#it's been a while since i posted an actual illustration okay

[dagmartoons]

on a cold november day, a man named benoit mandelbrot was born 🌻🌻🌻

[mtkay13]

My version of the wardrobe template! yay!! I had a LOT of fun doing this and feel like I could elaborate a bit more on each of those.

It's already linked up here, but here's once again a > link to the post.< Anyway! More about these designs below!

So first, for WKX's template! - Chapter 2: Grey robes I had already made my design of those for the full TYK lineup I made a while back. I really, really like those, and took inspiration from some of the robes SHL!WKX wears in the show for the shapes. - Chapter 69: dark robes with dark red belt I expected to like that style for him, but not that much! I had seen a tutorial on how asymetrical hanfus were worn by archers in the past and that inspired me, purely on a fashion level of course. I like how intimidating he looks with those and enjoy the touches of blue in the inner layer of the robes. - Chapter 75: dark red robes The GVM robes! which I also designed a while back when researching for the illustrations of the Mt Fengya battle scenes that I wanted to make. I reworked them just a little bit and got rid of some details that I didn't like anymore. I tremendously pleated skirts for WKX so I went at it once again. I also used shifts in hues to make it look like it could have been drenched in blood. - Extra 5: deep red robes For the reminder (since apparently some people are not aware of extra 5's existance), this extra is set 5 years post-canon. I wanted WKX to wear something that looked comfortable for traveling but also practical and fashionable. The teal jacket is of course another nod at SHL since the red and teal combo was an absolute banger. Let's say I didn't want WKX to just sport an all-red look. Furthermore, the teal really works to adorn the red hues. - My personal favourite I actually don't really know whether those are my actual personal favourites, but I've come to LOVE WKX dressed in red and white thanks to @kwehxing's designs. I think it really suits him and on top of that it avoids the question "is this Hua Cheng" LMAO--okay jokes aside, I combined most of the shapes that I really like for WKX (wider shoulders, wide sleeves, and long robes with pleated inner robes) and I find him very elegant like this. Now, for ZZS! - Chapter 1: sapphire blue scholar robes Those had already been designed before as well! They're my go to generic TC!ZZS robes, haha. I was a bit extra with the blue colour here, but oh well. I'm quite obsessed with the silver brocade cynching his waist, haha. - Chapter 2: stolen farmer robes A classic as well as far as I'm concerned--of course, inspired by his hobo fit in SHL because it was quite efficient. I'm forever fond of my scruffy hobo!Xu and his toes poking from his sandals. - Chapter 18: luxurious robes from the Gao family Those were a new design! Which I had a lot of fun coming up with. Putting ZZS in a different colour scheme was also really nice. For those who don't remember, ZZS feels quite ridiculous when he sees himself in a mirror wearing those fancy robes while being so emaciated and still sporting his hobo mask. I wanted to give this "out of place" feeling; and also work on a very "wuxia" style for the robes, since this is jianghu and they were provided by Gao Chong. - Extra 5: black robes I'm incredibly fond of this design. I worked quite a bit on it, since I wasn't sure of where I wanted to go. My main guidelines were: practical and cool. I really like ZZS having a lot of room to move so ideally not too much fabric in the way, and I think he also needs arm braces to be rid of annoying sleeves. Of course, him looking much healthier and having a dynamic ponytail really works to "complete the look", and I find that he looks really cool there haha. - My personal favourite This one has been refined over the months, but it's definitely, overall, my favourite look for him in terms of shapes and construction. I like that the robes are short, I like the more fashionable jacket. I'm especially into the "pants tucked into the boots" silhouette, as well as the little ribbons keeping them tight around the ankles. I'd say that this leg shape + short robes + a bun (or sometimes a ponytail) is THE ZZS design combo for me, haha. It looks practical and fun and adventurous, just how I like it.

To conclude the whole post, I had more fun doing this than I even expected, and needless to say that I'm very excited to see other versions of them following this template. It was a good opportunity to try and project what the characters look like throughout the book, and a fun design exercise as well. I actually don't really like doing character design usually, but for characters I'm obsessed with, it's of course a much nicer experience. Anyway, thank you for reading!

[apurpledust]

Don't tell my friend that I did not sleep immediately (she will scold me XD). But what is Napoleon and Junot about? Gib their interactions, their history, the tension, their secrets, what you thought about them, what is good and bad about them, headcanons, some things that you love about them, anything that will save my curiosity before I go to sleep in 4:30 am 👀

That is all. Have a nice day/evening 😌

HELLO!! sorry for my late reply I have the cold and I was figuring how to write this without sounding too crazy 😭😭 thank you @whatever-whatsoever for reminding me to check my inbox 🤩 YESSS NAPJUNO ASK!!!! THANK YOU ❤️❤️ I'll have to give a super abbreviated version because they had so much history *sniff* 🥺

I may yap more about my personal head canons and why I love them in a separate post hehehe👅

disclaimer: I don't claim to be objective or an historian as this is very napjuno-biased :P English is not my first language so there will be many grammatical mistakes😭

I feel like I should first mention that Napoleon and Junot had a long history of correspondence throughout their lifetime. And Junot kept every. single. letter Napoleon wrote to him. Unfortunately none of these letters exist anymore because Napoleon sent a lackey to have them burned the moment Junot committed suicide. (I WILL NEVER FORGIVE NAPS FOR THIS 😭) so most of what we know about their relationship is secondhand from Junot's wife, Laure Junot's (Duchesse d'Abrantes) memoirs. She's also not the most reliable person so it's possible she might heavily exaggerated on some stuff

As for the letters, it's always been up for debate why Napoleon wanted them gone but my personal headcanon is they must've been written in a very romantic tone... and Napoleon was so heavily trying to suppress his feelings for Junot and burning those letters was a way of burying their relationship once and for all

OKAY, SO A BRIEF HISTORY ON NAPJUNO!!

Junot's fated meeting with Napoleon began in 1793! He was already promoted to a segreant when they met and Napoleon was already a General at the age of 24(!). It was during the Siege of Toulon that Naps had asked for someone who had beautiful handwriting to dictate a letter and Junot volunteered to write what he dictated before a cannon fire sprayed it with dirt. Naps was so impressed by his coolness that he made Junot his secretary and Aide-de-camp, and soon they'd become inseparable

soon after Toulon, Napoleon was accused of treason for his connections to Augustin Robespierre and was jailed. Junot , of course freaking out about this wrote him letter to offer an escape but Naps declined.

^ this illustration by Jacques Onfoy de Bréville represents one of their "leisure moments" together circa 1794-95

so after a little while Napoleon got married and found his fortune, Junot continued to follow him to his legendary Italian and Egyptian campaigns. In Egypt, he was promoted to General but he was actually not too happy with this since this means he'll be away from Napoleon often. There's also this famous (or infamous?) incident where he challenged General Lanusse to a duel ,simply because he opposed Napoleon's leadership , with this words :

«We must fight; it is essential that only one of us survive. I hate you because you hate the man that I love and admire as much as God, if not more»

sounds like a chivalric romance doesn't it? :3 It was also during this campaign there were rumours within the army comparing Naps and Junot to "Hadrian and Antinous" . of course Junot does nothing to dispel those rumours 🤓 Poor guy got wounded in the stomach and Naps didn't visit him until the last minute.

Napoleon wasn't able to take Junot with him when he left Egypt and by the time Junot made it back to France in 1800, Napoleon was already First Consul and the power differences between them already put a strain on their relationship. This was further exacerbated once Naps became Emperor.

When Naps sent Junot to Portugal , he wrote a bunch of desperate letters begging him to reappoint him as his aide-de-camp again and Napoleon once confronted to Junot's wife about the letters he wrote to him (I'm like 99% sure it probably sounded more romantic than the ones he wrote to her) . it got to the point that Laure Junot ahd to admit that Junot possibly loved Napoleon more than her and their children.

Junot was often sent away from Napoleon during from like c. 1806-1810ish? and didn't interact much except by correspondence (I think) I'm going to skip over the Portugal /Spain period

Okay so by the Russian Campaign of 1812, Junot pretty much fell out of favour from Naps and the consequences of Junot's actions almost completely destroyed their relationship. By this time period, Junot's mental and physical health was very, very fragile from his campaigns in Portugal & Spain and Napoleon was no longer the Napoleon he knew back in their youth. Napoleon was furious and even shamed him on the military bulletin. Junot was devastated at this and the thought of losing Napoleon's friendship was unbearable after 20 years of being devoted to him.

After he returned to France from Russia, there are several anecdotes mentioning how he would wanderlessly mutter out loud that  “The Emperor no longer loves me” in his apartments😭 Napoleon's love for him was all that mattered😭😭💔

There's this scene where Duroc (Napoleon's Grand Marshal of the Palace) and another friend visited Junot to comfort him and this happened:

Junot obviously didn't believe the Emperor still loved him of course💔

Soon after spending some time resting and with his family, he was appointed Governor of Illyria. (I think Naps sent him there because he wanted him out of France but Idk). His insanity finally set in and there's this infamous incident where Junot attended the ball completely naked except for his medals and hat and his battle wounds were on full display...

Soon after that, he had to be forcefully be sent back to his father's home in Montbard. It was there where he committed suicide by jumping out the window.

💔

Junot's last letter to Napoleon is heartbreaking by the way....

“I who love you with the affection of a savage for the sun, I who am entirely yours. Well then: This eternal war that we must fight for you, I WANT NO MORE OF IT! I WANT PEACE! I want finally to repose my tired head, my sore limbs … to enjoy that which I earned … with my BLOOD! The blood of an honest man, of a good Frenchman, of a true patriot. I therefore ask, at last, for that tranquility that I earned through twenty-two years of effective service and seventeen wounds from which my blood has flowed for my country, and for your glory. 

Like I mentioned in the beginning, soon after the news of Junot's demise reached the public, Napoleon immediately sent someone to his house in Paris where his wife and brother-in-law were at and forcibly searched through Junot’s home to seize and burn his letters.

Oh yeah there's more but I'll leave it at that for now </3 LIKE WHAT THE HELL NAPS WHY DID YOU BURN THE LETTERS 😭😭Like they must've been fucking crazy man,,, omg sorry this keeps me up at night 😭

they make me so

Junot's ending was sooo tragic.... he was definitely a Greek tragedy-esque figure😢 He possibly died believing Napoleon hated him when that wasn't the case. Napoleon, despite reprimanding Junot very harshly for Junot's actions (non-actions?) during the Russian campaign, he still had a soft spot for him.

