#but yes! she is here now and expect some more art of her & her backstory stuff since i really love what i came up with for her

[sweetestflow3rs]

♡ NOEL THE VENDOR ♡

A rejected "PC", now become NPC. Can be found in Connudatus Street Stalls & the bus stop in the Forest at Midnight to 4AM. They seem to be ordinary, but all the customers lined up seem to regard her with a certain politness, perhaps even fear. Proceed with caution.

For more info regarding Noel below:

Noel was formerly a student and orphan named Riley, who was the town's rising track team star, being the best amongst her peers. Despite her popularity, though, it was agreed by most that Riley kept a small handful of friends. One in particular being a fellow orphan who was a few years older than her, before they eventually went missing; and Riley then, after.

Some assume it was due to grief, some think she was swooped away by what took her friend.

The reality of it being that Riley has always been someone with a hyper sense of awareness. Since she was little, she knew something was deeply wrong with the Orphanage: seeing the people frequent in and out of her older friends' rooms, the whispers of payment, debts. Eventually, hearing whispers of bodies found in the woods.

Hearing nothing for weeks regarding her friend's disappearance, she went looking and amongst the numerous shallow graves, Riley found the corpse of her friend. Spiraling into the worst mental breakdown, the night was a blur.

But, it can be agreed, that amongst the blood coating her body, dragging her feet to an abandoned home in the Moor, that Riley was no more.

Noel as a person is someone who always seems... off. For being someone that some in the criminal underground whisper carefully about, Noel often speaks hesitantly, unsure. As if gauging whether or not what they are saying is going to garner the right response. Often cagey, never really one to talk about themselves and often giving short, dry responses. Or just silence.

However, as the PC gets to know Noel, they come to find out that Noel is actually quite easily irritable. Squinting, and sighing at the slightest inconvenience and yelling and hitting at the largest ones. To Noel, everything can be solved with some form of violence.

They aren't really one to tell jokes, and aren't impressed by them either. Noel is actually quite a serious person.

Though Noel values themself and their survival above all else, at high love, Noel can be consider doting on the PC. Often fixing frayed clothing, 50% chance of being carried back to rest in her home if you pass out in the streets, and having a figure to vent to that won't say "that's terrible! i wish i could help you!" or "i should've been there!", but rather instead "why are you struggling so much? i sell weapons, buy the weapons i sell, use them, i am selling them for a REASON-"

SPECIAL TRAIT

Noel's special trait is her Paranoia.

On immediate first encounter, Noel's Paranoia is 100%. Any little action can increase Noel's Paranoia and the only way to lower it is by constantly interacting with her without doing any actions that would garner the wrong attention to her. ( Police, Bailey, etc. )

This takes time, and can take awhile for Noel's Paranoia to go down, making the process a bit tedious.

However, it does pay off, as Noel with low Paranoia will give the PC discounts at their store, give them protection charms for free and offer their home as a safehouse if they ever need it. They'll even take the mask off for the PC.

ROMANCING

Noel is... difficult to romance.

Due to having a volatile nature that is prone to violence and mania, romance is the furthest thing from their mind. And sex is almost non-existent in their head. If the PC tries to do promiscuous actions towards Noel, it decreases their love drastically as they are in fact, mostly repulsed by the acts of sex. They tend to sigh, and give the PC a tired look, or one of disdain depending on the love level.

And PCs with high exhibitionism, if approaching Noel with little to no clothing; the sexual act of it flies over her head. Instead, she urges you to buy clothes at her shop, dropping the price drastically so you don't run around the town nude.

However, sexual acts are still possible with Noel. It will simply have to be done in the condition of "fuck or die(not literally)", which, she will complain the entire time.

DISMISSING

it is possible to dismiss Noel when they are at 0% Love and 100% Paranoia. If Noel is convinced that the Player is a threat, Noel will try to make attempts on the Player's life; either indirectly or directly.

To protect themselves, the Player can either go to Bailey or the Police, creating two branches of Dismissal.

Telling Bailey results in Noel going missing for a week, before appearing again at her storefront. If the PC tries to approach, Noel will deny any interaction or offer of service, saying that their new employer has told them not to sell to any of their wards. Buying & Bonding with Noel will be locked out, and protection wards can longer be bought.

Telling the Police, however, results in a unique, variant event. During Avery's Poker Date Night, if Avery wins and brings the PC to the Elk & Fox party, when the sacrifice is being chosen, they notice a commotion coming from the guards and guests, with guards being beaten and bleeding on the floor. Numerous guards have to storm in to hold down & drag the surprisingly small sacrifice to the center of the room, a familiar face peeking out. Before they are sacrificed into the rift, Noel still has enough anger & fight in them to snatch off the masks of Remy & Harper, revealing their faces to the party, before grabbing another unsuspecting guest and dragging them into the rift with her. With the glare she sends the PC's way, full of vindication and rage, it felt like she was trying to grab at the PC, but took what was closest.

Noel will no longer be available in any way. Her character card only saying: "Noel has been sacrificed."

[1moreff-creator]

DRDT Chapter 2 Episode 13: First Impressions

Woo! DRDT! It is time! Time for despair! Let’s go! My excitement has not faded in the slightest from last week; if anything, it’s stronger than before. Here are my first impressions of this week’s episode!!!

Spoilers for CH2 EP13

CW Suicide, violent murder, mafia mention, suicide, hanging, self-harm.

It’s starting! Levi’s got some explaining to do. Will someone (say, Eden) have an interesting reaction?

Alright, J’s not the one I expected to have first reaction, but cool.

“You…” Is Ace okay? 

“Ah. I didn’t expect that.” Rose’s legendary reaction.

YOU CANNOT “THAT’S WACK” THIS SITUATION WHIT

Oh, so people know, but the court struck it. Interesting.

Ah, there’s the Ace reaction. Also, “no way Hope’s Peak scouted a murderer” but you have a poisoner on another secret and an art forger, at least. Not the same level maybe, but still. 

“Don’t make the mistake of switching cause and effect.” Of course Hope’s Peak is responsible, that was my first gut instinct. God, it’s so shady in this universe.

Woo, Levi backstory! Three “old enemies?”

… Bro??? I don’t think any of us actually expected more than one murder, but I might be wrong on that. Self-defense, then two first degrees, huh?

“Were you in the mafia or something?” Thanks J.

“I don’t think I need to elaborate” No, you do. You really should elaborate. Please? For me?

“Who did you even kill?” And… Levi!Accomplice is looking rougher by the second. Then again, maybe she didn’t know.

Levi tracked two of them down, but doesn’t know who they were? How?

“That car I blew up once?” HUH???

“That’s… kind of a lot to admit all of the sudden.” True, Rose. I’m trying to see what he’s cooking, but I can’t tell.

How do you forget this? Jeez.

“How could you forget?” You know, Arturo, I was kinda irrationally worried Charles was about to throw in his secret phrase, but it’s cool that you avoided that. Thanks.

[For the uninformed; it’s theorized the characters will, at some point in the series, say the quotes hidden in the source code of their dedicated pages out loud, since Min and Arei both said theirs, and Xander’s could be in a flashback. That means that if a character says their secret quotes, their chances of dying go up drastically.]

“If you don’t care about murder, you could be the murderer.” (Paraphrased) Yes thanks Veronika not the point. 

“Almost as if you don’t care…” Great. I didn’t know where Levi was going with this, now I don’t know where Veronika is going with her schtick.

I’m surprised Ace is taking it relatively well [as in, not outwardly terrified]. I guess near death does that to someone.

Woo! Time frame! Junior high school! 

Interesting, so he didn’t start fashion because of the murder. That’s kinda what I was thinking, but I was wrong.

We’re getting our first crumbs of Hope’s Peak being ultra shady in main series! After Rose’s backstory ig. Unfortunately the “pretentious revolutionaries” aren’t here to “hand out tickets of lead” ← LGI brainrot

“It could also refer to the time I murdered my father.”

… 

???????????????????????????

You didn’t lead with that?! Also, what?! I laughed out loud at the fucking absurdity of the statement, but what?!

“It’s a bit of a bother.” The bothersome part is that they’re phrased vaguely and not that they reveal you’re a murderer, got it.

“Go back!” Thank you J.

What do you mean I think. Bro how many people have you killed? What in the name of Kirisaki Shidou [/ref]?

“Not even the police cared about a man like him.” ??? Also, wasn’t your dad a bad influence? You’ve mentioned him before, it didn’t sound that bad- Wait, is he lying? No way he’s lying. Hold on, let me watch more.

[In retrospect, I doubt he’s lying, but his story is certainly weird]

“I see no reason to remain hung up-” Then why are you bringing it up. I still can’t fucking tell what you’re trying to accomplish here.

Eden’s reaction is… neutral, I guess? Makes sense either way?

Eden!Culprit has always been hard to maintain during the trial, huh… Still took the tape though. And I guess it’s potentially interesting she’s getting this much dialogue about Levi’s thing. Teruko’s yet to speak this episode.

“I wonder if I should really tell the truth…” Bro what do you mean there’s more truth to tell?

Oh, hey, speaking of Teruko. And it seems she and I share a mind.

“I don’t care about people at all.” Ooooh, I like this. Some kind of condition?

I feel a little bit like Veronika, interested in hearing his experience with this. Feeling like Veronika is probably a bad thing.

“You’re still a stranger to me.” Levi’s quickly climbing the ranks of fave characters, btw. This is super interesting.

“But you’re a good person-” DO NOT “good person” right now, Eden! That’s a point to Levi!Accomplice, maybe? Maybe not? I don’t know what’s happening. And I still don’t get what Levi is trying to do here.

Double “good person?” Bro what is happening.

“I don’t personally care what happens to Ace.” Mood (that’s a joke I like Ace).

PFT- Ace’s reaction lol.

“But it is “good” to make sure someone else doesn’t die-” Goodbye Levi!Accomplice! I liked you, but I’m probably gonna go try to find other theories after this episode :p (This is a joke, btw; if I didn’t discount theories like Hu!Culprit when the new alibis came up, I’m not going to completely abandon Levi!Accomplice over this. But, just saying, there might be a few revisions to be made)

“Haha. You…” Ace breakdown! Breakdown! (I'm absolutely acting like Veronika now).

“I was right all along.” Yeah, Ace ‘can tell a hawk from a handsaw’ Markey, nice one. (Does anyone even know/remember why I’m referencing that line or is LGI too far in the past for that?)

New Ace sprite! Cool one too. Clutching his heart, Acevi shippers eating ig. 

“Good thing I didn’t fall for it. Not one bit.” Oh they’re eating GOOD good!

“There’s only one person in my whole life who I’ve ever been able to call my friend-” IS THAT A FUCKING TAYLOR REFERENCE?!?!?! Holy shit, I don’t know how many people are even gonna remember we have a canon name for that dude. I hope someone still has the screenshot of the deleted answer from the CH2 Part 1 Q&A. 

“I really hope you fucking die.” We are active in Trial 2 Part 2, huh? Between Arturo telling him to “shut his whore mouth” and this, Levi’s getting verbally jumped!

“You’re quite the interesting person, Levi” Please Veronika, give me the psychoanalysis.

Dude, that’s three “good person” drops all on Levi. Chat the importance of this phrase may have been slightly overexaggerated by me (then again, the list of “good person” people has yet to grow from last chapter).

“You act like a big pushover because-” This is the psychoanalysis I came to see!

I don’t know if I’d call it “intuitive understanding” but I guess Levi’s not fully wrong about Veronika.

Four “good person.” And that’s not counting Veronika’s “good people.”

Five. Also, this continues to be interesting. Why did Levi bring this up again?

“After looking at David, I thought being honest-” Okay that’s hilarious.

“Try looking in a mirror…” First David line of the episode, right? And it’s a nice one of course.

That’s six cases of “good person” in this chapter alone holy shit. At least it’s David, who still had counts.

“I apologize for this tangent” Then can you please explain why the tangent exists in the first place? Or is it really just because being honest is "good"?

[Spoilers. It really was because of that. What]

“I can’t believe there was a time I liked you.” Yeah Acevi is still eating good. I doubt the hostility is gonna drive the shippers away; that’s what they’re here for, right?

And of course Whit’s first line makes him look suspicious. Bro you have an alibi for the time of disappearance of fish and you didn’t take the tape from the gym, stop pretending to be the killer.

“Let’s not jump to conclusions.” Thank you Hu, but let me jump to a conclusion. Is Levi not gonna explain why he revealed his secret beyond the honesty thing?

Okay J’s response is good too.

“No, [Arei] didn’t [talk to Levi about the secret]” Bro what the fuck are we even talking about anymore.

“I don’t have a defense” (Paraphrased) No but seriously what. I’m this close to ripping out my hair. What is he doing.

“We don’t have evidence [Levi is the murderer]” Thank you Teruko Tawaki for being one of three competent people in the building. This is affectionate, one of my favorite parts of the DRDT cast is that they all suck at class trials lol :p

Bro Whit is trying REALLY HARD to look like the murderer rn. I’m still not letting him convince me. Yet.

“I realized that motives alone are not concrete evidence.” Yayyyy! Progress!

“I feel a sneeze coming on…” Dude David and Teruko need to get into comedy, they’re fucking hilarious.

“One second please.” Hu I trusted you. Why. You’re revealing your secret, right?

“...I didn’t want you all to think less of me.” Aww, poor Hu. No one’s gonna think less of you, you’re doing awesome (I am assuming she has hopeless child btw).

“I wanted to believe the past never happened” Butterfly motif and “water as rebirth” symbolism go brrr. 

“I’ve always been a selfish person, haven’t I?” Hu please, you’re really nice, even if you go overboard at times.

“I will share my secret if you promise to immediately move on.” (Paraphrased) Good idea. It would probably be good to talk about it if she wants, but this is kinda not the time.

“I have Veronika’s secret, and she has mine.” Okay I did NOT expect her to reveal she had Veronika’s, but alright! That’s two more on the board, and two more most of us got right! At least the theorists are doing well on the secrets.

