#i might draw some of the other assassins since there's a lot of them

[newborn-vessel]

This is one of my OCs Knives! They're a professional assassin who exclusively uses knives to fight. They never talk and always wear a gas mask so no-one really knows what they look like. They're the no. 2 ranked assassin in my OC universe called Assassinverse!

[fumifooms]

The Nakamoto household - facts & theories masterpost

Table of contents:

the hierarchy & general situation

The parents

The Maizuru situation

The siblings

The other retainers

Izutsumi

Toshiro

Conclusion

I also made tldr summary charts here. This post is about collecting facts about the setting and characters, but it’s gonna be a lot of analysis on what it means through the lens of Toshiro as well, his relationship and place in everything etc etc. They have entangled drama the scale of Daltian Clan. Things are so interwoven it’s hard to keep topics neatly in their own section, because of this pictures may be relevant at several point of this but I mostly won’t be putting them in twice, you might have to do some scrolling up while reading if you want the visual proof to accompany statements. Unlike with Chilchuck’s family there’s less ambiguousness and more intricate details and implications so it’s less theorizing & headcanoning and more stringing together all the crumbs canon gave us. I also dig into some cultural parallels, especially since characters from Wa are the most culturally coded in the series. Also disclaimer that I’ll be calling Shuro Toshiro through this whole thing because that’s his actual name & Shuro isn’t even a nickname he’s shown to like, for accuracy’s sake. The servant girls have real names but are always called by their code names so I’ll call them as such, except for Izutsumi who was named Asebi which I won’t be using.

The general situation

To start off, what’s the situation in canon? All three kids of the head of the house, the three sons (Toshiro and his two younger brothers), are sent out on a vague mission to find something interesting for his father to pick the heir. Each son is thus on their own journey, out with their own group of retainers for an unsure length of time, during canon it’s been 2 years that Toshiro left the house for this mission, and they seemingly all drifted towards dungeons. It’s important to remember that this state of things is the exception and not the rule, and before this the sons lived at home and had different uses of their time, and the retainers had other jobs than care after them. See the next paragraph.

The household offers ninja services, no exaggeration or misuse of the term, mostly spyint but also "covert maneuvers" which could include anything including assassination of people high up. That’s the job of their servants/retainers at least, the heads themselves are more like managers probably, possibly samurais themselves though especially since as we see with the heirs (besides the samurai armor) they also got trained in fighting as their skills showcase. I need to dig into the history of samurais more before I can draw the parallel confidently though. The Nakamoto household is noble/wealthy, distinguished as the Adventurer’s Bible puts it, but it works for and puts its service at use for "their local lord". It buys servants, but also has families who have served it for generations like with Hien. The comic shows that there aren’t only women servants, it’s just the ones we see all happen to be because Toshiro’s retainers are only a small team of all of Nakamoto’s servants.

Above, in a page showcasing characters’ relationships with their party leader: 父親の部下を借りている状態なので、 距離がある。Doubtlessly there must be a translation of this already somewhere but I’m lazy and impatient so I turned to machine translation instead, this translates into: "Since he is borrowing his father's subordinates, there is a distance between him and them". Calling the servants retainers is what most of the fandom does and it’s accurate so I’ll be calling them this.

Hien and Toshiro were childhood friends which means the servants do have some degree of contact not even just together but with the heirs too, or maybe just specifically Hien, since both their parents were ninjas for the Nakamotos she ended up getting raised there and they let her play with him as an exception? They did end up drifting away as adults as their relationship got more professional, so it’s possible. The servants eat and sleep in shared spaces, separate from the masters, though Maizuru has her own bedroom, if the room configuration at the in is to be believed + it’d make sense since she’s governess/head servant. I’m hesitant wether to say it’s implied that this group of 4 retainers was always a bit of a team or it wasn’t and got formed for Toshiro specifically. We know that Benichidori had little contact with Toshiro before they were sent out together for example, but we do see all three girls with Izutsumi in Inutade’s extra when they were younger, and them eating in the same japanese styled room etc. The inn they stay at on The Island is western styled though they do have futons rather than beds (there’s only one bed in their shared room and Hien has it because of her rank).

From Izutsumi’s Adventurer’s Bible profile: "Maizuru, who was also Shuro's governess, is the one thing Izutsumi fears. After Izutsumi was taken in by the Nakamoto family, Maizuru forced her through a harsh training regimen of speech, common sense, and fighting skills. Since Izutsumi refused to listen to her, Maizuru set a curse on her that would activate if Maizuru didn't touch her within a set time frame: "Ninja Art: Babysitter." "

Maizuru, called a governess, is the one training the girls, at least some of them, we know for a fact she was the one to train Izutsumi for example, and in general she’s the one in charge of the ninja girls we see. She was a ninja herself but retired from frontline missions, but has a central role managing the servants instead. Inutade for example is strong but not stealthy, and it’s said that it’s Maizuru’s job to choose how to train her and what role to give her in consequence. Her training includes manners but fighting as well, notably kunais and martial arts. Hien is shown to use bombs and Benichidori is implied to be good at disguises, Inutade uses a bold weapon like a club but it’s implied with "ogres and clubs just go together" and Maizuru not knowing where to put her to use that it’s uncommon for Nakamoto servants to use those. Their board game artworks also show their specialties neatly. When brought into the household, the servants are given new names and their whole lives become devotion to the house and their duties. The names might be intended to act as code names due to them being ninjas? It’s implied that they never use their non-code names anymore once they start serving the household. Maizuru’s training also contains language and "common sense"… Critical thinking? As well as implied etiquette. This isn’t surprising, as she was the one put in charge of raising not only Toshiro but his brothers as well.

Oh yes I want to mention that all the retainers’ "first deaths" are in the dungeon during canon, considering our main cast we’re used to death being permissible because dungeons make resurrections possible, but it’s relevant to remember that these people never died before. Never. These girls are professionals, ninjas with a sometimes very dangerous job. Messing up means death, permanently.

From what we see and with who we see, the hierarchy is:

Father (head of house, his word goes)

Mother (has status which puts her wishes above others’ and give her some control over the house, it’s unsure how much though, but hierarchy wise she’s very much above the rest but below the father)

Maizuru (governess, in charge of (at least some) servants and raising Toshiro. Two dots)

Hien (leader of their squad, trained servant from a family devoted to the Nakamotos. Two dots)

Benichidori (trained bought servant. Two dots)

Inutade and Izutsumi (bought servants. Power wise from their rank it’s unsure just how much the difference between Inutade (who has one dot), Izutsumi (who has none) and Benichidori (who has two) is, since Hien is team leader between the four servants at least that’s measurable. Inutade gets some janitor duties, and Izutsumi has a curse put on her so she doesn’t run away I suppose. Power wise it’s unsure, but socially/role wise Inutade and especially Asebi are treated worse.)

I didn’t add the sons because I’m talking more generally about the power structure and it’d depend on each sibling, like Toshiro’s wants and directives during canon trump Maizuru’s, but Maizuru is also his nanny and manages the girls so she has a lot of importance and sway even on the final decisions.

The parents

I am so pissed I forgot that we know Toshiro’s father’s name, Toshitsugu, from these panels showing the progression of the family tree. I am so pissed I’m adding this halfway into writing this whole thing, I am not gonna go back and replace every "the father" by his name atm.

The father is the part of this puzzle most important yet most shrouded in mystery, or rather a lack of details. What we do know paints a pretty full and vivid portrait: impulsive and cares mainly about his own entertainment. Maizuru calls him a fool, his sons are exasperated and go "This again?" when he summons them saying that they’re boring/dull, everyone knows he’s having an affair and he often has undignified demeanor, but what he says goes so yes Maizuru will take Izutsumi under her wing, yes the sons will be going out right away into the world to find you the 8th world wonder, yes whatever you want lord. He seems to have little care for how his action affects others, like crashing into Maizuru’s room at night and asking she take care of a catgirl, or sending out his sons suddenly with kicks to the butts. He does what he wants hen he wants and others have to comply.

Like we see with Izutsumi and Inutade, he tends to take a liking to slaves here and there and buy them on the spot, usually at entertainment places, like sumo wrestling matches for Inutade and a freakshow for Izutsumi. The Adventurer’s Bible states him acquiring Inutade as "By coincidence, Shuro's father came to see her first match; he liked her and bought her for the Nakamoto family." and Izutsumi as "She was on display as a "cat-girl" in a sideshow when Shuro's father took an interest in her and bought her." In Maizuru’s extra, he calls Izutsumi a "souvenir" he got for her, and he’s drunk so it could well be assumed that buying Izutsumi was a drunken whim, and that he mitht be alcoholic. You can’t really say that he picks them out because he sees potential in them to be a ninja or would be useful, since with Izutsumi she had no fighting training and Inutade doesn’t fit the skills they seek like stealth and she has trouble fitting in. You could assign noble goals to him like maybe wanting to help or relating to the misfits, but I think with what we see of him it’s more likely that he likes to pick up "oddities", like a catgirl at a freakshow or an ogre, especially since one of the only things we know of him is he wants his sons to bring back interesting trophies from their travels. Toshiro, about his father buying Inutade, says: "People in power desire ogre as servants, and ogres are chosen as opponents in tests of strengths or military exploits. My father bought her for similar reasons."

Also from this we can infer that he goes out to events often, like circus and sumo wrestling, again mostly for entertainment from what we see. I like to think it’s implied that he used to travell maybe still does, due to his own liking for it as a test and because he visits various places like the sideshow, plus his forearm scars in Toshiro’s extra… But him being a samurai in service of a lord could definitely explain that.

This all paints an interesting picture doesn’t it… The Nakamoto’s lifestyle is super encased in rules and social propriety, duty and hierarchy. Old noble man who’s been surrounded by propriety all his life and just wants some spark of interesting stuff happening amongst the humdrum of his lavish cushioned life at home, and is shitty to people around him in consequence and due to his privilege allowing him to. He’s despicable, but from his 3 appearances he becomes an interesting well-fleshed character, at least proportionally to the screentime he gets…

We also know that the affair with Maizuru is well known at least inside the household, so there’s no genuine secrecy around the topic. Makes sense that the wife would hate her guts.

Ahh yes the mother. Little is known about the mother, except that from Maizuru’s profile "Shuro’s mother can’t stand the sight of her, to the point where there are areas on the property Maizuru is forbidden to enter. Maizuru, however, is impressed by his wife’s strength of character." From this I glean that she does have enough power/respect in the house that she can make rules like where Maizuru is allowed to go. Also the implication that otherwise Mazuru would have access to EVERYWHERE in the house despite being only a (high-ranking) servant is a bit interesting. Wether the mother’s "strength of character" is overt and hot-headed or understated and cool-headed is unsure, but I imagine the latter more. I could see Maizuru’s angle in many ways, from being able to tolerate "that fool" aka the father both just in general and with knowing that he’s cheating on her, to knowing how hard it is to be respected as a woman and admiring her putting up with it all and still being able to have sway in the household. This is I think the only mention of the mother anywhere. Doesn’t seem like she is an important figure to Toshiro at all: in fact we hear about her on Maizuru’s profile, and seeing all of this we can see the importance of her in Maizuru’s backstory and life, moreso than Toshiro’s. I imagine she’s a bit of a recluse, which is part of why Maizuru not being allowed to roam the full house is important, because them running into each other at the house is high.

It’s unsure how much contact the parents have with their kids. What we know is that they left the principal tasks of raising the kids, or at least Toshiro, to servants. Toshiro’s profile says that he’s more attached to Maizuru than his parents, and that’s the phrasing. From the comic where their father summons the sons, it does seem like they’re more or less used to interacting, with the sons’ "This again?". So it’s not that they’ve only interacted with them few times enough to count on fingers, but how meaningful were those interactions? From Toshiro’s profile we know he has a complex where he thinks he’ll never get recognition from his father or be able to measure up to him… But is that more born out of secondhand gossip and expectations, or from direct interactions with him that made him feel that way? Likely a mix of both, especially since the father does seem to be very dismissive, uncaring and insulting with his sons. Oh, but it’s definitely notable that in the Hag monster tidbit (below in Maizuru’s section) six years old Toshiro runs to his father scared shitless for help against the shikigami, and his father casually helps him without batting an eye. Toshitsugu knows how to deal with Maizuru’s shikigamis, and he does so efficiently and without any sense of worry or urgency. Although the event traumatized Toshiro and he was very scared, it doesn’t seem like his father offered any comfort, beyond just helping getting rid of it and letting him cower behind him without comment. Toshitsugu gives hungover vibes in that one imo haha. It’s shown he was already training as a ninja, perhaps this event only reinforced Toshiro’s complex, seeing his father, the samurai the achieved man who has expectations for him, so unfazed and uncaring like that.

The Maizuru situation

Let’s establish a timeline first. It’s left vague how much time she’s served the Nakamoto family for, or how she came to be in their service. The central point is that "She was put in charge of raising their children at a young age". If straight from his birth, Maizuru started taking care of Toshiro when she was 15 years old. If from toddler age, then 16. It’s uncertain if when she stopped getting front-line espionage missions, but we know it’s late rather than early despite having kid raising duties. But well, since she’s also in charge of the ninjas she’s definitely has a multitasking role even now.

The dad prob has around 5-10 years more than Maizuru, I’d say. We only see half of his face and only a good few years in the past, around ~3 years ago probably with the shuro quest and a good 7 years with Izutsumi as a kid, but visually those are the vibes I’m getting. From Toshiro’s birth, it’s possible that the father was 15 when the baby was born too? But conception would have been closer to 14 years old then, and yeah I don’t think they marry and have kids that young. Toshiro is 26 years old in canon and is unmarried, and the heir hasn’t been officially picked, so marriage and kids don’t seem to be in the family’s priorities. Even if Maizuru do say that the father would love if Toshiro brought back a wife.

Now the elephant in the room: she has an on-and-off affair with the father and it has been si for many many years, at LEAST 7 years since that’s when we see that comic of him going into her chambers about Izutsumi, and in the comic above, Hien in that panel has an ambiguous age. Regardless it’s definitely implied that it’s a long, long-standing thing. Hien’s phrasing above makes it sound as if it’s not purely physical, as if feelings are involved, "he’s head over heels for his confidante", and who knows if this relationship is part of why Maizuru was chosen to be the governess, or even hired at all.

