#i think this one's more of a spoiler than the other one lol

[234moon]

I’ll admit a thing. Prior to Haikavetham I thought that Hoyoverse wasn’t interested in developing MLM ships too much. I was okay with that too because yuri gets less attention anyway and HYV was obsessively focused on it. But there was always that fear in me that their obsession with WLW ships was likely somewhat inspired by fetishisation.

But then Haikavetham came along and shattered that assumption for me. I thought no other MLM HYV ship could possibly come close to it but Phaidei is actually insane. You can see that this company, with their limitations even because of censorship, is trying pretty hard to make a good MLM ship that fans can decipher easily.

3.1 spoilers up ahead. And this post is absolutely an excuse to collate “evidence” for how gay Phaidei is

1. Phainon and Mydei being parallels to Kephale and Nikador (respectively), and also possibly being inheritors to their coreflame (Phainon left but it’s almost confirmed). Where Nikador allegedly fell in love with Kephale, who is their rival and fought them. A very direct parallel to Phaidei

2. But it’s less about their parallels and more about what they do at present in the story. The most conspicuous incident of this is the last part of 3.1’s quest, where they’re parting. Firstly, Phainon is the last person Mydei met. He was the last farewell Mydei wanted to give before he left. Secondly, when they do talk, Phainon asks this

To which Mydei first replies that the Kremnoan philosophy can never be encapsulated in a dictionary. And then he says this

Don’t tell me this doesn’t read like Phainon worried that the word for romance really doesn’t exist in the Kremnoan language but hoping that it does. Because language makes culture. And as a Kremnoan, that should mean, at least in theory, that Mydei is not fully capable of romance. But this reads like Phainon knowing they have feelings for each other, and teasing Mydei about it. Like “hey I know you say romance doesn’t exist in the Kremnoan language but you definitely like me so you’re probably lying”. Because why would this be one of his parting sentences? It’s too irrelevant at the moment.

Add to this what Mydei says in the end. Don’t tell me this doesn’t read like the most classic doomed gay ship trope! Because it is!! It is!!!!

(Also I don’t know how many people noticed this but when Mydei says the last sentence, his tone is uncharacteristically soft)

3. This GIF.

I can’t stop thinking about it. Phainon knows Mydei has his back (and vice versa because… lol). Phainon feels absolute relief knowing Mydei is with him, and they will fight together. Phainon trusts him, and Mydei trusts Phainon even more.

There is also this scene.

Since my post is getting long I’ll recommend reading a small breakdown of it here (much better explained than I could). They have each other’s backs, and they trust each other with everything. Also the way Mydei says “found you”. I cried.

4. Including their lives!

What an insane scene man. Reveal your proverbial Achilles heel to one man and one man only, who coincidentally happens to be the man who you trust watching your back.

5. They help each other get better. Not much explanation needed but Phainon and Mydei understand each other deeply, and they understand the other’s desires and even masked feelings. Phainon helped Mydei make that final decision that he needed to change the lives of Kremnoans and be a better king (by recommending he go to Chartonus, to whom Phainon had relayed details about Gorgo’s signet ring)

And Mydei helps Phainon with this

There is, of course, a lot more “evidence”. The smallest of expressions (like damn Mydei smiles a lot around Phainon lol) to it being heavily implied their comfort zone is each other. My point, though, is that I’m very impressed by a Chinese company willingly making so much implied gay content despite censorship restricting them. Phaidei has become another one of those iconic HYV ships for me at least.

Btw, if you see this post, please don’t add “but they could be friends-“ I’m aware and it’s a redundant argument. There is a very thin line separating platonic and romantic love. Yes this could be an example of a beautifully higher level of platonic love. But I choose to read this as romantic because I trust in a game company known for making heavily implied gay couples to have made another one.

And please do not treat this as discourse despite how I started it!! This is about Phaidei and I wanted to give a background about why I think they’re pretty gay

[hope-luvs-hrtstppr]

my tlt annotations! part two: Harrow the Ninth (by Tamsyn Muir) *spoilers ahead*

- “Nonagesimus, nobody is coming to save you. Not God. Not Augustine. Nobody.” (Muir, 15) starting off strong

- i love ianthe calling harrow “harry”

- “The past is dead, and they’re both dead, but you and I are alive. What are they? What are they, other than one more corpse we’re dragging behind us?” (Muir, 16)

- “Sometimes you would forget who you were, and at recalling yourself, weep like a child.” (Muir, 30) HARROWHARK GET BEHIND ME

- “‘And you shouldn’t call me God either,’ he said. ‘You don’t comprehend the word, and I don’t want to be God to you yet.’” (Muir, 39) ianthe and harrow are the first lyctors to become god’s hands after growing up worshipping him. augustine, gideon, and mercy have known him since the beginning. they understand that to worship god is to let him use you. that god doesn’t want ‘his hands’ clasped together in prayer, he wants ‘his hands’ balled up in fists. harrow must learn that from teacher before she can know him as god.