I also think of like how his life would've been better without meeting Napoleon. But also thinking again how much Junot treasured his meeting with Napoleon.... ough they're so painful sdkjskdljdhljhdjfhdkjhfdj excuse me while I combust

NapJuno was basically like painful unrequited love slow burn over 2 decades . Or maybe it wasn't completely unrequited? I like to think Napoleon was in denial and constantly tried to suppress his feelings for Junot 😔😔😔 anyway Junot was so delulu... (he's my precious delulu cat) he kept hoping Napoleon would still love him like he used too pre-Emperor days. Of course those days will never come back. I guess he was always living in the past while Naps moved on 🥲💔

well even if Napoleon doesn't love him at least I do 😤

as my friend @ promises-of-paradise once said, I think Junot was almost definitely romantically obsessed with Napoleon. Like actual romantic love (I'm not even being delusional this is what I truly believe). Whether they actually did anything together is up for debate, but it’s clear that Junot’s feelings for Naps were a lot more intense than a regular friendship.

also I highly recommend reading these posts regarding Junot and NapJuno's relationship:

The NapJuno bible of course: https://erenow.org/modern/napoleonic-friendship-military-fraternity-intimacy-and-sexuality/4.php

BTW THERE'S A NAPJUNO RPF WRITTEN AND PUBLISHED IN A FRENCH MAGAZINE BACK IN 1926!!!! I JUST NEED TO FIND THE LINK (it's also in French)

and Laure Junot's memoirs! it's available on the internet and she (and imo rightfully) suggests Napoleon and Junot were possibly incredibly intimate during their broke days. Girl was the OG napjuno shipper istg

~~

If any of my fellow NapJuno fanatics want to add info about them more please do so!!! I'm probably forgetting some stuff 😭

[annabelle--cane]

hmm okay to round up some current disparate tmagp thoughts into one place:

-> the fear taxonomy: I'm not quite sure where I sit on the desires theory currently, but I think it's worth noting that while both of our case subjects from the first episode were explicitly afraid of the spooky things happening to them, none of the rest have been, and I think it's really interesting that tom the horror blogger's whole problem was that he was so desensitized to fear it made him foolhardy (the exact thing our lovely ms georgina barker overcompensated so hard to avoid). yes, you could pick probably any archives statement and try to frame it around a desire instead of a fear because that's how character motivations work, but I don't think it's wrong to point out that since episode two all of our subjects have been remarkably chill about the Horrors happening to them. I'm not totally onboard with the desires at time of writing, I think there a few details that don't quite line up with that idea, but I'm still keeping a pin in the theory.

I also don't think it's wrong to point out that things like "music so hauntingly beautiful it makes a crowd tear itself to bloody pieces" and "paranoia and eye-related gore popping up in conjunction to the magnus institute" are familiar scenarios and seem to match up to the entities as we know them. those are very specific motifs connected to very specific types of Horrors and I think saying it's random coincidence that we're seeing them again is a bit of a weird take.

-> norris, chester, and augustus. in-universe, these voices appeared out of nowhere about a year ago, and one of the central mysteries set up so far is "what the hell is up with all this weird tech?", I think it is a perfectly reasonable assumption to think these voices are part of the mystery and not just an excuse to get jonny and alex's voices in the show. if that were the case, why would there be a third voice? yes, this podcast is meant to be comprehensible to new listeners, but I don't think that rules out any direct ties to archives, I think part of the function of having fresh protagonists who don't know anything about the events of archives is that, if the audience needs to learn anything about the first show, they can learn it along with a viewer-surrogate character.

personally, I think it very unlikely that the voices are literally jon, martin, and jonah's actual consciousnesses trapped in computers, I think those characters' stories are done and there's something funkier happening here (neither them nor not them but a secret third thing, yknow), but dismissing any idea that the voices are related to the characters, again, feels like a weird take.

-> gwen bouchard. honestly I feel like the way the production team have treated gwen's connection to elias vs the way some fans have come at is kind of illustrative. I've seen a couple of groups of fans get weirdly smug about the idea that we don't know gwen is related to elias, her name could just be a red herring, meanwhile on the tmagp post-launch stream everyone there took it as obvious that gwen is a bouchard and thus related to elias. not everything is red herrings, guys. it would be an extremely weird writing move to set up a bunch of stuff with clear links and parallels to archives and have it all be meaningless.

[hollowed-theory-hall]

so in your fic there's Sirius/Barty Jr ship. i reread your analytics of their character and pretty understand the connection. but i would still like to read opinion about their ship 👀

Glad you enjoy my various writing!

Yeah, okay, so Sirius/Barty Jr is a little rare pair my beta reader and I came up with for a different fic that never really got written, but we liked it so much it made it into my current fic, A Matter of Chance.

I'll note that it's gonna take quite some time in A Matter of Chance until Sirius and Barty actually meet and even longer until they get together in any meaningful way (but also my writing plans are super vague, so I don't really know). So there's some waiting until that tag is gonna be relevant. That being said, why I ship them and my thoughts on the ship:

So, I wrote a bunch about Sirius, and a bit less about Barty, but they have, like, a lot in common:

They're both incredibly loyal.

They both suffered Azkaban.

The way Sirius described Barty's father always struck me as him being familiar with the situation: "should've spent more time at home" and might've been showing the bitterness towards Orion.

They both have reason to hate Crouch Sr for sending them to the dementors.

They both care about Harry (pretty shocking on Barty's part, but it truly seems like he does) and are as involved as they can be.

both of them are hands-on in their approach, of, well, literally anything.

I feel Sirius and Barty would get each other's sense of humor that's a bit on the crueler side too. They won't make the other feel guilty over stupid shit.

They also communicate in a similarly straightforward way. They say what they think pretty damn clearly when they're free to do so.

So, as you can see, they have a surprising amount of things in common. As for Barty being a Death Eater, well, I illustrated in my posts about him that I don't think he was that much of a loyal Death Eater and I don't think he tortured the Longbottoms (it's outright stated in the books he wasn't caught with the Lestranges, but with a different group of Death Eaters that walked free!). I think Barty was a Death Eater more as a teenage rebellion than truly believing in everything (though he likely isn't a fan of Muggles). Like, the way Sirius went all in on Dumbledore and the Order as rebellion, Barty did in the opposite direction.

I don't think Barty really killed and tortured many people, but unlike Draco or Regulus I think he could if he felt he needed to, he isn't as sadistic as Bellatrix (or Sirius, honestly). He's tamer but still colder and more willing to respond with violence than Draco or Lucius.

The main quote I'm basing this ship on is the entire conversation in which Sirius talks about Barty in GoF:

Sirius smiled grimly. “Crouch’s own son was caught with a group of Death Eaters who’d managed to talk their way out of Azkaban. Apparently they were trying to find Voldemort and return him to power.” “Crouch’s son was caught?” gasped Hermione. “Yep,” said Sirius, throwing his chicken bone to Buckbeak, flinging himself back down on the ground beside the loaf of bread, and tearing it in half. “Nasty little shock for old Barty, I’d imagine. Should have spent a bit more time at home with his family, shouldn’t he? Ought to have left the office early once in a while . . . gotten to know his own son.” He began to wolf down large pieces of bread. “Was his son a Death Eater?” said Harry. “No idea,” said Sirius, still stuffing down bread. “I was in Azkaban myself when he was brought in. This is mostly stuff I’ve found out since I got out. The boy was definitely caught in the company of people I’d bet my life were Death Eaters — but he might have been in the wrong place at the wrong time, just like the house-elf.” “Did Crouch try and get his son off?” Hermione whispered. Sirius let out a laugh that was much more like a bark. [...] Crouch’s fatherly affection stretched just far enough to give his son a trial, and by all accounts, it wasn’t much more than an excuse for Crouch to show how much he hated the boy . . . then he sent him straight to Azkaban.” “He gave his own son to the dementors?” asked Harry quietly. “That’s right,” said Sirius, and he didn’t look remotely amused now. “I saw the dementors bringing him in, watched them through the bars in my cell door. He can’t have been more than nineteen. They took him into a cell near mine. He was screaming for his mother by nightfall. He went quiet after a few days, though . . . they all went quiet in the end . . . except when they shrieked in their sleep. . . .” For a moment, the deadened look in Sirius’s eyes became more pronounced than ever, as though shutters had closed behind them. “So he’s still in Azkaban?” Harry said. “No,” said Sirius dully. “No, he’s not in there anymore. He died about a year after they brought him in.” “He died?” “He wasn’t the only one,” said Sirius bitterly. “Most go mad in there, and plenty stop eating in the end. They lose the will to live. You could always tell when a death was coming, because the dementors could sense it, they got excited. That boy looked pretty sickly when he arrived. [...] Wasted away just like the boy. Crouch never came for his son’s body. The dementors buried him outside the fortress; I watched them do it.”

Sirius talks about Crouch Sr and Barty's relationship. He knows a surprising lot about Barty's backstory and childhood for someone who didn't even know for sure if he was a Death Eater and only found these things out after he escaped. Like, where did he learn all this from (sure, he likely read old newspapers, but how much of this information is actually likely to be there?). He also talks about both Bartys with a certain familiarity "ol' Barty". He's dull and bitter over Barty's death, he watched the only "funeral" Barty got, probably the only "attendant" besides the dementors. And he talks about hearing Barty screaming until he died in Azkaban... Yeah, I like that angst, I'm so here for an Azkaban romance (and post-Azkaban romance).

And, like, Barty was in Regulus' year, they probably joined the Death Eaters around the same time, maybe even together. And Sirius probably didn't talk to Barty at all his own when they were in school, he had no reason to, but he knew his little brother hung out with him occasionally. And from the quote above it's clear Sirius felt sorry for him, felt sympathy for someone else he thought might've been innocent. Someone in the same situation as he is that he might've felt protective over, like he could succeded in saving Regulus this time. And Barty has no one, basically, no friends, no family, just haunting memories, a situation Sirius is so familiar with. And Sirius is like a sorta friend, he's basically Regulus if you squint (not at all but at first), they share an experience (and hatred for Crouch Sr) that could feel so isolating when speaking to someone who doesn't know. He's someone Barty could potentially trust since neither of them trusts the ministry, or Voldemort, or Dumbledore. They can be in their own little corner where they have no one (well, Harry is there, but no other adults. Remus has way more faith in Dumbledore than Sirius does)

So, imagine this: Sirius lost everyone, he lost James, he lost his brother, he and Barty are in the same boat. So, like, imagine them talking quietly through the bars, each treating the other as a Regulus stand-in even if their personalities are more similar to each other than to Regulus. This grows into somewhat getting to know each other, something that's almost friendship. A cold comfort in the coldness of Azkaban. Then, Barty seemingly stops talking to Sirius and dies soon after, and Sirius doesn't know what to make of it. After Barry dies, he starts staying in Padfoot form more and more.

And then, post-Azkaban, they gonna meet again and bond over escaping Azkaban and caring about Harry.

There'll be healing. There'll be bad coping mechanisms. There'll be a desperation for any familiar connection and a lot of dark humor. They're on the run from both Voldemort and the ministry. And, like, if anyone thinks Sirius Orion Black won't be willing to help get away from Crouch Sr's body, they don't know Sirius Black.