It’s in the feud with his father that we learn about maizuru’s affair and how after learning it he started shutting her out emotionally. It’s left vague when Toshiro learned about it, Hien made it sound as if everybody always more or less knew but I don’t think Toshiro started shutting her out when he was still pretty young. Regardless, the two are implied to be linked, his dislike of his father/complex and how he stopped getting along well with Maizuru/being emotionally open with her. Is it that he now feels as though Maizuru is actually on his father’s side and not his own, that after all if she had to choose she’d pick him over Toshiro too? Or is it that, because his father’s known to be a self-centered frivolous jerk, that knowing she lets it happen, "can’t seem to shake it", he respects her less? He has an irresponsible reputation and she does give off the vibe of needing to clean up his messes, so that wouldn’t be unplausible either.

On the flipside from her perspective, since he learned she was his dad’s mistress he emotionally shut her out, which can partly explain why she’s SO fussy with him and happy at the slightest hint of happiness or compliance, like when he listens to her and eats, or maybe even being happy that he lets her help him dress and keep tidy (imo this is supported by how they interact in the page showing him interacting with all his party members). She wants to regain that closeness they once had and for her baby chick to be alright as he’s slipping through her fingers. Man so sad to think about him rejecting her when he’s the only thing in her life. She’s raised him for 26 years, no wonder she’s so attached to him, the only thing in her life she feels true unconditional attachment for. Maizuru says that she thinks Toshiro’ll be a better head of the house than the father, too. The respect and care is somewhat onesided, given freely from her side but repressed from his end. When she cares for Toshiro is when her demeanor immediately and drastically softens. She gets easily carried away when it comes to him, rambling enthusiastically or smiling widely or tearing up. Her tendency to ramble or tell anecdotes about Toshiro is shown making Hien and Benichidori go "Here she goes again…" twice through canon.

With Izutsumi’s timeline we see Izutsumi was taken into the Nakamoto household at 10 yo, and since in the comic with Maizuru and the dad she’s shown as stinky and all I imagine she arrived there the same day, so Maizuru was in charge of her since she was first here. In fact if we assumed that it’s the same day as when he bought her at the circus show, then we could assume that buying her was a drunken whim like mentioned.

Since Izutsumi was taken in at 10 and she’s 17, this would mean that Maizuru is 34 years old here. She looks younger without makeup, but lower than that is mathematically impossible besides maybe 33 if Maizuru and Izutsumi’s birthdays line up just right.

Time for the second elephant in the room!!

Maizuru’s magic

Maizuru is the only person in the Nakamoto household, anyone from Wa really, who we see using magic, I doubt she’d be the only one who can use magic in the household but as the governess it wouldn’t be unplausible I suppose. From what we see, the magic is estimated by Marcille to be an "appropriation of gnomic magic" with an eastern script. For my analysis of written magic (though with only a brief glance over Maizuru’s magic), see this post.

If you scroll up and read the little section on Maizuru’s profile, Ninja art: babysitter: "One of the curses put on Izutsumi is Ninja Art: Babysitter, which manifests as a terrifying hag shikigami. Unless Maizuru touches the victim within a set time frame, this terrible curse makes a hag appear and chase them around with a carving knife. Maizuru originally created it in an attempt to keep Shuro from getting lost, but it ended up traumatizing him…"

From Izutsumi’s profile: "Maizuru, who was Shuro’s governess, is the one thing Izutsumi fears. […] Since Izutsumi refused to listen to her, Maizuru set a curse on her that would activate if Maizuru didn’t touch her within a set time frame: "Ninja Art: Babysitter." It was put on her when she was 12. Since Toshiro had it as a kid, presumably the curse can be lifted off rather easily, Marcille was confident on reverse engineering it as well. It’s unsaid what the time frame is, it’s kept vague everywhere and Izutsumi herself says "who knows" how long it is. Izutsumi ran away despite the very real risk of it killing her. Essentially, Maizuru can put people in a timebomb collar

… MAIZURU WHAT THE HELL

As we might have expected, Maizuru being given the task of rasing a child at 15 did not go perfectly. This, a babysitting technique??! This comic happens when Toshiro was 6 and so Maizuru was 21. Interesting to note that Toshiro didn’t even know it was Maizuru’s doing before this conversation during canon, and he doesn’t know how to bring it up or deal with it how it affected him. Maizuru seems surprisingly uncaring of Toshiro’s feelings on the matter here, oblivious to his conflict her and fondly recalling it all.

This curse is a shikigami. From her profile: "A shikigami user, Maizuru has a variety of shikigami that have been sealed in paper as her servants. Her favorite seems to be Gyuki, a bull ogre." Now don’t ask me when Gyuki appears, I do not remember it. But before we go into the cultural/historical basis for this practice, let’s take a second to recognize the parallel that Maizuru has servants she keeps sealed unless useful in the moment, even despite having enough "attachment" to have a favorite. She’s the governess in charge of the other servants, and she has shikigamis, which she has used on the heir and the runt at the bottom of the hierarchy alike.

Shikigami, in traditional japanese folklore, are conjured to exercise risky orders for their masters, such as spying, stealing and enemy tracking. Shikigami are said to be invisible most of the time, but they can be made visible by binding them into small, folded and artfully cut paper manikins.

Shikigamis are from onmyodo, onmyoji is a profession-legal title historically but it’s what you call a practitioner of onmyodo, and so I feel content in saying that Maizuru is an onmyoji, or based on it. Her outfit reminds me of a shinto priest. It’s interestingly closer to a shinto priest outfit than a miko/shrine maiden’s (in picture below, 2 instead of 5), and I feel like red being chosen for the inner sleeve is a very charged decision since the white & red color combo is the shinto clothes color combo. Especially white clothes with red inner sleeve. Shinto priests can be women nowadays but they’re rare, and onmyojis can be considered shinto priests though it’s a more complex than that. Image below as example, source. Now I don’t think Maizuru has the role or prestige of a priest at all- But the association with onmyodo and spirituality is definitely meant to be made I think. Onmyojis are usually clothed similarly to this.

The babysitter ninja art seems to be based off of the hannya yokai. "They were once human women who were consumed by jealousy and transformed into demonesses", twisted by anger and resentment. Interesting considering her being a mistress to a man whose wife hates her. Hannyas are associated with wisdom because of its name, but there is nothing positive about them. At its highest level of "demonic corruption" if I can call it that, their body tend to become serpentine, fun link to make with her name being from the snakeberry plant.

Other cultural ties or symbolism on Maizuru’s character could be found in the motif of cranes due to her sleeves, in the tales of the crane wife, origami cranes (called orizuru, from deformation of 鶴 "tsuru" aka "crane". All names are written in katakanas in Dungeon Meshi, but thus if we had had the kanjis it’s possible her name would have been written with the kanji for crane), tennyos, and japanese crane symbolism in general. I thought cranes might have been associated with motherhood, but seemingly not in japanese culture at least, I was thinking of storks haha.

Ok speaking of her name. Maizuru is the name of an existing japanese city (舞鶴), meaning "dancing crane". From @room-surprise’s work in progress research paper on Dungeon Meshi characters’ names: "Maizuru is her ninja code name, and comes from “maizurusou”, which is maianthemum dilatatum, the snakeberry plant/two-leaved Solomon's seal/false lily of the valley. Lily of the Valley is a plant associated with motherhood and virtue… So Maizuru being a false Lily of the Valley implies that she is a false, replacement mother, and also hints at the way that Toshiro became cold towards her when he realized she was his father’s mistress, and not a pure, virtuous mother-like figure that he thought she was. Also, lilies are toxic to cats, which makes sense since Maizuru and Izutsumi have an extremely bad relationship." For more details I’ll leave it up to Room when the paper is ready to be released. Edit: It’s out!! Click here! Incredible meta that goes into a ton of details not only about Maizuru.

So some big themes of her character are: (false) motherhood, spirituality/magic, control, cranes, woman’s jealousy.

The siblings

Alriight so besides Toshiro the eldest at 26 years old, there is Toshiyuki (Toshitsuge in one fantranslation) the middle son and Toshizane the youngest (Toshikage in one fantranslation). They were all said to be raised by Maizuru. "A strange level of distance" is interesting. Why strange? I feel like this implies they do interact regularly, and that they’re all rather civil wirh each other, but they still have little bond to speak of. That wouldn’t surprise me, especially since even inside the family etiquette and propriety and rules are enforced, the summoning by his father feels very formal and they all listen to him standing in silence despite having snappy inner thoughts. It’s unsure if they were largely raised together or apart, but since Maizuru was their (at least main) caretaker/governess it implies that they were imo. They were put in competition with each other for the title of heir to the house, though it’s unsure to what degree. It’s examplified by their family all having names that start with "Toshi" that the legacy is very important and thrust upon them, cogs in a machine almost. They all think the same thing when their father summons them and has a spiel, so they’re used to the same sort of treatment and they are indeed brothers for being on similar wavelengths haha.

Toshiyuki, as seen in the comic about his retainers, the poor soul sent into Darkest Dungeon, is brattish. Rude, selfish and rather lecherous, does not hesitate to be mean to his retainers and complain he wasn’t given women retainers. Visually he looks what, 14 years old top. I wonder if Maizuru stopped using her babysitter ninja art on the heirs after it traumatized Toshiro, and if so maybe that explains why Toshiyuki Knows No Fear In His Heart™️ and that’s why he can spout off stuff like that.

The retainers for the youngest brother, Toshizane, don’t seem to be as clad in ninja gear as the other two, seems like the priority is to take care of the very young young master there? Rather than truly go adventuring and dungeoneering, perhaps. Not that it’s ever said by anyone that their quest is to go into dungeons specifically, only to find something "interesting" to bring back, but both Toshiro and Toshiyuki are shown to have ended up drifting into dungeons. Toshizane looks young, I’d clock him 8 years old personally. He’s drawn looking rather innocent, especially the headshot doodle above and in the Toshitsuge complaining about his retainers comic. ALTHOUGH on the latter, interestingly as we see with Toshiro having a smug smirk in that same panel (or alternatively a smug indifferent/uncomfortable "i don’t care about this, even though you want it so much" look which at the very least is very exaggerated from how he emotes in reality), it’s Toshiyuki’s unreliable/exaggerated vision of his brothers and it doesn’t necessaeily reflect reality, though it’s still interesting to note that that’s the vision Toshiyuki has of his brothers/the impression Toshizane gives off. That can imply juicy dynamics for the brothers, for example if Toshiyuki feels as though he’s in competition with his brothers, feels superior to them, that instead of pushing the shitty family dynamic angst onto his father he puts the blame for it all onto Toshiro. Toshizane seems maybe too young to notice the tensions and seriousness around him, maybe more coddled… IS WHAT I WOULD SAY BUT in the comic where their father send them away he’s as well-behaved and serious as the others, so clearly he has a grasp on his role.

When talking about which retainers go with who, it’s said it was the father’s choice. I’d like to assume it wasn’t an airheaded/random choice. Maybe he knew that Toshiyuki would be weird about having women in his team of retainers? And wants to forge their character or protect them in the way they need. Though how Toshiro’s party only has women isn’t only pointed out and commented on by the comic with Toshitsuge but also in the main Dungeon Meshi story, both Marcille and Chilchuck going "his party is fully made up of women", one more loudly than the other haha. So it does feel like a somewhat pointed/purposeful decision, if not that the 4 girls were already a team like I mentioned.

The other retainers

Already made an analysis of Hien and Benichidori’s relationship (+ moment compilation) here. Honestly my juices are exhausted so quick rundown:

Hien’s parents both serve the Nakamotos, so she grew up with the family and was even a childhood friend of Toshiro. She assumed he and her might end up in a Maizuru-Toshitsugu situation ‘just because that’s how things are’/‘it’d be a natural development’ if we’re to believe Hien, ahh what growing up at the Nakamotos’ with those role models will make you believe is normal hah, and was surprised when it ended up not in that way at all. They grew more distant with time, in good part because of the professional nature of their roles in relation to each other (truly a reversal of the Maizuru-Toshitsugu situation). She’s the leader of their lil squad, under Maizuru, she’s very confident and she gets the perks, like getting the bedframe in the shared inn room. For all the details just read her page. She has two dots, showing her rank as a full fledged ninja. I made a more in depth more speculative reading of her in this post.

Benichidori was bought, by "the Nakamotos" so we don’t know who made the final decision. She’s perceptive and submissive, her specialty is implied to be disguise. She never had much contact with Toshiro before she became part of his party. She has facial dysmorphia where she fears the judgement of others if she doesn’t wear makeup and highly values beauty, in her extra her anxiety really shows and she ends up angrily snapping at Hien. Benichidori ends up taking a big liking to Hien and from there on they’re implied to be inseparable. She has two dots, showing her rank as a full fledged ninja.

Inutade is said to worship Toshitsugu because he "saved her" from her horrible life conditions, buying her personally from the sumo matches, she’s extremely grateful to the family and is happy to do any work they give her and is highly satisfied with her current living conditions. She seems to find Toshiro intimidating, though. She was separated from her parents from before she can remember and raised as a sumo wrestler in inhumane betting matches, where her front tooth broke. It seems she has very littke ambitions and dreams besides obeying orders day to day, but after Izutsumi fled away she was happy for her and mused that she’d love to go out and find her one day. They’re so besties Izutsumi gave her a dream of her own I’m sobbing… </3 She has one dot, showing she still has to be attributed her role and earn her stripes.

Their approval rating of their leader. The highest total score from all the parties.

Izutsumi

Sighh where to even begin. Her timeline was put in Maizuru’s section of this post but the rundown is "taken away from parents and turned into a beastkin" at 6 yo (the human half of her soul), "sent to a sideshow on the island of Wa" at 7 yo and bought by Toshitsugu at 10 yo when he took an interest in her when he visited the sideshow. Maizuru put the curse on Izutsumi at age 12, so from then on she always had to not stray much far from Maizuru or risk death, it’s unsure if Inutade’s extra is from before that time, before she was 12, so she could still attempt many many tries to run away. If that’s the case, then Maizuru’s curse was very much treated as a last resort, honestly beyond everything else I can see it being a pain that Maizuru would need to touch her every so often on Maizuru’s schedule as well. The alternative is that, not unlike Kabru who had no regrets dying in a dungeon rather than staying with Milsiril, she’d risk her life to get a taste of freedom. Besides, you know, being a slave and having a timebomb collar with Maizuru’s curse, her frustrations with her life with the Nakamotos is most concisely put in the comic just up above, Inutade’s extra.