- “‘Ortus Nigenad died thinking it was the only gift he was capable of giving,’ you said, ‘and I have wasted it—like—air.’” (Muir, 45) GOOD GOD this hurts. griddlehark’s pseudo-lyctorhood is painful enough, but all the cavaliers that were fully absorbed by their necromancers?? pyrrah and gideon, cristabel and mercy, alfred and augustine. to be so devoted to someone that you offer your life on a silver platter so that they, your other half, can become full without you. jod when i catch you jod. jod when i catch you!!!! (not saying that all the cavs consented to being absorbed, just spiraling abt lyctors as a concept yk)

-the only reason harrow is alive is because “she had cost too much to die”. her life was never her own, it had always belonged to the 200 children of the ninth (plus the latest addition, gideon nav). she fights so hard to stay alive (despite her personal desires to die) because she’d be damned if she let the souls inside her die twice.

- “Love had broken her life into two separate halves: the half before she had fallen, and the half afterward.” (51) THE WAY GIDEON IS DESCRIBING HARROW’S LOVE FOR ALECTO BUT IT’S TRUE FOR HARROW’S LOVE FOR GIDEON TOO

- when harrow recalls that “There had been another girl who grew up alongside Harrow—but she had died before Harrow was born.” (54) she’s not wrong. pre-lobotomy harrow grew up alongside nav, and nav died before post-lobotomy harrow was born

- ianthe calling harrow a skull-faced fruitcake

- “You staggered over to the Body, standing so quiet by the wall, and you buried your face in her thighs.” (67) i’m picturing the “there goes my babyyyyyyy” pose

- THE EGGS YOU GAVE ME ALL DIED AND YOU LIED TO ME

- taking a moment to acknowledge that this series has vastly expanded my vocabulary. i would include a little word bank of all the words i had to look up in order to comprehend what was going on, but that feels too boring to subject other people to

- harrow’s brain conjuring the image of baby-nav’s corpse while in the river for the first time is so beyond fucked

- IS THIS HOW IT HAPPENS?????? (spoiler: it isn’t)

- ianthe looking down harrows robe at cytherea’s funeral is so classic ianthe

- the girls are fighting!!! (the girls being ortus and harrow in harrow’s dreams)

- “But when she was scared, she was a child again, and she was almost afraid of being a child again than anything else in her life. Almost.” (133) :(((((

- i feel like harrow’s the type to eat uncooked pasta

- can someone get harrow a tshirt that says “i heart my frozen corpse wife”

- “… because Ianthe was overfamiliar and frankly a pervert.” (161) LMAOOO

- “‘I want that sword,’ said Ortus the First. / ‘What?’ / ‘Give me her damned sword,’ said Ortus the First. / ‘You’ve already got a whole complement of oversized weapons, greedy.’” (191) this whole exchange reminds me of Schmitt at the aquarium demanding a lion fish (New Girl reference lol)

- “For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreams / Of the beautiful Annabel Lee.” (196)

- harrow may have repressed everything besides her beef with septimus lmao

- i like to think that the whole of tlt so far was just elaborate world building for the real story: a commentary on gun control (starring Commander Awake Remembrance of These Valiant Dead)

- i have so little respect for g1deon. bro really attacked A NAKED TEENAGE NUN.

- harrow = that one snoopy picture that’s like “belly full of soup”

- “And the Saint of Duty lifted his cigarette to you in an unmistakable salute.” (235) oooh he’s so nonchalant

- the scene where harrow regrows ianthe’s arm feels like an inverse sex scene. like a reverse orgasm.

- “That first night in her bed, you’d placed your bone-dressed sword between you, and felt better…” (258) ah, yes. me, my gf, and her ex’s six foot two hander

- “You do know there are children present? Should I kill them, or what?” i love mercy so fucking much

- ianthe is so me, my first instinct when drunk is also to kiss the homies

- the question is: would harrow be so devoted to worshipping the locked tomb if ‘the body’ wasn’t hot?

- “Kill me all you like. I would know you in the blindness of my eyes…in the deafness of my ears…as a shadow smudged against the wall, annihilated by light…stop. Not here. Not now. Let it go, love. I just want the truth…after all this time.” (Muir, 291) HELLO?!??!??????!!?

- harrow when she runs into camilla on a planet she’s meant to kill: “my main goal is to blow up and act like i don’t know nobody heheheheh” (please tell me you get the reference)

- TASMSYN MUIR LET GIRLS KISS CHALLENGE ( harrow trying to kiss the body:( )

- “…the Emperor of the Nine Houses had someone, and then, like all his Lyctors, the Emperor of the Nine Houses had lost someone.” (346) this reminds me of that Langston Hughes poem, “I loved my friend. He went away from me. There’s nothing more to say. The poem ends, Soft as it began,— I loved my friend.”

