they're getting one over on Hell by making them think they're all in on the joke but that, for security purposes, they need to keep up the charade. They've all been told that they're supposed to go to the door for an invitation so that, if any demons are watching the place, they won't get suspicious that the door isn't really the threshold.

Crowley is keeping this going with the demons in S2, as well, when he leads Shax to think that the threshold is the door before she figures out he's lying during the bookshop attack. He also lies about his ability to invite people in, implying that only Aziraphale can, which we see later is untrue. Technically, anyone that Aziraphale has invited in can invite in other people behind them, which is how Maggie ended up inviting in all of the demons during the bookshop attack, and also why Crowley reminds Gabriel not to let anyone in when he rushes out of the shop after Shax while Aziraphale is in Edinburgh.

So, Aziraphale basically told Heaven that they all would know the truth, of course, that the threshold was the cash register but that they all wouldn't want the demons to find that out, right? That wouldn't be a very secure embassy. They need the demons to think that it's the same rules for everyone. Aziraphale's gotten them all to play along by making them go to the door and ask to be invited in, even though they could, technically, get in the front door and up to the cash register without an invitation. He's basically found a way to make them all ring the doorbell by exploiting their own prejudices against the demons.

This is shot now because, when Crowley and Aziraphale backed all the humans up into the living room, behind the cash wrap, Shax figured out that the door wasn't the threshold and tested her theory on poor Mr. Brown of Brown's World of Carpets, basically proving what we saw back in S1 when Gabriel and Sandalphon showed up.

They arrived when the shop was open and Aziraphale was busy inside with basically the only time in the series he has ever had customers lol and so there was no reason for Gabriel and Sandalphon to need to be invited in at the door because the shop was in normal business hours and it was Gabriel who was there. The rules of the other angels and demons wouldn't be seen as applying to him-- but they both did need an invitation to go any further than the cash wrap. Aziraphale brought them into his back office, which is a room he was willing to sacrifice to visiting angels as a way of seeming totally transparent and keeping them from wanting to search through the rest of the shop.

But, anyway, I think this is why the shop is built the way it is-- it's a house that is designed to pass as a bookshop so it can pass as an embassy-passing-as-a-bookshop, so that it can exist. Aziraphale has never really wanted to run a bookshop; he just wanted his books and a safer, home-like place he and Crowley could be together in. It's a bookshop just because Aziraphale has so many books and that made it the best cover for the fact that it's not really much of a shop at all-- just the front part of it is and Aziraphale has to fight to keep anyone from trying to buy any of the books that are in the other 95% of the shop, all of which are really his and/or Crowley's.

It's set up so that if the angels ever are just inside the front door before the cash wrap--or if they go only into the backroom where Aziraphale brings Gabriel and Sandalphon in S1-- that they're basically just seeing what looks like a bookshop. If they look up into the second-floor rotunda from near the door or most places on the ground floor, they just see a second floor of shelves of books that they can presume that Aziraphale is selling to the humans. It's not until we go up there with the characters in S2 that we see rooms exist up there... tucked out of sight from below. The further we press into the shop and the more we go around corners, the more we see that its design is intentionally attempting to hide what the real purpose of the bookshop is.

Aziraphale and Crowley cannot trust that there won't be some night when, idk, Sandalphon or Michael or somebody decides to just suddenly appear in the front part of the shop instead of knocking at the door. If they did, they wouldn't be able to physically go any further than the cash register counter-- but they could see into the shop from there. That seems factored into Aziraphale's design of the shop.

Aziraphale built it so that if he and Crowley were having dinner or wine at the table in the bar area like they were in 1941, Part 2 or if they were cuddled up on Crowley's couch, that they're around corners or otherwise obstructed from view enough that it gives them the opportunity to not get immediately caught should an angel blow past the established norms of entry and show up in the front part of the bookshop. The table in the home bar and Crowley's couch are both positioned so that a person cannot directly see them from the front door of the shop, which would buy them both time should someone show up in the shop. The place is built to make it so that no one can get past the cash register counter threshold and, even if they get past the door and into that space without Crowley or Aziraphale realizing it, they likely won't catch Crowley in the shop, no matter what time of day they show up.

So, the main floor bookshop space is visible to everyone but rooms that are more personal or that are hiding something from Heaven just by existing are buried a bit further into the shop or behind a door that has been right there the whole time but that the show is taking longer to open.

It wasn't until S2 that we saw into the private room in the back-- the closet, as the two of them were kind of trying to come out of it when it came to their relationship. It's also not until then that we get to go upstairs and, when we do, see that the spots that you cannot see directly from the door below have rooms. This is Aziraphale's private residence and even this? Is mostly set up to be able to deflect, should Heaven ever get up here. Have a real look at Gabriel's completely bizarre room here:

This is the unused bedroom of the bookshop, really-- not Aziraphale's actual one. It looks like a messy monk lives in here. One the size of a hobbit, apparently, because that bed could not get any smaller. This room exists basically in case Sandalphon ever shows up and demands a tour. Here's Aziraphale's room that he can claim he never really uses and just has for pretense or in case there's an emergency and someone needs to lie down. Nothing to see here, Stasi-a-Fond, just my tiny, dollhouse bed that I absolutely cannot fit in on my own, let alone with that six feet of legs demon! Jim's bedroom is as much of a closet as the back room downstairs is.

So, what lives down the little hallway on the ground floor, back out of sight? And, even better, what is the room at the top of the stairs to the left of Gabriel's bedroom? We were shown this door but it remained closed for all of S2. It is to S2 what the closed back room that we saw in S2 was to S1-- this door we saw a few times and then went into in the next bit of story.

Given its location in the shop-- conveniently at the top of the stairs and beside another bedroom-- it's likely that this is Aziraphale's bedroom. Unlike many, I think that Aziraphale does sleep. (I'm pretty sure Gabriel is wearing Aziraphale's pajamas in that "Jim's Mug" scene in S2.) Regardless of his sleep habits, though, he has other uses for a bedroom and I don't think it's collecting dust.

There are also some spaces in the vicinity of Jim's room that I think could be a bathroom, which Aziraphale could claim is necessary for customers, as you all have said above. Do his customers need the likely nice shower and that probable clawfoot tub? 😂 Not exactly, but Aziraphale likely would say fuck it and figure he'll come up with something if Heaven finds out. He can tell Michael he's baptizing people up there or something. I think that the lure of bath time with The Serpent is likely too strong to pass up.

We know there's a kitchen in there that Aziraphale was using for the literal portion of his baking in during Lockdown, which I think is probably what's located if you keep going past the private room and the home bar into that unseen space. See from where Aziraphale emerges in the bit below?