She has no dot tattoo, meaning she’s at rock bottom of the hierarchy. It makes sense, since unlike Inutade she’s rebellious and needs threats to obey orders, and even then might try shifty business.

This last part where Izutsumi tries sleeping with Toshiro is most interesting to me. So she’s sought out contact with Toshiro before, she considers him "the stuck-up guy" but she doesn’t exactly hate him. I wonder if this comic is set in the inn on The Island or back at the Nakamoto household, because if that’s the latter it implies that she could get access to his room if she’s sneaky.

Oh oh also, this is fanon but since Toshiro’s weapon is one used usually on horseback, and with the steadfast and upright character of horses I associate Toshiro with horses a bit, though this is wild fanon. What’s interesting is that the plant Asebi was named after is a plant infamous for being toxic to horses. Hehe hehehe he wears a ponytail… Hm now that I think of it hairdos have importance for samurais, should look into that.

Toshiro

God. Ok. Everything was leading up to this guy. Need to split open his head like a geode and vibecheck his brain crystals. Let’s get some interesting details out of the way first.

His weapon is a tachi, not a katana. The wikipedia on tachis is more in depth if you want, but I consider the article I linked to be in deoth and digestible. Tachis are heavier and longer blades than katanas, and make for better horseback weapons than close combat. The way Toshiro uses one instead of a katakana shows that he’s extra strong… And does make sense, since most monsters won’t fight in as close quarters as human fighters. If katanas aren’t a thing in the world yet could make a difference, since tachis were invented first, and once the katana was invented and spread tachis became something more common in higher-ranking samurais. In the monster tidbit of the Hag, it’s shown that even at 6 years old Toshiro was training and learning ninja skills, his first instinct to the shikigami besides running being to fight.

Toshiro knew that Izutsumi wanted to leave, for sure. He may have been sympathetic, if his cryptic look back at her in the ‘Toshiro interacting with his party members’ page means anything. As seen below though, him being sympathetic doesn’t necessarily mean that much. Also, Toshiro had to have known about the curse on Izutsumi, where if Maizuru doesn’t touch her once in a while she’d die. "Asebi must have ran away, leave her" can be seen as subtle support for her to gain her freedom, but it could just as easily be seen as him leaving her behind to die. Because the outcome options are 1) she gets killed by Maizuru's curse, 2) she finds a way to break the spell, 3) she finds a way back to them.

He’s very conflict averse. Wether it be in relationships like with Laios or the status quo. Will not stand up for 99% things including himself. He obeys his father quietly despite his anger and dislike. This is the same guy who can't even get himself to speak up to correct the butchering of his name, the slippery slope that got him tangled in the Laios party seemingly without resistance. It’s very japanese etiquette from even nowadays, never saying a direct no to not be rude. ALSO THAT PANEL, has Toshiro beaten an ogre before?? Is that a brother of his?? Does seem in character for Toshiyuki the most, unless Toshiro was desperate to earn his father’s attention with feats. On the right I’d say the ones in the foreground are two of the brothers, maybe the third being the one to gesture to the ogre. It’s worth noting that inheritance laws during the Edo period often made the heir the son with "the most merit".

When with a goal that’s important to him he’s fine with even starving for it. Although what we see him be like that about in canon is Falin, aka self-admittedly in the post-canon proposal comic "the first person he has liked this much", which for him I feel is like admitting she’s one of the first things he has truly wanted for himself and fought for, soo… It’s more like an exceptional freaking out moment than something that would be recurring, most likely. How disheveled he got is a testament to how much he would forego propriety and rules for people of his status for the person he cares about most. Maizuru says the first personal request he’s (ever?) made was for them to help him rescue Falin.

Which ahh yes, his crush on Falin. I do think idealization plays into it, he doesn’t know Falin that well for sure, but it’s more complex than that too. Falin is pretty and can have an ethereal energy to her, she’s caring and gentle kinda motherly which Toshiro would find soothing I imagine, BUT MOST OF ALL. She’s weird!! She’s just weird enough to allow and be charmed by!! Shuro was fully shaped by his upbringing and environment of nobility, social etiquette and whatnot. Yeah she’s weird and quirky, but still quiet and sweet-mannered enough that he’s like "Yes, she wouldn’t bring shame on my family name". And why would he be charmed by her weirdness? Because all he’s ever known is rules!! Conformity, fitting in!! Unlike the others he knows, she is weird without being overbearing as well. "Woah she’s so different… She’s kind and soft and doesn’t care about fitting in… She is out of this world, she’s free, she shows me a world where tenderness and authenticity is possible…" She’s like his comfort character. MOREOVERRR I had totally forgotten about it, but Toshiro was shown watching a snail behind a bush and losing sight of everything else (like Maizuru calling him) as a kid in the Hag monster tidbit, the moment he fell in love with Falin it was when she looked enthralled at a caterpillar and he mentions how "most girls would have screamed or recoiled in disgust", and in the beach chibis page he’s crouching and collecting shells thinking about Falin… He likes bugs and crawly critters guys, he wishes he could be cottagecore too… It’s a genuine shared interest… . Someone pointed out that Toshiro & Falin’s relationship probaboy references this japanese folk tale, and I think that’s very interesting to note.

And Maizuru is like his mom but it’s a Thistle situation where they can’t just be a normal family and normal affectionate either- and when he learns about his father having a thing with her he feels weirded out. And like. Who knows how much he even got out of the mansion. He got homeschooled. He’s distant with his brothers. The family is in shambles

Shuro’s issue is that he was taught to be perfect and have the upmost respectable behavior, so if something annoys him he has to be righteous about it and that it’s the annoying thing’s fault or moral failing. Bro just let yourself be petty sometimes it’s healthier. With the feud with his father it’s explicitly stated that the pressure and expectations of the family name weigh on him a lot.

But then, that makes his beef with Laios so understandable doesn’t it. Not justified, but explained certainly.

Laios & Shuro and the whole mess coming to a head

I’ve made an analysis of the Laios-Shuro fight from Laios’ pov before, here. This is the Shuro pov analysis. Yes yes in The Fight, Shuro is dehydrated sleep-deprived and underate, he’s majorly off his rocker, BUT his frustration and the underlying issues are still things he felt on any day and it’s interesting to note.

Toshiro has been raised from his birth with the priority of propriety, nobility, etiquette, rules, conforming elegantly, appareances and reputation are everything. He’s modest, humble, quiet, stays in his lane and bottles all his feelings up. Wait who is this loud guy coming up to me being inconsiderate and loud af?? Does he not see me blinking in morse code that I’m not enjoying this and want him to leave?? Was he raised in a barn?? He’s overbearing and rude and way too friendly- He’s weird wtf! Not conforming to basic etiquette is illegal??! And people just… Let him do whateve he wants?? He lives well, no one stops him or kills him?? What the fuck, I’ve followed rules and etiquette thoroughly all my life, and it’s thankless work I get no recognition for, meanwhile he gets to be oblivious af and do whatever he wants without getting clapped?? Resentment, frustration, dislike, anger anger anger, jealousy.

Laios might even remind Toshuro of his dad in a way, because he SEEMS impulsive and like he does whatever he wants without a care to people around him, without thinking of how it might affect them. Doing things without thinking through the Implications. And interestingly this is a bit paralleled to to how Shuro is serious, strict, and big on the duties that come with having a leader role and the family dynamic it brings, like Laios’ own father, who Laios also dislikes… Dealing with his anger towards Laios, especially knowing that Laios doesn’t mean anything bad by it like Toshiro admits, is probably very healing to him. He stops repressing and thinks through his issues a bit, realizes what parts of his life he’s unhappy with and where all the negative feelings come from. I do think he bottles up his dislike for his father a bit, he has to at least for appearances. His beef with Laios is repackaged internalized anger for his father, but it’s ALSO repackaged frustration from his etiquette-bound lifestyle. He says it himself, when Laios is like "You never told Falin how you feel…? Alright, when I can I’ll tell her for you buddy!!", "that’s the part of you that I envy". Laios’ ability to just come out and say what he wants to, what he means. He wishes he could be free of all the rules more, that he had te courage to speak out, like with Inutade, or talking things out with Maizuru, or nit having to act like he’s not angry with his father. This narrative point of Toshiro envying Laios’ ability to say things freely and being frustrated by not being able to himself is ESPECIALLY examplified by their first interactions, the basis of their relationship: Laios enthusiastically befriending him, giving him a bad nickname and roping him into joining his party, with Toshiro never turning it all down despite wanting to, too hesitant to act possibly rude.

And now is time for the laishuro addendum… Because of personal experiences it’s a bit of a sensitive spot to me so while I see timelines in which I enjoy it I’m very picky… This is all further theorizing from me btw I’m not pushing my view here onto ppl as facts, but I think there’s more interesting bits and scenarios to bite into here. Laishuro has very cute and sweet potential. I personally don’t see the "Oh wait Laios is just girl Falin… 😳" angle because to me if anything that’d just make Shuro disillusioned with Falin lol, but like yes make Shuro learn that it’s ok to be weird with Laios 🥺 They DO have differences first of all, important ones, especially from Toshiro’s perspective. Laios is overwhelming, whereas Falin is soothing. Laios is loud and asks things of him where Falin is a calm, quiet presence. Laios pushes himself onto Toshiro, whereas Falin is content on just doing her own thing in her corner alone.

Hot take but the ultimate laishuro timeline is the one where he DOESN’T bring Laios back home, because he knows he’ll be seen as an oddity and clown by his father, and he doesn’t want Laios to be treated like the tapdancing monkey there to please and entertain his father the way he himself has always kind of been. Wouldn’t inflict that onto someone he loves. He can recognize when people are taken advantage of (mostly) like Inutade, and it doesn’t settle right with him. He might be especially sensitive to it in Inutade’s case because it’s about seeing his dad in a better light than he deserves, though. His father is his weak spot, THE weak spot.

It gets me so emotional thinking about it actually because seeing Laios played like a fiddle by his father, Laios so happy to find someone who’s enthusiastically listening to him ramble and engaging, would destroy Shuro emotionally I think. Like. On one hand being like "Oh of course my dad would find Laios fun, unlike me his boring son", super angry as coping mechanism for his intense sadness of not having positive parental attention, and then on the other he’d see Laios being treated as a clown and identify with it and that would remind him of how he gets treated similarly which he’s in denial about (more or less, but since he puts up with the family rules and follows along he hasn’t given up on getting recognition. He wants his father’s approval, and he couldn’t blame Laios for being happy with it despite how hurtful that attention truly is without Laios’ knowledge), which would be such an overwhelming conflicted mess of emotions and his worldview would shatter a bit because he has to repress it all even now, and he’d have a breakdown.

And similar deal but if he brought Falin home… Bc ok yes he idealizes her and doesn’t even know her all that well, but like I said imo what he sees in her is that "Woah she’s so different… She’s kind and soft and doesn’t care about fitting in… She is out of this world, she’s free, she shows me a world where tenderness and authenticity is possible…" So meanwhile with Laios he’d have mixed feelings on him getting treated like a clown and identify with it, bringing Falin home and having her be demeaned would be like having his perfect comfort character dunked on and he gets reminded that the world can’t have anything good actually. With both Toudens it’d make his resentment towards his father even worse, he might snap. I’m not the biggest on gendered analysis tbh but Kui evidently does like to do it to some degree, with the genderbending changing their life considerably and different fantasy cultures having different gender roles and all, but Shuro idealizing the Touden sister as something perfect he cannot attain while being jealous and frustrated at Laios for being something he cannot attain is like. So compelling actually. With Maizuru’s hannya of female rage weaponized there could be a theme of pushing the blame and responsibilities of things onto women too, the responsibility to raise and to manage and to dish out the work and to clean after mens’ reckless decisions. Anyways just a tangent.

Shuro on a bad family angst day is everything I love in a blorbo… He can be a lil shitty as a treat to make his healing arc more fulfilling. Toshiro snapping after he sees how they treat Laios/Falin and he gives up the family headship to LEAVE. Maizuru arc where she has to choose between loyalty to the clan and loyalty to Toshiro, will she stay with the boy she raised or go home… To me Maizuru is much less sympathetic than Shuro, but she is pretty tragic and her selfless love for Shuro is her one redeeming quality. Babygirl take no shit no more, but also better yourself and turn your life around please and thank you… She is so evidently taken advantage of but like. What else does she have? So she just takes care of and loves the boy she raised like her own kid and goes about her daily life in servitude and doesn’t think too much about it all.

Shuro is awful a nickname but also, I think Shiro would be a good nickname for Toshiro, because it gets rid of that ‘Toshi’ first part of his name that all the male members of his family share. It severes the link to his father and the tied pressure from his family.

Laishuro brotp turning slow burn romance would be so lovely. I think college au for laishuro would be peak actually… Shuro so is the repressed "I am so normal" guy who has a furry liberation identity crisis arc… I also quite like the potential he’d have with Namari, as both work-oriented misfit foreigners cast out of their homes, and she’s also bolder so it’d be good for him, and he could bring her stability… That’s a topic for another day tho. Even he and falin are sweet tbh, they could have traveled around together even if just as friends… Bc yeah she does value him as a friend at least somewhat, she says she’ll visit him~! Mostly I want Izutsumi-Toshiro brotp fancontent.

Conclusion

The household is very hierarchy oriented, and honestly the system doesn’t seem to make anyone happy, or at least not healthily so. Sighh feudalism.

Obviously their situation are very different, but still Toshiro and Izutsumi react to the same conflict in opposite ways: when a hierarchy and lifestyle of rules and duty is thrust upon them, Toshiro obeys and believes that it’s how things simply are, always having it been drilled into him since being a baby and being privileged enough to live ok with things as they are, meanwhile Izutsumi rages and eventually breaks free and never wants to submit herself to rules or hierarchy ever again, even if that perceived hierarchy is a mutually beneficial professional party dynamic or having a role inside a well-meaning team, like Laios’ party. WHICH IS WHY THEY SHOULD HANG OUT AND HAVE AN ARC TOGETHER. LET HER INFLUENCE HIM TO GET WILDER AND THINK OF HIMSELF MORE. FUCK INHERITING THE HEADSHIP. THE SIBLINGS NARRATIVE.