Like, I think they'd just get each other, but also keep making incorrect assumptions about each other at the same time all the while being desperate for what the other represents — people they lost, time they lost. I think it's a fun concept with angst potential.

They're also both incredibly intelligent and skilled wizards (Barty tricked the Goblet of Fire, which is no easy feat). I think they could see each other, eventually after they get over the initial mess of shared losses, as equals and partners in crime. They just have such a vibe, idk. Like, I imagine them pseudo-parenting Harry together, and all I can come up with would be hilarious, but also, like, surprisingly good for Harry. Harry needs more people in his life who would appreciate him for him, more people that'll raise his ridiculously low self-esteem.

Do you know who's the first character to tell Harry he has talents? Barty Jr.

“Well, I’m not going to tell you,” said Moody gruffly. “I don’t show favoritism, me. I’m just going to give you some good, general advice. And the first bit is — play to your strengths.” “I haven’t got any,” said Harry, before he could stop himself. “Excuse me,” growled Moody, “you’ve got strengths if I say you’ve got them. Think now. What are you best at?”

(GoF, 344)

Basically, I think they'd be messed up, but also make it work under their specific circumstances.

(Can you tell I love trauma bonding ships?)

[nights-at-crystarium]

Fragments - episodes 31-35 author notes

You can find similar breakdown posts on older episodes in my pinned!

The chasm in their understanding of what makes Vivi tick.

The stakes in this scene seem low and the twins are just overdramatizing the danger for the sake of unwinding and being silly, right? Yesn't. One wrong move or word, and they join those leafmen scattered all over the place.

Finding the line between bad actor and caring sister.

Of course Alisaie wants to hang out with Vivi. She doesn't want to admit that to herself, let alone risk looking desperate in her brother's eyes. Tsundere moment. It's been a while since they've. Had a rest. Between rescuing Minfilia from Laxan Loft and making their way to Il Mheg. Alphinaud, at least in my hc, isn't as physically durable, but definitely as stubborn and proud as Alisaie, so he wouldn't simply agree to chill out for a moment. Alisaie makes him tunnel-vision her bad (?) acting and openly throwing the game for supposedly selfish reasons, while she gets what she wanted, AND forces Alphi to sit his ass down.

I’m sorry but I really need to point out that her ahoge did, in fact, launch into the stratosphere.

More under the cut~

....Can you blame her tho.

Vivi’s shirt’s a bit more plain than usual, he needed to wear something practical under his crystarium guard disguise in Laxan Loft.

The flashback in episodes 32-33 has no dialogue per se, only monologues, to emphasize how disconnected they are.

Technically both vivis are real, but Exarch’s memories are definitely heavily skewed. He’d only known Vivi during the CT quests, in this story it’s a month or two in summer, during which literally nothing bad happens, sans the finale. Alisaie, however, got lucky to experience Vivi during Stormblood, his absolute low.

Exarch and Alisaie sit on opposing sides of the bias, one wears pink glasses, delusional and bluepilled, the other one’s (heh) redpilled, perhaps a bit too much. Hence Alisaie feels the whiplash when her jerkass woobie friend suddenly acts mellow (back in the present), still she has the expertise to tell that he’s not affected by a fae spell or anything.

Full page because I’m so proud of the paneling here, simple as this trick is, these speech bubbles blocking Vivi from sight neatly illustrate that Alisaie just babbles away, paying no heed to his state.

With the power of flashbacks and stories told by one character to another, I’m able to revisit any moment in their past whenever I please. I didn’t commit to a linear story because there was no story! Well, just the outlines. Vivi as a character began in ShB because I really needed to fuck that old man, I started writing down the lil scenes loosely connected by the canon plot, and that’s how the whole concept of Fragments came to be.

It may not work for everyone, but my secret sauce’s that you don’t have to begin at the beginning. Make a guy, put him in a situation, then ask a lot of whys and hows to expand his story backward and forward.

Keeping the past events for later allows me to flesh things out at a leisurely pace. This Alisaie flashback is actually an iteration, originally I’d planned to have Vivi stand alone and just think the broody thoughts, and that was supposed to be the transition between ARR and ShB arcs. I grow more writing muscle as I go, and I’m infinitely happy that I avoided that angsty infodump.

Okay this’s becoming a big fat tangent, but I wanted to acknowledge another pitfall: overusing a character as a mere exposition tool. I wouldn’t do this for, say, Tataru or Y’shtola. Being THE flashback haver makes sense for Alisaie because a) they’re close with Vivi, b) her worldview and opinion on Vivi are changing in ShB, she’s a smart lil thing who would slow down and reflect when appropriate, c) she has a distinct arc in my comic, and knowing what’s going on inside that elf brain will give you the most entertainment out of her actions in the present moment.

I’m new to writing and very excited about the story that comes together as we speak, so I like to show around my kitchen. Please lemme know if you enjoy this. I don’t know if I’m parroting the boring 101s, or if this’s actually useful to someone.

“Meals made for me” YEA HE CAN’T COOK. Well, barely.

New sharp outfit, procured by our most magnanimous branch. The “tail” will help me draw the upcoming Titania fight, it adds fluidity to his movements.

*presses the upgrade button*

There's a lot happening in his head that's not being shown. I hope at least some readers wonder who or what he leaves behind in his mind's eye in this moment. What we know for sure is that he doesn’t take too long to make a decision.

Not sure if subtle, but I did try the breadcrumbing:

Unfortunately for everyone, including himself :’>

I love this one especially because, instead of telling that about himself, Vivi asks Ardbert, kinda gauging his wol experience against the other wol’s.

Episode 34 really shook people awake and reminded that we’re off the msq rails with this story. I loved the response it evoked in the tags, lots of thoughtful rambling about being a hero.

Fae temptation jokes and all, but Feo Ul really says what Vivi needs to say out loud to himself.

Normalize prioritizing self-care over world-saving.

Vivi genuinely cares about Feo Ul. That’s unusual. It might be my storytelling mistake that I didn’t show much of his typical indifference before this scene, unless you count the episodes where he does this

instead of hurrying the fuck up with the msq. Or, perhaps, it’s okay, since this gets plenty of attention later on. You won’t miss the fact that he isn’t eager to set himself on fire to keep others warm. Feo Ul just lucked their way into his heart, and, as a result, he approaches the Titania fight with unusual consideration.

/srs mode on ^

Remember how I just talked about developing this story in all directions at once? I planned Vivi to have this demeanor during the early days of writing Fragments. Like, most of the time. He’d be a broody bitch, get slowly thawed by Exarch’s kindness, and... That’d be it. In veeeeeery broad strokes, this’s still the case, but the current iteration has much more nuance.

Vivi and Titania’s likeness has no deep meaning, take it or leave it. Vivi cares about appearances, he was bound to notice this. Feo Ul can see souls, visuals are secondary to them. But Vivi, being himself, must doubt and question everything.

He moves fast and thinks a lot as the adrenaline speeds him up.

Notice how he lets Titania speak and remains quiet. This’s common in most fights: he doesn’t indulge with chats or banter those who he sees as mere targets to destroy. There’s like a point of no return, if an enemy poses no threat and can be talked out of dying, Vivi will speak, sadly he enters this fight knowing that Titania has to die no matter what.

Once he’s familiarized himself with the situation, and realized that Titania’s more than just a mindless husk, things change up a bit. But for now, he just runs in circles, analyzes the situation, and overthinks about their visual resemblance :’>

Sorry not sorry but unintentional reference x’DD

To be fair Vivi IS being a magical boy in this miniarc so this works lmao.

Wrapping up on this note, thanks for sticking with me and reading till the end~

[skeletonmob]

Catharsis - Chapter 1

Merry Christmas! This is an original story for my fantasy world, Ouranos. At the advice of my friends and some kind internet strangers, I'll be cross posting it here and on AO3. Illustrations will also be added as they are finished. I hope you enjoy!

Masterpost

Chap 2

Word count ~ 2470

Reading time ~ 12 min.

Apr 16

We were watching over Rye's daughter for the weekend while he and his husband celebrated their anniversary.

"Thanks for doing this, Cloak."

"No worries."

He transitioned after Megan was born. He hasn't officially decided on a name yet, but he initially wanted to be called Tyler or Tyrone. Something along those lines. So we gave him the nickname 'Rye' and it's stuck ever since.

He gave Megan a big hug and a goodbye kiss on her forehead.

"Now you be good, okay?"

"Okay! I love you daddy!"

"I love you too, sweetie pie."

After we saw Rye off, Megan immediately ran to the guest room, excited for all the adventures to come. The only plan we had today was to go to the grocery store. So after we got her settled in, we pulled out the wagon and headed on over.

It was a beautiful spring day. Big, fluffy clouds drifted lazily across the sky while birdsong zipped through the air. As you passed by specific houses, the air would briefly be filled with an intense lilac perfume, or the delicate scent of apple blossoms. Everyone was out and about either doing laundry, getting their gardens ready, or taking their own kids somewhere. I was also a bit surprised at how many tulips were still in bloom. They usually only last a week before the petals start to fall off.

(temporary image)

“Orange!”

I looked over to see a toddler enthusiastically pointing at me. Their grandma was taking them out for a walk.

“Yes, they’re very colorful aren’t they?”

“Hi, orange!”

I smiled and waved back and continued walking. Both me and my husband are daemons, which are about as common as Beastfolk. So nobody really takes notice. It’s mainly little kids that love to point out that your skin is their favorite color or that your horns are all fun and wiggly. For and Dagger specifically, kids love to point out our big fancy hats and that we look like an orange and a lemon respectively. Both of us cut off our horns back in high school since they were kind of a hassle to deal with.

After a good ten minute walk, we finally arrived at the store. This block of the neighborhood is where all the food's located. Overlooking the parking lot were trees and shrubs, and beyond that was a food court. A large, horseshoe shaped building that contained a Waffle House, a coffee shop, a Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory, a Century Stationary, a local kitchenware store, and a vegetarian cafe. In front of it was a carousel, which Megan immediately noticed.

"It's a – it's a – it's a spinny horse!"

"Yeah, you wanna go on the spinny horse?"

"Yes!"

I turned to my husband, Dagger.

"So, who gets the honor?"

"I don't mind either. We only need, like, a dozen things, right?"

"I'm . . . actually in the mood to walk around for a bit, so you take her."

"Okay! Horse time it is!"

"Horse time!"

Dagger lifted Megan out of the wagon and she immediately bolted for the carousel. He kept up with a brisk walk and after making sure they were okay, I locked up the wagon by the bicycle rack and headed inside.

---

The gyros we made for dinner were a big hit with Megan. Though like most kids, I think she'd enjoy basically anything you'd give her. I'd also made some falafel and extra tzatziki for it. The news kept us company as we ate.