[Veronika agreeing to the pact] Bro what pact, how did you communicate that? Also, “I have such little interest in both of our secrets” is wild, but it makes sense given her personality. Recap foils go brr, I’ll sit down and think about this later.

“My own so-called secret isn’t even the worst thing I’ve done.” Uh…??? It’s just bombshell after bombshell, these episodes!

Oh, we are questioning the pact. I kinda thought they’d managed to do that in the trial, now I’m really curious. Please tell me we aren’t gonna have to ignore that question because of what Hu asked of them.

Shit.

“We’re not gonna talk about me?” Oh, Vero, I would love for them to talk about you, but I don’t think it’s gonna happen.

“Arei– Achoo!” WHEN I TELL YOU I CACKLED LIKE A MADPERSON HOLY SHIT

“Bless me! Also, excuse me! Wow, thank you for your support everyone!” WAIT IT GOT FUNNIER.

“I have another interruption–” Either it just got even funnier or he’s about to reveal Teruko’s secret and shit got serious, let’s see.

Oh, right. But, dude, I’m relatively sure the last two unclaimed secrets can’t be hers. Maybe the survivor’s guilt one, even though that felt like Xander’s? Are you absolutely certain you don’t have her secret?

“My family.” Figured she’d try that one. [She probably feels it's true to some extent].

Oh, now THAT’S a David sprite alright. Pretty sure that settles it, the most common theories for secrets during hiatus were all correct.

I’m guessing David’s still not gonna reveal it. We still need to see a Teruko teacher CG, and I don’t think we’re gonna have time for that if he brings it up.

“We did it!” Yeah he ain’t revealing shit. 

“Sir Light Pollution” is actually crazy. Do his eyes really emit light like a flashlight? That’d be really fucking funny actually.

Oh, it was actually funny because Whit is a boyfailure. Alright, joke understood. I smiled.

“I am truly impressed… by how bad that was.” And there I laughed!

“I’ve started to detect this trial isn’t about me.” Iconic of you, Sir Attention Whore /affectionate

Thank you J.

Eden bro can we please let Teruko speak. Also you are not helping the culprit allegations miss Tobisa.

“What happened between you and Arei?” Jesus, we really cannot get to the fucking murder, huh? Fair, though, I’m really curious about this too, though I feel we’re gonna skip past it without an answer or David’s just not gonna respond seriously.

“I know that she’s dead and that she’s never coming back.” We’re getting worryingly close to your secret quote wording here, Eden. You sure you wanna go this route?

What are we, on seven “good person”s now?

Oh shit are we actually getting an answer?

YES! YES! YES! LET’S GO! I wasn’t expecting this!

Eight. Though I think this one’s repeated, though I might be wrong.

Yeah, this is old dialogue.

Man, Arei’s and Eden’s VAs did amazing work this episode!

“That makes me feel really relieved.” Lie. She didn’t say that. That’s my gut reaction, anyways, I could be wrong.

“I was pissed at you for a bit.” Oh shit chat David’s not getting cut off. This might actually be true. What the fuck?

Oh, also. Nine. David again.

“There’s not even anything positive…” Okay this hurts a fucking ton. If David’s lying, I want him dead. If this is true, holy shit this is sad.

“A metamorphosis like that…” Jeez this is actually getting sad sad. Auch.

“I’ll never be a good person.” Ten, and the tenth hurts a LOT. I don’t think David’s lying, members of the jury. Holy shit this is sad. 

“It turns out that you might be a total piece of shit…” Holy shit I miss Arei already.

Eleven.

“Like Santa Claus…” Didn’t Charles bring up something like that talking with Teruko in the computer room? Interesting connection. I guess not “all that glitters,” yeah.

“It’s okay that I’ll never be a good person, because no one else can be either.” Okay, first; twelve. Second, ouch.

[I know my commentary's not exactly thrilling. Forgive me, I'm suffering]

“Even Eden.” And what does that mean?

[Eden with blood on her hands CG]

…

HUH????????????????????????????????????????

I can’t- Words- Not working. Hold on, I gotta see what the fuck is happening here.

[Pan to fork]

I’M EVEN MORE CONFUSED THAN BEFORE! WHAT THE FUCK?!

It has four prongs, which matches the Xander one. Did Eden take out Xander’s eye? How in the actual fuck? No chance, right? I’m just going insane?

“I’m sure even Eden has hurt someone” (Paraphrased). Brain is still not working. Sorry.

“Even someone like her must have made a mistake she couldn’t take back” WE ARE GETTING DANGEROUSLY CLOSE TO SECRET QUOTE WORDING!

We’re just moving on? That shit didn’t happen? I’m fucking sorry?

I can’t even- Does this imply fucking MM!Eden? I don’t think so, she doesn’t look like she wanted to- WAS it Xander she stabbed? Again, how? What? I’m so confused. YOU CAN’T DO THIS TO US DEV! I NEED ANSWERS!!!

“Second ever friend…” Ouch ouch ouch-

Another “good people” btw.

[Arei CG] That’s the fucking- THAT LOOKS LIKE THE FUCKING GIRL FROM LGI?!?!?!

Like, obviously they look different, but that’s the same pose, with the hand and everything- WHAT?!

Is Arei/David a ship? It’ll probably be one after this. 

“Nothing-” You absolute piece of shit. Holy shit David, when I get my hands on you David…

“Nothing else happened between us, I promise.” Wow. Who would’ve thunk this is how I come to fucking despise a man so much while he simultaneously rises in my fave characters ranking, huh? Holy hell.

“One hundred percent promise-” I get more mad every line. That’s good character writing, folks. Jesus.

I can’t read Eden this episode. Still think she’s the culprit lol.

“Finally.” Yeah, Teruko. Same.

[By the way, the next section has a lot of me rambling about my own theories, so if you don't know them, here's a link to the latest, now likely outdated version]

“From that low of height…” I like where we’re going.

“I’m starting to realize how long it's taken to get here.” (Paraphrased) Yeah, Whit. Yeah.

“Some people had to wait one year and five months-” PFFFT- Also Whit’s reaction means he’s not fully fourth wall aware, which is cool.

NON-STOP DEBATE! LET’S DO IT! 

[Sees truth bullet] Yes! The jugs were used as weights! Tell me I’m right about this!

YEAH! I GOT IT RIGHT! Also Veronika’s “consent” animation is… uuh… very ‘Ronika if you catch my drift. I love it!

“Those jugs ended up breaking…” You know it! I wonder if maybe they didn’t have time to clean the fish? But they could have gotten water literally elsewhere, so they clearly did use them for alibi.

“The jugs alone aren’t enough…” (Paraphrased). Yeah, we gotta go higher. Like, the girders at the top…?

“... rafters on the ceiling.” Yeah!!! Wrong name but I also got this right!

“It must have been one long rope…” Or two, because you need the stopper.

“Oh, wait, you’re agreeing with me. Yes.” Funny, laughed.

“The rafters were way too high…” Ball of clothes, come on.

“...something like a pulley…” Yeah, Whit knows what I’m talking about! The fact he’s being helpful makes him less suspicious. Finally, he managed to open his mouth without incriminating himself of something!

“High location…” Are we actually doing stopper rope? My guess is that that’s when we’ll get teacher Teruko.

“In drop hanging…” Okay, first, love the monologue. Second, is there a reason you know so much about drop hanging? Did your mother…? I guess it’s not necessary. I also came to the same conclusions and I don’t have any history with the stuff. 

“We also know she didn’t hit the ground-” Does anyone have a counter of tasteless Whit jokes? Just checking.

“Aren’t I so smart…” And we’re back to kinda incriminating ourselves, because you're denying pulley method. Fantastic.

WOO! ANOTHER NON-STOP! Let me guess, “spinny thing” is the truth bullet?

“Tape on carousel.” Close enough. Although, hold on, are we actually gonna go “stopped with hands?” No chance, right?

Also am I stupid or does Arturo’s VA sound different in the debates?

Yeah btw Levi!Accomplice is dead and buried, I need to find other ways for Eden to have done this.

I like that Teruko still calls it a spinny thing :p

Wow, everyone’s correcting her, huh? I guess I’m the only one that appreciates her smh.

“...when I need to correct the killer’s grammar.” Funny comeback, but you know, the letter does actually have quite a few spelling errors.

Yay! Teacher Teruko! She looks so cute with glasses!

Also I cannot believe it. These Microsoft-Paint ass diagrams remind me of when I did them too lol.

Oh, shit, under the seesaw! That’s a good one, Teruko! I didn’t catch that. (Then again, I always thought the seesaw was in a different place, but oh well).

Is that dog ears Whit? My guy, you know Charles dislikes dogs, right? Then again, you do canonically have negative rizz, so :p

Oh, tying the rope! Not quite a stopper rope, but same concept. Yeah, would work. Good one Teruko!

“The carousel is made of smooth metal.” THAT’S WHAT THE TAPE WAS FOR! Clutch.

Oh shit, is the cliffhanger going to be the tape’s origin?

“I’ve seen this murder method before.” Okay, wait. One, no origin of tape. That’s big for Eden!Culprit: My current guess is that someone (ie Veronika) will want to discuss the Ace-Nico thing, which will lead to them discovering Eden took the tape. Two, what the fuck do you mean you’ve seen this before?!

“You have?” Looking kinda worried there, Eden…

“And so have you.” Okay am I forgetting something? Min’s execution wasn’t like this, what the hell…

“Me?” Eden, honey, the allegations…

“We’re going to talk about a different case…” Oh shit Teruko’s got the Ace method figured out? I would really love to hear that because I have no idea what the hell was happening with that one. Also, I called it! Didn’t expect it to be Teruko who brought us back to the Ace case, but still. 

“Explain yourself, Nico.” YEAH!!!! I’m actually really excited. I’m gonna look into revising my theory on that case before the next episode, see if I can figure it out, since I think the old methods I’ve discussed with others don’t quite line up with what Teru’s describing. 

What an episode!

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

General Thoughts:

Holy shit. Just. So much happened. It’s too much peak.

The Eden CG is the first thing on my mind; that’s crazy. Did she really take out Xander’s eye? I have zero idea what else I would be looking at. Certainly not MM!Eden, too obvious, but I don’t know what’s happening there. No fucking idea. I might make a more detailed post when I get my thoughts in order, but all I’m saying; the possibility the girl she kissed was Mai? That Mai told her about Teruko, and Eden attacked Xander in the pre-prologue killing game to protect Teruko? Hmm…

The secrets are huge, too. Nothing wild, given like 75% of the fandom had assumed these secrets anyways, but still nice to get them all. The Levi explanation was fascinating, but I don’t know what the fuck it has to do with the trial. Was it really a pointless aside? I don’t know…

The Arei scene was fucking insane even outside the Eden CG. Stabbed through the heart, haven’t felt that sad since Min’s death, and, yeah…

Not to mention, the fucking “Ideal Country Woman from LGI” looking ass frame. At least I finally got my answer; it was a wrist bend, not a glove. 

And David. David. Why are you like this. I genuinely can’t tell why he does anything anymore.

Finally, I love the Taylor mention, that’s insane. And Veronika has a darker secret? She really wants those MM allegations, huh? Jokes aside, I’m really curious about both those things. I kinda wonder if somehow the students will see the motive videos from Trial 1, since we’re hearing about Taylor and I’m hoping Alyssa later.

Just… Holy shit this episode was awesome. Cannot wait for next week.

First Impression Murder Theory Updates

It’s looking like Levi!Accomplice will end up being a nice AU and nothing more, although I’m not 100% ruling it out. That said, I’m still pretty confident in Eden!Culprit, especially with how we mentioned the tape on the spinny thing was easy to grip, but no one’s made the connection to the gym yet. 

The big thing to solve in the Arei case, then, is how Eden got the fish. There’s a few other accomplices she could have, but those are looking rough unless she somehow got Arei to do it. That said, I’m considering the possibility that she took the minnows ultra early, before Nico started feeding them. That would explain how they didn’t notice there were a few missing the night before; they just never counted the ones in the jugs in the first place. That has issues too, but I’ll see about it. 

That said, I’m pretty happy with myself! I got a lot of the major points of the pulley system right. The only thing is the “stopper rope vs tie a knot” thing, but the principle is similar enough. We’ll see about things like the ball of clothes to put the rope over the rafters. There’s still plenty of murder to discuss. 

As for the Ace case… It’ll need a full review later. If it’s supposed to be similar to Arei’s case, I really have no clue what the hell was happening there. Though I guess the ridiculous wire circuit I made might actually have some merit, given we're doing some kind of pulley?

... Maybe not :p

I have no further insight; I just need to look at it again.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Anyways, hope you enjoyed! Watching this episode took me like two hours and a half while writing this… this almost 4k word post… so… yeah. Gods save me if there actually is an hour long episode left. See ya’!

[sad-scarred-sassy]

Let’s support our fanfic writers!!

What are your favorite Gwynriel/Elucien fics / fanfic writers? Tag them and show some love!🩵🌊🧡🌷

This is such a great trend! I thank you anon❤️ I’ll share my fave fics or the ones I think everyone should read! (There is so much more, but these are just the ones I ADORE off the top of my head)

Elucien

🌸 @crazy-ache OF COURSE I will mention her, all of her work is just so insanely good, I literally could recommend everything she has ever written, we are blessed.

Fic rec: Animal Instincts (!!! Still not normal about it)

🌸 @clockwork-ashes She’s incredible. She makes me feel so much, her elucien is so tender and REAL!!

Fic rec: All you have is your fire

🌸 @sweetvillaindarlinggod This is one of my fave Elucien fics of all time, please give it a read if you wanna swoon with just how hot it is.

Fic rec: I’ve been lost to you, sunlight (Flew like a moth to you, sunlight)

🌸 @running-on-backstreets This one choked me I swear this fic is everything to me. Lucien is always hot but this… THIS just affected my brain chemistry.

