#i'm talking to like them first because i want to and they're important to me

[buggachat]

SEASON 6 ILLUSTRHATER THOUGHTS

honestly, I was expecting the animation to be more jarring for me than it actually was. It was actually really easy for me to get into and tbh just looks really nice. Adrien is the character I'll need to get used to the most, but I like his look fine, I just need to get used to it.

But like. special shoutout to nino. NINO????? NINO LOOKS. SO FUCKING CUTE. I love him so much I want to squish his face?? I'm almost unable to watch this episode in a normal way because I'm too busy staring at Nino's adorable face the whole time.

the DJWifi was so cute in this episode. theyre so sweet

in general I really like the redesigns of all the characters. I think they all look like... them. Like Nathaniel looks more like Nathaniel to me, Kagami looks more like Kagami, Sabrina looks like Sabrina and Ivan looks like Ivan. I can't describe it — they look like they've matured enough to have a better understanding of who they are. I like it.

Also, the intro sequence. If there's still any doubt about whether the show will address "marinette's lie coming back to bite her / looming over her" this season, I feel like the intro answers that pretty clearly and with a distinct tone

Another thing — the background characters look soooo much better in the new animation. Not only do they not look like terrifying low res monstrosities like they did in the old show, but they have such a wide array of distinct body types that i really appreciate. a lot of diversity in the crowds w race and disability too. and they look good. it's really refreshing.

I. LOVE. the new butterfly-telepathy sequences. the way that butterfly!lila talks to her victims in a little dreamscape where she's able to use her body language and manipulation tactics. I cannot actually emphasize how much this strangely excited me. It feels so much more emotionally impactful and interesting and dynamic and Lila than what Hawkmoth did

I know people are going to be upset about Marinette being awkward around Adrien again, but I feel like it makes a lot of sense to me. In the more general sense, it makes a lot of sense for this soft-refresh of the show that is marketing itself to a new audience to re-introduce the adrienette dynamic in a way that is just a smidge redundant to old fans. This is kind of important background on how Adrien and Marinette have always been with each other and the context of their relationship! That's important to show.

As a more in-character/universe explanation — while, yes, Adrien and Marinette started to get much more comfortable in their relationship in the old season, they never really got time to BREATHE. they were awkward and messy for the majority of their time together in s5, and then right as they started to get comfortable, Gabriel started puppeteering Adrien in a way that made things pretty tense for them, and then a whole whirlwind happened where he was sent away, and then his DAD DIED and he presumably spent a lot of the summer in mourning and— and— i dunno. I don't think it's too much of a stretch for me to believe that their relationship still feels awkward, especially when a new butterfly villain just popped up and likely reminded marinette of the whole Fiasco and threw her into mega-stress mode.

Their relationship isn't technically all that "new" like they act like it is, but this IS actually probably the first time they've been able to go on regular dates like this! So it feels new, they're still sort of in that "new" stage. Before, Gabriel was keeping Adrien away, and then Adrien probably wasn't in a good headspace for a lot of the summer after he died.

(Also, I just enjoy watching Marinette be awkward about Adrien. I definitely prefer them re-treading some old ground to new audiences than for their relationship to feel too jarringly different than how we've seen them interact in the past. I wouldn't want the time skip to be used as too much of a crutch, especially when I expect that Adrien spent a lot of it in mourning)

But anyway, they're still kissing in the season intro, and this is only episode TWO of the season, so I'm excited to see them gradually get more lovey dovey as the season goes on. (Or for Marinette's stress and guilt to overwhelm her! Who knows! I'm down!)

Oh also, Ladybug looks SO GOOD. she is so shiny and pretty and I love the red in her hair and i love her and I love ladynoir talking about their relationships and and and. and. i love them. thanks for coming to my ted talk

[1moreff-creator]

You've done this before so this is exclusively self indulgent but can you give your thoughts on DRDT foil theory again haha... I'm enamored by it and think about it daily.

I'll point out as well that there's been a trend regarding which characters are relevant to the chapter's case based on the order of the foils so far.

In chapter 1 it was [Xander, Min, Teruo & Charles] while in chapter 2 it was [Eden, Arei, Nico, Ace] - following this train of logic next chapter's main players would be [Hu, Veronika, Rose, J].

Hu's arc has just started (her beliefs are being challenged), Veronika became worst + Arturo is going to be centered at the start of chapter 3, Rose's arc just started + a money motive would be relevant to her & J's conflict with Arturo is going to be centered at the start of chapter 3.

Feel free to ignore this if you feel it's too repetitive, I just like it when I see people talking about my theory lol.

Well, if the creator of the recap foil theory asks me to talk about it, who am I to deny? It's probably, like, in my top three theories about DRDT, so I'm gonna enjoy talking about it! :D

(Btw I totally get you about enjoying when people talk about your theory. Whenever I see someone mention one of my posts I always go ":O that's me :D" it's great lol)

CW: Murder, electrocution, execution, suicide, self-harm, eating disorders, discrimination against a non-binary person, manipulation, poverty, harmful environments during childhood.

As a quick recap (heh): at the end of the CH1 recap video, the characters are paired up in a certain way. The theory states that they're paired up in a way that represents some of the most important foils in the cast. And... well, it seems to hold up quite well! I'll talk about them here in the order they show up in the recap video.

1) Xander & Min

And what a start! These two are basically eternal foils, with everything about their characters being contrasted with each other in some way or another. From the very first moment they're seen together, in Min's introduction, they immediately start beefing simply due to their respective talents.

The biggest point of contrast comes from their past with education. From Visiting Graves, we know Xander used to be a diligent student like Min, but he stopped when his family died while he was away studying. He's come to the conclusion that the things taught in school are oftentimes kind of useless for most people's lives, and his rejection of the education system kickstarted his rebellion against systemic issues in general.

Min, for her part, actually has a lot of the same views. Her Bonus Episode makes that pretty clear; she doesn't think things like Hope's Peak's history are really all that useful, and feels insecure because she doesn't see the same value in her talent as she does in others. However, Min still wants to maintain her talent, at least in title, seen as her first instinct when the killing game started was to grab an anatomy textbook and start studying it. Meanwhile, Xander dislikes his talent title greatly, as he believes calling him a "Rebel" undermines the stuff he does.

All of this is literally baked into their first interaction, as mentioned before. Xander seems to project heavily on Min upon first meeting her, assuming that she probably has no hobbies or friends if she's the Ultimate Student and judging her for it quickly. Min isn't particularly thrilled over that, given he knows nothing about her life.

Speaking of backstories, there's other points in those where they contrast. Particularly, the involvement of large companies and rich people in said backstories. Duke Spurling did a thing that killed Xander's entire family, which was the inciting incident for Xander officially leaving behind his studious nature. Meanwhile, XF-Ture Tech helped Min's family out of property, but pushed Min into studiousness for the Ultimate Student title; more or less the opposite of what Spurling did for Xander.

The same can be said of their relationship with Hope's Peak, which is elaborated on in the Bonus Episodes. Xander went to Hope's Peak for some kind of ulterior motive-

Unnamed Classmate [BE2]: I think your ability to get back from adversity is really admirable. That determination of yours is admirable. If you set out to do something, then never give up on that, no matter what obstacles may stand in your way. Even if it's risky or against the rules, as long as it's for a good cause... I'll trust that you know to do the right thing. Xander: Yeah, of course. That's why I've come to Hope's Peak, isn't it?

-which we can somewhat confidently assume to be bad for the school given Xander's... Everything. For Min's side, just getting to Hope's Peak was Min's entire goal for the entirety of her childhood, playing right into the hands of the Ultimate Contest for Eminent Students, and thus into the school's hands.

By the way, if you go back and look at what Absolutely-Not-Mai says to Xander, the idea of "bouncing back from adversity" could be connected to Min's whole "mistakes are to be corrected" thing. This one's an insane stretch, though.

For another point, though I don't know much about this particular topic, I find even their designs are opposites in some ways. Although arguably that's more a result of them being foils in general and DRDT having good character design but y'know.

Both of them seem to wear some kind of school uniform, but in totally different ways. Xander does everything he can to stylize his, be it wearing his coat as a cape, or getting a tongue piercing specifically because they weren't allowed and he could hide it, as stated in a Q&A, doing everything he can to fight against this institution. On the other hand, Min wears hers normally, and several Q&A answers clarify that she finds comfort in the colors and style of her uniform. One fights against institutions, the other works withing their systems (Min even wants to be a teacher which is an extension of that idea), you get the point.

Also this plays into the theme of fate because of course it does. Just replace "institutions" with "fate" and you kinda get the point. Xander fights against it, Min accepts it. Or, she accepts the fate of being the Ultimate Student, at least.

Their relationships with other characters, Teruko and David in particular, is another point of foiling. I've brought this up before, but as a recap: Xander betrayed Teruko so she openly hates him even though her real feelings are much more complicated than that, while Min tried to save her only to then panic and try to win the class trial, which causes Teruko to openly hate her even though her real feelings are much more complicated than that. But Teruko takes on Min's philosophy of fixing mistakes in the second trial, which is notable because in the same trial, David calls Min pathetic before his magical girl transformation, only to reveal that he's following Xander's ideals a while later. And while Teruko and David may not be recap foils, they sure are foils in general, so the foiling Xanvid and Terumin duos are formed. Cool!

As a minor point also connected to relationships, I could see the angle that Xander's friendship with David might parallel Min's thoughts on Mai. This one's iffier because anything about Mai is iffy, but I think it's worth mentioning.