"Well, it finally happened! After over a decade of setbacks, the National Recycling Company of Colombia has finally been created. Plans for the company go back as far as 2005, but these were put on the back burner from 2007 to 2015 – during the Bullion War. When the war ended, the plans were brought back out as a way for the country to recover economically and as a point of national pride. Colombia is know worldwide for its coffee beans, and has been trying to become more environmentally friendly to help protect this industry."

"Like many other recycling facilities, the National Recycling Company will recycle people's trash by transmuting it into various metals. To start out, the company will focus on gold, lithium, and cobalt, all of which are of immense importance to the tech industry. Economists are expecting the prices of these metals to stabilize and the price of -"

"Are they bad guys?" Megan pointed at the screen, "When daddy plays games, there's always lots of bad guys.

As the news segment finished up, it was showing a clip of politicians and economists in black business suits clapping their hands. It took me a moment to figure out what she was saying.

"Oh, they're not secret agents. They're just grown ups wearing fancy clothes."

"But they look like bad guys!"

"It's just a uniform they're wearing. It's like when your daddy has to wear special clothes to go to work."

"You have to play dress up to go work?"

"Yeah, lots of people have to do that, like your dad, and nurses, and firefighters. All those guys on TV were doing the same thing, so they're not bad guys."

"I like playing dress up!"

Megan went back to munching on the falafel she had. I wasn't sure if she understood what I was trying to say, but I suppose she guessed that if someone like to play dress up, then they couldn't be a bad guy.

Apr 17

Cornflower Park is a three mile long park built on the coast of Cornflower Lake. It was built back in the fifties, after the Great War, to prevent the lake from being filled with mansions and vacation homes. Many neighborhoods and towns along the coast followed suit over the years. Since there were so many stretches of park, people eventually decided to connect them all. So now, the name 'Cornflower Park' refers to the long, winding, unbroken stretch of grass that covers nearly the entirety of the eastern coastline.

We got off the train at University and were greeted by a seeming endless expanse of green, dotted with trees, apartments, and the occasional ice cream shop.

"Park!"

"Yeah, the playground we're going to is this way!"

"Is it a – a super fun playground?"

"Yeah, there's lots of fun animals!"

"My daddy – when my daddy goes to work, he gets to play with lots of doggies!"

"That's why were taking you there!"

We walked along the boardwalk for a while, Megan's excitement letting her keep up with us. Me and Dagger had passed by this playground a few times and thought it'd be the perfect place for her. It was a large, square wooden fort that enclosed a large, tree shaped jungle gym. All the slides were designed to look like snakes, and there were wood cutouts of monkeys and alligators and other animals spread all over. There were even water misters to help set the scene, but they weren't on. They're probably mainly used in the summer.

Both me and Dagger kept watch over Megan and took turns playing with her. Dusty – Rye's husband – is a zookeeper and also a werewolf. So Megan really loves animals, especially dogs. As we played, she told us fun animal facts and stories about the zoo.

"There's – there's this one kitty at the zoo, where my daddy works, her name is Rose. She's really big! She's yellow with lots of black spots - "

"She's a cheetah." I said.

"Yes! And all the other nice people at the zoo say that she's really nervous. So even though they're all really nice, Rose doesn't like to play with them."

"Oh, that sounds really sad! I bet all the people there would love to play with her."

"When – when Rose doesn't want to play with nobody, the nice people at the zoo, where my daddy works, bring in a doggy! Her name is Goldie, like the Amimal Crossing character! She's yellow and also really big! So – so when she comes to visit, I get to play with a doggy and a kitty!"

We finished off our playground date by going down as many slides as many times as we could. Then we started walking along the promenade, looking for something to eat.

"Hey, can we find like, a fancy sports car or something?" Dagger asked.

"Why?"

He pointed to his horn ornaments. He was using magic to store all the static electricity from the slides.

"I need to discharge these guys."

"Is it that bad?"

"Well, the average static shock that you can feel is 20,000 volts. Multiply that by . . . a dozen, there's theoretically 240,000 volts in these."

"But it's resistance that actually kills you, right?"

"I'd rather not use a live test subject to find out."

Dagger's breathing became more labored as we continued walking. It's hard to explain since I'm so used to it, but using magic requires focus and concentration. Some types more than others. Like, if you want to use Moon magic to divine the future, you have to clear and calm your mind. You have to focus on the tarot cards, or pendulum, or whatever tool you're using. But if you want to use Mars magic, all you have to do is visualize fire, and then you can start throwing fireballs until the sun goes down. On this spectrum, Jupiter magic is on the higher end. Trying to control something as chaotic and unpredictable as electricity requires a lot of focus and concentration.

As we passed by a small parking lot, we found the perfect target: the Future Car. It was a 'car' advertised as 'the car of the future'. Aside from having a stupid tagline, it also looked really dumb. It was basically a trapezoid on wheels.

"Oh, thank fuck!" Dagger muttered under his breath.

He hobbled over to the 'car' as fast as he could, still trying to not preemptively discharge any electricity. He took a deep breath and steeled his nerves, then gently tapped his horns on the car. All the car doors swung open and the car alarm started blaring. I picked up Megan and started running as fast as I could, Dagger bolting in from behind. We rounded the corner of an apartment building, and with the parking lot out of view, we slowed down and caught our breath.

"Was that a bad guy car?" Megan wasn't entirely sure of what was going on.

"Uh . . ."

"Yes!" Dagger exclaimed, "You shouldn't trust anybody in a funny car like that, okay?"

"Okay." Megan was still unsure.

I put her down and we continued walking as casually as we could.

"I didn't expect it to be that flimsy." Dagger said after a minute.

"It's the first car that Fu – that Deader than Disco has ever designed. Honestly, it's probably the first thought he's ever had in his head."

Apr 18

Rye and Dusty were coming back this evening, just before dinner. There was plenty of time to visit the museum or the botanical gardens, but neither of us really had the energy for something like that. We decided to go out to lunch and spend some time walking around downtown Denver.

There's loads of restaurants, mostly concentrated in the area between 16th Street Mall and the University of Colorado. But neither of us really knew what we wanted to eat. We had gyros on Friday. Yesterday, we had Chinese for lunch and spaghetti for dinner. That mostly left us with pizza, hamburgers, and sandwiches, which felt really boring in that moment.

As we kept trying to find a restaurant we were in the mood for, we meandered across the Gateway building.

"Still a bit surprising that we let Fu – Deader than Disco headquarter here." Dagger said.

"I don't think anyone's taking him seriously after his divorce and all the other shit he's been up to. Plus, the company's been shifting towards home electronics, so the city probably thought it'd be fine."

"Didn't he basically cause the Bullion War?"

"Well . . . I think everyone just views him as some dumbass with too much money. Which is a dangerous combination, but still pretty manageable."

"I still think this is a Trojan horse situation."

"Well, it's not like you can't stop magic by flashing dollar bills at it."

As if on cue, a voice shouted from behind us.

"Hey!"

We turned to see a bearded man in a business suit stomping toward us. Dagger grabbed Megan and stepped off to the side.

"Did you fuckers mess with my car yesterday?"

As he closed in, I immediately noticed the fresh rose he had on his lapel. He was probably going to a bachelor's party or a business meeting, but that didn't matter right now.

"Yes." I said flatly, not taking my eyes off the rose.

"What the fuck!"

He was about grab me, but I quickly waved a burst of fire between us. He stepped back, frustrated.

"I paid 120 grand for that car!"

"For a metal box on wheels?"

"Goddammit! You better not touch my car again or else I'll make you pay for everything you did to it!"

"For setting of the car alarm?" Dagger interjected, "Also, if you can drop 120 grand on a car, I'd assume you could pay for the repairs."

The man looked at Dagger in disbelief, then continued his tirade.

"The fuck is wrong with you? You think that, just because you have all your hoity toity magic, that you can just walk over everyon - hrg ACK!"

The man had a hard, phlegmy coughing fit as the smell of burnt potpourri suddenly filled the air. Dagger tried to Mercury the rest of the smell away from me, though I still had to stifle a few coughs. As the man recovered, he grabbed me by the shoulders.

"The fuck was that?"

"Pyrolysis, the thermal decomposition of matter."

The man patted down his suit to search for any burn marks before noticing that his rose has vanished into thin air. He looked at me with a combination of frustration, anxiety, and bewilderment.

"You – you can do that?"

"I can demonstrate again if you want," I smiled, "I think your beard could use a bit of a trim."

There was a long pause. The man's face became more filled with anxiety as the extent of my magic became clear to him.

"Just don't touch my car again, please." He said in a low, desperate voice.

He quickly walked past us, towards whatever function he was supposed to be at.

"Do you just wanna get a pizza, since we can share it?" Dagger said after a moment.

"Sure."

We started walking back towards 16th Street Mall.

"Was he a bad guy?" Megan asked.

"He was a bad guy."

"But you defeated him! Just like my daddy!" Megan smiled.

"Yeah! Just like your dad!"

[imbecominggayer]

Writing Advice On Self-Harm (tw obvi)

Hi, even though this post is going to be about serious issues such as self-harm and suicidal ideation and all of that fun jazz, I am going to speaking about this topic with the same tone I always do. If that is considered offensive, just remember I am a person who has been sent to the crisis center and does self-harm :)

Remember, these are just my personal experiences. Everything is diverse and it's okay to mention that these experiences are not universal. HOWEVER, don't accuse me of lying about any of this shit!

TW: Talks About Self-Harm, Mental Illness, And Everything Related

Actual Introduction:

Despite the fact that whump and angst tend to include mention of suicidal thinking and self-harm, they rarely feel realistic in my own point of view. Obviously, there are various different motivations and actions for self-harm but I just want to see some of my own representation.

So here are some myths about self-harm and myths about mental illness in general since they tend to overlap.

A) Everyone Who Self-Harms And Thinks Of Suicide Is Mentally Ill

Yeah, this is pretty big misconception in the community so I just wanted to establish this.

Outside influences like unhealthy friend circles, stressful situations, and abuse which are linked yet not conclusive for mental illness can influence someone's desire to do self-harm.

While mental illness is a big motivator for self-harm, self-harm is just a coping mechanism. And not everyone who uses coping mechanisms are mentally ill

B) Self-Harm Can Only Happen Like [EXAMPLE]

There are various different ways of self-harming.

Personally, I tend to scratch my arms and specifically my left hand since my dominate hand is my right. It's also just an easy place to reach.

So I get a tinsy bit upset when the only "serious" type of self-harm is shown by cutting. Especially since I felt that the only way someone would ever take me seriously is by using a knife.

Remember, readers are going to be reading your shit so please try and diversify your self-harming from the physical and the mental since every single self-harm habit outside of "ritualistic cutting" tends to be judged as "less serious" or "not real".

Mental self-harm is real and self-destructive.

C) Self-Harm Is Dramatic

This may just be a me-thing but my self-harming mental struggle definitely isn't like how other people write it.