Fic rec: To Be Set Alight

🌸 @zenkindoflove duh?? Shes a literal Elucien queen. I think the first Elucien fic I’ve ever read was this one, and it stayed with me. Check out ALL her work because she’s THAT good.

Fic rec: Burn Forever with Me

🌸 @olenvasynyt shes so freaking talented and thorough? All of the stuff I’ve read by her had me on a chokehold. (Also she has a Lucien backstory fic that I have not started yet but GOD it looks insane!!)

Fic rec: Gold of The Richest Kings

🌸 @temperedink so many gems!! But I especially love this one where Elain and Lucien explore their bond and they get increasingly freakier (while being so sweet??)

Fic rec: Can I be close to you

🌸 @separatist-apologist literally everything this god has created but I cannot move on from her warewolf Lucien fics mmmkay? I had to. THEY’RE THAT GOOD.

Fic rec: All over you

🌸 @ataraxiasflame I am so obsessed with her fics. Read them all. She captures Elucien immaculately. Their banter is seriously to die for.

Fic rec: Light the fire bright.

Neris (because these are too freaking good not to mention)

🔥 @kateprincessofbluewhales the way she writes these two is just insane. The banter, the humor, the intensity, the heat (still recovering from that smut scene). Read it😭

Fic rec: With a sense of Poise and Rationality

❤️‍🔥 @separatist-apologist of course I also HAD to add this freaking Neris masterpiece here. Thank you very much.

Fic rec: No one likes a mad woman

Other ACOTAR fics (anon only said Elucien or Gwynriel but I can’t seem to follow instructions)

🥀 Feylin: @kateprincessofbluewhales yes you’re on this list twice bc how could you write this masterpiece and not expect me to lose my mind?

Fic rec: Soap Bubble

🥀 Feylin: @positivelyruined incredible, one of a kind, marvelous writing. Fic rec: The embers between us

✨ @bxriles and her incredible Hewn City fic that I am literally obsessed with???

Fic rec: Cave Canem

🥀 Feylin: @foxcort I adore her writing (I need to catch up on so much more) but I needed to add this here because it pulled at my heartstrings so fast and so intensely.

Fic rec: A prick of the thorn

Gosh! There are so many more I have to catch up on I literally will have to do another part soon. But for now enjoy these amazing works of art!

[verrixstudios]

What’s your favorite OC?

I love this question but it’s such a hard one to answer cause I’ve really only shown my latest hyperfixation and commission art here, and also I’m indecisive

If we’re talking Wings of Fire, it’s ABSOLUTELY this rain/mud prophecy dragonet I made named Flourish! She’s had the most art done of her, both by me and in art trades.

Now just yesterday I had to draw three characters in a new style for a school project and they are all pretty much in my top favorites as well:

My spiderwoman oc, Arachvid, a long-standing oc who’s a snow-leopard Demi human, Piper (she’s probably second favorite of all, and is like 3rd in most lore I’ve written about a character), and a newer oc who’s an alligator Demi human, Leland. His and his troops art is below, they’re treasure/bounty hunters.

BUT one of my overall favorites, who use to be a HEAVY comfort character and who has the second most lore (I think) is this Bull guy named Bentley. He’s out of a species I call Bovines, which.. is an unoriginal name… BUT it’s basically just anthro bulls / Minotaurs but all fur

All of these guys have so much more art that isn’t on Procreate, some that even predate my iPad kid era, but I’m out of pictures to send and I’m too lazy to dig for more. They also have SO MANY other ocs built around them, as well as Bentley having a bunch of AU designs cause I thought they were really cool. I could probably talk someone’s ear off about any of them, I really like stories and doodling comics around my ocs, so you’re lucky there’s a limit on the amount of pictures I can send cause I’d probably get so much more art of Piper and Bentley, who are in the same universe but aren’t really connected in each others stories (yes my side characters have side characters and backstories, I am guilty as charged).

If it weren’t for the limit I’d be showing my favorite oc groups as well, but I tried to limit myself to specific ones bc of the picture limit and the fact you were probably expecting just one oc in the first place 😂

[fyreflakes]

Hi you!

Hello there! I'm a big undertale and all it's au's fangirl so expect to see a TON of that!

I occasionally do fanfic writing as well lol, so if you wanna make a request or something then go ahead, can't promise it'll be any good tho!

Alsoalso I do Ameture Voiceacting plus animation.

My works so far:

And as for animation-

(Ik it's just a sketch but I don't have good fully linearted animatiosn yet :, D)

I write/draw:

Sonic undertale Undertale aus Tmnt tadc Ramshackle Vocaloid Ace attorney What remains of Edith finch Oneshot Madoka magica Omori Slay the princess Buckshot roulette (maybe) SPRUNKI Anndddd I think thats all for now XD

Catch ya'll on the flipside!

(Ps: Go follow my sibling >:D @fyrerainy and my friends: @destinationsorrows and @thegreatjadeyeet plss their all awesome :3)

ALSO ALSO:

I am currently creating an undertale au called Musiciantale, you can support it on Deviantart under Quotevianflaky ORRR on the official discord server! :D we're a bit of a lively group on there lol and you MIIGHTT even get to watch me livestream drawing comic pages :3

So whatcha waiting for? GIT ON OVER :DDDD

We hope you enjoy your stay, on here and anywhere else you may find us ^w^

A little bit about musiciantale:

Musiciantale is an au where it plays out like Undertale, but Instruments are key to certain things, such as showing emotions without words and opening doors that wouldn't budge otherwise. There's also other changes besides the musical aspect of it, mainly involving people's backstories and the Human souls, but You'll need to wait until I release the comic pages on here before you can see :3

THE TWO MAIN CHARACTERS!

(The art is slightly outdated, I'll make better more updatd references as soon as I'm not lazy 💖)

Chara s a british bitch boy with parental issues and a K N O I F E for reasons, He plays the piano and has a lovely singing voice but is often very shy about singing in front of others.

FRISK She's adorable, my friend calls her the little girlboss which is an adorable little nickname, I love Frisk. Frisk is a rich kid who fell down into the underground on her 13th birthday. She's like Chris from Sonic x, but hopefully people will find her less annoying

(Hot take but I actually found chris to be not that bad XP Yes he's useless at times but he was okay. Not perfect, not horrible, just Okay.)

[daydreaming-en-pointe]

Meet my OC Spider-Weaver (Spider-Woman, Earth 50513)

For the next few paras I’m gonna rant abt my spidersona :D this might not make any sense at all bc I’m just rambling at this point but here we go anyway! (a small warning, this is going to be a LONG post)

All images are from Pinterest!

TW: Mentions of death, some queerphobia/homophobia (judgemental aunties suck)

Name: Nikita Raina (pronounced Rhi-na like rhino but with an ‘a’ at the end instead of an ‘o’) (yes she’s South-Indian and yes this is me projecting)

Alias: Spider-Weaver*

Basic stuff to know:

-She’s loosely based off of a golden silk orb-weaver spider! I’m not going to attach an image but if you don’t mind staring at spiders then I suggest you look them up, they’re actually really pretty!!

-She’s been learning ballet since she was 3, picked up gymnastics for 2 or 3 years and then quit

-South-Indian

-Complete empath

-INCREDIBLE at knitting/crocheting/macramé knotting - basically anything involving thread + working with your hands. She literally works magic with yarn. She crocheted matching gloves for all of the Spiderteens one day after finding out that Hobie’s universe is COLD and his fingers are COLD and if she’s going to be holding his hand when it’s like that then she’ll freeze

Fighting Style:

Her fighting style is more aerobic and dynamic than the regular Spider-Man swings; she incorporates jetés and leaps from ballet into it while also using mid-air somersaults and other high-speed flips she picked up from gymnastics. She also teaches herself kalari adimurai (a South-Indian martial art similar to kalaripayittu) later on so she uses a few moves from that as well.

*The reason behind her alias being Spider-Weaver is that her web style has more of a lacy crochet feel to it than a regular spiderweb. This is what one of her webs would look like:

Her webs are bionic and on her web shooters she has built-in settings for the thickness and stretchiness of the crochet web. For example:

She can also switch up the style of her webs depending on how she feels yk? Like if she’s not vibing with any of the more plain ones she can switch to ✨ fancier ✨ stitches like

Arcade Stitch:

Lacy Stitches:

Fan Trellis Stitch:

And lots more. She’s basically got almost all crochet stitches as different settings on her web shooters. An added bonus is that they’re not only unique and quite pretty, but they’re also stronger and more durable than the average single-thread (unwoven) webs.

Backstory:

(canon events will be in red)

-She was bitten at 13. Her older brother (he’s 20, they have a 7 year gap) Ravi figured out something was wrong fairly early but she played it off as nothing, put his worries to rest and found her way as Spider-Woman on her own

-She was best friends with her universe’s Gwen Stacy since they were in kindergarten. She started freaking out few years into their friendship (they’re in middle school now) once they had become basically inseparable because she started feeling giddy and bubbly and getting butterflies around Gwen.

-Poor girl was basically terrified because her aunties (mostly her mother’s sisters) would constantly pressurise her by asking her if she had her sights set on a boy yet or discussing how her marriage to a boy would go once she was older - those prodding conversations and speculations only reinforced her fears that she wouldn’t be accepted and instead would be frowned upon if she told her family that she had a crush on a girl. So she became more withdrawn and distanced herself a little, so as to not to lose the favour of her family.

-Nikita is 14 at this point

-One day she accidentally told Ravi and she went quiet, expecting him to shame her or mock her but instead he just hugged her and told her he loved her no matter what, and guess what,, he’s queer (pan) too :D

-Fast forward to a few weeks later after an almost-death scare as Spider-Woman fighting her dimension’s Vulture (she slipped up, miscalculated a leap and almost got herself killed) she finally worked up the courage to tell Gwen because it seems like she returns her feelings too! So she goes up to her and they hug and they’re talking and she’s about to confess- But noooo

-Green Goblin attacks in the middle of the school day, during a student art & drama exhibition thing (the parents are all there) and hahaha guess what Gwen’s right in the middle of it

-So Green Goblin basically splits the school building in two and she’s on the terrace and she falls down almost 15 feet because the whole thing’s cracked and Nikita doesn’t have enough time to swing to reach her since there are so many people and she’s on the far, far side and-

-Gwen hits the ground at full force. Niki gets there just in time for her last breath and it’s a little bit like the Gwen-Peter 65 scene from ATSV (Niki’s Gwen slowly figured out that she’s Spider-Woman, she just didn’t say anything) yeah I might write out this scene sometime idk

-She manages to deal with Green Goblin for the moment but she loses her dad in the chaos too (basically instead of losing her uncle she lost her dad)

-So she lost her best friend and her father in one go

-She closes herself off and withdraws completely into herself and distances herself from everybody (except Ravi),, & starts going to ballet more to take her mind off things and to get lost in ballet, with the graceful, controlled movements so she doesn’t have to think of how everything’s gone wrong

-During the mourning period she and Ravi grow closer; they both start leaning more on each other and are able to tell each other anything

-Ravi has also started training to be a cop at this point

-Her relationship with her mother grows slightly strained and shaky the older she gets, because of how closed off she’s become

-Fast forward to when Nikita is 16 and a half and the Vulture attacks particularly viciously one day, right on the bridge (the Brooklyn Bridge variant in her universe)

-Her brother (who is now a police captain, despite being a little young) is in the middle of the maelstrom of cars being flung and buildings at the end collapsing. He - a police captain close to Spider-Woman - dies saving a child from falling rubble.

-That does a number on Nikita mentally and she just. Shuts herself down in terms of feeling emotion for a bit

-Like she just goes numb, like she’s in denial about how many people she’s lost in such a short time

-Terrified to make friends or get attached because her losing someone she cares about deeply seems to be a recurring pattern

-The only one she has left is her mom, and she’s grown really distant from her

-Little bit irrelevant but she takes up psychology. She studies how the emotional part of brain works, studies some basic therapy and other think-y stuff like that, and some of her Spider-Woman ‘jabs’ (not really but I can’t think of a word for them rn) are things like “did something formative happen to you as a child? yeah I thought I sensed some childhood trauma, would you like to talk about it?” And stuff like that (she’s pretty genuine about it too, if they start talking instead of just attacking her then she will sit down with a mug of chai and just listen to them rant)

-Anyway fast forward to a year and a half later when she’s 18

-Jessica Drew ends up following an anomaly she’s been tracking into Nikita’s dimension, the anomaly manages to get the upper hand on her and has almost overpowered her when Nikita finally swings in (probably during/right after a psychology exam too) and uses the element of surprise + her speed to get the upper hand on the anomaly and web it up

-She was recruited into the Spider-Society by Jess after she saw how capable and quick-thinking Niki could be. She saw her as someone who could be a useful asset to the society.

-It’s there where she met Hobie, Gwen, Pavitr, Margo, Miguel and Peter B. + a few other spiders she became friends with (I’ll expand on their relationships in a different post)

Suit design:

(I will be drawing this out properly sometime soon, don’t worry!! Feel free to skip this part if you think it’s too complicated ^^ I really have no idea how to describe it in a simpler way lmao)

-mainly shades of gold, black highlights

-on her arms there are black “cuff” markings like a golden silk spider’s legs

-on her wrists she has black bangles (more like cuffs bc they fit around her wrists, they aren’t loose & dangly)

-wears black fingerless sleeves, they look a little bit like Gwen’s but they have black splotches (a little bit like spray paint blobs) instead of spiderwebs

-has a black spider on the front of the suit

-wears a necklace! it’s colourful and has some mismatched colourful beads on a chord and two pendants in the centre, one pendant is a paint-splashed red electric guitar, the other pendant is one of Hobie’s rings

-wears black ballet pointe shoes

-the eye outline is black, the ‘eye’ inside is pastel golden

-black 🕸️ patterns on the side of both of her shoulders (like painted pauldrons)

Abilities:

-Along with the super-strength, super-speed and accelerated healing of the average Spider-Person, she can sense emotions and thoughts.