Nina, Maggie & Gabriel follow him into the room afterwards and they all seem to be coming from some place down the little corridor that leads further back into the shop. I'm pretty sure that's where the kitchen is. I think that's also the direction from which Aziraphale came when he brought Muriel tea in S2 as well. I'm sure it's very warm and cozy but I have a sneaking suspicion that it'd be a room we'd find surprising in its organization. It would be one of the rooms in the house that makes it pretty clear that Crowley spends a lot of time in the shop. I wouldn't be surprised if there are some-- gasp!-- plants in there-- potted culinary herbs, probably. He likes to cook for them sometimes.

I don't think it'd be super-necessary to show the kitchen but I actually think there's a chance we still might see it in The Finale largely because of the fact that I think we're going to flash back to the aftermath of Aziraphale blowing up his halo and briefly see some of what went down between then and the next morning-- namely, the convo with The Metatron that Aziraphale says the next morning took place, and the aftermath of that. If we go back to that night, we could see Aziraphale, Gabriel, Nina & Maggie talking in the kitchen. They also might cut that bit of it for the film but, either way, that's the area where it seems to me like the kitchen might be-- hidden pretty deep in the back of the shop, suggested to us but completely out of sight of Heaven.

If we consider that the bookshop is being rolled out to us slowly and in an intentionally incomplete way so far in support of a story that is doing the same... and if we then ask what big rooms remain that we haven't yet seen? There's really only the kitchen and Aziraphale's bedroom.

So, what haven't we seen in the bookshop yet ahead of The Finale?

The kitchen and Aziraphale's bedroom... food and sex. 😉 Not really terribly dissimilar things to these two...

It's been there all along but, as the story hits its end game, I think they'll likely reveal it a little more directly and, if they keep going with the way they've been using the bookshop to tell the story so far, they're going to use going into the previously unseen bedroom in the bookshop to do it. The one, new room we're getting for sure in The Finale is Aziraphale's bedroom-- likely circa 1941. It'll be clear that while it's the first time we're seeing it, it's a space with which Crowley is already plenty familiar.

Then, off to their South Downs Cottage where they can finally just have their own damn house without all of these shenanigans.

Speaking of the bookshop, theories on what could be upstairs?

ooooo the BIG QUESTION.

so we can see a bit of the second floor in all these pics:

basically all we know for sure is there are A LOT MORE BOOKS, both stacked around the railing and on the circle of shelves. neil has decided not to comment on what else might be there (YET 👀) but he’s confirmed that much.

apart from that, we can see from the outside that there are six windows on the second floor:

i’m going to assume they’re part of the shop because they’re Very On Fire when the rest of the shop is on fire. SO. taking all that into account, you end up with something like this:

where the thin grey circle is the railing and the brown one is the bookshelves (as you can see in the first pic, it doesn’t circle all the way around!)

the rest is a complete mystery. i mean i’m sure the actual set was empty because they didn’t need to fill it, but in theory there’s room for some interesting stuff! with the first floor for scale i can imagine a whole flat built around that circle of shelves — a bed aziraphale never sleeps in, comfy chairs, every other angel knick-knack he’s encountered in his life. in my personal headcanon it’s all books and hoarded items covered in dust, which he leaves for authenticity.

thank you for asking!! i’d love to hear other people’s thoughts if they want to share :)

[arabian-batboy]

Don’t play with me now, this better be for real-

[starrysharks]

evilution

[bonestrouslingbones]

btw one of the things i want to do when i really rap up atbb for real is spontaneously get the energy at will to do actual updated fullbodies of the main 4 since now i actually have the ability to draw them the way they look in my head & have the skills to put some more variety in their shapes. basically i wanna

[zincbart]

Do you know who else needed help moving this weekend?

[jitteryjive]

i need to remake my cup bros ref… both cup and human designs… it’s been almost a year(?) and i’ve developed the headcanons and i would like to share with the class!!! (i wrote thirty tags. Please help me)

[itsdappleagain]

so normal about them (shaking violently, foaming at the mouth, crying)

[dbphantom]

I figured it out

You haven't done shit

I figured it out

[doubleedgemode]

It's about time I drop my class ideas for the g.o. AU:

Note. I don't think the class names end in S if you're saying it on a plural way but, whatever:

Iops: Sol, Baiken, Leo, Zako B, Kliff, Slayer and Nagoriyuki (the latter two are iops in a much more vampiric way than usual)

Sadidas: Jam (being surrounded by plants does absolutely NOT help with a flammable restaurant)

Ecaflips: Johnny, Chipp, Zako C

Cras: Bridget

Xelors: Axl, I-No, Bedman and Delilah

Fecas: Potemkin, Answer and Anji

Sacrieurs: A.B.A, Raven

Eniripsas: Faust, Fanny and Leap

Ouginaks: Izuna

Huppermages: Ky, Judgment.. Zappa too perhaps?

Osamodas: May, Giovanna and Testament

EliAtropes: Ramlethal, Happy Chaos

Eliatrope Dragon: Elphelt

A very special eliatrope/dragon: Aria/Justice/Valentine (yes they're the same person in this au. Actually, it's not set in stone but at least Justice would be a super cool dragon for sure)

EliOtropes: Dizzy, Sin

Maskeraider but, not like the canon ones, I think: Jack-O

Minor almost godly spirits which are basically personifications of the Paladir/Necrome thing: Undine and Necro, respectively (come on even his name fits)

Regular unaffiliated humans: Goldlewis, Vernon, Daryl (I might make him a hupper..? but maybe he'd then be too similar to Ky) Crow

Steamer: Haehyun and Zappa (that or a hupper or unaffiliated..)

Steamer adjacent robot or something: Robo-Ky and RK MK II

Sacrimages *: Asuka

Srams: Millia and Venom

Roublards: Zato and Zako A

Shushus: Eddie, Lucifero, Roger, S-KO, Angra, the bad guy that got ahold of Judgment and Paracelsus

Elemental/or some sort of regular dragon: Dr Paradigm (I GUESS)

As for Leopaldon.. I don't know. Maybe the human is an osa, the dog is a mulou and the gear is a shushu but.. Dunno. Leopaldon is Leopaldon lmao

Idk for Ariels either.. Maybe a hupper?? Probably I'll go the boring routes or make her (spoiler) canon in this au, as the gg one, or just a high level shushu

Goldlewis' coffin friend: A very minor god who's almost in the verge of disappearing due to people not believing in them. Their only believer? Goldlewis, but he believes they're an unexplained monster (monster as in the kros.moz definition where they just commonly exist) so, they're there but not that powerful..