As always if I find more stuff to add i’ll edit it in. Rn I’m thinking that I’ll look into ninja & samurai feudal history and try to find specific terms that might fit their roles and situations more. I should reread try to cover Izutsumi’s end of the Toshiro-Izu dynamic as well.

I greatly recommend this paper for more excellent meta on all named Dunmeshi characters and their culture!

Ah yes yes, I forgot to talk about it but we don’t know what Toshiro’s retainers have been doing with their time on The Island, especially while he was dungeon diving with Laios and co. Although in the anime’s ed in this shot we see them "stealthily" follow him around, so presumably when he’s not in dungeons they’re tailing his moves.

Afterword here, it has summary charts about the power structure & relationships and complementary pages and artworks, couldn’t put them in here because SIGH 30 pictures per post limit.

[mejomonster]

So I've been playing Sherlock the Awakened. I don't remember the tags for frogware sherlock so. Anyway. Forgot how much I loved this game, I'm halfway though.

I loved Chapter One for a lot of reasons, one being how you could get cases wrong or never know the Actual truth of the cases, because Sherlock is young and he can't Truly Know either. Or how the final case is how his mom died, and there is no real external closure because he can't ever Really know for sure, so the conclusion you ultimately draw is more about how Sherlock gives himself closure, which angle he gives it to himself, since there is no for sure definitive end. How his mom had mental health issues (and one of the horrors in Chapter One being the notes from her doctor about how she was treated which very well could've made her Worse, suffer More, but when i looked it up the treatments in 1800s were... pretty much what her doctor was doing, it was a kind of tragedy that was realistic for it's time and setting, and within Sherlock's life an unavoidable tragedy - his mom gets 'help' but the help possible is not much help at all and might even do damage, but it was the option available, and he lost his mom, and children can never do anything about things like that, beyond their control). And how the game extends the mental health theme, Sherlock has ptsd, Jon is an imaginary friend (he calls him a tulpa in The Awakened), a coping mechanism for Sherlock to comfort himself and give himself strength both as a child and now facing that lack-of-closure to tragedy and trying to provide it to himself. (A side note, I've been playing Crimes and Punishment and appreciate, again, that Sherlock can Get It Wrong in deductions... something The Awakened lacks, but I get why).

And then The Awakened (at least the newer version using the new young model of Sherlock from Chapter One), it takes bits of those themes of mental health, tragedy and trauma, coping. The opening reminds us of THIS Sherlock, who can insist there's an assassin plot against him when really it's just a book salesman with a crush on a florist, and a real person John Watson (a companion who is not imaginary, who's outside of Sherlock) who is reminding Sherlock his grip on reality isn't always great and he can work himself up into thinking there's things happening which aren't really there (in Chapter One, Jon both helped Sherlock internally remind himself of that and delude himself at other times). Sherlock has progressed and healed in some ways since Chapter One - he can recognize he has a tendency to delude himself sometimes, without Jon to help. He's a bit more comfortable making friends and relying on them (he's become open enough to not just befriend John Watson but actually trust him as a partner to rely on, which he was struggling to do except with imaginary-part-of-himself Jon in Chapter One), he's more open with compassion for others (he had that trait in Chapter One but he's quicker to offer it and realize when people are seeing him as cold/not understanding he means well). He has realized he may have some tendencies he'll have to live with (which hey I have ptsd, I appreciate a lead character also having it and knowing there's certain coping skills/things they do which are effected by those experiences and linger). He IS more self aware, self assured, has built some healthy safe-enough relationships with other people, is better at getting his point across and showing his care for people. (Great early moments of that is telling off the Lord Stenwick about how shit he is treating Kimiha, how much he Cares about solving the missing people case for the sake of the missing people's lives and their families).

I love how well this Sherlock, this particular version, works in such a story with unknown monsters (which Sherlock at first assumes must be himself deluding himself, because he has an awareness he does that and has before), in a story with people imprisoned for some traits others perceive negatively (in the asylum he relates to many of the patients locked up, he is one of them locked up for a time, he doesn't see Gerda and Heidi as particularly odd and he's been her with Jon in a sense already in his life, he relates to the patients in how awful the conditions are and the treatment and in caring enough to want such treatment stopped, in wanting to stop Gygax, in being horrified by the treatment of the human trafficked victims and that only resolving him more to want to stop the huge operation of suffering). Both the bits of unreality, and the very human monsters of the story (the perpetrators of the kidnapping, killings, trafficking), work very well with this Sherlock. (And the racism and dehumanizing being the key evil, in a story using these particular traits, is a solid choice I think in using these effectively and meaningfully).

[sagan-starstuff]

Secret Santa Gift Exchange Questionnaire

Starting broad, tell your Santa about your relationship to The X-Files. This could be how you got into The X-Files in the first place, what the show means to you, or just general information you think might be relevant for your Santa to know.

My mother was an X-Phile long before I was, she watched from the Pilot on. She was in chat rooms, on alt.tv.xfiles, in fic groups. I was afraid of the theme song at first, so much so that I made her mute it if I was still awake. I started watching in 1997, when I was 11 years old. I don't really remember my first episode - some time during the cancer arc. By the time the summer of 1997 was over, thanks to my mom's recorded episodes on VHS and re-runs on FX, I was fully caught up and 100% a shipper when Redux I premiered, and I've been obsessed ever since. I lived and breathed X-files, accumulated stacks of spiral notebooks full of bad tween fic and drawings, scrawled quotes and logos on the covers of my school binders. I was in chatrooms and on Haven, reading fic on Gossamer waaaaay too young, but everyone there still made me feel like I belonged. I was a weird, lonely tween/teen who had an incredibly hard time relating to my peers thanks to being skipped ahead a grade, but I could pretend Mulder and Scully were my friends. They were the smartest people in the room, they were outcasts, too. If they could be smart and strong, I could, too. The fandom gave me a community when middle school couldn't. I met my best friend in 1999 when she wore an X-Files shirt the first week of high school. I decided to become a doctor because Scully showed me that I could. I watched the way that Mulder and Scully loved each other with their minds and souls, and decided that I would never accept any less for myself.

I feel like I'm rambling, but I cannot understate the influence that The X-Files has had on my life. It was always a comfort for me, even when I was in college and the chatrooms and boards started to go dark. I lost connection with the fandom by the time IWTB came out, but I never loved the show any less. When my husband and I first started dating, I'd invite him over to watch X-Files with me...and we did, for a while, before we got up to other activities. He says I seduced him with The X-Files. It worked!

I reconnected with the fandom in 2023, and I wish so much that I'd known you all were out there this long. Finding other X-Philes, now in their 30's, 40's and beyond, has been such a treasure. As has been finding out that people in their teens and 20's love the show, too! I love seeing younger fans, people who may not even have been ALIVE for a lot of the original run. This is how we survive, how the show lives on.

I wear Mulder and Scully on my skin now. They'll be with me until I die.

2. Tell your Santa about your favorites! Favorite characters, favorite moments, favorite episodes, favorite seasons, favorite ships, etc.

This is so hard! My favorite will always be Scully but I love Mulder endlessly, even when he's an idiot. My favorite side character is Byers, though it's hard separating him from the rest of the Gunmen. My favorite moments...god, so many. But a moment I come back to again and again is Scully facing down the senate committee in Tunguska to protect Mulder. She displays strength, grace, and integrity that I can only aspire too. Every MSR moment is my favorite. My favorite seasons are 4-6, I cannot choose between them.

3. Tell your Santa about your LEAST favorites! We all love our show, but it also sucks sometimes. Which parts suck the most for you?

I hate season 9 - its like the writers forgot who these characters were. Mulder would never leave his new family after a lifetime of trauma from the loss of his old one. Scully would never give William up. Parts of season 8 are ok, though the way Mulder is written after his return is absolute character assassination, and I HAAAAAATE the secret brain disease. I don't even acknowledge it. I don't like IWTB much. I HAAAAAATE the My Struggles. I have...come to terms with the breakup, though I'll never like it. The Revival gave us a few great episodes and amazing moments. The parts of the show I rewatch most are season 1-7. Oh, and I hate Diana, but don't we all?

4. Tell your Santa your favorite tropes and genres! Only one bed? Friends to lovers? 5+1? Fluff, angst, hurt/comfort? You get the idea.

Ohhh I love first kiss/first time, I love love confessions, I love hurt/comfort. I like angst but only if it has a happy or hopeful ending. I looove Only One Bed, or huddling for warmth. I love fluff. I'm not a big AU fan unless it's a fix-it fic (like Mulder not leaving Scully and William, or Scully not giving Will up). I also love slice of life fic, seeing all their lost moments in rental cars and airports just...existing together.

5. Tell your Santa about tropes you tend to avoid.

Major Character Death, SA/Non-Con. I just want Mulder and Scully to be safe and loved.

6. For your Santa, but also just for fun, describe your ideal X-Files episode. Is it mythology? MotW? A literal porno? 

MOTW with an aspect that emotionally affects Mulder or Scully, with some nice MSR and evolution of feelings. I'm also down with a literal porno.

7. Speaking of pornography, tell your Santa what your spice preference is, using the following scale:

Salt only⁠ ⁠— No spice at all please! I.e. General audience rating.

Black pepper ⁠— A hint of spice. I.e. Teen rating.

Chili pepper ⁠— There’s a bit of a kick! I.e. Mature rating.

Habanero ⁠— Definitely spicy, but most spice lovers can handle it. I.e. Explicit rating.

✨Ghost pepper✨ ⁠— Only for the spiciest of spice lovers. I.e. VERY explicit/kink/POANG rating.

I will read anything Salt-Habanero, for Ghost Pepper it depends on the kink. Not into choking, non-consensual anything, nothing involving urine/feces, not a big anal fan, no physical or mental degradation of any kind. No feet.

8. Those are the most important things, but I want there to be ten questions because it’ll look better, so tell your Santa what ONE song you would pick to describe MSR. (Or if you’re not into MSR, pick a song for your favorite ship, or for TXF as a whole.)

The canonical MSR song is Walking After You by the Foo Fighters. Lovers in a Dangerous Time by the Barenaked ladies is also them in a nutshell.

9. Almost there. Pick your favorite TXF quote. 

"Please explain the scientific nature of The Whammy."

10. Aaaaand, ten. And the last question can be open ended: Is there anything else you think is important for your Santa to know? Put it here!

Thank you for being a part of the best fandom on the planet! Please feel free to reach out to me with questions or even just to chat!

[milramemo]

Some lore rambling. I copied this from my twitter thread so the continuity might be a bit weird pspsps:

This is mainly going to be about Noelle and Caiden's story which is kinda like a prequel to Fallout New Vegas, spaning around 2278-2282 I'll try to stick to the details that are already confirmed but some pieces might still shift.

It was inspired by (aka rewritten from) one of her old alt routes where she went AWOL and became a fugitive. Both Noelle and Caiden started out as NCR soldiers from different units Noelle was a First Recon sergeant and a famous war hero who was used as a political puppet.

Meanwhile Caiden was part of the NCR black op unit, which is a headcanon detail we added. They utilize a lot of stealth gear including salvaged stealth boys and Hei Gui stealth armors. An internal party attempted to assassinate Noelle and Caiden who had been on edge with his superior for a while betrayed his unit and helped her escape. However her "death" was still made public as a propaganda move. Her memorial can be found around the NCR camps.

Most people believed Noelle actually died, including Manny and Boone who were her closest friends at the time. She couldn't contact them because there were influential folks in the NCR still actively hunting for her and Caiden.

o support themselves while keeping their low profile, the duo started working with a merc company at an HQ located not far from Freeside gate. If you remember the Colleague OCs from last timeline, they are the proprietor of this establishment.

Noelle and Caiden's main goal is to clear their names while trying to decide what they want to do with their lives, and over time they just became inseparable. The story still has some serious part but since it spans over a few years there are also a lot of relaxed time.

I still wanna make comic for this one but I'm planning to do more like separated one-shots or miniseries from different points of their journey, as well as our usual silly skits. ♡

Going back to Manny and Boone a bit. The three were best friends back in the service and also part of the same team and will meet again later by chance in Novac around 2280. I love this trio so much. I really want to draw them again both in wholesome and angst moments.

Like other worlds, in Fallout Caiden and Claire are also half-siblings. They share the same mother. Claire was experimented on which resulted in her mutation. She later teamed up with Quantum and their adventure circulates around the east coast. But that's for another time.

I'm still working on a proper introduction for the Fallout version of my OCs. This is more like a rambling thread lol. Still thank you everyone for reading! I'll be going back to work now. 🫡

[sometimes-sleeby-octopus]

I have new Boba and Matcha Art!!! With bonus “canon” comic :000!!!

I’m obssesed with them!!! Here’s them laying in the grass:

I’m going to try to explain this in a less ramble-y way with new details I’ve thought of! (Because the first post of this AU was written in a sleep deprived haze. First post linked here if you want to see them in color but shittily. Note: I’m leaving out the jackets from here on out because they were a pain in the ass to draw and I don’t always have the energy for that)

So this is from my recently made MxB Bittersweet Memories AU (which is kind of like 2 aus in one). In this AU there is the “canon” universe and the “drink” universe.

The “canon” universe has the main Sonic cast we all know and love with a focus on Sonic and Shadow. The reason it’s “canon” and not just canon is because there is sonadow (and I’m so funny to make that reference <3 /sarcastic) More on that later.

The Drink universe has variations of the main cast (both in personality and appearance) based on different drinks/drink flavors, also with a focus on the Sonic and Shadow variants. In this universe, there is Boba! Sonic (who is extra peppy and sweet like boba) and Matcha! Shadow (who is very calm, since Matcha tea can decrease anxiety and stress). They call each other by their drink names instead of their “canon” names because I might write a fic and the plot I’m about to explain requires them to be distinct from the “canon” cast.

The silly thing that connects these two AUs into one is the weird connection the sonadow variants have. “Canon” Sonic feels all the emotions Boba has toward Matcha, and they sort of reflect into his own feelings for “Canon” Shadow, as seen in the comic above. Matcha experiences all of Shadow’s memories through dreams and general emotions, including Shadow’s memories of Maria and her death. These memories don’t have to be distant and Matcha can experience them as recent as they happen.