Not mind-reading exactly but if she focuses hard enough she can sense whatever emotion is radiating out of that particular person’s mind (she used to get very overwhelmed in middle school bc of the sheer amount of envy and insecurity and other emotions in raging hormonal teenagers’ brains and somehow studying psychology helped her figure out how to tune it out a little bit, since every time she can sense too much of intense emotions it’s like constantly blowing a dog whistle around a dog,, and she also gets horrible migraines and headaches from it)

She can even read thoughts if the emotion associated with it is strong enough.

An added ability that stems from being able to sense emotions and thoughts (to some degree) is that she can sometimes predict the moves that an enemy might make before they actually make them. It’s not 100% accurate every time but it’s still pretty useful

I’ll write out her relationships (everyone already knows that Hobie’s no. 1 on that list lmao) and the world descriptions later, but for now here’s the character that’s been living in my head since I saw ATSV :D

Oh also she’s besties with @hobiebrownismygod ’s sona Maitreyi :D desis gotta stick together yk (putting this here so I don’t forget to mention it in the relationships post ^^)

[destinygoldenstar]

Is Screen Time An Issue For A Character?

That’s a tough one.

I see quite a few arguments about some shows I’ve watched that ‘oh, this character is bad because they have too much screen time’. Or ‘I wish this character had more screen time to be interesting.’

Basically, too much screen time is now a valid critique to describe why a character is bad or doesn’t work for you. And to that I say…

Uh… no?

I’ll give some examples where I see this critique, but for now I want to state a case of examples where I expected to see this critique online, but didn’t, and I wondered why.

SPOILERS BELOW FOR THE SPIDERVERSE SEQUEL:

The main character of the Spiderverse movies is Miles Morales. Clear as day if you see ANY promotional concept art. The movies nail that home and give you a solid POV character among the Multiverse chaos.

The sequel begins with an over twenty minute backstory sequence involving Gwen Stacy, a side character in the first movie.

(Fun fact: When me and my dad went to see it in theaters together, he said that backstory was over twenty minutes long and that he thought they could've trimmed it down. Animated-phobia gives you weird opinions. He didn't watch Arcane with me and thought nothing of it because 'it was an animated show'. Not kidding.) (Both of my parents are like this, sadly.)

Now, in the context of the movie, it makes sense to include this to understand the full POV of her character going forward. As she is pretty vital to the story.

I tried imagining a version of the movie where we DIDN'T get this intro, went straight to Miles, and we just had to put the pieces together involving Gwen and her actions. And I don't think the movie would've worked nearly as well.

This brings me to another point involving Gwen Stacy in this movie: She's kind of become a protagonist as well, next to Miles.

Is this screen time theft? Under the screen time critique, it probably would seem that way.

And yet nobody I've seen complains. If anything, this solidified her as one of the best movie adaptations of Gwen Stacy out there. In my opinion.

Unlike the first movie, this one is not driven by the narrative of the main character, but rather multiple.

This is not uncommon. And it's an even bigger case with Arcane.

Yeah, this show is phenomenal everyone who says so is right Jinx is an icon Vi is my cartoon crush next to Petra I was crying so hard at the ending and for that alone this show deserves every ounce of praise it gets and I'm kind of an Arcane stan-

*Inhales*

I think I just have a thing for dystopian stories where characters walk through hell.

(Yes I consider TD a dystopian setting, that'd be a nice hot take to tackle one day.)

The Hunger Games is my favorite dystopian setting that I've seen, just because it's very memorable and inspiring. But Arcane is objectively the best dystopian story out there. If I fade out of my Total Drama obsession, this show might be my next target.

Cupcakes. El fin.

I could stop there, but lets talk about why we're here.

Arcane does not focus on the two main characters only as the driving force of its narrative.

Advertisement tell you that our main characters are the two growing war machines who go around calling each other sisters, Vi and Powder (Jinx. Idk how mad people get for which name I use for her. Sorry if I offend you). In fact, there's evidence to back that up. Other than they're the people with dyed hair, that's instant main character. They're the first characters we meet in the entire show. They're the characters with the final scene that closes off the season. EVERY ending to an act is with them. They're the main characters. Boom.

But wait. Nearly TWO THIRDS of this show doesn't even focus on them!

We have all the Piltover characters we keep switching back to. Jayce, Viktor, Mel, Caitlyn for Act 2 pretty much, Silco kind of becomes his own protagonist in Act 3. Really, the only people who remain consistent side characters are Ekko, and the two boys that get blown to pieces by Powder. And... some other people I'm forgetting the names of. (Sorry, I only had two watch throughs of this show so far and I know nothing about League other than the sisters become enemies.)

Now, why?

Why is this the case? I'm not saying characters other than our mains don't get fleshed out at all, but to the point where they're basically major enough to carry their own show? That SOUNDS like a detriment to the story if anything, especially how unfocused it kind of all gets until the end where everyone's in the same room.

Had Vi or Jinx interact with these characters, their fleshing out makes sense, and you definitely see that with characters like Caitlyn and Silco, who kind of need them to function.

But the Piltover gang? Jinx doesn't meet them at all, neither of the sisters meet Viktor, and Vi does meet Jayce, but in Episode 8 of 9.

Why does nobody complain about this? If anything, these guys are stealing screen time.

Well, it turns out, this is all done in Arcane's benefit, rather than fault. We are all the protagonist of our own story, and there are multiple POVs regarding the world.

It's basically if Hunger Games was third person instead of first, and we actually got a chance to flesh out the other rebels/children.

Me personally, and I know I'm not the only one out there, but the sisters were the most interesting thing about the show, and other characters that talk to them were how they caught my attention. That in no way means I don't care for anyone though, and it's COMPLETELY a PERSONAL thing.

So whenever we DO focus on the sisters and their story, not only do we get these other POVS on the scene that could clash with our view of them, but it makes it so that EVERY. SCENE. MATTERS.

No scene is wasted in fleshing out the sister's story. Everything has a purpose and drives it all to one heartbreaking simulation. There's no wasted space, there's no lack of attention to a certain detail, darn it, it's just right.

(I mean, I guess I would've liked to see what they went through in that time skip, like how Jinx was raised by Silco and processed her new identity, or better yet how tf Vi survived prison when it's heavily implied she beat people to a pulp and got solitary multiple times. But I think Season 2 is gonna cover it.)

Seriously, imagine a version of this show real quick.

Imagine a version of the show that took the Hunger Games approach, and used first person POV on one of the two sisters, doesn't matter which one, they'd both work. Cut out scenes not involving that sister. The other characters that appear revolve around scenes they're in with that sister.

Would that work nearly as well?

I don't think so.

Now First Person POV isn't necessarily a bad thing. Danganronpa is first person. Minecraft Story Mode is first person. Those are probably not great examples, but it can work. (TDDRI, a fic of mine, is first person, and I had to work around that to flesh out everyone else. It can work.)

This show is very hot topic and weirdly paced than what I'm used to. So take everything with a grain of salt as I am nowhere near an expert with this show. The show's story doesn't even get started until Episode 4, as the first three episodes are all flashback to explain where our characters are and why they're motivated to do what they do.

Again, I tried imagining a version of this show where we DIDN'T get those first three episodes, we started with Episode 4, and we just had to ASSUME all the backstory involving the sisters and the titular arcane and put the pieces together through Vi's words and Jinx's hallucinations. I don't think we would have been nearly as invested.

So with these two examples, WHY does nobody complain about screen time involving a character?

Is it because they're just really good pieces of media? Or is there a reason for this?

After all, Spiderverse and Arcane fall under the category of an 'ensemble cast'. A cast of characters in a story where there is no titular main character to drive the narrative, and everyone does instead. It's like if Harry Potter was 'Hogwarts' instead, or some title like that.

But lets take a look at some examples of ensemble casts where there's been a complaint of some sort with screen time:

Total Drama and RWBY.

Now I only like one of these two shows, so I'm gonna put that aside for now.

Total Drama. It has an ensemble cast. The show is about teenagers suffering-I mean competing for a prize, eliminating each other bit by bit as it goes along. Naturally with that setup, early boots are left to dry. But that doesn't stop people from complaining.

Ezekiel gets the most flack for too little screen time, and major fanboys say he should've had more focus. Personally I don't get that based on what role he's deigned to play. Caleb is a more recent example. I thought he was gonna have a bigger role and character than he ended up having, and him being a first boot gag makes even less sense than Zeke. Dawn is a fan favorite who isn't even in that many episodes. Axel is a ripoff of Shawn because of her lack of screen time. Scary Girl is... Scary Girl, who I don't see the fuss about her little screen time as she's comic relief, but the complaint is there. There is SO MUCH bashing about Noah's lack of screen time it is not even funny. So much so that he's sharing screen time with another person.

And who is to blame for this: Well, the characters who make it really far into the game, or course! How dare they steal screen time away from these guys!

I feel like Ripper is the most recent example of this. His character arc was about him breaking a world record. He broke it. It's Episode 5. Now he can leave the show, right-

Nope. He's around till Episode 8. Out of 13. And even then, in Episode 13, he's Millie's partner, which means screen time.

It sounds unjustified because it is. I'm not the biggest Ripper hater, but I definitely see the complaints. (Ripper and Damien swapping places are the only part of the elimination order I would change. Everything else is pretty spot on.)

We already have MK as a pre-merge antagonist and Julia as a post merge antagonist, we don't need this rando bully character as well as it adds nothing. Maybe Ripper would've been better liked if he wasn't a bully and just some morally average comic relief guy, but also... probably not.

But he's not the only fart based character in this show that gets complaints about screen time. Here's where I talk about the first gen.

For what I have seen, the ones with the biggest screen time complaints are Owen, Duncan, and Beth. I don't count Heather cause it's on purpose. I count Sierra because it's a personal gripe I have.

Owen was the original winner of TDI, came back on the show in the second season for a mole subplot nobody likes, and merged season three. He and Noah also got a spinoff.

Beth was the finalist of TDA.

And everyone hates it, including myself.

Then there's Duncan. Easily the character the show focuses on the most. Season 1? 4th place. Season 2? Winner. Season 3? Gone half the season so he's only in 8 episodes not counting what he didn't compete in, but he scored 5th overall. Season 5? Weakest performance, but he still merged. That's 8th place by the way.

By far, THIS is the character in this show that gets the MOST horrendous flack for his screen time. And from what I've learned, if you think this, you probably hate Duncan as a character.

Like, I haven't watched Winx, but I saw videos on YouTube that made fun of Bloom for getting too much screen time.

Somebody do those but with Duncan! I'm not a Duncan hater, but I would like to get a laugh!

So it'd just be easy to say the writers played favorites, it was an issue, and be done with it, right?

Except no.

My GF watched World Tour just recently. (And she was mixed on it.) Her comments regarding Duncan and Gwen were that she wished they had more interactions to sell them (she was routing AGAINST Duncney, basically) and it didn't help that Duncan was gone half the season. She said that it would've helped all the characters involved if he stayed to flesh that out.

To that I went: "Huh. That's interesting how you take no issue with this character's screen time."

But why though? She's not a stan of him, she's a casual viewer, so that can't be it.

And that's when it hit me.

Beth and Sierra. These two make it through an entire season each. And we both collectively hate them as characters. And we hate seeing them on screen.

That's because it's what the characters DO with their screen time.

See what I'm talking about:

Season 1: Duncan is an established character that develops relationships and friendships and learns to open up to people outside of his comfort bad boy zone.

Trent spends 16 episodes sitting still and looking pretty with a guitar. (Okay that's probably not a great example, and I don't hate Trent, but you kinda get it)

Season 2: Duncan is dealing with revenge on Harold for his spoiled relationship with Courtney where he gets abused by her, fights to hold his own, and dumps her.

Beth spends the entire season talking about a fake boyfriend and cheating on it.

Season 3: Duncan, again, is only competing in 8 episodes out of 26, but what does he do? He establishes a new relationship with Gwen, gets her cancelled, forms a friendship with Alejandro, and gets played.

Sierra is there the entire season sexually harassing Cody and passing it off as quirky. We hate to see it. (Seriously, you guys think the love triangle is worse than this? My GF and I agreed we would rather watch the love triangle ten times again, over Sierra being on screen at all.)

What's the difference here? STORY.

Certain characters have story to follow, that NEEDS that screen time to work. Ironically, the plotline of Duncan's that comes across the least genuine, is the season where he's on screen the least. (Not counting All Stars, but they're kind of equal in episodes Duncan's in.)

Again, imagine if we never had that backstory sequence of Gwen Stacy. Yes it eats up screen time, but without it? She would come across as an ingenuine traitor who supposedly ditched her dad for some cool spider society. We NEEDED that sequence.

Duncan is always doing something when the screen is focused on him.

The reason Beth and Sierra don't work despite having all the screen time in the world is that they do NOTHING with the screen time they get. Nothing of value at least. We could've learned a lot about their origins, Beth's underdog status, or Sierra's fanclub, flesh them out as dynamic characters to route for, with different sides of them that slip through time to time that gets the audience thinking.

Nope. Sexual harassment makes up for all of that. (I question why I put up with this show sometimes.)

That would be the case and that's the answer, just do something with your screen time and you're free to have as much as you want.

Except there's ANOTHER key to the puzzle here.

Duncan is in the top 4 of the TD cast for a reason.

He's a main character.

Something Jaune Arc is not.

Hello nemesis my old friend.

Look, I respect people who like RWBY. People can feel any way they want to about a show. Opinions are valid.

If you think Arcane is the worst show ever made, that's valid.

If you think Velma is the best show ever made, that's valid.

It's all VALID.

With that said I think this show is an absolute trainwreck when it comes to writing characters.

Now hold on before you say I hate everything about it, I don't. This show does have SOME merits to it. The music is stellar and I actually listen to the soundtrack from time to time. For a limited budget animation, it's impressive. The choreo is neat. I want these weapons. I actually like quite a few of the side characters. Keep in mind I said side.

But what I look for in a good show is a compelling story and interesting characters to follow.

Something this show just does not have in my opinion.