Janvis or whatever the jellyfish cat is called: Chacha :)

*ofc hybrid classes are a topic of contention but, they are Technically canon yet very rare. Asuka is straight up a Hupper, and probably was one before, but his perspective about pain and his eye thing that remind me of larmes de sang (sacrieur technique) gave me the vibes so he became both. Sacrimages is a made-up word, but with Nitura calling hybrid classes a combination of their names (ex: osadida) I thought Sacrimage would fit the bill.

[kotori-mochi]

Can't afford art school?

After seeing post like this 👇

And this gem 👇

As well as countless of others from the AI generator community. Just talking about how "inaccessible art" is, I decided why not show how wrong these guys are while also helping anyone who actually wants to learn.

Here is the first one ART TEACHERS! There are plenty online and in places like youtube.

📺Here is my list:

Proko (Free, mostly teaches anatomy and how to draw people. But does have art talks and teaches the basics.)

Marc Brunet (Free but he does have other classes for a cheap price. Use to work for Blizzard and teaches you everything)

Aaron Rutten (free, tips about art, talks about art programs and the best products for digital art)

BoroCG (free, teaches a verity of art mediums from 3D modeling to digital painting. As well as some tips that can be used across styles)

Jesse J. Jones (free, talks about animating)

Jesus Conde (free, teaches digital painting and has classes in Spanish)

Mohammed Agbadi (free, he gives some advice in some videos and talks about art)

Ross Draws (free, he does have other classes for a good price. Mostly teaching character designs and simple backgrounds.)

SamDoesArts (free, gives good advice and critiques)

Drawfee Show (free, they do give some good advice and great inspiration)

The Art of Aaron Blaise ( useful tips for digital art and animation. Was an animator for Disney. Mostly nature art)

Bobby Chiu ( useful tips and interviews with artist who are in the industry or making a living as artist)

Sinix Design (has some tips on drawing people)

Winged canvas (art school for free on a verity of mediums)

Bob Ross (just a good time, learn how to paint, as well as how too relax when doing art. "there are no mistakes only happy accidents", this channel also provides tips from another artist)

Scott Christian Sava (Inspiration and provides tips and advice)

Pikat (art advice and critiques)

Drawbox (a suggested cheap online art school, made of a community of artist)

Skillshare (A cheap learning site that has art classes ranging from traditional to digital. As well as Animation and tutorials on art programs. All under one price, in the USA it's around $34 a month)

Human anatomy for artist (not a video or teacher but the site is full of awesome refs to practice and get better at anatomy)

Second part BOOKS, I have collected some books that have helped me and might help others.

📚Here is my list:

The "how to draw manga" series produced by Graphic-sha. These are for manga artist but they give great advice and information.

"Creating characters with personality" by Tom Bancroft. A great book that can help not just people who draw cartoons but also realistic ones. As it helps you with facial ques and how to make a character interesting.

"Albinus on anatomy" by Robert Beverly Hale and Terence Coyle. Great book to help someone learn basic anatomy.

"Artistic Anatomy" by Dr. Paul Richer and Robert Beverly Hale. A good book if you want to go further in-depth with anatomy.

"Directing the story" by Francis Glebas. A good book if you want to Story board or make comics.

"Animal Anatomy for Artists" by Eliot Goldfinger. A good book for if you want to draw animals or creatures.

"Constructive Anatomy: with almost 500 illustrations" by George B. Bridgman. A great book to help you block out shadows in your figures and see them in a more 3 diamantine way.

"Dynamic Anatomy: Revised and expand" by Burne Hogarth. A book that shows how to block out shapes and easily understand what you are looking out. When it comes to human subjects.

"An Atlas of animal anatomy for artist" by W. Ellenberger and H. Dittrich and H. Baum. This is another good one for people who want to draw animals or creatures.

Etherington Brothers, they make books and have a free blog with art tips.

📝As for Supplies, I recommend starting out cheap, buying Pencils and art paper at dollar tree or 5 below. If you want to go fancy Michaels is always a good place for traditional supplies. They also get in some good sales and discounts. For digital art, I recommend not starting with a screen art drawing tablet as they are usually more expensive.

For the Best art Tablet I recommend either Xp-pen, Bamboo or Huion. Some can range from about 40$ to the thousands.

💻As for art programs here is a list of Free to pay.

Clip Studio paint ( you can choose to pay once or sub and get updates. Galaxy, Windows, macOS, iPad, iPhone, Android, or Chromebook device. )

Procreate ( pay once for $9.99 usd, IPAD & IPHONE ONLY)

Blender (for 3D modules/sculpting, animation and more. Free)

PaintTool SAI (pay but has a 31 day free trail)

Krita (Free)

mypaint (free)

FireAlpaca (free)

Aseprite ($19.99 usd but has a free trail, for pixel art Windows & macOS)

Drawpile (free and for if you want to draw with others)

IbisPaint (free, phone app ONLY)

Medibang (free, IPAD, Android and PC)

NOTE: Some of these can work on almost any computer like Clip and Sai but others will require a bit stronger computer like Blender. Please check their sites for if your computer is compatible.

So do with this information as you will but as you can tell there are ways to learn how to become an artist, without breaking the bank. The only thing that might be stopping YOU from using any of these things, is YOU.

I have made time to learn to draw and many artist have too. Either in-between working two jobs or taking care of your family and a job or regular school and chores. YOU just have to take the time or use some time management, it really doesn't take long to practice for like an hour or less. YOU also don't have to do it every day, just once or three times a week is fine.

Hope this was helpful and have a great day.

"also apologies for any spelling or grammar errors, I have Dyslexia and it makes my brain go XP when it comes to speech or writing"

[bloomeng]

This is my official Batfam Magical Girl AU Masterpost (everyone clapped)

(image updated: 9/21/24)

I’m going to do a brief overview and then go into more details for those interested.

Bruce being from old money (and apparently being connected to Camelot) inherited a mysterious mineral with unknown properties. In its raw form it’s very unassuming, but when cut like gemstones and added to accessories it can be harnessed into a tool. By altering the mineral into a wearable item it allows the magic within to be channeled. The magic of the mineral connects with its wielder to create an outfit and (typically) a weapon. These outfits do not grant the wearer special abilities outside of the transformation and the weapon, but when worn the wearer is granted (what is basically) hammerspace and a nearly impenetrable outfit. The uniform granted is not something they can alter the appearance of but will change gradually overtime to reflect how the wielder has grown.