The starting point of the Xanvid thing is the fact that they both used to idolize each other, but eventually decide that they should just be friends like any other friends. Cue the whole "foxes and children" quote from The Little Prince that shows up in LGI in the "I hate the things I love..." scene- I don't know how many people can follow what I just said, but I hope the main idea got across, at least.

Xander [1-5]: Enough with these idols or role models, okay? Let's just be friends.

In the same way, everyone loves Mai, but Min's Mai quote is:

Min: An average girl with nothing special at all about her.

Which can kinda be said about Min too, but the whole point of the end of the Bonus Episode is how Min is special to Mai.

Think of David as Mai and Xander as Min. David and Mai are idolized by everyone who knows them (pre 2-11 anyways), but Xander and Min see them as regular people (post 1-5 for Xander), while Xander and Min aren't idolized (by most of the cast at least) but are special to David and Mai respectively. I don't really know if it works perfectly, but it's close enough for me to mention.

You can even try to fit in some kind of point about the theme of cooperation vs competition, though I'll admit it's a bit of a stretch.

Competition is greatly important for Min's character, but she doesn't often go out of her way to help others. She helps when asked, sure, as she does when Surely-Not-Mai asks her to help her study in BE1, or when Eden asks for help baking and the subsequent clean-up. However, there's several scenes where she avoids conflict by reading that anatomy textbook of hers, such as in her introduction and when Arei's yelling at the Baking Squad.

Meanwhile, Xander doesn't really compete on anything with anyone aside the arm wrestling contest (which isn't much of a competition anyways), but he constantly tries to butt into other people's issues. It happens in Min's introduction, in his chat with Nico in 1-5, right before stabbing Teruko, you get the idea. So, he constantly tries to cooperate even without the consent of the person they're trying to cooperate with. Again, a stretch, but kinda works.

All of these foils culminate in Xander's death and Min's murder. Xander, like always, is proactive and acts even with incomplete information:

Xander [1-5]: Then, why did I do this? I don't even know... Why? Just why did you ask me to kill Teruko?

Trying his best to cooperate with an unknown ally to, presumably, hinder the mastermind's plans; fighting against the killing game like he fights against any other system.

But then Min barges in. She was just trying to fix the mistakes of the past, aka cleaning up the remnants of the baking thing. But just like her being randomly sponsored by XF-Ture Tech was in some ways both a blessing and a curse, she once again finds herself in a situation where, depending on how you look at it, she's either in the right place at the right time (to save Teruko) or at the wrong place at the wrong time (because she'll end up dying from this).

Xander attacks, and there's a bit of brain vs brawn thing that happens. I hadn't mentioned that theme before because Xander is intelligent and Min is arguably not the smartest in the cast, but it's true that Xander's physical prowess and Min's intelligence are some of their most notable strengths. This is brought to the forefront when Xander tries to kill Min by overpowering her only for her to outsmart him with the light switch trick.

However, again similarly to how she was pushed into a corner by the XF-Ture Tech contract, Min now finds herself in a position where she must compete with others for her own survival. And not just any form of competition, but a class trial. Once again, Min has to compete under the rules established by an institution, as she did in the UCES. She ultimately gets executed, but kept trying to survive until the very end, fighting for her life the same way she'd been fighting for her future her entire childhood; by trying to give the right answers in a test.

Look, there's probably more foils (because each time I look at these two I find more of them), but I need to stop at some point. These are characters who foil even in their fucking custom weapons for God's sake. Xander's "gun" looks extremely dangerous, when in reality it's nothing but a piece of plastic; and Min's pen looks totally safe, while actually hiding a knife. If I keep looking, I'll keep finding, and I have to talk about 7 other foiling pairs, so I'll keep it at that for this post :v

2) Teruko & Charles

There's plenty to talk about with these two as well! The main point of foiling is their respective character arcs so far.

Charles started out as a prickly and judgemental guy, pushing the others away as he felt superior due to his talent. However, after the events of the first trial, he started opening up a bit more, and hanging out with the others, mainly Whit.

Teruko, for her part, started out friendlier. She made a quick connection with Xander, and we saw her socializing with the elevator scene with Ace and Levi, and the baking squad scene. However, she went the other way after the first trial, pushing the others away to avoid getting attached and trusting no one. She's swinging back to trusting now, but the point stands.

Basically, Teruko and Charles went in opposite character arcs in the first two chapters. In that sense, Charles exists as an early warning to Teruko about the dangers of pushing others away, as the only reason Charles managed to get through the first trial is because Whit trusted him and his hemophobia. So, trust, relying on others, important themes their stories share.

And it's not just the in-killing game arcs, as their backstories also vaguely foil. Charles had a pretty privileged upbringing, while Teruko obviously had a lot more issues with her luck and all. Funnily enough, this includes them having scars they don't properly remember getting. Charles believes the dog bite wound on his arm is a birthmark, while Teruko doesn't know where the scar on her back came from.

Which is what gets us to the theme of memory we got going on. Both of them have memory issues, albeit different ones: Charles has childhood amnesia, Teruko has prosopagnosia. They even both have a brother of indeterminate fate, what with us not really knowing what happened to either "Kyo" or Elliot. Well we know Elliot's dead at least but you get the idea.

Speaking of the Elliot situation, one can tie this pair to a theme I can best define as "challenged preconceptions." Basically the idea that there's preconceptions these two carried into the killing game which are challenged by the events within it. That can technically be said about a lot of characters, sure, but Charles and Teruko have a fair amount of very specific notions which are only begin doubting in the killing game.

For Charles, this would be the existence of Elliot; that's the point I was trying to make with that segue back there. Charles thought he was an only child, but turns out he had a brother at some point.

Charles [2-7]: From birth all the way to the present, there are probably many things that you had taken for granted to be true. Things you never thought to question before, like those frivolous lies about "Santa Claus" or the "Tooth Fairy." Or perhaps less frivolous lies, like the idea that your parents know what's best for you. Once you're given some hitherto unknown information, you may begin piecing together a bigger picture of your past. Things you had accepted as truth your whole life begin to reveal themselves as lies. And once all the pieces are in place, you realize you were blind for never seeing the whole story before.

It's what Charles' numeral in LGI references: "if you doubt, brittle things are broken."

For Teruko, there's a few preconceptions that get challenged over the course of the killing game, but probably the most notable one is the idea that she's doomed to live a horrible life due to her luck.

Teruko [2-16]: I have always said that my misfortune, my personality, the choices I make, everything was all a product of a bad luck that I can't control. That I grew up in such horrible circumstances, so I was destined to grow up to be a terrible person. That everyone else abandoned me, so it's not my fault that I'm alone. I want to say that it's fate's fault, and that I had no choice in the matter. But, even so... Even so... Everyone. Xander, Min, Arei, Ace. Maybe even Levi. Is it my fault that they died? [...] Whether it was the fault of fate, or my fault... I already knew the answer. I had known what the answer was since a long, long time ago.

I think you can kinda see the point.

Their aptitude in class trials can also be mentioned. Although Charles was sorta out of it during the first one, he was definitely pretty good in the second one. And Teruko is far and away the most influential character in trial discussion overall. The fact they're equally matched intellectually speaking helps them play off each other pretty nicely.

Like with Xander and Min, there's probably more to talk about, but that's enough for me in this case.

3) Eden & Arei

The girlies! Arei's playground breakdown very neatly captures a lot of the themes these two foil on. Mainly, the theme of kindness and being a "good person." Arei used to try and be kind, but she was hurt because of it and thus decided to fight back against her sisters through becoming mean. Eden, meanwhile, remains kind and compassionate even through the despair of the killing game. This also plays into the idea of strength; while Arei is physically stronger and more forceful when it comes to getting what she wants, Eden is stronger in her resilience, her ability to remain Silly despite the horrors. Both have their merits, as we see for example when Arei defends Eden from Arturo and when Eden manages to move Teruko in the 2-3 kitchen scene, respectively.

Meanwhile, when we speak of being a "good person", Arei's breakdown of what that means in 2-13 is really all we need to talk about. Eden's seemingly unending patience and kindness is not what's truly needed to be a "good person", as even she must have made mistakes and hurt people in the past (cue fork CG). Rather, being a "good person" just means trying to change for the better whenever you mess up, represented by Arei. Not to say Eden's not a good person; she is, but you don't need to be like her to be "good"- you get the point.

In the same ballpark, we have the theme of friendship, what it means to be friends. In fact, Arei's little 2-10 reconciliation speech connects both this theme and the last.

Arei [2-10]: Being a good person means doing nice things. So if there's anything you need from me... Whether it's defending you from scary jerks like Arturo or baking some stupid fucking cake... I'll do it. I promise. I'll do anything for you. Okay? Eden: I... Arei: Because... because... Because that's what friends do.

Arei believes friendship to be all about doing things for the other person, protecting each other. This is pretty central to her character, seeing as "Because that's what friends do" is her secret quote. Eden brings up the same thing when acused of murder.

Eden [2-14]: I just wanted to help Arei.... I didn't kill her... Teruko: You know I can't just take your words at face value, Eden. Eden: Please, Teruko... You're my friend, aren't you? Friends help each other.... So please, help me...

So. That.

One could also connect Eden's theming around new beginnings (birthday right before New Year's, favorite color is daffodil yellow and daffodils represent new beginnings, her name references the Garden of Eden which comes from a story about the beginning of the world) to Arei's redemption arc, as Arei gets a "new beginning" in the kindness she once showed. This even ties into Arei's death thematically, as Arei not only dies trying to be a good friend to Eden (tying into the theme of friendship), but she specifically dies in the playground, a place connected to childhood. So we once again get "new beginnings" by connecting her place of death to her origin point and the time when she was kind, if you get the idea.