I keep saying I'll do an analysis post on why Team RWBY are awful protagonists, but I've been busy and my plate has not emptied. But one of my main points regarding them is screen time.

Keep in mind, I've only seen fully up to Season 8. I've only seen clips of Season 9, so whatever I say about 9 may not be accurate.

Team RWBY are the main characters of the show, and yet they have not done a single main character thing throughout EIGHT SEASONS. It's kind of incredible.

If I didn't know the name of the show but saw a clip, I'd assume the main character was Jaune, or Oscar, more on them later.

What have these girls contributed in the battle of Salem's forces?

Season 1: Blake helped stop a robbery. Not even all four of them, just Blake. (So did Sun and Penny.)

Season 2: They broke into the White Fang's secret operation and busted a train into the city to fight off some Grim, in time for Team CFVY to wipe them out. (Those characters appear TWICE in the ENTIRE show, this is the first time. Just to speak my point.)

Season 3: Yang got framed for assault which helped the bad guys. Ruby watched Pyyra die and she blasted an eyeball off Cinder.

Season 4: UH...

Season 5: They housed Oscar, they met Raven, and they took place in the battle of Haven where Yang got the relic. (So did Oscar, JNR, Qrow)

Season 6: They took the relic to Atlas. (So did Oscar, JNR, Qrow)

Season 7: They lied to the general about vital information that could've helped them get one on Salem, and doomed all of Atlas.

Season 8: They caused the death of a kingdom and fell through a hole.

Season 9: UH... (That's not me not knowing what happened in 9, they just climbed out of the hole, basically, as the season has nothing to do with Salem's forces.)

Now, because the main characters are not involved with the main plot very much, does that make them bad?

No. There ARE ways to utilize them outside of driving the external plot.

Some stories are Character vs Self, Internal Conflict. The basis of this show's story is that these kids who grew up to be military soldiers are learning that their lives and the world is not a fairy tale, and they're not the good guys. That SOUNDS like the show is all about internal conflict, right?

Well it's not.

I mean, they DO realize this and make a morally questionable choice with consequences they regret.

In Season SEVEN.

And even THEN, they're treated by gods themselves like they've done nothing wrong!

If you ask me, it should have happened a LONG time ago.

What internal conflicts do these girls have?

Ruby is a naive prodigy who wants to be a huntress and live out a fairy tale reality. And she lives out that dream. Then Pyyra dies and she loses that home. And then she's back to fairy tale land, just doing more crimes and hating authority. And I GUESS she learned a lesson in 9...? I just saw her as depressed.

Weiss is an heiress of a rich company trying to overthrow rule of her father, who hates her. She hates Faunus. She learns not to hate Faunus. And she gains a lot of powers.

Blake is part of a civil rights movement with Faunus and she likes assaulting her own kind and burning their homes. She also has an abusive boyfriend and kills him with a girlfriend by her side.

Yang lost her mommy and wants to find her. She loses her arm. She finds her mommy but doesn't give a s**t because plot. She also gets a girlfriend.

That's like Vi and Jinx's reunion, only they didn't care about seeing each other again after years, they just pointed fists and guns at each other and said, "Where's the arcane?! Where's Silco?! I'm not here for you, I have a police GF now!" "I'm not here for you, I just wanted an easy route to blast Piltover to pieces! Mwahaha!"

See where I'm going with that?

Internal conflict is a key to making characters screen time worth while.

But lets face it, Team RWBY not having very well established internal/relevance to the external conflict is not the full reason why this is a problem with their screen time.

It's their lack thereof.

Three quarters of every season, they're just sitting at some random place that's not even pretty to look at, and the SIDE CHARACTERS do all the plot relevant stuff.

See why I like the side characters better?

Lets look at that chart again:

Season 1: Sun and Penny stopped that robbery.

Season 2: Team CFVY stopped the Grim invasion.

Season 3: Pyyra's story and downward spiral to her death.

Season 4: Nora and Ren the season.

Season 5: Oscar. The tribe.

Season 6: Oscar again as he's responsible for the exposition involved in that season.

Season 7: Ironwood's descent into insanity AND Penny's descent into accidental heroism.

Season 8: Both those characters die. Everyone dies.

Season 9: ...okay, good point, there was no one else.

Okay so maybe Season 9 gets a pass, but the others? Can you really put Team RWBY in a plot summary?

And that's just external conflict talking, let's talk the MAIN CHARACTER with the INTERNAL conflicts throughout the ENTIRE show.

Jaune Arc.

A SIDE character, voiced by one of the writers, has some of the most plotlines to follow due to his internal struggle and conflict in this new war throughout the entire show.

He has something to do in MOST of the seasons of this show. Not unlike Duncan. The only time I think he didn't have anything going on was Season 7.

In the very first season, Jaune has an entire character arc surrounding him trying to find his inner strength with a one off bully character as an antagonist. That sounds fine, so what's the issue?

This character arc takes up FOUR episodes out of 16. A WHOLE QUARTER OF THE SEASON.

"Well, maybe those episodes cut away to other people at some points-"

No. They don't. It's all Jaune in all these episodes.

Season two is less so Jaune focused, but he has a little subplot surrounding letting go of his feelings for Weiss and finding another girl who would gladly take him. I guess it's priority respect because Neptune was into Weiss at the time? But those two wound up never being a thing, so...

The whole time I thought Weiss was just asexual, but then 9 came in to screw that idea.

Season three focuses on Pyyra, Jaune's love interest, and therefore he's vital to her story and her thought process, so much so that the big angst moment in the season is with him and their death kiss.

Season four and five are focused on Jaune's thirst for revenge on Cinder, a member of Salem's forces, for killing Pyyra. He learns about Salem's forces along the way, makes his own opinion about all this lore, and decides to help out due to his personal necessity.

Wow. He has an internal conflict going on, AND he's active with the external conflict. HMM...

Season six is him letting go of his grief after his moral failure from the Battle of Haven nearly getting Weiss killed. And also he pins Oscar to the wall because why not. It's brief but it's also a full on character arc.

Season eight, he kills Penny, a girl he has never interacted with before this point, and he's a grieving mess. So much so that season nine also includes Jaune dealing with MULTIPLE grieving instances and personal failures.

Everyone else got a seasonal break from the story, and yet Jaune could not.

Now, is this a screen time issue?

Yes.

But NOT for the reasons you might think.

Let's go off of Duncan again, a character with a major status in the show's story and conflict from day one. He was designed that way.

Jaune was not designed that way. BUT I don't actually hate his story for the screen time he gets. In fact, he's probably one of the most interesting characters in the show because there's so much time dedicated to his struggle and his story.

The elephant in the room isn't because Jaune has a story.

It's because the main characters don't have a story.

Again, Arcane, that show focuses on a LOT of characters that aren't Vi and Jinx. You could argue Jayce is the Jaune in their universe. But why does it work? Because there is NOT a neglect of characterization of the leads.

In RWBY, there's a serious neglect issue.

And it's not just Jaune. There are other side characters who've been stealing time away from the leads.

Oscar, ever since he debuted Season 4, has been devoted to screen time stealing, and stealing the main character status with a Chosen One narrative and a pretty offensive way of portraying Multiple Personality Disorder. He's the one with the chosen one story, he's the one who interacts with the bad guys, he's toe to toe with Ironwood, he's the one related to Salem, and he does all of it with the personality of a hollow pine tree.

I mean I guess he also has a crush on Ruby, but... I don't want to get into that.

Hell, CINDER, an ANTAGONIST of the show, has more conflict and screen time than the leads. And she's one of my least favorite characters in the entire show, isn't that sweet?!

On top of that, she's a VILLAIN. We shouldn't be routing for her!

Then there's the rest of JNPR. Nora and Ren have a season focused on them, that being season 4. Pyyra is the same case with season 3. Pyyra dies in that season, so she's obviously not getting screen time any further. But Ren and Nora are alive, AND they have a subplot in the Atlas arc. Having a subplot isn't a problem, it just becomes jarring when the main characters don't have an arc and they do.

Penny gets revived and dies in the Atlas arc. That's also a thing.

The fix here should be really simple! Swap roles! Have the side characters sit in the houses with their little arcs, and have Team RWBY on the fields reacting to everything. It wouldn't excuse their lack of inner struggle, but at least they'd be involved with the plot.

There are many ways you could fix this. Like Oscar's role of being related to Salem. Ruby's mom is dead, but like, what if her mom was Salem and was taken out in war and revived/corrupted into this monster figure? That'd be an interesting narrative.

And RWBY is not the only show, the previous season of Pretty Cure, Delicious Party, ALSO has this issue. And arguably they did it worse because I don't even care for the side characters there either. I'd be repeating myself with criticism there:

Yui, the supposed main character, has no character trait other than be a glutton and a stand in for her grandmother, the other Cures are also irrelevant to the plot and just spend their time eating. The boys of this magical girl show are the focus and have all the wishy washy plotlines, and none of them are even that interesting.

I will give RWBY this over Delicious Party to prove I can see its merits:

At least they only have ONE forth wall narration and do know boundaries to that stuff, as opposed to Delicious Party that thinks their viewers are IDIOTS, and needs a narrator to explain EVERYTHING. CONSTANTLY.

(What a new low for that franchise, am I right? At least we have Hirogaru Sky.)

So what have we learned here?

To answer the question: Is Screen Time An Issue For A Character?

No. It's not that simple.

It's what the character DOES with that screen time that matters. And their role in the story that warrants this screen time.

They need to have all the details of their story laid out for you to care about them.

They need every scene involving their story to matter.

They need to have a plotline that justifies the screen time, small role or big role.

They need to be involved with the main story if they are a major character.

They need an internal conflict to keep the time on them engaging.

They need to be doing something.

If they are a minor character, additional screen time is not a bad thing.

A minor character with a lot of screen time could be there to advance the world building, they could be heavily connected to major character, relationship or otherwise.

But the minor characters don't become favorites and neglect focus on the people the story is revolving around.

First Person POV is a difficult storytelling technique when it comes to screen time, but it's not a bad tool. It can be used as a certain perspective for every character involved if done properly.

And just... screen time alone isn't a valid criticism in my opinion. It's WAY more complicated than that.

What's your opinion? Reblog your thoughts, I'm very curious, especially with media with this issue I did not cover.

[jreed3842]

Guys!! Check it out!! Excited to show off the next character in my D&D Characters inspired by Disney Princesses! Introducing Memphis! He will be a Leonin Order of the Scribes Wizard! Art done by the always incredible @/cniska. (Backstory and more art in the after "Read More")

Memphis is from a little town, a quiet village. Every day like the one before? Why, yes. Because unfortunately his village is fated to be destroyed by some catastrophic disaster. In a desperate plea to save themselves, the villagers called out for help.

Their prayers were heard and answers by ... someone. A Goddess? A Powerful Enchantress? Whoever it was, the only way she could think to save them was to trap the town in a protective bubble that would have them relive the same day over and over again.

Memphis goes into town every day, exchanges a book, and is proposed to by Cordelia Thorne. She is the best hunter in the village. Popular with the village, and incredibly wealthy. Memphis is the outcast in his village. More interested in reading, and day dreaming of adventure...

But he is the most beautiful man in the village. It's no wonder that his name means beauty. His looks have got no parallel. As such, Cordelia sees him as a prize. She's so full of herself, she never excepts Memphis to say no her marriage proposal.

And she's right... Memphis doesn't say no. This isn't what he wants. He wants much more than this provincial life. But it's just him and his mom. After his father passed away, Memphis works as hard as he can to keep the farm going for him and his mom...

Marrying Cordelia would mean him and his family would be well off and his mother would never have to worry about a thing. He talks to his mom, and she tells him to follow his heart no matter what that means. After thinking on it ... he decides. Yes. He will marry Cordelia.

Cordelia, already expecting this outcome, has a huge feast prepared that the entire town attends to celebrate her marriage to Memphis. At the end of the dinner, the disaster strikes.... Time reverses... The day is relived again... and again... and again...

Now one day, after God knows how long, trapped in an endless time loop, Memphis goes into town. Exchanges his book like normal, but one book in particular calls out to him. A book about adventure, far off places, daring sword fights, magic spells...

He takes this book and is filled with a sense of power. Then the day proceeds as normal. Cordelia proposes. Memphis goes to his mom, and she tells him to follow his heart. He decides. No... He can't do this.... He runs out to the outskirts of town and sits and reflects...

As he sits down, the seeds from a nearby dandelion drift in the wind, he sees a strange ripple of magical energy reflecting in the air. As he investigates, he pushes through... He exits the influence of the Goddesses' magic. He escapes the time loop.

He turns around. His village is gone. Destroyed by whatever cataclysmic event originally destroyed them. Years... maybe even thousands of years have passed. The area is nothing but a crater, now covered by a pasture of grass. Everyone he has known is gone. And he cannot go back.

With no other choice to move on, Memphis travels to a nearby city. Vastly different than his small town. And yet he still doesn't fit in here either. People laugh at his accent. They don't expect a man of his stature to be studious and into casting spells.

One night, alone in his room, Memphis discovers the book that traveled with him out of the time loop is actually a spell book left behind by the Goddess savior. Memphis teaches himself magic from this spell book. And even accidentally summons a familiar! A sentient pocket watch!

Now determined to find his way back home, and to his mom. Memphis seeks to understand the magics of time control. Maybe, just maybe, he can return and rescue his village.

And that's the backstory! :D And now here is some additional art, also done by @/cniska! First is Miss Cordelia Thorne. Boorish, Brainless. The biggest bitch in town, and everyone loves her.

And here is Memphis' mother! Margaret (named after my own grandmother hehe) She is kind of the village crazy lady. I like to think she smokes pot. Hah. But she always speaks from the heart and is wise beyond her years.

It might be quite awhile before I can get around to playing Memphis, but very excited to have the art work completed! Can't wait to get around to playing him! Any guesses which Disney Princess he is inspired by? ;) (I told the artists I needed Memphis to be DROP DEAD Sexy. Mission accomplished cause here are some live Testimonials!) "Shit Girl. He's sexy as hell!" - Devery- "I want him to choke me." - My favorite coworker, Celina-

"Why does his hair look like mine?" -Warren-

[hauntingjasper]

Flame is so beautiful in your art style.