This mineral will henceforth be known as Arcanium. It operates on Kryptonite logic in that it’s— allegedly— super rare but also shows up whenever the plot needs it. (I’m aware it shares a name with a card game, but I wanted my Kryptonite spoof)

Martha Wayne unknowingly started the cycle by turning— what she thought was a rare gemstone— into a brooch. She died shortly after having it made and Alfred held onto it in her memory. Like canon Bruce goes on his journey of self-exploration to train. When he comes back he enacts his plan the way he does in Batman: Year One, where he goes out in basically just make-up, and it goes poorly. He wanders his manor trying to formulate a strategy and is drawn to his parent’s room and finds his mother’s brooch. Cue the first magical girl transformation. From there he alters the brooch to fit his bat aesthetic and the Batman Brooch is born.

Dick comes into his life the same way as canon. Bruce takes him in as a ward, Dick tries to track down Zucco on his own, etc. Bruce decides to use the other raw sample of Arcanium to turn into a second magical artifact. He lets Dick pick the theme, and thus the Robin Pendant is born. The rest is history.

(Before I continue I want to warn that I’m making shit up as I go, so some of this is subject to change as I move forward.)

The Robin Pendant is passed down from Robin to Robin. Each Robin got their own unique look while using it. Following canon, Dick and Bruce have their falling out and Dick gives up the Robin Pendant in a moment of anger. In this au I think Dick, not having the pendant to fall back on, tries to lead a vigilante-free life, but of course falls back into it. During a fight he somehow manages to stumble across Arcanium in its raw form. Recognizing it he takes it with him. Like Nightwing: Year One he has his conversation with Superman and decides to become his own hero. Using his knowledge of Arcanium from his years with Bruce he creates his own magical artifact and becomes Nightwing.

This is a good place to interject that I’m not changing any of their hero names. I was asked about it a couple times due to the caption, “Red Bow & Sailor Nightwing” on my Dick and Jason designs. It was just a silly caption, because I didn’t want to simply state “Jason and Dick Magical Girl au.” But being serious, I don’t really see a reason to change their names, with the exception of maybe Red Hood, seeing as I didn’t give him a red hood. My au operates on Sailor Moon logic where despite the lack of masks no one recognizes them, and it’s just vaguely explained by magic. I think it would be funny if Bruce chose to wear a mask anyway because he’s that paranoid, but we’ll see when I actually design him. Anyway point is Red Hood is lacking a red hood, maybe he secretly has a red hood on his jacket or maybe he really does go by Red Bow, I’ll leave that up to interpretation.

Arcanium does not just accidentally appear. At the end of the day it’s still a mineral and it’s not sentient, but the magic has an element of “the wand chooses the user.” It’s not so much a “chosen one thing,” so much as the magic can sense intention. It doesn’t care about the morality of the user, the magic is more seeking a symbiotic connection. (Meaning yes rogues can in fact wield artifacts.) Simply put, it wants a host that will be able to wield it. In its raw form the magic is dormant but it seeks to be… not dormant, so when it finds those who actually have the potential to create an artifact and use it, it reveals itself. It was not a coincidence that Martha had the inclination to have the brooch made, it was not a coincidence that Bruce was drawn to his parent’s room, and it was not a coincidence that Dick found Arcanium in the alleyway.

Each of the Bats have their origin moments with their own magical artifacts. I don’t have the whole timeline down, but I will say there was a lot of drama between Tim and Damian, because Tim was forced to hand over the pendant. Even though he technically relinquished it, emotionally the connection wasn’t severed. No one was sure if the transition would work, but Arcanium responds to whoever needs it more and therefore who will use it more. Like canon, Tim is having an awful time during that era. On top of all of it he’s had his title stripped from him and he can’t even argue because if it wasn’t the right move the pendant wouldn’t have responded to Damian. Dick tries to comfort him by telling him that Arcanium will appear for him when he’s ready, but Tim is furious and impatient. So like a well-adjusted person he decides he’s going to engineer his own magical artifact artificially. It goes as well as his attempt to clone Kon does. It’s not until Tim starts to get back on his feet that Arcanium presents itself to him. My thinking is that while Arcanium finds its users when they need it most, Tim’s case is abnormal. His acquisition of the pendant was unconventional from the start since he showed up and demanded to take on the Robin role. Arcanium is drawn to individuals who will actually use its properties. Tim tends to rely more on his own detective work, which renders the pendant’s properties pretty moot. Especially when he’s going off the deep end, he becomes a hermit meaning a) he wouldn’t really need/use Arcanium’s properties and b) he inadvertently limited his own chances of stumbling across it “in the wild.”

In a similar vein I believe Barbara’s journey is abnormal in that she forged her own Batgirl artifact that operates a little differently than the others, seeing as she made it without Bruce’s influence. After the accident she shelved it, maybe she passed it down to Cass, but eventually she gets it back. She created the Oracle identity without it, and for a long time the Batgirl artifact is something she avoids using, until she gets the idea to combine it with her computer to create a magic computer… sort of. She gets a uniform that is basically connected to the computer.

Going back to Damian needing the Robin Pendant more, its reaction to his acquisition was unique. As I mentioned previously the suits typically provide a weapon, well Damian is the exception. Unlike all the other Robin’s Damian didn’t need more weapons in his life, what he needed was guidance. For the first time the pendant granted Damian a magical animal guardian, which is how he gets Alfred the Cat in this au. Despite being an animal lover Damian is extremely pissed at this development. He wanted dual swords or a scarier animal at least. He can’t formally communicate with Alfred the Cat but he understands him intrinsically, though Alfred the Cat seems to be able to understand human speech somewhat. Only Damian seems to be able to truly understand Alfred the Cat. (Cue the antics of his siblings trying to figure out what the cat means or trying to control him in any capacity.) Besides being an animal, Alfred the Cat is also unique in that he doesn’t dissipate when Damian isn’t in uniform the way that the weapons do. Like the weapons he can be summoned by the pendant, but he seems to have existed prior to the pendant’s creation. (I’m toying with the idea that while in uniform, the cat would also get some sort of uniform.)

Before I get into Duke and his abnormalities, I want to address the Speedsters in this au. It’ll make sense after.

So the Flash. I want to say I don’t know if I will get around to creating full designs for them. I do have plans for Bart and maybe Wally, but I have determined how I want their mechanics to operate in the context of the au. Not all the heroes in this au are “magical girls,” in fact I’ve made the executive decision that you have to be human to wield an artifact. Arcanium may have magic in it, but it doesn’t grant its user magical abilities beyond the uniform itself. The speedsters retain their canon origins, hit by lighting blah blah blah, only with one key difference: they had Arcanium on them when they were hit. Instead of engineering an artifact Arcanium fused with their bodies granting them powers. I want to keep the magic transformation aspect (because it’s not a magical girl au without it), so instead of using a physical artifact as a channel for their powers, it’s instead the act of transforming that serves as a gateway to their speed abilities.