For the “canon” universe, this connection leads to Sonic chasing after Shadow and in the end, they get together. Although, it does take some time since they still have their rivalry.

In the Drink universe, Matcha and Boba have already gotten together in the beginning (and they don’t have a rivalry since their story went a lot different). Instead of going on adventures and saving the world, the people of their universe sell drinks corresponding to themselves (Matcha specializes in Matcha Tea, Boba makes boba, etc). Matcha’s sister (Apple Cider! Maria) never died, so he doesn’t have the same or as much trauma as Shadow (Grenadine! Gerald is dead tho but from old age rather than assassination; he adopted Matcha in this universe and they had a good relationship before he passed). This makes dreams and memories of Maria dying distressing (even though he doesn’t know who Maria is). As a result, the connection leads to a Hurt/Comfort scenario that strengthens Matcha and Boba’s bond.

Throughout this whole thing, both pairs don’t even know the other universe exists!!! It makes it funnier on Sonic’s end tbh XD

I know this is. A lot. But I’m not really sorry!!! I love Matcha and Boba so much!!!

TDLR: Drink Universe with drink inspired STH designs (and established sonadow) and “Canon”Universe with regular STH designs with almost but not yet established sonadow have a weird connection that leads to scenarios ✨ (and lots of sonadow moments!!)

[bittrlys]

Hi, I have a question that I hoped you or your followers could answer. I stopped watching tdp after S3 but now S6 here and I've heard many say that it's the best season we had since S2. I'm watching S4 now so it's been some time since I touched anything tdp. Now here is my question, which might be silly I apologize, why do the Moonshadow elves need assassins? As much as I remember there isn't any conflicts between the elves and the assassins were sent after Harrow and Ezran after the dragon King's death. So either the elves do have conflicts and it was cut out? Or the elves kill humans a lot, like they kill any human that they consider a threat to Xadia(or for revenge). As far as I remember they trained assassins so it's a reall job for them and you can't be an assassin if you just kill 2 humans a be done. Do we have any evidence of elves having conflicts with each other or sending assassins after other humans?

This is something I've wanted to write on but never did, so your ask made me smile when I saw it!

A very short answer to your question: No explicit evidence, but we can draw assumptions that the assassins were used -- however, I believe the assassins exist for cultural reasons as well.

A much longer answer to your question: A lot of series love the idea of assassins because they're cool and sexy, but don't like so much actually making their characters stone cold killers, so they end up being assassins who don't assassinate. TDP falls more into the latter camp, but there are some things that give you pause.

In the very first episode we have this exchange between Harrow and Viren:

VIREN: Assassins. HARROW, more resigned than surprised: I see. VIREN: A scout on patrol discovered them just before dawn. HARROW: Well, don't look so grim. We've fought off plenty of assassins. Haven't we, Pip? VIREN: It's different this time. We believe they're Moonshadow elves. HARROW, visibly more perturbed: Moonshadow elves? Then how did the scout escape?

They go on to express concern that tonight is a full moon, which means the Moonshadow elves will be at "the height of their power."

This conversation raises immediate questions. If they are used to fending off assassins, but Moonshadow elves are different, who the hell has been sending assassins after them? The human kingdoms aren't in active conflict with each other. Non-Moonshadow elves? Dissidents in the kingdom, like Queen Aanya has? All this despite Viren (admittedly not the most truthful person) stating it was a peaceful time in Katolis? Who knows! However, we can say that Moonshadow elves have a clear reputation as they're aware of how they operate and treat them as highly lethal. Later, when Viren tells his children they have "unwanted visitors" from Xadia, they jump straight to "assassins" instead of "invading army and/or dragon" which would be a logical assumption with Xadia and the human kingdoms being established as on the brink of open war.

Is this just human bias? The Moonshadow assassins take their job very seriously. We see throughout the show they have a number of rituals with very real consequences to ensure their devotion to their death cult. "We take (life) but we do not take it lightly." Runaan doesn't hesitate to send his most untried member off to kill a human. (He is, however, unable to tell berry juice from blood so maybe he's just LARPing as an assassin too.) Honestly, Rayla's presence almost feels like going after humans is a beginner mission, even if the human in question is guarded by a castle full of people. Still, if they aren't going after humans all the time, who would they be targeting?

In the trivia section for Elves on the TDP fan wiki it states "For the most part, there is unity among the elves. However, not all of the elven races get along, and conflict is not unheard of." Sadly, the citation is to some kind of creator interview that has been taken down and I can't find, so we can't rely on that -- if anybody knows the video in question, I'd be curious to hear the exact phrasing. Turning to available canon and ancillary canon material, in the short story 'The Queen's Mercy' we get this exchange:

“You are not afraid of me—but what of the dragons?” asked Kim’dael. “You would dare invoke their wrath?” “The dragons know better than to invoke mine,” Aditi said.

This implies Sunfire elves see themselves as a powerful independent force who resent the implication that they should answer to dragons. We also know that there are certain elves in an insular community that keep drakes as pets and mistreat them, something that doesn't seem to line up with the way other elven societies treat magical animals. I can believe there is some tension between Xadian sub-groups, but for the most part they do seem united as allies, if only because they have the 'common threat' of humanity to often bring them together. Maybe when there are less humans about, they are less united.

The Kim'dael above is a member of the Order of the Blood Moon -- Moonshadow elves who went vampiric and were exterminated by dragons. I don't believe it's outright stated Moonshadow assassins helped with this anti-vampirism campaign, but I assume so. In the Rayla backstory comic she decides to become an assassin after a run-in with this Bloodmoon elf. She wants to be like Runaan and protect others, and this includes protecting them from other elves. It seems very likely that Moonshadow assassins operate against internal threats to Xadian society like this. However, you may presume from this very noble description of being an assassin that within Moonshadow culture, 'assassin' seems equivalent to 'warrior.'

Personally, I think the Moonshadow assassins are partly an active combat force, and partly a ritualistic bit of tradition. Essentially, they play an almost ceremonial, spiritual role in the society. Moonshadow culture and magic is very centred around illusions and the line between life and death, and the assassins are perfect distillations of all of these elements. Even if they were never killing anyone, I could see them still existing and being seen as highly valued members of the society. Symbolic assassins, you know?

That being said, I do think they kill people -- (Runaan definitely seems to have done so as it's said he truly understands the value of a life and the taking of one) -- and though I think they probably primarily operate as an internal security force, based on human reactions to the mere whiff of them it's very possible they have infiltrated human kingdoms before. After all, we know they have a sneaky way in and out of the human kingdoms via the Moonstone Path. When the world was divided their Nexus was left in human territory so they have non-assassinating non-spying reasons to be visiting the human kingdoms, but paired with everything else it is interesting that they want such easy access to the human kingdoms. I'm not saying they were doing a lot of assassinations there -- it seems the degree of interaction between these two halves of the continent have intensified only recently -- but it's all very suggestive.

Ultimately, I think they probably don't kill a lot in general, but it would be really funny if the show would just go there. Like have Runaan look the camera dead in the eye and say "I have taken sixty-two lives and I don't regret a single one." Hashtag let assassins be assassins!

Thank you very much for the question, this is a subject I've thought at length about so I'm happy to finally discuss it. ♥ I hope my answer was helpful despite the lack of explicit evidence in any one direction.

[i-am-trying-my-best-okay]

Back On My Next Generation Shenanigans

Angeline "Andi" Jocelyn Herondale: The first Clary and Jace child. She has curly blond hair, freckles, and green eyes. She's very charming, but she's also been going through this life long crisis that the Shadowhunter's are in a never ending battle with the demons that will never end through the generations, only ending when the demons win; she's a bit of a natural pessimist. She thinks a lot about society and such, looking into the mundane forms of government, hoping it would be better then the Shadowhunter ones and was just like these all kind of suck, society sucks, I should make up my own form of government. She fights demons with knives, like a strange amount of knives; she'll hold like seven at once and slice away, she'll throw them and then pull some more out of nowhere. Thanks to this existential dread for her and the future generations thing, she ends up coming up with theories on how to just kill all demons forever, doing all kinds of research and experiments. With this, things get kind of messy. She also is kind of thinking about starting a coup, to overthrow the Shadowhunter form of government and implant a better one, which also gets kind of messy. Like I said, she's very charming, so she forms a whole group of people. Honestly, since she's so ambitious and willing to do many things to fulfil those ambitions, I think she might end up as a sort of antagonist, which should give an interesting dynamic with her family and friends. I can also see Shadowhunter's being like 'is it really surprising considering her grandfather' even tho she has a completely different set of ideals.

Jasper Robert Herondale: The second clace child. He has curly red hair, freckles, and black eyes. Much to surely everyone's surprise, he's a very quiet person, and to nobody's surprise, he would rather die then share even a hint of his true feelings. He gives big gentle giant vibes; man's just over here looming in the corner freaking people out, but the people who know him are just like 'nah, he's fine, he's just happy to be here'. He's the only one that got the tall genes, standing tall over all his other short siblings. He fights demons with a sledgehammer. When he was little he got kidnapped, but instead of pulling a Mina, he actually got traumatized. It was a mundane that kidnapped him, which is why it took a while to find him because nobody thought it was just some random mundane that took him. The mundane was going to sell him and some other kids to some rich buyer, but when the Shadowhunter's stormed the area to get Jasper they freaked out and started killing the kids as some sort of last minute cover up, not wanting to be caught with ties to the market cause then they'll just be assassinated in prison. But his parents got to Jasper before they could kill him, now the last survivor. This resulted in Jasper having a bit of a savior complex, feeling like he needs to save everyone since he feels like all those kids died because of him and he couldn't do anything about it, him, a Shadowhunter in training. It didn't help that he was naturally protective to begin with, now it was just twice as intense. This complex should lead to interesting thing when Andi goes all rouge.

Samuel Lucian Herondale: The third clace child. He has curly blond hair, freckles, and green eyes. He's the artist of his siblings, often drawing made up, disturbing looking creatures, along with other strange looking things. He's got this ever growing, hard to understand imagination, and it makes him come across as a bit strange and awkward, but he does have a lot of cool comics he's drawn but never published, though he wants to. The way he ends up fighting demons is sort of unusual; turns out, some of those creepy looking creatures he draws he can make come to life to fight alongside him, his parents angel blood coming through. Though he does have a weapon as well, that being a seraph blade. Despite it being angel power, and despite everyone literally knowing his parents whole Angel deal, Shadowhunter's are still side eyeing him for how demonic his creatures look. They're literally pulling out his family tree like 'oh wow Tessa the warlock is your great great great great grandma I bet that's those demon powers' or whatever. He's basically gaslit into thinking he's a demon, despite his parents being like 'it's probably just our angel powers but even if it's demon powers that's okay too'. But Samuel was already insecure, and this just fed into it. But ironically enough, he can't hate this power, making friends with the little creatures he makes; he just hates himself. I think out of all the Herondale kids he understands the most of why Andi went rouge.

Marigold "Mae" Celina Herondale: The youngest clace child. She has curly red hair, freckles, and gold eyes; kinda looks fox like now that I think about it. She's very quick witted, can talk on and on for hours and never run out of quips. Super competitive as well; whatever she gets into she will work herself to the bone to be the best. Although when she gets competitive, it just feels fun to her really, something to get passionate about, but then most people end up taking it wrong and get all heated about it or feel overwhelmed or something of that like, and she doesn't know how to correct it, especially in the moment. She fights demons with dual machete's. Mae often struggles with that connecting to people thing, but then there was the time when she actually connected with a demon more than a person. It was some random demon that could talk, and they were fighting but they both got sort of competitive about it and one thing led to another and now she and this demon are sort of besties. This led to her having a bit of a crisis of her befriending this demon so easily when she can't do the same with people, wondering what that makes her and if she's even worthy of being a Shadowhunter. Then there's the whole sneaking around to see her demon friend and worrying about when it came down to it what side would she be on. Honestly, she's more worried about what Andi will do to her and her demon friend then the Clave.

Noelle Rebecca Lightwood: Simon and Isabelle's first child. She has black hair and brown eyes. She's very much a poised, calm person. She's an introvert to the point where people think she's rude, but really she just can't handle socializing for very long, making her words seem clipped in dismissive, which she always ends up feeling guilty about. But she has a bunch of random, niche interests, that if you get her going on one of those she'll talk your ear off. She fights demons with a bow and arrow; Alec taught her. She's a bit of a glass child really, as her two siblings prove to be a bit of a handful, and she's seen as the 'easy to handle one'. Simon and Isabelle of course don't do this on purpose, they just have their hands full with the other two, and Noelle ends up festering in this. This leads to her physically unable to ask for help, not knowing how or if it's even allowed. She has all these insecurities and feelings she desperately needs help sorting out, and other people are always like 'wow your so put together and independent', making her feel this expectation and driving her into further isolation so people don't know she's not put together or think she's too needy.

George Maxwell Lightwood: The middle sizzy child, who definitely thought his name was inspired by 'George Lucas' before they told him about George Lovelace. He has brown hair and blue eyes; Will's eyes live on once again. He tends to feel things very deeply, doesn't know how to take things causally. Everything makes him feel these intense emotions, and people tell him he needs to 'calm down', or even think he's faking it, but that's just how he feels. He's also big into movies; he remembers every detail of every movie he's ever seen, researching the background of the movies as well. He has a multitude of screenplays he has written that he thinks aren't good enough to go on to become an actual movie. But his ability to feel things deeply assist him in writing these screenplays, able to insert such feeling in his characters and the presentation of situations. He fights demons with a seraph blade. George secretly doesn't really want to be a Shadowhunter; he wants to go off and make movies and such. But he feels guilty about it, what with feeling like if he takes irf he's betraying all of humanity. And there's also the stigma of his dad, Simon, being originally a mundane. People would say things like it was in his 'blood' to be a mundane, and that attitude would also go to his siblings, so he keeps quiet.