- “And you walked to your death like a lover” goes hard

- rip BARI-star au you will always be famous <33

- the scene where harrow remembers gideon is sickening. the grief of losing gideon hitting harrow all over again after months of repression. her body crumpling and her throat raw from screaming. “She dug her hands into the mattress and she cried for Gideon Nav.” (380) LIKE HELLO?????

- YOU SAWED OPEN YOUR SKULL RATHER THAN BE BEHOLDEN TO SOMEONE. YOU TURNED YOUR BRAIN INTO SOUP TO ESCAPE ANYTHING LESS THAN 100 PERCENT FREEDOM. YOU PUT ME IN A BOX AND BURIED ME RATHER THAN GIVE UP YOUR OWN GODDAMNED AGENDA. ¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡HARROWHARK, I GAVE YOU MY WHOLE LIFE AND YOU DIDN’T EVEN WANT IT!!!!!!!!! (390-391)

- “…probably because i am a good girl and you are an evil nun…” (391) god i missed you, gideon

- both ortus and harrow feeling crushing guilt over gideon’s death:(( so much guilt over a situation with no one to blame (although, the real villain here is capitalism. but that’s another post.)

- “Child, that bee smashed you.” (406) my fav line in the whole book.

- “‘Hell no! I’m going to pull your whole ass off,’ I said. ‘You want that? You want Harrow to grow you a new bone ass where I pulled off the old one? Let’s dance, Tridentarius.’” (429) i just missed nav so much you don’t understand

- gideon and harrow not reuniting despite being so close (GIDEON IS LEGIT INSIDE OF HER) ((ayo)) gideon is a part of her mind but still can’t see how harrow thinks of her. she’s operating her body but can’t feel how much it misses her touch. FUCK THIS BOOK BRO

- as a dancer, the way harrow describes watching matthias nonius and wake fight is how i feel when i watch people dance. the admiration for different approaches to movement stylistically, and making inferences about the intentions behind their movements. the appreciation for different skills in different areas and the keen eye for artistic choices. anyways.

- a reminder from marta: chickenshits don’t get beer.

- “She had not said goodbye. Harrow so rarely got to say goodbye.” (458) MUIR WHY WOULD YOU SAY THATTTTT

- “… meet Commander Wake Me Up Inside, sincerest apologies if I got that wrong…” (468) HELP

- gideon meeting her mom for the first time as a soul taking over the body of a lyctor she and harrow killed, after briefly having had a thing for said lyctor while she was impersonating a woman she’d never actually met— is messy, to say the least.

- “…Were you ten, Harrow? Was I eleven? / Was that the day you decided you wanted to die? / You remember how the fuck-off great-aunts used to say, Suffer and learn? / If they were right, Nonagesimus, how much more can we take until you and me achieve omniscience?” (477) they make me ill. i can’t even dissect this. just know i am ILL.

- mercy making jod say that he loved cristabel and never wanted any harm to come to her as a sort of final confirmation he was who she feared he was. because they both know that he let mercy kill her knowing full well she didn’t have to die. the fact that he is able to look mercy in the eyes and refuse to be honest, after all this time; the way he still won’t take accountability for his actions; confirms that the lives of others mean nothing to him compared to revenge.

- PYRRHA DVE HAS ARRIVED Y’ALL

- the thing at the bottom of the river with all the teeth and tounges??? like who thinks of this shit

- “‘There’s a difference between keeping a shred of a dance card’ said Harrow Nonagesimus, ‘and saving the last dance.’” (502) tamsyn muir is just toying with us atp

hi!! so this was… long. if you’ve somehow read all of this then you deserve a medal and ur favorite snack:) i hope you enjoy these!

part 3 (ntn) is on the way!

[bigtittygothgirlandrew]

2 & 13 for the ask game!

Thank u sm for the ask!!

2 - Which part shocked you most?

I mean I think this has to be the “tell me about the cocaine” scene. I already heard from the spoiler tag that Jeremy was an addict cuz if I’m being so fr rn I’m a spoiler lover not hater and I NEEDED to know lol. That was also my Jeremy theory personally- nothing else rlly made sense to me. BUT the way Jean said it was just so jarring my heart stopped for a second lol

Honestly their house burning down should’ve been the most surprising but, once again, since I’m a spoiler lover I already knew and it just wasn’t as surprising on the first read as Jean’s sudden “tell me about the cocaine”

13 - Were any of your perceptions/characterizations of the character changed? 

