#i want to find more positive songs for the laios and yaad dynamics but. hard.

[roomba-mangga]

for that ask game: 8, 17, 31 & 43 for thistle dungeon meshi ?

8. Unpopular opinion about them

Not sure I can gauge (un)popularity unless it's an extreme example so I guess *skull emoji* the age discourse? Less an opinion and more a personal interpretation of the immortal child archetype, tbh. It's a really interesting concept, super fun to try and strike that balance between ancient and tragically young, and presenting that situation through a high fantasy framework really works to emphasize and demonstrate the nuances of a split child/adult mentality, especially wrt trauma (not to mention fraught family dynamics and neurodivergence).

The tricky bit is that balancing act where you want to avoid adultifying or infantilizing the character within a narrative, which... I think with that whole age debate, people tend to lean into one or the other pitfall, and justifiably so since it's such a tightrope act. Thistle's sense of purpose and security hinges on being a guardian to people who are simultaneously much older and younger than him—essentially being expected to mature at the same rate as everyone else when that isn't physically possible, which was bad enough when Marcille was just observing aging disparity between herself and others, let alone what happened with Thistle. Neurodivergent trauma metaphor I love you.

So he's effectively been playing the role of adult guardian for so long that trying to remove that from his dynamics with others would imbalance him, while at the same time that very imposition of responsibilities is the root of trauma in the first place. It's all very complicated! Whoever cares for him post-canon needs to find a middle ground between those two states, which means any dynamic where he's involved would have a fair amount of role-fuckery going on where he's neither their kid nor their peer, but somehow both at once. And also an ageless entity of indeterminate gender. I shill for Young Old Guy Thistle.

17. Quotes, songs, poems etc. that I associate with them

Brick By Boring Brick (Paramore)

Icarus (The Crane Wives)

Age of Kings (The Mountain Goats)

Bring Her Back (Dirt Poor Robins)

Do You Want to Die Together? (Stars)

Little Soldiers (The Crane Wives)

Honorable mention that I wouldn't actually include in a playlist because he's too aggro, but it's about the principle of the thing: Strawberry Blond (Mitski)

If I had to pick songs for other dynamics besides Thistle & Delgal then...

Thistle & Falin: Community Gardens (The Scary Jokes)

Thistle & Laios: Don't Sit Down 'Cause I've Moved Your Chair (Arctic Monkeys)

Thistle & Yaad: Paper Dolls (Dirt Poor Robins)

31. If they had a tumblr what would it look like?

So there are two separate blogs with severely contrasting vibes and the first one is just a polished site dedicated to the Kingdom's state of affairs and unabashed monarchy propaganda, the crest of Melini is the banner, it has local news and dungeon updates like whatever batch of adventurers have been crushed to paste that day. The other one is his secret vent blog that's mostly pages and pages of poetry (a lot his own) and the occasional meltdown in unreadable cursive font that romanticizes his inner turmoil. Banner would be an exquisite oil painting depicting a king and his page. Reading back I think I'm implying that Thistle randomly has a Tumblr in the high fantasy universe, which is devastatingly funny to me.

43. 3 favorite foods and 3 they despise

He doesn't eat </3

Substitute answer my knowledge of medieval European/Mediterranean food starts and ends at cheese bread and fruit but, placing my bets that his preferences mirror Delgal's—adjusted to be appropriate to his station—because of course they do. He canonically is apathetic towards elven food (who isn't?) given his resentment towards his own race for abandoning him. I like to think that post-canon there's at least one kind of elven food from some loosely SEA-inspired subcontinent that grows on him so he finally has a positive connection to his homeland (... it'll be Filipino or Indian food. Not sure what specifically yet but mark my words)