#beefing with the writers 👹

[spookyserenades]

I cant- author how could you, I have to stop reading in between the chapters bc there’s just so much fluff mixed with steamy ness mixed with sadness mixed with wholesomeness. Every time I read a chapter I’m on a roller coaster and I don’t know how to handle everything sksjebrdisk. TEASE! They’re all teases and the fact that they all know what their doing like fr she’s not gonna make it to the end of the year, bet! No cause joon is literally jsut a big goof ball, menacing wolf my ass- deep inside he’s jsut a nerdy hunk of beef jerky. No ngl that hobi scene got me felling like DAMN, ouchie but also steamy oof oof oof. No like I felt that bite fr, him and jk fr. I thoguht jimin scent scene would be tamer and it was in a sense, but like you still feel the steamy ness when you read it like it’s so him soft and gentle manly omg your writing is jsut so good. Like all my friends are writers, I’m not really one but I showed them your fic and they were so impressed for realz, also many of them are all addicted to trouvallie and it’s characters now lol. Frankly I don’t understand all the work that goes into writing I don’t write that often unless it’s an assignment or smth but my friends love your writing, [they mainly read on ao3, not tumble tho so they don’t got accounts…. Yet ;)] Even tho I don’t understand what writers go thru, I truly apprêtâtes all the work you put into this series, you give us a heavy spicy chapter every month, I mean 20k is a lot so ty. Honestly personally believe you should have more likes. Also I know this is already really long, but I tend to smths forget their physical features, like eye color and stuff like I know Jin and joon have like amber ish and then jimin has yellow but do the rest have brown? I feel like yoongi had green but I may be mixing it up with another fic. Also, do their ages match this year or last year since you’ve been writing this since last year? Ok thanks that’s enough for now, have a good week!

FDSAFH This update was a bit of an emotional rollercoaster, huh!! I'm really excited that I was able to stir up all those emotions in you, though. You're sooo right they're ALL a bunch of teases, MC must be going THROUGH it, I mean seriously! 👹

Ugh Joonie... he really has that 'big bad wolf' vibe that masks a certain sweetness or innocence within him. Nerdy beef jerky that's SUCH a good way to describe him I'm crying!! And Hoseok PLS I just... needed his scenting scene to be as sexy as he is. As for Jimin, that's the exact vibe you described I was going for-- gentle, manly and steamy ahhh!! 🛐

Omg also... thank you so much for being so sweet about my writing! I'm blushing so hard 😭🥺... thank you for showing my story to your friends, that means so much to me, and please tell them thank you for their kind words as well for me! I'm planning on cross posting Trovaille on AO3 soon additionally, so I'll make sure to post an announcement for that if your friends are more comfortable reading on that platform! I love planning and writing these chapters every month, and making them nice and lengthy as well... as for likes, I'm very happy with my interactions at the moment! I have sweet, kind, and clever readers, and I believe that those who are meant to find Trouvaille always will. 🥰💓💜

So for physical features of each hybrid! I think it'll be helpful for me to list them here for you and anyone else who has forgotten or didn't catch it before! Their ages match up to their ages as of August 2022- so Jeongguk will be turning 25 in the next chapter, and so forth. Here are their eye/hair colors:

Seokjin: Sunset-like orange eyes, blue black curly/wavy hair

Yoongi: Green/gold hazel eyes, black hair

Hoseok: Cocoa brown eyes with caramel/gold flecks, red/brown mahogany wavy hair

Namjoon: Amber (like orangey, dark honey) eyes, silver grey hair

Jimin: Yellow (like butterscotch) eyes, honey blonde hair

Taehyung: Red (carmine) brown eyes, curly black hair

Jeongguk: Black eyes, mixed chestnut brown hair

I tried my best to give each of the boys similar colored eyes to what kind of hybrid they are-- for example, black jaguars typically have those copper-penny eyes, and elks have deep black eyes. To give them all a bit of distinction, as well! 💜

Hope you're doing well, love, and thank you for sending me this wonderful message! 💓🥰

[keylimejuice]

the importance of cologne as a character

i hope tumblr doesn’t bug the images but oh well :’))

spoilers for the end of the zexal manga, please skip if you don’t want spoilers.

princess cologne is a character in the manga who yuma takes in after dueling her. although she really doesn’t have a major role after her arc, she definitely does help flesh out astral in the manga more than he could be in the anime.

astral is a character who is heavily limited in his interactions. because he is invisible to most people, he can’t exactly talk to them and so he’s forced to rely on yuma to communicate to others. this was clearly seen in the anime as astral was basically a satellite character attached to yuma, and couldn’t talk with most of the main cast. even when they could finally see him, it was already near the end of the show and valuable moments of progression for astral was already lost. this loss makes astral a character who is both connected and disconnected to zexal: he is important and central to the story, but he feels completely isolated from the rest of the cast and hardly has an interactions with them.

this one character changes everything about astral in the manga. now it’s not only yuma who is affected by astral, it’s also cologne. yuma is not astral’s only friend anymore, now there’s cologne. even though she doesn’t show much relevance to the general plot after being taken in and is really just there during downtimes when the boys are resting, cologne shows that she’s attached to both of them. this attachment makes astral’s death (permanently sealed, but it’s basically death) at the end of the manga to be much more impactful than his deaths in the anime. it’s even worse considering how his deaths were reversible in the anime, making them less impactful in the long run.

in the anime astral died twice: first to iii/trey when he snapped, and then to 96 when he detonated himself to end mist for good. his first death was quickly reversed and brushed aside, while his second death was heavier and more somber. however, even his second death was only limited to yuma mourning and the other characters didn’t seem too moved. yuma’s friend group even insensitively tried to throw a party in yuma’s room to “cheer him up” when kotori knew just how distraught yuma was over his partner’s death. she was there! she was horrified over what she saw! and yet she didn’t stop the rest of the number’s club from trying to drag yuma out to feel better. it felt so jarring to see how yuma was the only one who was really affected by astral dying, but it shows just how disconnected astral was to the rest of the cast. he simply never had that big of an impact on the rest of them.

in the manga, we do not see how cologne reacts to astral’s death. in fact, we don’t see how any of the characters other than yuma react to it at the end of the manga. but astral having that bond with cologne implies that yuma isn’t the only affected person this time. astral made an impact on someone else in the manga. someone else cared about him, someone else enjoyed his company. and him being ripped away from both yuma AND cologne hurts so much harder than the anime.

this is helped with just how much better astral was shown is in the manga. his goal is the same: collect all the numbers to regain his memories, but his little interactions with the world around him makes him a much more enjoyable character to read. he gets excited about amusement parks and superheroes, he makes light banter and jokes, and he’s far more expressive. overall, i was more attached to manga astral. there were so many moments where i had to stop and just hold myself thinking about just how more spirited astral is in the manga, compared to how he was so stiff and serious all the time in the anime.

overall, while cologne may not have a big role in the manga plot-wise, she definitely helped flesh out one of the more neglected characters in zexal.

tl;dr: i love cologne :D<