Again, probably more here, and for this one in particular I'm not even sure I really scratched the surface, but I'll call this good enough for now.

4) Nico & Ace

So these two have a ridiculous amount of beef and that's not really new. Even their very talents have foils; both work with animals, but Nico loves all animals, while Ace hates them, especially horses. 

Ace [1-5]: Animals are fucking lame, anyways. Seriously, they suck hard. If someone told me their cat was acting up or something, I’d give it a good punt.

But the main point of contrast is the theme of agency and taking control of their situation.

Ace’s thoughts on this are expressed quite clearly in his secret quote, “I don’t know what to do with myself anymore.” He feels he lacks control over his talent (forced into it despite being deathly afraid of horses), over his feelings (obvious), over his relationships with the cast, etc. And so he tries to feel in control by bullying Nico, especially when he gets their secret so he can try to blackmail them. Not that Ace doesn’t bother Nico before that, but it does get worse in CH2. He repeatedly does self-destructive things just so he can feel in control of something, be it killing Arei because he feels everyone hates him and he has no way of fixing that before he dies, or trying to find reasons to get mad at Levi so he can try to control his feelings towards him when they become inconvenient for the whole murder thing.

Nico, for their side, keeps having their agency undermined by people around them. They get pushed by both David and Ace into revealing their secret before they were ready, Hu keeps defending them even after they ask her not to, they keep getting spoken over during the trial, etc. You can even extend that to stuff like feeling like they have to present as a man at the start of the series because the people from their backstory don’t respect their identity, or more minor events in the killing game like Ace reproaching them for just… wandering around.

Nico [1-8]: The motive was on my mind. So I was nervous. I tend to pace around when I’m nervous. That’s not a problem, right?  Ace: Seriously? You were ‘wandering around’ all alone? You’re definitely the killer!

Basically, Nico struggles to assert themselves a lot of the time, which means they end up going from 0 to 100 pretty fast on the whole “murder Ace” plan. 

That’s how we get to the theme of victims/perpetrators, or rather, how sometimes things are more complicated than that dichotomy. The theme is explored throughout their relationship, with Nico originally being a victim of Ace's bullying, then Ace being a victim of Nico's attempted murder, then Ace being a perpetrator of actual murder, you get the idea. Pretty straightforward there. 

Going further, this also connects to the theme of forgiveness and apologizing, which comes up a few times in the trial. Nico doesn’t apologize to Ace after explaining their plan because they still hate him and know Ace isn’t going to forgive them, so they see no point in doing it. This parallels how Ace doesn’t expect anyone to forgive him for killing Arei, though with Nico, the question of forgiveness is currently open-ended, as there’s several characters who either have shown a willingness to ignore their crimes (Hu) or don’t know what to think of them (Rose). Basically, Nico has a chance to move past their mistake, which Ace isn’t getting.

And as usual, Ace’s death is the culmination of the themes his character embodies. He kills Arei, who is connected to him via the theme of bullying. He does it out of fear of death, because he feels he doesn't have enough control over his life to avoid getting killed by the enemies he made by insulting them all. Arei was on the path of forgiveness with Eden, which Ace cut short. Ace replicates what Nico did to him because Ace’s murder is the conclusion to everything that’s happened to him in the killing game, with everyone hating him and all that. You get the point. Hopefully.

For a relatively smaller theme, we can bring up dissatisfaction with their body. Nico is non-binary, meaning they’re presumably not very happy with the sex they were born with. Meanwhile, Ace has an eating disorder, not to mention that he always wears gloves for some reason (hiding his hands), and he wears heels to be taller because he’s shorter than he’d like, even though he’s also tall for a jockey. Can’t win, this guy. 

Again, probably more to talk about, but I’d like to get this post out at some point this year :v

5) Hu & Veronika

You mention in this ask that, since the first two recap foil pairs were important for CH1 and the third and fourth were important for CH2, it's possible that Hu-Vero and Rose-J could be important for CH3. That's certainly an interesting observation! We could also extend that to CH4, I guess, but that's a bit too far for me to talk about... so I won't! I will talk about CH3, though.

I'll get to Rose-J in their section, but I could definitely believe that Hu-Vero could be important for CH3. There's a fair bit of setup for both of them going through some kind of arc in the chapter, which you kinda mentioned in the ask (Hu has to deal with the fallout of the Nico situation, while Vero's reactions to Levi's near death and Ace's execution imply she's getting worse), and there's already a narrative connection between them through their pact about the secrets in the second trial. Not to mention that Vero's always given people CH3 death vibes, which I get even if I'm hesitant to say that myself.

But that's just speculation. What about the foils we already have? Well, the main point of contrast is their reaction to conflict, especially when it comes to a specific person they're particularly interested in. Hu always tries to mediate conflict and defend the people she considers good, mostly seen in her white knighting of Nico all throughout CH2. Veronika's the opposite. She enjoys watching conflict, stirring the pot with her psychoanalysis, and particularly enjoys whenever Arturo does some bullshit. Basically, Hu goes "I can fix them" while Vero goes "I can make him worse." Classic dichotomy there.

Then there's the matter of change, metamorphosis even. Hu’s character is designed around it, with her butterfly hairpin and the fact her name means “still lake”, as water is often connected to rebirth. And we know she has changed, from the hopeless child who attempted suicide three times into someone who seems quite attached to her life, if her secret quote is anything to go by.

Hu [Profile Source Code]: I want to pay for what I’ve done. But even then, I still want to live.

Much in the same way, we know Veronika in present is not the same person she used to be years ago. She mentions having been quite outdoors-y back in the day, some of that bleeding into her excitement about the playground, and of course her motive secret is that she used to self-harm, but no longer does.

And yes, the theme of self-harm/suicide is another one where these two foil, which has even come up with their motive secret pact in CH2. We don’t have many details on that yet, though.

That said, the reasons for why they harmed themselves seem to be quite different, which is noteworthy. Although we don’t know what exactly led Hu to attempt suicide, we do know that nowadays she desperately wants to be relied on so she feels useful, meaning it’s very likely her suicidal tendencies came from a feeling that her life had no meaning, or something equally depressing. Meanwhile, provided her secret is to be believed, Veronika just hurt herself when she was bored. Definitely very different reasons for self-harm there.

Looking over your original post on this (have I mentioned I’ve been cross-checking my own thoughts with your own? ‘Cuz I’m doing that), you also bring up maturity, which is indeed an aspect in which they foil. Hu’s character profile states she acts motherly, and the highlighted word in her subtitle quote (“Can you please try and act with a little more maturity?”) is, in fact, maturity. Meanwhile, Vero has childish tendencies, most evidently seen in the scene where the playground gets introduced.

There’s definitely a lot of things about these characters which we currently don’t know about, so I’m sure this section could get significantly larger in the future. But for now, this feels decent enough for me.

6) Rose & J

According to the extension of the original theory stated in this ask, J-Rose might be an important pair for CH3. And I can definitely see that! Rose's mental state has deteriorated a lot, so CH3 is primed to be a turning point for her character. Your point about Arturo being important at the start due to Levi's condition, and that possibly leading to attention being drawn to J, is also very reasonable. Not to mention that, as you seem to be aware of given what you said in the ask, DRDT's motives have so far aligned pretty well with the THH motives, with the first one being videos of their family and the second being secrets. This is important because, if that pattern continues, the third motive might be related to money. And one of the themes in which these two foil is wealth and poverty, which we'll get to in a moment, so it's entirely possible this pair could be quite relevant as a result of that. Not a bad idea in the slightest.

In any case, this is another set that mainly foils through backstory, at least for now. Rose was born into poverty, J was born into wealth. Rose tried to do everything she could for her family, J tries to distance herself from her mother as much as she can. Some parallels can be drawn between the influence the Spurling Foundation has on Rose’s life and the things Mariabella tries to force J to do. I can’t recall if this actually got mentioned in the series itself yet, but based on the childhood drawings post, we can tell J was probably forced to wear dresses despite disliking “girly” things per her profile, and from there infer that she was likely forced into doing a lot of things she didn't want to do.

These backstories can additionally connect to the ever prevalent theme of fate. Rose has accepted her fate, in a sense, believing that she’ll never escape her contract with the Spurling Foundation (see: her secret quote, “In the end, the only thing I can do is watch my wretched life go on”). On the other hand, J constantly rejects her fate by going against her birthright and hiding that she’s a Rosales (see: her secret quote, “Please don’t call me your daughter ever again”).

This is literally baked into their designs btw. Rose’s apron is stained all over, as if to signal she’s stained by the mistakes of her past, while J wears a hoodie as if to hide her identity as much as possible. Notably, J’s shirt actually has a paint splatter design, so she literally is hiding the stains (which in her case would be her last name) that Rose doesn’t bother covering up. 

(Btw while I was looking at their designs for this I noticed J’s hoodie has two zippers, which threw me off a lot lmao. Apparently those are a real thing, but it still caught me off guard and I wanted to mention it lol)

On the topic of design, why do they wear the same shoes?

(Rose's on the left, J's on the right)

Like, Rose’s are a bit less saturated and maybe a bit more green than blue, but that’s the only difference I can see. I don’t think there’s any other pair of pairs of shoes that look this similar in the cast. Whit and Arei’s are similar to these, but they have a few different details. I don’t even think this is a foil thing I think Rose and J just have very similar taste in shoes. I find this amusing. 

Anyways. Their talents are artistic.

…Yep, that’s the parallel! Admittedly, it does come up a bit, with J saying the decor looks new during the prologue, and Rose saying she could figure out a few things about the building if she could analyze the paint on the wall. They be detective-ing and stuff.