To me it was always important to maintain Batman’s identity of not having super powers and having to rely on engineering, which is why the Batfam have to physically build their artifacts. In a similar way I wanted to retain the integrity of the Flash’s identity of being meta but also still human. Which brings me back to Duke. I know in canon that Duke inherited his abilities, but for the sake of the au I’ve decide that he either had an accident when he was young in which traces of Arcanium fused with him or his parents had it in them and he inherited it from them, but regardless it’s less potent, but operates similar to the Speedsters. For years he couldn’t fully transform or use his powers and it wasn’t until— with Bruce’s guidance— he was able to create an artifact that allowed him to channel his abilities and transform. Even though he is a meta I wanted him to still have some of those Batfam qualities in there.

But what about the Superfam? They’re not human so how do their transformations work? The answer is simple: They’re not “magical girls.” At least not real ones, they’re faking. They’re not human (Kon and Jon are technically half human but they still get their abilities from their Kryptonian DNA), and thus cannot forge a connection with Arcanium. Truthfully I’m about to get silly— even sillier than this au already is— but I have decided that Clark is a fake artifact wielder. I like the idea that Batman has been operating longer than Superman has, so when Clark decided to become a hero in his own right his only example of how to style himself was from the bat themed vigilante, who might as well be a cryptid, operating out of Gotham. Only blurry pictures of him existed, so Clark designed his outfit based on his Kryptonian origins and Batman’s aesthetics. He had no idea about the existence of Arcanium or how it worked. This is also why Kon’s design looks so much like his canon outfit with a few magical girl elements (and definitely not because I think the lines in his canon suit already lend themselves well to a magical girl aesthetic and didn’t want to change much). Later when he gets to know Batman more he learns about the transformations, to which he panics and invents his own transformation using Kryptonian tech (ex: MAWS’s transformation). For years Bruce goes crazy trying to figure out Arcanium’s effects on aliens and if it grants them abilities on top of the ones they’re born with, and if Clark has plans to use it as a weapon, and how he managed to forge the connection in the first place— Clark comes clean as a fake once they reveal their identities to each other.

Side tangent but I find it hilarious that Green Lanterns are— by technicality— already “magical girls,” considering they’re granted magical accessories that give them powers and transform their clothing. Hal is very clear with the JL that he is nothing like Batman and constantly feels the need to assert that he is not a magical artifact wielder. The non-human members of the team still lump them together anyway.

Things I haven’t figured out:

- what each of the batfam’s weapons are

- what each of the magical artifacts are

- what to refer to magical artifact wielders as

Stepping outside the canon(?) lore of the au for a minute, obviously I’m redesigning DC characters using inspiration from a genre, because that’s what “magical girl” is. It’s a genre. This is why I refer to it in quotes and don’t call them magical boys, because I am always referring to it as a genre, which isn’t a gendered thing. However, in universe they wouldn’t call themselves magical anything, the same way the characters of Sailor Moon don’t refer to themselves as magical girls, but rather Sailor Scouts. As of right now I’m sort of just referring to them as artifact wielders, but I feel like Bruce would come up with a better name. On a similar note, throughout this whole thing I’ve been referring to Arcanium in it’s wearable state as an artifact. I don’t know if that’s the best term, but I can’t think of anything better for the generalized form of Arcanium outside of it’s raw state. For now I guess it will be “artifacts” and “artifact wielders.”

- how the wonderfam fits into this

I really can’t think of a reason why Wonder Woman would be a “magical girl” in this au. She was born with abilities, she’s not human, and I can’t see her altering her uniform to match the aesthetic. A transformation would just be a waste of time for her. I could to see maybe Cassie or Donna wanting to match with their respective teams, and perhaps maybe that’s why they would alter their uniforms? All I know is I want see Tim, Kon, Bart and Cassie as a matching “magical girl set.”

Fin… for now.

[I’m just going to put this here preemptively, because I’ve gotten messages about turning my au into fics or tiktok skits. You’re free to use this lore HOWEVER you MUST credit me not just for the designs but for the creation of the lore. I’ve put a lot of time and thought into this and I love that people love it, so I just ask for recognition. If you want to make something that’s inspired by my designs or loosely based on my au, just a simple credit for the inspiration is fine. You’re free to change things this is just how my own au operates. Regardless I would prefer to be tagged so that people can find me but also because I’d love to see other’s work.]

Current designs:

[cursedcola]

Prompt: Couples will evidently begin to mimic their better half after some time. What traits do you steal from him, and vice versa? Fandom: Twisted Wonderland Characters: Everyone - because I want to and I’m amidst fleshing out all my Yuu/Character dynamics + designs Format: Headcannons. Masterlist: LinkedUP Parts: Heartslabyul (Here) | Savanaclaw | Octavinelle | Scarabia | Pomefiore | Ignihyde | Diasomnia A/N: Putting all my brain rot from my notes into something cohesive. Contrary to my love for ripping your hearts out, I've come with some fluff this time around. BTW you may or may not already do things mentioned - I write my works with a specific Yuu in mind for each character so this is based on them. Just a reminder.

Habits you steal:

Plan-Books (Inherited) : Riddle habitually carries a planner with all his tasks. A physical one, not an app in his cell phone like most students choose. You find it easier to manage and swap to paper-and-pen alternatives at his recommendation.

Tidiness (Inherited): Riddle is a nit-pickier when it comes to physical presentation. His habits of pressing his uniform, laying his clothes out every night, and dressing conservatively rub off. He has a point - ironed trousers do make a difference. Every morning he will redo your uniform tie. It's never knotted to his 'standard', and is his preferred excuse to greet you before class.

"Now, isn't that better? Surely you are more comfortable in ironed linens than those rags you'd been wearing as pajamas. You seriously found them lying in Ramshackle? Were you not given an allowance to buy basic needs? Ridiculous! The Headmaster's irresponsibility holds no bounds!" <- Utterly appalled that you've been sleeping in century-old robes. He supplies you with seven sets of pajamas, a spare uniform, and an iron + board for Ramshackle. All after reaming the Headmaster for neglect in the last dorm-head meeting - either Crowley coughed up the marks or Riddle will supply from his own bank. Seven have mercy if he chooses to become a lawyer instead of a doctor.

No Heels (Developed): Riddle has a height complex. He won't make a show of it, but you wearing heels does emasculate him. Especially if you're already taller naturally. For his sake, you choose to slay your outfits in flats.