Headcanons about him?

Aww thank you! Honestly FP is such a tricky character for me to draw, i'm glad you like it 😭

There's so little information about this guy it's crazy, i'm just pulling stuff out of my magic hat for this one.

1- Different backstories, you know the drill. Instead of being locked away inside a lantern, he was successfully abandoned by the Flame Queen. He was left somewhere that didn't have much to set on fire, consequently leaving no traces to be found, like a desert, perhaps. Eventually he found his way out and started wandering around the land.

2- He likes to make tiny glass statues with sand. It's one of the few nice things he can do when he's a walking fire.

3- Hear me out on Brazilian Flame Prince okay it's the last time I'll shove my Brazilian hcs on you I promise- /j Anyway the reason for this one is that Flame Prince looked like the Curupira at the beginning of Natasha Allegri’s F&C comic and I found it funny enough to make it into a headcanon. I have other reasons, such as:

» Almost making him a Maned Wolf in Jackalope Fionna's AU (he's a Will-o'-the-wisp now but the thought is still there), and Maned Wolves are considered a symbol here in Brazil.

» Another folklore reference: If Fionna's magical word had an Elementals Arc, I imagined him becoming a fire snake thing like the Boitatá instead of a salamander dragon.

» The vibes told me.

4- I don't think he has a canon birth date, so I hc that his birthday is on August 22,, , Yes, it's because it's Folklore Day here in Brazil are you seeing the pattern yet

That would also make him a Leo. And he has lions. Get it? (⁠☞ﾟ⁠ヮﾟ⁠)⁠☞

5- He's bisexual and just as unaware as Fionna. But in his defense, he wasn't taught how being gay works.

6- He likes popcorn. Not that he can eat it, he just likes to see it pop.

7- He's more water resistant. Of course, you can't throw him in a swimming pool and expect him to survive, but he seemingly can handle light rain for a while. I think he'd be so stubborn about it oml you'd tell him a million times not to go out while it's raining and he's like "It's just a drizzle let me go >:(", until his body starts giving out near the end and he needs some dry wood to recover. Just get the damn umbrella, fire boy.

8- Biggest cat person you'll know. Cats will sit around him because he's warm and he'll refuse to move. I think his human self would have many cats in his house to reference the fire kittens he has.

9- His interactions with Fionna made me so sad in the comic, the way he immediately tried to hug her when he regained consciousness oughjsuwhs That boy has never received physical affection in his life and when he finally gets it, he somehow manages to lose it again i'm not okay,, , He'd be so clingy if he ever found out about that Flame Shield spell.

10- I hc that he's trans. I've been thinking about how (biological) gender would work for fire elementals because, well... they're fire. Does fire have gender? No idea. Yet they still use gendered terms like daughter, princess, King (though Flame Princess calls herself "King"), etc... So in my mind, it's more a matter of how they're raised according to the parent's preferences and not biology. Flame Prince could've been raised to be a daughter and princess before being abandoned, but went the other direction later on after being surrounded mainly by princes, being referred to as a prince and being assumed he's a guy. He's just okay with it and wouldn't change anything, does that make sense-

At first I didn't have the intention to make him trans, but it just sounds trans so- He's trans, yippie!

11- One thing I never understood in the Fionna and Cake comic is that it says Cake made Flame Prince's outfit… but how the hell did she manage to make unburnable clothes for a fire elemental and so fast too. Right now I'm thinking that she just showed him a sketch for an outfit and he shaped his fire into “clothes”, I don't know. That's where half of his wardrobe comes from.

12- Would gasoline be the equivalent of an energy drink to him? Because I'm starting to think it would. He can drink gasoline.

13- I'm still thinking about what his actual name would be,, , Phoebus sounds okay, but I also like others like Phoenix or Felix. Apollo is also on my suggestion list, since the god himself is associated with light and music, and it fits him considering FP is also a DJ. One day I'll have that figured out.

I think this is all I have for now! Now stay with this thing because I'm still losing my mind over it

[shummashum]

Klaus Goldstein Ch3 [1~5]

Previously on Ch2! Liz, who was summoned to the Headmaster's office at Remb's request, learned from him that an investigation team would be formed to retrieve the academy's stolen goods. Would this investigation proceed well?!

...attack?

okay… let me hear his lecture we already heard in Zeus' route though

those were the days alas, I'm already starting to hear that bgm

yes!! how on earth is he going to show up later during the romance session I'm fucking scared

but… that's true but the walkthrough says I have to choose the option of denial eeh,,

right right our mighty Emperor Klaus always has been nice and kind!!

…what? what did you say what you I think you've been out of your mind since yesterday you forgot? you forgot the Klaus Goldstein in K1 route?

erm… erm……… is this the correct interpretation? is this? the correct? interpretation??

He patted her on the head, saying he never expected to hear her say like that.

look look look look and you say he's a nice guy??

Just then, the bell rang, signaling the start of classes.

oh god it's history I'm already sleepy but if that's the topic of the class, I have to listen, because it's lore but history is a sleeping pill subject

all citizens are happy? I get it this kingdom is fucking sus all citizens are happy?? so fucking suspicious it can't be! it's clear that some trick was used maybe they were hypnotized on a national level

oh… they had enormous military strength they said that national power was based on military power no matter how much other kingdoms spent on the military budget, they couldn't compete? this is……

anyway now I figure out why the Daylight wage war they had no reason to sign a peace treaty with the Nighttime, they already had the upper hand

Black Dragons, huh it's just a name, right?

Overall Review: it was an ideal lecture! if a person like this teaches the class, the class will be enjoyable but now that the evaluation standards are tight and strict, he's suitable as a major professor… it would be better to take classes from more laid back one when it comes to liberal arts but honestly it was more fun that I expected

Liz sent words of admiration to Klaus, but he denied it.

I guess so it's not easy to provide understandable information to people with different levels of knowledge and perspectives besides Klaus is a genius, it won't be easy for someone like that to process information so that average students can understand it

Anyway they headed to the library. Al and Cae were already there waiting for everyone.

uh…… I got a feeling those nocturnal idiots will show themselves up late again this time

what you know it's not wrong

Anyway, she decided to look for books to find information about the Daylight before the agreed time.

I have no good memories of the library though you're not getting sucked in again, are you?

And here comes Cae

but well I'm a little reluctant to tell him the curse and labyrinth will be mentioned Inevitably because she investigated the Daylight for Luci's escape, and Cae had something to do with it somehow if she talks to him about something like this, he might get scratched?

As expected, Liz revealed all of her intentions to him, but surprisingly, Cae responded calmly.

ooh… technology

Anyway, he took out a book from there and handed it to her.

well there's no way he didn't read it anyway thank you! she'll use this well

this is a bit troublesome even though he didn't commit it, he got entangled just because he shared the same blood anyway, does feeling responsible, even when it's not essentially his duty, prove that he's a kind person but I know there's a curveball in his route… I know he's not the character who can be simply described as 'kind'

anyway he's throwing in bits and pieces of his backstory okay! you wait I guess I'll be able to play your route in the second half of this year

[nardaviel]

I've been wanting to do this for ages but I was too lazy to turn on my computer. I got the template here! Only like three of these characters are any degree of well-known, and I think I might actually be one of the only people on Tumblr who knows of two of them... Under the cut I talk a little about how each of them has inspired Sora.

Ibushi Arima: The Original inspiration. The reason Sora exists. The mold that Sora was shaped to fit. Essentially, I needed an OC to fill some holes in my backstory for Ibushi, so I made Sora. He has many things in common with Ibushi for that reason (rich background, unhappy childhood, deeply devoted to a small number of people). He has some key differences, as well, because he needed to have them (less conflict-averse, more ambitious).

Light Yagami: Sora is incredibly, blindingly smart (though not to the degree we're meant to believe Light is, because I'm pretty sure no actual human is as smart as Light is meant to be), and gorgeous, and charismatic, and well-off, but feels a profound disconnect between himself and most others. It takes him in a different direction than Light, however, with more loneliness and self-loathing. Essentially, Sora, like Light, is a guy who seems to have it all, but his internal life is dark and dysfunctional and broken. One of my fav tropes!

Diora di'Marano: She is one of the characters who I might be alone in knowing, which is such a shame, because she's one of my favorite characters in all of media. She's smart as fuck, subtle and patient, good at manipulating people, and overall incredibly skilled at maneuvering through her society to become powerful despite some not inconsiderable barriers. Most importantly for this post, she's motivated by love for a few people, and she doesn't care about much else, including herself. All that cunning and subtlety, and she uses it to protect people, then avenge them, then to protect new people, all the while using herself as a tool like any other. She and Sora would get along, I think.

Haruka and Michiru: Specifically I'm talking about the 90s anime version of these characters. I never watched the anime all the way through, but I remember being drawn to their pragmatism, which influenced the way Sora thinks. The inner senshi don't want anyone to die, and neither do Haruka and Michiru, really, but they recognize that in order to save the most people, they have to commit to causing a few deaths. Sora would do the same calculations.

Amarais Handernesse ATerafin: She is another beautifully pragmatic character. She has more principles than Sora, but she's clear-eyed about what she wants, and she's willing to do literally anything to achieve it; it's simply that some of the things she wants are to never resort to assassination, to leave a positive legacy, to uplift the most vulnerable instead of crushing them under her heel, etc., which rule out some methods of taking and holding power. (Sora does not share these admirable principles; where they are similar is that he, like Amarais, knows what he won't do because he's considered and analyzed it already and decided that it won't produce an acceptable result.) Amarais is also an unapproachable character, aware of her position and expecting others to be aware of it as well, but isolated and made incredibly lonely by that distance. Sora can be very much like that. Lastly, like Sora, she wants power. She wants to get to the top, and she's not sorry about it or ashamed of it, and she's not portrayed as evil for that.

Daemon Sadi: (Look, is he from a Problematic series? Yes. Do I recommend it? Absolutely not. But I read it when I was young, it changed me forever, and now I'm stuck like this.) (Also, he doesn't even have book cover art I could use for this meme; I used @/veliseraptor's fancast of Sendhil Ramamurthy.) Daemon is The Most Powerful Guy To Ever Exist in his canon, which I think freed me early on from the fear of making characters OP. If there's magic or innate superpowers in an AU, and if Sora has them, he's going to be very innately strong, simply because it fits his has-everything-except-happiness-and-love concept and because I want him to be. Daemon is also a rich, beautiful, clever character, subtle and deadly, who lives through a youth full of abuse that follows him for the rest of his life and informs all the close relationships he ever has. Like Sora, he is deeply scarred by his early life and not nearly as stable as his smooth, charismatic facade suggests. His Diora-esque self-sacrificial depth of devotion to his closest loved ones is something else that's really stuck with me, and you can find it in Sora.

Josephine Montilyet: Josie is a diplomat. In a game where you, the PC, are a fighter, and your closest companions are people who fight with you, and two of your three advisors are a soldier and a spy-assassin type, Josephine stands out as the advisor whose skills lie in negotiation, manipulation of social circumstances, pulling strings, and destroying people without ever lifting a weapon. Sora, likewise, is very much a paperwork and private conferences kind of guy. Like Amarais, Josie is more of an idealist than Sora, but also like Amarais, she pursues her goals with Soralike ruthlessness.

[lovelywingsart]

Plans for after 'Dear Mother' (kinda long plan update shite!)

So y'all have probably noticed that I'm going ham on 'Dear Mother' - Thats because I gave myself the goal of finishing it before years end. And, good news, its almost done!!! So really, im just here to say my plans afterwards since I really haven't been updating much at all;

> Immediately after Dear Mother is finished, I'll be going on a partial hiatus to finish Baldurs Gate 3 and give myself time to relax and just... give myself a fucking break. The only times I'll be on the computer are the 2 days a week my fiance uses the PS5 to play with friends, so those are the only time I'll be doing any kind of art, be it personal or commission work. So if you happen to get a commission, please do not expect it right away. The general TAT for small things is 2 weeks, and with this hiatus and minimal energy, it might be longer. But I'll be giving myself a very... VERY much needed break to finish BG3 and have more shenanigans afterwards.

> When hiatus is over, be it immediately after the game or giving some time to work on other things, I'll be starting a new comic, and will try to pace myself a little bit because its going to be... huge. There will also be one more Survival AU written story before it starts- because this comic will be the fight against Miranda, involving the Lords, Emelia and Ethan. It is going to be huge, and its going to be difficult. There will be no other primary written stories until after its done unless there's a drabble or something someone asks me to make. I'll be finishing up and perfecting a few stories for after that's done, though I will primarily be working on the Survival AU with art, as well.

> Now, when the Survival AU comic is done, I may take another break, because there's yet another comic I'm going to start, which will be Emelias arrival to the factory. The start of this comic will also kickstart primary work focusing on the first few years of Emelias arrival. I am going to say now that while yes, they may have their moments, there will be quite a bit of mildly uncomfortable subjects, as the first few years involved some heavy mutual abuse from both. You'll get to see how she got there and how they managed the first few years as well as quite a bit with her having... well, two eyes 😂 I'll give another warning when I get there but yknow. I've said before how genuinely dysfunctional they are with a few written examples, but I feel like it'll be a different story with proper visual...

And while I'm working on that fun little bit, I'll also be introducing a new written series that I've been secretly chipping away at- While I work on Emelias background and arrival, I'll also be working on Karls.

I will be working on/posting a small(?) mini(???) series of Karls own backstory. It will include his own 'arrival' to the village, interactions with Miranda and occasionally the Lords, and even smaller things such as the loss of his leg and how he got the scars across his nose and throat, all up until Emelia is dropped off. I don't plan on there being VERY many stories, though I will absolutely be more than open to writing for him if anyone has other ideas! 💙

And... thats it for now! Noting that the next two comics are going to take quite a while, ESPECIALLY the Survival AU one... I've no idea how long everything will take exactly, and all this is going off of if life decides to give me a fucking break. There's still alot going on, and I'm struggling alot... but I still have plans. Dear Mother will be finished before the new year (if not nearly exactly ON new years depending on our plans for the next two weeks and me not getting burnt out) and I'll have January to attempt to recuperate. Will I take the entire month? I'm not sure. But given shit doesn't go wrong like it did this year, we might be ok.