Arguably, the theme of betrayal can also be brought up, though it’s very minor. Rose got betrayed by Nico, who used her turpentine for their attempt on Ace. And something like that kinda happened to J around the same time, as she dragged Teruko into a dressing room to avoid Arturo and got a knife to her throat for the troubles. It barely counts, but given Teruko is one of the only people J seemed to genuinely like before that point, I’d say the situations are similar enough to mention, if nothing else. 

Leaving it off there!

7) Arturo & Levi

Let’s get the obvious one out of the way. Their talents are aesthetic related, be it related to people’s physical appearance or the clothes they wear. These talents connect to some of the other themes of their characters, such as Arturo’s obsession with beauty and Levi “styling himself” as a good person by doing things good people do, if that makes sense.

Then there’s the other big one; their family situation. Arturo’s home life was likely pretty bad, which we can infer from how desperate he seemed to get the hell outta dodge; and his sister committed suicide because Arturo left. Levi also left his family behind, although in his case he says everyone was a “bad influence” on everyone. Plus, he directly killed his father for one reason or another. We did get to see how Arturo felt about Levi’s nonchalance about the death of his father in the second trial, and that furthers their foiling. 

Arturo [2-13]: How could you simply *forget* that you murdered your own family member?

Yeah that.

Going back to the talents, there’s some contrast between how they got them. Arturo studied from a very young age and for years to become a Plastic Surgeon just as he entered adulthood, while Levi admits to being relatively new to fashion. They both kinda use their talents to escape their past in some way (it was part of Arturo’s plan to get the hell away from his home and Hope’s Peak is the reason Levi was never convicted for his murders), just that one had a little more planning behind it. 

Then there’s the matter of protection. Arturo repeatedly resents the idea that because he has some medical training, he has to be the cast’s doctor every time someone gets injured, and panics when he’s asked to do something as serious as saving Levi’s life.

Arturo [2-16]: I–! I’m not that kind of surgeon! I’ve told you, over and over, I have no experience with saving lives!

Levi, conversely, actively wishes to protect the others, seen for example when he attacked MonoTV in the Prologue and when he jumped in front of Teruko right before she got shot at. It’s even clarified in the subtitle quote of his profile (“I will do my utmost best to make sure that you all are safe”). Levi likes to protect others so they see him as a “good person”, which segues nicely into a more vague theme of categorizing important people in some way. Levi wishes to be seen as a good person and thus is quite interested in those he considers good (eg Eden), while Arturo is only interested in talking to beautiful people. It’s very vague and I don’t have much to say about it, especially since we don’t know exactly where Arturo’s obsession with beauty comes from, but it’s there.

Speaking of that, another point of comparison is the way both of them seek the approval of one specific person in the cast. For Arturo, it’s J because of her mother. For Levi, it’s Ace because of what happened in the first trial. They do it in quite different ways, but it is a thing that happens, and the differences help highlight the main narrative points these plot points bring to the table.

I’m calling that good enough!

8) Whit & David

We sure left a pretty interesting one for last. This is probably one of the ones I’m the least clear on, mostly because both Whit and David are sorta unclear characters. However, there are still a few interesting things I can bring up.

Let’s start with the theme of idolization of the dead, because it’s quite literally what Whit’s secret quote references.

Whit [Profile Source Code]: We tend to idolize the dead. 

Whit idolizes his mother, and thus tries to be like her in any way he can. He dyes his hair blond, he completely ignores the fact she’s dead, you know the drill. Meanwhile, David idolizes Xander. Take a pick from any of his 2-12 lines or any of the Xander related LGI bullshit to see what I mean by that. 

Though, speaking of family members, Diana Chiem. Given we have no idea what the deal with her is yet, I won’t speak too much on it. But if you’ve watched my Vivisection of the David MV, you might know that there’s a theory brought up there that Diana may have died during Hope’s Peak time and that David’s started saying she never existed when that happened. The link sends you to that section of the video. It’s kinda insane, but there’s some basis for it, and it would create a pretty clear connection between Diana and Elizabeth (Whit’s mom) so I’m bringing it up. 

Then there’s the theme of hiding/avoiding sad topics and the like. David is obviously not as happy with his life as he presents himself as, at least for most of the story, while Whit has a history of horrendously avoidant behavior when it comes to anything that’s even remotely negative.

David does occasionally talk about heavier topics, but always behind some kind of persona. Either as the inspirational speaker who takes on a leadership role in CH2 (see: revealing his family history of depression (which I think is true, even if he probably never thought that was actually his secret), comforting Arei in the playground) or as the cartoonishly evil person he pretends to be immediately after his magical girl transformation (see: “Arei was a weather spell” line). He’s seemingly a bit more candid when it comes to Xander in 2-12 for a bit, but then he mostly reverts back to just being an asshole most of the time, other than a few outbursts of genuine emotion (funnily enough, one of them being David shouting at Whit to take things seriously). Meanwhile, Whit (in my opinion) doesn’t seem to have a persona, per say; he’s just kind of an unserious person who repeatedly uses humor and other tactics to distract from the Horrors. He’s a deeply strange person, but that’s kinda just who he is.

Then there’s- say it with me everyone- the theme of fate. David believes people can’t change, that they’re fated to remain the same no matter what happens during their life. He’s made that stance relatively clear. Whit, for his part, has a much more optimistic view on humanity and the like, as he tells Teruko.

Whit [2-3]: Charles… No, everyone here… we might act callously, but we’re all only human. We're all real people with our strengths and weaknesses.  You included, Teruko. Just like Charles, even if you’re acting cold, there’s still a part of you that’s good–

(And yes, “we’re all only human” can be contrasted with the whole “David doesn’t really feel human” thing from LGI and Tally 5)

Thus, his connection to fate is actually something that hasn’t been talked about in the main series yet, but rather comes from his character profile. All it takes is noticing the repeated references to luck and thing that are “guaranteed” (aka fated) to happen, and you can kinda piece it together from there. 

Whit [Profile]: It’s said that if you get the Ultimate Matchmaker to find you a romantic partner, you’re guaranteed to have a happy and stable relationship for life. Unfortunately for Whit Young, he seems to lack all luck when it comes to finding a relationship himself.

And since that profile talks about his talent, I'll use it as a segue to look at similarities between Matchmaker and Inspirational Speaker. Both are talents based around influencing and advising people on how to achieve happiness, either in their love life or their… life life. Thus, both require some level of understanding on how people think and act, which manifests in Whit’s self-proclaimed intuitive nature and David’s confidence in his beliefs when it comes to people not changing and all that. 

And… yeah I’m gonna say I’m okay with that for now.

-

Wow, that was quite a bit, now wasn’t it! And it still feels like I could find more if I thought about it long enough, but I hope this was enough for you. Thanks for the ask! The DRDT cast is really fun to talk about, though, so the excuse to do so is always welcome :D

[skyfallscotland]

Things that got me a little frustrated with Onyx Storm in no particular order 💔

Please be nice, this is an addendum to my main Onyx Storm review post, and there is also a post about things I loved 🙏 I'm just a sensitive heart with superior pattern recognition (I'm mentally ill lol) and I struggle when I don't understand things—and I understood nothing.

I find it really hard to just go with the flow, I hate it when I don't understand things, and being confused just didn't make for a good reading experience for me. So here goes:

The magic system being entirely retconned.

“It’s beautiful,” I whisper. I’m marked by their magic as a rider now, as their rider.

It's consistently referred to as "their" magic or "Andarna's magic" or "Tairn's magic" in the first two books, but in this one, the continent has magic and outside it, they're powerless?

Oh, except Vi for...reasons?

The marked ones all having second signets? This felt like fan service or a retcon. Why haven't any of them gone crazy? Because statistically some of them should have (and it would have at least been interesting). And if Liam could wield ice and use farsight, and that wasn't initially an error, why not wield it when Deigh was literally being chewed to death?

Continuous mentions of Xaden hearing actual fucking thoughts for god's sake that just get dropped and never picked up again? Par for the course. Don't even talk to me about it, I'm done.

Sgaeyl not talking to Xaden all book? Does she realise she would have died too, they all would have died if he hadn't done what he did? Mum pls the silent treatment sucks (this might be a personal trauma so we can probably scratch it, actually)

Andarna leaving then coming back almost immediately? I get it, she wanted to meet her shitty family, but this would have had more impact if she'd stayed when they were on the island. It felt like I got teary at her exit for nothing, like it was a ploy. I think I have whiplash.

Violet saying quite literally her most pressing need is information and then deciding no actually it's to know what her baby dragon is dreaming about in her dreamless sleep? Is this a joke? 😭

Violet is suddenly Adrian Ivashkov 💀 And what’s that got to do with who they are at their core? I’m lost! 😭

Also, those not-dreams never being explained? Like we know it's Berwyn calling him, but seriously Xaden, click on pls!

Xaden's mother showing up for...no reason? Really? Nice emotional arc, I enjoyed it, it was one of my favourite sequences, but she wasn't important to the story at all and we just?? Left?????

(I also want to punch her in the face, how dare she)

Finding out Halden's been doing...something??? At the Isles this whole time?? For Reasons, I guess??? I don't know, someone else might need to explain that to me.

(How I felt ^) Oh! And him being a twin? Basic information we could have known before—and I still don't know what happened to Alic, really. Like I want the whole story? 🥺

Violet's hair, the temple, all of that someone's going to have to explain to me like I'm five too because it's not clicking, I'm sorry. Also the temples/priestesses have magic? Their own different type of magic? And they aren't venin either? What makes a venin, a venin? My head is still spinning.