Genuinely, I treat self-harm like it's just another thing I do.

"Oh yeah, sometimes I write, do a bit of scratching, read a book, and watch youtube"

I self-harmed exclusively in public spaces since my self-harm is mostly conflated with my anxiety. And these people do not notice a thing. Genuinely. LIke, I have literally turned my entire hand red and bloody and nobody noticed.

It's just that nobody ever suspects it since people don't think of scratching casually in class when they think of self-harm.

When I was forced to go the crisis center since I expressed planning of suicide, I was making jokes the entire time.

When I shared a room with this amazing person(they/them) who had bipolar disorder. We just talked about our sexualities, job dreams, and watched The Amazing World Of Gumball.

I miss them.

GRAND CONCLUSION:

The point of this last section is to illustrate the fact that those with mental illness aren't removed from society in the way authors tend to write them.

In the minds of authors, once you express possible symptoms of a mental illness you become this melodramatic inhuman spectacle of misery.

I'm pretty normal. I have hobbies that have no deep psychological justification. I have a family that isn't just pure trauma in a trench coat. I have thoughts of normal sadness, happiness, peace, and anger.

I just also happen to self-harm sometimes.

Again, this section might be problematic and bad but it's just how I feel. And there is no such thing as a "problematic feeling". All there exists are problematic actions.

TO REITERATE, IF YOU DON'T AGREE WITH ME THAT IS FINE. I AM NOT THE GOD OF MENTAL STRUGGLE. I JUST WANTED TO THROW OUT MY OPINION.

sorry for offending anyone :(

[purgemarchlockdown]

What Animal Can Tell Us About Amane: The Purge March Remaster.

(CWs: Cults, Child Abuse) (Note: This is sort of a sequel to this post, you don't need to read it to understand this though as I reiterate and expand on the points I make there due to the new information Purge March provided.)

Purge March is out now and has added and recontextualized a lot of elements in Magic and Amane Momose's story as a whole! So let's talk about it in relation to Amane's cover of Animal!

Cats

As I said in my original post, Animal has a very consistent cat motif. It's present in both the original illustration and the lyrics itself.

When it comes to Cats they tend to be viewed as signs of good luck and protection in Japan. They're also well known as cute, if not a bit lazy, aloof, and mischievous, housepets. Cats are, generally speaking, very well-loved animals

This is not the cat Animal talks about. The cat in animal is wild. A cat so deprived of love that it will do anything to get a taste of it. However it's wild nature and unwillingness to hold back make it lose out of the love it so desperately craves due to the "danger" it presents.

Now, Animal is a very suggestive song, but I'd argue that's actually to it's benefit if were viewing it in context with Amane's story for reasons I'll get to later.

For know, let's talk about the cat that Amane is known for.

Unlike what most of us expected, the Cat in Magic IS an actual cat, and I wanna draw some attention to how Amane gets paralleled with it.

Now Magic is it's own wild animal even before Purge March so we won't talk in great detail about these parallels, however it is important to note that in Purge March, the cat has a collar.

Not only that but its sitting with a bunch of junk, old furniture, tires, and something that looks like a TV, another notable motif in Magic.

This cat was someone's pet, something that was supposed to be taken care of, and yet was abandoned. This cat is ultimately implied to have been killed because someone else took care of it. Since the mere idea of it being shown love and affection was apparently so bad for these people.

Not only that but the injuries shown on the cat in Magic are not the cat's injuries, there Amane's.

Here's the injuries of the Cat in Magic, as you might of noticed the Cat in Purge March has a scratch on it's leg and is breathing well.

Amane is the one with bruises on her face and was shown hyperventilating due to being waterboarded.

It's both a very literal cat and a metaphor, Amane is portraying herself through the cat in Magic. While also downplaying her actually pain in Magic.

But we'll get to that in a bit.

All this to say, Animal's cat motif fits very well into Amane's prestablished parallels with them.

Which means we can move onto:

Vulgarity

The 2nd rule of her cult is this:

’Tis ordained, thou shall discard vulgarity

It's the rule we see Amane mess up at the start, and is the only flag not shown flying in the anticipatory shots.

Now the rule is pretty vague as we don't know what exactly is defined as vulgar, and that might be the point.

Amane, over the course of Milgram, has insisted, very hard, that she does not like frivolous things. That she is a very good girl who is strong in the face of temptations.

However a lot of things hint otherwise, for example a recurring line in Magic is her asking if it's alright to spoil herself.

Dear wise one, Am I worthy? Is it ok to spoil myself?

In the same song she asks if it's okay to be "weak" the weakness most likely being this Want for "vulgarity" (and also escaping pain but we will get to that in a moment.)

Dear wise one, Is this ok? Is it ok to be weak sometimes?

We also have her T1 Interrogation questions, where for Q5 someone asked about Amusement parks.

Q: When you go to an amusement park, what do you like to ride? A: That is a place I should not go to.

Not, "I haven't been to" or "I don't want to" but "I should not" implying a rule.

In same Interrogation we also get Q3 and Q17 which add even more information:

Q3:

Q: If you were allowed to do anything, what would you want to do? A: Nothing really. I am not lacking anything.

Q:17

Q: What would you do if the world ends tomorrow? If everything ends? A: Then, I might do all sorts of things I have never done before.

These seem contradictory at first, but it seems like the condition of the world ending that changes her answer. If the world is ending then the theoretical consequences of her actions aren't as severe. While Q3 doesn't state an ending, meaning that there is Always a risk of Punishment.

This is also very complementary with Q12

Q: What is the meaning of life? A: I think it is something you learn for the first time when you look behind yourself when it ends. I do not want to have regrets then, so I live on with all my might.

Amane doesn't Want to regret anything, so it make sense if she knows everything is going to end she'll do Everything She Wants.

We already know that she wants to eat cake due to this timeline interaction.

21/06/27

Shidou: Amane, I heard it was your birthday today. I asked Es-kun if we could get this cake to give to you…… Amane: I don’t need it. I’ll gratefully accept your well-wishes, but I don’t eat things like that. Also…… Shidou-san, I can’t say I’m especially fond of the way you assume that all children will love frivolous things like this. Shidou: ………… Is that so… I apologise. I’m sure everyone else will be happy to eat it, so don’t worry about it. Sorry for intruding. Amane: ………… ……cake……

Timeline also gives us Amane wanting to pet Jackalope but pretending she doesn't. Which might be because of this and also might be because of what happened to the cat.

But we also have Purge Marge and Magic's visual presentation, which put Amane in cute and pretty costumes with fun props.

Magic especially is very indulgent. With Amane getting a really cute Magical Girl-esqe outfit in it and it being presented like a low-budget kids TV program.

Also, the TV found with the Cat in Purge March is possibly the same TV Amane was using at the end of it since Magic is full of Very Literal Metaphors. It's possible it was thrown out because of this presumed "vulgarity."

I could list examples for days but let's go back to Animal, as these concepts of vulgarity and acceptability is what makes Animal's suggestiveness an asset to it's storytelling. Animal Is a Vulgar Song, undeniably so.

The mask comes off and the beast comes out, I do it wild even if it’s ugly

It's the exact kind of song Amane would never in a million years be allowed to listen to! It might even be touted as an example of the sinfulness of the world, and that's why it works!

Amane is not a good girl, she admits it herself in Magic. She's someone who wants cute outfits and nice food and love and happiness and a bunch of other things as is Denied Them because Wanting in the first place is considered a sin.

Sin and Virtue

Sin and Virtue are a big part of Amane's story.

What is Virtuous?

What is not?

And what can be presented as sinful so you have an excuse to hurt someone?

As a song, Animal also toys with these concepts.

You want me to bite you? Accelerating beat, let’s do both the good and bad

What is acceptable and what is not? The character singing talks a lot about how disobedient they are and how that's undesirable.

The mask comes off and the beast comes out, I do it wild even if it’s ugly I can’t do sit, I can’t even do stay, purr until I go

As said previously, Amane Momose is not a good girl. At least not by the standards of her cult. She is simply too sinful, she is not close enough to god. In a world that wants her to be a dog, she is a cat. She is a horrible sinful person in a righteous world.

She is a bad, bad girl who wants so many sinful things who also wants desperately to be good so she can be cherished and loved and Not Abused.

Even I can say "I'm sorry" Even I have hope I swear! I'm going to be a good girl now! That's it!

She's Treated as someone who is undesirable, treated as someone who is sinful. And as much as she Tries she's unable to change that.

After you cry, repent, and kneel, it’s now your turn to say that hopeless “I’m sorry”

Amane also cares A Lot about having a righteous reason to do things. Why wouldn't she if she's been treated as sinful for her entire life? She needs that approval from god, from her cult, from her parents because if not that means she's evil and sinful and something that should be punished.

She doesn't even call herself a good girl in Magic! She just says she can only become better.

I take an oath! I can only become a better girl!

Amane eliminated her mom because her mom wasn't able to reach her own standards and taught Amane that the appropriate reaction to that was violent punishment.

But she still wants her dad's approval.

Q12:

Q: Who do you want to meet right now? A: My father. I want him to praise me for working hard.

Amane really, really, wants to be saved from her own sinful, horrible self. Because, if you were raised to believe that you or your actions were sinful, having that behavior "corrected," thus "saving your soul." could be considered...love.

Amane's T2 Voice Drama:

Amane: I’m happy that I was born to my parents! It was a bit difficult, and it could feel restrictive sometimes, but I’m really happy that I could grow up on such beautiful teachings! I want to live this way!

The Conflation of Pain and Love.

One of my favorite lines in Animal is this one:

If I could even love pain, I would be so happy

The song gestures towards dissatisfaction and lack of love and care multiple times but it gets stated directly here. If only the singer could love pain, if only they could be okay with a low standard of love, maybe they could actually feel happy and fulfilled.

Let’s get lost in each other, plunge into the gate, high expectations of love is not allowed ---------------------- But it’s not scary at all, because it’s love I can really think it’s great. See isn’t it a great thing?

However, as said above, the concepts of sin and weakness and greed are also conflated with wanting and happiness.

If you can be a little greedy, I want to be happy ----------------------- Dear wise one, Is this ok? Is it ok to be weak sometimes?

We can draw the a connection here, wanting good things for yourself is showcasing greed, wanting to be happy is weakness. This is something that makes sense as her cult is stated to consider pain and suffering trails.

Amane: Both pain and illness are trials. According to our teachings, those who run from them are the worst evil there is. That’s one of the four great principles. No matter who you are, that cannot be forgiven.

This explains so much about Amane's worldview. This is why she keeps on asking if it's okay to be weak, if it's okay to spoil herself in Magic. She is constantly going through these "trials," and she can't get away since running away from them is considered a horrific evil.

Her attempts at self-comfort and coping are considered as a weakness, your supposed to just suck it up and deal with it. Having coping mechanisms to horrific inhuman situations is bad actually because it means your running away from god, apparently.