"Are those new loafers? Oh - no, they're lovely. The embroidery is exquisite and I can see why Pomefiore's Housewarden models for their brand. I merely thought you preferred the heeled saddle-shoes we saw during the past weekend trip. I must have been mistaken. Never mind me. You look wonderful."

Playing Brain Teasers (Inherited): Riddle has this thing with memory - you don't know if he's really into preventing old-age Alzheimer's or what. He carries a book of teaser games like Sudoku, etc. for when he has downtime and you eventually get into them too.

"Oh! My Rose, would you care to join me for lunch? Trey's siblings recently mailed in a large collection of cross-words. You'll find they are both educational and entertaining - hm? I do not seem the 'type' for word-games? I assure you, even I can relax on occasion. There is no need to look so surprised." <- Riddle's been making a grand effort to do things he enjoys and become more personable. Trey's siblings did not send the collection. Riddle went into town and picked it out on his own. He also found a book on organizing excursions since he's big on quality time. He is dead-set on not being a neglectful or 'boring' partner.

Swear Jar (Developed): Tired of Riddle collaring Ace for his vulgar tongue, you suggest a Heartslabyul swear jar. When the jar gets filled, the money can be used to fund things like study materials and renovations for the dorm. Riddle liked this idea, but now implements it on anyone who sets foot in the Heartslabyul. Considering you spend most of your time there, you've had to develop a vast vocabulary beyond swearing. Oh - you also unironically use the word 'fiddlesticks' now.

Habits he steals:

Useless Expenses (Inherited): You are an enabler without a doubt. Riddle has always functioned with the bare bones - with function and efficiency being the number one priority. Ever so slowly - you've spoiled him with aesthetically pleasing stationary. At first all the needless purchases felt redundant - why buy the pillowcases with flowers when plain white is cheaper? You can invest in a higher quality this way. Yet you've ruined him with gifts that he had no choice but to use. Now he needs to buy the pens with little hedgehogs on them because studying doesn't feel the same with a plain ballpoint.

Slang Dictionary (Developed): With each passing day, all the students in Heartslabyul get more creative at bending the rules. That includes you. Riddle takes it upon himself to carry a 'little-black-book' full of all the sang words he is unfamiliar with. He does want to be a bit more 'hip' to understand you more, but at the same time he wants to bust any student being a smart-mouth. It's an ongoing battle *sigh*.

"Apologies, could you repeat that term for me? Surely it must be relevant to my lecture if you and Ace are whispering. 'Let him cook'? Do you think we are in a culinary lecture?! Have you not been listening to - ah. So it's in reference to letting me finish before interrupting...One moment. I need to make a note."

Chewing Gum (Developed): This is an ode to psychology. In short, eating is tied to a person's fight-or-flight. Instincts dictate that our bodies need to be in a calm state to eat comfortably. One day when Riddle was at his wits end, you tossed him a pack of sugarless gum and told him to chew. Disregarding Trey's unholy dental screeching, Riddle develops a gum dependence for when he's stressed out. On the bright side, his jaw has never been so sharp.

“Mimicry? You must be mistaken. Even if my influence has affected their person, surely there are only positive developments” == Riddle denies any changes if confronted. In truth, he’s well aware of how much you’ve helped him grow. It’s the opposite accusation that spikes concern. Riddle does not want others thinking you’re a mini-version of him. Rumors are not kind and neither is his current reputation. Making those amends is his burden to bare. He is flattered to see you paying attention to his mannerisms, and secretly proud that your bond is strong enough to affect the psyche.

Habits you steal:

Whistling (Inherited): Trey whistles while working in the kitchen or doing general chores around the dorm. He's not very loud with it, so not may students are bothered. Since you laze about in his shadow the tunes he goes through do become repetitive. Now you do the same when cleaning up Ramshackle. Grim wants to knock you both out because he can't take it anymore.

"Ah -- How'd you know it was me in here? Just because I bake for the un-birthday parties doesn't mean I live in the kitchen, you know. My whistling? Huh. Never thought that would be my calling card but there are worse things, haha"

Head-Scratching (Inherited): Trey's got a habit of scratching the back of his head when he's uncomfortable or nervous. That, or rubbing at the nape of his neck while adverting eye contact. You start doing this too whenever you're being scolded or put in a tough situation.

Dental Hygiene (Inherited): By far the most obvious shared trait. Trey enforces his dental habits onto everyone- you are no exception. You now own four different kinds of floss, two toothbrushes (one being electric), and have a strict hygiene routine. Your pearly whites have never been so clean. Eventually you become somewhat of a secondary enforcer, policing anyone who sleeps over your dorm to take care of themselves before bed. All of Heartslabyul learns that there is no going back when you scold Riddle for not brushing after his teatime tart, and live to tell the tale.

"Hey - uh, weird question? Were you handing out floss to the Spelldrive Team yesterday? Seriously? I though Grim was pulling my leg - oh, no! It's not weird at all! Those guys should have a better routine for all the meat they eat when bulking. I'm just shocked you got through to them." <- Very proud. Mildly cocky. He's been itching to get those negligent jocks to floss after their banquets his entire tenure, but steered away from that conflict like the plague. Thank you for making his dreams come true. Now if you could maybe get them to stop picking their gums with toothpicks?

Habits he steals:

Overbuying Food (Developed): Being a baker's son, Trey's good with finances and money. He's also meticulous with the ingredients he purchases for his bakes. You are not. You go to Sam's shop, buy whatever is on sale, and then bring it back home to improvise. This ends poorly more often than not, and behold! Trey has two Ramshackle sluggers snooping around his kitchen for eats. This is unpredictable and therefore he now never knows what amount to buy. You've ruined him.

Phone Calls (Developed): Texting is easier. Especially since phone calls can be a commitment that Trey dislikes being wrapped up in. Whenever Cater's name pops up as the caller, Trey knows he's getting an ear full. The thing is that you never. answer. your. phone. Either the text gets lumped in with the hundreds of missed messages you have, or Grim stole your cell to play mobile games. So Trey gives up and only ever calls. Either Grim will answer or you'll pick up thinking it's the snooze of your alarm.

"Hello? Prefect, where are you? It's me, Trey. Just calling to see if you're still coming to the Un-Birthday party? Riddle's getting a bit nervous since the schedule's set for the next hour. Grim's already here with Ace and Deuce - uh, want Cater to send a double to pick you up? I have a sinking feeling that you're asleep...Call me? Please?" <- He was correct. You called back not a moment after, half-asleep and hauling ass not to be late.