Aetos being back defying all logic (the aide to exile to in charge of everything pipeline really is something) and then he disappears entirely and is irrelevant? 😭 Why bring him back at all? What was the reason?

This is like the continuity that says Degrensi kicked Varrish out for being too torture-y and then they put him in charge of torturing kids, and then Degrensi followed Varrish's orders (even though he's below him in the chain of command and he hates him) last year to keep Xaden away from Violet all the time, but wait, now Degrensi gives no fucks about following orders???? I'm?? I just spent so much time being like wait, what?

Xaden who can literally command shadows for some reason not being able to sneak into Violet's room? And that same Xaden having zero control so they can't have sex, but then suddenly when it was time for another evenly spaced out sex scene, him being totally fine????? Is it ✨a mindset✨ ??

Violet having her memories wiped? For? Reasons???? Seriously for what purpose could the literal wedding ceremony part not have been remembered, please, that’s just mean Rebecca.

Aaric just Not telling anyone about his signet even though it would have meant more people living??? Aaric's name being CAMLAEN?????

I get that that’s a literary device, but on top of everything else I still felt like I was chasing my tail 😩

Professor Riorson teaching everyone for months, incl that signets have perfect counters, like his shadows and Violet's lightning, then sending Violet off to face the lightning/storm wielding gal while he went to face a guy he's literally incapable of killing? HELLO, should you not realise and switch?! Don’t be a dumb dumb (also a literary choice but it annoyed me so it’s here, please never battle the elite four Xaden, you’d fail).

Also oh look there's no rune on Brennan's neck like the one on his hand—sorry WHAT? are we implying that's from Naolin mending him or what? Do you know about it? Fucking say so, you sure as fuck haven't told us Vi???? It really bothers me that Violet apparently knows things and we don't. I feel like that's what third-person-POV is for, if you want to do things like that.

I still don’t know why venin can channel within the wards at all? And the wardstone was so easily altered after all that drama in IF?

Why aren't we reading Lilith's journals? Vi, sweetheart, please, give me some joy here.

Where are the other foster kids??? I still can't see how they're safe and not leverage, especially now it's looking like it will be a full-on secession bid once more.

Tyrrendor mines talladium?!

SURPRISE GRANDMA??? PLEASE!!

As you can see, I have a lot of questions—more than I had at the end of the last book, because none of those were answered, so I just have...this bigger pile of questions.

If you can read along and not think about any of these things and just not be bothered by the not knowing of it all, then I'm jealous of you. I really, really wish I could, but that's just not how my brain works and as someone with a mental illness I get tired of having to defend that to other people, it makes me feel like shit, honestly. I don’t want to think about these things, I just do. Like yeah, I hate my brain too but I have to live with it.

There were plenty of things I liked about this book, but my overall experience was that it felt messy, chaotic, and overwhelming.

Even the end—I still don't understand what happened fully, and I know that's on purpose, but after not understanding anything the whole book and having my questions from the last book go unanswered, I don't exactly appreciate it as a literary technique, I just find it frustrating 😟

In any case, these are just my out-of-pocket, personal opinions typed up late at night with zero filter, please don't come for me (lol), you don't need to agree—in fact, I know people don't, I ran a poll—this is just...how I'm feeling right now. It's a sucky feeling, but it is what it is.

I hope I can do a re-read at some point and enjoy it more, and get a better grasp on things, but for now...🖤

[kalisseo]

i know this is so late!! I barely check my strawpage 💔💔 but anyway yes ofc!!

I know this asks for s3 but I'm gonna mention s2 bc I think it's important

also big big warning im a tophabe shipper and an over analyzer blah blah what clone high did y'all watch blah blah im delusional. also sometimes I forget words or phrase stuff weirdly, so I hope that my gibberish makes sense to you!

anyway, now to the interesting stuff!!

how topher feels about people and friendships

a bit unrelated but not really, I think most people loved clone alone, and how all the boys interacted, and me too! it was funny, and a lot of people wanted topher to be a part of the boys group, and obviously me too, but, even though I loved the idea there was something that didn't convince me about it...and i couldn't figure out why until s3 aired

topher's friendship with the bleacher creatures works because they're all outcast

and that's a bit of the reason why topher and abe's friendship worked (in a way)

Topher feels understood by the bcreatures, something he wouldn't have with many people

Topher's feelings towards people, as a whole, are a bit different to his different towards friendship, so first let's take a look at

how he feels about people in a more general view

(this is mainly s2 bc I don't think one can talk about s3 without it, u can just skip it to the next section tho)

Topher has a clear resentment towards the popular or "normal" clones, he tried to cater to people's sympathy using his woke persona, but his peers probably never liked him because of his shitty behavior (personally, I see Topher as more socially awkward that intentionally rude in s2, this doesn't mean that I'm trying to justify him, but in s3 is when he actively tries to ruin the rest of the clones day, when in s2 he's just intentionally "evil" a few times) and topher never understood that was the reason, creating this hate or resentment towards them.

in s2 he's pushed to the side on some occasions, for example in s2e5 when harriet rejects him twice in her musical because well she doesn't like him. another example could be the death maze where jfk destroys his phone and spends more time with abe (something that he caused to himselfff but yeah), then in s3 we have the dialogues 'until she kicked you to the curb' by jackee and 'the same curb we've all been kicked in' by topher, he clearly felt ignored by his classmates, and personally I think he's referring to abe forgetting him and talking to jfk and confucius.

also his roll call song 'nobody likes me, I do not know why',repeating it, but I think it's important to keep it in mind, to Topher, the rest of the clones don't have a reason to hate him but they do, who wouldn't hate their classmates when they seem to hate you too without a reason?

(my personal view is that he blames it on being a clone of columbus, that's why the name change and the woke persona)

so, in a general view, topher first starts to cater to his classmates so they would like him, more than friendships he wants fans, to say in a way, he wants people to like him. he doesn't really seem to care about friends, which could kinda count as canon, s2e2 he only talks to abe because he's basically forced to. all his attempts fail horribly, and even though he made a friend, abe left him too, so he decides to hate everyone and embrace his horrible side, and to me, because of Abe he had mixed feelings.

at first, he probably thinks that friendships aren't really important anyway, and that Abe is just another popular kid who pushed him to the side. I like to think that even so, abe made him realize that maybe he shouldn't be that selfish.

topher and friendships in s3

buttt the way he thinks about friendship in s3 is clearly different to the way he did in s2!

like i said before, in s2 he doesn't seem to care much about it, but in s3 his friends seem to be everything to him!

and to me it's because of what i said earlier, topher feels understood by the bleacher creatures

all of them were losers, outcasts and 'kicked to the curb', they all know what it's like to be slone

maybe topher doesn't really have what he 'always wanted', but he gets a group of friends that for once aren't weirded out by him, he cares about them

one of the reasons why I think his friendship with abe changed his view about how he needs to interact with other people, it's because yeah, topher keeps being bossy with the bcreatures, but he listens to them and pays attention to what they want, something he didn't really do with abe

improvement, if you will, to me this shows how much he doesn't want to lose them

to me, topher is also able to connect with them because he sees them as special, or well different, not in a bad way, but to him they're the same kind of different as him, again, he feels understood, he feels that they're all together against the world, and he tries to keep the group together

he kicks out joan because she didn't respect them and was causing trouble even though joan is supposed to be his crush

then during cloney island, they all decide to just. die there. together, because they're finally accepted, not getting too much into this because this alone could be its own post, but when they decide to escape, it's just because they were convinced that escaping death would bring them closer (bond people, something like that)

sadly I don't have a screenshot rn, but just look at him, he was so happy to be having a bonding experience with his friends

so yeah, topher goes to not really caring about having friends, to them being an important and essential part of his life, and wanting to keep them together, friends are now one of the most important things for topher, he's able to open up to them because they just understand each other

bleehhh

i made a first draft for this post, but I was focusing too much on s2

and I actually have a post like this! but really old so consider this a re make

anyway anon I hope this post gets to you

[imsooooorrrrysorry]

Your first point is pedantic, do you really think anyone wants to see themselves as losers? Especially men, who value sex a ton, coming to terms that they can't get it? If a man calls himself an incel he most likely is "involuntarily celibate." He doesn't need to be knocking on every women's doors to prove it.

The point is an incel can barely get a positive interaction with women. Remember I was in the break room at work, I was flipping through tv channels. And one of my female coworkers started to talk to me about tv, and we had this pleasant exchange talking about tv. And it stood out to me because it was an interaction with a women that seemed pleasant and wasn't forced. Remember there was this blackpilled incel youtuber, Chewy, and he said he had this constant dream that made him happy. He said it was a dream where he was talking to this woman and he made a joke that made her smile. If that's the highlight of your day it's over.

Dating apps are the easiest way to tell whether you're an incel because they are apps meant for finding a partner. Everyone on the app is there to meet someone to date. Yet, incels can't even get a lowly right swipe. I'm not even talking about getting a date, they can't even get a consideration for the date. Think about all the women who saw an incels profile, probably in the thousands and not one gave him a consideration. Do you need to go up to 1000 women in real life to be considered an incel, in your eyes? Do online rejections not count?

I myself am not really "negative," but that doesn't matter because my "personality" isn't the issue. But do you think most hateful , negative incels express their "negative personality" publicly? Incels post often that they don't let their "based views" be known to normies.

And autistic men are still the minority in the incelsphere. So what do these autistic and neurotypical incels have in common? Subpar looks.

How can we know for sure that 80% of men have sex yearly? Again, men don't want to admit that they are sexual failures. They can be lying. If you started to go up to random men and ask them "can I see a picture of your girlfriend/ wife in your phone?" They would not pull up a picture, because they don't got one. You must have male relatives. A brother perhaps, or cousins. How often do you see them with women?