You could easily imagine a situation where Amane is punished for killing her mom, not because it's murder, but because she "escaped" from her trial of punishment and is thus "evil."

(I talk about this in relation of Amane's idealization of the Milgram system here if you want to check that out.)

Pain is Amane's Way to God, it's Amane's way to Salvation, a glimmer of hope for her horrible sinful self.

Even I can say "I'm sorry" Even I have hope I swear! I'm going to be a good girl now! That's it!

Pain is love, pain is their way of "fixing" Amane, pain is their way of "cleansing" Amane.

Except, as stated previously, it doesn't work, it never will! Amane can't be cleansed, can't be purified, no matter how much she tries to be a good girl she'll ultimately fall short.

Only if, only if, only if I could be a good girl I hope, I hope everyone can be happy and smile Forever, forever together would be a dream

Because as much as you can train a wild animal to be a pet, you cannot train a cat to be a dog.

Inability to Change

Amane is unable to change, not in the sense of unable to improve. Amane definitely can, cult survivors aren't unheard of.

Amane, is however, unable to change who She is.

Because, who can really? I'm autistic and masking even just a bit makes me feel physically weak after an hour or so. I doubt the 12 year old who wants happiness can pretend she's satisfied forever.

Amane is a person, she can't change that about herself, she just can't. The original sins of humankind sits inside her body festering like a disease. Amane is wrong for wanting close and stable connections. Amane is wrong for wanting to help someone. Amane is wrong for wanting things that would make her happy.

Amane is wrong because she's Amane Momose and she was always going to be wrong no matter what she did.

She can try her best to be the perfect animal, one able to follow every rule and command with perfect accuracy. One able to lobotomize themselves and strip away everything they made them, them.

But she can never change the fact that she's a cat in a world that wants her to be dog.

Layers of makeup, the perfect animal, I'm waiting with my eyes wide open I can’t do sit, I can’t even do stay, purr until I go Show your fangs and howl, are you ready? on the count of three let's say "ZUKKYUUUUN♡", once I bite I don’t let go Layers of makeup, the perfect animal, I'm waiting with my eyes wide open

[liljplibrary]

The Murder of Alice (Yasumi Kobayashi)

Recently, Ari Kurisugawa -- an ordinary university student -- has been having dreams of Alice, a girl who wandered into Wonderland. One day, right after she had a dream that Humpty Dumpty fell to his death, she arrives at her university only to find out that a man nicknamed 'Professor Egg' has fallen from the university rooftop. In her next dream, the Gryphon chokes to death on oysters, while in reality a professor dies from food poisoning -- brought on by oysters. Now, in Wonderland, the March Hare and Mad Hatter are on the hunt for the killer... And Alice is their main suspect! A classic 'whodunnit' with a shocking, nightmarish fairy-tale flair!

~The Murder of Alice blurb, Amazon-Japan

The first novel I've ever translated, and the first full novel I've read in Japanese! I actually had this finished before my last post but I've had my wonderful editor Life (working from the French edition) make sure everything is accurate -- after all, this is a fair bit longer than a short story and doesn't have the illustrations of a manga.

I initially agonized over how to ethically release this, since I wasn't sure how okay it would be to just... well... drop a translation of a full book, but I think I've come up with a good compromise. You can download a zip with the pdf and epub of the translated work but it has a password on it. To get the password, you have two options. You can either message me with a timestamped photo of your copy of the book, or you can turn to page 325 of your own copy. On that page, there are a bunch of symbols. Simply take down all the symbols in order (remember, right-to-left, top-to-bottom) and follow this handy chart to reveal the password!

1 = ☆ 2 = □ 3 = ◊ 4 = † 5 = ◯ 6 = ♣ 7 = X 8 = ♠ 9 = ♦ A = ★ B = △ C = ♥

You can buy The Murder of Alice at any of the links below:

Amazon

CD Japan

BookOff (Requires proxy shipping such as Tenso)

Or you'll likely be able to find it at Kinokuniya if your country has one.

I really loved this book, so I hope plenty of people end up reading and enjoying it, too! It's a brilliant blend of SF, horror, and mystery fiction.

CONTENT WARNINGS (Potential Spoilers):

Gore, Body Horror, Psychological Horror, Extortion, Themes of False Realities/Unreality, Animal Death

[archandshri]

23rd Feb '24 - [arch] OH RISO my beloved!!!!!! ft. cyberpunk hermitcraft soup group

A cliffhanger!!!! And now I have to wait a month for you to upload the second half?? How will I cope :’’0

For real, it’s so awesome to see your process and the sheer amount of inspiration you take! In particular, I thought ‘Sit on Two Chairs’ and ‘This Was Our Pact’ were particularly yummy. 

I think book covers are really hard. You have to sum up a book’s energy in one image, make it stand out and show just enough so people want more. Exploring the narrative through those full pages is really interesting - though this is something you did for fun, it could be a really useful technique for getting to know a narrative. When I’m designing my comic covers, I always do it last - that way I’ve had practice with the visual style and I’m thoroughly familiar with the themes, so I guess spending a bit of time with the characters and narrative in this way helps for standalone book covers too. Of course, it helps if you have the time for that XD

Okay!! Onto what I've been up to!!! [warning this is a beefy post I'm sorry for your poor reading brain]

The past two weeks have been really enjoyable! I’ve been playing a lot with slow world-building, in sketchbooks, google documents, and voice notes to friends. Letting myself really sit with concepts, think about the characters, let them play in my head with no expectations. With this relaxation and lack of pressure, some beautiful narratives and interactions have been developing. I’m starting to need a name for a world/ the story. I’m not quite ready to give them a full introduction to the internet - I know it doesn’t but it feels like there’s some accountability to *produce something* and this slow development is really important for the quality and my skill building. It’s really hard to take on, but we actually don’t have to make the perfect thing now! In fact, it’s impossible. Pressure on ourselves makes it so hard to make something good if we’re always grasping at the final result.  In the meantime, while those characters develop, I have been working hard on my basic skills. I wrote about characterization last post, but this week I focused on setting and colour. I was inspired (once again) by Hermitcraft. I’ve seen some really incredible illustrations of Minecraft builds in the fandom, and it seems like a great exercise.

Bdouble0's Season 10 Base illustrated by @applestruda [source] and The Red Zone, built and illustrated by Bdouble0 [source]

One of the creators on Hermitcraft, ImpulseSV, created this build in a recent episode. It takes inspiration from the last season of Hermitcraft, where he was part of the ‘soup group’ with two other players, and his current base concept - a cyberpunk city.  I also LOVE his new character design, so I wanted to place him in the scene.

Screenshot from Impulse's video and new impulse design by @maxx-doodles

Here are some initial thumbnails I did, trying to figure out the composition. I wasn’t sure of the vibe yet, so I tried some rough thumbnailing, and drawing on an isometric grid and other perspective techniques. I’m going a bit mad for characters at the mo, so I wanted to place some in the scene. I found the angle of the isometric grid steep to place characters comfortably, so decided against that.

Looking back at it, I love the second! But I believe I was struggling with the perspective. I decided on the last one eventually.

Now, I absolutely adore all of the players in the Soup Group, and I am BIG fan of redesigning their notable characteristics to suit different settings. So yes, I decided to put all of the soup group in the image.

PearlescentMoon (left) from my comic and GeminiTay's Hermitcraft Season 10 design [from this thumbnail] (right)

Here's the sketch of the final image. I really enjoyed coming up with cyberpunk versions of them all. I used the impulse design almost exactly, with a few extra interesting details since he's mostly viewed from the back. For PearlescentMoon (middle) I kept her fringe, dark hair and gave her a glowing moon symbol on her top. For GeminiTay, I kept her long ginger hair, antlers (but glowing!) and took inspiration from her new season 10 design - a dark blue jumpsuit to match her dark blue clothes in her new design, and the braids she is often drawn with. I also gave them edgy new hairstyles. And a robot arm. I don't have lore for that.

As usual, I filled each flat colour-to-be with black and lowered the opacity to play with the values. Then I added colours one at a time, aware might be riso printing it. Originally I stuck to trying to make it printable (making the colours out of ones I could make my layering 2-3 colours at different opacities), but as I went on, I decided to drop that and focus on the quality of the image in a digital format alone. I did keep the grayscale version above with all the separate layers in case I needed that if/when I came to riso printing it. Below are the main two digital colour schemes I tried out.

I settled on the one on the left, with the blue tones - the foreground characters really pop. I put a few details in Gem's hair, colour variations etc, and cropped it for Instagram. I actually much prefer the cropped version - it sits better in a rule of thirds.

Now the moment we've all been waiting for :'')

RISO!!!!!!!!!!!

I returned to Cardiff after a couple of months away and was delighted to spend my first day back at The Printhaus, an awesome shared print studio where I have basically made my home. A few of my awesome friends happened to be there, so I spent the day playing around with this image with their help! (please check them out they're very cool - Gavin helped me a lot (we hung out at Thought Bubble, remember? and Rhi gave good crits too!!)

For those who don't know, risograph is basically a shitty photocopier that can only print one colour at a time. However, you can play with gradients and opacities, and layer colours really nicely to combine. I've done a lot of single-colour tonal work with riso but this is my first go really layering.

First, Gavin showed me how to separate the channels in Photoshop, using the flat image uploaded to the 'gram. We copied and pasted these layers in grayscale and added blending modes to each layer to replicate what they might look like when printed.

With blending modes, the digital mockup looked like this!!

This bit goes into technical details for replicating what the print might look like for those who might want it - feel free to skip :)))

I copied and pasted the Cyan, Black and Magenta layers as greyscale (as you can see above)

I made all of the greyscale layers multiply layers since risograph ink is transparent and we wanted to see how it layers. The ink usually comes out a bit lighter than you think, so it's good to bear that in mind. I used a clipping mask over each greyscale layer and a blending mode. WHEN YOU PRINT, PRINT IN GREYSCALE, NOT COLOUR.

Here's how I split the colours from CMYK to the riso colours, their hex codes and the blending mode I used to replicate the colours:

Cyan - Mint [HEX#82D8D5] Screen Magenta - Fluorescent Pink [HEX#FF48B0] Screen Black - Blue [HEX#0078BF] Overlay Yellow - scrapped for colour scheme purposes

Blue, Mint and Florencent Pink layers in greyscale in Procreate.

Riso printed Mint and Florescent Pink layers on separate paper, followed by the two layered together.

We always start with the lighter colour inks first, because sometimes the rollers can pick up the ink and cause extra marks where you don't want them. The first two colours came out great!