Speaking in Propositions (Inherited): Trey's normally good at keeping neutrality in a conversation, but getting a clear answer out of Yuu you is like solving a rubix cube. Either it's easy and instant, or a long game. Eventually your habit of indecisiveness rubs off on him and he asks questions more than answers them. Evidently this gets his younger classmen to stop asking for favors unless they really need to.

“Aha - really? I didn’t notice at all. Okay. Okay, I picked up on a few hints. What’s so wrong with them taking after me? It’s cute, right?” == Trey is the observant sort that picks up on his influence quickly. Not just anyone carries floss in their pocket at all times - and the looks from his dorm-mates when you offer some up is enough for the realization to click. Trey’s used to playing the respectable sort, and finds it endearing that you’re taking his good notes to heart. In truth, most of Trey’s mimicry is intentional. He’s a flexible guy who doesn’t mind altering his habits to fit your needs. Easier this way, y’know?

Habits you steal:

Speaking in Acronyms(Inherited): Now this is scary. The first time it happened, you had to take a pause and just re-evaluate your entire life. You don't use them nearly as often as Cater does, but somewhere along the line your brain must have rewired to speak in internet lingo. O-M-G you're TOTALLY twinning with him right now, period :)

Nicknames (Inherited): Again, frightening. You once swore against ever calling him Cay-Cay. It isn't very slay-slay. Yet you can only hear him use nicknames for so long until you're unconsciously calling people by them too. Especially since he's always dishing gossip. It starts in your head, which is fine. It's not like they know. Then you call Lilia 'Lils' and that old fart is just grinning behind his sleeve because ohoho~ young love <3

"Did you just- AHA! OMG DO IT AGAIN?! Wait, gotta get my camera out for this - wha? Oh, that's totes not fair! C'mon. Call me Cay-Cay. Just once! I won't even post it to Magicam, please? Lils won't believe me without proof! Pleasssssseeeee - " <- He actually doesn't want you to call him Cay-Cay all the time. Cater likes you using his given name, since it's more personal. Although the way it obviously slipped out on accident is just too cute to ignore.

Reality TV (Inherited): At first you don't like the gossip. It's cheesy, a bit annoying, and the shaky camera-work for nearly every show is headache inducing. Cater likes his dose of drama in his free-time, and Ramshackle has a tv that no one is using. It starts with him watching while you do other things around the dorm. Yet each time you pass the living area, you take longer to leave. Lingering around like one of the ghosts. Then he pulls you in with snacks and starts giving the low-down of what's going on, pulling out a bottle of tangerine shimmer polish to paint your nails. It's just one episode, watch it for him? Please? Oh no. No. No. Suddenly you're invested in who's the baby-daddy of little Ricky and what Chantel is going to do because her sister just lost the house to foreclosure.

"#KingdomOfDeadbeats - am I right? Ugh. I'm so glad we met if that's the dating scene back home...What?! I know it isn't real! Don't be a dummy, I was just joking! Ah! Stop! Don't hit me!" <- Half-hearted jokes about going on one of those talk-shows one day. You're an alien, after all - imagine the juicy drama and views his account would get from doing an interview? It's all jokes though. Cater likes spilling the tea, but hates being it. Don't ever abandon him and go out for milk though, kay? He doesn't want to pay Grim's child support. Otherwise he might have no choice smh

Habits he steals:

Phone/Web Games (Inherited): Cater's phone is mainly full of social media. He's not too into the gaming scene, it's not his peeps y'know? Alas, you download a few dress-up games and one MMO on his phone. First off - props on getting his phone. That's Cay-Cay's lifeline and not just anyone gets to play with it. Pray tell - what is this Wonderstar Planet (props if you know what is being ref.) and how can he become the most influential digital streamer on it? Congrats. He's addicted.

"Who's this Muscle Red and why's he bombing our raid - AH! He just tea-bagged me! So not cool...Prefect? STOP LAUGHING WE HAVE BETS ON THIS MATCH! There goes my collab opportunity, big fail" <- Muscle Red continues to make an appearance. Eventually he becomes Cater's official rival on stream, and Lils is all to invested in the tea cater drops during club meets. Side note. You're the one who gave 'muscle red' Cater's domain code. The lore thickens.

Internet Caution (Developed): This goes without saying, but Cater's well-known in the Magicam scene. He's very forward and knows his way around using charisma. Since you're not in the scene as much, he becomes more cautious of where and when he does streams. The change is so subtle that only the most observant people will pick up on it - but Cay-Cay doesn't want any creepos popping in if y'know what I'm saying. His sisters were the ones to instigate this change.

“Awe~ SRSLY?! That’s fresh news to my ears but good, right? Ne, are there any clips or pics? I need my evidence, y’see. Especially if my cutie is off taking notes from their one and only. C’mon, spill the tea!” == Cheeky Cater is well aware of what’s happening. He’d humor anyone out for some light teasing - after all, he isn’t by your side at all hours. His walls are probably the second most difficult in all of campus to bypass, so he’s both sweetened and nerved to see you picking up on his mannerisms. That’s proof of a strong attachment, after all.

Habits you steal:

Knuckle Cracking (Inherited): Deuce still does this from his biker days. It could be because joint pain from past fights, or possibly air retention in his knuckles from studying. Regardless, Deuce cracks his knuckles at least once every few hours and you began to mimic him. Some people groan at the popping sounds but it really does feel good to release the tension. Let's just hope neither of you dislocate any fingers on accident.

"Stop that! G-geez, you nearly gave me a heart attack. Thought you broke a finger...your hands are stiff? That just means you're studying a lot! I think...uh, let's break? I think there's some leftovers in the kitchen." <- Deuce 100% gets needing to pop those air bubbles. His hands get stiff from studying all the time, but don't crack them too much or you might dislocate something. Side note - he shows you how to wrap your fingers with a soothing salve. He used to do it after fights, but now it's a great help after class.

Double Notes (Developed): Deuce tries. He really does. Yet the lad just isn't great when it comes to book smarts. Seeing that he is dedicated to turning over a new leaf, you make a habit of copying all your notes. He isn't allowed to share them with Ace or Grim - else all bets are off. Sometimes you leave little 'good job' stickers on the last page for him. Is he a toddler? No. Does he peel the stickers off and save them? Totally. He is a good noodle. Suck it Ace.

Sewing (Developed): He breaks things. Most of the time it's an accident. You've learned to carry a mini-sewing kit for all the rips in Deuce's uniform. Same for mini remedies for stains and other problems. It's not like he's trying to get grass stains all over his under-shirt or to split the seam in his gloves (nearly every week). It just happens, and every time he comes to you with a kicked-puppy look with a promise of it being the last time. It is never the last time.