Lorelei Maryse Lightwood: The last sizzy child. She has brown hair and dark brown gold eyes. She's very much a free spirit, always running off and getting into shit, always disappearing and coming back after some strange misadventure. She just could never find it in herself to stay in one place. Girl will literally be missing for like a week and show up with jar of blood or whatever and is like 'I can explain'. She's a drummer, a very good one, hoping from band to band because she always seems to get involved in the shittiest bands who she insists 'have potential' but then they always end up falling through. That's how she gets into a lot of her misadventures really; she gives people the benefit of the doubt way too much, she looks for and finds people's best selves, which while sweet, can get her involved with bad people. She fights demons with this spiky baseball bat. Like I said, this trusting nature of hers gets her into trouble, but the biggest trouble she's gotten in is when she accidently got involved with some small that worships the demons and think they should take over the world. Now she knows way too much about this strange, ridiculously over funded cult, and is trying very hard to stop them while not telling anyone she has ties to such a treason. Worse yet, she ends up falling in love with someone in this organization, which makes things all the more complicated.

Eleanor Jia Penhallow: Helen and Aline's first child. She has black hair, freckles, and blue eyes. This was a planned adoption, a Shadowhunter orphan whose parents died fighting demons, now in need of a home. She's a bit of an actress, being able to disguise as different people as well as characters of her own creation. She really throws herself into these roles, using it to find out information and such, a bit of a spy in her own right really, pulling information for the Clave and for her allies. She's quick and able to read situations and people quickly, adding to her ability to act in difficult situations. This also leads her to know more then she probably wants to know, even of her friends, which can make her feel like she's being intrusive even when she's just looking at them. She fights demons with a double edged blade. A lot of the time she has trouble pulling herself out of said roles, sometimes feeling like she doesn't have a true personality and that even when she's not in a role and she supposedly 'herself' that it's not really her, that she's still acting. This leads to a bit of an identity complex, not really sure who she really is at a 'default', if the way she is is just another role or if it's natural, because she doesn't know.

Edmund Liam Penhallow: Heline's next child. He has curly black hair and brown eyes. This was more of an accidental adoption, a Shadowhunter abused by his parents that ran away to the Los Angeles institute at the age of only 9, of whom Helen and Aline get very attached to. He's very cautious and observant. He likes research; he knows every bit of Shadowhunter history and Mundane history, he knows how to fight with weapons he doesn't even wield, he learns about random things that one would think would never come up in a situation but when it does he's ready to info dump much to everyone's bafflement; guy's just a bundle of knowledge about basically everything. He fights demons with this hammer and nail thing, both using the hammer to hit the demons and for hitting the nails at a long distance at the demons. His parents were very much not careful with him. They put runes on him too young, they threw him in front of demons too young saying that was his training, and so on. The final straw that caused him to run away was when they had somehow got it in their head that he had the potential to talk to ghosts. His parents had heard of the Herondale's connection to ghosts, and one time they saw Edmund muttering to himself so they were like 'clearly he has the potential to talk to ghosts as well'. Edmund tried to correct this, as he very much could not talk to ghosts, but they just threw him into some sort of morgue for 'training', refusing to let him out until he made some sort of connection to a ghost. He tried to lie, say he did, but his parents saw through the lie every time. Two weeks passed before he gave into hunger and began eating the only thing edible in that room; the dead bodies. Another week passed, and at that point he thought his parents weren't ever going to let him out, but then they did. It was then that he ran away, the taste of dead people never truly leaving his mouth. Honestly, the way he saw it, his parents jumped the gun a lot on him, doing things to him without properly understanding, being so reckless with him. So this sort of fed into his obsessive 'I must know every detail before doing anything' thing he does, as he doesn't want to be like them, and he thinks this will prevent people from being hurt. I also think the whole eating dead people thing definitely led to an eating disorder of some kind, unable to eat a lot of foods without tasting dead people.

Andrew "Andres" Blackthorn Rosales: Eldest kiearktina child, born from Cristina and Mark. He has curly black hair and golden eyes. He adores the forest life, wants to explore every part of it. Though, the forest didn't naturally like him back at first, as he didn't have that natural connection to it like the Fae. But he learned the ways of the forest, able to navigate it like no one else, and now the forest likes him back. He wants to travel the world and explore all sorts of different terrains, map them out, understand them all. The guy has crazy survivalist skills he's both learned about and discovered through trial and error, and he can and will go on rants about them at any given moment. He fights demons with this mysterious sword the forest gave him as a gift that definitely won't lead to any sort of plot line don't worry about it. The Fae disapprove of his entire existence, looking at him in a sort of 'what is he even doing here'. He's only partially Fae, and they don't consider that to be enough, even though Andres feels more connected to the Fae then he does with Shadowhunter's. They don't even really consider him to be Kieran's son, despite the many, many times Kieran has made it very clear he is. They pick on him and do cruel tricks on him a lot, nothing to permanently damage him physically, since he does have that amount of protection from Kieran's name, but it does take it's toll on him mentally. His parents know what's going on, but he never tells him who did it.

Juniper "Junie" Kingson Rosales: Youngest kiearktina child, born from Cristina and Kieran. She has curly blue hair and silver eyes. She's very much attracted to the city life, lowkey hating the forest life, not vibing in their cottage core lifestyle; very much the opposite of her brother. Girl is super into architecture, learns about the different styles from all over the world, she's obsessed. She has doodles of her own architecture, and she wants to make them a reality someday. She fights demons with a three balled flail. She isn't considered to be a true heir, as Cristina is considered a consort. But that's good for her because she didn't want to be the heir anyway; life in the fOrESt? Forever? No thank you. Give her that industrialization. But there does need to be an heir, and Kieran very much does not want to have a child with some other Fae woman just to have one, so as time wears on it's looking like an illegitimate heir is looking better than no heir. That would skip over her brother and to her, because even though Kieran of course sees them both equally as his children, she has Kieran's blood in her, so the Fae would consider her first. Of course, Kieran has siblings it would go to first, but even the slight possibility of it ever going to her puts her on edge. She feels it in the other Fae's eyes, that they hate her, but they'll take her as a last resort. She feels it in the way they talk to her, like they want to hurt her so bad, but don't just in case she does end up ruling over them. As such, being around most Fae make her uncomfortable, and would rather be with the Shadowhunter's.

Benjamin "Benji" Livia Blackthorn: The only blackstairs child; I'd imagine after raising all of his siblings, Julian might opt to spend all his energy into one kid rather then several. He has curly brown hair, freckles, and blue green eyes. He has a love for making weapons, not just weapons that already exist, but ones he thinks up himself. He'll experiment with new ideas and even fashion to better suit the individual person. He's very passionate about it, leading him to come off as very intense. He'll go out and actively seek out demons to test his prototype weapons on alone. It's a very dangerous thing that Emma and Julian have desperately tried to stop, but Benji is incredibly stubborn and tenacious, a consequence of having Emma and Julian's genes. But when he's fighting with other people, he's less likely to just test something he hasn't before, as he doesn't want to put other people at risk, so when he fights demons with other people he switches between a multitude of weapons he's tested before that were successful. People are very wary of Benji's weapons because they're breaking tradition; he's mixing metals that have never been mixed. People call it a disgrace to the Angel's gifts, saying he's basically spitting in the Angel's face; so as you can imagine, Benji isn't very popular. There was this one time when he was younger that he was told some kids were going to meet up, so he met up with them without telling his parents because he didn't think it would take that long, only for to be locked in a closet in their house for like a day before Emma and Julian found him. The kid wasn't trying to kill him, the kid was planning to let him out after a few days, but he didn't tell Benji that. It was a very traumatizing event, and he became rather claustrophobic and suspicious of people who are nice to him after that.

[evilbeanieman]

YTTD Main Cast as RPG Classes

Sara- Knight. She's known as the samurai woman, I mean, what's the western equivalent of a samurai? She's got the whole justice and honor thing going for her too.

Joe-Squire. He's essentially Sara's support and travel buddy. He basically is her support for the entire first chapter, and we can see that she depends on him from time to time to help her get through things. Every knight needs a squire, and Joe would be pretty great at it, I think.

Kai- Assassin. This one is kind of a no-brainer if you ask me. Although, given that Kai hasn't been able to kill anyone, I would say he's got the skills of an assassin but probably keeps the front of being an Inn Keeper or Servant.

Keiji-Royal Guard. Considering Keiji's past in the force, it would make sense to put him in a similar position. Since he's quit that however, I'd say he lays low as a commoner with the skills of a trained guard.

Shin-Shop Keeper/Wizard's Apprentice. Shin has no physical capabilities whatsoever, but I imagine that would be balanced by an extremely high affinity with magic. Though he lacks complete proper training since his mentor..."disappeared" a while ago. Since then, he's been working as a shop keeper and studying magic on the side.

Kanna-Witch (Botanical magic). Okay yeah this is somewhat inspired by her death in chapter 2. Though she does go through a lot of character growth in the game, so pairing her with plants isn't too out there. Additionally I think it would also match since Shin has an affinity for magic, so it'd make sense that his sister does as well.

Gin-Werebeast/Fae. Kind of another obvious one. I would like to think Gin is like a kemonomimi, probably one of a wolf or even dogcat hybrid. Considering his sometimes wild nature, and love for animals, he'd definitely be a child of the forest. The fae part is mainly since he likes to be a bit mischievous and silly.

Qtaro-Barbarian. I mean, Gin's nickname for him is literally "muscle gorilla," I don't think you can get any more raw strength than this class. I would think Qtaro is a part of some guild of fighters or adventurers and had a team he would do bounties with.

Reko-Bard. Another obvious choice. I don't think I need to explain much here, as she is a performer. Though I'd say she's definitely more of a physical attacker than most bards, but still has powerful magic in her tunes.

Alice-Bard/Outlaw. Similar to Reko. His magical music isn't as strong as hers, leading him to attack physically more often. Although ever since one fatal encounter, he's been on the run. Now he tries to rely solely on his strength, as to not draw too much attention with music that might sound familiar...

Nao-Witch (Painting magic). Again a bit of an obvious choice. She can bring some of her drawings to reality, although it takes quite the amount of magic. She has more training and control over her magic thanks to studying under Mishima.

Mishima-Scholar/Potion Seller. Mishima wouldn't really be a fighter, instead being the knowledgeable scholar you could come to when in need of information...or potions, if you're strong enough for them, that is. The potion seller bit I think would aid in his "mad scientist" kind of vibe in the og game, but also because I thought the idea was funny.

BONUS ROUND

Midori- Necromancer. We all know this is the obvious choice for him. I'd say that while his main focus is necromancy, he'd also specialize in other magic so he can keep it a secret. That doesn't mean his experiments are hidden well, however.

Maple- Homunculus. She would be the result of one of Midori's experiments gone...wrong? Right? An incredibly powerful being made of magic, capable of transforming her body when engaged in combat. Also, she is madly in love with him. Imagine a sort of "Dr. Frankenstein and his monster" kind of relationship between the two, where instead of the monster hating the creator, she's super lovey dovey to him.

[lixenn]

A SECOND ASK FROM ME HAS HIT UR ASKBOX TODAY…!

I'm curious on the method on how she uses her flames to disarm traps! Just from this section, it looks like she really knows her stuff!

"dark blue (the same color as her son’s eyes)" -- AWWWWWWWWW 🥹🥹🥹💖💖✨😭✨ IM SO SOFT I MUST DRAW HER!!! I can imagine that's also the same color as her late husband's eyes?

Does she have any favorites in classical music? Personally, don't get to listen to them a lot but when I do, one of my faves and the one that really makes me soft is Clair de Lune (Debussy); I wonder if she likes that too? She can even play the piano, so I can imagine her playing her fave pieces with that!

not a question but --- If she truly wanted she could have taken an officer position instead of her current job but she prefers being in a support role since that lets her spend more time with her son. --- I AGREE WITH THIS MINDSET. Chill culture >>>> Grind/Hustle culture (Hey Chief Dan, I hope ur listening right now 👍✨)

also dave wtf jsfhshvfshd what happened to dave the first time it happened? like the shampoo-switching? Did Valerie fall for it or did her instincts guide her to avoid the hair-dye?

We got a lot of hm Valerie loves her son here, but I also wonder about the other side. What is Valerie like in Maximilian's POV?

*faces this ask like it's the final boss in a JRPG*

I- I will beat you! YOU WILL NOT DEFEAT ME!!!!!

*insert exterme warcry here*

---

So... Heya Ein! It's been literal fucking months since you send this in but I haven't forgotten 🫡 I just procrastinated the hell out of it because the ask required research and also because Val doesn't tell me jackshit. She's quite the reserved lady... Keeping quiet even to her creator... The audacity!!

Anyways I finally come to deliver some answers! (which will be under the cut because long lmao)

Traps Disclaimer: I don't know traps. I don't know how to research traps either tbh. So I'm kind of winging this answer in the hopes that it makes at least some kind of sense.

Vals's analytical mind, observant nature and love for puzzles make it easy for her to identify and pick traps apart even when she just started out as an assassin. Her engineering studies also gave her an upper hand in the subject. So her disarming of traps is mostly analysing the bigger picture and then disintegrating the part of the trap that would do you harm with her Storm Flames. This means that while she sometimes just needs to take care of a small part of trap (for example the trigger that would set it off) at other times she just needs to get rid of the thing in its entirety or even spring the trap because everything else would be too much of a hassle.

Eyes Thank you for wanting to draw her 🥹🥹🫂💜💜 I haven't tried it myself yet because I'm honestly not sure on how to do her justice (<- this user doesn't know how to draw wrinkles in her style to safe her life) but dear @discendia actually did an absolute fantastic job of it, so now there's a Val visual!! As for her sons eye colour: Yes, he shares the same eye colour than her late husband (may he rest in piece 🙏).

Favourite music This might have been the most difficult question to answer simply because I don't know music OTL. I do enjoy instrumential music a lot but I don't know classics, which made answering tricky. Thankfully @myrmyrtheorca came to my rescue and saved my ass 🫡 You're a gem buddy!

Val has a fondness for waltz because her husband and her often danced together to it so we have:

Dmitri Shostakovich - Waltz No. 2

Aram Khachaturian - Masquerade Suite - Waltz

This one isn't a waltz but it's the kind of upbeat and fast paced she also likes Hungarian Dance no. 5.

Tchaikovsky - Valse Sentimentale okay this piece is less one of her favourites and more kind of a theme song for her and her husband because when I listened to this I got a lot of... bittersweet sad vibes and that reminded me of them.