The first time we printed the blue, it came out very dark (left, first image). I have had this issue before - my last book, Winter Wellbeing, came out much darker than I wanted. Now I realise that the blue ink is super sensitive. All the 'white space' that is covered by a low-opacity blue on the left is only 2%, and yet it has come out pretty strong. We tried printing it on one of the misaligned images just to see, but it took all of the brightness out of the neon soup sign at the top of the image (second image). So I changed the values and pushed them way lighter, so it just pushed the values of the darker bits slightly, and brightened some of the lineart (right, first image)

And this is the final riso printed version!! I'm so so happy with how this came out. It's so different from the original digital version, and I actually love that.

I didn't create new colours in the way that I intended to - I wanted to play with overlaying purposefully to create specific colours eg. orange for the hair etc. But!!! I'm really happy with how it came out. That will have to be a project for next time.

Also, many copies are slightly misaligned, so in future I think I'd do flat layers for the colours a more blobby style with the linework on one layer only so there's less of a chance for obvious misalignment. design for the riso, rather than riso the design.

Overall though, this feels like a super cool step up and a milestone for me. Super happy with how it came out!! And I'm excited to play with colour some more. Can't wait to see the rest of the Lionheart brothers! Enjoy your weekend :)))

Archie 🕺🕺🕺🕺🕺🕺🕺🕺🕺🕺🕺🕺 <3

[interstellar-elf]

Okay, so I updated my thoughts on the 13 Primes with some added context to my thoughts:

There isn't much to interpret about the relics, but it appears that the most recognizable ones are: the Matrix, the Emberstone, the Enigma of Combination, the Requiem Blaster, the Forge of Solus, and the Star Saber. Everything else looks relatively like a blob, or doesn't seem to correspond to their Prime, ie the thing that looks like the Lenses seems to be held by Onyx simply because this Prime is the only one with bird like wings.

The designs of the Primes aren't really matching with the traditional illustrations of the Covenant of Primus, especially when you consider the huge change in how Quintus in the CoP looks compares to his Earthspark look. This is why I really don't want to make too many assumptions before we actually get confirmation via a new guidebook or in cartoon lore drops (which is probably happening in season 2, since that's the norm for cartoons nowadays). There are a few I'm going to say are probably present: Alpha Trion (ever since G1, he's pretty much associated with giving Optimus the Matrix in some form or another, plus his shoulder pads and cape are a dead give away), Quintus Prime (again, looking very dissimilar to his CoP appearance), Nexus Prime (simply because he's holding the Enigma and nothing else), Prima (due to him holding the Star Saber and his head crest), Leige Maximo (mostly bc the horns, though this LM has some other interesting design choices which I will talk about later), Vector Prime (the head shape mostly), Megatronus (because of the Requiem Blaster and nothing else), Solus Prime (the hammer and the "hair coming out from behind her head), and Onyx/Alchemist Prime (can't decide which one it is, namely because the relic looks like the lenses but the figure has a lot of "animalistic" features, namely the bird wings, which fits Onyx well). Again, for the people familiar with the Transformers, the designs of these Primes really take a departure from a lot of familiar design attributes established in some of the Aligned literature. However I see this as a kind of positive given several reasons, including that I wasn't a big fan of the Aligned stuff (save for maybe Rescue Bots) and that Earthspark is doing it's own thing and it works. However, there is a very strange case of the fact that Micronus Prime doesn't seem to be among the 13, which might mean Micronus has a different look, that the 13 Primes aren't exactly being potrayed as they actually are (though this was kind of jossed by Quintus Prime's appearance in the show).

The one's I've circled in pink are ones I think look feminine. The Leige Maximo one really stands out to me as the design's face and hips look feminine or, rather different from other Primes wearing the robe like feature over the lower half of their bodies. It could be me just making some assumptions, but it really feels like that. In addition, there's another Prime next to Solus (who has been the sole female Prime in the line up), who also has some features that look to me to be somewhat feminine, with the hip, waist shape and facial features, along with what kind of looks like a little bit of hair coming out from their head or is it a head crest? I kind of want to call this Prime "Amazon Prime" as it's kind of an inside joke among Transformers fans. Then again, it could be nothing, since Earthspark has a lot of design variation and I could be just putting alot of stock on designs that probably aren't standardized.

So those are my thoughts, I've been waiting a while to post my completed thoughts, so I hope this isn't too long a read.

[negasonicimagines]

Snow Day

request: Okay so reader and Ellie has been dating for a while and been keeping it a secret. But deadpool being deadpool realizes something is going on and drags/forces Colossus with him to spy on reader and Ellie(not in a creepy way, Deadpool even brought pop corn). Anyways the date goes on and reader and Ellie goes in for a kiss, but Deadpool has a typical cinematic *insert funny joke here*moment and spoils it. Ellie becomes aware of his presence and gets a bit mad while reader can't help but laugh.

synopsis: You and Ellie hide in plain sight, or so you think.

warnings & notes: mentions of suicide, allusions to bdsm — AKA a typical fic with Deadpool in it. F/A = Favorite Animal

You understand why it has to be this way. You’re not a civilian by any means, but you’re not as high-profile as your girlfriend or the team she’s a part of. Going public with your relationship would only make her biggest weakness public, which would put you in the crosshairs of anyone with a bone to pick with the X-Men.

In the quiet times, though, the two of you sneak into a small town and pretend to be a normal couple. You look forward to that… Well, this, actually. It’s happening right now as the two of you sip on overpriced vegan hot chocolate on a park bench on a snowy evening after a short-feeling long day of checking out all the small businesses and eating at a couple of the restaurants.

“How’s work been?” she asks. Both of you wish this wasn’t so awkward, but it’s the first time you’ve seen each other in person in a while, at least, the first time in a while where you didn’t have to pretend to be mere acquaintances.

“Oh, y’know… Filling system’s done, finally. We’re thinking about punch cards, since we noticed there’s a lot of repeat clients.”

“Really?”

“Well, I suggested it and Jessica didn’t throw an empty whiskey bottle at my head, so…”

Ellie snorts.

“Wow, so it’s pretty much guaranteed.”

“What about you? Can I expect to get some ink anytime soon?” you wonder.

“Has it been that long? I’m still on my apprentice split, but I’ve been allowed to tattoo real people for a little while now.”

“That’s great, babe! I’m so proud of you. Show me pictures!” You enthusiastically reply.

Ellie sheepishly gets out her phone, swiping through the album of all her tattoos. You gasp at an illustrative one of a tiger with swirling stippled lines and gentle shadows. It’s hauntingly beautiful.

“Wait, that’s fucking sick; do you think you could do that with F/A?”

“Yeah, for sure. You want me to? Like, you trust me with that? You know it’s permanent, right?”

“Um… Yes? There’s literally no one I trust more than you,” you remind her. She smiles in response and as rare as her smiling is— really, you should take the time to admire it —all you want to do whenever she smiles is kiss her. You lean closer, wordlessly asking permission.

Her smile gets wider before she leans in, too.

“Oh my fucking god, just kiss already!” a man pops out from a tree behind you and shouts, and the lightbulbs of every single lamp post within a 50-foot radius shatter with your surprise. Thankfully, the sun hasn’t fully set yet, so everyone can still see. You press a hand to your chest, trying to catch your breath.

“What the fuck, Wade?” Ellie asks. She knows that guy? Well, that’s a bit of a relief compared to the alternative.

“Language!” Colossus scolds, ambling out from behind a much larger tree. “Ah, Miss L/N! How are you? It’s been a long time since I’ve seen you.”

“Doing well, thanks, despite the heart attack Ellie’s friend just gave me,” you say with a chuckle. It’s kind of funny now that you know you’re not in danger.

“He’s not my friend,” Ellie quickly corrects you.

“We’re besties, actually!” Wade insists. “Does the friendship bracelet I made you mean nothing?”

“He made you a friendship bracelet?” you coo half-sarcastically, giggling even more.

“This isn’t funny. We get one date a week if we’re lucky, and we’re not lucky. What the hell, dude?”

“Oh, c’mon, don’t make me the bad guy! You were the one being all squirrelly and secretive! Piotr and I just wanted to find out what unfortunate girl you tricked into dating you. I’ll say, Pinkie Pie’s cute, but you totally upgraded. And you, holy shit, daddy issues much? You’ve got a type! How’s Jessica doing, huh?”

“She’s my boss,” you argue. “Wait, how do you know that?”

“Uh, hello, it’s me! Deadpool?”

“Oh. Sorry, didn’t recognize you without all the kinky getup.”

“It’s not kinky!” he protests, throwing his bucket of popcorn into the air. The buttery kernels fall faster than the snow.

“Then what are all those buckles and loops for?” you wonder.

“Utility!” he squeals, clipping a carabiner to one to prove it. “You’re really not disproving the whole daddy issues thing here!”

“I’ll let the fact that the allegations are coming from a man who’s using the term ‘daddy issues’ to disparage me, even though it says more about my father, speak for itself,” you reply sweetly.

“Whoa, hey, no disparaging happening here! I have daddy issues, too! But we have to be self-aware. We deserve better. She’s mean!”

“Only to those who lack self-awareness,” you remark.

He gasps.

“You’re mean, too! Is that why your daddy left?”

You resist the urge to make an incredibly inappropriate joke, especially in front of Colossus. You stifle a laugh as you and Ellie share a look.

“Ew!” he screeches. “Oh my god, I’m gonna be sick. I’ve known Ellie since she was, like, twelve-”

“Seventeen,” Ellie interjects.

“-and she’s like a little sister to me, you sick perv!”

“I hope you don’t actually have a younger sister, if this is how you treat her,” Ellie remarks. “Anyways, her dad’s dead, so stop being a dick.”

“Well, he did kill himself, so you could be right… Maybe it was because of me,” you turn to him and say solemnly, before turning back to Ellie and giving her a wink before you start to sniffle, covering your face so he won’t see that you’re laughing and not sobbing.

“Oh my god!” Wade exclaims, rushing over to the bench. He puts a hand on your shaking shoulder. “I didn’t- Shit, I’m sorry!” He retracts his hand, and judging by his muffled voice, both of them are over his mouth in embarrassment. “I- Oh, I suck. I suck so bad! I’m sorry. I’m sure you’re very nice under normal circumstances, I’m just a jerk who crashed your date. Please don’t cry!”

You start to feel a little bad for him, so you uncover your face to reveal that you’re laughing.

“Okay, now that you’ve admitted it, can you two please leave so we can enjoy what’s left of the day?” you ask with a grin.

“Of course,” Colossus says, plucking Wade from the ground like a flower. “Let’s go, Wade.”

“You evil little-! You two are a perfect match!” he calls out to you as he wrestles his unwilling accomplice.

“Oh, man. That was good,” you chuckle. “Now, back to our regularly scheduled programming.”

The two of you share a kiss.