"Uhm...hun'? It happened again. I'm so sorry for bothering you but Housewarden is going to kill me if he sees the tear in my blazer! Can you fix it?! I can't handle another collar with my exam tomorrow! I need to breathe to focus! - really!? I owe you one! Snacks are on me tonight."

Habits he steals:

Bottomless Stomach (Developed): Have leftovers from dinner? Bring them over. He'll get the tubba-ware back in 1-2 days. Coupon for buy-one-get-one at Sam's? He'll take the extra and polish it off in less than a minute. Deuce becomes a human garbage disposal and is taking the unwanted condiments off your sandwich to eat. Just pick them off and leave 'em on the corner of his lunch plate. Even if he dislikes it, he'll down it so you don't have to.

"Mm. Oh, thanks hun' - its that all you're eatin'? You don't like the steam bun? It is a bit dry, but wasting food is disrespectful to the cooks! I'll finish it for you so have my fruit instead. You still need to eat" <- 10/10 very thoughtful and not picky at all. He is grateful to eat your cooking and will gobble up all leftovers at Ramshackle, but doesn't think twice to sharing meals in the cafeteria. He will notice though if you do not eat enough. Restocks the snack cabinet if he sees it's empty. Is touched if you routinely share things you know he enjoys, like saving half your frittata on purpose.

Early Riser (Inherited): See - even if you hate the mornings, there is no choice at Night Raven College. As Ramshackle Prefect you need to be up to take care of business before class. Deuce becomes your personal alarm clock because he wants some time with you before everyone else joins in. Mind you that he lives with three other dudes who threaten to end him every morning because his alarm wakes them up too. Eventually he can wake up without it, but the time leading is unpleasant.

"W-what? Seriously? I've been trying to be more like them! They're a good person and responsible so I've been trying to follow their example. To think we've been doing the same thing this entire time...." == Why would you ever imitate him? He's been trying his damn best to become an honor student worth respecting, and has a long way to go. To think you're comfortable enough with him to mimic his mannerisms? It's a pipe dream, one he doesn't grasp until it's put right in front of his face. You don't let anyone else pick off your plate other than Grim. The next time his clothes tear, he's already handing off his tie before realizing just what's happening. When you wrap his knuckles after a six-hour lock in at the library? He can't help but feel proud at how neat the bandages are. Suddenly the dark memories of hiding bruised knuckles from his mom are pacified with healing balm. Deuce views this development as a gift, and is grateful. Very, very grateful.

Habits you steal:

‘I owe you’ cards (Inherited): Ace's favorite social invention - the 'solid'. Nothing spells new-low like getting your friends to do stuff in exchange for a favor in the future. Most of the time Ace counts on people forgetting he owes them one, but you're not so gullible. The only difference between you both is that while Ace never fulfills his solid, you have a conscience. Give it a few more years. He'll get ya.

"I know this is the third ticket this week but - Oh! C'mon, cut a guy some slack, would you? I'm sorry for bein' late to our date. Yeah, it was shitty. I'm not trying to fight it, aright? I'm here now so let's have some fun and you can chalk three strikes on my tab. I'll even buy ya some candy - Ah! Okay! Two candies but that's where my charity ends!" <- Evidently, the 'I-owe-you' tabs cancel each other out from how often you both call in favors. It's just an excuse to do acts of service or express apologies without being too mushy. Ace is definitely keeping a track record of them though. Expect an ongoing log that dates back to the week you met, when he showed up homeless, collared, and looking to couch surf.

Profanity (Inherited): Ace swears like a sailor. Maybe not so much in his dorm because *cough* he's being policed. He holds no such reservations when you're both alone at Ramshackle. Unfortunately his potty mouth has a mind of it's own - it taints you, and you are a sham of a prefect. Ace earned a week-long collar for teaching you some Twisted-Wonderland exclusive curses. Riddle is not pleased.

Leaving the Windows Unlocked (Developed): There are only so many times he can sneak in through your window before the adrenaline-induced charm wears off. You have class in the morning, and can't be bothered to deal with him on nights he can't pass out in his dorm. Thank seven you have all of Ramshackle to yourself - because Heartslabyul sounds like a nightmare with the roommate situation. You can't leave the front door open for obvious reasons, but most nights the guest-bedroom window will be left slightly ajar in case he needs a place to crash.

"Pssst! Oi! Prefect! ...ugh, Grim! Wake them up, man! The latch is stuck. Don't go back to bed you furball! HEY! IT'S FREAKIN COLD OUT HERE SO LET ME IN ALREADY" <- Please let him in. If Ace has to spend one more night in that stinky dorm with three dudes, he'll string one of their dirty gym socks over your bed. No mercy.

Sleeping with Earplugs (Developed): Bitch Ace snores.

Habits he steals:

Notes Memo (Developed): Ace is bad with remembering things. Anniversaries? Dates? Allergies? He admits to not putting in a great amount of effort, but you can't say he doesn't try at all. He has a notes block on his phone dedicated to things like your go-to takeout orders and preferences. He even has a few alarms set days before any important events because even if you say no-gifts or plans...yeah, he's not that stupid.

Excessive Yawning (Inherited): You're always tired - it wasn't Ace's problem before but now he does feel a bit guilty. Dragging you into his messes felt different when you were just the prefect, y'know? Regardless, it's human instinct to mimic each other's demeanor so he'll openly yawn all the time - normally in succession of you.

"Hey...you're dozing off again. Am I seriously that boring to hang around? - Nah. Just messin' with you. I'd suggest taking a nap during next period but I doubt a goody-goody like you is gonna take that advice. Let's just ditch juice at lunch and go back to the dorm. Don't get mad if I forget to wake you up though"

Medications (Developed): Ace is the last person to become a human apothecary, but he's always got a pack of pain-reliever meds in his pocket with a few bandages, etc. He also attached one of those tiny capsule bottles to his keyring with some stomach meds inside. You took a spill running laps? Dang man. That sucks. Here's a band-aid for your knee. Curse you for making him the slightly-more responsible one.

"Eh..what, like it's a shock? You saying I'm a bad influence? Cause yeah, that checks. Nothin' I can do if they want to take a card outta my deck though," == Ace is entirely neutral on the topic. He is definitely smug that you're coming over to the dark side, but he doesn't need anyone to point it out. He was your first after all. Maybe the start could have been a bit better - but hey, you came around. It's not like he's hurting anyone by helping build your backbone. Although Ace will instantly deny going soft for you in any way, shape, or form.