Kindness, intelligence, and humor overcoming looks is a lie. Don't trust any of those "studies." Incels have been doing tinder experiments for like 10 years now where they have a male model as the profile and their bio states that they're pedophilic violent felons and not only do they get matches, they actually get conversations from women. The women will overlook what they supposedly did. I know of tom Morgan, despite him being noticably autistic he still has many suitors on his YouTube videos, because he's good looking. Do you know of Clavicular? He's a mod on looksmax.org, went viral for his bone smashing. This guy is noticably autistic, he's clinically diagnosed too, he does a lot to looksmax. Meme stuff like mewing and bone smashing, but serious stuff too like fillers, steroids, tret, lifts, and a myriad of other drugs. He's a pretty good looking guy now, but he's also a pretty cruel and self absorbed guy. He posts about and insults the women he sleeps with, which he has proof of with pics and videos. He said he was going to bully his subhuman roommate. He takes vids of himself mogging and insulting other men to show people how superior he is. And all of this while being very visibility autistic. Why does he get women? He's good looking. There's no running from the importance of looks when it comes to men dating women.

There's a lot of to the blackpill, yes, incels got a bad hand. But their bad hand was in the looks department, not the "personality." The help they need to escape inceldom is cosmetic surgery, they need face transplants and leg lengthening . Outside of that I encourage incels to focus on whatever they find satisfying. No need to be doom and gloom always . I'm going to be 30 this year, been in the incelsphere for nearly 10 years. Thought I was different, that I wasn't an incel and was going to get a girlfriend soon. Unfortunately, I was wrong. I don't think self proclaimed incels are late bloomers, they understand their condition.

Testing a male bullshit story #1

[slimyenemy]

literally what every cult's argument is rooted in is essentially just "you suck because you're not open minded <3 enough to want to give control over your whole life and who knows what else to and be raped by someone who's been abusing you and violating your boundaries and trying to coerce you into accepting this and more along with the person you thought you could trust to some extent at least by gang stalking and always always always trying to humiliate and intimidate and hurt you on so many levels wherever you go taking away so many things you love from you and now someone you love too for months. and you need to be punished for being a scary sea monster that can use dark sink breaking magic just like we can and have been using torture yeah sure that." and then i'm supposed to want to talk and be nice and polite to these people. or it's me who's doing something wrong again and now i deserve all of the above because i need to be punished for this too. sickos indeed.

[silusvesuius]

baby👶 drawings. these are very dear to me rn.. 2nd pic is my Nelavis with @barvin0k's Varonur 🩵 last one is a baby bosmer and snow elf, hairiest of them all. although the bosmer was meant to be my girl Barletta too lols

[harmoniouseclipse]

Me and my freaking ship charts for my freaky mind

[maeamian]

I understand why that person from the country of Georgia is mad that people aren't getting it right, but also the only part of their post that actually points out it is talking about the country rather than state is the flag that they use, they say "The place I live" which could be either, they talk about the legislature being lethally transphobic which could be either.

I can understand why the particular double name can cause a lot of frustration especially when you're trying to talk about something serious, but sometimes when there's communication problems between you and an audience they are partially your fault.

[incesthemes]

hey girlie it’s me, sam winchesters gay lover, your mootie 🥰🥰🥰 i just wanted to let you know, that your tags on the post about that wincest video are based and i agree with every word, hashtag slay couldn’t agree more i loved reading your essay in those tags heart ❤️

omg thank you!!! i'm basically only capable of talking in essays whether people want me to or not, unfortunately

i just have a lot of feelings on this topic and the whole "canon or not canon" argument is weird to me; the themes are pretty darn clear in supernatural (it is NOT known for its subtlety) so idk man. they don't have to kiss to be canon. and they don't have to have a romantic relationship to be canon either. how many times do they get into relationships with other people only for it to be treated as cheating/betrayal/abandonment, only for them have to give up that relationship in order to reaffirm their devotion to their brother

that's just what the text says. i'm not under any kind of delusion that they have some secret sexual or romantic relationship, but that doesn't change that sam and dean are each other's most important person regardless of that. which is really awesome imo, that romance isn't treated as more important than whatever horrible thing they have with each other, and that they don't have to consummate their relationship with romance/sex in order for it to be the most important one they have

(and of course there's romantic/sexual subtext, like parallels and metaphors and misunderstandings and jokes, but to me that just provides a solid foundation for presenting this relationship between them as the most important even though it's not romantic or sexual—because this language of romance is the only one we know, really, when it comes to writing important relationships between characters. it's the only one we know in our own personal lives, to a large extent. so you use the romance/sexuality to symbolize the actual bond they have. which is so much worse lmao)

anyway i think spn is fairly unique in this way because of how no other relationships can really ever stand parallel to the one they share; even in other shows that center male friendship, romance is allowed to coexist with brotherhood. for sam and dean, it's not, and that becomes a point of tension and conflict and resolution many, many times over the course of the show. so like yeah!!! just because it's not romantic or sexual doesn't mean it's not canon, in the sense that their relationship is the point of the show, and it is the most important relationship they have. they chose each other above all else, every single time. yknow, it's "the epic love story of sam and dean" and all that

[livvyofthelake]

shonda rhimes save me..... shonda rhimes...... save me shonda rhimes!!!

[txttletale]

I'm asking this genuinely, as a 19 yo with no education in economics and a pretty surface level understanding of socialism: can you explain the whole Bananas discourse in a way someone like me might understand? In my understanding it's just "This is just a product we can give up to create better worker conditions and that's fine" but apparently that's not the full picture?

alright so some pretty important background to all this is that we're all talking about the fact that bananas, grown in the global south, are available year-round at extremely low prices all around europe and the USA. it's not really about bananas per so--the banana in this discourse is a synechdoche for all the economic benefits of imperialism.

so how are cheap bananas a result of imperialism? first of all i want to tackle a common and v. silly counterargument: 'oh, these ridiculous communists think it's imperialist for produce to be shipped internationally'. nah. believing that this is the communist objection requires believing in a deeply naive view of international traide. this view goes something like 'well, if honduras has lots of bananas, and people in the usa want bananas and are willing to pay for them, surely everyone wins when the usa buys bananas!'.

there are of course two key errors here and they are both packed into 'honduras has lots of bananas'. for a start, although the bananas are grown in honduras, honduras doesn't really 'have' them, because the plantations are mostly owned by chiquita (formerly known as united fruit) dole, del monte, and other multinationals--when they're not, those multinationals will usually purchase the bananas from honduran growers and conduct the export themselves. and wouldn't you know it, it's those intervening middleman steps--export, import, and retail, where the vast majority of money is made off bananas! so in the process of a banana making its way from honduras to a 7/11, usamerican multinationals make money selling the bananas to usamerican importers who make money selling them to usamerican retailers who make money selling them to usamerican customers.

when chiquita sells a banana to be sold in walmart, a magic trick is being performed: a banana is disappearing from honduras, and yet somehow an american company is paying a second american company for it! this is economic imperialism, the usamerican multinational extracting resources from a nation while simultaneously pocketing the value of those resources.

why does the honduran government allow this? if selling bananas is such a bad deal for the nation, why do they continue to export millions of dollars of banans a year? well, obviously, there's the fact that if they didn't, they would face a coup. the united states is more than willing to intervene and cause mass death and war to protect the profits of its multinationals. but the second, more subtle thing keeping honduras bound to this ridiculously unbalanced relationship is the need for dollars. because the US dollar is the global reserve currency, and the de facto currency of international trade, exporting to the USA is a basic necessity for nations like honduras, guatemala, &c. why is the dollar the global reserve currency? because of usamerican military and economic hegemony, of course. imperialism built upon imperialism!

this is unequal exchange, the neoimperialist terms of international trade that make the 'global economy' a tool of siphoning value and resources from the global south to the imperial core. & this is the second flaw to unravel in 'honduras has a lot of bananas' -- honduras only 'has a lot of bananas' because this global economic hegemony has led to vast unsustainable monoculture banana plantations to dominate the agriculture of honduras. it's long-attested how monoculture growth is unsustainable because it destroys soil and leads to easily-wiped-out-by-infection plants.

so, bananas in the USA are cheap because:

the workers that grow them are barely paid, mistreated, prevented from unionizing, and sometimes murdered

the nations in which the bananas are grown accept brutally unfair trade and tariff terms with the USA because they desperately need a supply of US dollars and so have little position to negotiate

shipping is also much cheaper than it should be because sailors are chronically underpaid and often not paid at all or forced to pay to work (!)

bananas are cheap, in conclusion, because they're produced by underpaid and brutalized workers and then imported on extortionate and unfair terms.

so what, should we all give up bananas? no, and it's a sign of total lack of understanding of socialism as a global movement that all the pearl-clutching usamericans have latched onto the scary communists telling them to stop buying bananas. communism does not care about you as a consumer. individual consumptive choices are not a meaningful arena of political action. the socialist position is not "if there was a socialist reovlution in the usa, we would all stop eating bananas like good little boys", but rather, "if there's a socialist revolution in the countries where bananas are grown, then the availability of bananas in the usa is going to drop, and if you want to be an anti-imperialist in the imperial core you have to accept that".