[lloydfrontera]

hi I'm going thru the spoilers and about the one with lloyd crying and javier listening outside. about javier wanting lloyd to trust him, i was wonderin when did javier explicitly says he trusts lloyd? since from what I've read so far whenever lloyd says to javier to trust him, javier is always dubious of him and actually doesn't trust him and simply follows the order. Is that why lloyd cried alone since he still thinks javier doesn't really trust him?

oh! javier does tell lloyd that he trusts him! straight to his face! several times in fact!

they vary from degrees of explicitness but there is absolutely no doubt at all that javier trusts lloyd and lloyd knows he does. how deep he believes that trust runs is up to debate but he very much does know that javie trusts him.

there's that time lloyd tells javier he can stop time itself and javier just goes "okay" and goes back to his breakfast because. duh. if lloyd says he can stop time then obviously it must be true. the crazier the thing he says the mostly likely it is to be the truth.

which lloyd then uses against him to convince him to bet his life against a dragon

"This will not do" Javier's voice dripped with alarm. "What won't?" "You are making a bad decision here. It's not too late now. Prepare yourself, Master Lloyd." "For what?" Meanwhile Lloyd's voice was cheery. "To run away. I will by some time." "You plan on fighting that dragon?" "Yes." "Tsk. Don't even try." "But Master Lloyd. Now is your last change-" "Do I look like I've gone mad?" said Lloyd. "..." "Answer me. Do I look like someone who's lost his mind?" Javier was about to answer yes when Lloyd's spoke first. "Who was it that said he would trust in my seemingly deranged behavior?" "..." "You said that," reminded Lloyd. "Those were your words. It goes the same right now. Do I look like I've lost it? In that case, trust me." "But Master Lloyd-" "I'm doing this for a reason." Lloyd didn't let Javier finish. "I've got a plan. So, do what you have to when I fail. Got it?" "..."

or that time they go to seoul and lloyd tells him to just trust in his hyung and follow his lead. to which, once again, javier just goes "okay" because. well of course he does.

“When you’re in a foreign land such as this place, all you’ve got to do is just trust this big brother of yours and follow my lead. Okay?” “I understand…” “Eh?” Lloyd tilted his brow. “It’s rare of you to accept my words so easily.” “Am I not allowed to?” “No. You can’t. It’s strange. I have the chills right now.” “…” “You. Who are you?” asked Lloyd in astonishment. “The Javier I know is far from being a docile, humble or loyal fellow. He’s even farther away from being someone who would just not at my words without snapping back.” “…” “You better tell me honestly. Where did you hide my dear Javier?” “Haah… Seriously…” Javier broke into laughter. “Who else could possess such a dashing appearance but me? […]”

or later on when javier straight up tells lloyd to get used to him just going along with what he says without protest because that's just how things are now. he does tease him that it's so lloyd lowers his guard and javier can stab him in the back but like. that's their love language <3

but yeah! lloyd absolutely does know that javier trusts him! javier has told him so himself! that he's a dummy who doesn't realize just how absolute that trust is it's a completely different matter lol

and as for the context of the scene you mention. here's a post i made a while ago about it but lemme summarize it.

first of all i need to show this set of illustrations because they make me sick in the head

the reason lloyd is crying is because it's finally crashing on him just how hopeless his situation truly is. how much he stands to lose if he doesn't pull off a miracle. how much pressure he's been under for so long and how close he is to breaking down.

and javier is listening through the door because he can tell there's something weighting down on lloyd but he can't confront him because lloyd isn't trusting him with his worries and he doesn't know how to make him.

javier wants so bad to let lloyd know that he doesn't have to worrym he doesn't have to be afraid, because javier is there for him. whatever comes next, whatever danger there is, javier will face it to protect lloyd. and if anyone needs to die then it's okay, because javier will die for him. so lloyd doesn't have to be afraid of something as stupid as him dying because javier simply won't allow it.

but he can't. because lloyd doesn't want to share his burdens. he doesn't want to let them drag anyone down with him. he thinks it's his fault everything that's threatening them is his fault and so he needs to handle everything on his own.

which is silly because javier is right there trying to coax the truth out of him and get him to share his burden with him and just!!! support him every way he can!! but lloyd is a very silly guy who thinks he doesn't deserve that :(

so no! it's not that lloyd thinks javier doesn't trust him! rather it's lloyd not wanting to trust javier with his worries, not out of distrust or anything like that, but out of a misplaced sense of responsibility that makes him want to carry everything by himself.

it's a very poignant scene i can't wait to get the translation for it!

[aimmyarrowshigh]

14. What have you been finding frustrating with writing this chapter/fic?

Complain a lil bit at me. I love me some complaining. Brains are the absolute worst, honestly, there has to be a better way to have a consciousness.

GAH, well, since you asked for complaining, haha...

I HAD written all of Lent From Tomorrow. Or, well. I had written fully-fully the first 3/4 of it and had a robust outline and chunklets in the last quarter. So I felt safe to start posting it. I KNOW myself. I am BAD at posting WIPs. I am bad at it. My track record of my entire life illustrates this.

So I started posting it and things were going swimmingly! "Yes!" I told myself. "I'm successfully posting a WIP!"

But then I pulled a WandaVision and went, "oh, dear, everyone consuming this story figured out my red herrings much faster than anticipated, I must CHANGE THE STORY" but not in a "screw the audience over" way like WandaVision, just in a "this reveal comes much sooner than I had written, because otherwise I'm worried it will come across like beating a dead horse to keep dropping hints when y'all already know."

So... that completely undid the back HALF of the story, and I started writing it chapter-by-chapter as I posted, and I was doing okay. It wasn't the weekly update schedule I'd had with the prewritten chapters, but that's fine. It's fanfiction. People go years without updating sometimes, especially me, because I AM BAD AT WIPS. But it was still going okay!

And then April and May happened, and I'm ngl, literally every day of April, something cartoonishly horrible happened in my real life and I did not write a word for the entire month. Or do much of anything. I don't even think I read any comic books. I did zero. And then May was... not much better. Like, maybe something cartoonishly horrible happened every three days instead of every day, but it was still way too much.

I actually wrote more in May than I've written in that same time span since 2024 started, which I'm really proud of myself for -- I wrote 14,000 words (plus like 800 words of unpostable noodling) in three weeks, and that's not, like, Impressive or Enough but it's better than I've been able to produce in a while. I told myself just focus on the drabbles and tiny ficlets that were coming out of the prompt/pairing list I'd set up for myself for MLMay, and I tried not to freak myself out, and words happened, and it was nice! And then the last week of May also happened and we're back to Very Bad Brain Times.

So... I know what happens in the last quarter of Lent. I WANT to be writing it. But my brain is just not "together" enough right now to slip into the mindset for such a heavy-duty, plotty, researchy, emotional longfic, and I'm just spiraling and making myself feel even worse by getting more and more anxious about how long it's taking me to write it.

I know, logically, that it's not a huge deal. If people are gonna stick around to read what comes next, they will, and if they don't, they don't, and that's fine. That's how posting serial fiction works. I mean, that's even how TV used to work in the before-streaming times, and it's not like I worried about the feelings of a showrunner if I got behind on a show or decided it went somewhere I didn't care to follow. That's just serialized art! It's fine! I know logically that it's fine!

But reader, Emotionally, It Is Not Fine. I love this story so much, and I'm so invested in actually finishing something for once and I've stupidly pinned like... a lot of my beliefs about my Worth As A Person on "whether I can finish and successfully post an entire longfic," which, I get it, that in itself is not the biggest issue at play here, but whatever. Baby steps. And I just... it sounds so stupid. And I KNOW that it's small potatoes.

I just want people to like it.*

And I know that every passing day that I don't update, fewer people are going to read it and/or like it, and that also feeds the Bad Brain Spiral. And I don't know.

So tl;dr, the most frustrating part of writing this chapter is myself? I guess????

*Before anyone jumps in to whine about and/or laugh at this statement, I'm not saying "I want it to be a stucky fandom classic," or anything ridiculous like that. I literally just mean that I want the people who choose to read it to enjoy it enough to finish it and maybe have an emotionally positive experience from reading it.

**I also feel very. This is another dumb complaint that I know won't come across right, because internet, but -- I feel very like... separated from stucky fandom (in part because I'm a newer fan who came to the fandom after its heyday, in part because I don't like a lot of currently-popular fanons, in part because I am way too shy for Discord?) and I feel bad bugging uninterested people with thoughts/feelings about my own stories, so I've kind of just... stoppered up my excitement for this story for a long time. Also, an asshole ex-friend of mine straight-up told me that "stuckies are going to hate it because there isn't enough sex and it's really boring for being a fic, especially since it's Steve POV and not Bucky POV" and that just kind of made me feel like. I couldn't squee about the story. And it's HARD to write longfic and not feel like you can share it with people??? IDK. Stuff and thoughts. Whatever. etc.

[fuwaprince]

So there's this book called the secret and it has like 12 hidden casques and each one has a little treasure inside. They're buried underground and the one I've been pondering is in golden gate park! I've been obsessed with it. When I wanna distract myself from shitty thoughts I can always count on it to keep me busy. I heard about it at a book fair and then again at a library but I didn't get into it until adulthood maybe like 2 years ago? Everyone calls me crazy and says I use deductive reasoning to get my conclusions and I disagree! Hopefully you do too

Each poem is paired with a pic and no he didn't say which poem belongs to which pic because that would make it too easy

^^This is his beautiful pic for the pearl. He hired an awesome illustrator and handed them tons of specific instructions showing hints to where it is. I bought the book recently

This is the poem that goes with it^^

I think I might have narrowed it down to a very specific spot and I wanna get a permit to dig one day but I'm also very lazy and okay just KNOWING it could be there. I don't need to dig

This is a satellite view of the map!vv

I sectioned it into 4 bits to make it easier to explain. I also marked it up. I gathered all the pics to one ugly ass looking map covered in all my thoughts that I'll attach soon. It's kind of hard to read tho so I'll save the big map collage for after and explain as if we're on the hunt and starting from square 1!

You may notice some resemblance of the rose on a table. The leaves represent different locations. The flower bloom is Speckles Lake! The horizontal lines are JFK Drive. Even the little clock is significant since the tip of the top piece is where the north bathrooms would be.

The red is where we start. At stonewall's door! Hidden on that side of the Angler Lodge is a stone wall and it has this dungeon ass looking door. You can't see it from Google and there's no vids or pics of it. It's super tucked and there's no reason anyone should really stop there to admire it unless they're some architecture freak lol

The door is in the stone wall and I wish I had my old phone because I went and took tons of pics

It looks like that basicallyvvv

We're gonna go 2 lines at a time here while looking at the poem

The stone wall's door was surrounded by sweet smelling flower bushes. I actually smelled them on the trail before I noticed the door. Can't miss the scent! It was so so sweet! (I took pics of them too on my other phone)

I circled the door in red. If you refer back to mini map 1 above you'll see that the white dashes take you down these very stairs!

There's many ways to go but this is the only route I found 3 nearby posts

Post 1 is that lamp post