I honestly don't know if you can play these pieces on piano? I would think if you could she would play them (music is really one of my weaknesses sometimes). But Val doesn't just like playing piano she also likes listening to classical music even going on live concerts for it when she has the time.

Chill culture Unlike certain other people I could name, Val has a very healthy work life balance which is mostly based on the fact that she was unwilling to compromise on her time with her son. It was hard at the beginning but with time and experience she got into a rhythm which she maintains with stubborn determination. She rises and sleeps early. She takes scheduled breaks. Vacation days aren't gathering dust and she will go on sick leave if needed. Unlike Dan who needs to be dragged from the office more often than not (he's also in fact not listening lmao).

Hair dye And it wouldn't be a proper Ein ask with me throwing in a snippet, would it? It's a bit on the shorter side but here you go!

Steaming hot water ran down Val’s back, washing away sticky sweat and doing wonders for the tension in her muscles. Training had been rewarding but her body wasn’t what it used to be, long since worn down by age and numerous injuries. Heat helped but something always complained even on the good days.

That’s the cost of living, I suppose.

Humming a nonsensical tune Val turned off the water and blindly reached for her shampoo bottle. She squeezed some product into her hand, eyes still closed and ready to massage it into her hair when a sharp smell reached her nose.

Val froze.

She gave up scented shampoos and soaps decades ago when subterfuge and stealth took priority over unnecessary comfort. With time reaching for the simple products on the shelf became a habit she never saw the point in breaking. Most of the fancy stuff irritated her skin anyways, it wasn’t a huge loss.

However, this begged the question:

Why the hell did her shampoo smell like ammonia?

Brightly coloured hair and a mischievous smile came to mind. Talking a mile a minute about how she would look great in red.

That little brat!

With a wave of her hand, Flames sparked to life, ridding her off the dye staining her skin. She left the bottle and its nefarious contents alone, better to have some evidence as backup just in case.

She dried herself in record time, put her wet hair up in a bun and grabbed some fresh clothes out of her closet. Her shirt was still half unbuttoned when she reached for her trusty naginata, ready to make a pesky little nuisance regret all his life choices.

---

^so yes Dave got caught and Val was not amused. He survived her warth but definitely needed to pay Varia medical a visit.

Maxi Val's love is equally returned by her son. Their relationship isn't without conflict because even though Val tried her best she was still extremely busy in her early assassin days, needing to leave Maxi with friends for days during her numerous missions. But he learned that he will always be her priority and that she will always come running if he calls her. Somtimes Val can get a bit overbearing because she's super paranoid that someone will take Maxi from her the same way her husband was burtally ripped from her life. Maxi tries to be understanding but he has limits (and he's a teenager) so he sometimes storms of in a huff to sleep over at his friends after they fight.

[kindaoptimisticsquirrel]

Trigun Bookclub Trimax Vol9 Part1

Vol01: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3  | Vol02: Part 1 | Part 2

Trimax: Vol01 Part 1 Vol01 Part 2 | Vol02 Part 1 Vol02 Part 2 | Vol 03 Part 1 | Vol03 Part2 | Vol04 Part1 | Vol04 Part2 | Vol05 | Vol06 | Vol07 | Vol08 Part1 | Vol08 Part2 | Vol09 Part1

Vol 9 recap start! It's late and I'm not having that many clever thoughts, so more just...reacting and saving cool panels :D

Chapter 1:

Aww Nico and Miss Melanie checking to see how Livio is doing. Nico's really got the big brother vibes.

Great catch, buddy!

Smiling and laughing little Wolfwood! This is killing me with so much cuteness. Also, love how he got his big Wolfwood nose as a kid too (I mean, of course he does, but then you never know, an author might make all kids look kinda similiar even unintentionally by giving them big kid eyes, small noses and such stuff...it's just nice to see distinct facial features drawn in different age states)

*** you for that evil trap, Chapel.

Livio not saying anything to that in that one panel is telling a lot actually. Now we know in what way he himself is tied to that orphanage...does he consider it a burden too? I wonder if Chapel struck a nerve with that sentence.

And just like that I knew I was gonna like Livio. Oooh he had it coming.

Hmm love this page. It really feels like the start of something.

Chapter 2:

So so proud of him...I read other bookclub posts about how Wolfwood symbolizes the humanity that CAN change and boy is that right.

I can only imagine Nightow having SO much fun drawing this!! :DD I have no idea but if I'd have to guess I'd say he was just waiting to draw a full page cool blockbuster scene of Wolfwood riding a motorcycle with an explosion in the backgrounds. Probably been wanting to do this since some volumes. And finally got his chance!! Cause there was no need to draw this so action-movie epic-like and he still did, hehe.

First of all, this page here looks so cool! Wolfwood is so shapey, but also the pose and composition...*mwah* Then in this fight we get to see just how good of a fighter Wolfwood actually is. Not that we didn't witness that before, but it was often together with Vash, or if alone, like with Ninelives, he was struggling quite a bit. But here to me it felt like we get this glimpse of a trained assassin he once was, fully in control of the situation, being fast and efficient (without killing).

Such badassery!!! I'm a big fan of how Livio, despite being fully indoctrined, still kinda protects the orphanage too! Well, maybe it's also because Chapel is prob sitting there too and they still need to use the orphanage as bait but STILL! I chose to believe that at this point some point inside Livio was still acting out of attachment to his old home.

Chapter 3:

Hey! That's not a nice thing to say boy! D: Also, she's obviously trying to reassure the kids so don't make them more scared by saying it won't do anything!

Oh fuck. The kids are talking about Nico here but this obviously applies to Vash, as well. Wolfwood can not rely on Vash now who is not around to help.

Also, may I say, what an utterly gorgeous drawing of Wolfwood and Livio.

RAZLOOOO

HMMMM Livio the Double FANG

And in that moment he thinks of that one moment where a person DID need him, where he saved someone :'(

These two pages look soooo cool. I never knew how ominous laundry cool look!

I do wonder...how did Razlo know about the Eye of Michael? Did he meet an informant some time, or overhear smth?

You're not going to kill your brother now, are you Wolfwood! (Not really brother but brother in heart, you know.)

Chapter 4:

Oh I misremembered, he DID mean to kill Livio? Or only momentarily put him out of order, knowing that he has SOME kind of regeneration abilities? I'm not quite sure now. What I do know is that Chapel has a creepy grin and I want that old man out of my face.

Ah hm maybe I should read at least the next page before rambling off. He really only wanted to incapacitate him. I'm relieved!

Rude! You didn't need to throw him through a suddenly spawned set of wood!

At this rate, Wolfwood must be riddled with bullets. Shot from behind, from the front, lost a HUGE amount of blood from his shoulder...

...and yet he's still going on. Oh my boy he's such an awesome character. (Also quick side note, love how Nightow draws hands)

Saving this because awesome pages. This is only the second time we're seeing these vials being used, right? Funny how quickly they became such an important plot device. (I wonder when Nightow planned them into the story...I'm guessing kinda late? Just wondering)

He must have really trusted on Livio blocking that thing!

Aww :(

Making a cut here! The rest will be done in a part 2 post, I don't want to get to the image limit in the middle of a chapter.

[standard-fiendart]

Some original characters for a project that's been eating away at my brain cells lately. Might fuck around and write a book about them.

Left to right; Audrey Beaughin, Elijah Faks, and Rainier Ward.

I'm calling the project Unthreaded. It's set in a world that is high-magic 1900-1920 America/Europe inspired, with a lot of the conveniences of the time period centered around magic.

The world of Ruvan is covered in magical wells called Seams that people can draw magic from. Most people develop an affinity, and physically adapt, to certain types of magic, like Audrey's ability to cast spells related to tracking, and Rainier's ability to obfuscate himself from any sense. Then some people, like Elijah, have a greater potential for magic that leads to a wider range of abilities and has the draw back of not adapting physically to anything.

A lot of power, but with drawbacks.

Elijah was researching the true magical potential of people like him for someone he later discovered was dangerous. So, he erased all traces of his research from existence, including from his memory, and Audrey's. This leads to them falling out, or breaking up, rather. But, when Audrey stumbles upon a clue left behind, they have to work together, with the assassin Rainier, and race to recover the research and figure out whether they need to destroy it once again, or if they can use it to oust those in power that would use it to declare war on neighboring kingdoms and claim their Seams.

Elijah is a bi/ace librarian, and a horse girl. He favors telekinetic magic and views casting like sewing, or knitting, since his mother is a seamstress (hence the sewing theme I'm going for).

Audrey is a bi hunter with dark, slitted eyes that open wide when she casts spells related to tracking. Specifically she can make herself able to see magic, either on a person like an aura, or on the land, where people/ animals have left marks in it.

Rainier is a bi assassin who can cast spells on himself or others to make them invisible/silent/scentless/tasteless/and even dampen their physical presence. His skin goes from a natural dark to almost pure black along his extremities and his palms and feet are soft and sensitive.

I am open to questions or general interaction with this project. Anything to keep myself motivated. Feel free to send asks!

[aelyxmagnus]

S+N=PL: A tinfoil read of the pink letter

Recently, this line in Varamyr’s prologue in ADWD was brought to my attention:

One by one they fell behind or forged ahead, making for their old villages, or the Milkwater, or Hardhome, or a lonely death in the woods. Varamyr did not know and could not care. I should have taken one of them when I had the chance. One of the twins, or the big man with the scarred face, or the youth with the red hair.

Who are these people Varamyr could have taken? Why would George give us descriptions of those people? Why have Varamyr remember these people specifically? Why have Varamyr remember anything about the people when he’s fucking starving and malnourished and delusional?

Because they’re going to be important later.

While I have some ideas on who “The twins” and “The youth with the red hair” are, in this post I’m going to be focusing on “the big man with the scarred face”.

A big man with a scarred face, now, who could that be?

Sandor motherfucking Clegane of course!

I can already hear you saying “But he’s at the quiet Isle! He can’t be in the north!”, but as is shown in this revolutionary new timeline by @jozor-johai , our timeline of a lot of the events, especially those in the north, is wrong, so it is possible Sandor took a ship to the north soon after Brienne left (or maybe during Brienne’s stay since the last time she sees him is when she has lunch in the septry). Cat’s skiff got from White Harbor to KL in a week or so, so it is completely possible Sandor went North and reached there a few months after the battle on the wall.

Ok, you say, He might be in the north, but what could that mean for the plot?

Why, because it means he sent the pink letter, of course.

The new timeline shows that Jon’s assassination took place a full month before Theon and Jeyne escape, so none of the suspects, other than maybe Stannis could have any reason to send the letter.

So the pink letter:

Bastard, Your false king is dead, bastard. He and all his host were smashed in seven days of battle. I have his magic sword. Tell his red whore. Your false king's friends are dead. Their heads upon the walls of Winterfell. Come see them, bastard. Your false king lied, and so did you. You told the world you burned the King-Beyond-the-Wall. Instead you sent him to Winterfell to steal my bride from me. I will have my bride back. If you want Mance Rayder back, come and get him. I have him in a cage for all the north to see, proof of your lies. The cage is cold, but I have made him a warm cloak from the skins of the six whores who came with him to Winterfell. I want my bride back. I want the false king's queen. I want his daughter and his red witch. I want this wildling princess. I want his little prince, the wildling babe. And I want my Reek. Send them to me, bastard, and I will not trouble you or your black crows. Keep them from me, and I will cut out your bastard's heart and eat it. Ramsay Bolton, Trueborn Lord of Winterfell

Why send the letter? To bring Jon south of course and hopefully draw Ramsay away, the original spearwife plan was originally to rescue Jeyne when the armies were outside battling, but they had to abandon that plan when no army came after a month and do the next best thing.

One of the first things you notice on your first read of the letter is the repetition of Bastard, and since it makes no sense for Ramsay to write it, it must be some other character who wrote it, and who do we know in the series who loves to curse? Sandor. He might have changed a lot on the quiet isle but cursing a hard habit to drop.

Sandor probably really does think of Stannis as a false king with no claim, since it’s unlikely he knew about the twincest considering he spends most of his time in KL around Joffrey or being a regular Lannister guard. He also probably became more religious at the quiet isle and genuinely despises Stannis for turning to R’hllor.

So how does he know about the spearwives? Because he’s in winterfell of course. My guess would be he went to Eastwatch after his original ship crashed north of the wall and managed to smuggle himself on a ship and go to White Harbor, where he went into Wyman’s service, maybe he even went and specifically told Wyman about his mission to rescue Arya, and since most people in the North haven’t seen the hound before, it’s unlikely they would know who he was, or even think about it, considering the rumors that he’s around Saltpans. Only the Freys might know him, being from farther south, but they probably wouldn’t pay attention to a random Manderly guard.

Why would the spearwives let Sandor know who they are? Because Mance recognized him from his previous visit to Winterfell. This would also explain why grrm retconned Mance into winterfell in asos.

Why would Mance trust Sandor? He’d probably do what he did with Theon and have the spearwives bring him and interrogate Sandor, Mance is a pretty good judge of character

As for ‘your false king’s friends are dead’, Sandor from what he knows of Stannis thinks that Stannis has no friends, so he’s just having a jape, something he does continuously through the letter.

Sandor has also become far more religious at the quiet isle, so he thinks of all other religions (except the old gods) as false and sorcerous. His experience with the BwB also put his opinion of red priests down, making him call Mel a red witch.

How did Sandor send the letter? Probably with Wyman’s help, or maybe there’s a dead maester who’s gone missing in all the chaos at winterfell. As for the signature pink wax, the quiet isle does have some trade, so the most likely scenario some ship carrying sealing waxes for trade came and Sandor asked the elder brother to buy him the pink one because it reminded him of the girlish stuff Sansa likes, along with kinda resembling the color of the weirwood (remember that the first time Sandor saved Sansa was when she almost fell on the serpentine steps coming back from the godswood.). In fact, since none of ‘Ramsay’s’ letters have a seal, it’s actually been Sandor, with Wyman and Mance sending the letters.

But why? He obviously came to winterfell hearing of Arya’s marriage and to save her, but it must have been clear during the wedding and after that the girl was not Arya, but someone else, namely Jeyne Poole, Sansa’s close friend who was taken away from her.