(this is where the second argument i see about this, 'oh what are you catholic you want me to eat dirt like a monk?' reveals itself as a silly fucking solipsistic misunderstanding)

and again, let's note that the case of the banana can very easily be generalised out to coffee, chocolate, sugar, etc, and that it's not about individual consumptive habits, but about global economic systems. if you are donkey fucking kong and you eat 100 bananas a day i don't care and neither does anyone else. it's about trying to illustrate just one tiny mundane way in which economic imperialism makes the lives of people in the global north more convenient and simpler and so of course there is enormous pushback from people who attach moral value to this and therefore feel like the mean commies are personally calling them evil for eating a nutella or whatever which is frankly pretty tiring. Sad!

tldr: it is not imperialism when produce go on boat but it is imperialism when produce grown for dirt cheap by underpaid workers in a country with a devalued currency is then bought and exported and sold by usamerican companies creating huge amounts of economic value of which the nation in which the banana was grown, let alone the people who actually fucking grew it, don't see a cent -- and this is the engine behind the cheap, available-every-day-all-year-everywhere presence of bananas in the usa (and other places!)

[taylor-titmouse]

hey i want to talk about how you should be promoting your work as an erotic author/illustrator

i'm writing this up because the marketing aspect of my work as an erotic author/illustrator is a science to me, and also because i'm the guy who gets unreasonably annoyed when i see other creators not properly advertising their work. you presumably want to make money off your work. this post will be written under the assumption you want to make money off your work but are doing a bad job at it. it will be very confrontational. if you read this and feel attacked you're right and i am attacking you.

this is geared toward selling erotic comics/writing/books/art as products. i will probably write more than one post about this subject so if i didn't touch on something you want to know more about, comment/send me an ask and i'll keep it in mind for the next one.

i will start with my first and least specific but most important point:

DON'T GET FUCKING CUTE

hi are you paying attention. i'm gripping you by the sides of your face. do not get fucking cute with what you are trying to sell. you are not a big enough property to get cute, nobody LIKES it when big properties get cute, and you are selling porn. you have to own this. you have to be up front about this. don't be tongue in cheek, don't be all teehee i wonder what this could be~, don't be secretive. you are selling a product. you have to fucking act like it. you are an adult selling pornography to other adults. i am GRIPPING your HEAD you NEED to understand this.

and to be clear when i say 'cute' i mean coy. i don't mean cutesy, as in the aesthetic. you can be as hello kitty pastel ten emojis a post uwu as you like when you're building your audience and generating hype. but when you start trying to sell, don't be vague, don't be sarcastic, don't mislabel your work as a joke and assume everyone is on it. because they're not.

you must always assume 75% of the people seeing the thing you are advertising have no fucking idea who you are. and that includes a huge chunk of the people who already follow you. they do not know who you are or what you've been working on for two months or why they should care about it. they just got here. somebody just reposted it. they are seeing it for the first time. most people are only looking at social media for a tiny chunk of their day. they are not keeping up with you. you cannot get cute about what you are trying to sell because nobody knows what it is until you tell them.

okay are you still with me. we are going to talk about clarity now.

YOU GOTTA TELL ME WHAT IT IS

good lord the amount of times i have gone to buy somebody's comic or book and had no idea what's actually in it or what it's about. who are the characters? why should i care about them? what do they do in it? what is the premise of this thing you want me to spend $5 on? why would you not tell me? i'm shaking you again. please i have to know what i'm buying i only have so much money to spend on porn.

porn, arguably more than any other genre, relies on knowing exactly what is in it. you do not want to surprise your readers with a kink they were unaware of! and on the flip side, you do not want to miss out on your target audience! if your book contains a hot spider babe laying eggs in an elf, you have to say so. not just so people who don't want to read about eggs know it isn't for them, but so the people who are egg crazy can see that and go "oh fuck YES i love EGGS here is my $5 and an extra $2 tip for catering to me specifically". a contents/features list is as much an advertisement as it is a warning!

as for re: who the characters are and why should i care, i'm sorry but you need to learn how to write sales copy. you have to write blurbs. you have to get good at the shit that goes on the back of a book. we all hate it but we have to do it. i want to know who the characters are and what the context is. i, personally, am not interested in contemporary stories as much as fantasy and historical. please tell me what genre this porn exists in so i know if it aesthetically appeals to me. pull some books off your shelves and see how they do it. hell man go look at mine.

while you're there, note that every single book of mine has a sample of what's in it. this feels like such a no-brainer to me but again! the amount of times i have gone to buy somebody's work and they don't show me what their work looks like! you gotta give me the first page or two! just enough that i know if i like the way your writing sounds, or the way you draw your comics! i don't know you! i am not going to trust that you're good at what you do just based on a cover. the cover is to get me to this step, it is not the only step. you have to show me that you're worth spending my money on!

to put it less cynically, you want to catch my interest. you want me to go 'oh i want to see more of this', you want me to go 'ahh i want to know where this goes!' you need to get me invested and craving more. earn my $5!!!

YOU HAVE TO MAKE IT EASY TO GIVE YOU MONEY

hey go look at your bio right now. go look at your pinned post. do you have a link to your patreon there? do you have a link to your itchio/gumroad/whatever? do i have to click more than once to get to the places you want me to go to give you money? why? why are you making me click twice? have we learned nothing from every website making you click an extra time when they make some stupid UI update and how much it pisses us off? i have already given up, i have forgotten you, i am not giving you my $5 today. put your links in the easiest places to get to them.

god literally as i was writing this post i went to go find somebody's itchio to see how they described their work and it was not anywhere on their profile. grabbing you and shaking you PUT THE LINK WHERE I CAN FIND IT. don't make it hard! make it easy! i am a dickhead sitting on the toilet scrolling, saw your post, and was interested enough to read further. but you made me go to your bio to find your linktree and oops i have already gone back to my timeline to look at the boobies in the next post. stop wasting precious bio space on DNIs and put your fuckin links there!!!

this is more for the twitter people, but: just put the link in the damn post. just say the word commission. just say it's for patreon. "wuh wuh the algorithm" it is not the damn algorithm it's that everybody hates advertising and nobody wants to retweet ads. putting slashes in the words doesn't do anything and you look like a fool. i have posted so much art that says it's 'a commission for ___" and it did exactly as good as any other art despite having the word commission in it. and by doing the slashes you just made it impossible for anybody to search your account for your commission information (which should be at the VERY LEAST in a post under your pinned tweet if you're not actively posting about them being open).

okay that went on a tangent i'm going to back to the point of putting the link in the tweet. put it in the first post. not in the first reply. don't tell them to go to your bio. put it in the post people are actually going to share. it's fine to put more information in the thread but people are only ever going to share the first post. so put the link there. you have to make it easy. putting links in tweets can hurt you algorithmically, even in the replies. so you're better off having it in the post that actually gets seen and shared. i don't want to open the tweet and scroll to get to your sales page where i ASSUME you will have put all the information anyway. put it in the tweet that just got retweeted by itself onto my dash!

also you have to share it a ton of times. i repost my shit every few hours when i'm trying to push a new product. as i said before people are not 24/7 looking at their timelines. they missed it the first time. they missed it the second time. they didn't get paid yet that week but they were after the eighth time and you reminded them again so they finally bought it. that i will still get sales every time i repost a book ad weeks after release says there are always people who missed it, or who only just showed up.

abandon your pride and shill. shills pay their bills. anyone who gets annoyed about it isn't giving you money in the first place. don't worry about looking like a sell out. don't apologize for plugging your own work. post about it often, post about it in different ways. post about it. post about it. you are not going to make money if people don't know you have something to sell them. if you want to make a career out of it, you need to act like it.

I DON'T HAVE A FOURTH POINT

kisses your forehead. i'm sorry for yelling at you. i've been making and publishing and selling adult art for the past two-three years and have got myself to the point where it pays my rent, and i got there by paying attention to what does and does not work.

please do your best to make money. i want you to make money.

as i said above i plan to write more posts on this subject, such as cover design, how to actually write sales copy, and best practices with running a patreon, but if there's things you would want to hear more about leave a comment or send an ask! i will probably be less aggressive on future topics. these are just things that have grinded my gears for a grip.

[jinwoosbabyboo]

“Daddy’s Home”

Telling the LADS Men you're pregnant. The setting? Happily Married and both parties want kids. Nothing but fluff here (All these men are substantially financially stable and I love that for us)

Zayne

MC: Zayne I have something important to tell you

Zayne: I'm listening

MC: Im pregnant

Zayne: ....

MC: Baby?

Zayne: Im going to be a father?

MC: Yes we're having a baby

Zayne: I need to childproof the house. I'll need to work more hours.

MC: You already work inhuman hours

Zayne: We need a bigger house. Should I build it? I should build it. Why are you standing? You shouldn't be on your feet

MC: Sir I am 2 minutes pregnant we have time to prepare for this bundle of joy

Zayne: They'll need a college fund, driving lessons, a tutor...

Zayne continues mumbling and mulling over every single detail to himself

MC: I guess I'll relax enough for the both of us

Rafayel

MC: Raf sit down I need to tell you something

Rafayel: Why do I need to sit down?

MC: Its safer

Rafayel: My Lemurian senses are tingling but I'll trust you

MC: Okay breath in

Rafayel: *breathes in*

MC: now breath out

Rafayel: *breathes out*

MC: I'm pregnant

Rafayel: *Chokes on his spit* WHAT!

MC: Im 2 months pregnant

Rafayel: I'm gonna be a mother????

MC: No you're gonna be a father

Rafayel: Can I handle this? Can I still eat seafood? Am I allowed to swim in the ocean?

MC: Why are you acting like you're the one carrying twins?

Rafayel: TWINS?! I GET A TWO FOR ONE DEAL?!

MC: What am I? A yard sale?? Don't say it like that

Rafayel: You’re really pregnant?

Rafayel grabs your hands and holds them to his chest where you can feel his heart racing

MC: Yes we’re going to be parents

Rafayel: you....and i....preg-.... twi-

MC: don't pass out please don't pass out right now

Rafayel: *Passes out anyway*

Xavier

MC: Xavier?