But... yeah! Thats about it. Right now I'm focusing on Dear Mother and trying my best. Comms ARE still open but will just take a lil bit more time than usual, so if you're fine waiting, hit me up 👍

[zee-has-commitment-issues]

zee i’m BEGGING for your dark and mysterious backstory

*sigh*

Alright. I had to ask my girlfriend's advice, but alright.

Everyone settle in. Get some popcorn. This shit is long, and it is batshit. There are five people that know the entire story. Me, the other person it involves, my girlfriend, Dani, and my other best friend who we lovingly refer to on this blog as "the golden retriever." My therapist also knows, but we don't really count that. But that is it. That is everyone who has ever gotten to know.

There should probably be trigger warnings on this, but I don't even know what it could possibly be for. So like TW for mentions of suicide, inappropriate minor-adult relationships, death threats and probably a few other things.

I used to be very involved in the Harry Potter fandom. And some of the fandom still brings me comfort, and I do love a lot of the fan-made content that JK Trolling has nothing to do with. I, however, cannot consume Harry Potter content in the same way I used to after this story, and I'm sure you'll see why.

Now, if y'all were involved in the Harry Potter community on TikTok in 2020, you probably heard about Golden Boy. It was a Fred Weasley fanfiction, for those of you who have no idea what I am talking about. It was... explicit, to say the least.

It was a Fred Weasley sex novel. I'm not even going to try to sugarcoat it. It was a very explicit sex novel.

I heard about it through TikTok, like most people did. The author was named Samine, and she had a pretty decent following on TikTok (150K when I found her I think) and she had a very large reading (about 2 million people when I found it). It was kind of a trend on Harry Potter TikTok to read GB and record your reactions, so I did that. She liked the video and commented on it and that was the first time I interacted with Samine.

I was 16. She was 21.

It was during quarantine, so I didn't have much to do, so I started working on an art piece. I drew one of the original characters from her story. I sent it to her and said "hey I made this. You probably won't see this but thank you for the inspiration" and the whole thing, you know?

Well, she did see it, and that began my very long relationship with the author of Golden Boy.

She asked if she could post it on her Instagram, and add it to the beginning of her new chapter, and of course I said yes. She had almost 200k followers on TikTok and 40k on Instagram and 3 and a half million readers and I was sitting there with my 2000 followers, so of course I said yes. I did not expect the reaction I got. I gained a shit ton of followers overnight and people wanted more art, so I started making more.

Now, here's where it gets a little shady. Samine was 21. She asked me to lie about my age because of the nature of her story. Being the naïve little 16-almost-17-year-old that I was, I, of course, said yes. I told people I was 17 almost 18 for over a year.

I started getting some hate. People kept saying it looked like I was making my headshots on ArtBreeder, but we cleared it up quickly by posting a video of my process and it mostly went to rest. I still got some mean messages, but it wasn't too bad and Samine told me not to worry about it because she "got way worse."

It should have been a red flag, but alas.

After like 5 headshots (unpaid, even though they took 15 hours each, of course) she asked if I would be her official artist. And, again, I said yes without a second thought. We started an Official Golden Boy Art Instagram account, and we started getting followers on there. Her following grew on all platforms, her readership getting to about 14 million reads at some point, and mine was steadily growing as well. I was really excited.

At this point, "Zee" was born. I was going by my actual name, and it just wasn't working anymore. People were finding me, and my friends, and my family. It was uncomfortable. It was scary. I started going by Zee so fewer people would find that shit out about me, but it still happened and if you look back far enough on any of my social medias, you'll find my real name. People found my school. My High School. Someone called my school and pretended to be my mom.

Samine started talking to me about some really personal things. Her mental health, her issues with her family, her sex life. (again, I was underage the entire time I worked under Samine) We had a friendship, as well as a work relationship. Which, I suppose, is why I did thousands of hours of work for her unpaid. Each headshot could take anywhere from 15 to 30 hours and I normally charged for them, but I didn't with her, and they took up way too much of my time, so I couldn't really do commissions anymore. I didn't care. I had a following, and I was getting brand deals and it was super cool.

Then things started to take a turn. There were people who had found details in GB that were... less than politically correct. There were some racist undertones, some mlm fetishization, and some blurred lines of consent. Some of it could be explained away with author ignorance and at that point I was convinced I knew Samine enough to let her explain it all away.

That did not stop death threats to both of us and she got doxxed, but oh well.

She took the story down at 20M and started rewriting it. The whole time she was telling me about her mental health, her family drama, her sex life and romantic relationships. I would like to put here that she had a gf and was telling me every detail about how they sexted and shit. It wasn't uncomfortable at the time, but looking back, I want to smack myself across the face.

She reposted the fic after a rewrite, and it was met with mixed reviews. Some people were happy to have it back. Some people were still upset with Samine (FOR OBVIOUS AND VALID REASONS) and some people were just finding out about everything for the first time. And, once again, people found problems in Samine's writing. This time it couldn't be boiled down to ignorance. Because she had been told at this point. It wasn't ignorance anymore.

She was doxxed again. Hacked. Someone was like dead set on making sure she didn't have a platform (and honestly she probably shouldn't have had one). There were like "fandom wars" and stuff. People were defending Samine and people were ripping her to shreds. People were in my DMs every day saying shit and at one point I had to post something saying that I wouldn't be answering or reading any more of them because I was getting too many threats.

I was called... awful things. Things I cannot repeat here. I didn't have anything to do with the fic except the art and the "marketing" for the rewrite but I was friends with Samine, and that was close enough for them. It was really bad. My mental health suffered. But I was more focused on Samine's mental health because she had told me before that she was suicidal.

When Samine went offline for a few days at a time without notice, I was looking up obituaries for her hometown. That's how scared she made me for her. Every time something went wrong, or we disagreed, or I told her she did something ignorant, she brought up the fact that she was suicidal.

Please keep in mind I WAS SIXTEEN AND SEVENTEEN YEARS OLD.

So, one day, when I was with Dani and Golden Retriever, I got a text that say "{her real name} died. She killed herself last night." And I believed it. Because I didn't have any reason not to.

It became a really big thing. I had like 5,000 unanswered DMs when I opened Instagram (it had been a few hours because me, Dani and Golden Retriever were on a day-road-trip), the GB account was blowing up, someone was posting on Samine's account. I got in contact with a few of our other GB "team members" and let them know what was going on. Because I was the Official Artist, they believed what I told them.

THEN Samine's ex-gf texted me and was like "hey, the bitch isn't dead."

When I tell you Dani, Golden Retriever and I were baffled.

But, sure enough, she was posting on twitter all merry and shit. So I texted her on her actual phone instead of Instagram and she answered. I'd spent like 12 hours crying into Dani's shoulder about this bitch being dead and she literally wasn't. She was alive. She was fine.

Samine pretended she didn't know what was going on. She said she got hacked (by a stalker she had conveniently never told me about before). She had me post her statements to the Official Account while she "worked on getting her account back."

Samine eventually "got her accounts back" but decided the drama surrounding GB wasn't worth it and she abandoned the fic. She abandoned her account. She abandoned me.

Turns out: BITCH NEVER HAD A HACKER OR A STALKER. SHE FAKED HER OWN DEATH. FAKED HER RESURRECTION TOO.

She left me alone to deal with the fallout of it all. I still get hundreds of DMs a week asking about if GB is coming back. I have abandoned the GB account, mostly abandoned my original account from before GB and cut ties with all things Harry Potter.

I literally cannot watch Harry Potter anymore. It sends me into a panic. It hurts me. I also don't make art anymore. It feels wrong. For a very long time, I also didn't write because Samine had convinced me that I would never write as good as she did.

I know I didn't do anything, really. I was a kid, and I was being manipulated, just like all of her followers were. I still feel extremely guilty for being part of something that hurt so many people.

I don't know how the fuck I managed to get through it. I was seventeen and receiving death threats for drawing pretty pictures. I was seventeen and reading explicit private messages from a 21/22 year old. I was seventeen and lying about my age so people wouldn't call her out about her inappropriate relationship with me.

I made a few good friends from it. I met my gf because of it. I am literally bonded for life with Dani and Golden Retriever because they are equally traumatized from the day that we all thought Samine had "died."

I find the good in it because it's all I have.

At the height of GB I had about 15k followers on Instagram (more on tik tok and other platforms). I'm down to about 2k now on the Instagram I use, and I am more than happy with that.

So, when someone said earlier that I was "famous" and I said no it is because I know what it's like to be an "influencer" in a fandom, and this is not it. When asked if I would start drama for fun, and I said no, it is because I've dealt with that shit before against my will and it is not fun.

That is my dark fandom past. I feel guilty for it, even though I shouldn't. I'm fucking traumatized from some of the dms I got over the year and a half I was working on that fic.

Overall, YR is better. My 1000 unhinged tumblr followers are better. I am very content to never do a brand deal again.

[someonetookmyawesomename]

It must be painful to sail a dead ship 🥀

Tell me something about it, since I haven’t the slightest who they are? 😅💐

(Warning, this is gonna be long as heck because I'm sad my ship is dead, so I'm sorry in advance if I talk too much)

YES SAILING A DEAD SHIP IS PAINFUL (My chosen ship is Liir/Trism from the wicked books)

Here's just a summary of things that you can expect to experience:

you have nobody to talk about it with (yes, even on tumblr. So far, I've only met 3 people who are interested, and they're all pretty busy, so I'm alone on this 99% of the time

There is very little art (I've seen less than 20 works most of which were commissioned by @lillifaba so I have her to thank for what little I can find)

Even posts such as headcanons and rants are nonexsitent

Next to zero fanfiction (there is less than 30 works on AO3 that have my favored characters tagged. They don't even appear as minor characters in most works about wicked)

Most of the fanfiction that do feature them usually only use them as minor characters

As for those that use them as major characters, most are abandoned and are about a decade old if not older

Unless you have the skills to make your own content, you're stuck licking crumbs off the floor

Now that that's out of the way, here's some basic information about Liir and Trism:

They're both characters from the wicked book series which provides a fairly adult backstory to the wicked witch of the west from The Wizard of Oz

Neither of them appear in the wicked musical, because their story happens after the events of the musical

They're part of the next generation of characters from the books

Liir is the son of Elphaba (the lead heroine in the musical AKA wicked witch of the west) with her definitely murdered (in the books) lover Fiyero

Unlike his mom, Liir does not have any sort of happy memories from his childhood

Elphaba gave birth to him while in a coma, so she refuses to acknowledge him as her son

he was heavily bullied throughout his childhood for his weight (he was on the chubby side as a child) and was almost drowned by his bully

Unlike his extremely motivated and go-getter mother, his terrible upbringing made him more weary and passive

He achieves greater things compared to his mother, but only because he was forced to do so, not because he wanted to

He kind of just stumbles through life, winging it as he goes

Despite that, he is extremely mentally strong and is able to withstand torture and threats to his family

Liir has a wife named Candle

She kind of accidentally forces him into a relationship with her because she r*pE$ him and gets pregnant while he's in a coma in an attempt to warm his body to keep him from dying (I know, shit got messy real fast)

Trism is a soldier Liir meets when he enlists in the army (Liir enlists after Elphaba is killed because he was a literal teenager at the time with nowhere to go)

Trism is described as being VERY hottt (Kinda reminds me of America/Alfred from Hetalia when it comes to looks, blonde, handsome, and VERY muscular) which appeals to my gay senses

He and Liir initially don't get along that well, but in true enemies to lovers fashion, they get together later on

Trism becomes a dragon trainer working for the current ruler of Oz

Unfortunately, the ruler is corrupt and uses the dragons to oppress the masses, murdering countless innocents

Trism grows tired of working to oppress the people and Liir convinces him to kill the dragons

They become fugitives and in the process become lovers and start fricking (yes I enjoyed this part and I'm not ashamed)

Trism delivers my favorite line from the books "Are you slow, or are you just falling in love with me?" I love me a cheeky man

This all happens while Candle is pregnant

In order to reunite with candle and keep her safe, Liir sends Trism to pick her up (He literally sends his lover to pick up his wife my goodness)

She refuses to come with Trism

Trism leaves alone and gets captured and tortured by the government for killing the dragons and to get info out of him

Liir reunites with Candle, but she refuses to tell him what she did when Trism came to pick her up

Trism and Liir don't meet for many years (I think like a decade or 2)

When they do meet again, they're on opposite sides of a war

Trism is training dragons again, but this time he plans on participating in a revolution that destroys the emerald city, Oz's capital in an attempt to depose its corrupt ruler

Liir on the other hand wants to avoid the attack because it would kill many innocent lives

I'm not explaining it very well, but both of their choices are honestly quite valid

Liir gets kidnapped and tortured in order to force him to work for Trism's side

Liir still refuses to work with Trism

They both acknowledge that after many years of separation they still love each other

But don't get back together because they're on opposite ends of a war

It turns out Trism never needed Liir's help because he manages to help conquer the emerald city just from his experience with dragon taming alone

The political issues get resolved after the war but Liir and Trism never get back together

To add insult to injury, Liir and Candle have a major fight that ends in divorce

By the end of the books, Liir is left all alone waiting for either Trism, Candle, or both to return to him

It's left open-ended whether either of the two decide to come back for Liir

Why I ship Liir and Trism:

There's this comfort and openness in their relationship that isn't there with Liir and His wife

Liir and his wife were simply forced into a relationship because of a sudden pregnancy that honestly did not make sense to me how it happened

Liir and Candle are also just terrible for each other

Their relationship becomes icy and toxic near the end of the books

Trism is highly protective and supportive of Liir, loving him even after he gest captured and tortured

Throughout the story, Trism is often mistaken as Liir's husband because of how close they are

Liir and Trism both worked for the military and share plenty of experiences together

I imagine that after the events of the books, Liir and Trism reunite and they apologize for causing each other so much pain as well as help each other get through the traumas they experienced

LIIR AND TRISM HAVE SO MUCH ANGST, HURT/COMFORT, AND ENEMIES TO LOVERS POTENTIAL

It's a shame people don't really know about them

Here's some extra things I just wanted to express:

I'm so invested in their relationship that I can't even read fanfiction about other ships right now because I keep fixating on them

I'm lowkey salty that most people in the wicked fandom only seem to care about Elphaba, Fiyero, and Glinda (I'm NOT an anti, this is just me being an envious, bitter, unreasonable bitch who can't accept that my ship is dead. I understand why people like Elphaba, Glinda and Fiyero, I'm just jealous that these characters seem to be the only ones getting attention, but it's understandable because they're the main characters in the musical)

I'm hoping that one day, Liir and Trism follow the steps of Achilles and Patroclus and go viral so I can finally get some friends who also ship Liir/Trism

I think the wicked movie will be shit, but if there is the chance that it might convince people to read the books and maybe increase the number of Liir/Trism supporters, then I'm willing to support it

I'm incredibly starved for Liir/Trism content and will jump at any opportunity to talk about them

So yeah, thank you for coming to my TED-Talk. I'm sorry I ran my mouth so much! I just got excited that somebody asked me about Liir and Trism

[super-un-stable]

Possessed Orangusnake / Orangufake theory

(Art by me 😊)

Ok so I have a theory involving the ruby pure heart and Orangusnake.