Sandor clearly thinks of himself as Sansa’s ‘protector’, and his time at the quiet isle has probably made him take that role even more seriously, so when he sees that Sansa’s close friend has been married off to a raving lunatic who’ll ruin her, he’d immediately think of Sansa and decide to save Jeyne, since he doesn’t know the spearwives or Mance well, he’d definitely not tell them and jeopardize the rescue.

As for the line, ‘the skins of the six whores’, I think Sandor’s increasing religiosity has made him increasingly take a line against alcoholism, which is probably pretty common in wildling culture, so he made them give him their wineskins and turned that into a cloak.

But why hasn’t Theon seen him, you ask? Well, actually, he has:

Outside the snow was coming down so heavily that Theon could not see more than three feet ahead of him. He found himself alone in a white wilderness, walls of snow looming up to either side of him chest high. When he raised his head, the snowflakes brushed his cheeks like cold soft kisses. He could hear the sound of music from the hall behind him. A soft song now, and sad. For a moment he felt almost at peace.

Farther on, he came upon a man striding in the opposite direction, a hooded cloak flapping behind him. When they found themselves face-to-face their eyes met briefly. The man put a hand on his dagger. "Theon Turncloak. Theon Kinslayer."

"I'm not. I never … I was ironborn.""False is all you were. How is it you still breathe?"

"The gods are not done with me," Theon answered, wondering if this could be the killer, the night walker who had stuffed Yellow Dick's cock into his mouth and pushed Roger Ryswell's groom off the battlements. Oddly, he was not afraid.

He pulled the glove from his left hand. "Lord Ramsay is not done with me."The man looked, and laughed. "I leave you to him, then." -ADWD, The Ghost in Winterfell

‘False is all you ever were.’ We know Sandor’s dislike of lordlings and knights, thinking them false fakers who break vows easily, and he must’ve seen a lot of Theon while watching Joff in the yard and seen his shallowness.

Sandor’s parallel for Theon’s situation with the Starks is being saved by the Elder Brother, who has become his brother in all but biology to him, and he saw how good Theon had it with the Starks, so he thinks of Theon as a kinslayer.

There is also a moment of sympathy when he sees what has been done to Theon, seeing a bit of what he did to himself and turned himself into due to his hatred of Gregor.

Since Sandor came to Winterfell as a Manderly guard, it’s safe to assume he’s outside winterfell with the rest of the Manderly host, which might complicate Wyman’s defection to Stannis, because even if Stannis believes that he wasn’t involved in Saltpans (which is a pretty hard sell, especially since Wyman also has to convince Stannis that he didn’t kill Davos.), Sandor still deserted on the battle of the blackwater, and Stannis is not going to let desertion pass with no punishment, this is the dude who cut off Davos’ fingers after all. So Wyman will probably have Sandor mysteriously disappear and make it look like he deserted a few days before the defection. Most likely, Sandor will go to the wall to check what the fuck is going on and why Jon hasn’t come yet, which might mean he’ll be the one who reminds (or informs) Mel that she can resurrect people.

Tl;dr: Sandor sent the pink letter, and might be at the wall.

[mercisnm]

Hello there, do you have any more headcanons on knight Tissaia and queen Yen? Love your art!

Sure anon, I might not draw them a lot, but I’ll have you know I turn this AU around like a rotisserie chicken in my brain constantly, continuously.

Thoughts I had for the AU but was mostly convo with a friend, just gathered them here, could be a bit long:

For arting purposes: Tissaia would be well-versed in all weaponry, so go hogwild with what you imagine she would smack people with. And while she might look like light cavalry based on her height and weight, I think she prefers her armour full plate, a reflection of how her gowns look in canon (Yennefer: “Would you consider slipping into something more comfortable?” Tissaia: “I am most comfortable when impervious to all forms of physical attacks.”) She doesn’t have a squire, but sometimes her trusted maid would help her get in the armour.

Talking of armour, the sets are tailored to her body, since there’s no soldier that small in the King’s guard, which made it a problem for her when she tried to sell off that beautifully crafted set for something else less attention-grabbing while protecting the young heiress to the throne.

For the backstory: Tissaia must be of noble background given how educated she is and how quick she advanced in the military, not that all of the troops were pleased to be assigned a female commander, she had to work hard to earn their trust. The rest is undecided, but could be nice to expand on: Is she the child of a duke? Did her father intend to marry her off for wealth and influence? Was she knighted and made vice captain of the King’s guard out of pity, or did the king have ulterior motives? 

Yennefer was only vaguely aware of this. Her story was only set in motion long after Tissaia’s rebellious youth story seemingly came to its conclusion. Born deformed and weak, child to a queen of foreign background without any support but the fervent devotion of the king, an easy target for accusations of being the fruits of an unholy matrimony, she spent most of her childhood away from the capital and its courtly intrigues. Such was her father’s love for her: diverting his affections towards his other children while secretly gathering support for Yennefer, until the day she is strong enough to inherit… only if his plan had not ended prematurely with his assassination.

On the occasions when Yennefer was allowed to see her father, the silent lady knight by his side was always a subject of her curiosity. Burdened by her own physical deformities, Yennefer wondered how a lady so small could win against men twice her size. She overheard her nurses and valets saying unsavoury things about Tissaia behind her back, that she was a madwoman for giving up her high title to become a lowly knight, that she had peculiar and sickening… proclivities. Yennefer did not understand everything they said about the Dame Tissaia, nor did she care, what she cared for was she would give everything to become strong and fierce like her.

Tissaia’s initial plan was to reach out and convince other nobles to lend their support to Yennefer in reclaiming her throne. The duo of a lady knight and a hunchbacked teenage child with foreign traits attracts unwanted attention like anything, so Tissaia insisted they take the roads less travelled, but how could the pampered royal child agree. Initially Tissaia could afford them two horses and some rations, but after they were ambushed on the open road and had to flee through forests, one good horse was all they were left with. The guilt-ridden Yennefer offered to hunt to provide for the rations they had lost, and after some inner debate Tissaia gave her her own dagger and taught her survival skills.

Magic was considered lost in the kingdom; at least all self-proclaimed magic practitioners Tissaia saw during her time in the court were charlatans, so when Yennefer brought up the story about the witch in the bogs they were trudging through, she believed it a waste of time, but humoured the girl hoping to teach her a lesson about accepting your fate. What if the witch is real, but all magic is about balance, and to change your fate there is a steep price to be paid?

More on the silly after they overcome all the hardships, or in between them, your pick:

- Uhm so Tissaia is denser than lead, or she is rather sensitive but her sense of duty has viewed Yennefer as both a child and a sovereign whom she vowed to protect and serve, and for a long long time that her own feelings were obstructed by that lens. - Yennefer, on the other hand, acted on her intuition with breakneck speed once she has determined it is Tissaia she wants. Cue all the shameless flirting that hits a brick wall. (“I have sent all my servants away, my dear Tissaia.” “And your guards as well?” “Oh why, yes of course, I know they are your subordinates but… if you catch my drift…” “...Understood my liege”, said Tissaia, as she stood guard outside Yennefer’s chamber that whole night and changed out half of the squadron afterwards, not forgetting to scold them for angering her liege, Yennefer hadn’t even the courage to explain it was just… flirting…) - Tissaia would eventually shed the armour and let Yennefer tend to her wounds, perhaps even let her help with putting the armour back on. Don’t ask me why her liege is doing a squire’s job for her knight, it just sounds like something idiots in love would do. - Jousting? Jousting. Tissaia knocking men twice her weight off from their horses? Count me in. - What else did those posh people do to pass the time back in the days? Hunting is a good one. Yennefer was gifted exotic sighthounds by another kingdom (spoilers: they are Borzois) and entrusted Tissaia with them. Quiet knight and excited horse dogs. Yennefer holds the hunts out of formality, her hunting small games for survival while on the run wasn’t the most pleasant memory. She does recall very fondly Tissaia teaching her and telling anecdotes from time to time though (“Careful with those arrows, do you know an emperor died during a hunt by accidentally pricking himself with a poisoned arrow?” “You will need to dress yourself, and do a tidy job at it, your belt may catch in a deer’s antlers, a king was dragged to his death for it.”), so she takes Tissaia with her to every hunt.

[calchexxis]

If you’re looking to play Path to Nowhere and don’t want to drop lots of money on the gacha elements, no worries. Like most gacha games, they shower you with freebie tickets for getting characters early on, from there even if you get zero S-Class Sinners, the A & B tier are still super solid. You just have to have the right team, so let’s go over it!

First thing’s first, PtN is essentially a tower defense game, so at the beginning of each mission you’ll place your Sinners to block enemy units as they spawn and advance towards you, the Chief. Different maps and missions usually demand different arrangements of your units, and in some cases you might need to invest in leveling up a new Sinner whose abilities might be better suited to solving the issue.

Let’s assume absolute shite luck and you have no S-class and start with the basics.

You automatically receive two A-Class and three B-Class Sinners during the early missions: Hella, Hecate, Wendy, Labyrinth, and Emp. They make a perfect core to build around.

Hecate is best girl. You need her. Get her to level 70 and Phase 3 ASAP. As you level her up she will gain the ability to spit out an extra unit capable of blocking two units and being able to break two enemy cores, which are how you kill bosses and heavy units because it stuns and weakens them.

Wendy & Hella are a bomber of a front line. Wendy can slice up hordes since her ultimate hits a wide area around her, and Hella’s ulti causes her to attack faster and double-attack. In addition, Hella regenerates so she can take a beating.

EMP is an archer with one of the longest attack ranges in the game, her ultimate also breaks a core. She’s good at getting distant picks but her output is a little low, so she is one of the replaceable characters. Labyrinth is an assassin-type, and her ultimate also breaks cores and can move her around the map freely. As a rule of thumb, core-breakers are good boss killers but not much else. So you want to have a good balance. I find that Hecate plus one additional breaker is sufficient for boss-killing.

Support: do not skimp on having a support on your team, it’s tempting to stack damage but they are absolutely necessary. If Hella is on your frontline, use Machiatto. She’s a B-class Healer, and Hella multiplies healing she gets. Machi also buffs her allies she heals as she levels up, and can perform some solid partywide healing later on. She should absolutely be your 6th member in a B-Class lineup.

Replacements: EMP & Labyrinth are replaceable if you want. If you replace Labyrinth it should be with Gekkabijin, another assassin, and whose ulti breaks two cores on hit. EMP should be swapped out with Kelvin, who has solid AOE and most crucially a move speed debuff for enemies around her, giving your team more time to beat face.

Mind you all the above advice is to build a lineup out of your two guaranteed A-Class and easily obtainable B-Class that you’ll get a ton of with your freebie draws. Most likely you’ll get at least one S-Class, but you still want to level Hecate first because you get so much value out of her since she both breaks cores and spits out a defender eventually. If you get Anne, an A-Class Healer, level her up IMMEDIATELY because her healing is so strong, and gives your team a ton of staying power.

Summer is an S-Class that is the best ranged damage dealer in the game. Nox is another S-Class melee who is the best melee frontliner.

Other than that, there are a lot of combos if you have a wide pool of Sinners, but decide early because upgrade resources are scarce later on. Settle on a strategy, pick six sinners as your wrecking crew with maybe one other with a different ability set as a substitute to change up your playstyle.

Cheers.

[dijeh]

I got tagged in a fandom meme! I haven't done one of these in a lot of years, so thanks @endless-season

I'm putting my disappointing answers under the cut, so you can enjoy this photo of a snail instead and scroll along.

3 ships you like: I'm... not the type to talk about that... They exist.

first ship ever: Oh man, no idea. Something from Greek mythology maybe? Or from one of those compulsory readings in middle school? Maybe earlier?

last song you heard: This. Also in French. It's apparently based on an actual love curse song and I can't stop listening to it.

favourite childhood book: Either a two-volume book on Greek mythology or the Mary Poppins series. I received the Greek mythology book when I was about 6 and it was the first "serious" book I managed to read all by myself (I'd only read some Bamse beforehand). I used to like the first volume, the one on gods, better than the second one which focused on the heroes, which I found sort of boring. I wanted to read about cool powers and the like, not guys doing things. I lent the books to a friend a few years ago and haven't seen them since, but I recently leafed through the volumes at another friend's house (every kid has them), and noticed my tastes have sort of reversed now.

As for Mary Poppins... I still remember that frustrating Midsummer Eve volume which created more mysteries instead of answering longstanding questions. Immortal Mary? ??? Also that Halloween chapter where I would mentally replace the park and lane with the park across the street and my own street. My mental image of the MP world was half whatever I read, half my own home. (I only watched the Disney movie much, much later and found it rather disappointing.)

currently reading: - A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens. I had forgotten how verbose he is! I appreciate the irony/dry humour but there are so many unneeded passages. It's also quite quotable, in fact it contains my favourite quote ever that I learnt of before knowing the book.

Alamut by Vladimir Bartol. It's ok so far, I'm only ~70 pages in, so I can't draw a conclusion, but I can't say I'm awed or anything. I'd be tempted to blame the translation, but it might also be my expectations (cool assassin action yeah!) vs reality (newcomer learns about stuff in painstaking detail).

The House on the Borderland by W. H. Hodgson. Literally just started it, I'm looking forward to being spooked. I've only read two other things by Hodgson, The Voice in the Night, which I can't remember for the life of me, and The Night Land, which I read the only time I worked in an office and I still can't tell whether reading that book or working in an office was worse. I Very Much Dislike working in an office if you couldn't tell.

currently watching: The Last Kingdom. I quite like it, despite the biker vikings and the ridiculous premise that everything in (future) England worked thanks to 1 (one) guy™ and some REALLY unneeded character changes (historical power couple turned into lil bitch husband vs long suffering wife who fucks the protag of course). Can't talk yet about the writing quality after Netflix took over (started season 4), but I do appreciate the better costumes and accessories. People finally wear rings, necklaces, brooches, armbands etc! Wew. I do not appreciate the Middle Ages filter even though some colour does manage to make its way on screen from time to time. I also miss the battle tactics, but well, as long as the character interactions are nice...

currently consuming: Coffee in a coffee appropriate cup I randomly found in the kitchen. Where do all these cups even come from?

currently craving: Infinite time to read what I want to read and enough money and warm sunny weather to travel. I miss Naples! My love 🥺