YES actually so I am a fairly neutral person on Kevin but the Kevin and Jean scenes rlly changed my perspective on him. Seeing him from the perspective of someone who’s known him for years, who loves him, is very different than Neil’s perspective of him to me. And ik he acted basically the same as the other books but I loved seeing him fight back a bit in this one? Like in the interview and shit- bro wasn’t just scared and camera ready anymore, and I think that made him a bit more interesting to me. He’s no longer as fearful now that Riko’s dead and it’s amazing to see how different he is without his weight on his back

My takeaway is now I haven’t stopped thinking about Kevin for days so maybe I’m becoming a Kevin fan now lol

[soupy-cosmos]

yikes

[seefasterdraws]

from the homumiko mines

[calypsolemon]

sometimes people negatively criticizing DR will say things like "it must be bad writing otherwise it doesn't make sense why the ninja act differently in [DR situation] than they did in [MOS situation]" with no further justification for why that would be the case and it's like. my brother in spinjitzu the Situations are Different

[momokatzetzgo]

One of my absolute favorite parts about Homicipher right now is the MC, Adami Adashiro!! I find it really fascinating how (spoilers for the game!) we find out that our protag isn't simply a human (cute girl). I think it works wonderfully as a subversion and a play with some common otome protag tropes.

We assume that it's going to be a plot where a naive, innocent girl gets seduced by monstrous men. But as we play further, and as we learn about Adami's "hobbies," I find it really interesting how more of her ruthless actions and choices are put into context with the rest of her personality. She's not bereft of kindness, but with her warped morals, and already being an urban legend talked about in paranormal magazines, maybe she was already a part of this world before she ever stepped in...

[beastking-golion]

Saw a fic about vastaya Viktor and if you ask me he’s definitely a bird (or salamander if you wanna super angstify him- cough cough Rio cough).

[fear-no-mort]

i cant get over the whole time in the real world rick just sat there watching over morty and when he woke up finally rick sounded SO happy the way he just yelled his name excitedly the second he woke up,,,

[wheucto]

"I think we can help each other out!"

reference images

gosh the color palette in these is great

[maythedreadwolftakeyou]

i have seen a lot of posts about lucanis & illario lately, that specifically call out that some of the things Lucanis says about him are kinda mean. usually in context of 'yes what illario did was fucked up but they BOTH went thru the fucked up training and lucanis says shit to him too' etc etc. and i'll be honest as someone who does have a contentious/estranged/very-low-contact sibling relationship. everything lucanis said came off as super mild to me and they should both be WAY nastier to each other actually. yes even when you include their dynamic in wigmaker job which was both more lighthearted And heartfelt. but like if you want realism they should be going from that to 1 minute later annoyed enough to break out the super cutting remarks dragging up the worst things the other has ever done/said, specifically becuause they know it will hurt the other most. then i would believe it more tbh.

[mcytegg]

i think im in too deep w charmander duo. bc i was thinking abt how flame thinks very little abt bans, and how theres a genuine possibility he helps the Guardians ban people not even bc he thinks bans should matter, but just like for fun bc he doesnt think of it that seriously. which led me to thinking "wait but pangi could help him change his mind ^-^" nd now im just thinking of an au where pangi does Just That .

[blipblepbloop]

the way im seeing so much hate for agatha all along's finale like....you guys just didn't get it like i did omg. i have a couple things i wouldve done differently (i really expected agatha to be dead dead at the end and get to go see nicky, but upon actually thinking about it i like this better because her story most definitely isn't finished yet and i don't think it was ever supposed to be within this show (plus we're not burying our gays!!! yay!!)) but overall i liked it. i also feel like apparently i was the only one who never thought we would get a happy agatha and rio ending? it always felt like their story was leaning more towards them having to learn to let go of each other. idk i just don't think it was bad enough to warrant the amount of hate im seeing

[dawnthefluffyduck]

Doodles based on "Yet Another Nightmare" by Catroic on Ao3 (highly recommend reading, its very good)

[sejarcus-archive]

Actually a Young Royals inspired Sejarcus au would go so hardddd. Prince Sejanus, who has an incredibly dysfunctional relationship with his family and no intention of one day becoming king, gets sent to a private boarding school for the elite, in a last attempt from his father to put him in line, and there he falls for the boy no one likes much, cause he’s working-class and only at the school thanks to a scholarship

[justalittlebluetiefling]

Something I've seen a couple people saying is that they want to make sure that Laudna understands that she's not the only one who has been through trauma. But like. Laudna is not the only one who needs to learn that lesson. Actually, it's not even that Laudna needs to learn that she's not the only one that's been through trauma at all, because they're all very aware of what they've all been through. This became an inevitable confrontation when Laudna decided to let Delilah back in, though, and after rewatching the scene, I actually think the only people who managed this situation correctly were Imogen* and Ashton.

Orym and Laudna are both more focused on their own pasts with the sword and not thinking about each other. Orym should have talked to the group and come to a decision with them about using the sword and Laudna should have talked to him about it instead of trying to steal it.

*my feelings about this are still up in the air don't read into this too much