I think Orangusnake is gonna be possessed by the RPH but in a different way.

Based off what we’ve seen so far I think Orangusnake is gonna play a big part in revealing the RPHs powers, and by that I mean I think he’s gonna get possessed and used by it (basically pull a Darcy)

Adorabats possession was short term, happened very suddenly, and didn’t go into completion. But all he did was wanna hurt some people's feelings because she was being embarrassed. But Orangusnake’s desire was much deeper and had more meaning.

Now I don’t have too much to go off of buthear me out.

1. He was the first person to unleash the RPHs power and get a wish from it

That’s a pretty big deal. Being the first person to not only get the Rubys power but to be the first person to show it’s power, seems pretty important to me.

2. He only got it after he offered his soul

Now that might not seem like much due to how adorabat gets power and possessed, but the thing with that is adorable got out of the situation and did it fairly fast. she didn’t offer anything because she didn’t really ask anybody for the power. She just kinda got it without her knowledge. That could be a good reason the RPH didn’t have a good hold on her.

3. The episode was called OS begins

This could be hinting that this could be somewhat of an origin story of what’s going to happen to him next

Yes, the OS's backstory says the words. But I think the title is hinting at something more. It’s be kinda weird to name the episode off of a backstory rather than the actual meaning of the episode itself. Orangusnake showed the first instance of what he can do here and it gonna (most likely) get bigger from here.

4. He’s obsessed with the RPH.

he’s had many chances to leave PHV but despite his awful conditions he still gets pulled to the ruby.

Yes Orangusnake is a power hungry pirate. But honestly If I was him I’d probably throw in the towel here and move on to something else. But not him. He really really wants this crystal and the kingdom for no other real reason than power and riches and junk. We’ve seen the the RPH has the power to affect people's emotions (remotely and euphemistically), it’s possible the RPH has some type of emotional magnetic pull on him.

5. His wish was fulfilled. He got Mao Mao to respect him more. Even if it’s not genuine he still got what he wanted.

While he didn’t really expect to get a huge mechanic suit, he did make an offer and get his end of it. With Orangusnake getting Mao Mao to say he feared him, chances are the ruby is gonna want his end of the deal soon (his soul cough cough)

6. The RPH has a need to take control and possess things and cause havoc. (AD, the water puddle)

We’ve seen how destructive the RPH is, it seems to want to cause chaos any chance it gets. But the crystal doesn’t exactly have hands of its own so it takes control of things and people to do it for it. I honestly doubt the ruby is gonna call up orangusnake and go “aye ya wanna take over the valley together if you’re free?”. Based off its past history I’d say it’s gonna use Orangusnake to get what it wants whether or not he wants it himself.

7. This is kinda of a Stretch but I think his purple/pink armor and his two bodies is foreshadowing of him getting taken over by the ruby.

Okay I mIGHT be looking too deep into it here but here me out! Orangusnake is the embodiment of two people but he is one person. He’s stated multiple times that he's not Tanner and Coby, but he’s Orangusnake instead. He’s one person but with two bodies, this could be possible foreshadowing to the idea that he’s gonna have to share it with another at some point.

Ok for the pink and purple thing, those colors constantly reacure with the RPH. Adorabats purple eyes, the pink puddle, the fact that it’s literally pink and purple itself.

Now with all this it does ask a really good question. Why hasn’t it done it yet?

Now I don’t really have anything to answer that yet I think it’s because Orangusnake is gonna play a big role in the whole scheme of things.

I don’t think he’s gonna just be a short lived vessel like adorabat was. Because if he was it would’ve happened already.

My theory is that the RPH has big plans for him and is saving him for something. Or that it’s still gaining energy to get enough power to do so properly.

The ruby just got cracked and I’m sure it’ll unleash its chaos when it can, but I don’t think it’s quite there yet.

I will hopefully update this theory when S2 comes out and we get more lore and answers!

Sorry if this is super long and messy! I don’t usually make theories or post about them, but this was really fun! Feel free to tell me your thoughts and opinions on this theory of mine! I’d love to hear em!

Thanks for your interest! Take this really bad edit for your time!

[hamsterboos]

Shining in the Darkness

I've had to rework this plot about 3 times because I started this earlier this year and then restarted it a few weeks ago and then re-restarted it yesterday lmao I hope you guys like it

Word Count: 1699

Read on AO3

Rowaelin Month Masterlist

Day 13 of Rowaelin Month Prompt: Florist/Tattoo shop AU

~~~~~~~~

“Ugh,” Aelin groaned, “look at them pretending to be all high and mighty with their all-black, emo, punk tattoo shop.” She turned away from them in annoyance, instead taking in the bright and beautiful flowers around her.

“I mean, I hope you didn’t expect a tattoo shop to be all sunshine and rainbows,” Elide laughed as she wiped down the counter where bouquets were made.

Aelin sent her a withering glance. “You’re only saying that because you’ve been staring at Mr. Tall-and-Dark ever since they started moving in.”

Elide sent her a sweet smile in response. “As if you haven’t been staring at Mr. Tall-and-Blond? Plus, this is the perfect opportunity to go get that tattoo you’ve been talking about for ages.” Elide gasped and suddenly pointed the rag at her, “You should go by and give them a welcome present! It’ll brighten that dreary place up too!”

Aelin glared at her, “Don’t you have some work to do?”

“Uh-huh, sure, kick your favorite cousin out for having such a brilliant idea.”

Aelin rolled her eyes at her, “Aedion’s going to take offense to that. Technically, you aren’t even my cousin.”

“I don’t care, and Aedion can suck it,” Elide cackled. “Go get them one of the potted plants. Probably a succulent or two, since it doesn’t look like they can keep anything else alive,” she said as she walked into the storeroom to take inventory.

Aelin sighed as she turned back around to watch the two men wipe down the clear glass panels and windows of the store. Her floral shop, Kingsflame Florals, was right across from The Cadre, a tattoo shop that was apparently opening tomorrow, and she was understandably frustrated at how everytime she looked out her own shop’s glass panels, she saw the dark and gloomy exterior of The Cadre. There was enough darkness in her own brain over the last few years after her parents had passed away that she didn’t exactly need to see it constantly as soon as she looked out of her shop, but Aelin also knew that it was strictly her problem and that she really couldn’t take it out on the shop owners.

Elide was right, though. The only decent thing about the entire place was the fact that there was a Mr. Tall-and-Blond, except his hair glinted so brightly under the sunlight that it looked almost like platinum silver. Even from across the street, she could see his muscles rippling under his black shirt as he wiped down the windows, (this man did not care about the burning sunlight, and she had no idea how he could bear it), and Aelin could see the vague swirls of a tattoo down his arm and on the back of his neck. If she was being honest, she wanted to go see the design up close, maybe get some inspiration for what she wanted, but did she really want to deal with all that doom and gloom?

As she chewed on her lip, she decided that maybe her parents were worth facing that - and she would never admit it, but Elide was onto something with giving them succulents -, and so she turned back around and picked up one of their potted succulents that was there especially for the store. Aelin grabbed their water sprayer, gave it a few spritzes, fluffed her open hair, smoothed down her blouse, and walked out the store.

“Hey, neighbor,” she called out as she crossed the road. Aelin was definitely feeling slightly intimidated by how black everything was, but she could deal. She was out of her emo-depressed phase after her parents had died, and a black tattoo shop couldn’t change that.

The dark-haired man wasn't there, but the man with the silver hair turned around, and she was weirdly excited to realize that he had bright green eyes. It was like a surprise of sorts - the man who seems to prefer black had silver hair and green eyes, exactly the opposite of his personality. He was incredibly attractive, though. Gorgeous eyes, pretty hair, sharp jawline, and the tattoo swirling up his neck, almost creeping up his jaw.

“Hello,” he responded, a slight tilt to his words thanks to an accent. Aelin blinked at first, trying to remember how to breathe again because holy crap, the man was suddenly even more attractive, and this was so not fair.

She put on her best, charming smile as she responded, “Welcome to the street. Your shop looked a bit too doom-and-gloom so I decided to bring over some flowers from my shop!”

He raised an eyebrow as he looked at the plant in her hands. “Doom and gloom?”

“Well, yeah, your entire shop is black, which is quite an achievement honestly. How do you make something so dark when the front part of the shop is entirely glass which lets all this sunlight in?” she joked, but from the way his lips turned down into a scowl, she figured he didn’t exactly share the same sentiments.

“It’s a tattoo shop,” he stated in a manner-of-fact tone, “so yes, it’s a lot of black.”

“Um, right,” she awkwardly responded, her bravado effectively gone, “I just wanted to come by and give you a succulent to keep at the desk. I’m Aelin, by the way, I own Kingsflame Florals.”

He looked down at the plant again before looking back up at her. “I figured you owned the shop, but I’m Rowan. You can come in, if you want, and show me the prime location for that so it doesn’t look all doom-and-gloom.”

“You’re not going to let that go, are you?”

“Not at all,” he responded with a wry smirk on his face. He opened the door to the shop, and she followed him inside, immediately blasted with the cold air from the air conditioner.

She took the chance to look around the shop, and she was taken aback by the variety of designs posted around the walls. There were the simple designs like flowers, birds, dreamcatchers, and butterflies, while there were also insanely intricate designs of swirls and lines that created abstract art and distinct images, and all of it was just pure talent.

"These designs are beautiful," she breathed, setting the succulent down near the computer.

"Thanks," he replied, leaning an arm against the desk. "Interesting?" he asked, and Aelin could tell from his expression that he expected her to say no.

"Yes, actually," she replied with satisfaction as she watched Rowan's eyes widen slightly. "My cousin says that your shop opening up here is a prime opportunity for me to get the tattoo I've been talking about for ages."

"What’s stopping you from becoming our first customer then?" Rowan asked. Aelin shrugged.

"Lack of inspiration, I suppose?"

"Any ideas about what you want it to be?” Aelin shook her head, to which Rowan continued, “A reason behind getting the tattoo might help with the overall design.”

"We're not that close for me to share that part of my life with you."

"Really? I'd say these past five minutes makes us best friends," he spoke, leaning into her, mischief shining in his eyes.

Stifling a snort, Aelin rolled her eyes. “You should already know my tragic backstory then.”

“Same for you, Ms. Flowers,” he responded.

“No, but you see, I never claimed to be your best friend.”

“Ouch, that hurt,” he responded, a hand covering his heart with fake pain. Aelin’s lips quirked upwards at that with the realization that they had been leaning into each other during that entire conversation, and she was flirting with this man. She hadn’t even noticed how dark everything around her was because within that darkness was this man with bright green eyes that reminded her of pine trees from back home and silver hair that glowed like the moon,

“Fair enough,” she laughed lightly. “It’s for my parents. The shop was actually my mom’s idea for something to keep them busy after they retired, but they, uh, died in a car accident a few years ago. They never got to open it, so I did,” she said, looking out the clear panels to her own shop. It was years of hard work and pain, but she’d gotten through it. “I always wanted to get a tattoo, but now it’s more for them.”

She looked back at Rowan and was surprised to see that there wasn’t any pity shining in his eyes. No, it was understanding and compassion. He understood her decision, and it wasn’t something a lot of people were able to relate to. They would simply pass it off as a nice gesture she wanted to do, but it went deeper than that. It was a way to ensure she would never be separated from her parents, and from the way Rowan had let himself smile genuinely in front of her, she knew he understood.

“The tattoo you were staring at earlier,” he started, pointing a finger at his neck, and Aelin flushed realizing that she hadn’t been as subtle as she thought she was, “is about my wife and daughter that had passed away, also in a car accident. I understand your need to connect to them, so how about I draw something for you? You can take a look at it and make any adjustments as needed, but I can help you start off with something.”

Aelin looked at him, and she slowly exhaled a breath because maybe this was exactly what she needed. “Okay. I wanted it on my ribcage, if that works?”

“Yeah, of course, just be aware that you will have to at least take your shirt off,” he teased, and Aelin was so shocked that she barked out a laugh.

“Wow, Rowan, at least buy my dinner first.”

“Happily,” he replied.

Aelin sent him a bright smile, and she knew that she was never going to live it down from Elide that she had gone to the tattoo shop with the intentions of giving the grumpy men a succulent and had instead left with the man’s phone number and a beautiful tattoo design amazingly created with Old Language letters and a Kingsflame flower.