Xavier who was currently laying with his head buried in your lap with his arms wrapped around your waist.

Xavier: Hmm?

MC: Do you want a baby? With me?

Xavier rubbing small circles on your lower back with his thumb as he stirred in his sleepy state

Xavier: I want everything with you

MC: Good

Xavier: *Dozing off*

MC: Because I’m pregnant

Xavier: That’s great

MC: …

Xavier: …

MC: and 3….2……..1

Xavier: Wait what ???

MC: You heard me

Xavier: So I’m a dad?

MC: Father to be

Xavier: We have to start their swordsmanship training right away

MC: How about we take it slow like letting them grow in my stomach first?

Xavier: Oh I guess you’re probably right

MC: yea now lay back down

Xavier snuggles right back into your lap placing soft kisses on your stomach that isn’t even showing yet

Xavier: My little angel

Sylus

MC: I need your help how would you tell someone they're a father?

Luke: Im a father?!

MC: Luke shut up

Kieran: *Shoves Luke*

Luke: Sorry

MC: I just don't know how to tell Sylus

Sylus: Tell me what?

Kieran: Me and Luke are uncles now!

MC: Kieran!

Sylus: You’re pregnant?

MC: *Shows the pregnancy test* We’re having a baby

Sylus: Looks as though my efforts weren’t in vain

MC: You were trying to get me pregnant?

Sylus: Why do you think I constantly had you in a mating press?

MC: Sylus! Don’t talk like that in front of the twins

Sylus: *chuckles* I can’t wait to see you plump and glowing with our child princess

Later….

Kieran: I can’t wait to teach them sarcasm

Luke: I’m definitely doing everything their strict parents tell them not to do

Sylus: You two. Sidebar. In my office. Now.

MC, In the background: ooouu you guys are in trouble … bad uncles and the baby isn’t even here yet

[thebestsetter]

"If I was a color, I think I'd be yellow"

"Why?"

"Non-important. I just feel it"

He has never seen yellow the same way again. It was everywhere. He looked for it everywhere. And everytime, without fail, he remembered you. A pretty sunflower. Your blinding smile. A little minion figure he saw on the mall. You crying after watching the latest "Despicable Me" movie (and him laughing at your cute stupid crying face). A silly Winnie the Pooh keychain on a crying child's backpack. You talking to the said sad kid you both saw on the street and trying to cheer them up, playing with them and making sure they were smiling, their worries melting away in the speed of light (you'd make such a great mother, he thinks, making his face grow bright red right after). The sun in all of it's glory. You. You. You. You.

You were like a plague infecting his brain and soul. He couldn't focus on anything anymore because you were always running through his head, the sound of your laugh playing inside his mind 24/7 and driving him half insane. He couldn't take it anymore. He had to ask you why you said to him you were yellow. How did you know? What made you so sure of it? Why you had put him under this spell in which everytime he catches just the smallest and quickest glimpse of yellow, the image of you came flooding his mind and senses? Did you even think about him the same amount of times he thought about you? He didn't know. He couldn't know unless he asked you. And it was not fair. Not fair at all.

"Remember that day you told me you were yellow?"

"Yeah" you said, stopping mid-sip of your milkshake and looking at him with your beautiful a confused face "Yeah, I do. Why?"

"You never gave me an answer to the question I asked you that day" he ignored how the first sentence you said made his heart fluster and his stomach go silly.

"Which question?" How humilliating. He's gonna have to swallow his pride and repeat it. Utterly ridiculous.

"Why?" He couldn't care less about how hurt his ego was right now "Actually, how. How did you know you're yellow?"

"Easy. It's 'cause yellow and purple are opposites, so they look good when put together"

"What?"

"Yellow and purple are on opposite sides of the color wheel, silly! So they're complementary colors and go well together"

"I know that. But what does purple have to do with you being yellow?"

"You remind me of purple"

And suddenly, he realized yellow has never been alone. Next to the beautiful sunflower, there's a bellflower, that looks gloom when compared to the yellow plant, but basks in the joy it seems to bring nonetheless. Just like you are the one to bring joy to his life. Beside the minion figure, there's a figure of those bad purple minions, and while one is considered pretty, funny and nice, the other one is scary, angry and people tend to avoid them. It reminds him of you two: extroverted and kind you and introverted and rude him. Perfect opposites. Perfect together. He hadn't noticed before, but the child's backpack was purple, and this memory was followed by the the sound of the laughs you and the little fella shared. Kids should always be happy, smiling, harmless and having fun. Comfortable. Safe. In that way, you make him feel like a little kid. Your warm embrace, so protective and oh so motherly. He feels relaxed around you. Overjoyed. And even though he doesn't smile a lot, you always seem to make him want to crack a real, big grin. It must be a superpower of yours. Lastly, the sun, always followed by the moon. Even though they don't "meet" often, when they do, they create one of the prettiest phenomena known to humanity: an eclipse. They're always apart, but when they're together, it's so beautiful that the whole world stops to see.

"That's cringy. And kinda stupid."

"No it's not! We're a perfect duo! Just admit it!!"

"'Course we are"

"What did you say? I didn't quite hear you!!"

"I'm not saying it again."

So don't act surprised when your wedding is full of beautiful sunflowers and bellflowers. You should see it coming. They look good together right? Just like you two.

RIN ITOSHI, Kunigami Rensuke, Nagi Seishiro, MICHAEL KAISER, Barou Shohei, SAE ITOSHI, TODOROKI SHOTO, SHINSOU HITOSHI, BAKUGOU KATSUKI, USHIJIMA WAKATOSHI, KAGEYAMA TOBIO, TSUKISHIMA KEI (his name's kanji meaning moon is just so-- perfect fot this fic) , Osamu Miya, Suna Rintarou, MEGUMI FUSHIGURO + any character you think fits this!!

Curiosity!!!: Bellflowers mean "everlasting love and commitment" in flower language, while sunflowers mean steadfast love!!

Masterlist

Wrote this in the middle of my portuguese class. I hate it. I'm in love with him

[iid-smile]

sunrise and sunset , nanami kento

x fem!clingy!reader ! nanami calls the reader "love" and "darling". the reader cuddles with nanami!!! the reader also loses sleep because of his love because thats cute.

author's note: nanami is so yellow but there's no option for it so he has to be orange </3 tell me why i was actually swooning while i was thinking about these scenarios in my head? especially the second one???? i think everybody agrees that nanami is a listener 100%

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sunrise.

nanami always wakes up before you. he used to get up as soon as his eyes opened, but nowadays, he has a little something holding him down.

it seems like you never fall asleep on your side. that's partly his fault, since he's always beckoning you to come closer to him. but even then, in the morning, he feels himself teetering off the edge of the bed, with two arms wrapped around his neck, and his now asleep arm still wrapped around your waist. slightly dangerous for him, but as long as you feel comfortable, then nothing else matters. seeing your pretty face first thing every day was a blessing.

"kento..." there it is. your tiny mumbles of you waking up.

nanami's lips immediately curl upwards at the sound of your voice. as gently as he can, he sits up more against the headboard, keeping your head laid on his chest. "i hear you." he responds.

the bedroom is quiet and tranquil. he specifically bought black out curtains for your sake, but considering the price, they really weren't doing the best job. mornings in summer were relentless, taking into the account how early the sun rises, and it would wake you up in the middle of your sleep with how bright it was outside. no worries though, since he has plans to replace them very soon.

you mumble again, lips grazing against his shirt. "why aren't you up yet?"

"i don't have work today." obviously a lie. you may be a bit dumb, but you're well aware it's a weekday today, and nanami isn't the best liar.

you lift your head, gaze shooting up to meet with his. "yes, you do! it's a wednesday." you whisper-yell. "you should be up 'nd getting ready..."

"my day doesn't start until yours does." you feel his hand on top of your head, coaxing you to lay it back down. "if i'm late for work, that's fine. you're more important to me." his touch moves up to your upper arm, and his thumb rubs in lazy circles. "go back to sleep, love. you're tired."

"you're too sappy 'n sweet... gonna make me swoon every time you open your mouth, i swear." you grumble.

"then i'll catch you every time."

"stop!"

sunset.

nanami always reads a book before bed. it's usually historical genres, he's not a big fan of sci-fi or comedy. but sometimes, he'll let himself indulge in the odd romance book here and there. why? they're your favourite genre, the books you read. he memorises each different author that he spots you reading, often gifting you another one of their works if he knows you're not having a good day.

finally, you emerge from the bathroom door, a few folded clothes ready to be put away in the laundry hamper. when you turn to him, you watch his eyes intently as they follow the words on the pages. "that's..?"

"i saw you enjoying it this afternoon." he flips a page. you move closer to the bed, crawling on top of the mattress and inviting yourself into the blankets. "you looked particularly thrilled during it. what do you like about this story?"

you pause, thinking over the entire plot. "it reminds me of us."

nanami can only smile, and he doesn't miss the one on your face. closing the book, he places it on the bedside table, and scoops his other arm underneath you. naturally, you rest your head on his shoulder, and hook one of your legs over his. the small distance between the two of you felt that much more intimate that you felt the need to lower your voice. "are you going to sleep?"

"no." the hand wrapped around your waist moves up to your head, just placing it on top of your scalp. "i want you to talk. you seem eager to talk about it."

you giggle inwardly, snuggling impossibly closer to him. "i'm so in love with you." you whisper.

"i love you too, darling. more than words can express." he whispers back.

no wonder you always wake up so late. it's because nanami always has your heart beating too fast before you go to sleep.

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